[1.4.x - 1.7.x] Nehemia Engineering Orbital Science Mods (NEOS - Micha's build) (0.8.1)

[micha]

On 4/19/2018 at 3:30 AM, COL.R.Neville said:

here is a config to add in the new mk1 pods for kemini. i just named it mm_pods.cfg

so adds the kemini modules to the 1-2,1-3 and the yarbough mini orion capsule.

Thanks.. so I forgot to add them to the latest release despite me creating a bug tracker item!  I just added it to the code for the next release though - no more excuses!

 

@linuxgurugamer, sorry, moved the discussion here away from the release thread. Release thread should be mainly talking about release announcements, how to use the mod,  and any issues which end-users have. This thread is for continued development discussions, feature requests, etc. Just trying to keep things neat

Quote

 

I'm currently maintaining ScienceAlert and ExperimentTracker, both of which are used to do Science when it becomes available.  They shouldn't trigger when an experiment needs time.  I posted in your issues how to fix [x]Science from running the experiments

:-) You're currently maintaining 70% of all mods!

Quote

I see the following experiments, do they all require time?

Yes they do.

Quote

• NE_KEES_ODC
• NE_KEES_POSA1
• NE_KEES_POSA2
• NE_KEES_PPMD
• NE_KEES_TEST

And if so, are they all on parts made by the same (unique) manufacturer? 

And yes they are. Although note that the manufacturer name is localised (#ne_manufacturer_name).

Both conditions are true for all experiments which comprise NEOS.

[linuxgurugamer]

Ok, I'll take care of mine.

[nosscire]

Hi, could I parhaps do a feature request?

When looking at this, I have no real idea of how long these experiments take to run. Is it enough to do a few orbits, or do I need a dedicated long term station? Does it differ between each experiment, or only between experiment types?

Essentially, If possible, I think it would be great if you added some details to the modules in-game, just so that you know what to expect before launching the experiments to space. It would help immensely with planning, as if you play with life support mods, there's a massive difference between 1 hour, 1 day, and 1 month in space.

Thanks!

[linuxgurugamer]

5 hours ago, nosscire said:

Hi, could I parhaps do a feature request?

When looking at this, I have no real idea of how long these experiments take to run. Is it enough to do a few orbits, or do I need a dedicated long term station? Does it differ between each experiment, or only between experiment types?

Essentially, If possible, I think it would be great if you added some details to the modules in-game, just so that you know what to expect before launching the experiments to space. It would help immensely with planning, as if you play with life support mods, there's a massive difference between 1 hour, 1 day, and 1 month in space.

Thanks!

This could be done simply by improving the descriptions of the experiments, giving some sort of time frame to complete.

[micha]

> It would help immensely with planning, as if you play with life support mods, there's a massive difference between 1 hour, 1 day, and 1 month in space.

Apart from "Kemini" (which only take a few hours) the idea isn't to launch experiments in a single go, run them, and return, but to install them on a station with (regular?) resupply missions and return completed experiments to Kerbin.

But I can see if there's some way to programmatically add time requirements to the experiment descriptions.

[Zah]

Before I dive into logs and whatnot : does anyone else have an issue with the Universal Storage OMS experiment wedges "losing" experiments?

E.g. I add all experiments thrice to several Octacores, launch, and the wedges don't have a storage manifest anymore. Same with loading a craft in the VAB, the experiment slot is empty.

I'll try a less complex build to reproduce it soon, just asking quickly if this may be a known thing.

Edit: The experiments are in the craft file (NE_ExperimentData...) even when they don't show up in the VAB. I'll mess around along those lines for a bit.

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by Zah

[micha]

22 hours ago, Zah said:

> Before I dive into logs and whatnot : does anyone else have an issue with the Universal Storage OMS experiment wedges "losing" experiments?

While I haven't tried it recently I just saw that the US configuration has changed quite a bit. I'll update the OMS wedge to suit. And to be honest, I can't recall whether the US Wedge ever had a Storage Manifest. When you dock your ship at a station which has the requisite equipment, can you install the experiment?

The "Install" and "Move" buttons for the experiments are only available if it's possible to perform one of those actions.

I'll see if I can add a Storage Manifest to the Wedge.

----

> I'll see if I can add a Storage Manifest to the Wedge.

LOL, that's actually easier than I thought!  Add the following lines to the part config of the wedge (or wait until the next release):

        MODULE
        {
            name = ESCStorageManifest
        }

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by micha

[Zah]

>The "Install" and "Move" buttons for the experiments are only available if it's possible to perform one of those actions.

The thing that irritates me was that I added experiments to wedges, saved and left the VAB, came back to the craft and only found "add experiment" in the wedges. Sort of implying they are now empty, but unable to check in the VAB/before launch.

I don't have time for KSP over the next days but I'll make sure to check the wedge problem when back.

[Apaseall]

@micha

Hi, this post is written in order to be helpful.

This mod interacts with ExtraPlanetaryLaunchPads in so much that a reference is made to Productivity Factor.

Please update this reference to reflect that ExtraPlanetaryLaunchPads fairly recently went through a name change for its modules.

Specifically MODULE ExWorkshop is now called ELWorkshop.

Can you double check that the information I here am passing on is correct and make changes in this mod accordingly.

Thank you.

at least one reference can be found in Nehemiah_ExPL.cfg located in \GameData\NehemiahInc\NE_Science_Common

Edited June 29, 2018 by Apaseall

[micha]

Thanks @Apaseall. I created an issue on GitHub and submitted a fix, but as I've never used EL I have no way to test it.

[Apaseall]

Back again. This is incorrect:

Spoiler

@PART[NE_MPL]:AFTER[ExtraplanetaryLaunchpads]
{
    MODULE[ExWorkshop]
    {
        ProductivityFactor = 0.6
    }
}

It should be:

Spoiler

@PART[NE_MPL]:AFTER[Launchpads]
{
    MODULE
    {
        name = ELWorkshop
        ProductivityFactor = 0.6
    }
}

It is in file NE_MPL_ExPL.cfg located in \GameData\NehemiahInc\MultiPurposeParts

It is in error for two reasons. 1 ELWorkshop is the new name for the module and 2 the declaration of the module was incorrect.

I was not able to offer a patch as a temporary work around due to the second error.

Edited August 26, 2018 by Apaseall

[micha]

20 hours ago, Apaseall said:

Back again. This is incorrect:

Hi @Apaseall,

I fixed the ExWorkshop to ELWorkshop already but hadn't changed the mod name.  Can you check again please?  It's in the 'dev' branch, btw, not the release branch. Sorry for the confusion.

LINK TO DEV BRANCH

[Apaseall]

29 minutes ago, micha said:

Hi @Apaseall,

I fixed the ExWorkshop to ELWorkshop already but hadn't changed the mod name.  Can you check again please?  It's in the 'dev' branch, btw, not the release branch. Sorry for the confusion.

LINK TO DEV BRANCH

You made changes to \GameData\NehemiahInc\NE_Science_Common\Nehemiah_ExPL.cfg

You also need to make the change in \GameData\NehemiahInc\MultiPurposeParts\NE_MPL_ExPL.cfg

I also made an error. It should be Launchpad singular not plural. I believe the best practice is to reference the name of the .dll rather than the filepathname.

Thanks for commenting and work so far.

 

[micha]

3 minutes ago, Apaseall said:

You made changes to \GameData\NehemiahInc\NE_Science_Common\Nehemiah_ExPL.cfg

You also need to make the change in \GameData\NehemiahInc\MultiPurposeParts\NE_MPL_ExPL.cfg

Doh! Thanks. I had searched for EPL configs, but I guess WIndows Filemanager "find" is not as good as 'grep'...  I really ought to stick to Linux when maintaining mods!

[Apaseall]

Just now, micha said:

Doh! Thanks. I had searched for EPL configs, but I guess WIndows Filemanager "find" is not as good as 'grep'...  I really ought to stick to Linux when maintaining mods!

I use AstroGrep, it's free and seems decent enough for simple stuff.

[micha]

Ok, I removed the other config file and tweaked the NE_Science_Common one a bit more.

EPL is a pretty comprehensive mod so it'll be difficult for me to test. Can you try the config file from the DEV branch and see if it works for you now?

[micha]

On 6/16/2018 at 3:24 AM, nosscire said:

Hi, could I parhaps do a feature request?

When looking at this, I have no real idea of how long these experiments take to run. Is it enough to do a few orbits, or do I need a dedicated long term station? Does it differ between each experiment, or only between experiment types?

Essentially, If possible, I think it would be great if you added some details to the modules in-game, just so that you know what to expect before launching the experiments to space. It would help immensely with planning, as if you play with life support mods, there's a massive difference between 1 hour, 1 day, and 1 month in space.

Hi, I just looked into this, and it's not trivial. The time required to run an experiment depends on many factors, spread across various configuration files and different objects at runtime. Basically it's a function of how many resources the experiment requires, and how quickly those resources can accumulate in the lab and lab-equipment into which the experiment is installed.

So @linuxgurugamer's suggestion of just adding the time to the description kindof would work but would need adjusting every time somebody adjusted the values in the configuration files (either due to an actual update to the mod, or from a ModuleManager entry etc). The "correct" solution is to calculate the time at runtime and inject it into the description.

I'll look into it in more detail but it's not a quick fix, unfortunately.

On 6/20/2018 at 10:26 PM, Zah said:

>The "Install" and "Move" buttons for the experiments are only available if it's possible to perform one of those actions.

The thing that irritates me was that I added experiments to wedges, saved and left the VAB, came back to the craft and only found "add experiment" in the wedges. Sort of implying they are now empty, but unable to check in the VAB/before launch.

I'm happy to report that I've identified the underlying cause and fixed it for the next release.

[micha]

3 hours ago, micha said:

I'll look into it in more detail but it's not a quick fix, unfortunately.

..and as it turns out while not trivial it wasn't exceedingly difficult either.

 

ED: But I had to fudge Kemini and MEP a little. In the case of Kemini it doesn't matter as the fudge relies on a hard-coded value anyway, but in the case of MEP, it's possible for someone to change the configuration (either by editing the file or via a ModuleManager script). In this case the MEP times will be incorrect.

Edited October 21, 2018 by micha

[micha]

PSA: v0.8.0 is live; download links in the updated first post.

Any feedback and bug reports appreciated.

[Frostiken]

When using Field Research, I keep getting contracts for things that are effectively impossible, like running a KEES experiment in-flight over a certain biome.

 

Short of removing the mod entirely is there any way to stop that? 

[micha]

On 12/30/2018 at 4:45 PM, Frostiken said:

Short of removing the mod entirely is there any way to stop that? 

Thanks for the bug report.
I had a quick look and couldn't repro using "Field Research" v1.2.1 on KSP 1.6.1 (using the Cheats menu to keep regenerating contracts)

If possible, can you please provide a savegame which has this issue?

[micha]

I finally managed to hook into the Science Experiments Results page. Now I can either disable the "Reset Experiment" button (verified) or try to add a callback hook in. That should resolve a long-standing issue!  If anyone is interested, my initial test code is here.

[micha]

If anybody is interested/keen to test out some changes I made to KEES that would be much appreciated.  It's had a complete rewrite internally, should improve performance as it's mostly event driven now.

Also fixes/improves some longstanding issues:

• Alarms are properly saved and restored, as well as started and stopped for all experiment states.
• Can no longer stop the flow of the resources using the tweakables menu. (applies to all experiments, not just KEES)
• Disable "Reset" and "Transmit" buttons on the Science Dialog.

No official release package, just download the "GameData" folder from GitHub for this tag.

 

 

[Dropbear67]

I just wanted to say thank you for this mod and for those maintaining it .. it really does add a new exciting and interesting element to kerbal and I enjoy that there's so much to do now in the kerbal SOI..

This in combination with MKS and USI is really proving to be a challenging and rewarding playthrough.

 

[Dropbear67]

I'm getting some errors at startup in 1.7.2 that part of this mod is not supported. Any clues or ideas if we can get a 1.7 update?