[KSP 1.4.5] [x] Science! - KSP Science report and checklist (V5.17)

[Z-Key Aerospace]

I have the new Here and Now status window sort of working.  It will ship in some form when the new KSP version drops.

http://imgur.com/a/LoyH8

(Sorry about the link but I can't for the the life of me figure out how to embed an Imgur album using the new forum.)

Any how I need to do a little more work on the filter and a lot more work to get the little progress bars working in the new window.

I can already click the experiment buttons to run experiments.  However when entering a new biome it won't bring you out of time-warp yet.

Blizzy78 Toolbar users will need to activate the new button or they won't see it.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Z-Key Aerospace

[Z-Key Aerospace]

On 01 September 2016 at 11:08 AM, steve_v said:

I've been doing a bunch of testing, in an attempt to identify the mods causing GC stutter in my game.

Buggrit, forget everything I just (didin't) say, now I can't repro it. Benchmarking this GC business is a royal pain.

If you have any idea how to test it, let me know because I haven't got a clue.  I'm guessing that in order to prevent the problems I need to bung in an enumerator instead of every foreach and then rewrite every instance of Linq the hard way.  Really not looking forward to it, really hope it isn't necessary.

In a galaxy far, far away I had a Windows service for call-centre screen-popping that just stopped dead for extended periods.  Not good when our customer's customers are queuing on the phone.  Call-center managers get touchy about that sort of thing.  That was my first encounter with .NET's garbage collection.  It was a pain in the neck back then and that was before Linq.

[steve_v]

Yeah, turned out that the biggest offender was Contract Configurator, by such a large margin that benchmarking anything else was a little pointless. Made things somewhat confusing though, as it scales with active contracts, not mods installed.
As for yours, there is an impact but it's way down in the noise and rather hard to quantify... I guess this is a good thing?

All of this is just using Memgraph in-game, and looking at the "last" (heap allocated in last second - I think) value to get an idea of garbage creation. Installing / uninstalling mods between runs is time consuming to say the least.

Edited September 3, 2016 by steve_v

[Z-Key Aerospace]

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

Yeah, turned out that the biggest offender was Contract Configurator, by such a large margin that benchmarking anything else was a little pointless. Made things somewhat confusing though, as it scales with active contracts, not mods installed.
As for yours, there is an impact but it's way down in the noise and rather hard to quantify... I guess this is a good thing?

All of this is just using Memgraph in-game, and looking at the "last" (heap allocated in last second - I think) value to get an idea of garbage creation. Installing / uninstalling mods between runs is time consuming to say the least.

Thank you.  Good news about [x] Science!.  Contract Configurator is Nightingale's mod.  I like that thing, and I've had some good help and advice from Nightingale himself when I started.  I must admit I stopped using his mods because they overstressed my machine.  Did you try the waypoint manager mod?  I think I found that one was bad too.  I play KSP with about 80 mods installed on a i3 I quickly learn which mods not to trust.  _grin_

[steve_v]

I'll admit I was a little surprised that CC is so bad for garbage. I do have Waypoint Manager installed, but I haven't gone looking to see how bad garbage it is... yet. Waypoint Manager is all good, or at least buried in the noise. Hard to spot just eyeballing it though, wonder if I can convince Padishar to add some kind of external logging to Memgraph...

The GC thing is a bugger because it's both sneaky and cumulative - many mods making a little garbage is just as bad.
I'll point out particularly bad cases I find in the respective mod threads (though I'll probably play a bit first now that I have removed CC), IMO others should too now that we have a tool(s) to visualise it... since we can't fix the game engine, avoiding programming styles that create garbage (you have already admitted to heavy use of linq and foreach ), and bugging squad to do the same is the only real option.
If you do find time to optimise [x]Science, it'll be one more small step towards a stutter-free game.

Edited September 3, 2016 by steve_v

[westamastaflash]

5.0 download is up, but is the 5.0 source code checked into Github? I use a customized version of the mod locally

On 9/3/2016 at 1:34 PM, steve_v said:

heavy use of linq and foreach

foreach is actually OK in specific circumstances, if you are foreach-ing over certain kinds of objects that already have an enumerator. It's when you are foreaching and having to create an enumerator that you run into garbage.

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/849524/using-foreach-still-bad-in-46.html

However, given that most KSP modders are not also low-level code wizards, best to just avoid it.

Edited September 11, 2016 by westamastaflash

[Z-Key Aerospace]

New version of [x] Science! out any second now.  I decided just to release it for KSP1.1.3 so brave souls can have a go.

 

 

If you run Blizzy Toolbar, make sure you add the new button.  It is only available in flight.  To get the new window to make noises and stop timewarp just leave the window open.  Otherwise it won't bug you.

There is plenty left to do on the new window, but I'm pushed for time and the KSP developers have their own schedule.

http://imgur.com/a/LoyH8

 

CKAN is being a pain as usual.  V5 is in there but not showing up.  Trying to get V4.20 edited so that it doesn't override V5.

 

Edited September 11, 2016 by Z-Key Aerospace

[Beetlecat]

Oh, hey! Excellent update  Thank you.

[Torih]

Thanks for update, its great

I know you are still working on it but just to let you know in case you are not aware, its not allowing you to run dmagic/universal storage experiments. It shows they are available to run but says "cannot be done right now"

Also would it be possible to make the EVA report button make you EVA? 

[Z-Key Aerospace]

7 minutes ago, Torih said:

Also would it be possible to make the EVA report button make you EVA? 

I hated that!  I lost so many kerbals that way!  I don't know why but female kerbals were never able to hang onto the side of the new inline mk1 cockpit even stationary let alone at speed.  I'd click the EVA button by mistake and kill Val.

[Torih]

lol fair enough

[Vive_moi]

5 hours ago, Z-Key Aerospace said:

New version of [x] Science! out any second now.....

Whoo great. Thanks a lot.

Vive_moi

[Shadriss]

LIke the setup... one step closer to Science Alert replacement. The only thing I see that could be added is for the science to be automatically moved from the experiment to the capsule and automatic resets of experiments if a scientist is on board.

 

EDIT: The window comes up no problem, but I've been unable to collect any science using it. I'm using the US Wedges on a Mun Lander, and while the proper experiments show up for a given biome, pressing the button results in a "Can't Do That Right Now" message. At first, I thought it was a result of a narrow band of a biome and that I wasn't fast enough, but then I went over a Highland Crater, and that stopped making sense. Haven't been able to check against stock or standard DMOS yet, so it MAY be limited to the US versions of DMOS at the moment.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Shadriss

[Z-Key Aerospace]

The CKAN guys seem to have fixed the issue so V5 is showing up.

[Z-Key Aerospace]

Feeling really ill at the moment.  Haven't downloaded the pre release.  I'll get [x] Science! and TAC Fuel Balancer updated soon, promise.

[JohnWittle]

Hey, so... [x] science is bringing me out of warp on biome change whether or not I have science to collect and whether or not the Here and Now window is open. Is this behavior intended? It makes it a poodle to navigate kerbin, or any science-depleted system, as there seems to be no way to turn off the dewarping functionality.

[Zantza]

Yeah same issue here. Makes warping nearly impossible. Gonna revert back to the old version for now.

[Bombaatu]

12 hours ago, JohnWittle said:

Hey, so... [x] science is bringing me out of warp on biome change whether or not I have science to collect and whether or not the Here and Now window is open. Is this behavior intended? It makes it a poodle to navigate kerbin, or any science-depleted system, as there seems to be no way to turn off the dewarping functionality.

Had the same issue; it goes away if you close the [X] Science window. What's missing is a means to bypass biomes where you've already collected data (or to simply flag biomes as "do-not-stop-warp")

Edited September 15, 2016 by Bombaatu

[Fat Gordy]

On 9/14/2016 at 9:54 PM, JohnWittle said:

Hey, so... [x] science is bringing me out of warp on biome change whether or not I have science to collect and whether or not the Here and Now window is open. Is this behavior intended? It makes it a poodle to navigate kerbin, or any science-depleted system, as there seems to be no way to turn off the dewarping functionality.

Same issue here.  Wish there was a way to disable that without having to close the science window.  

[Boop]

@Z-Key Aerospace hope you get well soon!

I had a poke at this in 1.2.  Had to recompile it against the latest DLL references, but there were no errors after that.

The good news is it seems to function as expected.  The bad news is that the "Here and Now" window flickers madly when dragged, or when any of the mod's windows are interacted with.  Not sure what's happening there.  Stock toolbar by the way, in case that matters.

I also took the liberty of following your settings model to add:

                if( (_filter.TotalCount - _filter.CompleteCount > 0) && _parent.Config.StopWarpOnAvailableExperiment)
                {
                    GameHelper.StopTimeWarp( );
                    PlayNoise( );
                }

Works like a charm!

Spoiler

Let me know if you want the code, although it was just a matter of adding a variable and a handler (copied-and-pasted from your other settings, then renamed) so I expect you'd recreate it in less than 5 minutes.

[Z-Key Aerospace]

Just popped in here to say that [x] Science! doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with KSP1.2.  I'll release a new version once 1.2 is out properly.

I'm aware of the flicker.  I wanted to get V5 out and I shipped it with the flicker, I'll sort that out next version.

I wasn't aware of the warp problem.

You should be brought out of warp if the Here&Now window is open AND there is at least one incomplete experiment AND the biome changes.

What happens if you close BOTH windows - Here&Now and the checklist?

 

At the moment I have real life work load to deal with, I've just had a week off with a fever and my to-do list has hit critical.  I don't think [x] Science! or TAC Fuel Balancer in V1.2 are going to be problems though.

Protractor is, I'm sorry to say, probably dead.  If I get a chance I'll fork that thing and gut it.  I'd really like to get the Protractor window to open from the Space Centre overview screen, maybe with a porkchop.  There is a whole load of GUI skin code in Protractor and really it just needs to be ripped out because it is causing problems in 1.2

In other news toadicus is after help with or a new home for his mods.  That includes VOID, which I love.  Obviously, I want to help.  I expect you are getting the idea - I'm too busy.

My first priority is however to pay bills and feed mouths.  That means finishing some websites.

[Z-Key Aerospace]

Flicker + Timewarp* are fixed.  Will ship when KSP1.2 is released for real.  If I get a chance I'll add Window visibility + position in the config file for Here&Now window but no promises.

* I'm checking IsVisible() on the Here&Now window so if you close it it won't bug you.  (Which is what I thought was happening)

Edited September 24, 2016 by Z-Key Aerospace

[Anase Skyrider]

Just now, Z-Key Aerospace said:

Will ship when KSP1.2 is released for real.

Dang. I'm really missing having my science checklist. I've been having to use website utilities like this one:

http://bigorangemachine.github.io/ksp_js_career_sci_list/

It's better than nothing, anyway. I'm eager to see the mod in 1.2; I haven't played since a few hotfixes ago, so I haven't seen the mod in a while.

[Z-Key Aerospace]

Looks like Protractor just got a stay of execution.  It is more-or-less working in build 01532.  That thing just won't die.  OT I know but having announced its demise here earlier I thought I'd better let you know it's back on life support.

[Anase Skyrider]

1 hour ago, Z-Key Aerospace said:

It is more-or-less working in build 01532.

Is there some other version of the mod that I should be using, or some edit I should make? Because I threw it in my gamedata folder and it's not working.