[1.8-1.12] Kethane Plugin and Parts 0.11.0 - Now with background scanning.

[goldenpsp]

KSP doesn't use litres for resources, it uses entirely arbitrary units. The mass per unit for every resource is specified in appropriate files. I believe the Community Resource Pack people use litres for their resources (a decision I disagree with), but there are strong reasons to believe that's not the case for the stock resources. Last I check the latest version of kethane no longer broke conservation of mass, it's something like 0.9 kg of product for 1 kg of kethane.

That is an interesting stance. I'm curious, given that the bulk of resources defined in the CRP are based around real world materials, such as water, boron, enriched uranium, liquid hydrogen, Liquid helium, how should they have defined it?

[edit]

Also Kudos Taniwha for being able to officially take the reins of Kethane. It was one of the first mods I ever played with and I'm still partial to the green clouds coming off those drills.

Edited August 29, 2015 by goldenpsp

[seanth]

seanth: However, I never considered Kethane to be based on methane. I prefer to think of it as something like a benzene ring with multiple -OH and -NH2 branches, or maybe even a level-1 (or maybe 0) geodesic (buckyball).

If you change that, I'll have to rejigger the BioMass mod

Way back, Majiir had said:

Kethane is indeed similar to liquid methane, although there are some oddities where Kethane can be converted to oxidizer and even contains trace xenon. Perhaps consider Kethane to be like liquid methane with a lot of impurities. In the future, Kethane may lose its ability to convert to oxidizer, but it will always be convertible to some kind of fuel.

Given that and that it's density is the same as kerbalized liquid methane, we rolled with it since we needed to work out the biological breakdown of things and methane (kethane) was a good tie in. Plus our parts made kethane. I loves me some kethane.

Not saying you shouldn't make the changes you see fit. Just means we might need to edit the BioMass mod to not work with kethane

Edit: Oh! What if you left the Kethane resource as-is and made the converters only allow Kethane-->LiquidFuel, and introduced a new ring molecule resource named "Kethene" or "Kyclokethane" or something that has the oxygens and xenons.

Edited August 29, 2015 by seanth

[taniwha]

Edit: Oh! What if you left the Kethane resource as-is and made the converters only allow Kethane-->LiquidFuel, and introduced a new ring molecule resource named "Kethene" or "Kyclokethane" or something that has the oxygens and xenons.

Actually... I have an idea for "deep kethane" (not the resource name!) that cannot be found via orbital scanning (instead need to do ground based searches^*), and requires special drilling equipment to get at. Making this "deep kethane" a complex molecule that decays into kethane would work quite well. Since kethane is then a mix of "deep kethane"'s decay products, it would likely be a mix of actual kethane, water, and ammonia, with some xenon dissolved in it. This is not unreasonable as the dead dinosaur theory of oil implies that complex organic compounds have decayed into simpler ones.

^*My thoughts are that every kethane deposit would have at least one cell containing a "deep kethane" site that acts as a source for the kethane deposit (which would very slowly replenish (the only reason kethane deposits haven't replenished is no one waited long enough )). Using ground-based techniques, the player searches for the cell with the deep kethane source, and once found does some more specialized searching to find the source and then can drill to tap that. The source would be either inexhaustible, or it replenishes much more quickly.

[Joshwoo70]

Hah.. your right on that point... i seem to remember a part that would convert Kerbals to kethane, (cant remember its name)

On topic: Thanks for taking it over Taniwha, while i dont use it actively, it was one of the first mods I had ever used! And it has a special place

I would second the idea of switching over at least extraction and conversion to the stock system, so that they can be done in the background, (if you cant find a way to make kethane do that)

the KE-WAITNONOSTOP-01 Kerbal Unreconstitutionator correct?

[Drew Kerman]

Actually... I have an idea for "deep kethane" (not the resource name!) that cannot be found via orbital scanning (instead need to do ground based searches^*), and requires special drilling equipment to get at. Making this "deep kethane" a complex molecule that decays into kethane would work quite well. Since kethane is then a mix of "deep kethane"'s decay products, it would likely be a mix of actual kethane, water, and ammonia, with some xenon dissolved in it. This is not unreasonable as the dead dinosaur theory of oil implies that complex organic compounds have decayed into simpler ones.

^*My thoughts are that every kethane deposit would have at least one cell containing a "deep kethane" site that acts as a source for the kethane deposit (which would very slowly replenish (the only reason kethane deposits haven't replenished is no one waited long enough )). Using ground-based techniques, the player searches for the cell with the deep kethane source, and once found does some more specialized searching to find the source and then can drill to tap that. The source would be either inexhaustible, or it replenishes much more quickly.

Sounds like it's begging for integration with Pathfinder - although to be honest I haven't been following it that closely so I may be wrong

[taniwha]

Gaiiden: potentially (just after a quick glance), but at the same time, Kethane has always been an independent mod, and should probably remain so.

[cantab]

^*My thoughts are that every kethane deposit would have at least one cell containing a "deep kethane" site that acts as a source for the kethane deposit (which would very slowly replenish (the only reason kethane deposits haven't replenished is no one waited long enough )). Using ground-based techniques, the player searches for the cell with the deep kethane source, and once found does some more specialized searching to find the source and then can drill to tap that. The source would be either inexhaustible, or it replenishes much more quickly.

That's a really nice idea. The finiteness of Kethane seemed to put a lot of people off, something that instead replenishes at a finite rate might be more appealing. Especially when used with a life support mod that will give the player a raft of choice.

[seanth]

That's a really nice idea. The finiteness of Kethane seemed to put a lot of people off, something that instead replenishes at a finite rate might be more appealing. Especially when used with a life support mod that will give the player a raft of choice.

Just to weigh in on the opposite side: I like Kethane because of the finite nature of the deposits. I'm not really keen on infinite resources.

[DMagic]

Just to weigh in on the opposite side: I like Kethane because of the finite nature of the deposits. I'm not really keen on infinite resources.

I'm not sure that I've seen anyone use it, but you can setup the stock system to deplete resource deposits.

That said, what taniwha is proposing doesn't sound at all like the stock system of infinite deposits, but a slowly regenerating deposit, which, depending on how long it takes, could be a very different thing.

[Devilsgamer666]

have you considered putting this in the CKAN registry so it's easier to find?

[goldenpsp]

That's a really nice idea. The finiteness of Kethane seemed to put a lot of people off, something that instead replenishes at a finite rate might be more appealing. Especially when used with a life support mod that will give the player a raft of choice.

Just to weigh in on the opposite side: I like Kethane because of the finite nature of the deposits. I'm not really keen on infinite resources.

Do we really have to dig this up again? Anyone who keeps harping on this single aspect of the two systems mis-characterizes each one.

The big turn off for Kethane has been it's state for much of the last 6+ months, until Taniwha took over maintaining it. Hopefully his taking over will reinvigorate it.

[MisterFister]

I'd just like to pipe in and agree in saying that kethane was my first must-have mod way back before Scott Manley popularized it in his Reusable Space Program series. That said, indexing this mod with CKAN would be truly awesome. I literally just discovered this thread today (I'd been following the other thread by Majir for a while) and was kinda worried that my next career would likely have to go with Karbonite instead due to no recent releases, so this newfound knowledge that kethane is alive is very welcome indeed!

Question -- is there any plan to allow for kethane to support TACLS? Honestly, I like kethane's scanning mechanic, but Karbonite's support of TACLS is worth consideration. Hell, I might even run both mods simultaneously, unless someone explains to me there's a good reason not to.

Thanks taniwha!

[goldenpsp]

I'd just like to pipe in and agree in saying that kethane was my first must-have mod way back before Scott Manley popularized it in his Reusable Space Program series. That said, indexing this mod with CKAN would be truly awesome. I literally just discovered this thread today (I'd been following the other thread by Majir for a while) and was kinda worried that my next career would likely have to go with Karbonite instead due to no recent releases, so this newfound knowledge that kethane is alive is very welcome indeed!

Question -- is there any plan to allow for kethane to support TACLS? Honestly, I like kethane's scanning mechanic, but Karbonite's support of TACLS is worth consideration. Hell, I might even run both mods simultaneously, unless someone explains to me there's a good reason not to.

Thanks taniwha!

I might be missing something but I don't recall Karbonite ever supporting TAC-LS. MKS does but it is not really comparable to kethane.

[rabidninjawombat]

I'd just like to pipe in and agree in saying that kethane was my first must-have mod way back before Scott Manley popularized it in his Reusable Space Program series. That said, indexing this mod with CKAN would be truly awesome. I literally just discovered this thread today (I'd been following the other thread by Majir for a while) and was kinda worried that my next career would likely have to go with Karbonite instead due to no recent releases, so this newfound knowledge that kethane is alive is very welcome indeed!

Question -- is there any plan to allow for kethane to support TACLS? Honestly, I like kethane's scanning mechanic, but Karbonite's support of TACLS is worth consideration. Hell, I might even run both mods simultaneously, unless someone explains to me there's a good reason not to.

Thanks taniwha!

I might be missing something but I don't recall Karbonite ever supporting TAC-LS. MKS does but it is not really comparable to kethane.

Yea kinda confused on what you mean there by TAC-LS support there MisterFister... as TAS-LS is a life support mod. Though im gonnna jump to a conclusion here and assume you may have meant for Kethane to support getting MKS resources? (i.e. Substrate/Minerals/Water) Please correct me if Im wrong

[taniwha]

How would Kethane "support" TAC-LS? Or maybe better, how would it not support TAC-LS? Kethane the mod provides the infrastructure for finding, extracting, and converting resources, just like the stock ISRU system. This means that rather than Kethane "supporting" TAC-LS, TAC-LS (or possibly better, a third mod) needs to support Kethane. This means configs for locating raw resources, models^* and configs for scanning and extraction of the raw resources, and models and configs for conversion of the raw resources into the target resources.

^*The models were licensed to Majiir for use exclusively with Kethane, and I have only a sub-license for redistribution, so there are licensing issues with reusing Kethane's models for the purpose.

[cantab]

There was a mod called "Kethane Plus" that added more resources to drill and refine in the kethane system. One of those was water which could then be used by TAC-LS.

[pastlifeuknow]

Great to see this being taken over again. Great mod. any chance you could prioritize putting it up with CKAN?

[MisterFister]

Question -- is there any plan to allow for kethane to support TACLS? Honestly, I like kethane's scanning mechanic, but Karbonite's support of TACLS is worth consideration. Hell, I might even run both mods simultaneously, unless someone explains to me there's a good reason not to.

I might be missing something but I don't recall Karbonite ever supporting TAC-LS. MKS does but it is not really comparable to kethane.

Yea kinda confused on what you mean there by TAC-LS support there MisterFister... as TAS-LS is a life support mod. Though im gonnna jump to a conclusion here and assume you may have meant for Kethane to support getting MKS resources? (i.e. Substrate/Minerals/Water) Please correct me if Im wrong

How would Kethane "support" TAC-LS? Or maybe better, how would it not support TAC-LS? Kethane the mod provides the infrastructure for finding, extracting, and converting resources, just like the stock ISRU system. This means that rather than Kethane "supporting" TAC-LS, TAC-LS (or possibly better, a third mod) needs to support Kethane. This means configs for locating raw resources, models^* and configs for scanning and extraction of the raw resources, and models and configs for conversion of the raw resources into the target resources.

Heh, yes, I did indeed speak imprecisely, in at least two different ways. First, the "support" I was familiar with wasn't "from" Karbonite at all, but a middleman mod that allowed the use of Karbonite to extract TAC-LS resources with the same equipment, since they're both keyed to CRS. Second, I thought I was asking if this could be somehow built into the kethane mod directly, but after asking that, I realized how silly that is, since it would really be TAC-LS doing the support of kethane.

There was a mod called "Kethane Plus" that added more resources to drill and refine in the kethane system. One of those was water which could then be used by TAC-LS.

I might have been thinking of this mod, as well. I suppose in a roundabout way I'm asking if kethane has any plans to convert to CRS (or if it already did, since I stopped KSP-ing entirely for several months and therefore fell out of all the info loops) but I can't even be sure that's possible. I seem to recall at least a year ago in kethane's pre-Karbonite heyday that Majir was for some reason opposed to CRS, which was for reasons that I never fully understood but nevertheless fully respected. If the contention was technical, I wonder if the release of 1.x might have made a revamp to CRS less-unfeasible than it was, and if the contention was philosophical or political, then a regime change here at the helm of the mod (Mr. Taniwha) might make revisiting it possible. Again, this even presumes I'm correct in understanding that kethane isn't already CRS-compatible.

[seanth]

Well...if you're willing to add another mod, BioMass includes compressors and release valves that let you release the oxidizer to make oxygen. So you could go Kethane-->Oxidizer-->oxygen.

[rabidninjawombat]

Heh, yes, I did indeed speak imprecisely, in at least two different ways. First, the "support" I was familiar with wasn't "from" Karbonite at all, but a middleman mod that allowed the use of Karbonite to extract TAC-LS resources with the same equipment, since they're both keyed to CRS. Second, I thought I was asking if this could be somehow built into the kethane mod directly, but after asking that, I realized how silly that is, since it would really be TAC-LS doing the support of kethane.

I might have been thinking of this mod, as well. I suppose in a roundabout way I'm asking if kethane has any plans to convert to CRS (or if it already did, since I stopped KSP-ing entirely for several months and therefore fell out of all the info loops) but I can't even be sure that's possible. I seem to recall at least a year ago in kethane's pre-Karbonite heyday that Majir was for some reason opposed to CRS, which was for reasons that I never fully understood but nevertheless fully respected. If the contention was technical, I wonder if the release of 1.x might have made a revamp to CRS less-unfeasible than it was, and if the contention was philosophical or political, then a regime change here at the helm of the mod (Mr. Taniwha) might make revisiting it possible. Again, this even presumes I'm correct in understanding that kethane isn't already CRS-compatible.

Just a correction, i think you ment CRP (Community Resource Pack),

In kethanes case though, since it uses its own resource definitions (not stock definitions) and its own extraction and scanning system. There really wouldn't be a way to adapt it to the CRP without significant changes to the underlying systems of Kethane.

In the end more trouble than its worth since Kethanes system works just fine for those who enjoy it already And it has its own differences from the stock system that make it unique.

If someone wants to add resources into Kethane (as taniwha said) the best way to go about it is though a mod like that KethanePlus (which is out of date, but wouldnt take much to update)

Edited October 1, 2015 by rabidninjawombat

[MisterFister]

Great to see this being taken over again. Great mod. any chance you could prioritize putting it up with CKAN?

have you considered putting this in the CKAN registry so it's easier to find?

...That said, indexing this mod with CKAN would be truly awesome....

Just curious if CKAN deployment might be possible at some point? With the recent ownership change, I wouldn't be surprised if it would have to be at some future point. I'm just curious on modder interest.

[Ogcorp Squirrel]

YES!! i never could use Kethane (It was outdated for a while for me), but now, the mod talked about for a while on youtube, is within my grasp. Congrats Taniwha, you now have the reins of one of many legendary mods.

[seanth]

Just curious if CKAN deployment might be possible at some point? With the recent ownership change, I wouldn't be surprised if it would have to be at some future point. I'm just curious on modder interest.

I don't use CKAN (I'm on a Mac, and have no reason to install Mono, so no ckan for me), but it sounds like it's useful for people in the same way that R's cran is useful or how homebrew is super useful.

[MisterFister]

Just curious if CKAN deployment might be possible at some point? With the recent ownership change, I wouldn't be surprised if it would have to be at some future point. I'm just curious on modder interest.

I don't use CKAN (I'm on a Mac, and have no reason to install Mono, so no ckan for me), but it sounds like it's useful for people in the same way that R's cran is useful or how homebrew is super useful.

I was wondering what Taniwha thought, for this mod, though.

[taniwha]

MisterFister: my thought is that the license (for the parts) forbids it, though I could be wrong.