[Min KSP: 1.12.2] Pathfinder - Space Camping & Geoscience

[Angelo Kerman]

Yup, looks like some bug fixing is needed on the WBIStorageDistributor. It won't honor locked resources; it will distribute them. But the rest should work ok.

[DStaal]

52 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

You will need to install EL. Pathfinder supports EL by tying into its production chain and offering its own version of the EL Survey Station, known as the Spyglass. The Wiki page shows how to install and use the Spyglass, but essentially, EL's survey stakes are designed to work with KIS. You take a bunch of stakes and the mallet and send an engineer to his/her doom drive the stakes into a vampire the ground to set up the perimeter of the launchpad. Without a pilot in the Spyglass/EL Survey Station, the max range for the stakes is 20 meters. It's I think 200 meters with a pilot staffing the module. There is a way to establish the orientation of the completed vehicle, but I'm not sure how to do that, but perhaps @taniwha can shed light on that (or point you to the right EL post, it's a common question).

Pathfinder complements EL's production chain by offering the ability to smelt MetalOre into Metal, and manufacturing RocketParts through the IronWorks. The IronWorks has several converters in it (and makes me think that the more are active, the less efficient they all are, but that's a story for another time). It's the same production chain as in standard EL, so if you want to use the EL workshop and smelters and storage containers alongside Pathfinder's parts, you're good to go.

Lastly, you can modify the stock drill-o-matic and Pathfinder's Gold Digger and Claimjumper to drill for MetalOre, or use the Pathfinder Geology Lab to sift through Ore to procure MetalOre (as long as the biome has MetalOre in it). It takes an Engineer and 50 RocketParts to modify a drill.

Hope that helps.

A couple of additional notes/corrections/clarifications:

• Anyone can drive in a survey stake, not just an engineer.  (At least that's the intent.)  I typically use my surveying pilot.
• Survey stakes with the same name make up a launchpad/survey site.  You can have multiple launchpads with different names.
• The range to the stakes varies dependent on the pilot's level.  I believe 200 meters is with a 0-star pilot.  A 5-star pilot will enable a range of 2km.
• The center of the ship (or of the root part, I'm not sure) will be over the average of the locations of the stakes defining the launchpad.  (Assuming they're all in normal mode.)  So if you place one, it will be directly over that stake.  If you place two, it will be between them.  Etc.
• Setting the direction is complicated - what you need to do depends on whether the ship was designed in the VAB or SPH, and there are lots of options.  But a quick and useful thing to know is that if you put a stake on top of whatever nearby rise you have, and set that stake to '-Y bounds', the vessel will spawn so that it clears that rise.  (And that stake won't affect the location it spawns at - just the height.)  This greatly reduces the number of ships spawned underground and therefore exploding. 

I'd also highly recommend you use Keridian Dynamics 'LaunchSite' EL stake variant - it works exactly the same as regular EL stakes, but it has the advantage that if you unfold it and turn the light on (without rotating it) it will point out which direction your ship is going to be facing.  (Assuming it was built in the SPH.)   

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

Caveat: WBIStorageDistributor hasn't been fully tested, use with caution. If that works out for you then I'll add the modules to the MOLE 0.9.0 release. I'm just about to kick MOLE 0.8.5 out the door...

Well, that didn't work.  It caused no problems with MM but had no effect on the ship in question.  Fuel still didn't magically flow from the base to the ship.

[rasta013]

10 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, that didn't work.  It caused no problems with MM but had no effect on the ship in question.  Fuel still didn't magically flow from the base to the ship.

I may be wrong but I think that's because the ship in question was built and launched prior to the capabilities being included from the patch.  If I'm correct in this, it wouldn't inherit the latest patched module because it's not included in the .sfs file for the launched ship.

[Geschosskopf]

15 minutes ago, rasta013 said:

I may be wrong but I think that's because the ship in question was built and launched prior to the capabilities being included from the patch.  If I'm correct in this, it wouldn't inherit the latest patched module because it's not included in the .sfs file for the launched ship.

It should if it got the capability via MM.

[taniwha]

DStaal: nice little summary, thank you.

Here is a post covering survey stakes I made recently. I plan on putting it in the docs, which are, admittedly, rather inadequate still (sorry Geschosskopf)

[Angelo Kerman]

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, that didn't work.  It caused no problems with MM but had no effect on the ship in question.  Fuel still didn't magically flow from the base to the ship.

Yeah the storage distributor code is still messed up. No matter, I'm combining the two so that the resource distributor can also become a consumer. It'll work like so:

If a resource isn't required by a converter and isn't locked, and the part is configured to be a distributor, then the resource(s) will be shared.

If a resource isn't required by a converter and isn't locked, and the part is configured to be a consumer, then its resources will be filled by distributors until filled.

Also, I'll add the resource distributor to every MOLE and DSEV tank available. That should help. Nice idea, I didn't think of that.

Edited July 22, 2016 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

And while I'm at it, I'll go through all the heat producing templates and shut them down for now. Not sure why you're getting overheating after being away for awhile..

Munbase BBQ, heh!

Edited July 22, 2016 by Angel-125

[Geschosskopf]

5 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Yeah the storage distributor code is still messed up. No matter, I'm combining the two so that the resource distributor can also become a consumer. It'll work like so:

If a resource isn't required by a converter and isn't locked, and the part is configured to be a distributor, then the resource(s) will be shared.

If a resource isn't required by a converter and isn't locked, and the part is configured to be a consumer, then its resources will be filled by distributors until filled.

Also, I'll add the resource distributor to every MOLE and DSEV tank available. That should help. Nice idea, I didn't think of that.

Sounds great

BTW, my Munbase just exploded from overheating.......

It had run with no problems while I was watching it, and then for a week or so when I wasn't watching it, during which time I was flying the ship out to it that I ultimately couldn't refuel.  So with the ship refueled by HyperEdit, I hopped it around several biomes.  But when I returned to the base to "refuel" again, several parts of one of the base units exploded as soon as my ship came within physics range.  These parts were:

• An Old Faithful cooling tower
• A Casa configured as a habitat
• A 3-seat lander can attached to the central Conestoga.

The 2 Haciendas, one a Hotsprings and the other a Claim-Jumper, the sources of the heat, did not explode.  However, they soon went to a high state of orange.  The crew evacuated and the Claim-Jumper exploded.

I then noticed that on another base unit, it's Old Faithful and Chuckwagon (full of LF) were in the high red, just about to explode.  This base is now slowly, slowly cooling off.  Needless to say, this is a setback to my project

BTW, it would be really nice of the Old Faithful listed how much core heat xfer it had, and the other parts listed how much core heat cooling they need.  I really have no clue how many cooling towers I need for any of the industrial parts.

 

[Angelo Kerman]

6 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Sounds great

BTW, my Munbase just exploded from overheating.......

It had run with no problems while I was watching it, and then for a week or so when I wasn't watching it, during which time I was flying the ship out to it that I ultimately couldn't refuel.  So with the ship refueled by HyperEdit, I hopped it around several biomes.  But when I returned to the base to "refuel" again, several parts of one of the base units exploded as soon as my ship came within physics range.  These parts were:

• An Old Faithful cooling tower
• A Casa configured as a habitat
• A 3-seat lander can attached to the central Conestoga.

The 2 Haciendas, one a Hotsprings and the other a Claim-Jumper, the sources of the heat, did not explode.  However, they soon went to a high state of orange.  The crew evacuated and the Claim-Jumper exploded.

I then noticed that on another base unit, it's Old Faithful and Chuckwagon (full of LF) were in the high red, just about to explode.  This base is now slowly, slowly cooling off.  Needless to say, this is a setback to my project

BTW, it would be really nice of the Old Faithful listed how much core heat xfer it had, and the other parts listed how much core heat cooling they need.  I really have no clue how many cooling towers I need for any of the industrial parts.

 

Something in the game definitely changed, you should not be having issues like that. Prior to KSP 1.1.3 I could leave my bases on Duna for weeks and they'd be ok. I just turned off the heat generation on the drill modules that the Hacienda has, and removed ModuleCoreHeat as well. I checked, the templates don't have any converters that generate heat, so the only things that can are the drills at this point, including stock drills and the Gold Digger. I'll also try to mitigate the problem by having Old Faithful do some cheating after the vessel has been loaded after a long time away.

I like your idea about listing how much core cooling they need. Since I use stock modules, I'm not sure how to get that info, but I'll dig around and see what I can find.

[Geschosskopf]

1 minute ago, Angel-125 said:

I like your idea about listing how much core cooling they need. Since I use stock modules, I'm not sure how to get that info, but I'll dig around and see what I can find.

Cool  (literally)

You know, back to the subject of magically refueling ships, it might be a good idea to make that only work if the ship is stationary.  When I landed the ship the 1st time, I was worried that I'd get hit with a slug of fuel just before I touched down, and the added mass would cause me to crash

Anyway, as to where the heat came from, I have no idea.  I suspect the Conestoga, though.  This base had worked fine right up until I installed 0.9.32, which I did just before the lander went off biome-hopping.  That patch made some changes to the Conestoga, and thinking back on it, it's like the Conestoga was creating the heat.  Everything attached to the Conestoga overheated, but the Conestoga itself did not.

[Angelo Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Cool  (literally)

You know, back to the subject of magically refueling ships, it might be a good idea to make that only work if the ship is stationary.  When I landed the ship the 1st time, I was worried that I'd get hit with a slug of fuel just before I touched down, and the added mass would cause me to crash

Anyway, as to where the heat came from, I have no idea.  I suspect the Conestoga, though.  This base had worked fine right up until I installed 0.9.32, which I did just before the lander went off biome-hopping.  That patch made some changes to the Conestoga, and thinking back on it, it's like the Conestoga was creating the heat.  Everything attached to the Conestoga overheated, but the Conestoga itself did not.

Hm. Well the Conestoga does have a converter but it doesn't generate heat. The only thing I can think of is that parts now have both a "maxTemp" and "maxSkinTemp" and most of the Pathfinder parts don't currently have a "maxSkinTemp." Maybe that is causing the issue as well?

[Angelo Kerman]

@Geschosskopf Seems you're not the only one having issues. Somebody else filed a bug. There appears to be a interaction issue with the game's FlightIntegrator and ModuleCoreHeat. This is what I found:

Bug #6522

Quote

I can confirm this because I suffer from a remarkably similar problem: coming within the physics distance of a Mun base with ISRU and/or drills on it causes the base to instantly overheat to over 10000K (I get the same "core overheating" message first), and then completely annihilate itself. My framerate improves because the base is then gone! The only way to get it to survive is to use the F12 temperature cheat.

The same base has no problem if I switch to it via the tracking station. If I remove the ISRU part and the drills with KAS, the base is fine when approaching the physics distance. Deactivating them is not enough - the parts have to be removed from the game world. It seems that parts utilising ModuleCoreHeat have issues when FlightIntegrator performs its "analytic temperature" calculation at the physics-distance instantiation (the same as bringing a vessel out of time-warp, apparently):

[LOG 02:14:20.398] [FlightIntegrator]: Vessel 03 - MSEV 1 has been unloaded 133.420000124257, applying analytic temperature 10818.1847637942

10000+K is clearly wrong - the base has no overheating issues in any other circumstance.

Based upon your logs, you ran into a similar problem:

Quote

[LOG 13:02:37.954] [FlightIntegrator]: Vessel Munbase StripMine has been unloaded 4322.72251411714, applying analytic temperature 1022.65517086945

I also noticed a log entry that I've not seen before:

Quote

[LOG 13:02:32.468] Found 1 overheatable modules

Is that from Modular Flight Integrator? I've never used that before.

Edited July 22, 2016 by Angel-125

[Geschosskopf]

13 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

@Geschosskopf Seems you're not the only one having issues. Somebody else filed a bug. There appears to be a interaction issue with the game's FlightIntegrator and ModuleCoreHeat. This is what I found:

Bug #6522

Based upon your logs, you ran into a similar problem:

Ah.  Well, Pathfinder seems to be absolved and we can all blame Squad.  Get the pitchforks and torches, lads, we've got a castle to storm!

 

13 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

I also noticed a log entry that I've not seen before:

Is that from Modular Flight Integrator? I've never used that before.

I have no idea what any of this means.  You might ask @Claw, who makes it his business to fix stock bugs

 

[Angelo Kerman]

@Geschosskopf Do you have a mod installed called Modular Flight Integrator?

[Geschosskopf]

6 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

@Geschosskopf Do you have a mod installed called Modular Flight Integrator?

Hmm, surprisingly, I see that in my Gamedata folder.  However, didn't download it as a separate thing (nor would I--I'm not a modder).  So it must have come in via some other mod.  However, I looked through all of them and didn't find it, so I have no idea where it came from.  So I asked @sarbian where I might have gotten it.

 

[Angelo Kerman]

1 minute ago, Geschosskopf said:

Hmm, surprisingly, I see that in my Gamedata folder.  However, didn't download it as a separate thing (nor would I--I'm not a modder).  So it must have come in via some other mod.  However, I looked through all of them and didn't find it, so I have no idea where it came from.  So I asked @sarbian where I might have gotten it.

 

Good deal. Reason I ask is that apparently, FlightIntegrator is a stock VesselModule that, among other things, handles thermodynamics. Regardless, I'm working on a patch for Pathfinder that disables heat generation on all its drills (the stock drill-o-matic and stock ISRU still generate heat so watch out). Also, I'm beefing up the resource distribution as mentioned above, and will restrict it to vessels that are splashed, landed, or in prelaunch. That's a great idea, thanks for the suggestion.

-Katniss Kerman, the Kerbal On Fire!!!

[rasta013]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

@Geschosskopf Do you have a mod installed called Modular Flight Integrator?

 

58 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Hmm, surprisingly, I see that in my Gamedata folder.  However, didn't download it as a separate thing (nor would I--I'm not a modder).  So it must have come in via some other mod.  However, I looked through all of them and didn't find it, so I have no idea where it came from.  So I asked @sarbian where I might have gotten it.

 

ModuleFlightIntegrator is a dependency of Kopernicus now.  If you have anything riding on Kopernicus then you must have MFI installed now.  Not sure what else it using it these days though...

Edited July 23, 2016 by rasta013

[Geschosskopf]

1 minute ago, rasta013 said:

 

ModuleFlightIntegrator is a dependency of Kopernicus now.  If you have anything riding on Kopernicus then you must have MFI installed now.  Not sure what else it using it these days though...

Right you are!  I somehow missed hat when I went through my mods, but there it is.  And yes, the game I had this problem is is totally based on Kopernicus.  It;s set in the New Horizons system.

[Angelo Kerman]

Good to know. I can look at MFI and see if it does anything to thermaldynamics in the game. It could be that the stock FlightIntegrator is causing the problems. Regardless, no heat generation in the next patch.

[Angelo Kerman]

Ok, drill heat is off, and the resource distributor is working properly. To my knowledge there aren't any other parts in Pathfinder that generate heat.

Here is 0.9.33

Heat Generation
- To help prevent barbequing kerbals and bases, the Claimjumper's and Gold Digger's heat generation has been disabled for the time being until the problem can be sorted out. It appears to be an issue between KSP's FlightIntegrator and ModuleCoreHeat. Not much I can do about that... Currently Pathfinder's other converters don't generate heat.
- Added "maxSkinTemp" to all base building parts.

Resource Distribution
- You can add resources to the new resourceBlacklist and they won't be distributed. Example: ReplacementParts are used by USI-LS to determine module wear, so they go on the blacklist. The blacklist is defined in the part config's MODULE node.
- You can now set the distribution mode to Distributor, Consumer, or Off.
  Distributor: The part's resources will be distributed if the resource isn't required by a converter and it is unlocked.
  Consumer: the part's resources will be filled to capacity if the resource is unlocked.
- Resource distribution is now restricted to vessels/bases that are landed, splashed, or in prelaunch. Thanks for the suggestion, Geschosskopf!

[Geschosskopf]

9 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

It appears to be an issue between KSP's FlightIntegrator and ModuleCoreHeat. Not much I can do about that.

Sarbian got back with me and said his mod for FlightIntegrator wasn't to blame, so this appears to be a stock bug.  But the prophylactic precautions are greatly appreciated

 

[dresoccer4]

hi all. i just downloaded this mod and am excited to try and set up a base. but there's so much going on that it's a little overwhelming. i found the tutorial in the wiki, and am attempting to follow it on kerbin and set up a small base. i completed step 4 and got the saddle on the ground. next i'm trying to put the Ponderosa onto the Saddle.

1) while holding down the left mouse button, i drag the ponderosa over the saddle
2)  i press R to make attachment node the bottom
3) there is no blue outline
4) pressing and holding X does nothing (it says "cannot use equipped item because nothing is equipped")
5) i see the tooltip says "H to attach" so i press 'H' and it says "tool needed: this part can't be attached without a tool"

 

soooo, what the heck am i doing wrong. 

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Sarbian got back with me and said his mod for FlightIntegrator wasn't to blame, so this appears to be a stock bug.  But the prophylactic precautions are greatly appreciated

 

Do you by chance have a save file that recreates the disaster? I would like to see if there is any way that I can tweak the FlightIntegrator and dump the excess heat.

 

24 minutes ago, dresoccer4 said:

hi all. i just downloaded this mod and am excited to try and set up a base. but there's so much going on that it's a little overwhelming. i found the tutorial in the wiki, and am attempting to follow it on kerbin and set up a small base. i completed step 4 and got the saddle on the ground. next i'm trying to put the Ponderosa onto the Saddle.

1) while holding down the left mouse button, i drag the ponderosa over the saddle
2)  i press R to make attachment node the bottom
3) there is no blue outline
4) pressing and holding X does nothing (it says "cannot use equipped item because nothing is equipped")
5) i see the tooltip says "H to attach" so i press 'H' and it says "tool needed: this part can't be attached without a tool"

 

soooo, what the heck am i doing wrong. 

Be sure to equip an engineer with a power tool or wrench. Then, you will need to press R to set the node up, and if it appears that the part is clipped into the destination, rotate it around. Finally, press X to attach the part.

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Sarbian got back with me and said his mod for FlightIntegrator wasn't to blame, so this appears to be a stock bug.  But the prophylactic precautions are greatly appreciated

 

Another question: Did your Old Faithful cooling towers run out of water?