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

[capi3101]

3 hours ago, Vegvisir said:

Just wondering if someone has put together a further tutorial or Pathfinder-for-dummies?  I really want to get into this, because I kinda need something else for my little missions to be about.  Big interplanetary ISRU operations are beyond me, and this just looks pretty cool, there's a lot to it.  I like the inflatable parts, the extra modules and science bits that come with the whole Pathfinder/Buffalo/MOLE/DSEV package.  But I just can't get my head around all the various UIs, which does what, and the resource distribution, too.

 

My latest attempts ended with flummoxed semi-defeat.  I assembled a Ponderosa (as Geo Lab) and a Doc (as Science Lab) attached to the Ponderosa.  I had Resource Distribution on Share between both the plane and the base - I dunno if that's how it should be.  After assembly, I saw the Equipment in the plane decreasing every second or so, until it was all gone, but it didn't look like it was going into the base.  Maybe it was but just wasn't displayed due to Ponderosa configuration.  I needed to generate a bunch of lab time so I could do experiments for a contract.  As I understand it:  Doc Lab (as Commercial Science Lab config) + Scientist + Electric Charge + Research Kits = Lab Time.  Does it generate automatically when the Lab is manned by a Scientist and has access to the resources, or do I need to start it?  And which "start" - in the Operations UI is it the "Start Research" button on the "Mobile Process" screen or the "Start" button on the "Experiment Lab" screen?  I had two single-sized Buckboards full of Research Kits (all gone now) and my base only has 0.84 Lab Time, I thought it would have resulted in more.  

To my knowledge, there's no extended tutorial; much of what I've been able to gather from the mod has been through trial-and-error, heavy on the error. Spending time scanning through the configuration files helped a fair amount. Even then, there's still a few things that elude me. That said, I can offer what knowledge I've been able to glean (as will others when I prove to be completely wrong about something). Just ask.

Something's currently borked with Resource Distribution - I'll say that much; when I have attempted to use resource distribution recently, inevitably I'll wind up without sufficient Equipment to inflate something. Not because I didn't bring enough Equipment, mind you, it's because it all evaporated into the aether while my back was turned. So, with the last few bases I've built, I've used the KAS resource transfer station and a...oh, i don't remember what they call the damn thing now - the new excuse for a connector port. While putting up the initial facilities, I hook up the cable and keep it connected long enough to build stuff. If you ever go this route, don't leave the damn cable connected - it's got its own bugs, and they're like a thumper to an Arakeen sandworm as far as ability to call down the Kraken is concerned. One of my first priorities with a new base is to build a Chuckwagon and stow whatever leftover Equipment I don't need right away in it. 

This base, Enchova Central (on Duna obviously), began as a Blacksmith Pondarosa, a Claim Jumper Hacienda, a Saddle and three Sombreros. These were all packed into 2 Buckboards and sent with a lander containing about 5000 units of Equipment. If you're really wanting to do ISRU, you can't really go wrong with that setup; as you can see, it'll get you pretty far. Now, in order for the Blacksmith to work, you have to have the OSE Workshop mod installed, which does not play nice with the latest version of KIS as of this post; stick with KIS v. 1.16 if you want to use it. Get an Iron Works going as soon as you can. The other part there is to select your landing site very carefully; do your homework and get some narrow-band scanners overhead before you even land, and look for spots where you can use the Iron Works to make new Equipment on site. Beats the hell out of having to use the Blacksmith/Clockworks for the job, unless you like the notion of spending months on end building up a new base...

Something to consider with any of the efficacy of any module is productivity, basically a measure of the competence of the people running it. Kerbals with a lower stupidity attribute will be more productive, as will kerbals with higher levels of experience. In your case, the scientist you selected may have factored heavily into why you didn't get more bang out of your Research Kits. Another thing you should consider is packing a second Doc and configuring that Doc as a Watney; you can manufacture more Research Kits on site that way. Of course, for that you need Ore...

Start button on the Experiment screen is the one you want. Once an experiment is running, if it says "Needs Lab Time", just sit for a bit, maybe do some time warping. If the numbers go up, you're okay - you just have to wait long enough for the experiment to complete - assuming you've got enough Research Kits, of course.

Hopefully all this is helpful to you. Like I said, feel free to ask about any questions you might have.

[Vegvisir]

9 hours ago, capi3101 said:

/snip

Phwoaah, that is why I want to keep trying with Pathfinder (and KSP overall), that's impressive.  Thanks for the tips, that's helpful.  I'll look at perhaps rolling back my KIS version, but also tweaking how I use resource distribution.

[capi3101]

16 hours ago, Vegvisir said:

Phwoaah, that is why I want to keep trying with Pathfinder (and KSP overall), that's impressive.  Thanks for the tips, that's helpful.  I'll look at perhaps rolling back my KIS version, but also tweaking how I use resource distribution.

Glad to have been of some help.

Some more advice - in general, once I've got printing, mining and equipment production up at a site, the next thing I do is try to get a nascent base off of strict reliance on solar power. Pathfinder has three basic alternatives here - geothermal, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Whether or not you can do either of the first two will be dependent on what kind of resources are at the outpost site, so once again, scouting ahead is key. You can bring along a SAFER reactor with whatever vehicle brings your base-seeding parts; only catch there is if you intend to make that vehicle part of your base or not. If not, you'll eventually have to attach the reactor to your base. Even an empty SAFER is 1.5 tonnes, so it's at least a two-kerbal job. Couldn't say about the mass full. You can print up SAFERs at a base, but then the trick is fueling them - Enriched Uranium can't be transferred between modules like other resources and (to my knowledge) Pathfinder has no converters for Nuclear Fuel. That said, you can transfer Enriched Uranium via Mass Driver and when you do that it gets relatively evenly distributed at the target site, so you can get it into your SAFERs by shooting back and forth between two sites. A SAFER doesn't have to be full to provide a constant stream of steady, reliable power.

All that said, I usually go with Sombreros when I'm prepping a new base. At Kerbin, they have roughly the same efficiency as half a Gigantor (about 12 EC/s). I usually pack 3-6 of them to start; the number you want will depend on where you're going. Only had three to begin with at Enchova Central and I had power problems right up until I put the first Hot Springs in place. When you get the other stuff built, leave the Sombreros up - every little bit helps. One thing you might do though is orient your initial base running north and south; this way as you set up your Sombreros there's less of a chance of the shadow of one falling one of the others and reducing your power as a result.

Once you've got power going, you can do whatever you want with your bases. I use mine as remote launch sites, and they also support orbital space stations.

What resources should you be looking for when you're scouting for base sites? Depends on your mode of play - in Classic Stock, look for good amounts of Precious Metals and Minerite. In CRP, you want RareMetals and ExoticMinerals, and ideally you want Minerals as well since that lends itself to Konkrete production and the better facilities later on down the road (in that sense, it's easier to use the mod in Classic Stock than CRP mode, since Minerite is also what you want for Konkrete). Now, my definition of "good amount" is pretty loose - by it, I mean "any amount other than 'zero' or 'unknown'". Everything else is pretty incidental. Does lead me to one final piece of advice I'll offer for now since I should be doing my paying job instead of posting here: once you've picked your mode, stick with it. Changing modes on an established base is a good way to have it go from productive to worthless in an instant. Myself, I use CRP mode because that's what I started with a few versions back. I've fiddled with Classic Stock in my diagnostic build, and to be honest I kinda wish I was using it now - fewer questions, easier Slag production, etc...

Note to CRP users: noted in the latest version of Pathfinder today that Slag production needs a staffed Geology Lab Pondarosa with positive productivity; this has changed from the staffed Geology Lab Casa from the last version or two of the mod. Carry on.

Edited March 19, 2019 by capi3101

[JadeOfMaar]

Grand show-off time.

I'm so close to finishing...

But there are a dozen icons to make still (the converter template ones like IronWorks, BrewWorks... and the special Buckboard ones like the Ore-burner fuel cell). And there's the problem of varying degrees of overexposure on the part.

Snacks! This might change. I used Graham Crackers but someone asked me if Waffles, and Waffles sound so much better.

Edited March 20, 2019 by JadeOfMaar

[RocketSquid]

Would it be in bad form to repurpose the experiment lab module to generate some other resource? I'm trying to make a medical bay for Kerbal Health and I want there to be more to it than just a very high speed recuperation chamber.

[JadeOfMaar]

@RocketSquid I don't see a problem with that imo. Care to explain a bit? I'm curious to if this process exists in Kerbal Health already, what resources are required and if this process allows adding other resources.

[RocketSquid]

5 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@RocketSquid I don't see a problem with that imo. Care to explain a bit? I'm curious to if this process exists in Kerbal Health already, what resources are required and if this process allows adding other resources.

It just seemed weird using the experiment lab for something that wasn't experiments.

Kerbal Health has the recuperation effect, which restores a certain percentage of lost health per day. You can alternately/additionally tell it to heal a flat amount per day. You can't set it to use more than one resource, but you can set it to use an alternate resource besides electric charge.

So in this case, I've set up a module with a recuperation effect of 10% (very, very high; for heavily wounded kerbals this is probably better than being in the astronaut complex, while for healthy kerbals it is nearly useless) in a WBI template, told the module to use a new resource called MedicalCare instead of Electric Charge, and then set up an experiment lab module in the same template that will turn electric charge into MedicalCare at a 50:1 ratio while the module is crewed. If it detects a life support mod, it will also consume some life support resources.

 

Independently of this part, I'm also considering adding a flat health regen to the castillo, to represent it being a sort of home away from home. 

[JadeOfMaar]

@RocketSquid That sounds great, actually. The scope of the Castillo will welcome something like that, for that is why it exists. If you're willing and able to, do send files for well-rounded Kerbal Health integration. There are several folks who want to use WBI and Kerbal Health together, but nobody has yet shown experience and passion with both to get around to this. (This may or may not be due to be WBI being a rather large suite of mods.)

[Angelo Kerman]

@RocketSquid Sounds like a good idea. If you are concerned about using the Doc, the Casa/Ponderosa are designed for hab-related templates. So you could conceivably create a Medical Bay template and convert MedKits into the Kerbal Health stuff, and use other resources like Minerite, PreciousMetals, and the like to make the MedKits.

[capi3101]

I was about to suggest using the Pondarosa/Casa for a lower-efficiency medical effect - seems more of a natural fit there. Was off looking for something suitably mid-19th century to call it, in honesty...

Edited March 20, 2019 by capi3101

[RocketSquid]

9 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

I was about to suggest using the Pondarosa/Casa for a lower-efficiency medical effect - seems more of a natural fit there. Was off looking for something suitably mid-19th century to call it, in honesty...

I'm thinking of something like that as well. I'm calling the Doc-based one the "bones" or "sawbones", not sure which. The ponderosa/casa one could maybe be the "House Call"?

The cogs in my head have been set spinning, now I'm postulating a sort of multi-part medical supply chain:

1. MedKits get made in a hacienda (or anything with PATH_INDUSTRY) from varying resources depending on the mode. Precious metals, rare minerals/minerite, plus some clean water and ore.
2. They go to the sawbones, where they get turned into MedicalCare and maybe MedicalWaste. This is influenced by the skill of the attending scientist or medic, so a really skilled doctor can produce a slight surplus.
3. MedicalWaste goes back to the hacienda to be autoclaved, which spends water and electricity to recover some of the medical waste
4. MedicalCare gets used to rapidly heal one patient at a time in the Sawbones or to slowly heal the whole ship in the House Call. 
5. Both of them slow down health loss somewhat, and speed up disease recovery. 

Then the Castillo would give a flat +2 to health recovery, meaning that being in a base with a Castillo on any planet with adequate gravity is just as healthy as being in a base without one on kerbin; and a base on Kerbin with a Castillo is almost, but not quite as good as being in the Astronaut Complex.

Additionally, every Koncrete building would probably have some serious intrinsic radiation shielding just by the nature of their construction. That probably means another new resource, IntrinsicShielding or something to that effect, which would be fixed, hidden, and massless. 

Meanwhile the standard hab module would simply reduce confinement, and maybe increase connected (computer system, etc). The greenhouses would similarly provide an active reduction to confinement.

[RocketSquid]

Update: the Sawbones medical station template is pretty much done, all it needs is research storage and an icon of its own. It is a bit better than the stock science lab at disease control, and can spend MedKits (same density as researchkits but more expensive) and a lot of electric charge to produce MedicalCare and MedicalWaste. It also has a simple autoclave which can recycle medical waste at a 50% efficiency, producing slag equivalent to the remaining mass, and turning 5 water into dirty/greywater for every unit of medical waste processed. The Hacienda will later be able to get a better efficiency in with proper recycling, not just sterilization and reuse of basic equipment.

Two questions, though:

First, is the output of a WBI science lab per second, per tick, or per cycle? If it's per tick I'll need to lower the ratios, if it's per cycle I'll need to raise them dramatically

Second, can the crew requirements for the lab module be filled by any kerbals, scientists only, or any non-tourists? If it's any kerbals, the requirement is kinda pointless for this module; if it's scientists only, is there a way to include doctors in that; if it's scientists only or any non-tourists a EMH/Auto-Doc upgrade has potential.

[infinite_monkey]

Since I started MKS first, I use Pathfinder merely for some pretty parts and don't want to use its resources etc. I selected "pristine mode" in the WBI settings, but the resources still show up in the Tracking Station and S.C.A.N. overlay. Is there a way to disable them? Do I need to delete some folder?

[Space Kadet]

2 hours ago, infinite_monkey said:

Since I started MKS first, I use Pathfinder merely for some pretty parts and don't want to use its resources etc. I selected "pristine mode" in the WBI settings, but the resources still show up in the Tracking Station and S.C.A.N. overlay. Is there a way to disable them? Do I need to delete some folder?

if you are using the parts with MKS you want to be using pathfinder in the CRP mode as thats the resources used with MKS

[MacLuky]

Could be me, but I can't seem to stuff the inflatables into buckboards, i've even tried compressing them:

@PART[WBI_Chuckwagon|WBI_SmokePipe|WBI_Hacienda|WBI_DocSciLab]:NEEDS[KIS]
{
	MODULE[ModuleKISItem]
	{
		volumeOverride = 425
		editorItemsCategory = false
	}
}

But a Hacienda is still 4321L which is about 10 buckboards. Am I missing the point somewhere?

[infinite_monkey]

21 hours ago, Space Kadet said:

if you are using the parts with MKS you want to be using pathfinder in the CRP mode as thats the resources used with MKS

Thanks for the hint, didn't know that was possible. Anyway, the SCANsat map still only shows resources from Classic Stock Play Mode.

[capi3101]

1 hour ago, MacLuky said:

Could be me, but I can't seem to stuff the inflatables into buckboards, i've even tried compressing them:

@PART[WBI_Chuckwagon|WBI_SmokePipe|WBI_Hacienda|WBI_DocSciLab]:NEEDS[KIS]
{
	MODULE[ModuleKISItem]
	{
		volumeOverride = 425
		editorItemsCategory = false
	}
}

But a Hacienda is still 4321L which is about 10 buckboards. Am I missing the point somewhere?

I had this problem not too long ago. Which versions of Pathfinder and KIS are you using? Try rolling back to KIS 1.16 if you're using a later version. If you're using KIS 1.16 with Pathfinder 1.32.4.0, say so and we'll go from there.

[MacLuky]

34 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

I had this problem not too long ago. Which versions of Pathfinder and KIS are you using? Try rolling back to KIS 1.16 if you're using a later version. If you're using KIS 1.16 with Pathfinder 1.32.4.0, say so and we'll go from there.

Will try, and thanks. Probably the latest KIS, 1.16 wasn't for KSP 1.6.1 I think..

[capi3101]

29 minutes ago, MacLuky said:

Will try, and thanks. Probably the latest KIS, 1.16 wasn't for KSP 1.6.1 I think..

No, it wasn't - KIS 1.16 was for KSP 1.5.x. But the later versions of KIS haven't played particularly well with Pathfinder or some of the other mods that work with Pathfinder, OSE Workbench being probably the most noteworthy example. 

AVC will tell you that you're not using the latest KIS version, but it's a small price to pay if it lets the mod work the way it should, IMHO.

[RocketSquid]

I have now completed the sawbones and the house call, except for the icons (sawbones currently uses the doc icon, and house call uses the ponderosa hab).

I have made one change from the original plan: The house call can slowly produce medical kits (as in, one every two days slowly) from ore (5/day), organics/plants (1/day), water (10/day), and electric charge (5/second), akin to how the Blacksmith can produce equipment using only ore and electric charge. This isn't enough to run even a single sawbones, but it is enough to extend the benefits of the house call to a crew of five.

Next step: The NeedleWorks medical supply plant.

Edited March 25, 2019 by RocketSquid

[Sky The Heck]

I feel like this mod goes well with Planet packs, OPT, and *insert popular interplanetary and interstellar part mod here*. Something about going to a distant world and setting up a temporary colony is just really interesting. Can't wait to muck around with the sandcastle parts!

[MacLuky]

On 3/25/2019 at 9:50 PM, capi3101 said:

No, it wasn't - KIS 1.16 was for KSP 1.5.x. But the later versions of KIS haven't played particularly well with Pathfinder or some of the other mods that work with Pathfinder, OSE Workbench being probably the most noteworthy example. 

AVC will tell you that you're not using the latest KIS version, but it's a small price to pay if it lets the mod work the way it should, IMHO.

Yes that works!

[capi3101]

32 minutes ago, MacLuky said:

Yes that works!

Glad to hear it. If you do need any additional help with anything, feel free to ask.

[Angelo Kerman]

On 3/25/2019 at 6:08 PM, Sky The Heck said:

I feel like this mod goes well with Planet packs, OPT, and *insert popular interplanetary and interstellar part mod here*. Something about going to a distant world and setting up a temporary colony is just really interesting. Can't wait to muck around with the sandcastle parts!

Glad you’re enjoying the mod.  Sandcastle gives you more of a permanent settlement but you also get better resource converters and things like tracking station dishes. And once I get the 3D printer done, you’ll be able to create your colonies without the need for kerbals on site- similarly to NASA’s 3D Habitat Challenge. Personal issues have been delaying my modding of late, but hopefully this weekend I will have another update..

24 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Glad to hear it. If you do need any additional help with anything, feel free to ask.

This is good info! Good to hear that KIS 1.16 still works with Pathfinder. The mod has had a longtime dependency on KIS and KAS, so it’s good that there is a version that still works.

[RocketSquid]

5 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Glad you’re enjoying the mod.  Sandcastle gives you more of a permanent settlement but you also get better resource converters and things like tracking station dishes. And once I get the 3D printer done, you’ll be able to create your colonies without the need for kerbals on site- similarly to NASA’s 3D Habitat Challenge. Personal issues have been delaying my modding of late, but hopefully this weekend I will have another update..

This is good info! Good to hear that KIS 1.16 still works with Pathfinder. The mod has had a longtime dependency on KIS and KAS, so it’s good that there is a version that still works.

Oh god, I've been waiting for the ability to do this for literally years. Not from this mod specifically, but the ability to have a base waiting for my kerbals has long been a goal of mine. And at the rate at which I make progress in my KSP games, you will almost certainly have finished the 3D printer before I have even finished my Mun program.

On a somewhat related note, the needleworks is done. There are some things to iron out, but ideally I should have what I have tentatively named the WBI Medical Expansion done by the end of the week.