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

[JadeOfMaar]

@tonimark I've had a recent encounter with that particular kraken, and I remember getting really annoyed by the same back in KSP 1.6. (The Mun ate my Mun camp Or: I guess I built upon a sinkhole in the Mun cheese.) Angel-125 has already made provisions for stock construction. Any of his parts that provide inventory use stock by default, but can be tweaked to have any portion of stock and KIS volume, or only KIS volume.

What I suggest is that you ground-attach a KAS ground pylon (maybe the clone that has a command module, especially if you don't plan to have a proper drone core in your base) or deploy a stock Stamp-O-Tron. Possibly put a girder over the anchor part for some ground clearance and you're all set for further base-building, properly anchored and protected from that kraken (unless you build really wide and really heavy).

...

57 minutes ago, tonimark said:

modern inventory system

Spoiler

Bazinga!

 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by JadeOfMaar

[capi3101]

16 hours ago, TycoonTitian01 said:

I've run into an issue; I am trying to make a Castillo base, but equipment printers need precious metals and minerite, but they are not in my game. What should I do?

actually it may I need to change it to CRP, will that change the resource requirements?

Precious Metals and Minerite are present in Classic Stock mode only; switching to CRP mode will change those to Rare Metals and Minerals. Switching game modes will change the concentrations of whatever resources are available at the site on which you're attempting to build, fair warning - you always want to be sure to do as thorough of an orbital biome survey as you can manage ahead of establishing a base at a particular site so that you can be sure you can expand it in situ if that's what you're planning on doing. For that reason, I'd recommend putting your base-seeding equipment on a rover, so that if need be you can pack up and move to another biome. I would also recommend including at least one Micro ISRU unit so that, if needed, you can print up equipment from alternative resources. 

Resource concentrations to pay attention to are Rare/Precious Metals, Minerals/Minerite, Rock, Metal Ore, Ore, Exotic Minerals and Uraninite, in that order of importance. Most sites won't have Rock but where it exists, it's a pretty awesome way to make Konkrete when the time comes. A polar-orbiting satellite with a narrow band scanner can tell you the concentrations of each biome as it passes over, and it's the fastest way of determining the optimal biome in which to put your base. You want to do that ahead of sending your base-seeding mission, so that if you decide you want to put your base somewhere off a world's equator you can do the necessary plane changes while it won't cost a lot of delta-v.

Make sure to have storage dedicated to whatever you're wanting to dig up, whether that's a dedicated Chuckwagon or an Omni Chuckwagon set to specific resources - sometimes the game won't mine something without the storage in place.

If you continue to have issues/questions, feel free to ask away; I or others here will do our best to answer them.

[namreK haidebeJ]

Whenever I try to change the configuration of a module in the editor, I get a "NullReferenceException: Object Reference not set to instance of an object". I also can't open the servo GUI on any KerbalActuators parts, and the whole Omni configure resource system seems to be bugged out. It used to work, but now the window won't even pop up.

Edited December 18, 2021 by namreK haidebeJ
another issue

[TycoonTitian01]

On 12/15/2021 at 9:10 AM, capi3101 said:

Precious Metals and Minerite are present in Classic Stock mode only; switching to CRP mode will change those to Rare Metals and Minerals. Switching game modes will change the concentrations of whatever resources are available at the site on which you're attempting to build, fair warning - you always want to be sure to do as thorough of an orbital biome survey as you can manage ahead of establishing a base at a particular site so that you can be sure you can expand it in situ if that's what you're planning on doing. For that reason, I'd recommend putting your base-seeding equipment on a rover, so that if need be you can pack up and move to another biome. I would also recommend including at least one Micro ISRU unit so that, if needed, you can print up equipment from alternative resources. 

Resource concentrations to pay attention to are Rare/Precious Metals, Minerals/Minerite, Rock, Metal Ore, Ore, Exotic Minerals and Uraninite, in that order of importance. Most sites won't have Rock but where it exists, it's a pretty awesome way to make Konkrete when the time comes. A polar-orbiting satellite with a narrow band scanner can tell you the concentrations of each biome as it passes over, and it's the fastest way of determining the optimal biome in which to put your base. You want to do that ahead of sending your base-seeding mission, so that if you decide you want to put your base somewhere off a world's equator you can do the necessary plane changes while it won't cost a lot of delta-v.

Make sure to have storage dedicated to whatever you're wanting to dig up, whether that's a dedicated Chuckwagon or an Omni Chuckwagon set to specific resources - sometimes the game won't mine something without the storage in place.

If you continue to have issues/questions, feel free to ask away; I or others here will do our best to answer them.

So I changed it to CRP, and I was able to get rare metals and exotic minerals with the strip miner, but now I cannot get minerals nor slag, is there a specific miner I need to use?

like do I have to use Regolith Drills?

[TycoonTitian01]

or should I say to hell with it and just use a rock melter converter

[TycoonTitian01]

wait is a lode from a core sample?

oh ok, so with CRP the stock drills I can get clean water and materials, but how do I get slag?

[TycoonTitian01]

oh ok, so with CRP the stock drills I can get clean water and materials, but how do I get slag?

Now Ive changed to Classic, but minerite is not in the game?

[TycoonTitian01]

I would like to use the CRP, but I also want to be able to have omniconverter for buildings, is there a way for both?

[capi3101]

6 hours ago, TycoonTitian01 said:

So I changed it to CRP, and I was able to get rare metals and exotic minerals with the strip miner, but now I cannot get minerals nor slag, is there a specific miner I need to use?

For minerals, double-check to make sure that they are present in the biome in which your base is located. Use a Geology Lab or a surface scanner to make the determination. If you do have Minerals present, your drills oughta be bringing it up. If they aren't, set up some dedicated storage.

Slag will also require a dedicated storage unit. I have had issues getting Slag in the past; I'm trying to remember if there was another step involved or not.

6 hours ago, TycoonTitian01 said:

or should I say to hell with it and just use a rock melter converter

Check your Rock first. If you've got it, use it. Most bodies in the system don't have it.
But then there's the Ore Melter converter...which is incidentally another good reason to pack a Micro ISRU with your build.
 

3 hours ago, TycoonTitian01 said:

Now Ive changed to Classic, but minerite is not in the game?

Once again, check to make sure it's in the biome. Anytime you shift modes, always go to your Geology Lab and make sure everything's there...

2 hours ago, TycoonTitian01 said:

I would like to use the CRP, but I also want to be able to have omniconverter for buildings, is there a way for both?

The Castillo structures will have omniconverters once you can get them built.

Edited December 19, 2021 by capi3101

[TycoonTitian01]

thanks, I think I'll keep it CRP and just get the Castillo up and running, thanks again for the help

15 hours ago, capi3101 said:

For minerals, double-check to make sure that they are present in the biome in which your base is located. Use a Geology Lab or a surface scanner to make the determination. If you do have Minerals present, your drills oughta be bringing it up. If they aren't, set up some dedicated storage.

Slag will also require a dedicated storage unit. I have had issues getting Slag in the past; I'm trying to remember if there was another step involved or not.

Check your Rock first. If you've got it, use it. Most bodies in the system don't have it.
But then there's the Ore Melter converter...which is incidentally another good reason to pack a Micro ISRU with your build.
 

Once again, check to make sure it's in the biome. Anytime you shift modes, always go to your Geology Lab and make sure everything's there...

The Castillo structures will have omniconverters once you can get them built.

 

[capi3101]

No problem. If you do find yourself having additional issues, feel free to ask; I've got a fair amount of free time coming up in the near future.

[TycoonTitian01]

1 hour ago, capi3101 said:

No problem. If you do find yourself having additional issues, feel free to ask; I've got a fair amount of free time coming up in the near future.

I set up Castillo, and also designed a mineral mining ship, which hops to a different crater on Minmus that has Minerals, thanks to your help, I can get rid of much of the slapped together ramshackle base I had before!

[MrBingo]

So.. About this "Equip screwdriver" thing. I can't put one in my kerbals inventory, nor in other compartments, thus I cannot set up the base. 

And yes I was following your tutorial. But it appears there's and issue somewhere. I only have your mod and the mods that go with it via CKAN.

[capi3101]

On 12/26/2021 at 2:48 AM, MrBingo said:

So.. About this "Equip screwdriver" thing. I can't put one in my kerbals inventory, nor in other compartments, thus I cannot set up the base. 

And yes I was following your tutorial. But it appears there's and issue somewhere. I only have your mod and the mods that go with it via CKAN.

You are using the KIS (Kerbal Inventory System) inventory right? Not the stock inventory system - the two are incompatable with one another and Pathfinder uses KIS's system.

[MalneyKerman]

I can't seem to use the stock drills for mining asteroids.  In the VAB there is a list of "harvesters" I might activate, but no such thing in flight.  I send up engineers to try to configure the drill, but no such options are available either aboard the ship or when the engineers go on EVA near the drill.

[Someone help me!]

I have a problem, when I click "alt + p" the game open a window of  winch configuration and not the pathfinder settings I dont know what to do...

[SkyFall2489]

@Angel-125,

It looks like Buffalo is a dependency for Pathfinder. Is that really necessary, or is it just to have a way to get the buckboards and boxed parts on-site? I want to use pathfinder, but Buffalo has a lot of parts I don't need...

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, SkyFall2489 said:

@Angel-125,

It looks like Buffalo is a dependency for Pathfinder. Is that really necessary, or is it just to have a way to get the buckboards and boxed parts on-site? I want to use pathfinder, but Buffalo has a lot of parts I don't need...

The Buckboards have been part of Wild Blue Tools for awhile, so you don't need Buffalo if you want to just delete that folder.

[SkyFall2489]

@Angel-125,

 

However, Buffalo is a dependency on CKAN. can you remove that?

[Angelo Kerman]

36 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

@Angel-125,

 

However, Buffalo is a dependency on CKAN. can you remove that?

No. Buffalo is part of Pathfinder and was originally not supposed to be a stand-alone mod. You can easily delete the Buffalo folder after installing Pathfinder.

[RocketSquid]

Okay, I've got the latest updates of KSP and pathfinder, and have confirmed that I have the latest WildBlueTools. However, I am getting the same problem someone reported a bit ago: No dialogue to change modes, and no ability to reconfigure parts.  Is it just a matter of 1.12.3 versus 1.12.2, or does it indicate a mod incompatibility?

[obnox twin]

Me don't want to scroll thru all the 129 pages but is kerbalism supported?

[Garuda]

Thinking of adding this to my save. What are the major differences between this and MKS?

[JadeOfMaar]

On 2/10/2022 at 9:28 PM, obnox twin said:

Me don't want to scroll thru all the 129 pages but is kerbalism supported?

For the most part they should not be incompatible but don't expect actual support (configs or plugin interaction) to exist. Try them together and find out. Then the next person who asks will have their answer.

1 hour ago, Garuda said:

Thinking of adding this to my save. What are the major differences between this and MKS?

Pathfinder bases are meant to be low-maintenance, portable research facilities, and not permanent, sprawling, industrial settlements like MKS. Like the thread title says, you're "space camping." Ideally, you can carry your whole base as deflated pieces in a large KIS container on a rover; take them out, assemble and do your work; deflate and put the pieces back in the container and continue trekking. But there's nothing to stop you from making a sprawling industrial settlement as if it was MKS.

Pathfinder doesn't have a maintenance mechanic like whatever revolves around the Machinery resource, but it can have the requirement on WBI's Equipment resource in order to inflate something or change what it can do. WBI's OmniConverter system is a godsend. Each part that is an OmniConverter can have any number of slots and each slot can have a value that scales the throughput of the converter module that you slip into it, and there's a tagging system to restrict what converter modules can be equipped. I've never used USI swap bays so I can't contrast the two well, but I'm quite confident you'll have equal or more options with WBI. There are easily a few parts that have more than 1 OmniConverter slot. Pathfinder also provides OmniStorage which lets you set any supporting tank to have any fractions or any number of resources, even including KIS volume and stock inventory volume all at once. If a resource exists in your game, you can search its name and tank it...unless it's blacklisted.

If you're looking for part wear and failure, check out Angel's EVA Repairs mod. Anything that contains these stock modules (engine, converter, harvester, reaction wheel) can wear down, fail, and will require stock Repair Kits in order to be restored, and can optionally permanently wear down and need to be replaced.

About "space camping" ...Pathfinder happens to include some very large boxed parts which require Equipment + Konkrete resources (so they're really expensive to deploy) but they have great capacities and several OmniConverter slots so it's really rewarding. They are the "Arcology"-ish permanent WBI settlement. Among these parts is a fusion reactor which requires FusionPellets and possibly a downpayment on ElectricCharge (see: FFT reactors).

Pathfinder includes its own rover mod, Buffalo. It tramples USI's Malemute with tank space, battery capacity and cargo space options. I'm comparing these two as they're in the same size class... But I bet USI's Karibou tramples back on Buffalo because it's bigger while having several of the same features.

 

[Biggen]

Is there an up-to-date tutorial anywhere?  I'm having a hard time getting started.  The video posted in the OP is 7 years old.  It took me an hour to figure out that the screwdriver needed in the written tutorial on the WIKI was from a different mod.  Shouldn't KIS/KAS be dependencies when installed via CKAN?

Its also unfortunate (for me learning the ropes anyway) that the name of this mod is the exact same as a real life Mars rover.  When doing a search for “Kerbal Pathfinder” on YouTube, you get the original 7 year old mod review posted in the OP, then a TON of rover how-to tutorials that have nothing to do with the mod and are useless.  A name like “Wagoner” or “Land Thief” or even “Pilgrim” would have made YouTube searches a hell of lot better.  
 

Ill keep plugging along. Seems like an amazing mod!

Edited February 19, 2022 by Biggen