A bit frustrated - my hopes for ksp 1.1

[Maukse]

Dear all,

My gaming experience with KSP has been great since the day I bought the beta (a little time before 0.24).
Learned the basic of rocket science, designed, launched missions, to Kerbin muns, and then up to Duna and Eve.

Then, found Mechjeb, SCANsat, Karbonite and I began to run space station and automated refueling network.
At the same time, I began to use SSTO design (the old soup-o-sphere, with basics Nuke/Jet mk2 SSTO reaching Laythe from Kerbin in one shot, thanks to the old' reentry "heat").

Then came KSP 1.0, and we quickly saw improvements in the atmospheric part of the game. Since 1.04, I am mostly designing planes, and a few SSTO.

But the truth is behind this is :

- Performance issues limits the possibility to play with massiv space stations / ships on my hardware

- The nerf of the nuke engine was a hard blow on interplanetary travels, need more parts to send a station+lander expedition to the Joolean system.

- ISRU is a no-go for me now, I can not imagine a stock automated refueling station design that can works on Joolean moons. So basically I've lost all interest in sending anything manned to Joolean moons, which is more or less the only big thing I still have to do in the game.

 

So, I'm loosing interest in the game.

I hope 1.1 will bring :

- A higher playable part count

- LF tanks in all adapter configuration, as LF+LO tanks today

- Changes in the ISRU mechanism - please could you do something to make automated refueling doable ? We do have CH-J3 giving "pilots skills", why not a board computer giving geology / engineering skills for mining operations ??? Else I don't see how I could send something to Laythe and back   :- /

[Pthigrivi]

What don't you like about stock ISRU?

[Superfluous J]

Odd that the game introducing new challenges has caused you to not want to play. I'm in the opposite boat. I've not played much because of Fallout there's nothing new to challenge me.

[Maukse]

5 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

What don't you like about stock ISRU?

Impossible for me to get an efficient, automated design.

With a 7.71% ore concentration, I can only get 0.005783 ore/s, for 15e/s.
Then I can convert this to 0.005247 LF/s & 0.0063613 LO/s

15 e/s it's almost like 1 fuel cell arrays working, that is 0.02025 LF/s & 0.02415 LO/s => a few times more and not taking in account the energy for the converter (!!!).

How am I supposed to deal with that ???

[steve_v]

6 hours ago, Maukse said:

I hope 1.1 will bring :

- A higher playable part count

Join the club. I generally loose interest and go play something else just as I'm getting to the "time to build a station / interplanetary ship" bit - where part counts exceed 150 or so and the rubbish performance starts to kick in. 
This cycle repeats every new release: Ooh, new parts / mechanics, shiny... plays game some... performance still sucks, stops playing.

33 minutes ago, Maukse said:

With a 7.71% ore concentration, I can only get 0.005783 ore/s, for 15e/s.
Then I can convert this to 0.005247 LF/s & 0.0063613 LO/s

15 e/s it's almost like 1 fuel cell arrays working, that is 0.02025 LF/s & 0.02415 LO/s => a few times more and not taking in account the energy for the converter (!!!).

How am I supposed to deal with that ???

Use something other than fuel-cells to power the refinery? Like solar panels, AKA free EC?

That said, I haven't actually got to using the ISRU bits at all yet, largely due to the games performance, or lack thereof.

Edited December 12, 2015 by steve_v
Less "'"

[Maukse]

9 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Use something other than fuel-cells to power the refinery? Like solar panels, AKA free EC?

 

That's almost impossible on Vall : / (too far away from Kerbol)

[steve_v]

8 minutes ago, Maukse said:

That's almost impossible on Vall : / (too far away from Kerbol)

Hmm, good point. Sounds like an excellent argument for stock nuclear reactors to me, considering that's the logical choice of powerplant for an automated off-world refinery....

Edited December 12, 2015 by steve_v

[Maukse]

Or a tenfold increase of the mining operation (without engineere), either straight tweaking of the formula, or introduction of a "mining computer" part that can do the job a get the same kind of bonus as an engineer.

[Windspren]

USI-Core has some great reactors if you don't want the complexity of NFT. After you have a decent source of EC, you're set. Just send the ISRU platform on an earlier transfer window and it will be full of fuel by the time your manned expedition gets there.

[Pthigrivi]

Does the mining rig have to be automated? Im also surprised people are having such performance issues. It must be mods? Im on a 4 year old macbook and stock runs quite nicely, even with several complicated vessels loaded. 

Edited December 12, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[Maukse]

45 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Does the mining rig have to be automated? Im also surprised people are having such performance issues. It must be mods? Im on a 4 year old macbook and stock runs quite nicely, even with several complicated vessels loaded. 

Of course it doesn't. I could just put an engineer there for years and the job will be done :-) but usually when I put a crew somewhere, it means adding tons of equipments !

Regarding performances - I do use mods (KER/MJ/SCANSat/KIS/KAS) and I do use IVA (with RPM&vesselview) so of course it is harmfull on the framerate !

[Superfluous J]

18 hours ago, Maukse said:

Of course it doesn't. I could just put an engineer there for years and the job will be done :-) but usually when I put a crew somewhere, it means adding tons of equipments !

Regarding performances - I do use mods (KER/MJ/SCANSat/KIS/KAS) and I do use IVA (with RPM&vesselview) so of course it is harmfull on the framerate !

ISRU is balanced for the stock game. If you add mods that make it harder, you can't really be frustrated at the game for it.

Personally I get around this by allowing (Via modulemanager config) the converter to convert ore to a necessary component of the life support, which makes self sufficiency possible. This may not be realistic, but if you want realistic you should probably not be doing much ISRU anyway

Edited December 13, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[Pthigrivi]

I usually play stock and have only toyed around with USI-LS. Do you know if its possible to convert ore to fertilizer? Because that could be a acceptable game mechanic. 

[Maukse]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

ISRU is balanced for the stock game. If you add mods that make it harder, you can't really be frustrated at the game for it.

Personally I get around this by allowing (Via modulemanager config) the converter to convert ore to a necessary component of the life support, which makes self sufficiency possible. This may not be realistic, but if you want realistic you should probably not be doing much ISRU anyway

I do not use any life-support mode. Just, It doesn't look nice to me to let a kerbal alone for years (decades ?) in a mkI lander.

 

[Commander Zoom]

Then arrange for crew rotation; or, if you must have full automation, accept the hit to your refinement rates.

[Maukse]

4 minutes ago, Commander Zoom said:

Then arrange for crew rotation; or, if you must have full automation, accept the hit to your refinement rates.

It's not a "hit" on the rate. It is not possible (not enough fuel generated to keep the fuell cells running).

[Superfluous J]

9 hours ago, Maukse said:

I do not use any life-support mode. Just, It doesn't look nice to me to let a kerbal alone for years (decades ?) in a mkI lander.

 

Your (reasonable) moral objections aside, that's part of the stock game.

[Commander Zoom]

Then use another power source.  (More) solar panels, or RTGs.

Or acknowledge, as 5th Horseman and others have said, that "stock" hinders you in some ways but benefits you in others; and if you choose to accept the hindrances but refuse to accept the benefits, on the grounds that they're unrealistic or whatever, and choose not to use a mod to fix it... at that point, it's all on you.

Stock gives you solutions to the problem, as do mods.  You have chosen to use neither.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Commander Zoom

[cfds]

17 hours ago, Maukse said:

It's not a "hit" on the rate. It is not possible (not enough fuel generated to keep the fuell cells running).

The reason why I will never use the Stock ISRU system untweaked is exactly the fact that there are situations where this works. Come on, we take use energy to harvest ore, we use energy to create fuel and oxidiser from it and then we convert a part of the such generated fuel and oxidiser and power the whole operation? I mean, you will be laughed out of the wackiest perpetuum mobile forum for this...

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, cfds said:

The reason why I will never use the Stock ISRU system untweaked is exactly the fact that there are situations where this works. Come on, we take use energy to harvest ore, we use energy to create fuel and oxidiser from it and then we convert a part of the such generated fuel and oxidiser and power the whole operation? I mean, you will be laughed out of the wackiest perpetuum mobile forum for this...

You realize that pretty much every oil mining operation on the Earth (in the "Real World") burns fossil fuels to power their pumps. Sure in KSP the fuel never runs out but that's more of a "It would be annoying" thing than anything else.

[cfds]

3 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

You realize that pretty much every oil mining operation on the Earth (in the "Real World") burns fossil fuels to power their pumps. Sure in KSP the fuel never runs out but that's more of a "It would be annoying" thing than anything else.

The burn the fossil fuel they pump and the oxygen that is floating around the air, where oxygen is about three quarters of the reaction mass. If the oxygen was also down in the oil way and would be pumped up and used then your analogy might make sense (as soon as it explains while the oil drills do find anything else but water and carbon dioxide).

[Pthigrivi]

You can also just set up with like 6 gigantors. That's what I've done. 

[John FX]

I like the way it is set up now, it sort of encourages a `mining base` which is heavy but can make a reasonable amount of fuel combined with fuel shuttles that can carry a reasonable amount of that to orbit.