[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9

[Nansuchao]

About EC, I agree that the stock system it's unbalanced. It's possible to see the differences in RO, where solar panels produce much less energy, but the batteries contains much much more energy. @ShotgunNinja can I suggest, other than the current EC system, that I mostly agree, to tweak the stock batteries via MM to make them store more and more energy?

[BigFatStupidHead]

Hey @ShotgunNinja, I'm really liking how this is coming along , and I'm looking forward to trying it once you get CRP compatibility hammered out. I am going to echo Gotmachine's ambivalence towards the changes in EC though; they seem to be more of a part-count cost than a game-play enhancement.

[ShotgunNinja]

@Gotmachine The objective was to force the player to not rely on solar panels beyond duna, and use alternative methods of EC production. Up to duna, a single flat solar panel is enough to climatize and maintain the scrubber for 1 kerbal.

About the scrubber: even at 50% efficiency, its still halving the oxygen required. I don't know how to incentive the player to use scrubbers more. They take a tiny amount of electricity. And you only need Miniaturization (that's early) to push efficiency to 60%. And the other ones aren't far either. I assumed interplanetary missions would be midgame at least.

About the greenhouse: you aren't forced to set the lamps to the max but if you do, you should be able to maintain that with a gigantor up to dres.

About batteries: you don't need much of them, just enough to cover the shadow time. Also in mid/late game the batteries size start becoming substantial.

About ISRU: use fuel cells with that, if you want them solar-powered then you need an impressive solar panel array.

For the reaction wheels I already removed the tweak in my dev version. On the inline oxygen I agree its desiderable, maybe it will come.

In general I agree tweaks should be kept to a minimun and I'm slowly phasing them out. Also I'm considering scaling all EC consumption/production by 4 times.

 

@mixalios Thanks, I'm glad you are enjoing it. The next version will bring toggable malfunctions highlights, so you don't have to click on all the parts...

The greenhouse isn't growing it seems. The possible causes include: shutters closed, in shadow, way beyond eeloo orbit. If none of this apply, it may be a bug and in that case send me some more info.

The experiments biome/situation has been tweaked, so that is intended behaviour. The gravity detector only work in space (biome dependent), atmospheric analysis only work in flight (biome dependent). The objective was to try to reduce 'spamming' research in every biome/situation combination.

 

@CapitanMolon Please make sure you have ModuleManager installed, it sounds like its missing.

I'm adding Shielding to every part that you can fit a kerbal into, so that's why you see the Shielding in the freezers I guess. I'll think of something to avoid that.

 

@Nansuchao I'm already considering it, I'm thinking of adding 50 EC per-kerbal on all manned pods, what you think?

 

@BigFatStupidHead See aswer to Gotmachine, I'll be repeating the same otherwise.

 

Thanks for all the great feedback gents.

Edited May 5, 2016 by ShotgunNinja

[BigFatStupidHead]

hmm... if the point is to reduce a players reliance on panels further from the sun, why not tweak their power generation based on range from it? The square-distance or inverse square law or something like that?

 

Edit: I see KSP already follows the inverse square law.

 

Edited May 5, 2016 by BigFatStupidHead

[ShotgunNinja]

@BigFatStupidHead Its already like that, of course. The output depend on flux, and the flux is equal to solar_luminosity / (4PI * dist^2).

 

I see what you mean, I guess that's relevant more on the balance between panels and EC consumers more than anything else. That's why I'm considering scaling EC production and consumption equally, to maintain this balance but avoid tweaking all other mods. But the ratio between panel outputs and consumers is maintained.

Edited May 5, 2016 by ShotgunNinja
clarified

[Nansuchao]

31 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

 

 I'm already considering it, I'm thinking of adding 50 EC per-kerbal on all manned pods, what you think?

It seems fair. But can you consider maybe 100? In the early game, with a single kerbal pod and with just maybe the little battieries, it's difficult to survive a couple of orbit around Kerbin if you think to transmit some science back to KSC and use the scrubber for a while.

[ShotgunNinja]

@Nansuchao What if I move the small fixed panel to, lets say, basic science instead?

[Nansuchao]

It would be great!

[CapitanMolon]

38 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@CapitanMolon Please make sure you have ModuleManager installed, it sounds like its missing.

I'm adding Shielding to every part that you can fit a kerbal into, so that's why you see the Shielding in the freezers I guess. I'll think of something to avoid that.

Probably was that, after I installed Deepfreeze all the issues solved, anyway, tahnks for the support! I love your mod

[BigFatStupidHead]

18 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

 That's why I'm considering scaling EC production and consumption equally, to maintain this balance but avoid tweaking all other mods. But the ratio between panel outputs and consumers is maintained.

Sounds good!

[Gotmachine]

1 hour ago, ShotgunNinja said:

In general I agree tweaks should be kept to a minimun and I'm slowly phasing them out. Also I'm considering scaling all EC consumption/production by 4 times.

Then please keep stock parts at stock values and scale the scrubber, gravity ring and greenhouse consumptions accordingly. I understand the restrictions you want to achieve (ISRU is end-game and needs fuel cells, beyond Duna is end-game and need non-solar power) but my point is that they are arbitrary restrictions. They don't make the game harder, easier, better, they just are arbitrary rules that restrict existing choices that were possible in the stock game. I want to be able to use an ISRU before I have access to the fuel cell array, this is the point of having a tech tree, to be able to make choices as a player.

But ok, let's say we want to nerf solar panels. Just double or triple their weight, it would be a lot more effective than reducing their EC output. Reducing EC output can be compensated by adding more panels. More parts, more lag. I hate lag. Everyone hate lag. It's a very frustrating way of nerfing something. And if you really want to make solar panels ineffective on far away planets, just use a more punitive formula than the stock solar_luminosity / (4PI * dist^2).

Edited May 5, 2016 by Gotmachine

[ShotgunNinja]

@Gotmachine I'm not going to can't change the formula because its based on physics and most importantly its used by the stock game when the vessel is loaded, while I just implement it for the unloaded ones. So they have to be the same to make sure the EC production is coherent between loaded and unloaded vessels.

If you want you can delete EnergyTweaks.cfg, I know those changes are opinionated and that's why I called them tweaks. You can delete it freely, the mod will keep working.

I tested a lot the balance of EC in general before release. Never once I had more than 1 (one) battery, the best the tech could offer at the time. Same thing with the panels, I never had more that a few, usually just a couple. I think you are too early in the tech tree to do manned missions that far, send probes first and use the resulting science

I welcome suggestions to the balance, but please do not simply suggest to revert to the stock EC rates. Because they are an unplayable mess of random numbers.

 

EDIT small test in the planner:

Spoiler

 

Edited May 5, 2016 by ShotgunNinja
did a test in the planner

[dboi88]

1 hour ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I tested a lot the balance of EC in general before release. Never once I had more than 1 (one) battery, the best the tech could offer at the time. Same thing with the panels, I never had more that a few, usually just a couple. I think you are too early in the tech tree to do manned missions that far, send probes first and use the resulting science

I bought the game on steam for the first time a little after 1.1 release, your's was the first mod installed and I've just knocked up 100 hours playing a career with kerbalism, other than the malfunction issues and the food being a little too heavy i've not noticed any other balance issues. I don't see any need to change anything with the electricity and solar panels.

[ShotgunNinja]

@dboi88 That's good to hear. 100h in last couple a weeks is really dedicated  Both malfunctions and food/oxygen weights are being addressed in 0.9.9.5, to be released this weekend.

[Razorfang]

Since Deep freeze was mentioned, I need to ask. Does radiation exposure still accrue when a Kerbal is frozen by this mod? It would make the freezers even more useful if it did not.

[ShotgunNinja]

@Razorfang Absolutely. DeepFreeze call a small function in Kerbalism to 'disable' frozen kerbals. That way they are ignored by all mechanics, including radiation. As a little bonus the kerbal 'status bars' in the vessel info window turn light blue for the frozen kerbals.

[Norcalplanner]

After playing with this for a few weeks, I'm still really liking it. However, I do think that the solar panels, especially the deployable ones, are nerfed too much when other mods are taken into account. For example, I had a satellite in polar orbit doing a biome survey of Kerbin using the appropriate Scansat part.  Even though I had six deployable solar arrays on this satellite, and had oriented the satellite so that all panels were receiving full sunlight, it still wasn't enough. The scanner part used 1.6 ec/s, which is more than the panels could provide. It seemed out of whack to have the satellite running out of power in full sunlight with that many arrays.

[ShotgunNinja]

I'm looking for brave 'volunteers' to try this prerelease (link removed). MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SAVEGAME FIRST!
I need feedback on these aspects in particular:

- upon loading a savegame from 0.9.9.4, is there any undesidered behaviour in your existing vessels?
- does food and oxygen resources scale up correctly, is your life expectancy the same?
- try the barebone and snacks profiles, write your own, tweak the default one
- try a resque mission, even one with the kerbal to be resqued on EVA
- check if SCANsat sensors disable/re-enable correctly in background when out of EC
- check if NearFuture reactors, fission generators and radioisotope generators work in background
- that's it

 

Edited May 7, 2016 by ShotgunNinja
link removed

[sp1989]

1 hour ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I'm looking for brave 'volunteers' to try this pre-release. MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SAVEGAME FIRST!
I need feedback on these aspects in particular:

- upon loading a savegame from 0.9.9.4, is there any undesidered behaviour in your existing vessels?
- does food and oxygen resources scale up correctly, is your life expectancy the same?
- try the barebone and snacks profiles, write your own, tweak the default one
- try a resque mission, even one with the kerbal to be resqued on EVA
- check if SCANsat sensors disable/re-enable correctly in background when out of EC
- check if NearFuture reactors, fission generators and radioisotope generators work in background
- that's it

 

 

AWESOME! I have not noticed any issues. I tried everything you mentioned except for the near future testing. I am sure someone else will give it ago but 6 out of 7 are a go from me. 

Once Science Alert and Kerbal Alarm Clock are updated I can start my new offical Career. UNLESS Squad comes out with another mod breaking update. 

Edited May 6, 2016 by sp1989

[Razorfang]

Does this release disable the signal mechanics with RemoteTech? I'll try that too.

[mav5781]

2 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I'm looking for brave 'volunteers' to try this pre-release. MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR SAVEGAME FIRST!
I need feedback on these aspects in particular:

- upon loading a savegame from 0.9.9.4, is there any undesidered behaviour in your existing vessels?
- does food and oxygen resources scale up correctly, is your life expectancy the same?
- try the barebone and snacks profiles, write your own, tweak the default one
- try a resque mission, even one with the kerbal to be resqued on EVA
- check if SCANsat sensors disable/re-enable correctly in background when out of EC
- check if NearFuture reactors, fission generators and radioisotope generators work in background
- that's it

 

 

The food and oxygen resources were missing in the menu. So you are unable to see how much you have on your ship and how many days you have left.

[DarkonZ]

Hah! Is it possible to read minds over the internet?. Just got the 1.1.2 KSP set up for use and at least it didn't crash. Then I wondered about Kerbalism. I wondered if SN had any 'on-call' testing team. Apparently not, so instead he calls for volunteers. I was on the verge of offering an email address to SN where he could send builds of the mod for specific testing. Guess the testing should be in the wild of course.

Anyway, can't wait to see what evil plans you have in store SN. Yes, and yes again... You'll make yourself famous!

[Rhedd]

@ShotgunNinja

I'm super-excited to start testing the new customizable version! Thanks!

Edited May 6, 2016 by Rhedd
Removed unnecessary complaint

[dboi88]

6 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I'm looking for brave 'volunteers' to try this pre-release. 

I'm downloading now.

7 minutes ago, Rhedd said:

@ShotgunNinja

I'm super-excited to start testing the new customizable version, but I've got to take a moment to mention something that I HATE (yes, I said HATE) about your mod...

You're writing your .CFG files in Linux, aren't you?

Windows doesn't recognize a 1bit Linux line-break, so all of the CFGs are an unbroken wall (or long single line, if you turn off word-wrap) of text that is maddening to try to read.

I know it's a silly complaint and you probably don't have a choice, but if you do, please don't do that. Your mod isn't the first I've run into like this, and I've even made some myself when I was using Linux, but it makes me want to cry every time I try to figure out the code in a file like this.

I'm surprised you've never run into this before, i see it all the time although never knew the cause. Use Notepad++ and you'll never see this issue again.

[cheshirejak]

I greatly appreciate what this mod represents: a well consolidated difficulty modifier. Thank you for the hard work. I haven't taken too much of a swing at it yet, but plan to this weekend.

 

Feature/gimmick idea/question: Would there be any way to "Double Check" the reliability of the machine before launch: Cost would increase by a portion but malfunction rate would decrease? I should hold my comment till the next release but I'm concerned about long range probes.