[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9

[The-Doctor]

@ShotgunNinja the remotetech guys are pushing to make remotetech be simply an upgrade of commnet, soon remotetech will only add a few features on top of remotetech. I advise that you implement the loss of signal due to coronal mass ejection to commnet and later work with the remotetech guys so that your coronal mass ejections loss of signal is added to the stock comment and works with the coming remotetech upgrade to commnet

[podbaydoor]

When the devs go ahead and implement their own version of mods in stock i.e.

• Remote tech --> commnet
• ScanSAT --> kerbnet
• FAR --> 1.0 aerodynamics (sort of)

do you they usually contact the devs and work with them? Seems lame to take inspiration from modders and then pull the rug out from under them without notice. I would like to see all the best mods polished and implemented in stock if the credit goes where it's due.

[goldenpsp]

2 hours ago, podbaydoor said:

When the devs go ahead and implement their own version of mods in stock i.e.

• Remote tech --> commnet
• ScanSAT --> kerbnet
• FAR --> 1.0 aerodynamics (sort of)

do you they usually contact the devs and work with them? Seems lame to take inspiration from modders and then pull the rug out from under them without notice. I would like to see all the best mods polished and implemented in stock if the credit goes where it's due.

Probably a question best asked in a different thread.  But a couple things to keep in mind.  First stock features are totally different beasts from mods.  The API is different and hence you will never see a mod simply sucked into stock.  Also since mods are typically written under open source licenses this is another reason mods will never just be sucked into stock.  Stock features are written from the ground up in the game.

Many if not all of the features you reference were written by modders, under contract by Squad.  Kerbnet (if you are talking about scanning in reference to stock IRSU) was written by @RoverDude and took inspiration from his own mods, namely Karbonite and regolith (his resource engine).  I know @RoverDude also was the primary creator of comnet, and wrote it from scratch.  For all we know squad always intended to do a better aerodynamics engine at some point.

In all of these cases the feature was announced way in advance so nobody got the rug pulled out without notice.

[Ketaz]

Does this work with current version and how do I install it?

[goldenpsp]

12 minutes ago, Ketaz said:

Does this work with current version and how do I install it?

No.

You install it like any other mod.

[Drew Kerman]

small suggestion - include this thread link in the ReadMe file. It's referenced in the first FAQ but never provided.

[ShotgunNinja]

@The-Doctor Maybe I can force CommNet to lose signal during CME, I'll do some experiments.

@Drew Kerman Make sense.
 

Update on what's going on on the development side.

Background data transmission
Found a way to isolate it from the science system (see below), and also work with other mods that add experiments. So it will be a part of Signal in next version, hopefully.

Science delayed
Yeah, it is very tricky to refactor the science system and at the same time support third-party mods that add experiments, even custom ones. And it is taking too much time, so it has been postponed for a later version. But it is coming, that much I guarantee.

Reliability changes
The reliability system always had some fundamental issues:

• need special code support for every type of module
• either MTBF are too low and the malfunctions too much of a pain, or too high and the whole mechanic became meaningless
• manufacturing quality improving with tech was confusing, and didn't really add any player choice at design time
• probes are penalized in general
• with an engineer on board malfunctions became a non-issue

So in a few days of inspiration I managed to improve on all of these issues, and here's how:

• support arbitrary modules, without special code required
• components can malfunction or have a critical failure: in both cases the component cease to function
• malfunctioned components can be repaired, critical failures can't
• critical failures are much less frequent than malfunctions
• malfunctions on unmanned vessels have a chance of being repaired remotely
• when a component break, others in the same 'redundancy group' are less likely to break
• quality is specified per-component, in the VAB
• high quality mean extra cost and/or mass, so the user has to choose between higher MTBF and lower mass/cost

All of this can be customized in Settings, so that you can have probes never malfunction or even disable critical failures. Here's the new settings

Spoiler

QualityScale = 5.0                  // scale applied to MTBF for high-quality components
CriticalChance = 0.1                // proportion of malfunctions that lead to critical failures
SafeModeChance = 0.5                // proportion of malfunctions fixed remotely for unmanned vessels
IncentiveRedundancy = true          // each malfunction will increase the MTBF of components in the same redundancy group

 

What's left to do is to add a comprensive 'redundancy analysis' to the planner, and to decide whenever life support systems should malfunction or not.

A few screenshots to explain the changes better: in the part tooltip you can see the differences in MTBF between standard and high quality, and the extra mass/cost required for high quality.

and here how quality is selected per-component in the VAB

 

That's all for today, next week: buggy, unbalanced beta release? Who knows 

 

[PieBue]

8 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

[...]

That's all for today, next week: buggy, unbalanced beta release? Who knows 

 

I'd be glad to see a beta release. Right know I don't play KSP because Kerbalism is missing

[APlayer]

8 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

That's all for today, next week: buggy, unbalanced beta release? Who knows 

No matter who does, he is awesome! 

Thanks a lot for sharing! I am totally excited now. And let me know if you need some testing, I'd be glad to do it!

[Gotmachine]

The reliability overhaul seems great in every aspect, you really have a thing for game mechanics design ! If you give us a beta release, I've got some time on my hands to test the balance and report bugs. Quick perfectionist observation : in the reliability module VAB text, you could use the "√" (square root) sign instead of $ for the currency symbol (unless there is a way to use the real ksp currency symbol).

[APlayer]

Do you also plan SSTU support? Since they added quite a few inflatable and other hab parts recently.

If not, I might give it a shot and try to make a few MM patches for it.

[Tiger98H]

Hi all! I am using Kerbalism with TAC patch in KSP 1.1.3. The fuels cells seem to not function in the background.  Edit: fuel cell works correctly on its own. 

Situation: I have a crewed vessel landed on the Mun that is drilling, converting fuel, using fuel cells and maintaining an EC gain. However, whenever the vessel is unloaded, it loses EC as if the fuel cells are not working. When I load the vessel EC begins to increase again. 

Any thoughts? 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Tiger98H
Correcting old information

[ShotgunNinja]

15 hours ago, APlayer said:

If not, I might give it a shot and try to make a few MM patches for it

That would be welcomed, I'll make sure to write some documentation for the new modules.

 

53 minutes ago, Tiger98H said:

Hi all! I am using Kerbalism with TAC patch in KSP 1.1.3. The fuels cells seem to not function in the background.

Situation: I have a crewed vessel landed on the Mun that is drilling, converting fuel, using fuel cells and maintaining an EC gain. However, whenever the vessel is unloaded, it loses EC as if the fuel cells are not working. When I load the vessel EC begins to increase again. 

Any thoughts?

The previous resource simulation had some issues with 'resource loops', and it has been rewritten to address that issue in the upcoming version. 

[Tiger98H]

@ShotgunNinja Thanks a lot! I also just tested the fuel cell alone and it is functional. Will edit my previous post. 

[ShotgunNinja]

I'm analyzing some scenarios about data transmission in reality. This is the curiosity rover, the X-BAND antennas are used to communicate directly with DSN, the Low-Gain one is mostly used for basic telemetry and to upload commands to point the High-Gain one. The High-Gain antenna has a transmission window of a few minutes per-day, so most of the data goes through a Mars orbiter. In that case communications happen in UHF using dedicated Low-Gain antennas in both the rover and the orbiter. The orbiter then use its High-Gain to communicate with DSN.

 

Two of our outer space probes. Voyager (here at Jupiter) and New Horizons. There is nothing much to do at these distances but relying on star tracking systems to keep the High-Gain antennas pointed in the right direction, and using big ones. From the launch of Voyager the DSN was upgraded both physically as well as in signal analysis.

 

The crazy sixties, a time of big budgets and even bigger balls.  From the Low-Gain antenna of Mercury to the Unified S-BAND of Apollo.

[The-Doctor]

19 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I'm analyzing some scenarios about data transmission in reality. This is the curiosity rover, the X-BAND antennas are used to communicate directly with DSN, the Low-Gain one is mostly used for basic telemetry and to upload commands to point the High-Gain one. The High-Gain antenna has a transmission window of a few minutes per-day, so most of the data goes through a Mars orbiter. In that case communications happen in UHF using dedicated Low-Gain antennas in both the rover and the orbiter. The orbiter then use its High-Gain to communicate with DSN.

 

Two of our outer space probes. Voyager (here at Jupiter) and New Horizons. There is nothing much to do at these distances but relying on star tracking systems to keep the High-Gain antennas pointed in the right direction, and using big ones. From the launch of Voyager the DSN was upgraded both physically as well as in signal analysis.

 

The crazy sixties, a time of big budgets and even bigger balls.  From the Low-Gain antenna of Mercury to the Unified S-BAND of Apollo.

I'm a bit worried about this mods interaction with remotetech. If you plan on adding the coronal mass ejection black out would it also work with reotetech? Also, how do you think this mod will interact with Galileos planets pack?

[ShotgunNinja]

@The-Doctor I had a look at how to disable connection for a vessel using CommNet, but it doesn't seem to be possible unless I disable all antenna modules in that vessel. That is rather unelegant. So for now there will be no interaction between CME events and CommNet or other third-party mods that add things to CommNet. I will revisit this at a later date, eventually.

Any planet pack should work out of the box ( as long as they don't add new stars). Ideally you want to create custom radiation definitions for the celestial bodies and maybe add some planetary resource definitions as well, but that's it.

[kraden]

8 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

 

Any planet pack should work out of the box ( as long as they don't add new stars). Ideally you want to create custom radiation definitions for the celestial bodies and maybe add some planetary resource definitions as well, but that's it.

Would you be willing to make a little guide on that for those of us who don't know how? 

[APlayer]

8 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@The-Doctor I had a look at how to disable connection for a vessel using CommNet, but it doesn't seem to be possible unless I disable all antenna modules in that vessel. That is rather unelegant.

What about temporarily decreasing the antennae's ranges? This actually seems more realistic, even, than to fully disable it. Just make the range 0.5% or so, and revert back to normal once the CME is over.

[RandyRawgust]

How do I combat radiation? I can't seem to find any answers.

[APlayer]

There is a resource called passive shielding, and an active shield.

[RandyRawgust]

I'm searching, how can I raise my shielding on a craft? Sorry, I really appreciate your help.

[podbaydoor]

It's a resource you can add to habitable parts like fuel. Just right click the part in the VAB and drag the shielding slider.

[The-Doctor]

4 hours ago, RandyRawgust said:

I'm searching, how can I raise my shielding on a craft? Sorry, I really appreciate your help.

right click on the part, the resource bar will appear, use the slider to increase shielding. If you have an active shield, do the same to increase intensity of the active shield

with remotetech installed will Kerbalisms signal deactivate like previous versions?

[RandyRawgust]

So I don't have the option to raise intensity on my capsule. I found the parts, but the shield is too big for my craft and I can't tweak scale. 

So I don't have the option to raise intensity on my capsule. I found the parts, but the shield is too big for my craft and I can't tweak scale. Also, I'm in 1.1.3.