[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9

[kraden]

@RandyRawgust if right clicking isn't giving you a shielding slider where the electricity and mono propellant sliders are I'd suspect something goofed on install and recommend a fresh install of kerbalism.

[ShotgunNinja]

12 hours ago, kraden said:

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

For the radiation definitions, nothing changed in the next version so this documentation here is still valid.

For the planetary resources, the format is defined by KSP stock resource system. Here is an example, with some documentation on the parameters:

Spoiler

// ============================================================================
// Planetary resources
// ============================================================================
//
// PresenceChance:
//    a value is choosen at random, per-biome, and if it's lower than what's
//    specified here then the resource is not present (act as a low-pass filter)
//    * scaled by 'resource abundance difficulty setting'
//    ! evalued even for atmospheric resources, use 1000 (max difficulty is 0.1)
//
// Min/MaxAbundance:
//    an abundance value is choosen at random in this range, per-biome
//    * scaled by 'resource abundance difficulty setting'
//
// Dispersal:
//    a noise pattern is generated using the map coordinates, scaled with this
//    value (lower values = coarse details, higher values = fine details)
//    * not used for atmospheric resources
//
// Variance:
//    the noise pattern is added to the abundance, using this value as weight
//    * not used for atmospheric resources


// Kerbin ---------------------------------------------------------------------

PLANETARY_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = Water
	ResourceType = 0
	PlanetName = Kerbin
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 100
		MinAbundance = 0
		MaxAbundance = 10
		Variance = 20
		Dispersal = 3
	}
}

PLANETARY_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = Nitrogen
	ResourceType = 2
	PlanetName = Kerbin
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 1000
		MinAbundance = 78
		MaxAbundance = 78
		Variance = 0
	}
}

PLANETARY_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = Oxygen
	ResourceType = 2
	PlanetName = Kerbin
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 1000
		MinAbundance = 21
		MaxAbundance = 21
		Variance = 0
	}
}

PLANETARY_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = CarbonDioxide
	ResourceType = 2
	PlanetName = Kerbin
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 1000
		MinAbundance = 0.5
		MaxAbundance = 0.5
		Variance = 0
	}
}


// Mun ------------------------------------------------------------------------

BIOME_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = Water
	ResourceType = 0
	PlanetName = Mun
	BiomeName = Polar Crater
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 1000
		MinAbundance = 5
		MaxAbundance = 10
		Variance = 5
		Dispersal = 3
	}
}

 

If you have any question feel free to ask and I'll be pleased to clarify.

 

 

[Gotmachine]

6 hours ago, RandyRawgust said:

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.

Seems that you forgot to install ModuleManager. Read the first post.

[The-Doctor]

@ShotgunNinja will kerbalism work normally with Galileos planet pack? Also, will when you cross the radiation belt of Gael say you're crossing the radiation belt of Gael rather than Kerbin?

[APlayer]

17 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

@ShotgunNinja will kerbalism work normally with Galileos planet pack? [...]

Yes, that's been answered:

On 11/22/2016 at 4:47 AM, The-Doctor said:

[...] Also, how do you think this mod will interact with Galileos planets pack?

 

On 11/22/2016 at 9:29 AM, ShotgunNinja said:

@The-Doctor [...] 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.

---

17 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

@ShotgunNinja [...] Also, will when you cross the radiation belt of Gael say you're crossing the radiation belt of Gael rather than Kerbin?

Obviously, yes.

---

Sorry if I broke any formatting, a lot of quoting in a WYSIWYG editor here.

[ShotgunNinja]

Quick update: messing with data

Found a way to hijack the science dialog to capture data from stock science experiments right into the new drive data storage system, that is used when Signal is enabled. Did a simple UI to manage the data, remove it and flag for transmission home. You open this ui just like you opened the old science container interface.

 

Then... Console is gone. Yeah, I know, I'm sad about it too. Lots of work went into the command interpreter but lets face it, it was way overkill. The useful functionality was refactored into a new 'device controller / script editor' that is not bad at all. You can use it to control all devices at once directly, and to edit scripts that are either triggered by events (such as: power is low, signal loss, etc) and also by pressing numeric keyboard buttons, pretty much like the custom action groups. Most of this was already there, but buried inside the Console. Now it has its own dedicated UI.

 

I also got some interesting design going for the antennas, that should represent low-gain and high-gain differences nicely, and at the same time not require to point the high-gain antennas at a specific target. I'll elaborate on that in a few days. 

[APlayer]

25 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Console is gone. Yeah, I know, I'm sad about it too. Lots of work went into the command interpreter but lets face it, it was way overkill. The useful functionality was refactored into a new 'device controller / script editor' that is not bad at all. [...] Now it has its own dedicated UI.

No worries. I don't think many people used it anyway (Seriously, I needed to think about it for a moment to even remember what console you mean!) because it was so well hidden. An own UI would definitely make things more user friendly, so you're doing the right thing.  At least in my opinion.

26 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

[...] I also got some interesting design going for the antennas, that should represent low-gain and high-gain differences nicely, and at the same time not require to point the high-gain antennas at a specific target. I'll elaborate on that in a few days. 

Amazing, can't wait for it!

[the_machemer]

Sometimes at high time warp my Minmus base runs out of EC due to day-night cycle even though it's fine normally. Is there anything I can do about that other than adding a ton of batteries? It currently has a pretty small margin, about 10-15% remaining by sunrise. 

Thanks

[podbaydoor]

@the_machemer If you land near the poles you'll actually end up getting perpetual indirect sunlight. Just make sure your panels can swivel and try not to land in a valley.

Alternatively, if you want a really cute solution, you can bring lots of empty ore tanks and fuel cells instead of batteries and just mine all day and run the fuel cells all night. With Kerbalism's console I think you can actually get this working, but I'm not sure if it saves you mass.

[the_machemer]

3 hours ago, podbaydoor said:

@the_machemer If you land near the poles you'll actually end up getting perpetual indirect sunlight. Just make sure your panels can swivel and try not to land in a valley.

Alternatively, if you want a really cute solution, you can bring lots of empty ore tanks and fuel cells instead of batteries and just mine all day and run the fuel cells all night. With Kerbalism's console I think you can actually get this working, but I'm not sure if it saves you mass.

Ok I think I wasn't detailed enough with my original description so here I go again . My Minmus base is at the equator, on top of a mountain, and has swiveling panels. It's designed with enough EC storage to last the long nights but only with about 15% to spare. Also the main battery pack is attached to the base via a KAS tube (not sure if relevant so I'm just putting it out there). The problem I've been having is that at high time warp the game seems to run into errors when calculating my EC consumption rate, especially when I'm not focusing on the base. 

Assuming it's not KAS related, I can probably fix the base by just adding a bunch more batteries since all my other crafts are fine and they have much larger EC margins. My question is whether this type of behavior is abnormal (possibly KAS related) or just some innate limitation of the game.

[podbaydoor]

At high time warp there is round-off error in the EC calculations, but last I heard that is always resolved in favor of extra power generation, and is in fact a known exploit.

There was a bug I brought up a few pages back on this forum where at high time warps Kerbalism would give you messages like "out of EC - all your kerbals burned up", but if you left time warp and checked on your vessel it actually had sufficient EC. So when you say EC isn't be calculated properly are you just getting warnings from Kerbalism or does your EC actually go to zero? If the former, @ShotgunNinja has a fix that will appear in the upcoming 1.2.1 patch.

[ShotgunNinja]

@the_machemer There is a problem with sunlight evaluation at the two (or three, depending on the body) highest timewarp speed, for unloaded vessels. It only occur if there are more than 1 vessel simulated, and is only noticeable if you have a big consumer like a greenhouse or a lab. It has been fixed in next version.

Also maybe related to your case, there was a bug in stock up until KSP 1.1.3 where solar panels were working at night on the surface of small bodies such as Minmus.

The KAS pipes should not be an issue, as long as they 'dock' the two vessels into one. To confirm this, you should see the two piped vessels as a single one in the monitor.

[ShotgunNinja]

Antennas can be in one of four modes:

This scheme is meant to represent the difference between low-gain and high-gain antennas, and at the same time to not require pointing the high-gain at a specific vessel. It also avoid the issue where an high-gain is effectively pointing in two different directions, forcing a 'relay vessel' to have at least two antennas. 

From my analysis of the scenarios I posted a few days ago, it seem that any high-gain antenna ever put into space was always and only pointed back at DSN. So the default mode of high-gains (that is 'mono') will be good enough to reproduce virtually any kind of reality-inspired mission, and the other two modes ('mono_receive' and 'mono_send') should instead cover anything else the user may come up with.

[APlayer]

34 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

[...] From my analysis of the scenarios I posted a few days ago, it seem that any high-gain antenna ever put into space was always and only pointed back at DSN. [...]

I am not sure, however, for the pedantry, what about Apollo's lunar rovers? They definitely had dishes, and I think they were able to communicate with the CSM in orbit. I have not done any research on this, however.

[ShotgunNinja]

@APlayer I'm going to assume they used a low-gain to communicate with the command module in orbit, and the high-gain to communicate directly with Earth when it was possible.

The distances are small in surface->orbit comms, so the advantage of high-gain (higher data rate or longer distances) are shadowed by their disadvantages (need to point precisely and keep it pointed).

Edited November 26, 2016 by ShotgunNinja

[panarchist]

On 11/26/2016 at 6:40 AM, ShotgunNinja said:

@APlayer I'm going to assume they used a low-gain to communicate with the command module in orbit, and the high-gain to communicate directly with Earth when it was possible.

The distances are small in surface->orbit comms, so the advantage of high-gain (higher data rate or longer distances) are shadowed by their disadvantages (need to point precisely and keep it pointed).

No need for assumptions, Apollo is ridiculously well-documented.  They did use a low-gain VHF antenna for LM-CSM communications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_antenna

and an S-Band hi-gain on the Service Module for communication with Mission Control via the DSN: 

I realized I answered the wrong question - though the answer was the same.  The LRV low-gain was for talking with the CSM, and the hi-gain was for direct to Earth - presumably because the LRV would have no LOS to the LM and possibly also not to the CSM most of the time - but Earth was always available - hence the HGA.

Edited November 30, 2016 by panarchist
Add detail on LRV antennae

[karst45]

Considering the 2800++ post on this mod and that i have a finite time in my life, please consider this if it already been answered.


First i would like to say this look really amasing, the way  you manages your ressource in a simple way is interresting. The psychological wellfair of the kerbal is quite novative. i cant wait to add this to my game, unfortunatly am in 1.2.1

So without putting any pressure, did you have an idea of when there would be a new update?

I was wondering, do the energy consuption for the life support is proportional to the size of your ship/station? or is it purely an "we have 2 kerbal so they consume 3ec/s" or a mixt of both. For say you have a station but then decide to remove your kerbal from it and let the computer handles things. Would it still consume power for the life support?

 

Could it be possible to actually possible for an engineer to tweek the power consuption of the life support in order to save power in case of emergency? much like in the Apollo 13 mission. Of course reducing this system would come at the price of a reduced "happyness"

also i read some of the post about the communication, Did you know that KSP 1.2.1 now have an option to black out communication while in reentry?

Keep up the great work

[ShotgunNinja]

@karst45

21 minutes ago, karst45 said:

did you have an idea of when there would be a new update?

Any time estimate will be wrong, so lets just say when it is done it will be released.

 

23 minutes ago, karst45 said:

I was wondering, do the energy consuption for the life support is proportional to the size of your ship/station? or is it purely an "we have 2 kerbal so they consume 3ec/s" or a mixt of both

In next version it will be. Each vessel has an internal volume measured in m^3, and the EC cost of climatization is related to both the volume and the difference with external temperature.

 

24 minutes ago, karst45 said:

For say you have a station but then decide to remove your kerbal from it and let the computer handles things. Would it still consume power for the life support?

It will not, unmanned vessels are not climatized. Also, you can depressurize the internal space in that case to avoid consuming nitrogen over time due to leaks.

 

28 minutes ago, karst45 said:

Could it be actually possible for an engineer to tweek the power consuption of the life support in order to save power in case of emergency? much like in the Apollo 13 mission. Of course reducing this system would come at the price of a reduced "happyness

There is something to this effect. Each habitat part (so, command pods and similar things) can be 'disabled' in flight, if nobody is inside. This effectively reduce the overall internal volume, with consequences on cost of climatization/pressurization (that is lowered) but also on the overall living space available (so the quality of life drop too). This to some extent is similar to the crew of the Apollo 13 going into the LM and shutting down the CM.

 

31 minutes ago, karst45 said:

also i read some of the post about the communication, Did you know that KSP 1.2.1 now have an option to black out communication while in reentry?

That is an interesting feature, but I don't think I can do something similar in the Signal system without some serious hacking to detect the plasma state on re-entry. And I can't use the state computed by KSP because that is only exposed when CommNet (the stock signal system) is enabled, I guess.

 

[The-Doctor]

2 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@karst45

Any time estimate will be wrong, so lets just say when it is done it will be released.

 

In next version it will be. Each vessel has an internal volume measured in m^3, and the EC cost of climatization is related to both the volume and the difference with external temperature.

 

It will not, unmanned vessels are not climatized. Also, you can depressurize the internal space in that case to avoid consuming nitrogen over time due to leaks.

 

There is something to this effect. Each habitat part (so, command pods and similar things) can be 'disabled' in flight, if nobody is inside. This effectively reduce the overall internal volume, with consequences on cost of climatization/pressurization (that is lowered) but also on the overall living space available (so the quality of life drop too). This to some extent is similar to the crew of the Apollo 13 going into the LM and shutting down the CM.

 

That is an interesting feature, but I don't think I can do something similar in the Signal system without some serious hacking to detect the plasma state on re-entry. And I can't use the state computed by KSP because that is only exposed when CommNet (the stock signal system) is enabled, I guess.

 

I really suggest you merge the signal system with commnet, and probably work with the remotetech guys so that it also works with their next release of remotetech which will be largely built on commnet

[ShotgunNinja]

28 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

I really suggest you merge the signal system with commnet, and probably work with the remotetech guys so that it also works with their next release of remotetech which will be largely built on commnet

I understand the enthusiasm but you are suggesting this every couple of days. I can't technically build what I want on top of CommNet.

[kraden]

Correct me if I'm wrong but you intend to have kerbalism customizable like it was with the last release, right? It seems to me that @The-Doctor ought to be able to disable kerbalism's communications systems like before and just rely on the comms net or RemoteTech respectively.

[Drew Kerman]

3 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I can't technically build what I want on top of CommNet.

RoverDude designed it so hopefully he's been willing to field questions from you about possibly integrating or at least querying such things like the plasma blackout mentioned? Or have you not talked to him? Given how much it's been spoken about that it's a very moddable system I'd like to think there is a way... but if not, so be it

Edited November 28, 2016 by Drew Kerman

[ShotgunNinja]

@kraden Yes absolutely, it will be even easier to customize.

 

@Drew Kerman There is a flag you can query to check whenever a vessel is inside re-entry plasma, however that is part of CommNet. When Signal is enabled, CommNet is disabled and the flag will not be available.

[Drew Kerman]

13 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

When Signal is enabled, CommNet is disabled and the flag will not be available.

Ah, that makes sense. Shame that's something so tightly bound to CommNet but I suppose there's no reason for it not to be!

[SavageAngel]

@ShotgunNinja Just wanted to say this is one of the best mods I have ever played with. KSP just isn't the same without it. I'll never forget the first time I accidentally suffocated my kerbal because "I'm only going to orbit a few times and come back down who needs 'extra' O2". I'm going to continue to relax in my deck chair on the patience ferry with a lot of your subscribers because this mod is worth the wait and we don't want you to rush it.

 

Edited November 28, 2016 by SavageAngel