[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9

[ShotgunNinja]

@blakemw, @Gotmachine Thanks guys, I'll check it.

 

@Citizen247 That looks like the 'resque mission gift package' I give to kerbals from resque mission. Somehow, TakeCommand is triggering it. I'll check this too.

[Citizen247]

2 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

 

@Citizen247 That looks like the 'resque mission gift package' I give to kerbals from resque mission. Somehow, TakeCommand is triggering it. I'll check this too.

That makes sense :). I have no idea how TakeCommand works internally, but it might use the same method as rescue contracts maybe?

Thanks.

[babale]

Hey guys, I've been playing a career game with Kerbalism and have been enjoying it immensely. I'm playing a long-term game with the goal of colonizing the various moons and planets of the Kerbol system (including OPM) and the only issue I have is that I am getting dangerously close to the end of the tech tree.

I'm thinking of expanding my tech tree using CTT and Interstellar Extended, as well as possibly ESLD Beacons. Here is my actual question: how will these things interact with Kerbalism?

1) As I understand it, Ammonia and Water are both resources that are also in Interstellar -- will I have duplicate resources?

2) I know that Interstellar's electric parts don't work with the background processing -- I might get Near Future as a replacement -- but does Interstellar rely on these things?

3) Both Interstellar and ESLD involve resource gathering -- how will these modules interact with Kerbalism?

Thanks for the help guys!

[ShotgunNinja]

@babale

There should be no issue with any custom tech tree, as long as it is a super-set of the stock tech tree. Because parts and setups are unlocked by stock technologies. 

1) Water use the same definition as in CRP, so it is the same resource. Ammonia on the other hand isn't defined in CRP at all (it use LqdAmmonia instead). So I guess you will get both Ammonia and LqdAmmonia in your game. I added Ammonia instead of using LqdAmmonia myself, to comply with my own convention that resources have to be defined at STP, and that the different matter-states of a substance don't have to be represented using different resources, but rather by manipulation of the storage properties of the containers storing them. I think these are reasonable conventions. Many CRP resources follow the same conventions, but not all of them.

2) I never used KSP-I, but I guess that anything that doesn't require MegaJoules directly can work with other EC producers.

3) The stock resource harvester module is supported, in the sense that I simulate it ad-hoc when the vessel is not loaded. Any mod using that module will work coherently with the rest of the background resource simulation. So if the two mods mentioned are using ModuleResourceHarvester, you should be good.

 

[ShotgunNinja]

I've started a discussion about the implementation of a new thermal control mechanic here on github, reproduced below for convenience of those interested in partecipating on its design.

 

This issue outline the details of the new thermal control (TC) mechanics to introduce in the near future. Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

The objective is to model approximately heat, and to force the user into taking engineering decisions and compromises similar to those done in reality on the matter of thermal control on spacecrafts.

Technically, it will be implemented on top of current infrastructure to minimize work and potential bugs, and will be exposed to the user by extension of the current Rule Framework capabilities.

While thermal control, in reality, is not an exclusive of manned habitats (every device and instrument has its own operative temperature range to be maintained), for simplicity only the crew and its survival temperature range is taken into account. This avoid a total redesign of the rule framework, that is way beyond the time and attention budget allocated for this new mechanic.

You know those radiators that are barely used only if you go to the inner solar system, or if you deal with the stock ISRU? I'm talking about these things:

We are going to make these useful.

How it works

The habitat system is extended so that every habitat part would have capacity to store Heat, a special non-visible mass-less resource, in function of the volume of its internal space. This is similar to what happen right now with the Atmosphere and WasteAtmosphere resources.

The Heat resource would then be generated by:

• crew members
• any process that consume EC
• any chemical process that is exothermic
• a dedicate Heater ECLSS module
• incoming solar/albedo flux, in proportion of half the vessel external surface

and consumed by:

• vessel radiative flux, in proportion of the vessel external surface
• any chemical process that is endothermic
• radiators

The internal habitat temperature will then be determined from the Heat level (that being the Heat amount versus capacity) over the set of enabled habitat parts.

Modifiers changes

The old temperature modifier is removed, and new ones added:

• incoming_flux: the sum of solar flux, albedo flux from nearest body, and radiative cooling flux from nearest body, expressed in W/m^2
• half_surface: like the current surface modifier (that represent the sum of external surface of all enabled habitat parts), but multiplied by 0.5, expressed in m^2
• cooling_need: a value in [0,1] range, that is 1 when internal habitat temperature is above survival range, and that rapidly approach 0 as the internal habitat temperature approach the survival range
• heating_need: a value in [0,1] range, that is 1 when internal habitat temperature is below survival range, and that rapidly approach 0 as the internal habitat temperature approach the survival range
• crew_count: the number of current crew members on the vessel

Rules changes

The climatization rule is replaced by two new rules: freezing and burning. Both of them are resource-less rules, that will use the respective cooling_need and heating_need modifiers so that, when internal habitat temperature is above/below the survival range, they will degenerate (up until death) and when the internal habitat temperature is inside the survival range, they will recover (as degeneration will be zero in that case).

Processes changes

Some new processes are added:

Process	Consume	Produce	Modifiers
IncomingFlux		Heat	incoming_flux, half_surface
OutgoingFlux	Heat		surface
Metabolism		Heat	crew_count
Heater	EC	Heat	heating_need, _Heater
Radiator	Heat		cooling_need, _Radiator

In every other 'non-chemical' process where EC is consumed, Heat will be generated. This is not made automatic (albeit it could) to allow greater flexibility.

All chemical reaction processes, instead, will either produce or consume Heat in relation of them being endothermic or exothermic in nature.

A new 'heater' ProcessController module, and relative Configure setup, will be added to manned pods.

Stock radiator modules will be removed without mercy, and replaced with 'radiator' ProcessControllers instead.

Planner changes

A new panel is added, to convey informations about Heat generation and consumption, according to the body/situation/sunlight environment as specified in the planner ui, and the simulation of rules and processes for the vessel in the editor.

Monitor changes

The telemetry panel in monitor will show the internal atmosphere temperature, as determined by the level of Heat stored.

Edited March 22, 2017 by ShotgunNinja
removed inappropriate words

[Galileo]

@JadeOfMaar @OhioBob

Have you guys read the above? I'm excited.

[MaxZhao]

Sounds amazing! Maybe you can make it madatory for all habitats to have a certain amount of radiators since even the ISS in LEO has two giant ones!

Making the game more challenging and more realistic!

Also left some notes on github.

[JadeOfMaar]

@Galileo Why are you excited?!  Fascinating. My concept for a heat control mod turns out to have a close companion in Kerbalism.

2 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

the obscenity that is the stock ISRU mechanics?

Lol! ...RoverDude must feel the same way. I've never seen MKS or Karbonite mining parts with radiators attached to them.

2 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

In every other 'non-chemical' process where EC is consumed, Heat will be generated. This is not made automatic (albeit it could) to allow greater flexibility.

So... Near Future Propulsion ion engines are a good example of new things to watch out for? The largest of them consume thousands of EC per second.

[ShotgunNinja]

@JadeOfMaar By 'non-chemical processes' I mean things like the Waste Processor, or the Greenhouse lamps (maybe). If I go the fully automatic 'ec consumed -> heat produced' way, that could be technically possible to implement both for my own processes (the converter-like things in the rule framework) and in general for all things consuming EC (perhaps using some of the new KSP events added recently), I fear there will be issues along the way that will be a pain to deal with (the NF ion engines you mention are a great example).

 

[Crimeo]

Hi, love the mod, I am a bit confused about the chemistry recipes in the ISRU / etc., though. There seems to be an infinite fountain of carbon coming from nowhere here -- I can create methane by sabatier, launch it up in rockets, then do it all over again, without ever having any input source to replace those carbon atoms lost. The same is true of nitrogen -- I seem to be able to produce infinite nitrogen containing hydrazine without any nitrogen input?

A possible easy fix for carbon conservation should be requiring greenhouses to consume CO2 that ultimately equals the amount breathed out by kerbals per minute equal to carbon from eating that amount of food eaten in a minute.

Nitrogen seems simply due to an error of greenhouses and metabolism not being the same ratio: greenhouses use 42 nitrogen per food, but waste reprocessing reclaims 241 nitrogen per food's worth of waste.

Speaking of nitrogen, it should be trivial on a spaceship to turn hydrazine into nitrogen gas, if desired. This in fact already happens with all monoprop engines, when they fire they create N2 and H2 eventually. So I suggest this reaction being added, which won't make pressure any easier if also combined with proper nitrogen mass conservation as per above at the same time.

This would all render normal LfOx fuel impractical since you couldn't make it on site from scratch, but this could be replaced by cryogenic H2 + O2 rocket fuel, since water is mined on various Kerbin system planets in multiple mods, which you already need one of to make oxidizer using your current chemical reactions.

[Neoph]

There is any way to have different crew capacity for a deflated/inflated part? I'm trying to make a patch for sstu and this is a issue when using kis, a part with 30+ crew inventories on vab becomes very anoying.

[smckamey19]

Question: I'm setting up my COMMS network and I don't want to put extra unnecessary antenna's on my satellites. Are the antenna's combinable with Kerbalism? I don't see anything about them being combinable in my parts menu anymore or in the guide for this MOD, but I just wanted to make sure before I continued on with my COMMS network. Also, the Dish high gain antenna is always on as a relay. I understand it does not talk to individual spacecraft. It only goes direct back to Korbin, but will it talk to other high gain relay antennas on other COMMS relay satellites? Thanks.

[Gotmachine]

6 hours ago, smckamey19 said:

Are the antenna's combinable with Kerbalism?

No

6 hours ago, smckamey19 said:

Also, the Dish high gain antenna [...] does not talk to individual spacecraft [...] goes direct back to Korbin, but will it talk to other high gain relay antennas on other COMMS relay satellites

Like you said, high-gain can only talk to Kerbin.

[ShotgunNinja]

@Neoph Not at the moment. I'll see if it can be implemented.

 

@smckamey19 The max transmission range on a vessel doesn't increase if you put more antennas on it (let's say, two high-gain ones). But the transmission rate does increase (along with EC cost of transmission), because you can use multiple antennas at once to transmit the data. So it can be useful. Also they can fail, if you have Reliability enabled, and you should decide if having some redundancy is proper for the mission at hand.

[ShotgunNinja]

I'm going to re-implement the space weather mechanic. The idea is to replace the current CME symbolic event with a simple solar wind model. Technical details are here for those interested.

[ShotgunNinja]

@Crimeo Sorry somehow missed your post before...

23 hours ago, Crimeo said:

Hi, love the mod, I am a bit confused about the chemistry recipes in the ISRU / etc., though. There seems to be an infinite fountain of carbon coming from nowhere here -- I can create methane by sabatier, launch it up in rockets, then do it all over again, without ever having any input source to replace those carbon atoms lost. The same is true of nitrogen -- I seem to be able to produce infinite nitrogen containing hydrazine without any nitrogen input?

I'll check the numbers, maybe there is some error there.

23 hours ago, Crimeo said:

A possible easy fix for carbon conservation should be requiring greenhouses to consume CO2 that ultimately equals the amount breathed out by kerbals per minute equal to carbon from eating that amount of food eaten in a minute.

That make sense. To be fair there was a reason I didn't made the greenhouse consume CO2, but I don't remember why right now. I'll try to sneak this in the first savegame-breaking update available and see how it goes.

23 hours ago, Crimeo said:

Nitrogen seems simply due to an error of greenhouses and metabolism not being the same ratio: greenhouses use 42 nitrogen per food, but waste reprocessing reclaims 241 nitrogen per food's worth of waste

The waste processor should produce Ammonia, not Nitrogen! Can you double check this?

23 hours ago, Crimeo said:

Speaking of nitrogen, it should be trivial on a spaceship to turn hydrazine into nitrogen gas, if desired. This in fact already happens with all monoprop engines, when they fire they create N2 and H2 eventually. So I suggest this reaction being added, which won't make pressure any easier if also combined with proper nitrogen mass conservation as per above at the same time.

I understand. But what would be the purpose of carring monoprop + a dedicated ISRU chemical plant, instead of carring directly more nitrogen + hydrogen. One vessel may have spare monoprop, that happen often. But they will most definitely lack the dedicated ISRU plant anyway once the nitrogen (or hydrogen) deficit for the mission became apparent.

[Crimeo]

Quote

The waste processor should produce Ammonia, not Nitrogen! Can you double check this?

It does produce ammonia, I was simply referring to the most important part of the ammonia for conservation purposes, the nitrogen within it. Sorry for confusion.

But the greenhouse uses 42 ammonia for every 241 you get from waste in the same amount of food, if my math is right.

 

Quote

what would be the purpose of carring monoprop + a dedicated ISRU chemical plant, instead of carring directly more nitrogen + hydrogen.

Well right now the purpose would be that you can create infinite ammonia, thus this would be a renewable source of nitrogen on a moon. If the ammonia math is fixed, then it would still be useful as well for when something goes wrong, and you suddenly need alot more nitrogen than ammonia. For example, imagine that you crash your ship in a rough landing and your nitrogen tank explodes. Your ammonia tank doesn't. Instead of staying on the moon for a year to do research, you instead abort and go back home, but you need to use up your ammonia for nitrogen to repressurize the cabin.

And yes this wouldn't work if you need an ISRU, but I'm not sure you should, that was just a "maybe" -- literally you could rig this up with a glorified tin can and an unbolted monoprop engine, basically. Just burn mono fuel, and add in an oxygen line to the hot exhaust: O2 + N2H4 --> N2 + 2xH2 + O2 --> N2 + 2xH2O, you'll get nitrogen gas and water vapor out the other end. Doesn't really need a "chemical plant" realistically.

In real life, hydrazine is already used for emergency backup systems for power generation, so perhaps it could all be bundled into one command pod utility slot: O2 + hydrazine --> N2 + 2xH2o + ECs of power (using either a steam turbine or thermocouple), so you could also more commonly use it as an emergency power supply. But ALSO for nitrogen.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Crimeo

[podbaydoor]

It seems like collecting a sample from an asteroid doesn't do anything now. Scientist on EVA tries to collect a sample, but after clicking the "collect sample" button nothing happens. All necessary building upgrades done. Maybe a problem with how Kerbalism intercepts the stock science system?

[ShotgunNinja]

1 hour ago, Crimeo said:

It does produce ammonia, I was simply referring to the most important part of the ammonia for conservation purposes, the nitrogen within it. Sorry for confusion.

But the greenhouse uses 42 ammonia for every 241 you get from waste in the same amount of food, if my math is right.

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. I think the issue is that the greenhouse inputs and outputs are not mass conserving (could be wrong, I'll check later).

1 hour ago, Crimeo said:

For example, imagine that you crash your ship in a rough landing and your nitrogen tank explodes. Your ammonia tank doesn't. Instead of staying on the moon for a year to do research, you instead abort and go back home, but you need to use up your ammonia for nitrogen to repressurize the cabin.

And yes this wouldn't work if you need an ISRU, but I'm not sure you should, that was just a "maybe" -- literally you could rig this up with a glorified tin can and an unbolted monoprop engine, basically. Just burn mono fuel, and add in an oxygen line to the hot exhaust: O2 + N2H4 --> N2 + 2xH2 + O2 --> N2 + 2xH2O, you'll get nitrogen gas and water vapor out the other end. Doesn't really need a "chemical plant" realistically.

I can see Bill (or is Bob? I can't never remember) the engineer rigging it up, before the inevitable unplanned conflagration. But honestly, I wanted to represent this kind of 'on-the-field ingenuity' in emergency situations (I read 'the martian' before the last big update). I didn't manage to come up with any appropriate representation of it, the nearest thing being the fact that Configure setups can be re-configured in flight if specified in the module, but that is not really used in current incarnation.

2 hours ago, Crimeo said:

In real life, hydrazine is already used for emergency backup systems for power generation, so perhaps it could all be bundled into one command pod utility slot: O2 + hydrazine --> N2 + 2xH2o + ECs of power (using either a steam turbine or thermocouple), so you could also more commonly use it as an emergency power supply. But ALSO for nitrogen.

I like this very much. Will be in next version.

 

1 hour ago, podbaydoor said:

It seems like collecting a sample from an asteroid doesn't do anything now. Scientist on EVA tries to collect a sample, but after clicking the "collect sample" button nothing happens. All necessary building upgrades done. Maybe a problem with how Kerbalism intercepts the stock science system?

Possible. Asteroid-related stuff is perhaps the least tested, for logistical reasons. I'll check it.

[smckamey19]

Can I program maneuvers to occur prior to a known upcoming signal loss? RemoteTech has a guidance computer for this situation. I don't see anything in kerbalism about this. 

[影之瑒]

I find that Remotech may not compatible with kerbalism well. when strom comes, the singnal seems didn't be influenced with Remotech

[RoverDude]

On 3/19/2017 at 8:05 PM, JadeOfMaar said:

Lol! ...RoverDude must feel the same way.

I wrote that 'Obscenity', by the way.  And MKS leverages it pretty heavily.

[JWS]

On ‎2017‎년 ‎3‎월 ‎4‎일 at 3:36 AM, blakemw said:

 

PS. I believe I also had control lockout occur in orbit without a flag: I believe that was using KIS/KAS and manipulating some parts.

 

I think I've found another case of 'control lockout'.

Unfortunately, I cannot point out what had caused this issue again.

Currently suspecting 'scene change' action via Bon Voyage UI in tracking station, but the guess relies solely on the fact that the action was the last thing I'd done before I found the 'lockout' situation.

It seems that the lockouts are occurring only, and all on 'Unmanned' probes such as relays, sattelite, rovers, etc..

The status UI on the toolbar says '[error] Connection timed-out', although the remote-tech says it's online.

In fact, they respond to any command given through RT's flight computer UI.

Other crewed vessels are doing just fine, including EVA Kerbals.

Here's a screenshot that shows what's happenning on those uncontrollable vessels.

Spoiler

Strange thing is, although the vessel holds and generates enough EC to run the entire vessel, the message on the core says 'Not enough electric charge'.

I've search through the logs, but failed to find any execeptions or anything.

Sadly, most of my vessels are unmanned ones. So You can say my entire game is currently locked out.

I may just play with some planes until this one settles down.

I'll update any news when I encounter one.

Thanks.

EDIT : The problem has come from 'Fusebox' mod. Removing the mod solved all lockout proble. Terribly sorry for bothering you with misinformation.

Edited March 22, 2017 by JWS

[lordcirth]

7 hours ago, 影之瑒 said:

I find that Remotech may not compatible with kerbalism well. when strom comes, the singnal seems didn't be influenced with Remotech

If you don't use Kerbalism's Signal system, you're not going to get its features.  RemoteTech doesn't have solar storms.

[ShotgunNinja]

10 hours ago, smckamey19 said:

Can I program maneuvers to occur prior to a known upcoming signal loss? RemoteTech has a guidance computer for this situation. I don't see anything in kerbalism about this. 

You can go into Settings.cfg, and set UnlinkedControl to limited. That will allow you some partial control of the vessel when there is no connection, akin of some kind of poor man flight computer. The limitations in that case are exactly the same as the ones in stock CommNet 'limited control mode'.