[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9

[septemberWaves]

Just to clarify: even though the stock relay antennas say "relay" in the name, they now only point at Kerbin and I should instead use just low-gain antennas to communicate with Kerbin, correct?

[The-Doctor]

Is the supply consumption realistic? I make monster ships to get to Duna and NASA has the below. I feel like a small food container should last a month, the medium should last 3 years and large should last 10 years or maybe not that but I shouldn't need a giant ship to haul food or need a greenhouse and tons of water and ammonia to make food, because a small ship like the one below has enough food, water etc to get 4-6 people to Mars and back, that's about 3 years of supplies. Btw, I've been absent due to suffering 2 category 5 hurricanes. And either way, I'll be moving to MKS soon as I want to learn to build self sustaining bases and colonies.

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, eloquentJane said:

Just to clarify: even though the stock relay antennas say "relay" in the name, they now only point at Kerbin and I should instead use just low-gain antennas to communicate with Kerbin, correct?

You can use low or high gain to commune with Kerbin at short distances, you’ll need high gain beyond the Mün, but only low gain can relay a signal between probes. 

So, if you have a probe landed on Duna, you’ll need an orbiter with both a high and low gain antenna to relay the lander’s signal back to Kerbin. And be sure to check “relay=yes” in the orbiter low gain’s right click menu. 

Or just put a high gain on your lander. 

[lordcirth]

5 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

Is the supply consumption realistic? I make monster ships to get to Duna and NASA has the below. I feel like a small food container should last a month, the medium should last 3 years and large should last 10 years or maybe not that but I shouldn't need a giant ship to haul food or need a greenhouse and tons of water and ammonia to make food, because a small ship like the one below has enough food, water etc to get 4-6 people to Mars and back, that's about 3 years of supplies. Btw, I've been absent due to suffering 2 category 5 hurricanes. And either way, I'll be moving to MKS soon as I want to learn to build self sustaining bases and colonies.

1) Bring less Kerbals.  It's simple and it works   The best way to solve all problems in rocketry is to shave off payload mass   Also, what's the mass of the NASA ship?  Mass is more relevant than volume, though they tend to be related.

2) Resources in Kerbalism are roughly based on reality.  It's quite possible NASA thinks they can do better.

3) Greenhouses are good, but handle 2 Kerbals each, so again, bring fewer Kerbals.  The Duna mission that I'm currently prepping has exactly 2 Kerbals for this exact reason; I designed around the greenhouse.

4) Don't forget a water recycler to stretch your water 5x (2 for redundancy, like all long-term ECLSS)

5) A Waste Processor can convert Waste back into Ammonia, so you don't need to bring much of that. (again, ECLSS in pairs).  I suspect this process is also 80% efficient (5x) but it's midnight and I can't be bothered to check.  The planner will tell you.

 

Re: ECLSS in pairs, make sure you actually have enough capacity to run on 1 without falling behind - not much good otherwise.  If you're set on doing a 4+ Kerbal mission, then I'd build 2+1, where you need any 2 of 3 systems to survive.

[septemberWaves]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

You can use low or high gain to commune with Kerbin at short distances, you’ll need high gain beyond the Mün, but only low gain can relay a signal between probes. 

So, if you have a probe landed on Duna, you’ll need an orbiter with both a high and low gain antenna to relay the lander’s signal back to Kerbin. And be sure to check “relay=yes” in the orbiter low gain’s right click menu. 

Or just put a high gain on your lander. 

So I pretty much have to manage when I perform burns so that I have contact with Kerbin at all times, or set up a couple of low-gain satellites around planets with a single high-gain one to point at Kerbin. That could be interesting in New Horizons, where Kerbin is frequently obscured by Sonnah (although its orbit around Sonnah isn't in plane with the ecliptic so I'll probably be fine most of the time on interplanetary missions).

Thanks for the help.

Edited October 12, 2017 by eloquentJane

[CatastrophicFailure]

18 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

So I pretty much have to manage when I perform burns so that I have contact with Kerbin at all times, or set up a couple of low-gain satellites around planets with a single high-gain one to point at Kerbin. That could be interesting in New Horizons, where Kerbin is frequently obscured by Sonnah (although its orbit around Sonnah isn't in plane with the ecliptic so I'll probably be fine most of the time on interplanetary missions).

Thanks for the help.

Yup. I find an autopilot like MechJeb is extremely helpful for those blackout capture burns. Probes Plus has a low gain with native support and really awesome range, like beyond the Mün, for those commnets. 

[septemberWaves]

8 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Yup. I find an autopilot like MechJeb is extremely helpful for those blackout capture burns. Probes Plus has a low gain with native support and really awesome range, like beyond the Mün, for those commnets. 

Sounds interesting, but since I already use MechJeb (and I've already used it to autonomously put a probe in orbit of Aptur without commnet because I made a mistake with the antenna range) I think I should be fine without Probes Plus (and I already have enough mods to drop the game speed to about 4-seconds-per-second).

Edited October 12, 2017 by eloquentJane

[lordcirth]

8 hours ago, eloquentJane said:

So I pretty much have to manage when I perform burns so that I have contact with Kerbin at all times, or set up a couple of low-gain satellites around planets with a single high-gain one to point at Kerbin. That could be interesting in New Horizons, where Kerbin is frequently obscured by Sonnah (although its orbit around Sonnah isn't in plane with the ecliptic so I'll probably be fine most of the time on interplanetary missions).

Thanks for the help.

I would put a high-gain on all 3 relays, it's simpler.  It's not too much more mass.

[septemberWaves]

3 hours ago, lordcirth said:

I would put a high-gain on all 3 relays, it's simpler.  It's not too much more mass.

That isn't the problem. The problem was, I was attempting to set up a relay network around Sonnah (which Kerbin is a moon of in the New Horizons system) and I only had high-gain antennae on the relay satellites because those are the stock "relay" antennae. Unfortunately, though I was aware at the time about Kerbalism's changes to data transmission, I'd overlooked the changes to how the actual antennae work and didn't realize I needed a low-gain one to get any inter-vessel communication at all. So I spent quite some time and several thousand funds on a pair of satellites (after a similarly-expensive first launch which failed) and painstakingly maneuvered them into an orbit with orbital periods within 0.1 seconds of each other (meaning the time before drifting would've been long enough that I'd need to replace them by the time any significant drift occurred) before I realized that they weren't communicating with each other.

So my solution will have to be replacing them with versions which do have a low-gain antenna (and probably moving them to a higher orbit of Sonnah so I can stay connected on the hidden side of Serran, as I'm planning on putting a base there).

[Vila Restal]

18 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

I only had high-gain antennae on the relay satellites because those are the stock "relay" antennae.

Reading this I realise I've done the same thing (in a career with Galileo OPM and probes heading off to all the outer planets that aren't going to be able to relay as I planned). I too had presumed a 'relay' antenna could relay.  

I'm thinking about creating a cfg file to make it work how I think it should work. I imagine adding low-gain modules to the 'relay' antennae would do the trick.

Might also make IR telescope science transmittable while I'm at it

[septemberWaves]

1 hour ago, Vila Restal said:

I imagine adding low-gain modules to the 'relay' antennae would do the trick.

Honestly, just adding a low-gain antenna to the high-gain relay satellite is enough. I think it makes sense the way it is, I just didn't read the description properly.

[Vila Restal]

Problem for me is they were launched weeks ago and I don't have a save from before and the whole process took days. 

I do think a 'relay' antenna should be able to relay anyway so I will try to figure out how to make them do that and update here if I manage it.

[The-Doctor]

So for the antennae, to relay similar to commnet, I need a low gain? Also does signal also have plasma blackout?

For The guy that said so long missions with 2 Kerbals, I must say, any mission to an putter planet needs at minimum 4 Kerbals

[The-Doctor]

I assume this works in 1.3.1?

[Vila Restal]

My reasons for 'fixing' the 'relay' antennae are as follows:  

1. I think antennae called 'relay' should be able to relay. 
2. They are more bulky, costly, massive and power hungry than 'non-relay' antennas for nothing more than a bit more range. Each relay antenna becomes completely redundant once the next level of 'non-relay' (deployable) antenna becomes available. e.g. HG-20 is better in every respect (bulk, cost, mass, range, power consumption) than an RA-2, Communatron 88-88 is better in every respect than a RA-15. Giving them a relay capability gives them a purpose worthy of their greater costs IMO.
3. Relaying is currently limited to the ranges of the low-gain antennae (i.e. 2,000km max) and I don't think that's realistic especially when you think of stations communicating with each other or their probes. I think a station/mothership around Jool should (given the right equipment) be able to launch a small probe to one of its moons and relay the signal directly from it to Kerbin without having to go to that moon too.

By giving the 'relay' antennae (RA-2, RA-15 and RA-100) low-gain capability (as well as high-gain) fixes all these things.

I've added a cfg file to gamedata (now that I've learnt you can do that) with these lines did that for me. This is what I added:  

// ============================================================================
// Add low-gain modules to relay antennae
// ============================================================================

@PART[RelayAntenna5]:NEEDS[FeatureSignal]:FOR[Kerbalism]
{
  MODULE
  {
    name = Antenna
    type = low_gain
    cost = 0.33
    dist = 2e8
    rate = 0.032
  }
}

@PART[RelayAntenna50]:NEEDS[FeatureSignal]:FOR[Kerbalism]
{
  MODULE
  {
    name = Antenna
    type = low_gain
    cost = 0.5
    dist = 2e9
    rate = 0.064
  }
}

@PART[RelayAntenna100]:NEEDS[FeatureSignal]:FOR[Kerbalism]
{
  MODULE
  {
    name = Antenna
    type = low_gain
    cost = 0.66
    dist = 2e10
    rate = 0.128
  }
}

and it works on first testing.

Low-gain relay range is still limited by the weakest link so a Communatron 16-S can only relay via any RA at 2,000km range but an RA-2 could relay via any RA at 200,000km range and an RA-15 could relay via an RA-15 or RA-100 at 2,000,000km range. I haven't put much thought into those ranges (1/10th the high gain range at the moment).

I'm not trying to persuade anyone else they should but if anyone agrees with my thoughts on this and wants to make this tweak too...

[lordcirth]

4 hours ago, Vila Restal said:

Might also make IR telescope science transmittable while I'm at it

I've already got a pull request open for that here: https://github.com/ShotgunNinja/Kerbalism/pull/146

  So just use that.

2 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

So for the antennae, to relay similar to commnet, I need a low gain? Also does signal also have plasma blackout?

For The guy that said so long missions with 2 Kerbals, I must say, any mission to an putter planet needs at minimum 4 Kerbals

You need a high-gain on the relay sat to talk to Kerbin, and then a low-gain to talk to the other craft, then of course a low-gain on the lander/whatever to talk to.

4 Kerbals for realism/roleplay?  Or to have one of each role plus a lander pilot?

[The-Doctor]

One of each plus a lander pilot

[Vila Restal]

48 minutes ago, lordcirth said:

I've already got a pull request open for that here: https://github.com/ShotgunNinja/Kerbalism/pull/146

That's great thank you @lordcirth

I've added these lines to my (growing :)) Kerbalismtweaks.cfg file and it does the trick:

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[*ModuleScience*]]:NEEDS[FeatureScience]:FOR[Kerbalism]
{
    @MODULE[*ModuleScience*]:HAS[#experimentID[infraredTelescope]]    { @xmitDataScalar = 1 }
}

@EXPERIMENT_DEFINITION[*]:HAS[#id[infraredTelescope]]:NEEDS[FeatureScience]:FOR[Kerbalism]    { @dataScale = 43 }

Edit:

LR-relaying and transmittable-IR-telescope-data tweaks in action:

First probe (outside Kerbin SOI) has RA-2 and IR telescope.

Second probe (still inside Kerbin SOI) has RA-15 set to relay.

First would be able to talk to Kerbin anyway at these ranges but beyond 184,600,000km (a bit further than max distance to Sarnus) it would not (without the relay) but if it remains within 184,600km of the 2nd (the relay) it will. Also might improve data transmission rates even when within its own range of Kerbin (I presume that's why it is already being relayed).

Edited October 12, 2017 by Vila Restal

[nanomage]

Hi, thanks and this is an awesome mod. Consistent background processing is just so brilliant, and nice realisticish ISRU is a cherry on top of the cake!

So, I've got a few ISRU questions

- is it possible/planned to be able to extract carbon and nitrogen from non-atmospheric bodies (modelling extraction of methane clathrates, methane ice, carbonaceous chondritic material, nitrates or even nitrogen ice if extremely far from the sun)? If not currently implemented would patches with these processes be welcome?

- Is there a way to forgo nitrogen pressurisation and go apollo-style with a 0.2-0.4 bar pure oxygen atmosphere instead, sacrificing some crew comfort for elimination of nitrogen from the life support chain?

- is there an ability lo liquefy hydrogen to use in CryogenicEngines/KerbalAtomics? 

[The-Doctor]

One of each plus a lander pilot

@ShotgunNinja If I only want the space weather and radiation, the planner and background running, what settings do I change?

[theJesuit]

10 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

One of each plus a lander pilot

@ShotgunNinja If I only want the space weather and radiation, the planner and background running, what settings do I change?

As far as I can I think it is a combination of a profile cfg and the settings as the profile deals with the habitablity which includes radiation.  Space weather setting only deals with the CMEs.  All the life support stuff is definitely in the profile.

Peace.

[The-Doctor]

@ShotgunNinja @theJesuit Kerbalism is just 1.3 but 1.3.1 isn't a major update, it works but the button on the side labelled kerbalism and the supply containers, greenhouse, centrifuge, basically all the kerbalism parts don't appear, but the resources and space weather, breakdowns etc do, is there a way for me to fix this on my own to can attempt a realistic Mars mission? I recently noticed the air filtration system and got a few pointers and really wanna try out learning to do a realistic mission

[Drew Kerman]

11 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

@ShotgunNinja @theJesuit Kerbalism is just 1.3 but 1.3.1 isn't a major update, it works but the button on the side labelled kerbalism and the supply containers, greenhouse, centrifuge, basically all the kerbalism parts don't appear, but the resources and space weather, breakdowns etc do, is there a way for me to fix this on my own to can attempt a realistic Mars mission? I recently noticed the air filtration system and got a few pointers and really wanna try out learning to do a realistic mission

One page back

 

[tomgle]

Hi I really want to try out this mod, just a few questions:

1. Does a part's chance of failure decrease if you use/'test' it more? There used to be a mod that had this feature (I never got to try it out, but it sounds pretty cool).
2. Will this work with unmanned before manned?
3. Can I use remotetech's comm system instead? I like the idea of having a light delay and a flight computer that can execute maneuver nodes.

Thanks in advance for any answers!

 

[septemberWaves]

I have a problem. Background running of life support seems to be malfunctioning (it doesn't work). I know this because I had 2 kerbals in a space station for 30 days and when I timewarped in the VAB to the 30-day mark and then loaded the station there was still a full 30 days worth of food/water/oxygen on board. Is there a setting I need to change, or is this more likely to be a bug?