Simple Life Support

[Benji13]

Hey guys. I've been looking at some life support mods and I was wondering if there where any with only Oxygen with 1 or 2 tanks and some sort of way to produce it for stations. I don't want too many parts.

If there is a mod that has more than that (like food, waste, CO2) that I could modify, that would be fine. Thanks in advance. 

Edited May 18, 2016 by Benji13

[Joshwoo70]

TAC life support

USI life support

Snacks!

and probably many more

[Streetwind]

38 minutes ago, Joshwoo69 said:

TAC life support

USI life support

Snacks!

and probably many more

None of those really fulfills the criteria set out by the OP...

However, Snacks! could come close enough, perhaps, if Benji13 is willing to compromise just a little.

[Benji13]

17 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

None of those really fulfills the criteria set out by the OP...

However, Snacks! could come close enough, perhaps, if Benji13 is willing to compromise just a little.

Snacks is cool but I want a bit more than a massless part that needs ore to make more of. If there was a current mod that I could easily modify that would be good. 

[Streetwind]

Well, USI-LS is very configurable, and only has a few parts. But you will need to deal with three different resources, not just one. You have "Supplies" as your life support resource (together with Ec!), you have "Mulch" for waste, and you have "Fertilizer" as a supporting resource.

As far as keeping your Kerbals alive is concerned, you only ever need to worry about supplies and Ec. In fact, for missions shorter than 15 Kerbin days (configurable), you only need Ec, no supplies needed. But if you want to use the station modules that produce more supplies, you will need to deal with fertilizer as well (mulch handles itself). No way around that - unless you feel like manually writing ModuleManager patches that remove the need for fertilizer from the greenhouses.

There's also the concept of "recyclers", which reduce the supplies intake of Kerbals by a percentage in exchange for increased Ec consumption. But if you only install USI-LS on its own, and none of RoverDude's other mods, then the only recycler you get is one built into the Mobile Processing Lab (plus potentially one dedicated part he may add in a future release of USI-LS).

 

That's why I thought Snacks! was a better fit, because none of the other LS mods limit themselves to one resource and one production method. But who knows, maybe USI is acceptable to you? TAC Life Support definitely has way more parts and resources and complex reprocessing steps.

[cantab]

Well if you can indefinitely maintain life support in space, doesn't that somewhat defeat the point?

I'd say TAC Life Support can be simple if you want. Just put on enough of the all-purpose containers and job done. At that level it's simply a time limit on your mission. TAC-LS can then "grow" to be more complex if you want with various recyclers as well as ways to get water and oxygen from the environment. TAC is good at alerting you when life support is about to run out.

USI Life Support is in some ways more complex. As well as the consumable "Supplies" which works much like TAC's resources folded into one, it has the habitation mechanic where parts offer a certain number of Kerbal-months and other parts can multiply that amount. However you can disable the habitation mechanic if you like and then you're free to stuff Kerbals in lander cans for years. It too has things to recycle resources, but USI-LS alone doesn't have any way to make more supplies, that's left to UKS or other mods. (But like I said, it's never very sensible to make stuff from empty space anyway). USI-LS is not so good at telling you life support will run out, but it does have a generous "grace period".

Incidentally, USI-LS developer Roverdude mentioned that "Supplies" are actually mostly water, with the food and oxygen relatively minor components. I don't know if TAC's mass balance is the same way or not.

Snacks! is very simple, but sounds like not what you want.

[RizzoTheRat]

Is USI now "stable" or still undergoing development?  I looked at Roverdude's Kolonisation mod in conjunction with USI-LS in my 1.05 game and while it's going to be awesome when completed, the fact he was still developing it and releasing regular updates meant it wasn't great for a career game.

I went with TAC-LS in the end, as said you can just bung on a multi container and know you have a time limit on your mission, or you can make your life a bit more complex with the 3 resources and recyclers

[RoverDude]

Both.  It's stable (lots of folks use it in their careers) but like everything I write, it's always being improved.

[Streetwind]

19 hours ago, cantab said:

but USI-LS alone doesn't have any way to make more supplies, that's left to UKS or other mods.

Not true. It does come with greenhouses that can make more supplies. You'll need to carry fertilizer, but you get like ten times the amount of supplies compared to the amount of fertilizer input (because most of the mass comes from recycled mulch). So carrying fertilizer is quite mass-efficient.