[1.11.+] ESLD Jump Beacons Revived (1.4.0)

[Booots]

18 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

I launched my first set of beacons and went through and it worked wonderfully! A couple of NRE's popped up, however - the first is not gamebreaking (and can probably even be ignored), the second kind of is. See below.

First set is caused by launching the first beacon and is triggered on activation and shutdown respectively. I believe it's attempting to connect to another beacon but finds none so throws an error. Activating/shutting down a second beacon does not throw an error, only the very first.

After jumping through my beacon (I was told ahead of time I would be able to go back through), I was unable to do so, and clicking the beacon menu threw an error (see third error). The only way I found around this error is to use HyperEdit to teleport back to the same beacon I'm trying to access, which seems to "reset the scene" if you will, but also kind of defeats the purpose of the endeavor. At which point I could teleport back through just fine.

@Deimos Rast: Um, I couldn't replicate the first set of NREs... A new save with a single beacon activates and deactivates just fine for me. Looking at the log, it seems you're using RemoteTech, which my test installation doesn't have (so I don't have to deal with signal times while testing) so maybe it's a compatibility thing? Although they're usually really good about the way their mod interacts with things.

The second thing is more interesting. I was able to jump from one beacon to another and back without problems, though I did see that ArgumentException in the log afterwards. I've added a check in the code to try to fix that (but it might have unintended side effects so I need to watch it).

6 minutes ago, sentania said:

Is the fuel cost determined by the source or the destination beacon?

The source beacon determines the fuel cost based on the mass of the vessel being sent, the distance to the target beacon, and how deep in the gravity well it [the source beacon] is (IIRC) (as well as a few other factors if there are active tech boxes on the source beacon). The destination beacon determines the position error on arrival.

So say you have three different kinds of beacons on three different vessels in orbit of Gilly. The source beacon and the vessel to be sent are in orbit of Minmus. The cost to send the vessel to any of the other beacons will be roughly equal (depending where in their orbits they are), but the position error on arrival will be different for each target beacon.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Booots

[rasta013]

On 6/6/2016 at 9:48 PM, Zhetaan said:

<snip> or RoverDude makes some kind of jump drive that costs a tenth what the beacons do.

He already did a long time ago - it's called the Alcubiere Warp Drive and it generates it's own resource (Exotic Matter) directly from EC and combines with a small amount of Xenon to provide it's fuel.  Add on enough power generation and you have a portable, single endpoint, cheap and repetitive version of ESLD especially when you have NFT installed and get the Xenon as part of reactor generation.  It's what I have installed right now and it's so damnably simple to use I've been aching for ESLD to come back to life.

Thanks Boots!  Thanks so much!

[Zhetaan]

@rasta013:  I have that one, too.  I wouldn't say it costs a tenth, though--I've started a new career with CTT, so twenty thousand or so science points later, I think it about breaks even.  In fairness, RoverDude went to a lot of trouble to honour the balance of the sheer power that Karborundum represents when he built K+, so it makes sense that the overall costs of either of these 'Go directly to Jool, do not collect 200 Funds' drive would be comparable.  The Alcubierre drive has its own, different limitations, as well.  You can't transfer the exotic matter to another ship, for example.  You need either some serious power generation capacity (which takes up precious volume inside the warp bubble) or else some equally-serious power infrastructure (giant solar charging stations, anyone?).  Additionally, it's something of a different mechanic to use--both are fairly fast in-system, but even the Alcubierre drive takes a while to cross the space between stars.

[Booots]

Question for you guys: Should a beacon need Karborundum on board in order to be activated as a target beacon?

[sentania]

3 hours ago, Booots said:

Question for you guys: Should a beacon need Karborundum on board in order to be activated as a target beacon?

Using an earlier reference to "stargate" rules, I vote no.

Look at Stargate Universe - when they made the initial connection to Destiny, they needed the tremendous powersource on the naquida planet, and I believe there was an episode where they were able to dial Earth when they were in the midst of a "refueling"

[rasta013]

4 hours ago, Booots said:

Question for you guys: Should a beacon need Karborundum on board in order to be activated as a target beacon?

I don't see a need for K+ on the receiving end for one major reason...if it's needed then that means before you can start building any piece of your network you have to already have your K+ infrastructure setup otherwise you're sending a useless beacon.  Those years of travel time from launch to insertion can be used instead to build the infrastructure.  If the use of this system is designed to only save time putting in a time restricting feature on the front end seems...I don't know...wrong?

[Zhetaan]

I concur, for two reasons:

1. I fully agree with @rasta013.  Sending beacons as probes to far-flung places and fuelling them after you get a Karborundum infrastructure in place is a valid, often desirable gameplay strategy, especially in career.  It's a little reckless (I sent solar panels to Eeloo once:  oops), but that's very Kerbal.

2. Going along with allowing recklessness, you're going to need to send Karborundum anyway if you want to come back.  But the possibility of being stranded by an unintentional one-way trip to somewhere really far away creates an opportunity for a fantastic rescue mission from a gameplay point of view, especially if you run life support mods:  my mission to Jool, for example, only needed a few months', rather than a few years', worth of life support supplies.  Throw a spanner in the transport and, for my time, that's a much more interesting game.

In fairness, the HCU allows the transport of Kerbals as well as Karborundum, so perhaps the only limitation on such a mission is how fast more Karborundum can be acquired.  There is an opportunity to extend the mod by splitting those functions:  one kind of HCU for Kerbals (available earlier in the tech tree) and another for Karborundum (available last).

[rasta013]

4 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

<snip>you're going to need to send Karborundum anyway if you want to come back<snip>

I regularly send missions one way using a beacon but bring it back under regular propulsion.  This is especially true for missions with lightweight science recovery vessels that can be moved cheaply and at extremely high speeds under regular propulsion.

[Zhetaan]

Well, if you want to come back through the beacon.  I thought that went without saying; my apologies for being unclear.  In any case, that only supports the idea that the destination beacon doesn't need to have Karborundum in it.

Edited June 10, 2016 by Zhetaan

[Booots]

That's what I was leaning towards as well. The argument that requiring a two-way trip only adds time to a mod that claims to save only time is very valid. The only counter-argument that I can think of is that requiring a conventional return trip might add to the balance of the mod by increasing the difficulty involved in setting up a beacon system. Another (very minor) issue is that the EC initialization cost is proportional to the amount of Karborundum onboard so beacons could be initialized for free EC-wise now. But EC is free anyway. I went ahead and added the option to configure whether or not resources are required to initialize a beacon (defaulting to not required). I'm hoping to figure out the non-AMU post-jump orbit prediction not showing up in the map view and then I'll publish a release. If it's taking too long I'll release where I'm at, but I would really like all of the features so I can use a 1.0 version number.

[Booots]

Also! On the subject of inter-system jumps, I looked at a few of the Kopernicus config files for different galactic system mods and it seems that the SMA of most stars that people are adding are on the order of 10^14m. Believe it or not, the LB100 can do this for less than a large Karborundum tankful (base cost; not including HCU or AMU cost) for a 200 ton vessel. Really, if you're paying more than 400 for an in-system jump, you're using the wrong kind of beacon. To help with that, I've compiled some useful graphs to show the mass/distance window each beacon is best suited for.

To put some context on the distances, Eeloo's SMA is 10^10.95m, Kerbin's is 10^10.13m, Minmus is 10^7.67m. For you RSS people, Pluto is 10^12.77m, Earth is 10^11.17m, and the Moon is 10^5.48m. The stars in Galactic Neighborhood are all 10^14-ish m. Going from one star to another, then, should be no more than 10^14.3m because logarithms.

Note that for most planet-to-planet transfers, the LB100 is the best, except at low masses, when the LB15 beats it. Moon-Planet transfers should be done by the LB10, regardless of mass.

If you're spending more than 400 Karborundum, before AMU modifiers, it's recommended that you change beacons.

See how the LB10 dies at a certain range and how the LB15 sucks with more than 50 tons? Low gravity well resistance aside, the LB100 is really the one to use.

I didn't expect that the IB1 had much use, but it can. For jumping around the Kerbol system, it's actually the cheapest. Karborundum-wise at least. Its added mass and cost might make you want to reconsider. For the record, it's not much cheaper on jumping than the normal beacons.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Booots
Fixing images

[Deimos Rast]

@Booots fyi from the latest K+ changelog

Quote

Karborundum is now tweakable, and 4000 funds per unit (versus 400).

 

[rasta013]

8 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

@Booots fyi from the latest K+ changelog

 

So much for forcing limitations...

[Zhetaan]

4000 Funds/unit is still five times more expensive than the next-costliest resource, EnrichedUranium.

Also remember that the original K+ had little sample tanks of Karborundum that people could (and did) spam on their vessels; they were simply very expensive.

Nevertheless, there's nothing preventing us from adding a ModuleManager config that says:

@RESOURCE_DEFINITION[Karborundum]:AFTER[KarbonitePlus]
{
  @isTweakable = false
}

... and saying that the difficulty is part of the mod.

As it is, a jump that costs 250 Karborundum costs a million Funds, which admittedly is not difficult to find, so there is something to adding an extra zero to the cost.  Ten million Funds for a single jump is a lot less attractive.

I thought about the idea of placing the HCU techbox at the bitter end of the tech tree, but that interferes with resupply regardless of the initial source of Karborundum.

[Deimos Rast]

I should have also added the solar Karborundum zone is apparently a thing again as well.

The tweakable thing we could do, but would be hard to justify, since you already pay the increased cost.

Not sure what the rational was behind this move as I  rather liked it non-tweakable, conceptually at least.

[iliketrains0pwned]

Thank you so much for continuing the ESLD mod. I've been waiting forever for a stable version to be released, and you have no idea how happy I am that one finally exists.

Also, if I was to use it for interstellar jumps (I was thinking about using it Galactic Neighborhood), is it going to require an impossibly high amount of Karborundrum to do?

[Kerbinchaser]

That is really cool. I'll have to try it out sometime.

[Zhetaan]

On 6/10/2016 at 4:51 PM, Booots said:

Also! On the subject of inter-system jumps, I looked at a few of the Kopernicus config files for different galactic system mods and it seems that the SMA of most stars that people are adding are on the order of 10^14m. Believe it or not, the LB100 can do this for less than a large Karborundum tankful (base cost; not including HCU or AMU cost) for a 200 ton vessel. Really, if you're paying more than 400 for an in-system jump, you're using the wrong kind of beacon. To help with that, I've compiled some useful graphs to show the mass/distance window each beacon is best suited for.

To put some context on the distances, Eeloo's SMA is 10^10.95m, Kerbin's is 10^10.13m, Minmus is 10^7.67m. For you RSS people, Pluto is 10^12.77m, Earth is 10^11.17m, and the Moon is 10^5.48m. The stars in Galactic Neighborhood are all 10^14-ish m. Going from one star to another, then, should be no more than 10^14.3m because logarithms.

@iliketrains0pwned:

That's the relevant text, but do please look at @Booots's excellent graphical analysis above.  The short of it is that interstellar jumps are expensive, but not prohibitively so.

Well, no more prohibitive than the ungodly-high cost of Karborundum in the first place, that is.

[Booots]

I'm actually okay with K+'s change. If anyone wants to pay bajillions of funds to buy Karborundum, they should be able to. While I liked having it hard to obtain by being non-tweakable, hard to obtain by economic feasibility is a thing too. If you think about it, they're just abstracting the getting aspect by imagining paying some other space agency to make the trek to Eeloo or paying some particle accelerator to make it or - because once you have a solid beacon network keeping refueled is relatively easy - taking out the grind of mining and transferring.

If people think that buying Karborundum for jumps is too cheap, we could also simply scale up the jump costs and patch the tanks to hold more and drills to mine faster, but I think @RoverDude actually set a decent price point. (Eg. 150 units for an average in-system jump -> 600,000 funds) "This mod saves you only time..." 600,000 will buy you a hell of a transfer stage.

Personally, I'm never going to buy it because my Eeloo colony is already en-route, but if it fits someone's play style to use up their funds on Karborundum, who am I to stop them? (Especially because we aren't the curators of Karborundum...) And there is that MM patch @Zhetaan posted if anyone needs help with self-control.

 

EDIT: I'm not on 1.1.3 yet, can anyone tell me if the update broke anything?

Edited June 24, 2016 by Booots

[RoverDude]

On 6/22/2016 at 1:12 PM, Deimos Rast said:

I should have also added the solar Karborundum zone is apparently a thing again as well.

The tweakable thing we could do, but would be hard to justify, since you already pay the increased cost.

Not sure what the rational was behind this move as I  rather liked it non-tweakable, conceptually at least.

Tweak was provided to avoid late game grind, provide better testing options, and to put it in-line with some of the other resource costs.  So you can now either choose to pay for your Karborundum in time, or pay for it in effort.

[Zhetaan]

@RoverDude:

That makes sense, though I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of finer points that I don't understand.  To use the relevant example, keeping Karborundum in-line with other resource costs is obviously important, especially if you're going to let people buy (and sell) it, so making it cost the same as XenonGas doesn't make sense if it's supposed to be this super-special, super-rare stuff.  At the same time, if you want buying it to be an option, it doesn't make sense to raise the price to the point that the stuff may as well be non-tweakable because no one will pay for it.  But, my thinking goes, that only covers the edge cases of cost-setting.  Why make it four thousand Funds per unit instead of, say, eight?  Or two?

If it isn't a bother, I would like to ask you about how you go about setting resource costs:  what points you consider to set the initial cost, how you balance against other resource costs--that kind of thing.  I think that out of the entire modding community, your stuff has the most resources that need to work together at the same time (though maybe KSPI-E and RF are in the same realm as USI).  Add in the fact that over time, you've tended to simplify your resource chains (I remember MEPs!) and I doubt there is anyone who has had to consider the question as much as you have.

[RoverDude]

Sure.  Right now, Plutonium is actually one of the top resources cost wise (and it should of course be more expensive than enriched uranium).  Given it's power, it's a decent balancing factor, and makes people still have to question whether they want to foot the bill, or just go mine it.

[Zhetaan]

That's a very interesting example, not least because in reality, plutonium is almost the opposite of a non-tweakable resource:  it isn't found except in trace amounts in nature, so you have to buy or manufacture it.  I imagine it would be possible to set up a breeder reactor dynamic for KSP Plutonium, but if it's made from DepletedFuel, which in the CRP costs nothing, then anyone could get it for free in the VAB, thus breaking balance ...

... And that brings us right back to why things like the CRP were put together in the first place.

Thanks for your time, @RoverDude!  That was illuminating.

[RoverDude]

No worries - if you folks find it out of whack, let me know.  The 4K was a starting yardstick

[Booots]

Update 0.8 is posted. Updated for KSP 1.1.3.

Also! Now available on SpaceDock and CKAN!

Beacons no longer need Karborundum on board to initialize by default but can be configured to require it. Orbit drawing is still broken.

Changes:

• Added action group capability to beacons and tech boxes.
• Added editor information for beacons and tech boxes.
• All beacons now use generic coefficients for cost instead of hard-coded formulas (IB-1 excepted).
• Fixed model orientation of tech boxes.
• Background performance improvements.
• Updated bundled CRP.