Tac Life support

[How to: KSP]

So I had this idea of playing with tac life support. And I was just wondering should I play with the mod or not in like a new sandbox or perhaps a career mode save

 

[Dedjal]

It certainly adds a new dimension to planing and execution of missions. I recently switched over to using kerbalism instead.

[How to: KSP]

2 minutes ago, Dedjal said:

It certainly adds a new dimension to planing and execution of missions. I recently switched over to using kerbalism instead.

Kerbalism sounds too difficult but maybe tac lifesupport is for me.

Anyways should I install it or not

Edited July 4, 2016 by How to: KSP

[Dedjal]

I actually switched to Kerbalism to make it easier, hehe.

It allows me to grow food. And with some tweaking, allows the greenhouse to produce oxygen as well. Making a space station able to be self supplied. 

[How to: KSP]

Just now, Dedjal said:

I actually switched to Kerbalism to make it easier, hehe.

It allows me to grow food. And with some tweaking, allows the greenhouse to produce oxygen as well. Making a space station able to be self supplied. 

But what about my question and the dangers of radiation in other planets ( you cant just build a shield to block the rays)

[Mastikator]

TAC Life Support make doing long missions like sending Kerbals to the surface of Duna go from easy mode to extreme hard mode.

Though once you feel like you've mastered vanilla mod Life Support will add that extra dimension you didn't know you craved. Whether you prefer sandbox or career is up to you, I'm a career kind of person.

[Thalamask]

Personally, I found TAC LS to be overly complicated with too many variables to keep track of. I prefer USI's Life Support. You still have to LS, you just don't have to do it three times over.

[Mastikator]

2 minutes ago, Thalamask said:

Personally, I found TAC LS to be overly complicated with too many variables to keep track of. I prefer USI's Life Support. You still have to LS, you just don't have to do it three times over.

In TAC there are parts that contain oxygen, food and water in even parts. I've never had to do it three times over with TAC.

[Thalamask]

1 minute ago, Mastikator said:

In TAC there are parts that contain oxygen, food and water in even parts. I've never had to do it three times over with TAC.

Except that it doesn't actually USE them up in equal quantities, which means that you need to tweak O2, food and water separately to get them to roughly the same amount of time and, if you're in the position of doing recycling as well, you then have to match up your CO2, waste and waste water recycling rates as well. Sorry, Mastikator, but I think you're wrong.

[Mastikator]

16 minutes ago, Thalamask said:

Except that it doesn't actually USE them up in equal quantities, which means that you need to tweak O2, food and water separately to get them to roughly the same amount of time and, if you're in the position of doing recycling as well, you then have to match up your CO2, waste and waste water recycling rates as well. Sorry, Mastikator, but I think you're wrong.

I've probably done a 40-60 missions with TAC and using the triple resource part I've always had precisely the same durations worth of food, water and oxygen. If it says 12 days on food then it says 12 days on water and 12 on oxygen.
It might be a different story if you try to recycle the waste, but I've never done that since it's easier to just bring more.

Even my most ambitious mission, which involved 3 kerbals landing on both Ike and Duna and then coming home started out with ~3 years worth of food, oxygen and water, all in these triple resource parts and when they came home there were 6 days left of food, water and oxygen.

[How to: KSP]

3 minutes ago, Mastikator said:

I've probably done a 40-60 missions with TAC and using the triple resource part I've always had precisely the same durations worth of food, water and oxygen. If it says 12 days on food then it says 12 days on water and 12 on oxygen.
It might be a different story if you try to recycle the waste, but I've never done that since it's easier to just bring more.

Even my most ambitious mission, which involved 3 kerbals landing on both Ike and Duna and then coming home started out with ~3 years worth of food, oxygen and water, all in these triple resource parts and when they came home there were 6 days left of food, water and oxygen.

can you do a decade worth of food for 3 or 5 people becuase I want to go to jool with the mod

[Mastikator]

Just now, How to: KSP said:

can you do a decade worth of food for 3 or 5 people becuase I want to go to jool with the mod

You could, but the payload would be astronomical. And from experience I've learned that you should always bring way more than you need. A Jool mission should be at least 40 years worth of stuff, which is an absolute monster of an undertaking. And put a probe core on it just in case.

[How to: KSP]

4 minutes ago, Mastikator said:

You could, but the payload would be astronomical. And from experience I've learned that you should always bring way more than you need. A Jool mission should be at least 40 years worth of stuff, which is an absolute monster of an undertaking. And put a probe core on it just in case.

Good god, How much all of this weight would turn out pls tell me

[Mastikator]

1 minute ago, How to: KSP said:

Good god, How much all of this weight would turn out pls tell me

I can only give you a ballpark figure at this time but realistically an orange tank's worth of resources per kerbal. By the time you get to Jool about 40% should be gone, if it's 50% then they're probably doomed. TAC lets you know how long the resources will last.

You should also bring 1 RTC generator and 1 XL Gigantor Solar Array per kerbal, since electricity can be a problem at Jool. And plenty of batteries, having 10k total charge is probably not overkill.

[How to: KSP]

Man, and I thought I was becoming a pro. And also I am the one that thought 4000 electric charge was way too overkill and now you prove me wrong.

Pro things ever I have done:

Moho Landing

Dres Landing

And also I planned out the crafts for the Jool 5 challenge that I will be filming soon.

[Snark]

One of the nice things about adding a life support mod is that it opens up other play style options.

For example:  Going to Jool?  You can launch a crapload of supplies in an unmanned ship, and lob it on a nice, long, slow Hohmann transfer to Jool.

Make a big heavy mining ship, too... crewable, but unmanned.  Launch it slow, too.

Give 'em a couple years head start.

Then you send your crew-- on a stripped-down, low-mass, high-dV ship that carries crew, life support supplies, and not much else.  Launch it fast, on a faster-than-Hohmann transfer so you can get to Jool much quicker.  It only needs to carry enough fuel and life support for a one-way trip at much faster-than-Hohmann speeds.  When it arrives at Jool, hook up with the unmanned ships already waiting for you there.

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, Mastikator said:

I've probably done a 40-60 missions with TAC and using the triple resource part I've always had precisely the same durations worth of food, water and oxygen. If it says 12 days on food then it says 12 days on water and 12 on oxygen.
It might be a different story if you try to recycle the waste, but I've never done that since it's easier to just bring more.

Even my most ambitious mission, which involved 3 kerbals landing on both Ike and Duna and then coming home started out with ~3 years worth of food, oxygen and water, all in these triple resource parts and when they came home there were 6 days left of food, water and oxygen.

You can recycle water and air, you have some loss so you end up needing 7-8 times more food than air and water, yes it would be better if it was an fixed faction. 
 

[How to: KSP]

21 hours ago, Snark said:

One of the nice things about adding a life support mod is that it opens up other play style options.

For example:  Going to Jool?  You can launch a crapload of supplies in an unmanned ship, and lob it on a nice, long, slow Hohmann transfer to Jool.

Make a big heavy mining ship, too... crewable, but unmanned.  Launch it slow, too.

Give 'em a couple years head start.

Then you send your crew-- on a stripped-down, low-mass, high-dV ship that carries crew, life support supplies, and not much else.  Launch it fast, on a faster-than-Hohmann transfer so you can get to Jool much quicker.  It only needs to carry enough fuel and life support for a one-way trip at much faster-than-Hohmann speeds.  When it arrives at Jool, hook up with the unmanned ships already waiting for you there.

Hmmmm that could be nice expect my crew Will die becuase I dont put life support

[Snark]

1 hour ago, How to: KSP said:

Hmmmm that could be nice expect my crew Will die becuase I dont put life support

...Not quite sure what you mean.  The crew should do just fine:

• It does okay on the outbound journey, even though there's not a huge amount of life support, since you're going fast and the journey doesn't take too long.
• It does okay while at Jool, because it meets up with the supplies you already delivered to Jool.
• It does okay on the return journey, because you also do that fast, with a full load of supplies when you leave Jool.

The basic idea is:  keep crewed transit light and fast, let heavy supplies be shipped slowly without crew.

[regex]

Life support adds a great dimension of detail and additional planning to the game, I've always found it a worthwhile addition.  FWIW I find using recyclers or "loss-reduction-loops" turns the whole affair into a  exercise in "why bother?" but that's personal taste.

How much detail you want determines the LS mod you install.  I prefer TAC LS for maximum detail and human-realistic  values but I've heard USI LS is great for more "gamey" oriented players and, knowing the author, it's well-coded.

Edited July 6, 2016 by regex

[ISE]

I'm currently working on a table that can calculate all the variables in TAC LS. But Im pretty sure alternate resource has a calculation built into it so maybe I will have to look into that instead.

Edited July 18, 2016 by ISE
Correction

[Kertech]

So in my saves I get to Duna and Eve, I then say to myself "well they're centuries ahead of our space program so they'd probably have cryo tech now" 

 

slap on a couple of cryo pods onto a new generation of interplanetary ships (mine are always multimission) and their you go, make sure you have enough electric charge and what ever resource the deepfreeze stuff consume! 

Also solves my keep fit issues

[Red Iron Crown]

Add-on related discussion moved to Add-on Discussions.

[How to: KSP]

2 hours ago, Kertech said:

So in my saves I get to Duna and Eve, I then say to myself "well they're centuries ahead of our space program so they'd probably have cryo tech now" 

 

slap on a couple of cryo pods onto a new generation of interplanetary ships (mine are always multimission) and their you go, make sure you have enough electric charge and what ever resource the deepfreeze stuff consume! 

Also solves my keep fit issues

Deep freeze sounds like cheating