Mod Community Base for 0.16

[DArkB0mb3rz22]

It seems that the base is at a standstill.

With NovaPunch unable to download for who knows how long, We will have to do something to fix it, that being removing all the ships with NovaPunch parts or simply waiting it out until the pack becomes downloadable again.

With that being said, put me on the list. Hopefully this issue will be resolved, and the base can continue

Edited August 21, 2012 by DArkB0mb3rz22

[khyron42]

On the NovaPunch issues, I'm thinking of three options -

One, suspend flights for now. The licensing should be sorted out very soon.

Two, continue flights without it. All ships that used the parts will vanish, but once the licensing is sorted out, I'll edit them back in.

Three, a bit of roleplayish mayhem: Due to licensing issues, NovaPunch Industries executives panicked and activated the hidden self-destruct mechanisms in all parts they had shipped. The company apologizes for the damages, and will ensure that the self-destruct mechanisms are removed when the resume shipping parts after regaining the manufacturing rights."

What do you think?

[TheCardinal]

Option one and two seem reasonable solutions to the current problem. Personally, I dislike option three.

The most important question at this moment is: How many contestants do not have the NovaPunch mod at this moment? I suspect the number will be small (1? 2?)

If the number is very small, other options are:

Four, suspend flights for those persons with the garantuee that when the license issue is resolved they will immediately move to the top of the list.

Five, creation of a (temporary) collection mod of currently used NP parts, only downloadable by those persons. A patch to keep operations going. Previously unused NP parts are not included so cannot be added.

Six, restart the modbase completely. At some point the limit of possible ships in the persistence file will be reached anyway.

[khyron42]

For now, let's keep things moving with Option 2 - Radzaarty's up! Just ignore the error messages for NP parts; you'll lose a lot of the other ships, but it's still about a dozen ships out there. I tried it out and the error messages are annoying, I had to exit the tracking station and go back in because it got confused with so many missing craft, but you can always just launch.

[zekes]

Can we keep this part? It is (what i bleeve) to be the only nova part on my ships and It is vital to me...

[khyron42]

Zekes, sorry if it wasn't clear.

Those who already have NovaPunch installed can keep flying with it.

Every time someone posts a save file, I'll check to see if any ships have gone missing (I do this anyway). If they have, I'll copy out the new ships that were added, and merge them into a save file that still had the missing ships intact. Then I'll upload that merged file as the OP persistent save and as a comment.

The next guy can then fly from that save, with NovaPunch parts installed if he has them, without if he doesn't. That way, every ship that includes NovaPunch will still be there and people who have it installed already can keep adding ships with those parts. It's just to allow people who don't have it to fly turns too, for now.

[zekes]

Zekes, sorry if it wasn't clear.

Those who already have NovaPunch installed can keep flying with it.

Every time someone posts a save file, I'll check to see if any ships have gone missing (I do this anyway). If they have, I'll copy out the new ships that were added, and merge them into a save file that still had the missing ships intact. Then I'll upload that merged file as the OP persistent save and as a comment.

The next guy can then fly from that save, with NovaPunch parts installed if he has them, without if he doesn't. That way, every ship that includes NovaPunch will still be there and people who have it installed already can keep adding ships with those parts. It's just to allow people who don't have it to fly turns too, for now.

Cool then... Glad for that!

Im ready to launch as soon as Radzaarty is done!

[Radzaarty]

Schools being a pain in the ass with homework, I'm forfeiting my turn. Send me to the back of the queue please

[khyron42]

Understood, and I hope it gets better soon!

Zekes' turn!

[zekes]

Well, I think The persist file I downloaded was from someone without Novapunch, so hopefully you can add them back in.

In spite of that, Captain Question Mark (Jeb's older brother and secret government test subject) and his Lander Extraordinaire Managed to land safely. He rejoiced by sitting back, having a some Victory Gin, and praising Zokesia and its Allays (As a result, he will not be executed when he returns).

Sign me up for another flight, maybe I can finally land the Runner 1.

LAUNCH!!

http://s12.postimage.org/3ofb88ckr/screenshot166.png

Captain Question Mark himself and his Lander Extraordinaire!

http://s12.postimage.org/3tj2hwjvv/screenshot170.png

Edited August 24, 2012 by zekes

[KCST]

So, I think it's my turn now

I send a satellite called "Ragnaroek" to a low Minmus Orbit

I used my "Debris-Free" flight method, so there is only one stage in orbit (but it will orbit the sun soon )

Here you can see the satellite from a distance view: http://i.imgur.com/PfG4J.png

And a feature preview : http://i.imgur.com/Scptj.png

You can see, it is ready for a visit by you

I was unable to download MechanicalMouse Ind. Ver. 0.9, so I used 1.0

And I had problems with my rcs-tank, so some vessels are deleted sry

And please sign me in for another flight

Edited August 24, 2012 by KCST

[zekes]

Oh, shoot. It seems I something is going on here because now I can now see all the space ships I was supposed to see........

Ah well. Maybe next flight.

[Saphira]

Sign me up

Edited August 24, 2012 by Saphira

[TheCardinal]

Just post a message "Sign me up for a flight" in this thread and Khyron42 will notify you when it's your turn.

[khyron42]

EDIT:

Here's the merged save file, updating the OP in a few minutes to add everyone's new bases and new flights!

-----

EDIT again:

I had to delete it for now, needs more work. Zekes, you used the Altair lander from Industrial Flame and Explosions? The guy who made that mod has taken it down and told people they cannot redistribute it, so there's nothing we can do to save your ship.

-----

Edit #3: We're back in business! see the OP for the merged & fixed persistence file. TheCardinal is up for launch!

Edited August 26, 2012 by khyron42

[zekes]

Sorry about that, I didn't know......

Btw, why are all these mods unusable? What happened to them?

[TheCardinal]

Some remarks before i commence my flight.

1) according to the persistence file i have now Wildkittyv1 has added the KW Challenger Pack v0.5 (i get a missing part KWLiquidEngine1mH2 which is from that pack). Please add that pack to the required mods list.

2) changing from cart132 to cart133 has caused the hstwUAZ to appear as missing part. After checking both versions it became clear that hstwUAZ wasn't added to cart133. So i removed the hstwUAZ from my craft. After attempting to launch i got the missing part message also for another craft, so I've added it manually from version 132 to cart133 to prevent the disappearing of that craft. Please notify users to do the same.

3) the mod i'm adding is not station parts but spaceport (i misnamed that in a previous message)

4) Ive noticed that Mechjeb 1.9.0. has been changed to Mechjeb 1.9.1 in the required mods list.

and now i'm on my way to minmus.

Edited August 26, 2012 by TheCardinal

[khyron42]

A lot of the mod makers are, let us say, young and enthusiastic future game developers. They'll come in, play the game, do everything possible, get bored, get inspired, make a mod to improve what's available... make that mod awesomer... and then move on to playing another game since they've got limited attention spans.

In release-level games, that would be enough. A mod can live forever in a game where the API and licensing are well defined. But the API/Mod toolkit is changing, causing abandoned and semi-abandoned awesome mods left and right. More recently, Squad insisted on the current person working on a mod to have written permission from anyone else who contributed. I think this will be a one-time issue that won't come up again when we reset the save for 0.17.

The mod list has been harder to maintain this time around, more is being changed in existing mods mid-version! I missed the KW thing, I remember noticing the same thing while building the "merged" save, but I forgot to update the list to include it. I'm trying to recheck them all for updates every few flights and list the newer version when it has been changed. But when mod makers remove a part people have used, or change it to the point where it will destroy craft that used the old version, there's little we can do.

I'm already drooling over the idea of making the Mod Community thread for 0.17. I'm thinking of adding the "everyone landing at a given planet/moon lands at the same base for at least a few landers, then we open a new base" rule back in - do people prefer that, or prefer the wide open setup we have right now? I'm thinking that in 0.17 it won't be much of a limitation, since we'll have a bajillion planets and moons to start bases on.

[TheCardinal]

For those who want to use MechJeb for their flight i recommend using version 1.9.0. Version 1.9.1 has some quirks which make the flight(s) much more difficult than version 1.9.0. (I found out the hard way). This can be done without causing damage to other ships.

My previous flight was an utter failure, this flight was not. On the contrairy, i achieved what i intended after i found out that trying to land very soft can be disadvantageous. Initially i tried to land with a maximum speed of 0.5 m/s. This caused the craft to (over-)correct the horizontal speed, ending in a crash.

After setting it to 2 m/s, it landed a bit bumpy but without any damage.

My main goal was to enlarge Minmus Prime Base located on an ice lake with a garage and a cargo landingplatform (both Spaceport parts). Due to instability issues, i've made it two garages and a Cargo platform. My craft came down at a considerable distance from Minmus Prime Base (as intended). To get the garages and landingplatform close to Minmus Prime base i used the slipperyness of the ice lake by pushing the parts to their target with rovers. I had to let the rocket stage fly off to get the platform clear. It crashed on the surface, unbelievably only exploding one empty fueltank and a node. The remainder still contains 4390 fuel for refueling purposes. Perhaps it can be usefull later on when the fuel transfer mod is added. Minmus Prime Base now is ready to receive tourists and cargo.

(Note to tourists: You should bring your own habitat along, currently no vacancies available at Minmus Prime Base)

New persistence file: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47942810/persistent.sfs

Images:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47942810/screenshot-1.png

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47942810/screenshot-2.png

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47942810/screenshot-3.png

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47942810/screenshot-4.png

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47942810/screenshot-5.png

Please sign me up for a new flight.

Edited August 28, 2012 by TheCardinal
typos

[khyron42]

Nice, TheCardinal!

That part from KW is in both the challenger and KW rocketry packs; I've marked the Rocketry pack 0.5 for v0.16 as the needed mod, because challenger really should have a hatch added before we include it.

I'm working on a Mun lander right now. I'm adding the memorial plaque that Nutt007 made as my mod. I'm aiming to land at the coordinates of Tranquility Base, but since I won't have mechjeb installed on the ship it will be a wild guess by eyeball. That feels somewhat fitting!

-----

This is Tranquility Base; the Eagle has landed.

I made it a fairly similar mission to Apollo 11, with a few changes to fit KSP and our save.

Launching on 5 of the largest rockets Kerbalkind has invented.

A service module second stage does the trans-munar insertion and most orbital maneuvering, with occasional help from the RCS thrusters on the lander stage.

Rather than leave a command module in orbit with one crew behind, I made an orbital rendezvous with the CRAP-1 station (it took me almost two days of in-game time to match orbits) and Richbles Kerman used his backpack RCS to cross over and join the crew of the station.

We came in peace for all kerbalkind.

Unfortunately, it was a night landing. Here's a base pic: http://i.imgur.com/TAaSb.png

Intended landing coordinates were 00° 40' 26" N latitude, 23° 28' 22' E longitude. Actual landing coordinates were 01° 24' 11" S latitude, 23° 35' 24" E longitude. Calculating the error in landing, I was off by a little over 7.2 km; Neil managed it only 6 km off on a moon 10 times bigger, but I'm not him.

I'm signing up for another flight! Updated persistence file is in the OP now.

Wildkittyv1 is go for launch.

Edited August 28, 2012 by khyron42

[TheCardinal]

...

I'm already drooling over the idea of making the Mod Community thread for 0.17. I'm thinking of adding the "everyone landing at a given planet/moon lands at the same base for at least a few landers, then we open a new base" rule back in - do people prefer that, or prefer the wide open setup we have right now? I'm thinking that in 0.17 it won't be much of a limitation, since we'll have a bajillion planets and moons to start bases on.

I've been giving this some thoughts the last two days. In a way it is difficult to answer as we don't know what new options 0.17 will give. Those options might influence everything.

Personally i like the idea of coöperation, i.e. multiple landers at one or more locations. Multiple landers at one location would (in the real world) enhance the chances of survival and give more possibilities and time for research. In the game, it will make the challenges more demanding as you have to land close to the other craft(s) or find ways to get it close in an other fashion. But what do you with a lander which lands very far away? Declare it a failure and delete it? And if so, at what distance will it be considered a failure?

(The next thing is partly based on speculation)

According to what i've read there will be a possibility to save persistence files for several users in version 0.17. Wouldn't it be sensible to create a 'user' for every body in KSP? Participants who want to land a craft on body x should do so under the apropriate user. Crafts that have landed (and their debris etc.) on other bodies are saved under a different "user" and will not be there. Thus lightening the load on computer and memory, avoiding lag and simplifying maintenance of the body x persistent file. However, the downside of this is that it will require a lot more "bookkeeping" which mods have been added to body x.

[khyron42]

One thing we considered back when Minmus and spaceplanes were added was splitting the community threads into separate ones per body. The problem we ran into then was twofold - one, we wanted the option to have multi-body missions, which so far very few people have done. Two, we weren't sure how well having separate threads for it could be kept moving.

I was thinking of splitting them for 0.16, too, and decided again to keep the multi-body, move-a-ship-from-one-to-another option open. It still hasn't been an option people use, so I think we can let it go.

That opens the save-per-planet option but leaves the question: one thread with multiple saves passed around in it, or multiple threads?

I like your suggestions - thinking through what I think might make sense...

- Single thread, multiple saves, mod list per save. That might make it hard to manage which mods are where, though, so I'm torn about whether to do an overall mod list instead of per-save. I'd start it out with MechJeb, Camera, CrewTank, and Carts already added.

- One save per planet + its moons. So there would be an Eve/Gilly signup sheet, Kerbin/Mun/Minmus one, etc. If anyone wanted to sign up to try some kind of high-temp-tolerance mod landing on Moho there'd be one for it too.

- this time around saw an awful lot of space stations added, I'm not sure whether that was good for the community thread overall or distracted from building landed bases. Something to think about.

- 48 hours per turn still, and if you come up for your turn on more than one save at the same time, you get bumped down one on whichever came second. I would try to do all of the updates for "new turn" at the same time instead of trying to manage each set of turns separately.

- Strongly prefer that you land next to an existing ship on your target planet or moon, but nothing saying you can't go off-reservation and land somewhere else if you really want to.

- each person would still be able to add one mod - if we do a unified mod list for all saves, instead of that we might have to do something else.

- to sign up for a first turn for a given world you have to post a screenshot showing that you're actually skilled enough to reach that planet's SoI. (to avoid people who haven't even tried going there before wasting a turn.)

I personally would prefer a single mod list, that way you can just install the list and fly whichever world's save where you have a turn. There will be a way to run multiple saves out of a single copy of KSP, but unless they do something more than what they've announced, the Parts folder will be shared between all saves in a given copy. Most people haven't been adding mods on their turns anyway so it should work out ok even if everyone is allowed to add mods (worst case, that would mean 5 mods added in a single set of turns, but right now it's taken us a month to add 12 mods and I'm sure there are many mods people would love to have added already.)

This approach would also mean a lot more flights get flown, by setting up 5 separate pipelines - something I really hope to encourage. People can sign up for one planet, 3, or 5 as long as they can prove capable of getting a ship there.

I'll probably start a new thread as soon as 0.17 comes out and not accept flight reservations for a few days, just pin down how to proceed in the much larger world we have at that point.

-----

Wildkittyv1 has PM'ed me saying they can't fly this time.

DArkB0mb3rz22, it's your turn.

Edited August 30, 2012 by khyron42

[TheCardinal]

For those who still need the NovaPunch 1.2 beta. The license issue has been resolved and the mod is downloadable again.

[DArkB0mb3rz22]

I am a bit behind schedule but the flight should be posted in a bit, sorry for the delay, everyone

(By delay, I meant I guffed up some installation of the mods and had to get a whole new installation of the game)

[khyron42]

Any time, Darkbomber - but if you need more than another day I might say it's time to skip you and move on to the next person!