[Minimum KSP: 1.12.2] Snacks! - Friendly, Simplified Life Support

[MarkusA380]

On 5/9/2019 at 12:40 AM, Angel-125 said:

Yes, if you enable the death penalty. It is disabled by default.

I definitely did enable it in the difficulty settings of the mod.

[TarTi]

Hi, I really like this simple and effective mod, great work !

I was looking for somehing just a bit more realistic but in the same category..

So my question is, since Snacks! is advised by a few other mods (and players), as Pathfinder mod i.e., how will evolve snack and/or supplies / food in my game ? it will be redundant, wanting to eat 16 times a day, snacks will be replaces by food, or..?

Sorry, I'm a bit confused with all these different Life Support mods, I just want to try all of them but I also don't want to break this cool simlple one. I finally just want to add Water and CO2 plus my snacks to my game  

Edited May 19, 2019 by TarTi

[Angelo Kerman]

On 5/19/2019 at 9:33 AM, TarTi said:

Hi, I really like this simple and effective mod, great work !

I was looking for somehing just a bit more realistic but in the same category..

So my question is, since Snacks! is advised by a few other mods (and players), as Pathfinder mod i.e., how will evolve snack and/or supplies / food in my game ? it will be redundant, wanting to eat 16 times a day, snacks will be replaces by food, or..?

Sorry, I'm a bit confused with all these different Life Support mods, I just want to try all of them but I also don't want to break this cool simlple one. I finally just want to add Water and CO2 plus my snacks to my game  

With my mods (DSEV, MOLE, Pathfinder, Heisenberg, Buffalo, and Kerbal Flying Saucers), Snacks is used as is, with additional convenience templates to make Snacks production work with my mods. In other words, you get more ways to produce Snacks, but it takes additional resources to make them.

Snacks is designed to be lightweight and require nothing more than Ore, and only adds Soil if you enable recycling. I am in the process of making changes to allow for additional life support resources if desired but even then they will be off by default and require configuration files to be renamed in order to be enabled.

If you want a more involved mod with air, water, and waste products, TAC Life Support is already available.

[Angelo Kerman]

Heads up, there's a new version of Snacks on the way...

[AmpCat]

Nice update! I switched from USI Life-Support back to Snacks, since it was forcing me to build craft that were too huge for KSP to manage (400+ parts) for long missions. Granted, some of it is me preparing for everything, but so far, Snacks! is getting me back in the range of 150 parts.

I noticed there's only a few parts to recycle soil and produce more snacks. Particularly, it doesn't automatically add snack production to other mods that add science labs. I know there's a way to generically do so, though balance may be a bit of an issue. Any thoughts on expanding these options to more parts, or perhaps some smaller, more limited parts for craft less than 2.5m?

[Angelo Kerman]

33 minutes ago, AmpCat said:

Nice update! I switched from USI Life-Support back to Snacks, since it was forcing me to build craft that were too huge for KSP to manage (400+ parts) for long missions. Granted, some of it is me preparing for everything, but so far, Snacks! is getting me back in the range of 150 parts.

I noticed there's only a few parts to recycle soil and produce more snacks. Particularly, it doesn't automatically add snack production to other mods that add science labs. I know there's a way to generically do so, though balance may be a bit of an issue. Any thoughts on expanding these options to more parts, or perhaps some smaller, more limited parts for craft less than 2.5m?

I try to keep Snacks as simple as possible; it's intended to be a lightweight life support system, built along the lines of what I think @SQUAD were to do if they made a life support system.

It's fairly easy to add Snacks converters to parts if you know the name of the part. For an example of how it's done for stock parts, check out Snacks/ModuleManagerPatches/MM_Stock.cfg. I just add the processor to the stock MPL via ModuleManager.

Snacks may look lightweight but under the hood it's pretty sophisticated. I'm almost done replacing the original code base (it needed some luv), and this time around, in addition to the planet filter, Snacks will run simulations on your vessel converters to estimate how long your Snacks will last.

Even better, I'm laying the groundwork to let you add additional life support resources via config files. So while out of the box you get Snacks, you could, if you wanted, add and keep track of (and simulate) other resources...

[AmpCat]

18 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

I try to keep Snacks as simple as possible; it's intended to be a lightweight life support system, built along the lines of what I think @SQUAD were to do if they made a life support system.

It's fairly easy to add Snacks converters to parts if you know the name of the part. For an example of how it's done for stock parts, check out Snacks/ModuleManagerPatches/MM_Stock.cfg. I just add the processor to the stock MPL via ModuleManager.

Snacks may look lightweight but under the hood it's pretty sophisticated. I'm almost done replacing the original code base (it needed some luv), and this time around, in addition to the planet filter, Snacks will run simulations on your vessel converters to estimate how long your Snacks will last.

Even better, I'm laying the groundwork to let you add additional life support resources via config files. So while out of the box you get Snacks, you could, if you wanted, add and keep track of (and simulate) other resources...

Nice. That opens up a lot of options that come to mind. I like the simplicity, just at the moment, since it only has like, 2 parts supported in stock, it really limits what you can do with longer missions. I'll see if I can think of another part or two to give a little more flexibility. What about the ISRU modules? I liked the idea of the greenhouses from Nertea's stuff, but that would require new parts to get a smaller (1.25/1.875m) parts. 

[Angelo Kerman]

7 minutes ago, AmpCat said:

Nice. That opens up a lot of options that come to mind. I like the simplicity, just at the moment, since it only has like, 2 parts supported in stock, it really limits what you can do with longer missions. I'll see if I can think of another part or two to give a little more flexibility. What about the ISRU modules? I liked the idea of the greenhouses from Nertea's stuff, but that would require new parts to get a smaller (1.25/1.875m) parts. 

Snacks does have the ability to operate a greenhouse; the SnacksConverter lets you produce a crop of resources, called yield resources, after a specified number of hours pass. You can even set it up to produce more than a typical yield or less depending on random chance. The functionality is there, but there's no part to support it (by design as that complicates things). For ISRU, you can turn Ore into Snacks via the MPL.

[AmpCat]

1 minute ago, Angel-125 said:

Snacks does have the ability to operate a greenhouse; the SnacksConverter lets you produce a crop of resources, called yield resources, after a specified number of hours pass. You can even set it up to produce more than a typical yield or less depending on random chance. The functionality is there, but there's no part to support it (by design as that complicates things). For ISRU, you can turn Ore into Snacks via the MPL.

I was thinking more of using the ISRU to also recycle soil into snacks, but that doesn't seem very.. thematically correct. Nertea has some great parts this could be added to, but mostly large ones. USI Life Support has some nice smaller parts, but it's another life support mod itself. And I'd have to look up the part license RoverDude has. Could maybe set up a stock Cupola to grow snacks. Hmm. I really need to learn how to model things for KSP. Did lots of modeling years ago.

[Angelo Kerman]

Just now, AmpCat said:

I was thinking more of using the ISRU to also recycle soil into snacks, but that doesn't seem very.. thematically correct. Nertea has some great parts this could be added to, but mostly large ones. USI Life Support has some nice smaller parts, but it's another life support mod itself. And I'd have to look up the part license RoverDude has. Could maybe set up a stock Cupola to grow snacks. Hmm. I really need to learn how to model things for KSP. Did lots of modeling years ago.

There's the Hitchhiker of course; it recycles soil into snacks. You could use ModuleManager to patch other parts such as the 1.25m crew cabin to add a soil recycler if desired...

[AmpCat]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

There's the Hitchhiker of course; it recycles soil into snacks. You could use ModuleManager to patch other parts such as the 1.25m crew cabin to add a soil recycler if desired...

Indeed! I have a little cfg file of my own for patching a few such things in. Just need to ponder what would make the most sense. Thanks for the feedback on all this, and the great mods!

[Angelo Kerman]

Editor simulations are dynamic...

[zer0Kerbal]

I think Val is getting fed up with @Angel-125 serendipitously snatching and snagging her snacks! (just couldn't resist B) )

[Waxing_Kibbous]

22 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Even better, I'm laying the groundwork to let you add additional life support resources via config files. So while out of the box you get Snacks, you could, if you wanted, add and keep track of (and simulate) other resources...

Very cool, I'd love to see an EC requirement added as a sort of generic temperature/air recycling/QoL abstraction to go along with the food resource- I look forward to this particular update!

[Angelo Kerman]

On 5/27/2019 at 6:42 PM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

Very cool, I'd love to see an EC requirement added as a sort of generic temperature/air recycling/QoL abstraction to go along with the food resource- I look forward to this particular update!

Custom resource tracking will be in the update after this one, but thanks! Next update focuses on the snapshot window revision, which is an integral part of tracking custom resources. I also have to figure out how to simulate power generation and consumption, so that won't be in the next update. You'll need to make sure that your craft can handle a day/night cycle with converters running or else the simulations won't be accurate.

[AmpCat]

@Angel-125, I've noticed some bugs with Soil Recyclers (at least; I've not tested the other parts) on time warp settings. I have a station set up with more recycling capability than Kerbals at the moment. At most time accelerations, everything's fine. Snacks are recycled from soil faster than they are consumed. However, when I am at max stock acceleration (100,000x I think), then recycling quickly slows down (or consumption goes up) such that the recyclers can no longer keep up. In fact, it almost seems as if recycling stops entirely, but it's difficult to tell in just watching the volumes of each material.

Also, when back at the KSC, if I have a ship in orbit with recyclers running, during time warp there, I will often get messages that the recyclers ran out of resources and can't recycle until it's restored. Going back to the vessel, things are fine, but recycling has apparently halted while I was not piloting the ship. I don't know if it realized it was in a shadow or something and stopped it. However, the recyclers still show as 'On', but there's a huge buildup of soil. There is enough recycling capacity that as long as there's room for snacks, there should never be any soil. Well, the snacks were far from full.

Also, when looking at the Snacks toolbar button, where it says 'Snack Supply', this doesn't seem to take into account recyclers, as it bumps up and down under time acceleration according to snack consumption and recycling.

I removed random snack eating for these tests, as well, to make sure things were consistent. I also have recycler efficiency set at 80%.

Also, a general question: If I have a ship with a Hitchhiker can on it, is there anything that effects the amount of soil recycled per day, other than the recycler efficiency setting in the options menu? I thought i read somewhere that several things play into how much soil they can recycle, but I've never seen it change.

Edited June 1, 2019 by AmpCat

[Angelo Kerman]

48 minutes ago, AmpCat said:

@Angel-125, I've noticed some bugs with Soil Recyclers (at least; I've not tested the other parts) on time warp settings. I have a station set up with more recycling capability than Kerbals at the moment. At most time accelerations, everything's fine. Snacks are recycled from soil faster than they are consumed. However, when I am at max stock acceleration (100,000x I think), then recycling quickly slows down (or consumption goes up) such that the recyclers can no longer keep up. In fact, it almost seems as if recycling stops entirely, but it's difficult to tell in just watching the volumes of each material.

Also, when back at the KSC, if I have a ship in orbit with recyclers running, during time warp there, I will often get messages that the recyclers ran out of resources and can't recycle until it's restored. Going back to the vessel, things are fine, but recycling has apparently halted while I was not piloting the ship. I don't know if it realized it was in a shadow or something and stopped it. However, the recyclers still show as 'On', but there's a huge buildup of soil. There is enough recycling capacity that as long as there's room for snacks, there should never be any soil. Well, the snacks were far from full.

Also, when looking at the Snacks toolbar button, where it says 'Snack Supply', this doesn't seem to take into account recyclers, as it bumps up and down under time acceleration according to snack consumption and recycling.

I removed random snack eating for these tests, as well, to make sure things were consistent. I also have recycler efficiency set at 80%.

Also, a general question: If I have a ship with a Hitchhiker can on it, is there anything that effects the amount of soil recycled per day, other than the recycler efficiency setting in the options menu? I thought i read somewhere that several things play into how much soil they can recycle, but I've never seen it change.

Wow. That's a lot. I'm making a bunch of changes to background processing and vessel snapshots, so once the new release is out, we'll have to see about high timewarps again.

Soil recycling should be affected by Engineers; they can speed up the process.

[AmpCat]

3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Wow. That's a lot. I'm making a bunch of changes to background processing and vessel snapshots, so once the new release is out, we'll have to see about high timewarps again.

Soil recycling should be affected by Engineers; they can speed up the process.

No worries, just letting you know what I see. I try to give you enough info to be useful.

Okay, thanks. I'll try it out in a while. Does Engineer level/exp matter, or just the number of engineers? Or just the presence of one at all?

[Angelo Kerman]

1 minute ago, AmpCat said:

No worries, just letting you know what I see. I try to give you enough info to be useful.

Okay, thanks. I'll try it out in a while. Does Engineer level/exp matter, or just the number of engineers? Or just the presence of one at all?

As with other converters, the level of engineer matters.

[Angelo Kerman]

Snacks 1.16 is now available:

- Added new celestial bodies filter to the snacks supply window.

- Snacks will now run multithreaded simulations on a vessel's supplies and converters to estimate how long the vessel's snacks will last.
NOTE: For the simulator to work properly, be sure to visit all your in-flight vessels that have crews aboard after installing this update.
NOTE: The simulator cannot simulate drill operations.

- Made some improvements to background converter processing. As a bonus, power production & consumption are also run in the background- with Kopernicus support for solar arrays.

- SnacksConverter now lists the yield resources in the part info window, and shows yield production time remaining in the PAW.

- Snacks and other resources consumed per day are now calculated based on the solar day length of the homeworld instead of set to the stock 6hrs/24hrs. I'm looking at you, JNSQ...

Edited June 2, 2019 by Angel-125

[Atlessa]

I can't seem to find any recyclers (using mostly Mk2 shape parts).  Where should I look for them?  Is there maybe a tie-in parts mod that adds some standalone ones?

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, Atlessa said:

I can't seem to find any recyclers (using mostly Mk2 shape parts).  Where should I look for them?  Is there maybe a tie-in parts mod that adds some standalone ones?

Check out the MM_Stock.cfg file, it has wha you need. You'll need to add additional parts to the SoilRecycler MM patch.

[StainX]

Nice updates, you are awesome!
Background processing is running so much smoother now!

[Angelo Kerman]

6 minutes ago, StainX said:

Nice updates, you are awesome!
Background processing is running so much smoother now!

Glad it’s working out.  It looks like small changes on the surface but there was a lot of updates under the hood. Next major release will finally replace the last of the original codebase and let you expand the life support resources tracked while keeping with the lightweight feel out of the box. I am hoping to have it done in the next few weeks.

[Spartan125]

I am having trouble with recycling at high time warp despite the recent update. Something I noticed was that the Hitchhiker container said it was missing electric charge in the info box.  My ship is capable of generating the electricity needed and I have three Kerbals onboard so it should be able to keep up.