MKS Documentation Development

[DStaal]

Ok, so I've been slowly upgrading to 1.2.2, now that I've got a computer capable of running it.  One thing I've noticed a couple of requests for in the regular thread was for example craft files: What would people think about having a page on the Wiki for those?  And, if we do, where should the craft files themselves go?

[Merkov]

There is currently a very WIP page for example stations and bases: https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Example-Stations-and-Bases

Of course, the new stuff is just photos, and the stuff at the top is outdated. I've been sort of mulling over how a page like this should look. Since the idea of MKS is to use disconnected bases, I was wondering if we should maybe show, say, a large (yet disconnected) base that has a specific purpose.

Take nuclear fuels, for example. Imagine if we showed an image of a base that has mining craft harvesting Uraninite, plus a craft that handles the processing into EnrichedUranium, a way for that EnrichedUranium to reach PL, then maybe even a way for the base to handle retrieving DepletedFuel through PL and recycling it into EnrichedUranium again.

In my mind, I imagine that this hypothetical base would be made up of a few individual vessels. We could show an image of everything on the surface, then break down the base by vessel. Image of the vessel, what parts it has, what it DOES (I think this is what messes up lots of new players) and then maybe a link to a craft file. Does that sound reasonable?

I've never messed around with uploading or downloading craft files anywhere, but isn't there a repository or something where people upload craft files? If so, is it something we can just add links to?

[DStaal]

There is KerbalX, if we wanted to link to craft there.  But I was wondering if we wanted to have something a bit more closely tied to the wiki.  (Honestly, the wiki really needs it's own github storage area.  The question is who should run it.  Maybe @RoverDude would be willing to set up a repository and allow people to have access to it?)

I was more thinking specific craft - the question I want to answer is 'How do I start/build a settlement/base?', not 'What does a completed base look like?'  So images of specific vessels, both deployed and undeployed, notes on what the craft is good for, notes on various modifications/additions that could be made, and a link to the craft file.

It might even be worth then having a separate page that's example stations/bases - and link back to the specific craft on the craft files page to describe the craft.  So you can approach it either way: As a starter 'here's something to send up to start/addon' or as a tutorial 'here's a completed base, and how it was built'.

[Merkov]

Hmm... So are you thinking of something like "This is what a first vessel could look like" with descriptions etc. and then "this would be a good follow-up vessel to launch because it adds..."  with additional descriptions?

[DStaal]

Well, I'll admit I tend to think in vessel classes - a first vessel for me either tends to be a Duna module dropped into place (which is basically a class of vessels, because you can replace the Duna module with a different one and land that as a follow up, to quickly build out a Duna+Ranger base) or a Karibou designed to build out with EL.  (I'm looking at Simple Construction for that role as well.)  I'm just starting with Tundra modules, but so far for them it's tended to be 'send them out automated, and assemble into a base on-site', which requires an initial colony core, a set of construction equipment, and then the module landers.

So really my thought for the *craft* page was to say 'here's a vessel for 'w' purpose, here's how to use it, and how it could be modified to serve as x/y/z'.  For the *base* page, yes: 'Here's what you can start with' and then 'here's some good choices for follow up'.

Part of the thought on having the two is the craft page would be a place to kick-start people's ideas, while the base page is more hand-holding to show them how to do things.

[Merkov]

Ah, that all makes sense! Going pack a post or two, I do like your idea of having any craft repository tied a little more closely to the wiki.

[DStaal]

So then the question is: Where/how do we host it?  All the pics are currently hosted by @dboi88's github repository for the KSPedia entry, as they are shared between the two.  But you can't put craft files in a KSPedia entry, and I'm not sure RoverDude wants 'official' craft files which is what they'd become if his repository held them.  So what's good?

Honestly, if either of them wanted to set up a separate space to hold these - or even a folder in their current repo, I'm good with that.  But I'm not sure either would want to.

[notthebobo]

Given the rate at which RD's mods change, any craft files may become obsolete just as quickly.  Pictures, however, show the concept, even if they include obsoleted components.  Providing sample pictures of "here's a vessel for 'w' purpose, here's how to use it, and how it could be modified to serve as x/y/z" makes a lot of sense to me.

For sharing actual craft files, why not use the existing Spacecraft Exchange?

[Merkov]

The Spacecraft Exchange isn't actually a hosting service, just a section of the forum. The craft on the Spacecraft Exchange all need to be hosted somewhere.

[DStaal]

50 minutes ago, notthebobo said:

Given the rate at which RD's mods change, any craft files may become obsolete just as quickly.  Pictures, however, show the concept, even if they include obsoleted components.  Providing sample pictures of "here's a vessel for 'w' purpose, here's how to use it, and how it could be modified to serve as x/y/z" makes a lot of sense to me.

For sharing actual craft files, why not use the existing Spacecraft Exchange?

Which is why I'd really like to share both - and have the craft files someplace where others can grab them and fix them.

[notthebobo]

2 hours ago, Merkov said:

The Spacecraft Exchange isn't actually a hosting service, just a section of the forum. The craft on the Spacecraft Exchange all need to be hosted somewhere.

Ah, learned something new.

[dboi88]

I can set up a repo that can be used for images and craft files.

[Merkov]

17 hours ago, DStaal said:

...and I'm not sure RoverDude wants 'official' craft files which is what they'd become if his repository held them.  So what's good?

Honestly, if either of them wanted to set up a separate space to hold these - or even a folder in their current repo, I'm good with that.  But I'm not sure either would want to.

 

9 hours ago, dboi88 said:

I can set up a repo that can be used for images and craft files.

dboi88: Thank you very much for offering to set up the repo for this.

DStaal: I agree completely that there would be a perception that any craft files held by RoverDude would become "official", which makes it all the better that dboi88 has offered to hold them instead.

I suppose the next question is how do we want to start making these vessels? The nice thing about DStaal's idea of craft basically being stand-alone examples, with suggestions for modifications (if I'm understanding you correctly) is that multiple people could come up with various craft files and they don't necessarily have to mesh with each other, since the idea is to simply give ideas. The way I understand it, I could come up with a craft that is focused on storage of useful MKS resources with LS recyclers and agroponics (that is, no ISRU/mining of any sort, just using/storing resources that have been shipped in) as an early example, while someone else could come up with a craft that is dedicated to LS functions including mining/ISRU. Even though these two craft overlap in function, they still both show ideas of what can be done. Is that sort of the idea?

If that's how we want to do things, I think the next steps should maybe be to come up with A) a rough list of what kinds of craft/functions we want to show off (sort of like a roadmap for development) and B) some sort of standard format for how the entries should look on the wiki. Do we want craft separated into categories. how do we want to list possible modifications you could make to craft, do we want to include a list of what parts are used, etc.?

Another thought I had was incorporating parts from other USI mods. As an example, I tend to like air-dropping Kontainers with MaterialKits and Ranger parts with parachutes or some engines plus the USI airbags to soften the landing. If we wanted to show any sort of interplanetary ark craft, FTT's Orca command pod is a natural addition. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with including parts from other USI mods, though I do think that it would be important to mention which additional mods are used in the description for each craft. I'm not sure if it's necessary to mention when USI-LS parts are used, but still, I figured it was worth considering.

[DStaal]

I should be able to write up an idea of what format I was thinking sometime later today, if there's a place to put pics at least.  (Though I may want to change out the photos later - I've got a ship from my 1.1.3 save that I've rebuilt - there are some minor changes in the 1.2 version of the craft, which I've yet to fully test.)

I've got an internal mental list of a couple of craft that I've rebuilt under the last few versions of UKS/MKS and found useful and that people have asked about when I've shown images of, which is what got the idea started.

My personal thought would be stock+USI+KIS+KAS and maybe EL (mallets and stakes in inventory) would should be the standard, and anything not from stock or MKS should be mentioned.  (And there are a few players out there who run MKS without USI-LS, so it's worth mentioning.  )   Note that there is at least one MKS part that requires KAS to work, and the Ranger modules are designed to work with KIS, so I consider them part of the basic MKS install.

[Merkov]

That all sounds perfectly reasonable. Once you get a chance to type out your format idea and your list of craft, we can come up with what other craft are needed, and hopefully get one example all done up to use as a template.

[dboi88]

Hehe, i was going to ask that we let @DStaal do the formatting  

I've not much else to add, only that what i'd like to see is a general page that we all sort of/mostly agree on as the 'basics' and then everyone who wants to have their own page where they add they're own craft files in their own style with their own explanations. There are so many different ways to play KSP + MKS that only having one section would be a dis-service but trying to get everything into one page/section could simply be more overwhelming than helpful.

So we'd have our craft and bases example but finish it off with a 'be sure to check out some more user examples over here[link to a page full of other peoples stuff].

I feel this would also help to achieve agreement on the contents of main page because if everyone can go and do their own bit in their own way and know it'll be fully supported from the main pages people will be much less inclined to argue what should and shouldn't be on the main page. I think people would be much happier to concede points this way.

Ok so onto the GitHub repo. Has anyone got any experience with GIT? I've not really done any collaborations before and i assumed i could allow part of my KSPedia repo to be editable but it doesn't seem to work like that. So i see a few options.

1. I make it fully public and risk someone screwing it all up, not sure if that's a possibility or not? or whether it's easy enough to revert if anyone did screw it up? so any advice on this point will be appreciated.

2. I give limited users access (you guys commenting here anyone else that requests it. My personal preference

3. Set up a seperate repo for the MKSWiki but that would involve moving all the images over to there and then fixing all the links on the wiki. Or would it? i don't know, so again any advice on this point would be appreciated.

4. do something with the protected branch function, but i've no idea what because i don't really understand what it does.

What is everyone else's thoughts?

[Merkov]

1 minute ago, dboi88 said:

Hehe, i was going to ask that we let @DStaal do the formatting  

I've not much else to add, only that what i'd like to see is a general page that we all sort of/mostly agree on as the 'basics' and then everyone who wants to have their own page where they add they're own craft files in their own style with their own explanations. There are so many different ways to play KSP + MKS that only having one section would be a dis-service but trying to get everything into one page/section could simply be more overwhelming than helpful.

So we'd have our craft and bases example but finish it off with a 'be sure to check out some more user examples over here[link to a page full of other peoples stuff].

I feel this would also help to achieve agreement on the contents of main page because if everyone can go and do their own bit in their own way and know it'll be fully supported from the main pages people will be much less inclined to argue what should and shouldn't be on the main page. I think people would be much happier to concede points this way.

Ok so onto the GitHub repo. Has anyone got any experience with GIT? I've not really done any collaborations before and i assumed i could allow part of my KSPedia repo to be editable but it doesn't seem to work like that. So i see a few options.

1. I make it fully public and risk someone screwing it all up, not sure if that's a possibility or not? or whether it's easy enough to revert if anyone did screw it up? so any advice on this point will be appreciated.

2. I give limited users access (you guys commenting here anyone else that requests it. My personal preference

3. Set up a seperate repo for the MKSWiki but that would involve moving all the images over to there and then fixing all the links on the wiki. Or would it? i don't know, so again any advice on this point would be appreciated.

4. do something with the protected branch function, but i've no idea what because i don't really understand what it does.

What is everyone else's thoughts?

My experience with GitHub is editing the MKS wiki  

I agree that one page full of a ton of craft designs probably isn't the best way to go. Also, just to clarify my previous statements, when I refer to standardized formatting, I really just want to make sure that roughly the same information is available in roughly the same place for each craft. With regards to my idea of us setting up a "roadmap", I don't mean that we should only have one vessel talking about subject a and one about subject b etc., I more just want a way to track which kinds of vessels we have covered so that we can make sure we aren't leaving anything out. My worry is that we will get a bunch of example craft done, all high-five each other, and then realize we never showed an example of nuclear fuel processing or something. I certainly don't see any issue with different people uploading different examples of ships that do similar jobs. Like you said, there are many ways to MKS .

[DStaal]

I'll admit I haven't done much multi-user git myself, but I think what I'd aim for is to have a separate repo for the MKS wiki, with the part images being a git subtree.  (Basically, their own repo that's included into it.)  With probably limited users access, as much because it'd be more comfortable as any other reason.  But the idea being that the KSPedia entry can then evolve separately if/when it needs to, and it doesn't have to hold everything that it never uses, but they can share what they do both use.

That's 'aim for' - It'd likely be a bit of disruption to set it up, so probably the best strategy is to set up the repository structure, but not necessarily move things around.  Do that movement as pages are updated and parts are changed.

What that probably means is that you'd set up *two* new repos: One being the 'MKSWiki' repo, and another being 'MKSParts_Images', and set up the parts images as a subtree to both the KSPedia repo and to the MKSWiki repo.  I'll admit I haven't done this, so I'm not sure how much effort that'd take. 

[dboi88]

1 minute ago, Merkov said:

My experience with GitHub is editing the MKS wiki  

I agree that one page full of a ton of craft designs probably isn't the best way to go. Also, just to clarify my previous statements, when I refer to standardized formatting, I really just want to make sure that roughly the same information is available in roughly the same place for each craft. With regards to my idea of us setting up a "roadmap", I don't mean that we should only have one vessel talking about subject a and one about subject b etc., I more just want a way to track which kinds of vessels we have covered so that we can make sure we aren't leaving anything out. My worry is that we will get a bunch of example craft done, all high-five each other, and then realize we never showed an example of nuclear fuel processing or something. I certainly don't see any issue with different people uploading different examples of ships that do similar jobs. Like you said, there are many ways to MKS .

Yep that's exactly how i understood your suggestions  , i had the exact same idea and @DStaal has done a really nice job with the markdown layouts so far with the tables and headers ect. and @notthebobo has done really well in keeping us all on task and instep  

So one main section where we have all the main crafts covered using the parts all exactly as intended that we all mostly agree on as being appropriate for new users and that showcases MKS as RD intends it to be used. But then anyone else can put their own spin on things, include other mods, showcase different play styles that others might consider 'cheaty', include other mods that they feel work well with USI ect. ect.

4 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I'll admit I haven't done much multi-user git myself, but I think what I'd aim for is to have a separate repo for the MKS wiki, with the part images being a git subtree.  (Basically, their own repo that's included into it.)  With probably limited users access, as much because it'd be more comfortable as any other reason.  But the idea being that the KSPedia entry can then evolve separately if/when it needs to, and it doesn't have to hold everything that it never uses, but they can share what they do both use.

That's 'aim for' - It'd likely be a bit of disruption to set it up, so probably the best strategy is to set up the repository structure, but not necessarily move things around.  Do that movement as pages are updated and parts are changed.

What that probably means is that you'd set up *two* new repos: One being the 'MKSWiki' repo, and another being 'MKSParts_Images', and set up the parts images as a subtree to both the KSPedia repo and to the MKSWiki repo.  I'll admit I haven't done this, so I'm not sure how much effort that'd take. 

I don't even know how to do that and some searches i've done today haven't been particularly helpful, maybe using gitshell will open up loads of possibilities? i just don't know. Hopefully someone will come along with more Git experience. We'll give it a few days and see if anyone comes out the woodwork.

[DStaal]

It's still technically 'later today', right? 

I have what's mostly a proof-of-concept craft entry up at: https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Example-Craft-Files

Of course, I haven't linked in the craft file yet, as I'm not sure where to place it.  And the images are from my 1.1.3 version of this craft, while the description talks about the 1.2.2 version, which doesn't match exactly.  (Notably I switched from using the MK-V Habitation module to using the Ranger Emergency Shelter - it provides a decent boost to habitation, without requiring more MaterialKits than can be landed in that design.)

[dboi88]

Ok I've added @DStaal, @Merkov & @notthebobo as collaborators on the MKSKspedia Wiki. So you can now all upload and merge new images and craft files where you wish. Please just try not to change anything outside of the MKSWiki folder. I'd also suggest adding a new craft file's folder as well. I'll add the folder later if someone doesn't get to it before. I'll keep a backup of the KSPedia project on my PC so if someone does something they shouldn't and we can't fix it with Github reverts i can always reupload the KSPedia files to fix.

We should add into FAQ and where ever else appropriate that anyone can add their own pages and they can contact me for access if they need to upload to the repo, i'm happy to link to my profile ect. I can always remove anyone who doesn't cooperate or just starts screwing things up.

[dboi88]

p.s. it'd be nice to keep a consistent art style across the board, and on that note i'd be happy to fire off all the screenshots for the main page and for anyone else that wants them doing for their own page. I've found a really nice workflow for the screenshots and i'll be able to get images done within 24 hours in most cases.

On 12/27/2016 at 4:42 AM, Merkov said:

I can start making an entry for the Salamander pod, but I have no idea how you are getting those awesome images of the parts on white backgrounds.

By the way all these images actually have no background so will look just as good on any colour not just white  

This is the way i was doing my base examples. These were all heavily optimised for the KSPedia entry so any i do for the Wiki will be higher quality.

On that point i took a look at my screenshots folder for the KSPedia entry. The images alone were 650mb!! It still shocks me that i managed to get that 138 page KSPedia entry down to 3mb!!

[DStaal]

11 hours ago, dboi88 said:

p.s. it'd be nice to keep a consistent art style across the board, and on that note i'd be happy to fire off all the screenshots for the main page and for anyone else that wants them doing for their own page. I've found a really nice workflow for the screenshots and i'll be able to get images done within 24 hours in most cases.

If you want to, go ahead.  I've uploaded my craft file for my proof-of-concept entry, and a couple of basic versions of the pics.  (Mostly so that you have some idea of what the base would look like.)

I created a bit of a folder structure in the github repo (inside the MKSWiki folder), feel free to change it if you think something else would be better.

[dboi88]

11 hours ago, DStaal said:

If you want to, go ahead.  I've uploaded my craft file for my proof-of-concept entry, and a couple of basic versions of the pics.  (Mostly so that you have some idea of what the base would look like.)

I created a bit of a folder structure in the github repo (inside the MKSWiki folder), feel free to change it if you think something else would be better.

Cheers @DStaal

So we've now got our example/template page, we've got a repo and concept for images and craft files. So now we need to agree on a craft list for the main page. Anyone feel they've got a solid idea they can jot down to get started with?

 

[DStaal]

What I'd think is useful is to have (at least) one of each:

• Duna-class lander
• Tundra-class lander
• Karibou lander
• Building supplies delivery
• Konstruction equipment delivery. (Which probably includes some Konstruction equipment designs.)

It might also be nice to have a 'Mining outpost', and a 'science outpost' craft.  And if anyone has an idea for a two/three piece space station (that can be used to demonstrate construction ports and welding) that might be nice as well.

I plan to do up my Karibou lander as well as the Duna lander I've done, and likely a science outpost.  My favored solutions to the rest are heavily dependent on other mods, so if anyone has better ideas I'm more than open.