totm may 2024 [1.12.x] - Modular Kolonization System (MKS)

[Terwin]

2 hours ago, Wyzard said:

I'm trying to build an automated refinery using the new MPUs and automated drills, but I'm having a problem with cooling: if I run even one small drill, my nuclear reactor overheats, even though I have plenty of radiator capacity.

The medium drills have 3 separators and each one produces 50kw at 100%.  Previously this was not an issue, but since the max heat transfer was upped from 200 to 2000, it seems like the drills are reserving radiator capacity for themselves, even if they do not need it.

I have an Ike platform with 2 large radiators that ran just fine with 4 medium MKS drills and 2 stock ore drills before the drills had their heat dissipation buffed, but now my stock drills will act as if my radiators do not exist.  I am not sure if the 2.5m MKS nuclear plant needs any cooling as it has pretty low usage, especially as it is now only powering those 4 MKS drills and the radiators.  Note: there is also an ISRU on the platform and it was happy to chug a long as well in the previous version.

 

52 minutes ago, voicey99 said:

I've had this issue with MKS before (even without NFE), it seems the MKS reactors quite often just don't play nice with deployable radiators. I find the best solution is simply to use fixed radiator panels on the reactors as the reactor is the only thing they would be able to expend their cooling on (note: req'd cooling is how much heat a part generates at 100% load, max cooling is the highest amount of radiator capacity it can consume (i.e. if it is overheating and you switch another radiator on), max cooling is the maximum heat a radiator can draw in total and core heat xfer is the max heat a radiator can draw from a single part).

I have platforms that worked fine before the drill heat changes that now cannot run stock ore drills or ISRU without them quickly over-heating, so it is not just the reactors.

I expect that there is somewhere that the available cooling is calculated where it looks at _potential_ cooling needs of parts instead of _current_ cooling needs of those parts and allocates cooling resources accordingly.  It may seem to be working correctly because parts with the same cooling priority/part ID seem to split it up just fine, but the MKS medium drills seem to have a high enough priority that they can block out the 2.5m MKS nuclear plant, stock drills, and stock ISRU. (either that or I am remarkably consistent in placing the MKS drills first so they get first priority)

 

Note: after the drilling heat change, I had to send a ship out to mount 2-3 large fixed radiators on each of the power plants I had mounted on my Mun and Minmus bases so that they could continue to produce power at night.  I will probably need to send a large stock of fixed radiators out with my assembly team for the Duna Base kits I sent out before the change.

[sh1pman]

@Kobymaru link to the save file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46597246/persistent.sfs

[Terwin]

Drill heating issue reported:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/issues/1198

In case anyone wants to add info/details.

(reproduced in a USI-only install with one ship, plus a couple examples from my career game)

[enjoystastycheeses]

Hi guys, hoping to get some clarification on something.

I've installed the 4.25m expandable habitat, to my space station, and deployed it. Initially, I clicked Start Habitat and was informed I lacked Machinery.

I noted that there was

• 0/500 Machinery
• 0/500 Recyclables

I shipped up 400ish of both (in case the next message was "Missing Recyclables"..) and didn't notice any change in HAB/Home time for my station (but could have simply overlooked it), but did note that the Habitat had xx% load.

I shipped up the remaining amount and topped up the levels of both Machinery and Recyclables and the load went to 100% and I noticed HAB/Home time was >3 years. I undocked the Habitat (and clicked Stop Habitat) and noticed that the HAB/Home time dropped down, so I confirmed it's now working.

To my questions:

1. Do I need Recyclables, or only Machinery? I switched off Machinery and Recyclables, one at a time, and the Habitat only stopped working when Machinery was switched off. If I don't need Recyclables, why does the Habitat have space for them? Are they a by-product of Machinery in this part?
2. Do I need to fill the required consumable (in this case Machinery) to its limit before the part will work? Eg: Could I have just sent up 100 Machinery and the Habitat would have worked?
3. If the load decreases, does the efficiency of the part decrease? Eg: Will a Habitat at 50% load provide 50% of the total HAB/Home time?

[damerell]

1 hour ago, enjoystastycheeses said:

Do I need Recyclables, or only Machinery? I switched off Machinery and Recyclables, one at a time, and the Habitat only stopped working when Machinery was switched off. If I don't need Recyclables, why does the Habitat have space for them? Are they a by-product of Machinery in this part?

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Resources describes Recyclables.

[enjoystastycheeses]

11 minutes ago, damerell said:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Resources describes Recyclables.

Ah yes - I should have checked this. Thanks mate. That's Question 1 answered!

[Wyzard]

12 hours ago, voicey99 said:

I find the best solution is simply to use fixed radiator panels on the reactors as the reactor is the only thing they would be able to expend their cooling on

11 hours ago, Wyzard said:

I did try putting fixed panels on the reactor (actually on its parent part, which I think should also work), but still had the problem.  That was with NFE, though; I didn't try that design with just MKS.  I'll do some more testing later.

Correction: I was using radiators from Nertea's "Heat Control" mod which, despite being fixed panels, are able to cool the whole vessel.  Switching to the stock fixed panels, which only cool nearby parts, does work around the problem.  Thanks for the tip. 

[Terwin]

10 hours ago, enjoystastycheeses said:

1. Do I need Recyclables, or only Machinery? I switched off Machinery and Recyclables, one at a time, and the Habitat only stopped working when Machinery was switched off. If I don't need Recyclables, why does the Habitat have space for them? Are they a by-product of Machinery in this part?
2. Do I need to fill the required consumable (in this case Machinery) to its limit before the part will work? Eg: Could I have just sent up 100 Machinery and the Habitat would have worked?
3. If the load decreases, does the efficiency of the part decrease? Eg: Will a Habitat at 50% load provide 50% of the total HAB/Home time?

You just need *some* machinery, but the closer it is to 100% full, the closer it will be to 100% productive(this is true with all MKS parts that take machinery except the new unmanned processors which can hold 200% of what they need so they can go longer unattended without losing efficiency)

Yes, if your machinery is 50% full, you will get 50% of the specified bebefit/productivity(before other multipliers)

[Perringo]

4 hours ago, Terwin said:

Yes, if your machinery is 50% full, you will get 50% of the specified bebefit/productivity(before other multipliers)

Hello Terwin! Do you know which other multipliers are involved in the final output of a module? I want to make a spreadsheet to plan bases but I can't find the formulas in orther to do so.

[TauPhraim]

2 hours ago, Perringo said:

Hello Terwin! Do you know which other multipliers are involved in the final output of a module? I want to make a spreadsheet to plan bases but I can't find the formulas in orther to do so.

It depends a lot on the module. Which one are you interested in, and do you have/plan to have efficiency parts around ?

[voicey99]

1 hour ago, Perringo said:

Hello Terwin! Do you know which other multipliers are involved in the final output of a module? I want to make a spreadsheet to plan bases but I can't find the formulas in orther to do so.

Converters and drills will also be buffed by having a high Geology rating (final load=initial load*[geology rating as a decimal, e.g. 135%=1.35]²). Certain converters set to the same type of efficiency module (the bay options in the []s) as the converter you wish to boost (it tells you its converter class in the VAB) will boost production-by how much, I don't know as I haven't been able to produce any meaningful numbers out of field testing-the bonuses granted to the producing module will apparently vary according to its size relative to the efficiency part buffing it. The closest I've come to the result from random toying with the numbers is (base load+200/[part multiplier, usu. 13.34]) when using the Ranger parts on Tundra modules, for MPUs you roughly halve the bonus. RD has never revealed the exact formulas for this stuff, I might be be able to tell it from KolonyTools but the decompiler refuses to translate the relevant section.

On the topic, I've run into a rather strange piece of mechanics. When I have an Industrial Refinery sitting in the pad processing metals with all three bays, its load is 135%. However, sometimes on launch (with the exact same vessel and exact same crew) theis sometimes 255% instead despite nothing changing from last time. Why is this?

[jd284]

1 hour ago, voicey99 said:

Certain converters set to the same type of efficiency module (the bay options in the []s) as the converter you wish to boost (it tells you its converter class in the VAB) will boost production-by how much, I don't know as I haven't been able to produce any meaningful numbers out of field testing-the bonuses granted to the producing module will apparently vary according to its size relative to the efficiency part buffing it.

Efficiency parts boost other parts exactly by their mass (with machinery). All efficiencies are based on part mass, so if an efficiency part is 10% of the part it's boosting, it will also boost it by 10%. Pretty simple and predictable actually!

1 hour ago, voicey99 said:

On the topic, I've run into a rather strange piece of mechanics. When I have an Industrial Refinery sitting in the pad processing metals with all three bays, its load is 135%. However, sometimes on launch (with the exact same vessel and exact same crew) theis sometimes 255% instead despite nothing changing from last time. Why is this?

My first guess would be insufficient MetallicOre available, or Metal storage capacity.

[voicey99]

2 minutes ago, jd284 said:

My first guess would be insufficient MetallicOre available, or Metal storage capacity.

Nope, the MTO is full and Metals storage is empty. I said the vessel was the exact same both times-as in revert to VAB, launch immediately again.

Edited March 7, 2017 by voicey99

[maranble14]

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread to publish this in, but it is a USI related issue. I constructed a PAL crane to use to aid in my base assembly, and when I landed it on the surface of the mun, I am getting strange ghost forces that are preventing this thing from stabilizing on all fours correctly. It's like the PAL wants to sit vertically for some reason. Here is a link to a video demonstrating the bug. I have tried both loading and unloading the ballasts on the back and it had no effect. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[voicey99]

1 minute ago, maranble14 said:

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread to publish this in, but it is a USI related issue. I constructed a PAL crane to use to aid in my base assembly, and when I landed it on the surface of the mun, I am getting strange ghost forces that are preventing this thing from stabilizing on all fours correctly. It's like the PAL wants to sit vertically for some reason. Here is a link to a video demonstrating the bug. I have tried both loading and unloading the ballasts on the back and it had no effect. Any suggestions? Thanks.

My suggestion would be to take it up in this thread:

 

[Perringo]

15 hours ago, TauPhraim said:

Which one are you interested in, and do you have/plan to have efficiency parts around ?

I am actually trying to improve my excel skills and my goal is to make the most generic spreadsheet possible to plan a whole system of bases in a planet. Imagine you feed in as data the different bases you plan to buid (modules, crew, drills, local resources, etc) and it gives as results the outputs you will get. With this spreadsheet you could play with the inputs in order to plan perfectly your system of bases. It can be nearly as complex as you can imagine, but I find it impossible to try while I don't even know which exacts variables affect each result, or the formulae of each process.

15 hours ago, voicey99 said:

RD has never revealed the exact formulas for this stuff,

If this is true, I wonder if it is intended to be this way. If RoverDude wants to keep this as a secret, then I have no more questions, your honour. I will keep on playing the kerbal way, over-designing everything and adding more stuff until it works. Given the numerous variables involved and the speed this mod changes I won't dare to try to figure out how it works by testing in-situ. Otherwise, the only person who knows exactly how this works is (correct me if I'm wrong) RoverDude himself. If this is the case I would be very thankful if he revealed this formulae. The challenge of playing KSP would increase a lot as we could be engineers and not be subjected to "trial and error" game style.

 

Anyway, if I get my hands into those formulae and work in some spreadsheet that's worthwhile I would share it with this community, of course!

Edited March 8, 2017 by Perringo

[sh1pman]

Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is?

[TheRagingIrishman]

17 hours ago, voicey99 said:

I might be be able to tell it from KolonyTools but the decompiler refuses to translate the relevant section.

FYI all the .cs files that get compiled into KolonyTools are availible online

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/tree/master/Source/KolonyTools/KolonyTools

Edited March 8, 2017 by TheRagingIrishman

[RoverDude]

Yikes, lots to catch up on in this thread... will do so later today, up to my armpits in work for Squad at the moment tho...

But to hop in quickly (for @Perringo and @voicey99 ) the formulas and such are not meant to be any sort of black magic nor hidden from view, they are all there in the code (and simplified from earlier versions), but I need to look at the saves being tagged to issues to see what's up.   As always, the more save examples the better.

[Perringo]

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

Yikes, lots to catch up on in this thread... will do so later today, up to my armpits in work for Squad at the moment tho...

But to hop in quickly (for @Perringo and @voicey99 ) the formulas and such are not meant to be any sort of black magic nor hidden from view, they are all there in the code (and simplified from earlier versions), but I need to look at the saves being tagged to issues to see what's up.   As always, the more save examples the better.

I didn't know the code was publicly available, but I'm a civil engineer and don't have the knowledge to find out the formulas from the code. If there is a way I could help to solve this just let me know!

[Terwin]

4 hours ago, Perringo said:

Anyway, if I get my hands into those formulae and work in some spreadsheet that's worthwhile I would share it with this community, of course!

It is pretty simple, and was mentioned in an earlier response to one of your posts:

efficiency bonus= Mass of efficiency parts / mass of parts getting that efficiency bonus

The idea is to let you use the mass of your earlier parts(Ranger and Duna, generally) as additional capacity in your more advanced parts.

Example: if I have 5 tons of Ranger agricultural modules providing efficiency for a 5 ton Tundra Agricultural module, then my Tundra module will work at 200% of the capacity the Tundra module would have on it's own.(assuming all parts have 100% machinery)

There are also colonization bonuses that increases productivity as you gain proficiency on a given body, and Kerbals with more stars will also improve productivity. 

 

Be aware: Drills will produce different amounts of resources in different areas based on resource concentration*, so you will probably need to start with 'assuming I have enough resources to feed my refineries'

 *) this varies both between and inside biomes and many resources are completely absent in many biomes(such as water being almost completely absent on Duna outside the poles in most games), Resources are also distributed differently in different save games.

[voicey99]

23 minutes ago, Perringo said:

I didn't know the code was publicly available, but I'm a civil engineer and don't have the knowledge to find out the formulas from the code. If there is a way I could help to solve this just let me know!

I don't have a clue either when it comes to C# (or indeed any form of code), but I have enough logic IQ points to work out that geoBonus=PlanetaryBonus(), so the end result is indeed efficiency part bonus*geology bonus²

1 minute ago, Terwin said:

efficiency bonus= Mass of efficiency parts / mass of parts getting that efficiency bonus

I tested this, and the maths doesn't check out. I have 0.7114 tonnes of MPU providing a smelter bonus to 11.031 tonnes of refinery (on the pad), so you would expect the bonus to be 6.39%-but it's actually 4.83% (using the dry and totally full masses doesn't work either). Something, quite literally, doesn't add up.

[Perringo]

22 minutes ago, Terwin said:

It is pretty simple, and was mentioned in an earlier response to one of your posts:

efficiency bonus= Mass of efficiency parts / mass of parts getting that efficiency bonus

 

23 minutes ago, Terwin said:

There are also colonization bonuses that increases productivity as you gain proficiency on a given body, and Kerbals with more stars will also improve productivity. 

I believe that efficiency formula is in the wiki, but still it only refers to one factor affecting the final result. As you point, there are other factors involved which are not well defined in the information available, as far as I know. This is what I think I know, after reading most of the wiki, playing with the mod and following this forum, please correct me or add more information, if you like:

Drilling productivity depends on:

-Local resorce aboundance. -Number of engineers/miners present. -Level of those engineer/miners - Other bonuses? (Geology bonus?)

Module's productivity depends on:

- Machinery present at the module. - Number and level of kerbal-specialist in the module. - Efficiency parts in the vessel. - Other bonuses?

Now, how those factors are defined and how they get together in a formula that gives a number as result?

In fact, with that couple of formulas well defined I believe we would be close to being able to calculate beforehand an optimized system of bases, as habitation and life support are easier to figure out. Best wishes and thanks for your answers!

 

[Terwin]

4 minutes ago, Perringo said:

Drilling productivity depends on:

-Local resorce aboundance. -Number of engineers/miners present. -Level of those engineer/miners - Other bonuses? (Geology bonus?)

Not the number, just the highest engineer star rating.

See the stock wiki to see how engineers affect drilling:  http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/'Drill-O-Matic'_Mining_Excavator

Some MKS professions can replace the engineer, but I am not sure which ones(geologist?)

 

4 minutes ago, Perringo said:

Module's productivity depends on:

- Machinery present at the module. - Number and level of kerbal-specialist in the module. - Efficiency parts in the vessel. - Other bonuses?

Once again, it is just the highest star rating among the applicable kerbals.  

 

In both cases a base with 3 3-star kerbals(one of each ase type) will have the same production as a base with 20 3-star kerbals(at least one of each type).

 

I know of 2 places MKS will let you benefit from multiple kerbals: Kolony bonuses, GC workshops

You get Kolony bonuses based only on number of kerbals with the appropriate abilities(apparently training up some of my Kolonists to 3 stars was a wasted effort as stars have no impact on this)

Ground Construction makes use of the total number of engineering stars, and I believe EL increases productivity with more engineers as well.

Other than that, the only reason to have multiple kerbals with MKS is filling science labs or RP.

[Perringo]

Well, now I'm confused. Does MKS drills work exactly as stock? If that the case, the math of that is in the stock wiki and is true that only the highest engineer/miner (that's the other profession) counts for the calculation. If this is the case, the MKS wiki is totally wrong as it says:

" Drill output is determined by taking the percentage of the planetary efficiency multiplied by the local planetary percentage of that resource, multiplied by one per second, or 3600 per hour."

And with the second part of your message... do you mean that if I have lets say an industrial base with 4 industrial refineries and 2 assembly plants, I will get the same result with one 5 star engineer in the whole base than if I fill the rest of the places with 4 star engineers? Things are getting weirder by the moment...