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

[N70]

Hey, if anyone wants to help me make a patch to make MKS and Kerbalism compatible, PM me. I fixed the ISRU/Drills in kerbalism, so it should be possible, but I don't know enough about MKS.

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, Shiftend said:

Another question, just trying to grasp MKS. I am sending up a storage segment.. what cargo should my first inflatable storage contain?

I'd argue that's a bad question.  A better question is: 'What resources does the base I'm building need to be able to store?'  Then look at what's the best way to be able to store it.  Think about what you are doing, and what you need for that, instead of trying to guess what you need and then working backwards from there.

[Shiftend]

Still attempting to get the hang of MKS. I am building an agricultural module, so I can grow food. What attachments should I add to the MKS 'Duna' Agricultural Module? Thanks!

[Boiler1]

It helps to know where you intend to  put your base too.  Is this a space station, Mun, Minmus base or are you a lot further away like Duna?  Dstaal's point is it is best to work the problem from end back to the beginning.  Once you know what you want to do, then figure out what you need to make that happen.  Questions you need to figure out.  Where are you going?  How long does it take to get there?  What do you really need?  This is the hard question that takes the most thought.  It is also the most fun to answer because once you figure it out you have really used your brain.  Another important thing to figure out is what is the DeltaV requirement to get there?  Most important of all, what do I send up first?

Don't worry about the complexity of MKS as that is what makes it fun?  My suggestion would be to build your first base at the end of the runway.  Build your second base on the Mun or Minmus, and your third on Duna.  The further you go the harder it is.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Boiler1

[Shiftend]

56 minutes ago, Boiler1 said:

It helps to know where you intend to  put your base too.  Is this a space station, Mun, Minmus base or are you a lot further away like Duna?  Dstaal's point is it is best to work the problem from end back to the beginning.  Once you know what you want to do, then figure out what you need to make that happen.  Questions you need to figure out.  Where are you going?  How long does it take to get there?  What do you really need?  This is the hard question that takes the most thought.  It is also the most fun to answer because once you figure it out you have really used your brain.  Another important thing to figure out is what is the DeltaV requirement to get there?  Most important of all, what do I send up first?

Don't worry about the complexity of MKS as that is what makes it fun?  My suggestion would be to build your first base at the end of the runway.  Build your second base on the Mun or Minmus, and your third on Duna.  The further you go the harder it is.

Thank you, I never even considered building a practice base near the KSC. This information will prove very useful to me, thanks to you, DStaal, and everyone else helping me through this. 

[goldenpsp]

20 minutes ago, Shiftend said:

Thank you, I never even considered building a practice base near the KSC. This information will prove very useful to me, thanks to you, DStaal, and everyone else helping me through this. 

Thats how I've always learned how the parts work.  

[AtilaElari]

I'm also trying to get into the mod and my brain starts to melt a little. So before I spend several hours of real time establishing a base, I'd like to ask you if I understand things correctly.

My goal is to establish a base capable of assembling modules and ships from Ground Construction DIY kits. For that I need MaterialKits. To that end I need to mine Metallic Ore, Substrate and Minerals, refine them and then process in the Workshop.

My first destination is Minmus. It has no places that have all 3 resources in one spot. So I will need to establish at least 2 mining location. Am I correct in assuming that I can establish a drill+container-only mining outpost, enable Planetary Warehouse on the container and then use Logistics module on the main base to transport mined ores for refinement across unlimited distance?

[voicey99]

1 hour ago, AtilaElari said:

My first destination is Minmus. It has no places that have all 3 resources in one spot. So I will need to establish at least 2 mining location. Am I correct in assuming that I can establish a drill+container-only mining outpost, enable Planetary Warehouse on the container and then use Logistics module on the main base to transport mined ores for refinement across unlimited distance?

Yes. You can use either an unmanned logistics module or an MPU as a push-only module, or a manned logistics module if you need to pull as well. Keep storage for at least 12h of production, since containers will empty/fill to 50%, and backlogged resource catchup is done in 6h chunks.

[Shiftend]

1 hour ago, AtilaElari said:

I'm also trying to get into the mod and my brain starts to melt a little. So before I spend several hours of real time establishing a base, I'd like to ask you if I understand things correctly.

My goal is to establish a base capable of assembling modules and ships from Ground Construction DIY kits. For that I need MaterialKits. To that end I need to mine Metallic Ore, Substrate and Minerals, refine them and then process in the Workshop.

My first destination is Minmus. It has no places that have all 3 resources in one spot. So I will need to establish at least 2 mining location. Am I correct in assuming that I can establish a drill+container-only mining outpost, enable Planetary Warehouse on the container and then use Logistics module on the main base to transport mined ores for refinement across unlimited distance?

You got this much better than I do

[Boiler1]

1 hour ago, AtilaElari said:

I'm also trying to get into the mod and my brain starts to melt a little. So before I spend several hours of real time establishing a base, I'd like to ask you if I understand things correctly.

My goal is to establish a base capable of assembling modules and ships from Ground Construction DIY kits. For that I need MaterialKits. To that end I need to mine Metallic Ore, Substrate and Minerals, refine them and then process in the Workshop.

My first destination is Minmus. It has no places that have all 3 resources in one spot. So I will need to establish at least 2 mining location. Am I correct in assuming that I can establish a drill+container-only mining outpost, enable Planetary Warehouse on the container and then use Logistics module on the main base to transport mined ores for refinement across unlimited distance?

You will need a planetary logistics module on both craft.  To push to Planetary logistics, you can use a logistics module or MPU.  I recommend the MPU on mining craft.  It enables planetary logistics without requiring any crew and it can convert the raw material into refined material, MatellicOre to Metal, ect.  I make a separate miner for each material.  This allows me to pick a spot specific to that material for mining.  It also adds to the launches with the same vehicle.  I just change the converters but all the parts are the same.  So I get lots of practice launching and landing mining craft in different locations.  Failure is not critical either.  If something goes bad, no kerbals were harmed.

Your base that is "pulling" materials from planetary logistics will need a logistics module with a pilot.  I consider the logistics module to be the heart of every base.

[fragzilla17]

10 hours ago, techgamer16 said:

It seems that after updating to 1.4.x, all my bases don't load anymore, and instead come up with an error saying "Cannot load vessel" as they contain a "MKS.drill part" - is this still being updated to 1.4 or am I missing something? 

Yes, the larger MKS drills are currently broken in 1.4.x. RoverDude said they're working on it in a previous post.

Edited March 17, 2018 by fragzilla17
weird dupe issue

[Jebs_SY]

24 minutes ago, fragzilla17 said:

Yes, the larger MKS drills are currently broken in 1.4.x. RoverDude said they're working on it in a previous post.

For now one can work around this issue by commenting out / removing the texture line in the model section of the MKS drills CFG... it removes the MKS textures and they look like stock drills, tho... but work.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Jebs_SY

[fragzilla17]

2 hours ago, Boiler1 said:

You will need a planetary logistics module on both craft.  To push to Planetary logistics, you can use a logistics module or MPU.  I recommend the MPU on mining craft.  It enables planetary logistics without requiring any crew and it can convert the raw material into refined material, MatellicOre to Metal, ect.  I make a separate miner for each material.  This allows me to pick a spot specific to that material for mining.  It also adds to the launches with the same vehicle.  I just change the converters but all the parts are the same.  So I get lots of practice launching and landing mining craft in different locations.  Failure is not critical either.  If something goes bad, no kerbals were harmed.

Your base that is "pulling" materials from planetary logistics will need a logistics module with a pilot.  I consider the logistics module to be the heart of every base.

My current approach for a sustainable Minmus base (I'm in science mode, not career mode, so I'm not worried about cost any more -- I just want to base build so your YMMV).

Phase 1 - Get basic resources going
- Mission 0: Umanned survey probe to do resource scanning on Minmus
- Mission 1: Unmanned mining station: Dirt - a Duna logistics module, some of the round, white, inline kontainers for dirt, some USI drills configured for dirt, a nuke reactor for power and lots of radially attached radiators for drill heat. Set the kontainers as "Planetary warehouse" (you can set this in-mission, so don't worry if you forget it at the VAB). 

- Mission 2,3,4: Same as the "Dirt" mission but for Gypsum, Hydrates, and Substrate.  NOTE: If you can find a good source of water, you may choose to do water instead of Hydrates since the only point (I've found) for Hydrates is eventually process them into water. So if you can get water straight-away then you skip a step which is nice (fewer parts).

Once Phase 1 is complete, now you have a basic resource farm pumping the basic resources into the Planetary Warehouse which can then be consumed by any bases you plant around the moon or planet.

Phase 2 - Basic base to get Kolonists going (not yet self sustaining, but close)

- Mission 1: Unmanned lander with a (a) Tundra Pioneer+Logistics and a (b) PDU with heatsinks and docking ports and Konstruction ports (so I can weld my base together once I get situated). I use the 2m (or 2.5 or whatever it is) or 3.75m undercarriages under the Tundra modules and then use the wheels from the Karibou rover set (LOVE these wheels) so I can adjust the modules when landed and dock them to the Konstruction ports. 

- Mission 2: Unmanned lander with some Tundra 3.75 kerbitats set for "Quarters" and some set for "Common". Quarters increase hab time, "Commons" multiplies hab time (very important). Also maybe one for recycling and another for purifying (these reduce supply consumption rate which becomes an increasing problem as the kolony grows bigger). You don't need recycling and purifying yet, so you can skip this if you want to add it later. But you will need some eventually.  Also make sure these Tundra parts are on undercarriages with wheels and both regular "Clampotron Sr." docking ports and the special Konstruction docking ports (which allow welding/fusing the parts once attached, further reducing part count -- very important).  You may also want to attach some of the "Ranger" inflatable kerbitats also set for a balanced mix of Quarters and Commons to further increase the hab time.

- Mission 3: You'll need unmanned storage for various things that the Tundra parts use, so have a dockable module that has a bunch of the smaller Kontainers radially attached for Gypsum, Dirt, Ore, Hydrates (unless you have a water source), Water, Machinery, MaterialKits, Substrate, Fertilizer, Mulch, Organics, Supplies (double- or triple-up on these, can't have enough supplies), Chemicals, Metals, Polymers, Recyclables, and anything else I'm not thinking of. For now, you don't need to worry about Exotics, Silicates, or some of the other things but it wouldn't hurt to add these if you want to be thorough. Some of that more advanced "industrial" stuff comes later in Phase 3 so it's up to you whether you can do everything now or add more storage later.

- Mission 4: Unmanned lander with a Tundra 3.75m Agricultural Support module set to do Fertilizer(Gypsum), H2O (Hyd), H2O (Ore) if you don't already have a water source. Add two Tundra 3.75 Agriculture modules with these settings:  (Module 1) Agroponics (recycles mulch/poop byproducts) and Agriculture(Dirt) or Agriculture(Substrate) and (Module 2) Cultivate(Substrate) and Cultivate(Dirt).  I also added a 3.75 Tundra Recycling module since many of the other modules produces "Recyclables" as a byproduct and this module turns those into various things you need elsewhere (I think Metals, MaterialKits, and Chemicals or something like that, you can see it in the description in the VAB if you r-click on it in the part menu on the left).

- Mission 5-n: Send a single freighter with a bunch of Kontainers or else send individual missions with the 2nd-to-largest containers full of: Supplies, Water (unless you've got Water drills already going in the planetary warehouse), MaterialKits, Machinery (these are really heavy so maybe send the smaller kontainers for now), ColonySupplies, and SpecializedParts. Some of these things are things that come in Phase 3, so you'll need to ship them in at first in order to bootstrap your Kolony. This is OK, don't try to do everything in one big phase (something RoverDude reminds us constantly!).  Kontainers can participate in either local warehouse (within 2000m of your Tundra Logistics module) or the Planetary Warehouse so you only need to drop them near by your base(s) and then the kolony can use them. One exception I've found to this is Material kits. In order to do any of the Konstruction stuff it uses _LOTS_ of MaterialKits so unless you have lots of storage on board/docked to your kolony you won't be able to do things like process DIY Construction Kits or expand the radially-attached inflatables (like the inflatable hab, etc).  One inflatable takes 4500 material kits to inflate, IIRC, so be aware. I made that mistake and now I'm trying to figure out a way to move a Material Kit Kontainer I dropped near my base closer to my base so I can use KAS to directly attach it so I can start inflating things.

At the end of Phase 2, you should have a mostly sustainable kolony that produces most of the basic things itself but you'll need to keep shipping in Machinery and Material Kits (at least) for now and maybe some Supplies just to top off until everything gets balanced out.

Once I've got Phase 2 complete, I send Kerbals in. You'll need lots of different ones - at least one pilot for the Logistics module, some scientists, a lot of engineers, and some kolonists, farmers, etc. I haven't figured all this out, so this is where you get to play.

Phase 3 - I have just gotten to this part, so here's where my knowledge drops off.  Now I'm going to look at doing the MedBay, making ColonySupplies and SpecializedParts as well as MaterialKits and Machinery so that I can be completely self-sustaining. I also haven't figured out the balance of kerbals yet to make everything efficient (different kerbal job types increase efficiency of various things and help balance everything out).  I'm not going for perfection, I'm going for fun so as long as my base is self sustaining I'm OK with certain things overproducing and the balance being out of whack in favor of overproduction. 

You can keep an eye on the balance of everything by looking at the green square in the toolbar (the USI Life Support) to see how happy your kerbals are and also the icon with the planet with the flag on it - Planetary Logistics, Local Logistics as well as the Kolony Inventory (which tells you how things are balanced - red bad/draining too fast; green good/gaining).

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

16 minutes ago, Jebs_SY said:

For now one can work around this issue by commenting out / removing the texture line in the model section of the MKS drills CFG... it removes the MKS textures and they look like stock drills, tho... but work.

Ooh!  Sweet, thank you!  I tried that and it didn't work but I must've missed something. Thanks for the tip!

[Gilph]

Have a decent 1.3.1 MKS install using the USI Tools 10.1 version with MKS 0.53.2. Didn't think OL would work, but it seems to be OK.

Made a test base to generate T-Credits. It consumes .23 MK per second? That's 10 Ranger Workshops at 100% load for MK only. I can see the logic of having it high, but this will be interesting.

[AtilaElari]

Either it's a bug or I'm missing something: I deploy the Material Processing Unit (on the launchpad for now), right-click on it and I see all the conversion options. But then 5 seconds later they all disappear, leaving only the option for LFO. What's going on?

[failurecascade]

Just a heads-up to anyone having problems...

In testing KSP 1.4.1 with MKS, I noticed that Windows Defender quarantined RD's KolonyTools.dll.  Malwarebytes had no problem with it, so it's likely a false positive, but that would presumably break things if it went unnoticed.

[fragzilla17]

Just now, failurecascade said:

Just a heads-up to anyone having problems...

In testing KSP 1.4.1 with MKS, I noticed that Windows Defender quarantined RD's KolonyTools.dll.  Malwarebytes had no problem with it, so it's likely a false positive, but that would presumably break things if it went unnoticed.

yeah that just started happening to me today, too. I think a recent update to Defender started the problem because I haven't changed KolonyTools.dll in a few days.

I unquarantine it and it seems to work OK for a few launches and then "detects" it again. Seems to happen every other or every third launch of ksp or so.

[hesterj]

Hey, your mod is amazing.  Thank you for working on this and providing the best gaming experience.  I have played this game since alpha and the depth of this mod is a testament to how great this community is.

I have been playing with EL, 10.625x scale, this, and a few other mods and have had almost no issues other than what can be expected from playing a heavily modded KSP game.  For anyone that reads this that is new I highly recommend saving frequently, dating them so that you know when to revert to if something corrupts.  Sadly this seems to be an unavoidable part of the game but the rewards of such a deep and engaging thing far outweigh saving before doing something significant.  

Some small tips for people getting in to this:

Write down the inputs and outputs of the modules you are putting on to your base so that you doublecheck you have what is needed before building it, use a calculator to make sure you are getting a slight surplus of everything you need.  Pen and paper will help you keep track of things like "I need 100 hydrates every hour, how much electric charge do I need to keep that going and substrate to match it".  Plus you don't spend hours in the VAB right clicking on parts to see what you need.

You can never have enough hammers and drills for placing stakes and working on your base.  It sucks to have to build a rocket from Kerbin to deliver a simple hammer to Minmus.  

The biggest obstacle for me was getting nuclear reactors to work, especially in comparison to KSPI, my first base of this mod ended up with 2 melted down reactors.  

To make sure you can cool your nuclear reactors, ensure that the required cooling of the reactor is exceeded by the core transfer heat of radiators attached as closely as possible to the reactor.  For instance, if you have a part that has a required cooling of 100kw, have radiators with MORE than 100kw core transfer attached as close as you can to the part.  The maximum heat dissipation is less important than the core transfer heat.  I have melted down multiple reactors from having massive radiators placed too far from the reactor, this applies to all radiators.  The thermal control system part is great for getting a first reactor up on a moon colony as it has great core transfer, I cover my nuclear reactors with them.  A 1.25m nuclear reactor with 5 thermal control systems on it will keep a starter base running. 

This same logic applies to drills as well, make sure you have enough core transfer as close as possible to your drills.  The takeaway is to look at the core heat transfer of radiators, and apply them liberally or bad things will happen.  

Attached is an image of my base, as you can see my recent attachment was flipped over on its side accidentally but I was able to get out and rotate the drills so they hit the ground.  It's very ugly (utilitarian may be a better word) compared to the other beautiful bases in this thread but it works.

In the distance you can see some auxiliary vessels that are just outside of physics range.  I have 2 other bases around the planet acquiring the other resources that are needed here, this place is totally self sufficient supplies wise and produces surpluses of materialkits, special parts, and machinery.  The plan is to use this base to build interstellar ships for going to the Jool system, and from there onwards to Valentine.

Minor bug report:  Occasionally specific kerbals will become unable to use the Show UI button on the pioneer modules of this mod.  When a bugged kerbal is trying to do this, the EL menu will not appear correctly, being just grey with some unreadable text in the corner.  This is really minor, as you can always just bring them back and send out a replacement.  These same bugged kerbals will also have 0 productivity, as if they had a high stupidity trait, and lose all of their experience stars.  It only really matters for engineers.  I know that the mod does not officially support EL, but I thought I would share this in case someone encounters the same problem and thinks that their save is borked.  

https://imgur.com/a/w3y0k

Edited March 18, 2018 by hesterj
image link did not work

[Bionic bulldog]

5 hours ago, AtilaElari said:

Either it's a bug or I'm missing something: I deploy the Material Processing Unit (on the launchpad for now), right-click on it and I see all the conversion options. But then 5 seconds later they all disappear, leaving only the option for LFO. What's going on?

Bug. I had this on one of the 1.3.1 updates. Everything worked ok, it just seemed that when you open the item it shows them all then removes all the ones the unit was not configured for. A later update on the 1.3.1 stopped it. 

[Gilph]

Finished my Iota self-sufficient base. Reduced it from my old setup of 5 down to 3 (not including the little MPU miner in the center). Left is a Mega Hab with many uninflated hab modules because I don't yet need them, and the spinning hab on top, courtesy of the excellent SSPXr part pack from @Nertea. The top center is the Farmer's Market, with Organics and Supplies being grown. The right is the Manufacturing Facility, which I finally managed to make in a single vessel, with 4 refineries, one assembly, and one workshop

The factory is a bit off to the right because it's a different biome than the other two. It has wonderful resources, but no water. The two on the left are in a biome with 7% water that I use for agroponics and cultivation on the center vessel and the Purifier for the Hab on the left, but almost nothing else. So I get the best of both.

Now, I need to work on MK manufacturing for Transfer Credits. I think 3 vessels may do it.

[notthebobo]

I'm trying to figure out the details on Orbital Logistics, but even with the posts in this thread (thanks @Chilkoot), I'm still not grokking it.  If I can get a clear description, I'll update the Logistics Wiki page, but at this point I feel I'm missing too much.

First new point: Orbital Logistics occurs from one Logistics module to another.  It's unclear if one, both, or neither logistics center needs to be manned, and if so, with what skill (pilot?).

Second, transfers require Transfer Credits (TC). 1 material kit + 2.25 LF + 2.75 Ox yields 5 TC.  They do not require separate storage but I can't figure out how they're created in the first place.

Third, there is an new Orbital Logistics transfer window on the Kolonization Dashboard, and Orbital Logistics is a new menu item for the Logistics modules.  New transfers are initiated from the Orbital Logistics window by clicking "New Transfer" which opens a different window where you choose the target Logistics module and the type and amount of resources to transfer.  Doing this shows three calculated values: Total Mass (which seems to be for information only), Total Cost (in TCs), and Transit Time.  Whenever I attempt to transfer something, I get the message "The transfer exceeds the available payload capacity. Remove some items or increase payload capacity."  What capacity is this referring to?  It's not the storage on the receiving vessel in the test cases I've built as they have plenty of available storage. I've tried it with the "Planetary Warehouse" option turned on and off for both the sender and receiver, but I get the same message.

Any other points that need to be made for the Wiki? Is there any restriction on what can be transferred (e.g., no enriched Uranium?) Is there a set calculation for the TC cost based on mass and distance?

Oh, and @RoverDude, I realize you're *really* busy, but if you could create a nifty little image like the other logistics images, that would be sweet.  They have a certain charm.

[LatiMacciato]

I believe the orbital logistics feature is possibly new and sort of unfinnished yet, correct me if I'm wrong!
So far I could not transfer anything to anywhere yet, haven't figured out anything and yes, there is a lack of explaination on the wiki.

regardless I totally love that feature!

[Gilph]

2 hours ago, notthebobo said:

I'm trying to figure out the details on Orbital Logistics, but even with the posts in this thread (thanks @Chilkoot), I'm still not grokking it.  If I can get a clear description, I'll update the Logistics Wiki page, but at this point I feel I'm missing too much.

First new point: Orbital Logistics occurs from one Logistics module to another.  It's unclear if one, both, or neither logistics center needs to be manned, and if so, with what skill (pilot?).

Second, transfers require Transfer Credits (TC). 1 material kit + 2.25 LF + 2.75 Ox yields 5 TC.  They do not require separate storage but I can't figure out how they're created in the first place.

Third, there is an new Orbital Logistics transfer window on the Kolonization Dashboard, and Orbital Logistics is a new menu item for the Logistics modules.  New transfers are initiated from the Orbital Logistics window by clicking "New Transfer" which opens a different window where you choose the target Logistics module and the type and amount of resources to transfer.  Doing this shows three calculated values: Total Mass (which seems to be for information only), Total Cost (in TCs), and Transit Time.  Whenever I attempt to transfer something, I get the message "The transfer exceeds the available payload capacity. Remove some items or increase payload capacity."  What capacity is this referring to?  It's not the storage on the receiving vessel in the test cases I've built as they have plenty of available storage. I've tried it with the "Planetary Warehouse" option turned on and off for both the sender and receiver, but I get the same message.

Any other points that need to be made for the Wiki? Is there any restriction on what can be transferred (e.g., no enriched Uranium?) Is there a set calculation for the TC cost based on mass and distance?

Oh, and @RoverDude, I realize you're *really* busy, but if you could create a nifty little image like the other logistics images, that would be sweet.  They have a certain charm.

How they are made is that a Logistics module (either Duna or Tundra) will have a button called Start TC. It seems to perform the converter function.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Gilph

[LatiMacciato]

5 minutes ago, Gilph said:

How they are made is that a Logistics module (either Duna or Tundra) will have a button called Start TC. It seems to perform the converter function.

any reference?

[Gurki]

I didn't see the button on Duna or Tundra logistics modules

Having KSP 1.4.1 + MKS 0.54.1

Is there any other prerequisites ? I'm trying this from KSC, but I don't think that should make any difference ...

Edited March 18, 2018 by Gurki