[Min KSP: 1.12.2] Mark One Laboratory Extensions (M.O.L.E.)

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, rasta013 said:

Ok will do.  Will report back on results...

EDIT:  @Angel-125 Hmmm...there is no defined drag cube for the stock science return unless I'm looking at the wrong part (Experiment Storage Unit)?  The only thing re: Drag in the CFG for this part is: 

  Reveal hidden contents

    dragModelType = default
    maximum_drag = 0.2
    minimum_drag = 0.3
    angularDrag = 2

These are the exact same values in the Korona Lite.  Seemingly the only difference is that the Lite has the drag cube defined and the stock box does not.  As an aside, I also checked several other stock parts and can't find a single defined drag cube in any stock config including the command pods.

Thoughts or ideas on how to move forward with this test?  Also, is the Drag_Cube module essential to the Lite's operation?

Try taking a look at the PartDatabase.cfg in your game's root directory. There should be drag cubes there.

[rasta013]

14 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Try taking a look at the PartDatabase.cfg in your game's root directory. There should be drag cubes there.

DUH!  Shows how well my brain is working today...

[kerrigan778]

I'm chasing down a "bug" or balance issue depending on how you look at it, that's causing expensive fuel tanks. Not sure who needs to fix what but this is what seems to be happening.

 

Stock fuel tanks are given a cost in the cfg that is automagically converted to give that cost with the fuel in the tank. For example the X200-32 has a part cost of 3000 which includes the fuel in it, it has a dry cost of ~1500 funds.

 

However parts that use WBI Convertible Storage do not appear to use this rule and therefore their display and cfg part cost only applies to their dry cost. This produces a situation for example where the much smaller Titan-1800 tank has a dry cost of 2000, which if it was a total value would make sense but as a dry value is quite high and leads to a SRB constructed with those tanks being insignificantly cheaper than a liquid fuel rocket because the tank is so expensive compared to the propellant.

 

Don't know if this is the right place to post this but you made the part I figured it out on so I started here. Thanks.

[Sudragon]

If I put a 'farmer' from MKS in a Mark One Biology Lab, set to TACLS greenhouse mode...will it increase output/reduce cycle time?

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, Sudragon said:

If I put a 'farmer' from MKS in a Mark One Biology Lab, set to TACLS greenhouse mode...will it increase output/reduce cycle time?

I assume outside of MKS a farmer is essentially a Tourist.

[ChristyGuy]

Was wondering how one could tweak science defs for the WBI Enhanced Experiments. Altering the "Biome" masks for the experiments in "BasicExperiemtns.cfg" has no effect.

[Angelo Kerman]

14 hours ago, kerrigan778 said:

I'm chasing down a "bug" or balance issue depending on how you look at it, that's causing expensive fuel tanks. Not sure who needs to fix what but this is what seems to be happening.

 

Stock fuel tanks are given a cost in the cfg that is automagically converted to give that cost with the fuel in the tank. For example the X200-32 has a part cost of 3000 which includes the fuel in it, it has a dry cost of ~1500 funds.

 

However parts that use WBI Convertible Storage do not appear to use this rule and therefore their display and cfg part cost only applies to their dry cost. This produces a situation for example where the much smaller Titan-1800 tank has a dry cost of 2000, which if it was a total value would make sense but as a dry value is quite high and leads to a SRB constructed with those tanks being insignificantly cheaper than a liquid fuel rocket because the tank is so expensive compared to the propellant.

 

Don't know if this is the right place to post this but you made the part I figured it out on so I started here. Thanks.

Ok, send me a pull request with the adjusted values, and I'll review them.

 

3 hours ago, Sudragon said:

If I put a 'farmer' from MKS in a Mark One Biology Lab, set to TACLS greenhouse mode...will it increase output/reduce cycle time?

MOLE does not support MKS. You'll need someone with the ScienceSkill to improve efficiency.

1 hour ago, ChristyGuy said:

Was wondering how one could tweak science defs for the WBI Enhanced Experiments. Altering the "Biome" masks for the experiments in "BasicExperiemtns.cfg" has no effect.

It's the same as it is for any other experiment.

[Boots]

Hey @Angel-125, I'm back and in a new save. Love the new LDEF inclusions.

I recently sent a MOLE lab to munar orbit while I had one in Kerbin orbit as well. The Kerbin one had been up for about ten days with around 16/32 LabTime in each of its experiments when the Mun one reached its orbit. When I started the Mun one, it started with 16 LabTime.

Can supply a mod list if you need it.

[rasta013]

1 hour ago, Boots said:

Hey @Angel-125, I'm back and in a new save. Love the new LDEF inclusions.

I recently sent a MOLE lab to munar orbit while I had one in Kerbin orbit as well. The Kerbin one had been up for about ten days with around 16/32 LabTime in each of its experiments when the Mun one reached its orbit. When I started the Mun one, it started with 16 LabTime.

Can supply a mod list if you need it.

I've seen this same behavior myself.  At the time I was in the middle of shuffling around mods and updating a few I maintain manually so blew it off as an compatibility problem at the time.  I've never seen it do it again but FWIW, I have seen this same behavior.

[kerrigan778]

9 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Ok, send me a pull request with the adjusted values, and I'll review them.

 

So I'd be happy to adjust a chunk of tank values and send a file your way but the trick is that with WBI Convertible Storage behaving how it seems to the adjusted value will show the dry tank value in the VAB for the part cost which would differ from stock parts. If you'd like me to send you an adjusted value list and call that an acceptable glitch let me know, I don't think I have the talent to figure out how to adjust the WBI Convertible Storage behavior or the game part cost display behavior though.

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, kerrigan778 said:

So I'd be happy to adjust a chunk of tank values and send a file your way but the trick is that with WBI Convertible Storage behaving how it seems to the adjusted value will show the dry tank value in the VAB for the part cost which would differ from stock parts. If you'd like me to send you an adjusted value list and call that an acceptable glitch let me know, I don't think I have the talent to figure out how to adjust the WBI Convertible Storage behavior or the game part cost display behavior though.

Well, WBIConvertibleStorage implements IPartCostModifier, which asks the convertible storage for a part cost modifier. The way NathanKell described it to me, that modifier is added to the base cost of the part. For the convertible storage, it looks up the unit cost of each resource that the template holds, and then multiplies it by the amount. So for example, if a storage tank is holding FusionPellets, each unit of FusionPellets costs 150 Funds. A Titan-1800 holds 5600 units, so the cost should be 5600 * 150 = 840,000.

Here's what I see in the editor for FusionPellets:

And this is for LiquidFuel/Oxidizer:

When I reconfigure the storage, it does properly calculate the total cost including resources. So the code is working properly as far as I can tell. To re-calculate the dry mass is going to be a significant undertaking for not just MOLE, but for most if not all of my storage tanks across all my mods. This is doable, but time consuming, and right now I'm hip deep in getting Buffalo Wings working. If the community would like to help though, it's important to know a few things about how WBI fuel tanks work:

Each tank has a storage capacity that's specified by the capacityFactor variable. Wild Blue tanks are standardized on 5600 liters, so capacityFactor 1 = 5600 liters*.

Stock LiquidFuel and Oxidizer take up 5 liters per unit instead of 1-liter per unit like most resources in the CommunityResourcePack. Thus, the Rockomax X200-16, which is the closest to my Titan 1800, holds 1600 units of LiquidFuel/Oxidizer. In terms of 1-liter units, that X200-16 holds about 4977.8 liters. If I empty the X-200 tank, its dry-mass cost drops to 816 Funds. So, the cost per liter is 816/4977.8 = 0.1639 Funds/Liter. Multiply by 5600, and you get a dry-mass cost of 918 Funds for the Titan-1800. Hence, to recalculate the dry mass on all my tanks:

1. Find the tank's capacityFactor, found with the WBIConvertibleStorage module.
2. Multiply the capacityFactor by 918 to get the tank's dry mass cost.
3. Send me a pull request.

[*] 5600 liters became the standard because that's the volume of the tank that fit inside my Hex Truss part. In retrospect, it would've been better to standardize on 1000 liters, but I was in a rush and trying to get parts done for Das Valdez's Discovery II stream...

[ChristyGuy]

23 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

It's the same as it is for any other experiment.

OK - I must have another mod that's causing issues then because any edits to BasicExpermiments.cfg have no effect in game.

Example: For "WBIPowerToolsEvaluation" I change the Biome Mask = 0 and Situation Mask = 48 but as soon as I boot into the launch pad there is a "Get Results" available in the right click menu and the biome/situation where the experiment can be rerun are still set to 7/63.

[Sudragon]

New Vulcan Station.

 

Edited March 23, 2017 by Sudragon

[Sudragon]

I'm trying to track down the templates for the various (orbital) workshop spaces, or should I try and make a new template that:

a) makes materialkits from ore
b) sifts dirt for exotic minerals and rare metals.
c) makes specialist parts from exotic minerals and rare metals.

(EPL+MKS) via MOLE etc.

[rasta013]

2 minutes ago, Sudragon said:

try and make a new template that:

a) makes materialkits from ore
b) sifts dirt for exotic minerals and rare metals.
c) makes specialist parts from exotic minerals and rare metals.

Generally speaking I've found it's always better to create a new template to do what you want for any given piece of WB that you want to add it to.  Modifying the original workshop templates ultimately will leave you hurting during update times and also means you're sometimes dealing with getting through all the connected pieces in other configs.  Having your own template is full control of everything leaving you largely unaffected by upgrade processes.

[Sudragon]

3 minutes ago, rasta013 said:

Generally speaking I've found it's always better to create a new template to do what you want for any given piece of WB that you want to add it to.  Modifying the original workshop templates ultimately will leave you hurting during update times and also means you're sometimes dealing with getting through all the connected pieces in other configs.  Having your own template is full control of everything leaving you largely unaffected by upgrade processes.

Hmm. So I'm going to need something that works in:

Manned Orbital Habitat
Bigby Orbital Workshop
Casa IHM
Ponderosa IHM
Hacienda IMW.

This should be interesting...

 

[rasta013]

14 minutes ago, Sudragon said:

Hmm. So I'm going to need something that works in:

Look here : https://github.com/Angel-125/Pathfinder/wiki/Anatomy-Of-A-Template

This gives you all the detail for how to do it.  Once you've done it in once, you can easily move it to others if you need too.  That page right there though will be invaluable for you in doing this but yeah...you'll need to cover it a bit widely if you want vast functionality for MKS.

[Angelo Kerman]

13 hours ago, Sudragon said:

I'm trying to track down the templates for the various (orbital) workshop spaces, or should I try and make a new template that:

a) makes materialkits from ore
b) sifts dirt for exotic minerals and rare metals.
c) makes specialist parts from exotic minerals and rare metals.

(EPL+MKS) via MOLE etc.

My mods use the production chains that EL and OSE Workshop come with, so it's best to make your own templates if you want your own production chains or combination of converters. One thing that might be useful to you is the WBIProspector, found in the geology lab and the Claimjumper. It converts Ore into whatever resources the local biome has. It's akin to sifting dirt for exotic minerals and rare metals.

[oniontrain]

Why are my MOLE labs and botany labs converting into wet workshops every time I restart KSP? What can I do to troubleshoot this? It keeps switching to "Wet Workshop (cryo)" which is the first thing on the list every time.

edit: Does it on a quickload as well.

Edit edit: It also does it when I go to the space center and back. Looks like any scene change triggers it.

 

Another edit: It's not happening with all of them, only the two I have in orbit? I'm thoroughly confused at this point.

Edited March 25, 2017 by oniontrain

[DStaal]

Just thought you might like an LDEF beauty shot:

[Angelo Kerman]

Nice, thanks for sharing that! Some of the textures on the LDEF parts come from the real thing...

[DStaal]

3 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Nice, thanks for sharing that! Some of the textures on the LDEF parts come from the real thing...

You're welcome.  That thing is going to take *ages* to complete it's experiments - but this isn't really a science-based save, and I just threw it up to see the parts in action.    Heatshield obviously on the top, using some cargo parachutes from USI on the bottom.  Hopefully it should work as a fully-automated experiment pod.  (I'm hoping I have enough parachutes...)

[Angelo Kerman]

4 hours ago, DStaal said:

You're welcome.  That thing is going to take *ages* to complete it's experiments - but this isn't really a science-based save, and I just threw it up to see the parts in action.    Heatshield obviously on the top, using some cargo parachutes from USI on the bottom.  Hopefully it should work as a fully-automated experiment pod.  (I'm hoping I have enough parachutes...)

Yup, that's the idea. The real LDEF was supposed to in orbit for a year, but it was brought down six years later. LDEF is self-contained but you pay for it in terms of time to completion. For faster results, bring LDEF experiments to a station equipped with a MOLE Lab. The concept is similar to how you bring expriment modules to a Station Science space station.

[Angelo Kerman]

Ok, question for folks: Right now, both DSEV and MOLE have 2.5m fuel tanks. I added 2.5m tanks to MOLE thinking that I'd have both 1.875m and 2.5m station parts. When that proved too much work to handle, I nixed the 2.5m station parts from the release plan. With DSEV next up on my modding rotation, I want to revamp the fuel tanks and bring them up to date- they're 2-year old artwork is out of date. In the process of doing that, I'm thinking of dropping the 2.5m MOLE tanks, as they too are out of date in the texture department. How many people are using MOLE's 2.5m tanks these days? If it isn't many, then when KSP 1.3 is released, I'll remove them from the mod.

[Krakatoa]

I used a couple on missions that are already back on Kerbin because they look nicer than the 55 gallon drums, but I can understand dropping them and wouldn't be heartbroken.