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

[Angelo Kerman]

11 hours ago, Gristle said:

What log are you  referring to?

 

No errors that I can see in the KSP_x64_Data\output_log.txt file.

 

Just deleted gamedata\WildBlueIndustries folder and  copied back over WilBlueIndustries and CommunityResourcePack folders from just downloaded Mole_151 from  GitHub and am having same results.  This is a lightly modded game: MOLE, EVE, IndicatorLights, KAS, KIS, NAvBallDockingIndicator, Snacks, SXT, VOID,  KAC and Alt Resource Panel.

Are you in Career mode at all? Have you tried Sandbox?

[Gristle]

32 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Are you in Career mode at all? Have you tried Sandbox?

Career mode - only  have first 3 tiers of science unlocked + Adv. Flight in tier 4.

 

Sandbox mode it works as expected.  So it appears to be related to career mode.  Are there certain nodes that need to be researched to unlock the experiments?

 

Found this in most of the .cfg files in ..\WildBlueIndustries\Mole\LDEF\Experiments

TechRequired = spaceExploration

Space Exploration is a Tier 4 unlock that I don't have yet.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2017 by Gristle

[Angelo Kerman]

19 minutes ago, Gristle said:

Career mode - only  have first 3 tiers of science unlocked + Adv. Flight in tier 4.

 

Sandbox mode it works as expected.  So it appears to be related to career mode.  Are there certain nodes that need to be researched to unlock the experiments?

 

Found this in most of the .cfg files in ..\WildBlueIndustries\Mole\LDEF\Experiments

TechRequired = spaceExploration

Space Exploration is a Tier 4 unlock that I don't have yet.

 

 

Yup, that would do it. The problem might be that the Science config is unlocked before it should be..

[Gristle]

12 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Yup, that would do it. The problem might be that the Science config is unlocked before it should be..

OR 

Have a few experiments unlock earlier.

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, Gristle said:

OR 

Have a few experiments unlock earlier.

Well, looking at the templates, I have a Science template and a Backseat Crew template. There's some redundancy there, so I just need to make some adjustments and you're good to go.

[Gristle]

I'm a  little bit confused by the science experiments.   The  KSPedia seems to indicate that the Backseat is meant to be a container for moving experiments  and that they need to be conducted in a MOLE lab.  Am I supposed to be able to run the experiment with only the Appaloosa in orbit?  I'm getting results, nearly instantly, with just an Appaloosa.

[Angelo Kerman]

38 minutes ago, Gristle said:

I'm a  little bit confused by the science experiments.   The  KSPedia seems to indicate that the Backseat is meant to be a container for moving experiments  and that they need to be conducted in a MOLE lab.  Am I supposed to be able to run the experiment with only the Appaloosa in orbit?  I'm getting results, nearly instantly, with just an Appaloosa.

You're supposed to run the experiments in a lab. If the Appaloosa is completing them instantly then there's a bug somewhere.

[Gristle]

1 minute ago, Angel-125 said:

You're supposed to run the experiments in a lab. If the Appaloosa is completing them instantly then there's a bug somewhere.

Let me know if there is any way I can assist in tracking down the bug.

[Angelo Kerman]

5 hours ago, Gristle said:

Let me know if there is any way I can assist in tracking down the bug.

Thanks. Did you run the experiments yourself, or did they spontaneously decided that they were done?

[Gristle]

25 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Thanks. Did you run the experiments yourself, or did they spontaneously decided that they were done?

I did not initiate the experiments.  Right clicked on the Appaloosa to turn on cabin lights and noticed the "Get Results" items.

[Angelo Kerman]

On 4/8/2017 at 10:58 PM, Gristle said:

I did not initiate the experiments.  Right clicked on the Appaloosa to turn on cabin lights and noticed the "Get Results" items.

Unfortunately thus far I haven't been able to reproduce this issue. It could be the result of making changes to fix the redundancy in science containers.

[Gristle]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

Unfortunately thus far I haven't been able to reproduce this issue. It could be the result of making changes to fix the redundancy in science containers.

What is the difference between "Backseat Crew" and "Science" configuration of the Appaloosa?

[Angelo Kerman]

38 minutes ago, Gristle said:

What is the difference between "Backseat Crew" and "Science" configuration of the Appaloosa?

In the version you have, nothing. In the upcoming update, the crew has more resources than the science config, and the crew lacks the experiment slots that the science config has. Also, the science config will be available after unlocking Space Exploration.

Edited April 11, 2017 by Angel-125

[drhay53]

@Angel-125 I have questions about your experiments, especially related to interaction with other science addons. 

The basic issue here is that I have three addons which are conflicting with your LDEF experiments, in ways which I'll explain: 

[x] Science - the checklist has most of the experiments available in weird situations. I am pretty certain this is due to the situationMask and biomeMask settings on the experiments. All of the biomeMasks in BasicExperiments.cfg are set to 3 or 7, which tells ksp and other addons that the experiments are available biome-specific in the situations SrfLanded (1) + SrfSplashed (2) = 3, or SrfLanded (1) + SrfSplashed (2) + FlyingLow (4) = 7. With situationMask at 63, ksp and other addons think the experiments are available in all situations. 

Automated Science Sampler - this addon runs experiments automatically when the situation and biome allow. Hence you can see the issue with the biomeMask and situationMask settings; automated science sampler will pop LDEF experiments at seemingly weird times (because it thinks it's meant to), also ignoring LabTime.

Kerbal Environmental Institute - this is really what made me start investigating. This addon will run all science experiments for you in the KSC mini-biomes. I hate them so I run with this (I'm playing a 30% science career mode, btw, with community tech tree). However, since the situationMask and biomeMask for all of your experiments allow SrfLanded, that means that KEI thinks all of your experiments are available in the KSC mini-biomes. So KEI offers you the full science value of all of your experiments in every KSC mini-biome. Probably not a good interaction to leave in place, as this amounts to thousands of science KEI will pop. 

 

So, now what? I don't know exactly how your code works for LDEF, but I see that when clicking the button to run an experiment, if you're not ORBITING or LANDED or whatever, the menu gives you feedback. I am guessing that this is where you check (in real-time) whether the experiment can be run. I am guessing that the LANDED experiments may intentionally be allowed to be biome-specific? i.e. you could drive a buffalo with an LDEF on it all over a planet and run the experiments? I'm not sure if it's intended or not. If it is intended, then I would recommend changing at least the ORBITING only experiments to biomeMask = 0. This will reduce the number of experiments KEI will pop and the number of things showing up in [x] Science.

Personally, and I don't know what you intended, but the way that I would prefer all of the experiments to behave is ORBITING = In Space Low (and/or In Space High), and LANDED = SrfLanded. So situationMask = 16 (or 32 or 48) for ORBITING, 17 for ORBITING+LANDED (or 33 or 49), and 1 for LANDED only. All biomeMasks would then be 0, indicating that you can only do the experiment in those general situations, not once in every Biome.  This solves the [x] Science problem, which can now properly track where you've done the experiments, since your code handles the checking on ORBITING or LANDED. It also fixes the KEI problem, I think, though I haven't tested yet (edit: it does not seem to fix the KEI problem, and I'm not totally sure why. It does fix the [x] Science issue). With my proposed settings this would mean at every body you could run all of the LDEF experiments at something like an orbital station and a surface base, but that's it. That would just be my preference for how to use the experiments.

The Automated Science Sampler problem I'm afraid we're stuck with, so it's just important to keep it turned off when flying on a vessel with LDEF experiments on board. It's easy enough to reset the experiment and run it after gaining the right amount of LabTime. 

 

Let me know if I've got anything wrong here. Also, I don't know how to write a ModuleManager patch to change the experiments, but if anyone can write me a prototype, I'd love to do that rather than manually changing the WBI files. 

Edited April 14, 2017 by drhay53

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, drhay53 said:

@Angel-125 I have questions about your experiments, especially related to interaction with other science addons. 

The basic issue here is that I have three addons which are conflicting with your LDEF experiments, in ways which I'll explain: 

[x] Science - the checklist has most of the experiments available in weird situations. I am pretty certain this is due to the situationMask and biomeMask settings on the experiments. All of the biomeMasks in BasicExperiments.cfg are set to 3 or 7, which tells ksp and other addons that the experiments are available biome-specific in the situations SrfLanded (1) + SrfSplashed (2) = 3, or SrfLanded (1) + SrfSplashed (2) + FlyingLow (4) = 7. With situationMask at 63, ksp and other addons think the experiments are available in all situations. 

Automated Science Sampler - this addon runs experiments automatically when the situation and biome allow. Hence you can see the issue with the biomeMask and situationMask settings; automated science sampler will pop LDEF experiments at seemingly weird times (because it thinks it's meant to), also ignoring LabTime.

Kerbal Environmental Institute - this is really what made me start investigating. This addon will run all science experiments for you in the KSC mini-biomes. I hate them so I run with this (I'm playing a 30% science career mode, btw, with community tech tree). However, since the situationMask and biomeMask for all of your experiments allow SrfLanded, that means that KEI thinks all of your experiments are available in the KSC mini-biomes. So KEI offers you the full science value of all of your experiments in every KSC mini-biome. Probably not a good interaction to leave in place, as this amounts to thousands of science KEI will pop. 

 

So, now what? I don't know exactly how your code works for LDEF, but I see that when clicking the button to run an experiment, if you're not ORBITING or LANDED or whatever, the menu gives you feedback. I am guessing that this is where you check (in real-time) whether the experiment can be run. I am guessing that the LANDED experiments may intentionally be allowed to be biome-specific? i.e. you could drive a buffalo with an LDEF on it all over a planet and run the experiments? I'm not sure if it's intended or not. If it is intended, then I would recommend changing at least the ORBITING only experiments to biomeMask = 0. This will reduce the number of experiments KEI will pop and the number of things showing up in [x] Science.

Personally, and I don't know what you intended, but the way that I would prefer all of the experiments to behave is ORBITING = In Space Low (and/or In Space High), and LANDED = SrfLanded. So situationMask = 16 (or 32 or 48) for ORBITING, 17 for ORBITING+LANDED (or 33 or 49), and 1 for LANDED only. All biomeMasks would then be 0, indicating that you can only do the experiment in those general situations, not once in every Biome.  This solves the [x] Science problem, which can now properly track where you've done the experiments, since your code handles the checking on ORBITING or LANDED. It also fixes the KEI problem, I think, though I haven't tested yet.

The Automated Science Sampler problem I'm afraid we're stuck with, so it's just important to keep it turned off when flying on a vessel with LDEF experiments on board. It's easy enough to reset the experiment and run it after gaining the right amount of LabTime. 

 

Let me know if I've got anything wrong here. Also, I don't know how to write a ModuleManager patch to change the experiments, but if anyone can write me a prototype, I'd love to do that rather than manually changing the WBI files. 

I never considered the mods you noted when making the science parts. I think that for compatibility, I'd need some ModuleManager patches to make them work. Since I don't use those mods, I'd need outside help. Best of luck, last time I asked for help with rebalencing the fuel tank costs to address someone's OCD, it fell on deaf ears.

[DStaal]

I do know that KEI tries to blacklist experiments that it knows shouldn't be run by it's system.  You might want to take up excluding this over there.  (I hadn't because I’m mostly ok with it - It'll only run experiments that have Kerbin surface results, which many of the MOLE experiments do.  And I don't see the time spent as being any more interesting than roving around, for the limited runs that they have: The experiments would be run to calibrate them in the laboratories at the KSC, which is all that KEI simulates.)

[NISSKEPCSIM]

I have a question - does running the DenEye and solar telescopes actually do anything? I know the Deneye lets you take screenshots for science, but the scan - it just says it's done - and resets, with no science. And same for the solar telescopes. Do they require CactEye or some other mod?

[drhay53]

10 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I never considered the mods you noted when making the science parts. I think that for compatibility, I'd need some ModuleManager patches to make them work. Since I don't use those mods, I'd need outside help. Best of luck, last time I asked for help with rebalencing the fuel tank costs to address someone's OCD, it fell on deaf ears.

Ok. Can you at least confirm your design intent with respect to the situations in which they're supposed to be biome-specific? and whether situationMask = 63 is really intended as well? (i.e. should the experiments be available in flying low and flying high, which seems strange for a lab-type experiment?)

In case anybody reading this shorter post notices, if there's a module manager template you can write for modifying the experiment biomeMask and situationMask values, that would helpful, and I'd do the rest. 

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

I do know that KEI tries to blacklist experiments that it knows shouldn't be run by it's system.  You might want to take up excluding this over there.  (I hadn't because I’m mostly ok with it - It'll only run experiments that have Kerbin surface results, which many of the MOLE experiments do.  And I don't see the time spent as being any more interesting than roving around, for the limited runs that they have: The experiments would be run to calibrate them in the laboratories at the KSC, which is all that KEI simulates.)

My issue is just the sheer amount of science that these experiments give when popped by KEI. When you upgrade buildings at KSC, many times experiments can be run yet again, and over time, the main source of science that you get turns out to be from KEI popping MOLE experiments. It's just way overkill. 

For instance I popped a new science game with KEI, MOLE, and community tech tree, and just by popping MOLE experiments at KSC alone, you can unlock every tech up to the 525 science tier. 

[Angelo Kerman]

3 hours ago, NISSKEPCSIM said:

I have a question - does running the DenEye and solar telescopes actually do anything? I know the Deneye lets you take screenshots for science, but the scan - it just says it's done - and resets, with no science. And same for the solar telescopes. Do they require CactEye or some other mod?

DenEye produces ScopeTime for lab experiments, and it also has a built-in experiment of its own.

 

1 hour ago, drhay53 said:

Ok. Can you at least confirm your design intent with respect to the situations in which they're supposed to be biome-specific? and whether situationMask = 63 is really intended as well? (i.e. should the experiments be available in flying low and flying high, which seems strange for a lab-type experiment?)

In case anybody reading this shorter post notices, if there's a module manager template you can write for modifying the experiment biomeMask and situationMask values, that would helpful, and I'd do the rest. 

My issue is just the sheer amount of science that these experiments give when popped by KEI. When you upgrade buildings at KSC, many times experiments can be run yet again, and over time, the main source of science that you get turns out to be from KEI popping MOLE experiments. It's just way overkill. 

For instance I popped a new science game with KEI, MOLE, and community tech tree, and just by popping MOLE experiments at KSC alone, you can unlock every tech up to the 525 science tier. 

Yup, that's correct. The science system is designed to handle a variety of different situations. I don't know if it's possible to modify the situation mask after the part is initialized. If it is, then I can modify things to allow for no situations at first.

[drhay53]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

Yup, that's correct. The science system is designed to handle a variety of different situations. I don't know if it's possible to modify the situation mask after the part is initialized. If it is, then I can modify things to allow for no situations at first.

What I mean is whether your experiments are really meant to be situationMask = 63, which means that you're explicitly telling KSP and other addons that the experiments are runnable in every situation, including ones that don't seem to make a lot of sense to me, like splashed, flying high, and flying low. 

i.e., situationMask = 63 and biomeMask = 7 means that all of your experiments are available in every biome while flying low. So technically you'd have to build a plane that can carry labTime and experiments and fly it through every Kerbin biome to complete those experiments. Maybe that's what you intend? 

edit: part of the reason I'm asking is that there are comments in your .cfg files after the situation masks saying "is this right?", so I'm trying to make sure we're all on the same page about exactly what your current settings are telling KSP and other mods, while also getting to the bottom of what you intended the settings to be.

Edited April 14, 2017 by drhay53

[DStaal]

21 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

What I mean is whether your experiments are really meant to be situationMask = 63, which means that you're explicitly telling KSP and other addons that the experiments are runnable in every situation, including ones that don't seem to make a lot of sense to me, like splashed, flying high, and flying low. 

i.e., situationMask = 63 and biomeMask = 7 means that all of your experiments are available in every biome while flying low. So technically you'd have to build a plane that can carry labTime and experiments and fly it through every Kerbin biome to complete those experiments. Maybe that's what you intend?

Or mount them in a blimp...

(Not saying for sure that's what he had in mind - but we do have the tools to do it.  And I know for 'splashed' there's at least one unique result in there, IIRC.)

[Gristle]

20 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

What I mean is whether your experiments are really meant to be situationMask = 63, which means that you're explicitly telling KSP and other addons that the experiments are runnable in every situation, including ones that don't seem to make a lot of sense to me, like splashed, flying high, and flying low. 

i.e., situationMask = 63 and biomeMask = 7 means that all of your experiments are available in every biome while flying low. So technically you'd have to build a plane that can carry labTime and experiments and fly it through every Kerbin biome to complete those experiments. Maybe that's what you intend? 

edit: part of the reason I'm asking is that there are comments in your .cfg files after the situation masks saying "is this right?", so I'm trying to make sure we're all on the same page about exactly what your current settings are telling KSP and other mods, while also getting to the bottom of what you intended the settings to be.

Another solution is that if you think this is OP don't perform the experiments.  Why should Angel-125 be responsible for preventing you from doing something in a Mod he doesn't control?

[Angelo Kerman]

26 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

What I mean is whether your experiments are really meant to be situationMask = 63, which means that you're explicitly telling KSP and other addons that the experiments are runnable in every situation, including ones that don't seem to make a lot of sense to me, like splashed, flying high, and flying low. 

i.e., situationMask = 63 and biomeMask = 7 means that all of your experiments are available in every biome while flying low. So technically you'd have to build a plane that can carry labTime and experiments and fly it through every Kerbin biome to complete those experiments. Maybe that's what you intend? 

edit: part of the reason I'm asking is that there are comments in your .cfg files after the situation masks saying "is this right?", so I'm trying to make sure we're all on the same page about exactly what your current settings are telling KSP and other mods, while also getting to the bottom of what you intended the settings to be.

I'll try to clarify what I said earlier. The science system uses experiment slots that can load a variety of different experiments. These experiments can be used in a wide variety of situations. In order to cover those situations, I set up the situationMask and biomeMask to cover all possible situations.

Experiment "slots" are defined by WBIModuleScienceExperiment, and when you load an experiment into the module, it uses its own method to determine valid situations for the experiment to run. Unless you can show me that I'm able to set the biomeMask and situationMask at runtime, they have to stay as they are.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Angel-125

[drhay53]

4 minutes ago, Gristle said:

Another solution is that if you think this is OP don't perform the experiments.  Why should Angel-125 be responsible for preventing you from doing something in a Mod he doesn't control?

All I'm doing is noting some quality of life issues with popular science mods. I've offered to do as much of the work as I can myself, and I've even dug into all of the .cfg files and other mods and threads myself to try to offer solutions. 

Other people may use KEI + MOLE thinking that it's intended that they can fell half of the community tech tree simply with MOLE experiments and the click of one button. I don't think that's intended, and all I'm doing is letting the authors involved know. If they don't want to fix it, then I will obviously set my own 'house rule' about KEI+MOLE ( but if you look at the KEI thread, it's basically already very close to being fixed).

[Angelo Kerman]

1 minute ago, drhay53 said:

All I'm doing is noting some quality of life issues with popular science mods. I've offered to do as much of the work as I can myself, and I've even dug into all of the .cfg files and other mods and threads myself to try to offer solutions. 

Other people may use KEI + MOLE thinking that it's intended that they can fell half of the community tech tree simply with MOLE experiments and the click of one button. I don't think that's intended, and all I'm doing is letting the authors involved know. If they don't want to fix it, then I will obviously set my own 'house rule' about KEI+MOLE ( but if you look at the KEI thread, it's basically already very close to being fixed).

Don't worry about KEI, it will be blacklisting the station experiments.