[1.2.2] [0.9.5] KPBS/MKS Integration Pack

[Merkov]

Warning, lots of rambling about parts below: 

MK2 Habitat 

Okay, looking at the MK2 Habitat now... Figuring out volume is tricky since it deploys. Just eyeballing it compared to other parts, it kind of looks like it would be 3.75 m across, 3 m long, and roughly 1.25 m tall, which gets me about 14 m³ of volume, which is NOT a lot... It's double my rough eyeballing of the MK1 Habitat (roughly 7 m³) and hardly any bigger than what KIS claims the MK1 Habitat is (10.7 m³). Even if I decide to be generous and say that the MK2 habitat has about 50% more volume than KIS's claim for the MK1, that still only puts us around 16 m³. 

So, the MK2 Habitat has a mass of 2.6 t. It holds 4 kerbals, 160 Supplies, 75 Mulch, and 150 EC. With all of those numbers except the mass, the hab time can vary depending on what we decide the volume is. According to the spreadsheet, 13 months would require 14.25 m³, 14 months = 15.25 m³, and 15 months = 16.25 m³. Now, those numbers aren't much bigger than the 10 months we decided on for the MK1, but the MK2 isn't really much bigger, and the MK2 does benefit from an extra quarter month from that 4th seat. Where things fall apart a bit is on the mass side of things. Higher hab times don't increase the suggested mass in the spreadsheet. RD's guidelines suggest a part like that should have a mass of only 2 t, not 2.6. 

Another thought I've had on these hab calculations: I placed a Ranger mini hab beside a MK2 Habitat just to compare the two. At first, I thought they both looked about the same size, but one thing occurred to me: the mini hab is a semi-sphere while the MK2 is a rectangular prism. The mini hab's centre is much taller than the MK2, but that space wouldn't be all that useful on the ground. It makes me wonder if I should be giving more weight to square footage than volume for the purpose of ground base parts. The mini hab's volume is about 10 m³, almost exactly the same as what we decided the MK1's was, and not much smaller than the MK2. However, the mini hab only has a floor area of 4.9 m² compared to the roughly 7.5 m² of the MK1 habitat, or the 11.25 m² of the MK2. Although floor area isn't part of RD's spreadsheet, I think it has some significance when it comes to KPBS. Four beds fit a lot nicer into a rectangle of a certain area than a circle. The mini hab has 10 months of hab time, no seats. If we say the MK1 has 10 months of hab time plus 3 seats, that's basically 10.75 months of hab time. I can't help but think that the MK1 hab would make a much better living quarter than the mini hab. 

What do you guys think? 

Greenhouse

In the GitHub LS issue, I mentioned that I thought the greenhouse's volume is about 25 m². Looking at it more closely, I'm going to say it's probably closer to 21. Mass is 3 t. It currently holds 400 each of Fertilizer, Mulch, and Supplies. This one is also kind of tricky. If I reduce the number of LS resources to 200 each, then give it a simple agroponics ability (mulch+fertilizer=supplies) with a conversion rate of 0.0025 mulch, 0.00025 fertilizer, 0.00275 supplies (suggested EC/s cost of 5.5) then I reach our mass limit of 3 t but have only used 14 m³ of volume. Unfortunately, I can't even add hab time because hab time on its own without a hab multiplier costs mass which this part doesn't have. 

Now, another option I found was to reduce that conversion rate even further (0.002 mulch, 0.0002 fert, 0.0022 supplies, 4.4 EC/s), add a hab multiplier of 1.1 for 1 kerbal, then add 3 bonus months for 1.025 EC/s. This gives us a slow generation of supplies plus a bit of hab. Well, I say slow, but I'm pretty sure that's quicker than the inline Nom-O-Matic. 

 

 

[DStaal]

I like 3 and 4 - lean towards 4.

I like the idea for Algae container.  Maybe swappable between two, under MKS?  (Not sure which dll provides swap.)

I use water scanner fairly regularly...  (May not need to, but I do.)

[Merkov]

15 hours ago, DStaal said:

I like 3 and 4 - lean towards 4.

Okay. I updated the chart on the GitHub LS issue with the numbers from option 4. As long as everyone's happy with it, then we can call that two parts ready. 

15 hours ago, DStaal said:

I like the idea for Algae container.  Maybe swappable between two, under MKS?  (Not sure which dll provides swap.)

Sorry, when you say swappable between the two, you mean the two of my ideas (Ore+Water=Fertilizer and Ore+Water+Fertilizer=Supplies) or my first idea and the current function (Ore+Water=Fertilizer and Ore+Mulch=Fertilizer)? 

I think (but have not verified) that the swappable converters function is provided by USITools. When USI-LS 0.5 first arrived, RoverDude allowed players to swap the functionality of Nom-O-Matics, but dropped that for balance reasons. My guess is that all he did was remove the modules from the parts configs. I'll do some playing, but I think making it free to swap when only USI-LS is installed should be doable, though it will probably still need an engineer on EVA. 

I'll come up with some numbers for Algae Container conversions and see how we look. 

15 hours ago, DStaal said:

I use water scanner fairly regularly...  (May not need to, but I do.)

Fair enough. Well, as long as it's being used, it should stay. 

Just so everyone here knows, I've got a few more balancing ideas posted on the Life Support issue on GithHub (here). It's a little easier for me to keep all of my thoughts on that page and update the chart all in the same place. Basically, I just posted some ideas on possibly re-balancing the USI recycler container and introducing the Water Purifier Container, which currently is just used in TAC LS, I think. 

[Merkov]

Okay, looking at the Algae Container some more: the balancing spreadsheet shows conversion ratios for the conversions used in MKS/USI-LS. For the purpose of generating supplies, these are the two processes listed: 

INPUT	OUTPUT
Gypsum (10)	Fertilizer (1)
Minerals (25)	Fertilizer (1)

Not listed is the the USI-LS option of Ore to Fertilizer which of course is:

Ore (1000)

Fertilizer (1)

That's pretty inefficient compared to the other options. If we add water as an input, we are not beyond the guidelines of the spreadsheet. What do people think the conversion rate should look like? Keep in mind that what we come up with doesn't necessarily have to be balanced with MKS as a whole at this point. On the other hand, the only guideline for balancing against just USI-LS is the 1000:1 ratio listed above. I'm kind of thinking that it should require a decent amount of water, but probably also be pretty Ore intensive? 

I'd also like to point out that the current Algae Farm's conversion rates look like this: 

INPUT	OUTPUT
Mulch (75) Ore (200)	Fertilizer (80)

Granted, this uses a lot of Mulch as a "stock" of sorts, but that is a much lower amount of resources required to get fertilizer than the Ore alone option at the top. 

Now, we could also just ignore the Ore to Fertilizer ratio provided by the stock mini ISRU, since it didn't even get a mention on the spreadsheet. 

Now, as for the option of making a sort of Ore-based cultivation option. I was thinking Ore+Water+Fertilizer=Supplies (which is pretty similar to MKS's Cultivation options, except you replace Ore with Substrate or Dirt. Those look like this: 

INPUT	OUTPUT
Substrate (10) Water(10) Fertilizer (0.1)	Supplies (1)
Dirt (25) Water (25) Fertilizer (0.1)	Supplies (1)

With that in mind, maybe something like 50 Ore, 50 Water, 0.1 Fertilizer to 1 Supply? I think it should be pretty low efficiency. Ore is pretty easy to acquire, after all. 

Another thought I had was that maybe getting rid of my first idea (Ore+Water=Fertilizer) and just keeping the current functionality (or adding water to it if we want) and this cultivation option as two swappable options is the way to go. That way, you only have small amounts of mulch, you can use Ore and Mulch (and water?) to make Fertilizer, then you can use those small amounts of Fertilizer along with Ore and Water to make Supplies. 

Thoughts?

[DStaal]

Another idea:

Ore+Water -> Mulch+Fertilizer

500:100 -> 75:1  (Estimate off top of head.)

 

Just idea, while throw around concepts.

[Merkov]

15 hours ago, DStaal said:

Another idea:

Ore+Water -> Mulch+Fertilizer

500:100 -> 75:1  (Estimate off top of head.)

 

Just idea, while throw around concepts.

I actually really like that. It's different from anything else, and has one or two odd situations where it could really come in handy. I would suggest we then make it so that dumpExcess for the Mulch is true, Fertilizer is false. 

If it had the above ability plus the Ore+Mulch = Fertilizer, I think that would give the part a really unique fit. 

[DStaal]

Idea for full set:

Ore->Fert (slow)  (Could also be current Ore+Mulch->Fert)

Ore+Water->Fert+Mulch (fast)

Soylent Red

Soylent Green

Soylent another mod that does algae:

Without Soylent, just have first two.  May want SCWO in container format - any good models?  (Could use same as liquid tanks...)

[DStaal]

Ok, since I can now type for moderate periods...

Stage 1 Release

• 0.9.5 beta: New version for MKS 0.50+. New features include:
  • Fully functional Kontainers (The old tanks are depreciated)
  • Ground Construction support
  • Construction Ports in KPBS form-factors
  • Power distribution parts that fit in KPBS racks.
  • Logistics Rebalance
  • Weight Transfer for the KPBS racks and containers.
  • Probably more I’ve forgotten.

As I'm not quite up to play-testing at the moment and I'd rather wait until I'm able to use my arm a bit better (and we have USI-LS support) before calling this a non-beta release, but: Stage 1. 

[DStaal]

And, for those looking at things: The Life-Support working branch has been updated be based off of the 0.9.5 beta, and I've pulled in KPBS's USI-LS patch for reworking.

[DStaal]

I've set up some better tracking for the USI-LS stuff on GitHub:

https://github.com/DanStaal/KPBStoMKS/milestone/3

[dboi88]

21 hours ago, DStaal said:

Ok, since I can now type for moderate periods...

Stage 1 Release

• 0.9.5 beta: New version for MKS 0.50+. New features include:
  • Fully functional Kontainers (The old tanks are depreciated)
  • Ground Construction support
  • Construction Ports in KPBS form-factors
  • Power distribution parts that fit in KPBS racks.
  • Logistics Rebalance
  • Weight Transfer for the KPBS racks and containers.
  • Probably more I’ve forgotten.

As I'm not quite up to play-testing at the moment and I'd rather wait until I'm able to use my arm a bit better (and we have USI-LS support) before calling this a non-beta release, but: Stage 1. 

Congrats on the beta release!

[Merkov]

On ‎2017‎-‎03‎-‎05 at 4:33 PM, DStaal said:

And, for those looking at things: The Life-Support working branch has been updated be based off of the 0.9.5 beta, and I've pulled in KPBS's USI-LS patch for reworking.

 

11 hours ago, DStaal said:

I've set up some better tracking for the USI-LS stuff on GitHub:

https://github.com/DanStaal/KPBStoMKS/milestone/3

Both of these are fantastic. This will make it much easier (for me, anyway) to keep track of what we're proposing for which parts. Comments are already en route!

Speaking of proposals, would you mind having a look at my post at the top of page 5 of this thread? I'm having some trouble making things fit within the spreadsheet's mass and volume constraints. With those two parts, it may also be worth looking at whether we want USI-LS to alter the mass of KPBS parts, though I'm still not sold on that idea.

[Nils277]

Wow, you all are really putting a lot of effort in this! This is looking really good! 

Shall i make a link to the release of stage 1 in the OP of KPBS?

Edited March 7, 2017 by Nils277

[Merkov]

24 minutes ago, Nils277 said:

Wow, you all are really putting a lot of effort in this! This is looking really good! 

Shall i make a link to the release of stage 1 in the OP of KPBS?

My vote would be only if we make it the WIP status very clear.

[Nils277]

42 minutes ago, Merkov said:

My vote would be only if we make it the WIP status very clear.

Okay. Will let it be then until you are ready   

[Merkov]

30 minutes ago, Nils277 said:

Okay. Will let it be then until you are ready   

Actually, now that I think about it, it might not be bad to have more people testing as we go. I don't get a ton of time to actually PLAY KSP that much anymore. My only concern would be that, if there are undesired bugs, their reports might bog down the main KPBS thread.

[Nils277]

There is not much going on the the main KPBS thread at the moment anyway  

And redirecting them to this thread is not that much overhead.

 

Edited March 7, 2017 by Nils277

[DStaal]

4 hours ago, Nils277 said:

Wow, you all are really putting a lot of effort in this! This is looking really good! 

Shall i make a link to the release of stage 1 in the OP of KPBS?

I'm for it.    However, anyone who's thinking about using it should be aware of the fact that this pack disables Pathfinder integration - this has the potential to break bases.  (I had two bases disappear around the time I put that in - though I'm not sure if that was the cause, as they took several non-KPBS vessels with them.)  In theory it shouldn't affect any ships/bases currently in flight, but it's worth being aware of.

(I've also barely touched the Ground Construction integration I threw in at the last minute.  I mostly just saw that it kept getting asked for in your thread, and decided to throw it in.  Notably I'm not sure if I did enough to get the Workshop to appear without EL also being installed.)

When I'm a bit more sure of things I'll probably start an actual release thread as well, but that will likely wait until USI-LS support is done.  (Stage 2.)

[DStaal]

7 hours ago, Merkov said:

Both of these are fantastic. This will make it much easier (for me, anyway) to keep track of what we're proposing for which parts. Comments are already en route!

Speaking of proposals, would you mind having a look at my post at the top of page 5 of this thread? I'm having some trouble making things fit within the spreadsheet's mass and volume constraints. With those two parts, it may also be worth looking at whether we want USI-LS to alter the mass of KPBS parts, though I'm still not sold on that idea.

I'll admit I'm partly just playing with GitHub's tools, to see what they can do.    Also you can take a look at this:

https://github.com/DanStaal/KPBStoMKS/projects/1

On 3/1/2017 at 5:39 AM, Merkov said:

Warning, lots of rambling about parts below: 

MK2 Habitat 

Okay, looking at the MK2 Habitat now... Figuring out volume is tricky since it deploys. Just eyeballing it compared to other parts, it kind of looks like it would be 3.75 m across, 3 m long, and roughly 1.25 m tall, which gets me about 14 m³ of volume, which is NOT a lot... It's double my rough eyeballing of the MK1 Habitat (roughly 7 m³) and hardly any bigger than what KIS claims the MK1 Habitat is (10.7 m³). Even if I decide to be generous and say that the MK2 habitat has about 50% more volume than KIS's claim for the MK1, that still only puts us around 16 m³. 

So, the MK2 Habitat has a mass of 2.6 t. It holds 4 kerbals, 160 Supplies, 75 Mulch, and 150 EC. With all of those numbers except the mass, the hab time can vary depending on what we decide the volume is. According to the spreadsheet, 13 months would require 14.25 m³, 14 months = 15.25 m³, and 15 months = 16.25 m³. Now, those numbers aren't much bigger than the 10 months we decided on for the MK1, but the MK2 isn't really much bigger, and the MK2 does benefit from an extra quarter month from that 4th seat. Where things fall apart a bit is on the mass side of things. Higher hab times don't increase the suggested mass in the spreadsheet. RD's guidelines suggest a part like that should have a mass of only 2 t, not 2.6. 

Another thought I've had on these hab calculations: I placed a Ranger mini hab beside a MK2 Habitat just to compare the two. At first, I thought they both looked about the same size, but one thing occurred to me: the mini hab is a semi-sphere while the MK2 is a rectangular prism. The mini hab's centre is much taller than the MK2, but that space wouldn't be all that useful on the ground. It makes me wonder if I should be giving more weight to square footage than volume for the purpose of ground base parts. The mini hab's volume is about 10 m³, almost exactly the same as what we decided the MK1's was, and not much smaller than the MK2. However, the mini hab only has a floor area of 4.9 m² compared to the roughly 7.5 m² of the MK1 habitat, or the 11.25 m² of the MK2. Although floor area isn't part of RD's spreadsheet, I think it has some significance when it comes to KPBS. Four beds fit a lot nicer into a rectangle of a certain area than a circle. The mini hab has 10 months of hab time, no seats. If we say the MK1 has 10 months of hab time plus 3 seats, that's basically 10.75 months of hab time. I can't help but think that the MK1 hab would make a much better living quarter than the mini hab. 

What do you guys think?

I agree on your thoughts on floor-space.  It almost makes me think we should add a small base hab multiplier to all crewable KPBS parts - they're a bit nicer to live in than normal 'space cans'.  How would those numbers work with the MK1, if we added in a 0.2 multiplier or so?  Then the hab on it's own isn't all that much better than the mini hab - but you start putting together a KPBS base and pretty soon you have a much nicer base than if you were just stringing together mini-hab 'tents'.

On the size of the MK2 - it starts out the same size as the MK1, and then unfolds basically half it's width in two directions, right?  Wouldn't that basically double it's volume?  Now, there's a bit of a slope to that (and there's some extra space at the ends), but call it 75% and you get a volume of 18.73.  60% gets you 17.12.  Those sound like better numbers to me.

On 3/1/2017 at 5:39 AM, Merkov said:

Greenhouse

 

In the GitHub LS issue, I mentioned that I thought the greenhouse's volume is about 25 m². Looking at it more closely, I'm going to say it's probably closer to 21. Mass is 3 t. It currently holds 400 each of Fertilizer, Mulch, and Supplies. This one is also kind of tricky. If I reduce the number of LS resources to 200 each, then give it a simple agroponics ability (mulch+fertilizer=supplies) with a conversion rate of 0.0025 mulch, 0.00025 fertilizer, 0.00275 supplies (suggested EC/s cost of 5.5) then I reach our mass limit of 3 t but have only used 14 m³ of volume. Unfortunately, I can't even add hab time because hab time on its own without a hab multiplier costs mass which this part doesn't have. 

Now, another option I found was to reduce that conversion rate even further (0.002 mulch, 0.0002 fert, 0.0022 supplies, 4.4 EC/s), add a hab multiplier of 1.1 for 1 kerbal, then add 3 bonus months for 1.025 EC/s. This gives us a slow generation of supplies plus a bit of hab. Well, I say slow, but I'm pretty sure that's quicker than the inline Nom-O-Matic.

I should really get into the spreadsheet on my own at some point again...    Again, what about multiplier without hab direct?  Especially for the greenhouse, I don't think it should have hab time on it's own: It's not a place where Kerbals live. 

For this one we probably need a comparison table between this and the various greenhouse/supply generation facilities in USI-LS and MKS.  (And the small greenhouse and algae containers.)  Then we can start to get a better feel for how they compare against each other.

[Merkov]

13 hours ago, DStaal said:

I'll admit I'm partly just playing with GitHub's tools, to see what they can do.    Also you can take a look at this:

https://github.com/DanStaal/KPBStoMKS/projects/1

Ooh, pretty. I actually like this a lot. Helps me keep track of what we're doing instead of there just being a jumbled list of parts in my brain.

13 hours ago, DStaal said:

I agree on your thoughts on floor-space.  It almost makes me think we should add a small base hab multiplier to all crewable KPBS parts - they're a bit nicer to live in than normal 'space cans'.  How would those numbers work with the MK1, if we added in a 0.2 multiplier or so?  Then the hab on it's own isn't all that much better than the mini hab - but you start putting together a KPBS base and pretty soon you have a much nicer base than if you were just stringing together mini-hab 'tents'.

The only downside I see is that hab multipliers only affect a certain number of kerbals. If you make that number really high, then the part is pretty powerful on its own (sort of). If you make it lower, then stacking them doesn't really have much of an effect. Now, if we arranged it so that the part's hab multiplier always affects 1 more kerbal than the part contains, that might be a way to do it...

13 hours ago, DStaal said:

On the size of the MK2 - it starts out the same size as the MK1, and then unfolds basically half it's width in two directions, right?  Wouldn't that basically double it's volume?  Now, there's a bit of a slope to that (and there's some extra space at the ends), but call it 75% and you get a volume of 18.73.  60% gets you 17.12.  Those sound like better numbers to me.

I didn't think it quite looked like double, but I was also looking at the loss of headroom. As discussed above, counting floor space instead of just volume might be the way to go, so I'll go with a higher number.

13 hours ago, DStaal said:

I should really get into the spreadsheet on my own at some point again...    Again, what about multiplier without hab direct?  Especially for the greenhouse, I don't think it should have hab time on it's own: It's not a place where Kerbals live. 

For this one we probably need a comparison table between this and the various greenhouse/supply generation facilities in USI-LS and MKS.  (And the small greenhouse and algae containers.)  Then we can start to get a better feel for how they compare against each other.

The hab direct is just me trying to live exactly within the confines of the spreadsheet (as much as possible, I'm trying to stay REALLY close to its suggestions first, then being creative second). The adding of hab time plus hab multipliers comes from swappable hab quarter/hab common parts where a part is very spacious compared to its mass, so it doesn't balance well when in hab multiplier mode. Adding hab months on top of a hab multiplier lets you use up spare volume without costing you any extra mass. I do see what you're saying, though, in that it doesn't actually make any sense. I'll see if I can get a comparison table or two thrown together for the converter side of thing.

As an aside, how do you feel about the mass of KPBS parts compared to USI parts? I haven't had a chance to sit down and compare parts at all this week, but it seems to me as though the USI suite seems to assume parts ought to be more massive than KPBS parts.

[Merkov]

On ‎2017‎-‎03‎-‎03 at 6:32 AM, DStaal said:

Idea for full set:

Ore->Fert (slow)  (Could also be current Ore+Mulch->Fert)

Ore+Water->Fert+Mulch (fast)

Soylent Red

Soylent Green

Soylent another mod that does algae:

Without Soylent, just have first two.  May want SCWO in container format - any good models?  (Could use same as liquid tanks...)

I kind of like that set. The only mini issue I see is that it's completely different than any converter someone would encounter in base USI-LS, but I'm sure people will figure it out.

I don't really know anything about Soylent, but I am following your discussion with DBowman on his thread. It seems like that support would be nice to have, especially since it looks like Soylent itself supports USI-LS fairly well.

[DStaal]

6 hours ago, Merkov said:

The only downside I see is that hab multipliers only affect a certain number of kerbals. If you make that number really high, then the part is pretty powerful on its own (sort of). If you make it lower, then stacking them doesn't really have much of an effect. Now, if we arranged it so that the part's hab multiplier always affects 1 more kerbal than the part contains, that might be a way to do it...

I thought I remembered that someone worked out the math and that was only sort-of true: You still get the effects, just they get re-valued if it's off some ideal crew value.

But either way, yeah, that could work.

6 hours ago, Merkov said:

I didn't think it quite looked like double, but I was also looking at the loss of headroom. As discussed above, counting floor space instead of just volume might be the way to go, so I'll go with a higher number.

As someone who occasionally hits his head on low-hanging doorways: I don't think headroom would affect that much in these designs.  There's plenty of headroom in the walkway (so you wouldn't feel cramped), and enough that the Kerbals don't have to think about it when standing up at the outer edges (where you might notice it), so the end feel would be that 'there's enough space.'

I think for most of the KPBS parts floor space is probably a better measure - the exception being the Central Hub, where volume accounts for the fact that it's more than one story tall.  (Which would be why in general volume would be better: Most rocket parts tend to be built with multiple levels to take advantage of length, where each level will be minimum height inside.  KPBS instead sets uses length for a larger single-story floorplan.)

6 hours ago, Merkov said:

The hab direct is just me trying to live exactly within the confines of the spreadsheet (as much as possible, I'm trying to stay REALLY close to its suggestions first, then being creative second). The adding of hab time plus hab multipliers comes from swappable hab quarter/hab common parts where a part is very spacious compared to its mass, so it doesn't balance well when in hab multiplier mode. Adding hab months on top of a hab multiplier lets you use up spare volume without costing you any extra mass. I do see what you're saying, though, in that it doesn't actually make any sense. I'll see if I can get a comparison table or two thrown together for the converter side of thing.

And I'll admit what I'm doing is listening to your results, then throwing ideas for alternate configs at you to run the numbers on. 

I may work on a comparison table as well at some point, but I want to try writing up a couple of these to see how they work.

6 hours ago, Merkov said:

As an aside, how do you feel about the mass of KPBS parts compared to USI parts? I haven't had a chance to sit down and compare parts at all this week, but it seems to me as though the USI suite seems to assume parts ought to be more massive than KPBS parts.

That was one of our initial thoughts, wasn't it: That KPBS parts are lighter and easier to deploy, likely at the cost of durability.  If we're still seeing that, as a part of this pack (not in the config for Nils277) we should probably look at adding in machinery use to balance in.

[DStaal]

Ok, I decided to try out the spreadsheet on something simple: The cupola.    A multiplier of 1.75 for 2 Kerbals gets me a mass of 1.85 and a volume of 7.250, with an EC of 0.875 - The part's mass is 1.75, and that volume doesn't sound completely wrong...  (I didn't look to closely at the volume yet, but width should be 2.5, assuming a length of 2m and a height of 1.5m, we have a volume of 7.5.  I'm estimating here, but those should be close...)

[Merkov]

43 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Ok, I decided to try out the spreadsheet on something simple: The cupola.    A multiplier of 1.75 for 2 Kerbals gets me a mass of 1.85 and a volume of 7.250, with an EC of 0.875 - The part's mass is 1.75, and that volume doesn't sound completely wrong...  (I didn't look to closely at the volume yet, but width should be 2.5, assuming a length of 2m and a height of 1.5m, we have a volume of 7.5.  I'm estimating here, but those should be close...)

On my phone right now, but that all sounds very similar to the stock cupola, so it seems reasonable to me. 

[DStaal]

When you get a chance, the one that needs to be looked at is the Algae container.  I just wrote up the start of a config for it:  I kept the current mode for the moment (we may want to drop to just Ore w/o Mulch as an input), and added in a 'Wet' mode at 0.05 Ore, 0.01 Water to 0.001 Fert and 0.0075 Mulch.  So it's a bit faster at generating fertilizer, at the cost of water and more ore.  Most of the water gets turned into mulch, but there are some losses.

(There's also a Soylent Green mode in there, but that's easy: He's got that written up with quick replacements, and the Algae container is about the same mass and volume as his 2.5m converter, so I just duped it.)