[1.12.2] BARIS - Building A Rocket Isn't Simple

[vardicd]

12 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Sometimes that happens and I haven't figured out why yet.

Okay. Thanks for the answer.

[overkill13]

18 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Right-click the part, hit repair button. Make sure you have Equipment aboard the ship. Min level 1. Recently tested and verified working. No you cannot use USI resources. Also, as BARIS points out when you install it, please consult the KSPedia for how to use the mod.

"When a part needs maintenance or repairs, then it's time to break into your Equipment stores and start fixing things.  You'll need a kerbal with repair skills such an Engineer.  Depending upon your settings, you can either repair the part from inside your vessel or go outside and fix it."

I have repeatedly referred to the KSPedia entry and the Wiki for BARIS, for a great many things, but neither indicates what level is required for repairs.  Nor is there any feedback provided by BARIS if one attempts to perform a repair with a 0 star engineer.

I actually meant the mechanic class, a subclass of engineer with repair skills but no mining or ISRU improvement ability, rather than the mod's game mechanics.  I'll give one a try once I have a level 1 mechanic in my roster.

[vardicd]

@Angel-125 Regarding the [non-functional/poorly] functioning buttons that I previously reported. It definitely seems that it's a mod interaction that's causing, or exacerbating the [poor/lack] of functionality. In a stock install with only baris installed the buttons seem to work just fine, mostly. I have discovered that sometimes the '+' button will go unresponsive and fail to add workers to a project, but clicking literally anywhere other than any button, on the open baris window in the editor will reset the button and allow it to work again. In the coming days I'm going to start adding mods one at a time and testing baris to see if I can isolate what mod or combo of mods is making the situation worse. If I'm successful I'll report it to you, and perhaps that will aid in figuring out how to prevent or correct the problem. Should you choose to do so.

[vardicd]

@Angel-125  I started my mod testing today, trying to replicate and isolate the bug I had previously, and I saw in a previous post that someone had trouble with Baris+Better burn time+B9 Part Switcher, so I thought I'd start with Better burn time, since I use it also, and right off the bat I thought I hit gold. I discovered I had a number of issues related to workers and buttons not working as I felt they were intended. I then re-cleaned install folder, downloaded a clean copy of KSP and only installed Baris and Module manager to compare, and only realized then that the same issues show up without any other mods installed, I just hadn't noticed when I was first playing around with the clean install of Baris. I've made a video linked below, to show my discovery, and as I say in the video, I'm sorry about the poor quality, and I hope it's helpful.

EDIT: I should also add, I don't know if you're aware of these issues, and this is what you were referring to when you said "Sometimes that happens and I haven't figured out why yet." or if you didn't realize that this was present in baris alone, or if you've overlooked this, and thought the issue was only present with a mod-combo interaction. So, I guess I apologize if I've just told you all things you already know, but don't know how to fix. I didn't consider that till just now, long after I made the video and got it uploaded. My original assumption was that you were implying that you hadn't figured out why this happens with other mods. Again, sorry if I miss understood.

EDIT 2: I just reloaded my main install with all my mods, and baris' behavior definitely gets worse with all my mods installed, so I'll keep checking to see which are affecting it. Not sure how long this process will take.

Edited January 13, 2019 by vardicd

[snakeru]

I have a question/idea about the BARIS & Contracts interactions.
 

Every now and then I get a contract of testing a part in certain conditions. Quite often that part is something that I didn't research yet. Do such contracts have any influence on what reliability this part will have once it is researched? For example, if I accepted a contract and run a test successfully - could it be made that the part will have higher reliability rating later on, as I unlock this part with the usual research?

[bvsveera]

I really love this mod, and it's changed a lot about how I play this game. Appreciate it! But there are a few bugs I want to point out. Perhaps you are already aware of them, but it would be nice to get a release addressing these issues:

 

- When removing a worker from a craft in a high bay, the entire vessel disappears, and all the associated workers are gone with it

- The worker payroll number in the Facilities & Workers screen at the space center is inaccurate, e.g. I have 80 workers working on various crafts spread across the VAB and SPH, but the payroll is 0

- In the tracking station, pressing the repair button in the Vehicle Health display, then switching scenes and returning back to the tracking station resets the repair progress. It seems the only way to do this is to press the button, and then timewarp until the repair is complete. However, with repairs on some probs of mine lasting 11 days, it would be nice to start the repair, then continue on with other missions while the repair continues in the background

- When in the flight scene, and viewing the Vehicle Health display, the list will fail to load on a vessel with many parts (for example, a landed lunar or planetary base). This makes it impossible to determine which parts are broken or need maintenance. The only way I've found to mitigate this is to quick save, then undock various segments and switch between the modules until I find the section with affected parts, and then quick load, EVA an engineer and perform the necessary repair or maintenance.

 

I would also like to propose a feature: include the ability to hire workers in the VAB and SPH. For example, if I wanted to split the workforce to work on two different vessels, you need to change to the space center to halve the number of workers, assign them to craft 1, then go back to the space center, rehire the workers to return to the same number of workers, then re-enter the build scene and assign them to craft 2.

 

Again, I really do love this mod. It's made me reconsider just how I manage the space program, test unmanned rockets and have a plan in place for testing new components. It would be fantastic if these issues could be considered as part of an upcoming release. Thanks for making this!

[Angelo Kerman]

BARIS 1.8.2 is now available:

- Fixed event cards that shouldn't appear when Kerbal Construction Time is installed.
- Fixed vehicle integration button in space center view being shown when Kerbal Construction Time is installed.

[snakeru]

Hey @Angel-125. Thanks for the mod! Do you think the following would be a worthy addition?

If I'm not mistaken then right now there is a single quality cap for all kinds of checks. That is, for example, if you have this cap set to 100 and have a lots of money then once you unlocked the part you can just pour in enough cash and you'll get the 100% quality part on your very first launch.

How about making a second cap - for test bench specifically? The actual maximum would thus be reachable only with actual flight experience - slowly ironing out all these remaining problems instead of just testbenching the sh*t out of it until it's perfect.

[unclepirog]

Is there any chances to get compatibility with RealChutes?

[RocketSquid]

Is there a way to disable the construction time feature,  but leave the others on? 

[Angelo Kerman]

5 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Is there a way to disable the construction time feature,  but leave the others on? 

Check the KSPedia.

On 3/1/2019 at 7:33 AM, unclepirog said:

Is there any chances to get compatibility with RealChutes?

Not at this time.

On 2/22/2019 at 11:00 PM, snakeru said:

Hey @Angel-125. Thanks for the mod! Do you think the following would be a worthy addition?

If I'm not mistaken then right now there is a single quality cap for all kinds of checks. That is, for example, if you have this cap set to 100 and have a lots of money then once you unlocked the part you can just pour in enough cash and you'll get the 100% quality part on your very first launch.

How about making a second cap - for test bench specifically? The actual maximum would thus be reachable only with actual flight experience - slowly ironing out all these remaining problems instead of just testbenching the sh*t out of it until it's perfect.

I’ll consider it, but you can also enable debug mode and cheat your quality up to max. So it depends on how you want to play your game..

Speaking of test benches, I have a new way to test parts on the drawing board...

[smotheredrun]

36 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Speaking of test benches, I have a new way to test parts on the drawing board...

Please please please be the "What sound does it make when hit with a hammer?" test...

[RocketSquid]

Okay, other question, if integration is turned off in the settings, does that mean the reliability is already increased?

Also, if a craft is made on other planets with EPL, is it highly reliable or not at all reliable?

[Angelo Kerman]

32 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

Okay, other question, if integration is turned off in the settings, does that mean the reliability is already increased?

Also, if a craft is made on other planets with EPL, is it highly reliable or not at all reliable?

My suggestion is to try it out and see, but I vaguely recall that it will max out the quality based on current flight experience.

[RocketSquid]

4 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

My suggestion is to try it out and see, but I vaguely recall that it will max out the quality based on current flight experience.

Oh, okay, good. Will it interfere with ships already in flight? Will they get a free pass, or have the modules loaded on? I don't want my current probes to fail but I'm okay with having to build redundancy into future ones.

[Angelo Kerman]

29 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

Oh, okay, good. Will it interfere with ships already in flight? Will they get a free pass, or have the modules loaded on? I don't want my current probes to fail but I'm okay with having to build redundancy into future ones.

I would suggest you make a copy of your game, install BARIS and take a look.

[snakeru]

23 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I’ll consider it, but you can also enable debug mode and cheat your quality up to max. So it depends on how you want to play your game..

Speaking of test benches, I have a new way to test parts on the drawing board...

Ah, that wasn't about going up to 100%. It's fine if the upper limit would still be less than that. It was about that test bench can only get you that far. Ironing out subtle problems requires actually using parts (be it rocket parts of software applications - doesn't matter). And cheating up every single part that you flew after every mission is a bit tedious

If you don't mind sharing - what kind of test concept you think of?

[snakeru]

I can not understand how to help the "Condition" parameter. By reading the posts in the thread I have figured out that the condition is an MTBF indicator, except that it is not numerical, but a textual one.
However, I am struggling now with bringing it up: I have noticed that my flights fail often even though I do the integration. So I started experimenting:
1) If I put together a craft, go through integration and launch - I get "Condition: Poor | Quality: 80/80" for a lot of parts. 

2) If I do a series of test stagings (staging events while the craft is still held by the launch clamps) - that doesn't seem to affect the condition

3) If I do test fires (throttle up the engines just a little bit and let them burn fuel while still held by the launch clamps) - that still doesn't seem to have any visible effect either. BTW - I used 9 engines in the same craft in hope that the experience will come at 9x rate.

4) If I make a couple of quick-saves while in test firing mode (with some firing in between them) and then diff these two saves - I can't see anything with "mtbf" in the name changing. So I suspect such firings have no effect 

5) That doesn't seem to depend on the part tier either. The LV-909 "Terrier" is always in "Poor" condition (and the next Tier is already researched) while the "Probodobodybe OKTO" is always at "Excellent" (and this is the latest Tier I researched).

In other words - no matter what I do, the condition is always "Poor" for some parts for me. What do I miss?

 

EDIT: I have tried making a craft that contains all engines that are currently available.Apparently, I have a bunch of combinations:
most engines are in state "80/80 Poor", one is "36/36 Fair" and one is "35/35 Excellent".  And I am quite certain that just on the previous launch that second one was also "35/35 Excellent". Which hints at rather counter-intuitive idea: the higher quality the engine has - the worse state it is in. Why?

EDIT2: And yet, monoprop tanks are "80/80 Excellent", batteries are "80/80 Good" and high gain antennae are "80/80 Fair". I'm confused.

EDIT3: Weirder still - I have loaded one of my old designs and it has a different condition for the exactly same part! I have specifically loaded two different designs and integrated them side-by-side. See the picture.

Edited April 24, 2019 by snakeru

[snakeru]

On 3/28/2019 at 11:28 PM, Angel-125 said:

I’ll consider it, but you can also enable debug mode and cheat your quality up to max. So it depends on how you want to play your game..

Actually, now as I checked out the "source of inspiration" (the "Race to the Moon") and also discovered the concept of the MTBF I think that this is already implemented :-D

I wanted something that could only be improved by actual flights and would not be achievable by just testbenching. So I think now that MTBF is probably thought as exactly that. Except for that problem that I described above, but if that's a bug - then it could be fixed and if not - even better!

[snakeru]

I think I am done researching that issue I found. I am pretty convinced now that this is a bug. I have looked into the source code and it seems that all parts are supposed to start with the 100% MTBF. So that's the source of the problem. Also note that the Mk1 pod on the screenshot below also has a decreased MTBF, even though not that dramatically decreased as the LES. I was also able to reproduce this with BARIS-only setup without any other mods.

[RocketSquid]

Okay, I have a question. What exactly is the point of the escape pod feature? Most of the catastrophic failures will happen during launch, but most of the escape pods are non-durable, vacuum parts. Can space stations just explode?

[bvsveera]

Has anyone tested this mod in KSP 1.7?

[EvanR]

I checked out this mod in KSP 1.7, specifically BARIS release 1.8.3

The version file specifies max KSP is 1.6.99 and you get a warning to that effect (though weirdly formatted).

Ignoring the warning, there seems to be many problems trying to play. Some of these were reported over a year ago on this thread.

- No matter how many static firings I do, successful or unsuccessful, none of my parts gain flight experience / quality.

- Clicking the minus button in VAB integrations window, or anywhere around it, clears the bay and makes workers vanish.

- It is sometimes possible to hire up to 75 out of 50 workers for the VAB, and assign 50 out of 25 to work on an integration.

- One time when mk1 pod failed, the failure manifested itself as pod disappearing in a puff of smoke, killing the crew but not giving me the mission failed report.

All in all, if I can't gain flight experience then the mod is unplayable. The other issues could be worked around during play, if you were generous.

[Blothorn]

I gain flight experience, although only to the post-integration reliability. Not sure whether that is intended. I think the command pod explosions are intentional--critical failures always result in a failed part. Still quite a pain--I once had 3 of 4 fully-integrated flights end with a catastrophic command pod failure during takeoff. I just revert those--there is *nothing* you can do about them, and they happen pretty frequently.

My biggest problem is that frequently integration fails (typically simultaneously in all bays) for no apparent reason--often coupled with using KRASH, but nothing definitive.

[EvanR]

After looking at the debug messages it does seem that the parts do get experience, though very seldomly. And when they do get an extra point of quality it will not become apparent until you inspect a fully integrated ship, as the quality readout at any other time in the VAB seems to be bugged.

On normal difficulty you begin with a 5% chance that parts will perform properly whenever a check is made. This check is made at launch time at various points. Supposedly this check occurs later in a mission too but I couldn't get that far.

After integration you get an extra 20% bonus. Super easy difficulty gives you another 25% bonus, and upgraded facilities may give you a bonus but it never seemed to apply in actual flight.

If you pass this check the part gets a "successful flight" (not shown anywhere). Every 5 successful flights (by default) the part gets an extra 1% bonus to the base 5%. Again you won't notice this unless you go through an integration pass and load the craft with the part in question. The max quality of a part is 80% by default, but when you add difficulty bonus and perhaps facility bonus it could give you over 100% chance.

Given this behavior with default settings it seems to me you will be doing static fire tests for a very long time before the mk1 parachute can be trusted, much less any engines. I was able to begin surviving failed launches on Normal difficulty after using all of my money at the test bench to get a 75% parachute rating and packing 6 redundant chutes. But now I'm broke ...

Another weirdness to look out for: if you enable debug mode then failures and explosions will stop happening by themselves, you will have to read the log and trigger them yourself, though you can't seem to trigger every type of failure (critical failure of pod or parachute which causes it to vaporize). The main gotcha is that failures don't return to normal after disabling debug mode until you leave the game and reload. They came back for me after leaving to main menu and coming back.