Life Support Mods

[Onigato]

1 hour ago, bigcalm said:

Yes think you're right - it's part of Ground Construction mod - I've never used it (it's not part of USI by default):  https://github.com/allista/GroundConstruction/tree/master/GameData/GroundConstruction/Parts/SpaceCrane

After going back into my save, the part I was seeing isn't USI directly. Like @bigcalm said, it's part of GroundConstruction. But GroundConstruction IS bundled with MKS, which is the source of my confusion.

Meh. I don't like a part, I don't have to use that one part until later, if ever. I think I'll make a recommendation in the mods' specific forum for a shifting of the part into a higher science tier.

[KerikBalm]

I used a modded TAC and modded Kerbal Planetary Base systems so that I can have a near 100% efficient closed life support system with greenhouses, algae farms, and a water purifier.

Or alternately a less massive system of a CO2 extractor, a water purifier, and just extra food supplies.

And, of course, planetary bases that produce excesses of everything when they have access to Ore, Water, and CO2 (ie the right location on Duna, or Kerbin/Laythe/ my mod planet Rald).

[Geschosskopf]

On 12/21/2017 at 4:19 PM, Wcmille said:

Which life support mod(s) do you play with?

Snacks!

 

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Which ones have you tried?

TAC-LS, USI, USI-Lite, several others that no longer exist, a crappy custom one I made with MM, and Snacks! (both original and current versions, which are rather different)

 

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Why do you prefer the ones that you do?

I have settled on the current version of Snacks! for the following reasons:

• Kerbals ain't human.  Due to the ultra-dense nature of matter in the Kerbal universe, humans and Kerbals don't have any elements in common on their respective periodic tables.  Kerbals and everything they touch are made out of some exotic form of matter that can't even exist in the human universe.  Therefore, it's absurd to make Kerbals require life support resources that are in any way similar to human requirements.
• Snacks! only involves 2 resources, the Snacks! themselves and the waste product.  Thus, your right-click menus aren't clogged up with bars for 6 different things.
• Snacks! are built into crewed parts (pods, Hitchhikers, etc.).  The single recycler is built into the MPL and various other parts.  Thus, you don't need to add a bunch of tanks for the many resources and waste products, nor do you need to add the recyclers.
• The whole Snacks! system is at a comfortable level of abstraction without becoming a time-sink.  It's something you have to keep in mind constantly, especially on long missions, it adds a fair amount of mass to your ships, and you have to recycle waste periodically, or grow more Snacks! in a greenhouse.  But you don't have to fiddle with this constantly and there's not much variability in the way the system works.  Thus, no micromanagement of life support, which means I can spend most of my time flying the spaceships instead of fiddling with life support systems.

 

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How long have you played with them?

3 years or more, all told.  It's something I usually do.  HOWEVER.....

In general, I'm not a fan of life support and live in fear of it someday becoming stock.  It really adds nothing useful to gameplay, just overhead:

• Your ships have more mass, so need MOAR fuel and engines
• Your ships have more parts (with most versions of LS)
• Your ships cost more, both for the additional resources and parts, and the dV and TWR to move that around
• You have more resources to plan in the design phase and more to manage in flight.

And for all this, the only thing you really get is a time limit on how long you can stay in space.  Which is pretty useless because A) your missions usually are of only finite duration anyway (gotta get the Science! back to Kerbin) and B) in the design phase, you will certainly pack enough supplies to last that long.  IOW, in the VAST majority of cases, you get the EXACT SAME gameplay with and without life support.

So why do I bother with it at all?  Mostly because it amuses me to have my Kerbals constantly complaining about the low quality of their recycled food.  Besides, greenhouses add to the visual appeal of bases and stations, and if I'm going to lug them out there anyway, they might as well work.

 

Edited December 24, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of add-ons has been moved to Add-on Discussions. 

[Wcmille]

Do any of the mods support integration with Kerbal Alarm Clock?

[cyberKerb]

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 9:19 AM, Wcmille said:

Which life support mod(s) do you play with?

Kerbal Health - Not exactly a LS mod, but it's my LS-ish mod of choice

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 9:19 AM, Wcmille said:

Which ones have you tried?

TACLS, USILS, Snacks!

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 9:19 AM, Wcmille said:

Why do you prefer the ones that you do?

I still haven't gone outside Kerbin SOI, but I option read the awesome mission reports on the forum and dream of missions where I'd do all the required planning and have all the necessary resources so Kerbals don't go on strike/tourist mode on me. side note: I always change the LifeSupport mods options so my Kerbals don't die.

Reality hit me late last year where I realised the effort I was putting into needing to supply my crew (even just on Minmus) with what was required for BAU. As I've still not gone outside SOI, I decided it was time to reduce mission clutter to allow me to focus on that goal. Each time I tried a LifeSupport mod, I eventually felt weighed down with needing to forward plan other resupplies missions (eg 1 mission would turn into 5 each time realising I was under resourced or just forgot part necessary for certain parts to function) Eventually, I'd changed out those mods out for something lighter each time.

I eventually found the 'Kerbal Health' mod which hit the right balance I wanted... It directs me to have to consider my Kerbals wellbeing, but not have to worry about constant resupplies.

Again - understand this isn't exactly a LifeSupport mod, but I came to it from Lifesupport, so I figured it was OK to add to this thread as another person take on LS. Once I get better at interplanetary travel, I'll probably re-add a full LS mod back into the mod roster I'm running.

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 9:19 AM, Wcmille said:

How long have you played with them?

Couple of years each for TACLS and USILS before looking around for something simpler. It was only when trying Snacks! for a 2-3mth period that I found out what it was about LS mods that wasn't working for me. Snacks! itself was awesome and nothing was wrong at all. It just happened to be the mod that was installed when I had my realisation about what play style I wanted for a KSP Career game.

[tomasantony]

This might be a little off topic, maybe this is the place?

Myself, I'm quite the fan of TAC life support, especially once you add some of the 3rd party mods that include a variety of realistic looking recyclers etc, to really extend flight time without re-supply - good for stations and realistic deep space missions. I also run the game with Dang It!, which integrates part maintenance and faults into your real missions, which makes things a bit more unpredictable... with TAC this has led to many Apollo 13 style missions - failing life support is a really fun challenge! It also mean on long trips to I need to get my Kerbals out and do EVA missions.... not just fly past in 100x speed over say 200 odd days in space! 

I have tried out USI life support, but I find Roverdude's parts for it a little bit stock-game looking - however USI integrates a new mechanic that simulates fatigue, and living space as a factor in space exploration - I find it really annoying that Kerbals can just sit in a mk 1 capsule for years making a transfer and there's no problems (just imagine what it would be like!) - USI adds a fun mechanic where Kerbals effectively mutiny (Skylab 4 comes to mind) if they are in space too long without space to move about. So i would suggest you check it out if the other life support mods aren't cutting it.

Here's my problem - is there any mod like the Habitation function in USI that can run in parallel to TAC life support that anyone can recommend? Or a workaround to just run this part of USI on it's own? I took a look a Kerbalism and got scarred - too many factors to think about!  I like life support being broken down into Oxygen, water, food, waste, Carbon Dioxide etc, but this extra mechanic really means long distance space travel is realistically hard.... You can't just sling your Kerbals in a garbage can, you have to do serious planning and designing! 

[DStaal]

On 1/8/2018 at 9:07 AM, tomasantony said:

Here's my problem - is there any mod like the Habitation function in USI that can run in parallel to TAC life support that anyone can recommend? Or a workaround to just run this part of USI on it's own? I took a look a Kerbalism and got scarred - too many factors to think about!  I like life support being broken down into Oxygen, water, food, waste, Carbon Dioxide etc, but this extra mechanic really means long distance space travel is realistically hard.... You can't just sling your Kerbals in a garbage can, you have to do serious planning and designing! 

For USI-LS, it's fairly easy to disable effects from EC and supplies, and then you're effectively just using the habitation mechanics on their own.

I think there's a couple of mods that are slightly similar in effect.  I think the closest is Kerbal Health.

[EricPoehlsen]

In my current campaign I do use USI-LS - after having a look into the different options I found it most appealing. I found Snacks a little too simplistic and TAC was about too many resources for my taste. 

Why do I use it? Well It adds some nice parts (that work) and it makes the planning a little more challenging. Using USI LS you can't get beyond the moon without having to think about habitation. It is kind of odd, sending a kerbonaut on a mission lasting years - crammed into a one man capsule. 

[mivanit]

Kerbalism, hopped right into it as my first try at a save with LS. Took some getting used to, to say the least  

[eberkain]

On 12/24/2017 at 12:28 PM, Geschosskopf said:

Snacks!

 

TAC-LS, USI, USI-Lite, several others that no longer exist, a crappy custom one I made with MM, and Snacks! (both original and current versions, which are rather different)

 

I have settled on the current version of Snacks! for the following reasons:

• Kerbals ain't human.  Due to the ultra-dense nature of matter in the Kerbal universe, humans and Kerbals don't have any elements in common on their respective periodic tables.  Kerbals and everything they touch are made out of some exotic form of matter that can't even exist in the human universe.  Therefore, it's absurd to make Kerbals require life support resources that are in any way similar to human requirements.
• Snacks! only involves 2 resources, the Snacks! themselves and the waste product.  Thus, your right-click menus aren't clogged up with bars for 6 different things.
• Snacks! are built into crewed parts (pods, Hitchhikers, etc.).  The single recycler is built into the MPL and various other parts.  Thus, you don't need to add a bunch of tanks for the many resources and waste products, nor do you need to add the recyclers.
• The whole Snacks! system is at a comfortable level of abstraction without becoming a time-sink.  It's something you have to keep in mind constantly, especially on long missions, it adds a fair amount of mass to your ships, and you have to recycle waste periodically, or grow more Snacks! in a greenhouse.  But you don't have to fiddle with this constantly and there's not much variability in the way the system works.  Thus, no micromanagement of life support, which means I can spend most of my time flying the spaceships instead of fiddling with life support systems.

 

3 years or more, all told.  It's something I usually do.  HOWEVER.....

In general, I'm not a fan of life support and live in fear of it someday becoming stock.  It really adds nothing useful to gameplay, just overhead:

• Your ships have more mass, so need MOAR fuel and engines
• Your ships have more parts (with most versions of LS)
• Your ships cost more, both for the additional resources and parts, and the dV and TWR to move that around
• You have more resources to plan in the design phase and more to manage in flight.

And for all this, the only thing you really get is a time limit on how long you can stay in space.  Which is pretty useless because A) your missions usually are of only finite duration anyway (gotta get the Science! back to Kerbin) and B) in the design phase, you will certainly pack enough supplies to last that long.  IOW, in the VAST majority of cases, you get the EXACT SAME gameplay with and without life support.

So why do I bother with it at all?  Mostly because it amuses me to have my Kerbals constantly complaining about the low quality of their recycled food.  Besides, greenhouses add to the visual appeal of bases and stations, and if I'm going to lug them out there anyway, they might as well work.

 

This is kind of where my line of thinking has gone on the subject.  My new mod list is real short and only has mods that add new features or expand on what you can do, no mods that add new restrictions or limitations.   Still looking for any more mods that fit this mold. 

[saxyomega90125]

On 12/21/2017 at 5:28 PM, Urses said:

USI LS as i play full Constellation.

Is a  good midway. TAC os tealy complex and Snacks not enough complex. And Supplies as seen as full combination of Food, Water and Air as one Package make it a way easier. And i personaly like the Hab/home idea. As it makes it complex again. You don't have the ability of other LS modes to slap enough containers on, to reach the target in one go. You have to plan to held the Boys and Girls sane.

 

This. Compared to TAC, USI only adds one resource to support Kerbals - think of it as grouping O2, food, and water on the Kerbals' end, into a single resource (Supplies) on your end - and then two or three others for recycling. Much less complex and time-consuming, and a much smaller footprint, than TAC. It is just a video game after all.

Snacks has come a long way since I decided to use a life support mod, and it has many more options which I like than it did when I tried it, but I still prefer USI for three reasons. First, I prefer the slight increase in complexity of USI - namely that recycling resources is not as simple as turning waste into food, so you have to design a ship to be capable or recycling, not just slap on a part. Second, I prefer USI's option to make starved Kerbals cease responding to all commands vs. Snacks' partial loss (unless that faint timer has a 'forever' option). With too few supplies Kerbals are effectively dead as far as any mission is concerned, but I don't want space station crews to die if I flat-out forget a routine resupply. Lastly, I like that they need electricity in addition to Supplies.

What I would like to see added as an option to USI or as a separate mod is risk that Kerbals can also faint/die from overheating, at least on EVA, depending on proximity to the sun and the atmospheric temperature of each planet. This would make landing on Moho in the day and on Eve at all a realistically dangerous proposition (ie suicidal).

I've tried USI, USI-Lite if that still exists, TAC, and back in KSP_0.90 Snacks. Plus one other mod back in 0.90 that no longer exists. Been using USI since 0.90 but tried TAC again recently,

Edited February 24, 2018 by saxyomega90125

[Alpha 360]

I am using USI Life-support.

I have used TAC Life-support, Snacks, Kerbalism, and the one above. 

My favorite of these has been TAC Life-support because of the challenge. Its not as hard as one might think to go Interplanetary using TAC. Its even easier with USI, because I just went interplanetary without nuclear engines 1. and without proper recycling 2. I still haven't upgraded the R&D Center to level 3. 

I have gone interplanetary using TAC, but nukes are necessary for that. 

Just my pick. 

[eberkain]

On 2/23/2018 at 7:43 PM, saxyomega90125 said:

 

What I would like to see added as an option to USI or as a separate mod is risk that Kerbals can also faint/die from overheating, at least on EVA, depending on proximity to the sun and the atmospheric temperature of each planet. This would make landing on Moho in the day and on Eve at all a realistically dangerous proposition (ie suicidal).

 

Thats an interesting idea, I have never seen a mod that implements that.