Please explain the different electricity mods

[nhnifong]

I'm quite confused here. the original threads don't clear things up much so I want to set it straight.

There are quite a few electrical energy related mods, and from what I can tell, competing incompatible standards.

Please help me straighten it out.

EPS (electrical power systems?)

PowerTech

Electrical Energy Plugin

Zoxygene

Zoxygene requires power, but it can draw it from EPS. It provides one ugly panels. one that will charge EPS batteries and another panel which folds and produces mysterious zoxygene proprietary power which goes directly into the zoxygene generator.

They both have orientation problems. I've discovered that you can copy their module block from the zox eps-capable panel's cfg file and put it at the end of the cfgs for decorative panels such as those from kosmos and it will work, although not well.

Zox also provides laser drill generators but I've never been able to get them to work.

Kreuzung's Electrical Energy Plugin provides batteries, standardized power, panels for charging, and an ion engine. I've never been able to get it to work, but it seems like a better choice because he's actively developing it.

these engines are not the nicest looking IMO, but there's some way cooler ones in the dynasat pack. only, I've never been able to get those working.

Powertech may or may not have anything to do with electricity. but it's name would indicate so. I think it's a part animation plugin or something. I really don't know.

SO does anyone have the straight facts on these plugins?

Does anyone have a nice electrical energy setup?

Would it be possible through some insane combination of CFG edits to use Kosmos panels to charge the cool looking EPS batteries included in zox with Kreuzung brand of power, and then simultaneously drive your zox generator and a dynasat ion engine with that power? Because that's what I really want to do. Purely for masochistic-aesthetic reasons I assure you.

[togfox]

It's a valid question. I wish there was a simple way to discribe all the different interactions. Maybe someone can draw a picture outlining dependencies.

[Binky]

I think such a picture would look like a roadmap of London.

I've resorted to editing the configs of various batteries and solar panels so they all work on EPS. Still pretty buggy though :/

[Tommygun]

I think it would be great if the whole group could get together and merge this into one big mod.

[togfox]

Binky: Maybe you can share with us the edits that are a) easy work.

Ive been waiting for some synergy on this issue and ive been reading "the author will release an update soon" or "we have to wait for the author to update so and so". Good and well but the weeks are ticking by. If the community can share the load and outline what does work then everyone wins.

[Binky]

Im not sure if I can share the edits, at least without the various authors permission.

I'm also, after doing a bit of research, thinking of changing the configs to Kreuzungs Electrical Energy plugin as it might enable me to sort out some of the bugginess.

Here http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/10094-0-16-Electrical-Energy-Plugin-v1-4-(Aug-15)?highlight=powertech, Kreuzung lists, under the 'Part making' spoiler, some info on config edits.

There is another good post for modifying parts to suit the EPS plugin, but I cant for the life of me find it :/

[ashrutoraman]

that was the most confusing thing i found when i join here... so you describing them good at your post... as a myself i cant figure out how to manage them so im basicliy running only power tech with mmi satelite pack solar panels... wich is deployable + can turn their surface to sun + recharging its batteries? + making their ion engine work... so thats enugh for me but i saw at mmi topic satelite pack will be work with Kreuzungs Electrical Energy plugin so i will go for Kreuzungs Electrical Energy plugin when it does... but atm i still use powertech... wich is simple and easy to use (for me)... i try dynasat with Kreuzungs, and zoxygene with esp both of them didnt work at my first try but powertech worked.. so i stay at it as a noob

Edited September 6, 2012 by ashrutoraman

[Nadrek]

I'm waiting for the Electrical Power Standards to become more popular so different modules can work together without hand edits before I so much as touch an electrical plug-in - there's more than enough in the game to keep me occupied until then (I hope). All my "mod the mod" time is already taken up .

[dikkjo]

oh i found myself in the same situation ;-)

Finally i decided not to use Zoxygene and EPS, just because i like Kreuzung's approach and i prefer yellow for electricity

In my opinion most of the confusion comes from the tanks or battery you want to fill. For example, some of them use the MuMech variable tank to allow the definition of a custom fuel and others are "batteries" as defined in a specific module or plugin

So depending on your tank or battery, you'll need the corresponding "Powertech" implementation which may be :

• "SolarPanels_Powertech_Mumech" in case of a VariableMuMech tank
  
• "SolarPanels_adv_PowerTech" in case you are using Kreuzung plugin
  
• "EPS_SOURCE_Spanel_PowerTech" in case you are using EPS
  

Hope this make some sense

[Shortsonfire79]

• "SolarPanels_Powertech_Mumech" in case of a VariableMuMech tank
  
• "SolarPanels_adv_PowerTech" in case you are using Kreuzung plugin
  
• "EPS_SOURCE_Spanel_PowerTech" in case you are using EPS
  

Hope this make some sense

You're referring to what's in the part.cfg right? All the panels I use have the // in front of those lines of text which tell me that the code doesn't access them.

I've been wondering the same thing for quite some time now, thanks for summing it all up nhnifong (you seem to post a lot of stuff relevant to my issues/interests ) *I personally use powertech because it came with Mechanical Mouse Industries, but I don't think its the best of things to use. *I'll probably give the others a shot sometime down the road when class isn't so hectic (that'll never happen). I had actually posted a similar thread to this asking if anyone knew how to edit the part.cfg of a panel to work with powertech, I think the answer will appear somewhere in here after some time.

I think that we should elect an ambassador (my vote goes to nhnifong) to talk to the creators of the several well known*power mods to collaborate and make a single power mod. There'd probably be a lot of butting of heads amongst them, but for the users I think that a grand 0.17 release would be so greatly appreciated.

[JackAz]

I think it would be great if the whole group could get together and merge this into one big mod.

that wouldn't be bad

[Nori]

I'm using the Electrical Energy Plugin with the DSM pack (has a nice Ion engine/battery/solarpanel and I made a 1m version using rescaling). However I to am confused by the difference between all of these mods and would like to hear them explained better.

[dikkjo]

You're referring to what's in the part.cfg right?

sorry i meant the "module = ..." line.

I had actually posted a similar thread to this asking if anyone knew how to edit the part.cfg of a panel to work with powertech, I think the answer will appear somewhere in here after some time

I think there is a misunderstanding on what powertech really do. Can you tell me which panels and which batteries are you trying to use?

EDIT:

Oups, i carefully read the OP.... i don't think that's possible...sorry

Edited September 6, 2012 by dikkjo

[nhnifong]

Haha, Maybe not ambassador, but I'll at least research the mods a little more and see If I can get zox and an ion engine to be powered from the same batteries using Keurzung's power (EEP?) And as a second priority, I'd like to charge them with kosmos panels.

I already have a list of carefully calibrated electrical gain and mass numbers for the kosmos panels based on their apparent area.

[nhnifong]

Basically, all my bets ar keurzung on right now, My idea of a standardized energy system would be to take all the energy related parts that aren't compatible with that type of power, and edit them so they are. I see that he's on the right track, and Maybe I couldn't get his plugin working because I didn't follow the instructions properly. I'll give it another shot this evening.

[togfox]

Can some list, in simple bullet points, all the different electrical systemsvavailable right now? Can we get "name, author" format please? I think a large part of the problem is understanding the names and authors.

[Kreuzung]

Let me explain some things about energy plugins in KSP.

Shortly after I got the full version, I played around with the DSM ion engine which was based on an old plugin by Cephei, AFAIK it even was the first plugin ever.

It was horribly bugged so I downloaded the source code to se how it works and learn to use the KSP API myself to improve the plugin, however I found out that it was made from decompiled game code so I reported it to the moderators and started rewriting it based on MuMech.

ZO2 was not based on EPS at the moment, it had an easy way to recharge it though which I used to make an airfilter part which filtered ZO2 during the night.

A bit later PowerTech_MuMech came out to provide compatibility with my plugin and MuMech.

With the release of .15, I tried to get away from the MuMechVariableTanks as they weren't made for recharging, and PowerTech_MuMech becaume obsolete and was replaced with a simpler system integrated in the main class for solar panels, SolarPanels_adv_PowerTech.

A bit later Zoxygene updated to EPS 0.1, which didn't allow for part modules AND had the old recharge thing removed and therefore all compatibility to ZO2 was lost as I didn't want to go back to normal part types. PowerTech contained an EPS-Compatible type from then on.

With the new EPS 0.2, there is however a limited compatibility between it and my plugin, as my plugin does recognize EPS batteries, but EPS ignores other batteries.

I did even ask if we should merge the plugins into one before releasing EPS 0.2 and ElEnergy 1.4, but got the reply that they'll work together anyway (which is no reason to not merge them in my opinion), so I did release ElEnergy 1.4 a week or so before EPS 0.2 came, and I think the fact that it does work together with EPS (which I only knew about that it uses part resources to save the energy too), but NOT the other way round shows that it'S the better choice.

Also, if someone wants to write an energy-dependend plugin and chooses EPS, he does end with incompatibility to most stuff and needs a dependency (plugin dependencies are the worst case, had enough of them in the times ElEnergy was based on MuMech), while using ElEnergy does not require a dependency because one can just copy a bit of CC BY (least restrictive CC license) code and also has compatibility to EPS.

I don't even know why EPS was made, it whould've been good in .14 times, but now it's just a collection of overcomplicated code that does nothing you cannot have with ElEnergy (direct linking without battery can be simulated in ElEnergy by allowing the source and/or destination store a very very little amount of energy).

Summary:

MuMech (r4m0n) + PowerTech_MuMech + PowerTech (both Alchemist) = outdated, not the best for energy, though Alchemist fixed a lot of bugs in the system

EPS (l00) + (optional) PowerTech = provides around the same as ElEnergy, but is more restrictive

Electrical Energy (mine) + (optional) PowerTech = first real energy plugin, had a few problems at first but now it doesn't have any known issues. Compatible to anything that uses energy as a part resource, so it's the easiest thing to base other plugins on. Will probably interact with Kethane and LazorSystem in the future.

PowerTech is a plugin for animated things such as satellites and solar panels, it's not a real energy plugin but has been made compatible to all of them.

[Nori]

Thanks Kreuzung. That clears a lot up, at least for me.

[crooks4hire]

I noticed that the Probodyne solar panels are supposed to use the SolarPanels_adv_PowerTech module but don't charge the DSM batteries....am I doing something wrong?

[phoenix_ca]

This is actually a really important project, and my money's on Kreuz's plugin too. Just looking at the cfg files tells you that his is the easiest to interact with from a part creator's perspective.

That said, PowerTech has two big things: Animations, and more realistic/accurate calculations of solar panel power generation. (I usually hate the "R" word coming into a game too much, but variable power generation of solar panels is a decent gameplay mechanic.) And on the upside, it plays well already with Kreuz's plugin, as they both are using the same resource ID, "Energy" (and probably other reasons I don't know about I'm sure).

I haven't even touched ZOX yet so can't speak to that, but for those wondering, I gladly suggest mixing EEP and PowerTech parts. They work, or at least, I haven't found a time where they don't work together.

Purely from the perspective of someone creating a new part, EEP has a much easier format to use for engines. That and a single part is able to fulfill multiple roles easily: A power generator can also be a battery, a battery can be strapped to an engine, and so on. That's a big plus in my books, because the end result is fewer parts required for the same function on a spacecraft. Whatever modders can do to reduce the hit on the player's part budget is a good thing, since the physics is the most computationally taxing part of KSP. For some, asking them to add 12 new parts to a spacecraft just to get your pieces to all work together, might not be in the cards if they want to get off the launch pad.

As for the Kosmos panels: With a simple bit of copypasta from MMI.S' panel config, to a Kosmos panel, it's fairly easy to get it to generate power for EEP's batteries (using the SolarPanels_PowerTech_MucMech). Of course it's annoying that I'm apparently not allowed to share this little edit. Such is the pitfall of not working in an opensource environment. :/

To be frank, updating part cfgs to get the best out of PowerTech and EEP is easy to do right now, there just needs to be a bit of will and organization on the modders' parts.

Edited September 24, 2012 by phoenix_ca

[togfox]

To be frank, updating part cfgs to get the best out of PowerTech and EEP is easy to do right now, there just needs to be a bit of will and organization on the modders' parts.

How is it easy? Please elaborate. Thx.

[phoenix_ca]

Well, I said "update" not "make new parts". Any part that is already using PowerTech for animations is trivially easy to update to use any/all of the features of the SolarPanels_adv_PowerTech module (or SolarPanels_PowerTech_MuMech module if they need to be compatible with MuMechVariableTanks...for some reason; there really isn't a good one I can think of though). After reading a bit of the documentation, and using the MMI solar panel's panelCenter value as a guide to where to place new values for the different Kosmos models, I was able to update all the Kosmos panels to generate power within maybe half-an-hour of editing and testing. The longest part of the process was reloading the game to test. Since they produce the Energy resource, that can be fed into any of EEP's battery parts. Ta-da, non-working panels turned into working ones. It's really just a matter of changing the module the panels use, and plugging in the new values.

I think next-up I'm going to edit the cfg files for the MMI.S battery and ion engine so they use EEP, not MuMechVariableTanks, and change the panels to SolarPanels_adv_PowerTech. In the case of the battery I think that'll avoid the issue of them being dead if drained of all power as well.

I'd share the cfg edits but..."rules".

[togfox]

Ive yet to find a straight forward way of making any part USE energy. Charging energy is documented here and there but not much point having energy if no part uses it (apart from the ion drive).

[phoenix_ca]

Indeed, I was thinking more along the lines of power generation. That part is trivial. It's up to Kreuz to add support for parts that simply drain energy when turned-on. (Would certainly be neat if the ISAMap sat or Kethane scanner used power when activated.)

[naloxone]

Glad to know it wasn't just me.

I'd love to use me some solar panels and electrical systems but it seems none of the electric systems bother to include a manual.