The Skyhawk Science System - a new, realistic tech tree for KSP, now including Kerbalism support - [v1.1.1 - "For Science!" 8/11/22)]

[Hudsonkm]

6 hours ago, Spike88 said:

The following fixed it for me, just put % in front of the part for BDB:

Thanks!

[adriangm44]

I play with SSS and Kerbalism. Rational Resources is one of the supported mods but on CKAN it has a lot of sub-mod categories. Should I install ONLY the ones mentioned on the Mod Support page? 
I get confused when I see "Rational Resources Kerbalism" on CKAN but the ones on the supported mods list only include "Rational Resources", "Rational Resources Nuclear Family" and "Rational Resources Parts".

Should I install the later Rational Resources Kerbalism or not?

[RKunze]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:29 PM, adriangm44 said:

Should I install the later Rational Resources Kerbalism or not?

No. SSS has its own kerbalism config that already handles RR.

[symphons]

I'm considering giving this mod a shot on a new career play-through, it looks fantastic, great work! 

I do have a few questions though,

The mod preview says it modifies the science experience,  with rebalanced classic experiments and a couple of customs ones to boot.  

How does it modify the experience?

Does it only balance the 'classic' i.e. stock experiments? How does it balance them?

Which custom experiments are added? 

Does this balance include all of the BDB experiments added? 

 

 

 

[Gupyzer0]

5 hours ago, symphons said:

I'm considering giving this mod a shot on a new career play-through, it looks fantastic, great work! 

I do have a few questions though,

The mod preview says it modifies the science experience,  with rebalanced classic experiments and a couple of customs ones to boot.  

How does it modify the experience?

Does it only balance the 'classic' i.e. stock experiments? How does it balance them?

Which custom experiments are added? 

Does this balance include all of the BDB experiments added? 

 

 

 

How does it modify the experience?

Not at all (IMHO), it's mainly a new tech tree with kerbalism support (using Skyhawk Kerbalism) but configured to work with BDB and other mods.

Does it only balance the 'classic' i.e. stock experiments? How does it balance them?

AFAIK It only mods BDB experiments. I could be wrong, haven't read all of the code.

Which custom experiments are added? 

Mostly BDB experiments configured to work with kerbalism.

CessnaSkyhawk (author) hasn't been around for a while now so I made a pull of his kerbalism config repo (https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkKerbalism/tree/main), this includes some changes to add hard drives, RTGs, and habitats (MORL and Apollo mission modules). I'd guess there will be more to come.

I also have a pull for SkyhawkScienceSystem that includes the newer BDB parts of V 1.12 and 1.13 as the original repo doesn't include them. I'm currently working on the tech tree and added a new branch so I'm still working on it, get it here -> https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkScienceSystem I know some of the nodes overlap, but I'm still working on it., trying to make a more balanced approach to the location of some of the BDB parts.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Gupyzer0

[symphons]

1 hour ago, Gupyzer0 said:

How does it modify the experience?

Not at all (IMHO), it's mainly a new tech tree with kerbalism support (using Skyhawk Kerbalism) but configured to work with BDB and other mods.

Does it only balance the 'classic' i.e. stock experiments? How does it balance them?

AFAIK It only mods BDB experiments. I could be wrong, haven't read all of the code.

Which custom experiments are added? 

Mostly BDB experiments configured to work with kerbalism.

CessnaSkyhawk (author) hasn't been around for a while now so I made a pull of his kerbalism config repo (https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkKerbalism/tree/main), this includes some changes to add hard drives, RTGs, and habitats (MORL and Apollo mission modules). I'd guess there will be more to come.

I also have a pull for SkyhawkScienceSystem that includes the newer BDB parts of V 1.12 and 1.13 as the original repo doesn't include them. I'm currently working on the tech tree and added a new branch so I'm still working on it, get it here -> https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkScienceSystem I know some of the nodes overlap, but I'm still working on it., trying to make a more balanced approach to the location of some of the BDB parts.

thanks for continuing the project, the community really needs people like you.  You think the tech tree and sense of progression would still be balanced if the vast majority of BDB science and comms were to be pruned?

Little hesitant to start pruning to much off BDB since the tech tree literally has it as a dependency. But on the other hand, I don't know anyone who keeps all the parts.

[JonnyOThan]

2 hours ago, Gupyzer0 said:

I also have a pull for SkyhawkScienceSystem

You may want to consider officially adopting the mod (after reaching out to @CessnaSkyhawk of course).  I was thinking about doing this but I've got a lot of other stuff on my plate.  But it looks like it hasn't been touched in several months.

[RKunze]

41 minutes ago, symphons said:

Little hesitant to start pruning to much off BDB since the tech tree literally has it as a dependency. But on the other hand, I don't know anyone who keeps all the parts.

I'm using The Janitor's Closet both to declutter the VAB parts list and to (reversibly) prune parts when I'm mostly sure that I don't want to use them (to cut down on load times and memory pressure - my laptop is barely handling the load for my current KSP setup even with the pruning).

[symphons]

2 minutes ago, RKunze said:

I'm using The Janitor's Closet both to declutter the VAB parts list and to (reversibly) prune parts when I'm mostly sure that I don't want to use them (to cut down on load times and memory pressure - my laptop is barely handling the load for my current KSP setup even with the pruning).

My issue with janitor's closet is it simply stops the part from showing up, it does not stop the part from loading or consuming memory. You can do the option of "permanent" in janitors closet, but the author does state that it could be game breaking. Great for few items, but when it comes to the extensive catalogue of parts BDB offers, I think you would be better off manually deleting the parts from your game-data.

I'm honestly just considering downloading any old probe first tech tree and manually writing configs for the BDB parts I want to keep. 

It's kind of crazy how many parts are included in BDB. It's amazing how tech tree mod-authors manage to keep up with that pace.

But I guess that's why Tech-tree mods with BDB integration are relatively rare.

[RKunze]

3 hours ago, Gupyzer0 said:

I also have a pull for SkyhawkScienceSystem that includes the newer BDB parts of V 1.12 and 1.13 as the original repo doesn't include them. I'm currently working on the tech tree and added a new branch so I'm still working on it, get it here -> https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkScienceSystem I know some of the nodes overlap, but I'm still working on it., trying to make a more balanced approach to the location of some of the BDB parts.

Great, thanks - pulled it into my current game right now. Saves me the work of integrating the BDB 1.13 changes myself :-) (Edit @Gupyzer0 I just pushed a version to https://github.com/rkunze/SkyhawkScienceSystem that integrates both your changes and those from @JonnyOThan's outstanding PR on the original repo).

And for all of us hardcore SkyhawScienceSystem fans, just in case you did not know already: Both SkyhawkScienceSystem and SkyhawkKerbalism work great directly from a git worktree in you GameData dir - basically, just change to GameData and do a "git clone" for the repo. Makes it very easy to stay up to date, even with patches from multiple other repos (just add their repo as a remote and fetch/merge from there).

 

31 minutes ago, symphons said:

My issue with janitor's closet is it simply stops the part from showing up, it does not stop the part from loading or consuming memory. You can do the option of "permanent" in janitors closet, but the author does state that it could be game breaking.

I use the "permanent" option. And it is only game breaking when you prune a part that you already used in one of your builds (and even then, just un-prune the part to get it working again). Basically, the "permanent" option just renames the part config files to something the game doesn't recognize as a config (same as you would do manually), but it gives you a nice UI to manage all the stuff.

What I'm doing (when playing career, but that's pretty much all I'm playing) is basically:

• decide which parts I want to use from a certain node and "buy" them (I'm playing with the initial fee to use a part)
• Hide the parts I did not "buy" from the VAB (just to declutter the parts list)
• Occasionally perma-prune all the parts in older tech tree nodes that I haven't used so far, especially when new and better parts with the same functionality come up.

Edited November 20, 2023 by RKunze

[Gupyzer0]

42 minutes ago, JonnyOThan said:

You may want to consider officially adopting the mod (after reaching out to @CessnaSkyhawk of course).  I was thinking about doing this but I've got a lot of other stuff on my plate.  But it looks like it hasn't been touched in several months.

Oh, I don't know, maybe someone other than me with more experience using ModuleManager, but in the meantime, my pull might help the newer users get the latest parts with the tree.

For now, the only "big change" in the tree is the creation of a "home world" satellite line. I know the icons are overlapping a bit with some of the other ones but hey, give me some time. The creation of this new line does not affect the previous lines as I haven't renamed the lines that are in place.

[adriangm44]

How can I find the conflict with this file?

2 Errors related to GameData/SkyhawkScienceSystem/Patches/TankSwitch/TankSwitch.cfg

The other 12 errors I already solved them by deleting Rational Resources Kerbalism completely. But I can't uninstall TankSwitch from the Skyhawk mod, can I? How can I find the conflicting mod or line, whatever?

Edited November 20, 2023 by adriangm44
I play with Skyhawk Kerbalism

[RKunze]

24 minutes ago, adriangm44 said:

How can I find the conflict with this file?

2 Errors related to GameData/SkyhawkScienceSystem/Patches/TankSwitch/TankSwitch.cfg

Have a look at $KSPDIR/Logs/ModuleManager/MMPatch.log - that should have details about what went wrong where (search for the string "ERR" in that file to find the relevant entries).

Edit: Just had a look at the git history for Patches/TankSwitch/TankSwitch.cfg, because I don't have problems with that patch. Turns out that I have the fixes from https://github.com/JonnyOThan/SkyhawkScienceSystem/tree/JonnyOThan-patch-1 installed. That is quite probably what is going wrong with your install as well.

Edited November 20, 2023 by RKunze

[adriangm44]

11 hours ago, RKunze said:

Have a look at $KSPDIR/Logs/ModuleManager/MMPatch.log - that should have details about what went wrong where (search for the string "ERR" in that file to find the relevant entries).

Edit: Just had a look at the git history for Patches/TankSwitch/TankSwitch.cfg, because I don't have problems with that patch. Turns out that I have the fixes from https://github.com/JonnyOThan/SkyhawkScienceSystem/tree/JonnyOThan-patch-1 installed. That is quite probably what is going wrong with your install as well.

Thank you, I could locate the issue thanks to that file.
The Martian for KSP is a great parts mod that I love to use, especially the rover, that one is neat.
Wallum made a patch for this mod to work with Kerbalism. I thought that maybe I could replace the module 

NEEDS[ProfileDefault]

for 

NEEDS[ProfileSkyhawk]

and it would work. Turns out it didn't.

Alright! Time to say goodbye to a great all-time mod 

[RKunze]

@Gupyzer0 In https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkScienceSystem/commit/bdf729241294c6c3a4851ef32d0474e88bf22fee, you remove the "sss_SoundingRocketCore" (same model as bluedog_ThorAble_Guidance, but nerfed to serve as an intial pod for very simple souding rockets). If you don't have Taerobee or another of the very early rocketry mods installed (like me, as I already have way too many mods), this means that you don't have any  probe cores at the start node, which makes for a short and boring game  

I suggest to put the "sss_SoundingRocketCore" back in. If you don't like having the "sss_SoundingRocketCore" when better alternatives are available, maybe do it conditionally depending on whether Taerobee, CNAR, US Rockets or another supported mod with tier 0 sounding rockets is installed...

[DeadJohn]

With respect to newer BDB parts and the final official Skyhawk release, won't those parts still show up in some node even if the part is not explicitly supported? Or is it a worst case of new BDB parts being invisible with Skyhawk?

I thought there was a Skyhawk feature added to allow use of unsupported mods as long as the parts work with the stock tech tree. There's some sort of mapping from stock nodes to Skyhawk nodes. So, as long as a BDB part has a stock node listed it should work in Skyhawk.

Corrections appreciated.

[Gupyzer0]

6 hours ago, RKunze said:

@Gupyzer0 In https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkScienceSystem/commit/bdf729241294c6c3a4851ef32d0474e88bf22fee, you remove the "sss_SoundingRocketCore" (same model as bluedog_ThorAble_Guidance, but nerfed to serve as an intial pod for very simple souding rockets). If you don't have Taerobee or another of the very early rocketry mods installed (like me, as I already have way too many mods), this means that you don't have any  probe cores at the start node, which makes for a short and boring game  

I suggest to put the "sss_SoundingRocketCore" back in. If you don't like having the "sss_SoundingRocketCore" when better alternatives are available, maybe do it conditionally depending on whether Taerobee, CNAR, US Rockets or another supported mod with tier 0 sounding rockets is installed...

You are correct, I made the change without thinking too much as I already have Taerobee and CNAR, I'll put that back.

Edit:
It's done -> https://github.com/Gupyzer0/SkyhawkScienceSystem/commit/82afcea483de7fee27ea539fdb464fd94fd1b608

Edited November 22, 2023 by Gupyzer0

[CessnaSkyhawk]

Hi everyone - I'm glad to see that even nearly two years after SSS's last update people still are very into the mod! You'll hopefully be seeing a lot more of me around the forums in the next few months, so I figured I should probably give an update as to why I have been MIA so long and what has happened with SSS.

I ended up deciding to take a break from continuing to develop SSS (and playinf KSP as a whole) due to a mixture of real life commitments (being an engineering student keeps you busy!) and the fact I was getting pretty burnt out and stressed from development of the mod in general, particularly when it came to dealing with either fine-tuning science balance or trying to stamp out all the minor issues coming from either kerbalism or the general heft and disorganization of the mod as a whole. (That and KSP modding gets quite time-consuming when the size of SSS + BDB means 10-20 minutes reload times  ). This killed most of the satisfaction I got from mod development and frankly also starting turning me off from KSP as a whole (cause I naturally wanted to play using SSS, but would just get frustrated when it wasn't working as intended), so I decided to just move on from both for my own sake.

As of late though, I have been having a bit of a craving for KSP again, and when I popped back on the forums for the first time in a while I was surprised to still see so much activity on the thread so long after the last release.  I'm planning to get back into the game again, probably via a classic stock playthrough - I got into modding so fast I've never even sent a crewed mission past Duna in stock KSP, so I figure I should finally start working on getting myself around the stock system some more.

I have considered maybe working on SSS again, but after some thought, I'm thinking I'd prefer to just leave it as is for the time being and just focus on enjoying KSP without the stress of modding for a change - even just skimming the files and things quickly to take stock of how it all is has overwhelmed me . There is a possibility I might look into updating SSS, or at least officially incorporating the various fixes people have made for issues the mod had in my absence, at some point in the future but for now I'm not making any promises one way or the other as my priority for now is just trying to get back into enjoying the game.

Regardless, I do want to say thanks to all the various contributors who all worked together to help figure out how to fix or patch things in my absence - I know my code and file system isn't exactly the most intuitive or well-written, so I've got to give y'all props for figuring out how it all works and making sure people can keep enjoying the mod how I hoped they would! Also, just thank you to everyone who has enjoyed SSS over the past year or two - I'm glad that so many people enjoyed this little project of mine that even now people still actively are interested in trying it out.

Edited November 23, 2023 by CessnaSkyhawk
changed my mind on what I'm doing after thinking a bit

[The_Arcitect]

i wanted to say thank you for making this! I have been looking for somthing like this that was not rp-1, and ive been having fun playing it!

Edited November 25, 2023 by The_Arcitect
Major spelling mistake :<

[Gupyzer0]

19 hours ago, CessnaSkyhawk said:

I have considered maybe working on SSS again, but after some thought, I'm thinking I'd prefer to just leave it as is for the time being and just focus on enjoying KSP without the stress of modding for a change - even just skimming the files and things quickly to take stock of how it all is has overwhelmed me . There is a possibility I might look into updating SSS, or at least officially incorporating the various fixes people have made for issues the mod had in my absence, at some point in the future but for now I'm not making any promises one way or the other as my priority for now is just trying to get back into enjoying the game.

Glad to see you again.

It's ok man, do what is best for you, anyways, if you ever come back to modding you can leave some of the frustrating parts of the work to others, things like  "whoever haves all the parts for the next version of XXXXX mod please make the pull or at least post the names here" can be done by someone else  

[JonnyOThan]

On 11/22/2023 at 6:33 PM, CessnaSkyhawk said:

I'd prefer to just leave it as is

Hey good to hear from you!  What you’re going through is normal and common for KSP modders (I say that to mean we understand how you feel), and we all really appreciate everything you’ve already built.  Do whatever you need to for yourself, and rest easy that you’ve already created something something fantastic.

If we hadn’t heard from you, I was considering proposing putting together a new organization on GitHub to adopt this mod - clearly there are many motivated and talented people here who can help improve it.  If you want to still be involved, I’d suggest that *you* do this so that you maintain control. Otherwise if you’d rather just give up the reins then someone else can, but of course you’d be included so you can keep contributing as you like - or not, that’s fine!

Just let us know what you’d prefer, and thanks for making this!

Edited November 24, 2023 by JonnyOThan

[Gupyzer0]

Hello everyone, with some testing help from @Garuda now we have the ORANGES mod into the tech tree on my pull.

[610yesnolovely]

I've been taking a break from KSP playing/modding this past year also. I really love Skyhawk Science System, it's the best TechTree IMHO. Totally get how complex it is. I think I made some posts about some issues I found.

I tried both Kerbalism based and non-Kerbalism based SSS together with KSRSS Reborn (and 200+ other mods). I ended up preferring non-Kerbalism mode, it has for various reasons not really SSS related, less issues with all the mods I use, even though I love the science collection aspect.

Totally understand not having the time or inclination right now to contribute, I'm in the same position, but I'd definitely recommend @JonnyOThan's suggestion - personally I made him a Contributor on Reviva so he could fix things while I was distracted by paid work. That seemed to make him very happy, and he does good work with various things like FreeIVA and adopting other IVA mods.

[Gupyzer0]

A new issue arises! Seems like the Able tanks don't have hypergolic fuel ... My guess is that because they don't have a tankswitch module the patch wasn't applied on that particular tank.

Will be solving that issue and looking for any other tanks commonly associated with having the capability of holding hypergolic fuel that have the same problem.

Edit: NVM, started a new career for testing some contracts and enabled the unlock parts feature for this one and forgot to purchase the Hypergolics upgrade. The burnout is real 

Edit: I'll be working on the EC consumption or quantities of some early BDB probes so they can at least complete some of the science they are supposed to complete (IE Explorer 1 barely making an orbit after a Juno I launch or Pioneer IV not being able to reach the Mun -> dead 3 hours into the flight).

Edited November 29, 2023 by Gupyzer0

[DeadJohn]

@Gupyzer0 Your fork doesn't seem to have "issues" enabled so I'll comment here. These are my observations while using KSP 1.12.5, BDB prod release from CKAN, Skyhawk Kerbalism  prod release from CKAN, and KSRSS Reborn fork installed manually. I am playing in Science mode.

I'm dumping a big list on you simply because you are considering adopting the mod. I don't expect you to take responsibility for fixing any of this, and I don't know whether this belongs in Skyhawk Kerbalism or individual part mods. Work on whatever interests you. Some of this might be user error, too.

1. Several experiments from the BDB "Surveyor" lander probe (soil scoop, alpha spectrometer) did not work properly. They animate and give a stock-like science popup but do not seem to provide Kerbalism science. I think these parts recently came into BDB from the Coatl probes mod, so maybe all science parts borrowed from Coatl need work.
2. Solar storms IMO happen too often and are too strong with default settings. I just unlocked Apollo style capsules (other branches of the tree lag behind) and it looks like can only do one Moon missions then retire; a 2nd visit would likely be fatal due to the high frequency of solar storms.  (I'll admit I have no idea whether these storm settings are solely in Skyhawk Kerbalism or partly within KSRSS configs, but I can dial them down within Kerbalism settings).
3. SCANsat functionality might need attention. Visual/altimeter/biome parts of the SCANsat map properly update but I don't think they are transmitting Kerbalism science. Maybe this is a bug or a design decision made for game balance. (the BDB keyhole cameras *do* provide science when their film is returned, but their SCANsat modules have the same behavior noted above)
4. Experiments that are orbital per-biome with lengthy data collection times take unreasonably long to collect. As an example, the stock gravioli detector has multiple experiments that gradually unlock, some of which take 90 days or more to fully run. "Shores" and "mountains" need 90 days of time above those tiny biomes. Furthermore, I think the biome detection only works for the current vessel so I can't let the experiment slowly run in the background while doing other missions.  (radiation belts and magnetosphere experiments work fine in the background, I think it's just the biomes that are an issue, and maybe only for the very small biomes that get passed over between checks).
5. Modular Launch Pads  work less well than stock launch clamps. I can use high time warp with launch clamps. If I warp too fast with a Modular Launch Pads base, though, timewarp cancels and I see a brief on-screen message about electricity generation and timewarp compatibility that I think is generated by Kerbalism. I've never encountered that timewarp limitation with MLP outside of Kerbalism.
6. I suspect this one is a CKAN issue, not Skyhawk: I tried adding Rational Resources but got many errors in an MM B9PartSwitch popup on startup. Removing RR fixed things. I didn't try diagnosing that any further because I don't intend a resource intensive playthrough. CKAN insists on installing a config pack with RR and perhaps any config pack overlaps on things that Skyhawk Kerbalism does.

I'll add that some things discussed earlier in the thread seem to be reasonably ok in the production release of Skyhawk Kerbalism:

1. Stock science parts appear to be properly adjusted for Kerbalism. They generate science over time, the barometer only works in atmosphere, gravioli and seismic sensor gradually unlock new collection modes in the tree. I haven't unlocked the atmospheric sampler yet to test it.
2. Relatively new BDB parts show up in the Skyhawk tree even if they aren't explicitly in Skyhawk's whitelist of parts.

Edited November 30, 2023 by DeadJohn
Corrected #6 to say error window came from B9PartSwitch not ModuleManager. Also fixed "barometer".