Kerbalism Side Patches

[JadeOfMaar]

A QoL collection for Kerbalism players.

 

Currently contains:

• Much-needed reliability buff for ion engines and nuke engines.

 

LICENSE :: MIT

DOWNLOAD :: GitHub :: SpaceDock

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by JadeOfMaar

[king of nowhere]

reliability buff for ion engines? they are by far the most reliable of all, in all my grand tours - which included small ion-powered auxiliary ships - I never experienced a single malfunction to an ion engine.

nuclear engines are fine, if you repair them before their time expire. the trick is that while an engine has a certain burn time, it will start with a greater chance to break a lot before that. high quality nuclear engines are nominally rated for 52 minutes, but I always did maintenance to them when they had 30 minutes left. my latest kerbalism grand tours involved 18 and 24 nuclear engines respectively, and both had expanded planetary packs, and I suffered a half dozen critical malfunctions combined between both grand tours.

I would say neither needs any reliability buff.

[JadeOfMaar]

@king of nowhere Ah. That's nice to know. I've seen, though, hints of the need for this in other Kerbalism players, and was practically asked to make this by one of them.

[septemberWaves]

The most common issue I've ever run into with Kerbalism is that, when using it with other mods, the life support resources that are automatically added to crewed vehicles have quantities that do not make sense. For an example of what I mean, the default amount of life support added to the BDB Apollo command pod cannot support a Mun mission at 2.7x scale (which is what BDB is balanced for).

I've been meaning to make a patch for BDB (and possibly do something similar for a few other mods) to fix that for a while. Is that something that would be within the scope of this mod? If so, that'd provide me some good motivation to finally get that done, and I can drop the patches here - that is, of course, assuming you don't have current plans to make such patches yourself.

Edited December 16, 2023 by septemberWaves

[JadeOfMaar]

@septemberWaves Feel free to make and send those patches. They are within scope.

Edited December 18, 2023 by JadeOfMaar

[septemberWaves]

Here are my preliminary BDB compatibility patches: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/gj62p00qyjlklzp5u17pg/h?rlkey=v8f4nj2wd2z8nem02pnvv6m8c&dl=0

Every crewed spacecraft has been patched to have enough life support resources to accomplish its historical missions (or, for those that never actually flew, they've been patched to accomplish the mission profiles that they are intended for). Additionally, some of the space probes (particularly early ones) have been patched to have enough electricity to run their associated Kerbalism experiments (at least, the ones that currently exist). I have not yet added custom Kerbalism experiments in the many places that they are missing.

It's important to note that these patches strictly require a custom Kerbalism profile. Otherwise, my edits to the amount of life support resources in capsules (the most important adjustments) get overridden by Kerbalism, and I can't find any way of preventing that without using a custom profile. The only required edits are removing the "supply" line from food, water, and oxygen sections right at the start of the profile; I directly patch crewed parts to provide these resources in quantities needed for historical mission profiles. Stock crew parts are currently not patched in a similar way, but that's one of my next steps (and presumably most people who use BDB will make very little use of stock crew parts anyway).

Additionally, I cannot find a way of making a custom Kerbalism profile actually function. I have no idea what I am missing, but all attempts at making a custom profile result in Kerbalism refusing to recognize the custom profile as one which exists. As a result, I've been working with a directly-edited "default" profile. If you know how to make a custom profile that Kerbalism won't ignore, I'll put one together properly.

Edited December 22, 2023 by septemberWaves

[audrey12]

......

[theJesuit]

On 12/23/2023 at 12:18 AM, septemberWaves said:

Here are my preliminary BDB compatibility patches: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/gj62p00qyjlklzp5u17pg/h?rlkey=v8f4nj2wd2z8nem02pnvv6m8c&dl=0

Every crewed spacecraft has been patched to have enough life support resources to accomplish its historical missions (or, for those that never actually flew, they've been patched to accomplish the mission profiles that they are intended for). Additionally, some of the space probes (particularly early ones) have been patched to have enough electricity to run their associated Kerbalism experiments (at least, the ones that currently exist). I have not yet added custom Kerbalism experiments in the many places that they are missing.

It's important to note that these patches strictly require a custom Kerbalism profile. Otherwise, my edits to the amount of life support resources in capsules (the most important adjustments) get overridden by Kerbalism, and I can't find any way of preventing that without using a custom profile. The only required edits are removing the "supply" line from food, water, and oxygen sections right at the start of the profile; I directly patch crewed parts to provide these resources in quantities needed for historical mission profiles. Stock crew parts are currently not patched in a similar way, but that's one of my next steps (and presumably most people who use BDB will make very little use of stock crew parts anyway).

Additionally, I cannot find a way of making a custom Kerbalism profile actually function. I have no idea what I am missing, but all attempts at making a custom profile result in Kerbalism refusing to recognize the custom profile as one which exists. As a result, I've been working with a directly-edited "default" profile. If you know how to make a custom profile that Kerbalism won't ignore, I'll put one together properly.

There can be only one kerbalism profile - which is initially why I released Simplex.  But I would have thought you should be able to patch in changes to resources in crewed parts - it is done for the hitchhiker as an example.

Perhaps patch in before kerbalism a temp module or a tag, then after kerbalism has finished patching then edit resources at that point.  If these are command modules, perhaps remove the command modules and add them back after kerbalism.

Peace.

[JadeOfMaar]

4 hours ago, theJesuit said:

There can be only one kerbalism profile

As in, only one can be installed (present in GameData)? That seems unfortunate. But I think @septemberWaves is coming from "If I was the creator of the (famous) Science-Only profile, what is stopping me from delivering that?"

Spoiler

I'd like to have a Radiation-only profile, for example.

 

Edited January 9, 2024 by JadeOfMaar

[theJesuit]

4 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

As in, only one can be installed (present in GameData)? That seems unfortunate. But I think @septemberWaves is coming from "If I was the creator of the (famous) Science-Only profile, what is stopping me from delivering that?"

  Reveal hidden contents

I'd like to have a Radiation-only profile, for example.

 

I should have qualified... what you do is change the named profile in the settings.cfg for Kerbalism.  It requires a manual change by user.  The kerbalism simplex download already has it changed from default.

Changing the profile in the settings.cfg has unintended consequences as so many of the part patches rely on default profile.

From above you can't have two default profiles is what i really meant.  I think the first one loaded through the MM magic (which kerbalism may mess with via Harmony? I can't remember) is the one that sticks

You can add in extras to what ever Profile though. I think it adds some for SSPX farms or something.

 

[septemberWaves]

4 hours ago, theJesuit said:

I should have qualified... what you do is change the named profile in the settings.cfg for Kerbalism.  It requires a manual change by user.  The kerbalism simplex download already has it changed from default.

Changing the profile in the settings.cfg has unintended consequences as so many of the part patches rely on default profile.

I know that you can only have one profile. I am not trying to install multiple profiles simultaneously, I am trying to replace the default one with a custom one and I cannot get that to work for reasons that are unknown to me. The "unintended consequences" that you refer to here presumably involve things like almost every feature of Kerbalism simply ceasing to function, because that is what happens when I create a new profile with a unique name and very minor edits compared to the default (or even with no edits), and change the selected profile in the settings file accordingly.

As for why the compatibility patches I have made thus far require a custom profile in order to function, I have no idea. The patches currently use :FINAL modifiers (which I used for testing purposes just to make sure that absolutely nothing else could possibly interfere with them after), but Kerbalism somehow still overrides my edited life support resource quantities to its default values. If Kerbalism is overriding :FINAL patches then it is doubtful that any other patch ordering (such as specifically telling the patches to happen AFTER Kerbalism) would have any effect. This is the information that led me to believe that a custom Kerbalism profile is the only way to make this work, and which subsequently caused me to run into the problem of my custom profile not working no matter what I try.

Another unfortunate consequence of the way I have to edit the Kerbalism profile is that any parts which are not specifically patched will have no food, water, or oxygen at all. If it were possible to edit these resources without Kerbalism overriding the patches, then this wouldn't be an issue, but as it stands I am forced to directly patch any crewed part which requires these resources (stock parts are next on my list, but I need to figure out the required supply duration for the space shuttle before I can complete that). I would much prefer not to have to create a custom profile at all, but this behaviour of overriding even :FINAL patches is not something that I know how to circumvent without one.

Edited January 9, 2024 by septemberWaves

[ltajax]

On 1/9/2024 at 8:58 PM, septemberWaves said:

I know that you can only have one profile. I am not trying to install multiple profiles simultaneously, I am trying to replace the default one with a custom one and I cannot get that to work for reasons that are unknown to me. The "unintended consequences" that you refer to here presumably involve things like almost every feature of Kerbalism simply ceasing to function, because that is what happens when I create a new profile with a unique name and very minor edits compared to the default (or even with no edits), and change the selected profile in the settings file accordingly.

As for why the compatibility patches I have made thus far require a custom profile in order to function, I have no idea. The patches currently use :FINAL modifiers (which I used for testing purposes just to make sure that absolutely nothing else could possibly interfere with them after), but Kerbalism somehow still overrides my edited life support resource quantities to its default values. If Kerbalism is overriding :FINAL patches then it is doubtful that any other patch ordering (such as specifically telling the patches to happen AFTER Kerbalism) would have any effect. This is the information that led me to believe that a custom Kerbalism profile is the only way to make this work, and which subsequently caused me to run into the problem of my custom profile not working no matter what I try.

Another unfortunate consequence of the way I have to edit the Kerbalism profile is that any parts which are not specifically patched will have no food, water, or oxygen at all. If it were possible to edit these resources without Kerbalism overriding the patches, then this wouldn't be an issue, but as it stands I am forced to directly patch any crewed part which requires these resources (stock parts are next on my list, but I need to figure out the required supply duration for the space shuttle before I can complete that). I would much prefer not to have to create a custom profile at all, but this behaviour of overriding even :FINAL patches is not something that I know how to circumvent without one.

Not sure if this helps, but I use a patch I made with help from the guys on the Kerbalism Discord to override the number of experiment sots that are available to the player in Kerblsim for probes. I was told in the Kerbalism Discord that they needed to be placed in a file named FinalPatches.cfg. I can use this with my default kerbalism install when playing with the BDB probes so can do multiple experiments on the early Explorer and Pioneer models, it does override the number of slots for me without issue.
 

PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[Configure]:HAS[#title[Unmanned?Experiments]]]:FINAL
{
  @MODULE[Configure]:HAS[#title[Unmanned?Experiments]]
  {
    %slots = 4 // amounts of slots you want
    @UPGRADES
    {
      @UPGRADE:HAS[#name__[Unmanned-Upgrade1]]
      {
        %slots = 6 // amounts of slots you will have after basicScience is researched
      }
    }
  }
}

 

Edited January 14, 2024 by ltajax

[septemberWaves]

On 1/14/2024 at 2:00 AM, ltajax said:

Not sure if this helps, but I use a patch I made with help from the guys on the Kerbalism Discord to override the number of experiment sots that are available to the player in Kerblsim for probes. I was told in the Kerbalism Discord that they needed to be placed in a file named FinalPatches.cfg. I can use this with my default kerbalism install when playing with the BDB probes so can do multiple experiments on the early Explorer and Pioneer models, it does override the number of slots for me without issue.

Is this "FinalPatches.cfg" file able to go anywhere in GameData, or does it have to go somewhere specific? I'll try this out, if it works it'll be very helpful.

[JadeOfMaar]

3 hours ago, septemberWaves said:

Is this "FinalPatches.cfg" file able to go anywhere in GameData, or does it have to go somewhere specific? I'll try this out, if it works it'll be very helpful.

Anywhere in GameData.

Due to the :FINAL it doesn't matter. It'll absolutely run last, but if I'm going to accept patches they need to not have that.I've had cases of wanting to tweak a mod but the existence of a FINAL blocked me so I had to choose to do without that mod or edit the mod's files (which would be reverted if I reinstall or update the mod).

Edited January 23, 2024 by JadeOfMaar

[Aelfhe1m]

24 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Due to the :FINAL it doesn't matter. It'll absolutely run last, but if I'm going to accept patches they need to not have that.I've had cases of wanting to tweak a mod but the existence of a FINAL blocked me so I had to choose to do without that mod or edit the mod's files (which would be reverted if I reinstall or update the mod).

It is always possible to override one mods patches with another patch. In each patching phase, MM applies all the patches of equal priority in order of their filename (including directory path). Therefore to ensure that my personal custom patches are guaranteed to override any mod created patches I store them in a folder called ZZZ_Custom. By doing that any :FINAL patches I put in that folder are currently guaranteed to be run last and override anything in any mod I install.

I feel this trick should be reserved used for personal override patches. Mod authors should ideally keep their patches within their mod's install folder and use the pre-FINAL phases for their patching.

Spoiler

When I first started using this trick, I used a folder called Z_Custom but then the Filter Extensions mod started putting some of its patches into a folder 'zFinal_FilterExtensions'. At one point there was a bug in one of their patches I wanted to override and apparently MM sorts Z_ before zF so I added a couple of extra Zs to the folder name to reclaim priority for my patches.

So far I haven't found any mod I've wanted to use that has a zzz prefix but if I ever do encounter one, I'll just add another z to the start of my patch folder (and do a search and replace inside the patches to account for the rename).

It's the same sort of naming arms race that has led to aliases like 'ZZZZZZ-B9PARTSWITCH' being used in :BEFORE, :FOR, :AFTER patches.

[septemberWaves]

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Anywhere in GameData.

Due to the :FINAL it doesn't matter. It'll absolutely run last, but if I'm going to accept patches they need to not have that.I've had cases of wanting to tweak a mod but the existence of a FINAL blocked me so I had to choose to do without that mod or edit the mod's files (which would be reverted if I reinstall or update the mod).

Changing the patch ordering to remove ":FINAL" is fine, as long as I am able to override Kerbalism at all. The "FinalPatches.cfg" file didn't work; Kerbalism still overrides my patches regardless if the default profile is enabled and unedited. I've asked in the Kerbalism Discord how to make this function, and whether it is actually possible at all to patch life support resources differently than the default profile without them getting overridden or whether I am forced to create a custom profile.

If it is possible to make these patches function without creating a custom profile, then I'll provide updated patches with altered patch ordering to remove ":FINAL" modifiers (which were only used in the preliminary patch versions as a futile attempt to prevent Kerbalism from overriding the patches). If I am forced to create a custom profile, then it is probably better to have that be a separate project, since an entirely custom Kerbalism profile seems a lot less within the scope of quality-of-life patches than just patching the default profile.

Edited January 23, 2024 by septemberWaves

[Jaxx]

Would it be possible to extend the functional purpose of this mod to also include Kerbal Atomics' engines? As an example, the LV-NGX from it despite being a 2.5m long-burn nuclear sustain engine has a paltry 10 minute burn time and only 5 ignitions.

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, Jaxx said:

Would it be possible to extend the functional purpose of this mod to also include Kerbal Atomics' engines? As an example, the LV-NGX from it despite being a 2.5m long-burn nuclear sustain engine has a paltry 10 minute burn time and only 5 ignitions.

Nearly all of the engines from that mod are supported already, right? It indeed looks like that engine got overlooked. I've just posted v 1.0.1 which should fix that.