Kethane Pack 0.9.2 - New cinematic trailer! - 1.0 compatibility update

[BudgetHedgehog]

From memory, it's meant to be empty - it's a legacy version of the kethane dll that's still included to stop save-breaking. Someone asked before recently, there's a post about it in the last few pages, but I can't find it.

[VR_Dev]

So I'm trying to create a perminant hoverbase on the "surface" of Jool but in order to do so I have to find a way to refuel my base. My idea was to suck up KIntakeAir from Jool's thick atmosphere and "condense" it into kethane. I've tried using the converters to do this, but no luck. Here is my thread post that describes in more detail my plan, and the .cfg code I've used to try and accomplish this. I'm looking for any help I can get, either from a building standpoint or a .cfg tweaking one.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79638-Using-a-Kethane-condenser-for-a-permanent-hoverbase-below-Jool-s-surface

[Galane]

You could use gas bags from Hooligan Labs on that Jool base...

Read "The Clouds of Saturn" by Michael McCollum for inspiration.

[Drew Kerman]

From memory, it's meant to be empty - it's a legacy version of the kethane dll that's still included to stop save-breaking. Someone asked before recently, there's a post about it in the last few pages, but I can't find it.

That was me. You can delete the DLL if you want, I noticed it throwing an error in the KSP log but it's harmless overall

[JewelShisen]

So I'm trying to create a perminant hoverbase on the "surface" of Jool but in order to do so I have to find a way to refuel my base. My idea was to suck up KIntakeAir from Jool's thick atmosphere and "condense" it into kethane. I've tried using the converters to do this, but no luck. Here is my thread post that describes in more detail my plan, and the .cfg code I've used to try and accomplish this. I'm looking for any help I can get, either from a building standpoint or a .cfg tweaking one.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79638-Using-a-Kethane-condenser-for-a-permanent-hoverbase-below-Jool-s-surface

http://i.imgur.com/P73veP2.png

You don't need the air intakes. Kethane Jet Engines have their own built into them.

[VR_Dev]

You don't need the air intakes. Kethane Jet Engines have their own built into them.

Yeah I know, thanks a lot though. I thought I would need a lot of KintakeAir to convert but not really. Now they just suck up straight kethane, but they also produce heat and use electricity. I'm gonna add the drill kethane cloud animation to them too. I'm saying they "automatically condense" the atmosphere into kethane. I'm gonna make a new part in blender to use as an intake/condenser but right now the ramAirIntakes are doing it.

[Camaron]

Hi, I recently downloaded Kethane, and have really enjoyed it. It's created a very fun and interesting dynamic, and I'm very thankful that the creators have put the time and effort in to create a very stable, diverse, and well-integrated expansion for Kerbal.

However, as I'm playing, and seeing the numbers on the KE-C090 Converter and KE-C190 Converters, I can't help but notice that, not only are the ratios radically different between the two units in many ways, but also, physically impossible. My ship gains mass while converting Kethane to either of the Liquid fuel components, and according to the simplest of the laws of physics, The Law of Conservation of Mass,

"For any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy (both of which have mass), the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as system mass cannot change quantity if it is not added or removed. Hence, the quantity of mass is "conserved" over time." -Wiki

....this simply cannot be. It defies physics at its very core.

I'll explain all of my reasoning, but my ultimate goal with this long-winded post is to propose a realistic set of conversion rates that don't break the laws of physics, and maintain fairness and balance within the Kethane game mechanism.

So, logically, any Kethane Conversion, even in a perfect conversion, should never raise the mass of your spacecraft.

However, if we are assuming that the converters are, in any realistic way, converting a raw material to a refined material in each circumstance, surely there should be imperfections - flawed yield ratios, so to speak, so any and all conversions should actually yield less mass, varying upon what material is being generated, and the waste material, would probably be simply ejected from any sensible converter.

In short, reason says all material conversions from Kethane to anything else, should yield a certain amount of refined material of lesser mass than the original Kethane used, in addition to a certain amount of byproduct. Whether this byproduct should stored as some kind of secondary material or assumed to be ejected from the spacecraft, isn't particularly important to my point.

So, if we were to consider imperfect yields, how imperfect should they be? Well, at this point, we come back to the fact that Kethane is essentially imaginary, so we can prioritize numbers that favor game balancing for each of the materials. I personally feel that the waste amounts should roughly reflect the ISP of the fuels in question. Monoprop is 290, so we'll round to 300. Xenon is 4200, and liquid fuel is the tricky one, since many engines get wildly different ISP's. Despite that the majority of them see high 300's, I'm going to say that the vast majority of engines used in space are probably the LV-N Nuclear Engines at 800. The average, if we had access to any statistic, would probably be around 600.

The point of those numbers I just came up with, is for a byproduct ratio. Based on the weight comparisons you will see shortly, we would want Xenon's byproduct to fall in the high 90%'s. This actually makes sense anyway, since Xenon is a noble gas, and if anything in the real world were to convert a material to Xenon, I'm willing to bet that the byproduct percentages would actually be extraordinarily high.

A number that works well here is 7.5% per 300 ISp. So, in this proposal, the conversion of Kethane to Monopopellant would lose 7.5% of the mass to waste. 15% for the Liquid Fuel components, and 97.5% to the Xenon.

Just a reminder, my goal here is to propose a set of conversion rates that are both balanced as a game component, and also makes sense with real-world physics/chemistry/reason&logic.

Let's see how the numbers compare with the actual mass of Kethane and the Fuels:

500 Kethane = 1T

200 Liquid Fuel = 1T

200 Oxidizer = 1T

250 Monopropellant = 1T

10,000 Xenon = 1T

Let's lay out some simple stuff here to try and keep the math in check. Irrational numbers would actually really hurt things, so let's keep things even to within a few decimal places.

By Mass:

200 Kethane = 100 Monopropellant

5 Kethane = 100 Xenon

250 Kethane = 100 Liquid Fuel or Oxidizer

So, if we now account for the byproduct/waste ratios I mentioned earlier...

200 Kethane = 92.5 Monopropellant

5 Kethane = 2.5 Xenon

250 Kethane = 85 Liquid Fuel of Oxidizer.

And so, finally, based on those rates, I offer you my proposed Conversion rates on the KE-C190 Kethane Converter, without Heat or Elec consumption amounts:

4.0/sec Kethane in, 1.85/sec Monoprop out.

4.0/sec Kethane in, 2.0/sec Xenon out.

4.5/sec Kethane in, 1.53/sec Liquid Fuel out.

5.5/sec Kethane in, 1.87/sec Oxidizer out.

And for the C090:

1.0/sec Kethane in, 0.4625/sec Monoprop out.

1.0/sec Kethane in, 0.5/sec Xenon out.

0.9/sec Kethane in, 0.306/sec Liquid Fuel out.

1.1/sec Kethane in, 0.374/sec Oxidizer out.

These ratios also accomplish converting Liquid Fuel and Oxy per second at a perfect 9:11 Ratio, keeping them perfectly even as time passes if converting them simultaneously, which the current ratios fail to do.

Just remember, the exact numbers I proposed aren't really the point here, but rather the proportions, and the reasoning behind them. I just would love to see ratios adopted that reflect the logic I've presented here - in short, the Conservation of Mass, and a game-balanced output yield, preferrably accounting for conversion losses, especially for Xenon which is currently a big offender.

Thank you for your time, and I hope that what I had to say here has made an impression!

Edited May 13, 2014 by Camaron

[Sokar408]

Yeah I know, thanks a lot though. I thought I would need a lot of KintakeAir to convert but not really. Now they just suck up straight kethane, but they also produce heat and use electricity. I'm gonna add the drill kethane cloud animation to them too. I'm saying they "automatically condense" the atmosphere into kethane. I'm gonna make a new part in blender to use as an intake/condenser but right now the ramAirIntakes are doing it.

Are you saying you managed to actually make this work? If so, I'd be very interested in trying it out myself

[Bobe]

Just thought I'd mention that Kethane seems to stop working properly when combined with Cargo Transportation Solutions. The parts will load fine, but scanners won't record data properly, at least not in real time. Kethane extractors and other parts still work, just the scanners as far as I can tell.

This was also patched with MM 2.0.7.

[JewelShisen]

Hi, I recently downloaded Kethane, and have really enjoyed it. It's created a very fun and interesting dynamic, and I'm very thankful that the creators have put the time and effort in to create a very stable, diverse, and well-integrated expansion for Kerbal.

However, as I'm playing, and seeing the numbers on the KE-C090 Converter and KE-C190 Converters, I can't help but notice that, not only are the ratios radically different between the two units in many ways, but also, physically impossible. My ship gains mass while converting Kethane to either of the Liquid fuel components, and according to the simplest of the laws of physics, The Law of Conservation of Mass,

....this simply cannot be. It defies physics at its very core.

I'll explain all of my reasoning, but my ultimate goal with this long-winded post is to propose a realistic set of conversion rates that don't break the laws of physics, and maintain fairness and balance within the Kethane game mechanism.

So, logically, any Kethane Conversion, even in a perfect conversion, should never raise the mass of your spacecraft.

However, if we are assuming that the converters are, in any realistic way, converting a raw material to a refined material in each circumstance, surely there should be imperfections - flawed yield ratios, so to speak, so any and all conversions should actually yield less mass, varying upon what material is being generated, and the waste material, would probably be simply ejected from any sensible converter.

In short, reason says all material conversions from Kethane to anything else, should yield a certain amount of refined material of lesser mass than the original Kethane used, in addition to a certain amount of byproduct. Whether this byproduct should stored as some kind of secondary material or assumed to be ejected from the spacecraft, isn't particularly important to my point.

So, if we were to consider imperfect yields, how imperfect should they be? Well, at this point, we come back to the fact that Kethane is essentially imaginary, so we can prioritize numbers that favor game balancing for each of the materials. I personally feel that the waste amounts should roughly reflect the ISP of the fuels in question. Monoprop is 290, so we'll round to 300. Xenon is 4200, and liquid fuel is the tricky one, since many engines get wildly different ISP's. Despite that the majority of them see high 300's, I'm going to say that the vast majority of engines used in space are probably the LV-N Nuclear Engines at 800. The average, if we had access to any statistic, would probably be around 600.

The point of those numbers I just came up with, is for a byproduct ratio. Based on the weight comparisons you will see shortly, we would want Xenon's byproduct to fall in the high 90%'s. This actually makes sense anyway, since Xenon is a noble gas, and if anything in the real world were to convert a material to Xenon, I'm willing to bet that the byproduct percentages would actually be extraordinarily high.

A number that works well here is 7.5% per 300 ISp. So, in this proposal, the conversion of Kethane to Monopopellant would lose 7.5% of the mass to waste. 15% for the Liquid Fuel components, and 97.5% to the Xenon.

Just a reminder, my goal here is to propose a set of conversion rates that are both balanced as a game component, and also makes sense with real-world physics/chemistry/reason&logic.

Let's see how the numbers compare with the actual mass of Kethane and the Fuels:

500 Kethane = 1T

200 Liquid Fuel = 1T

200 Oxidizer = 1T

250 Monopropellant = 1T

10,000 Xenon = 1T

Let's lay out some simple stuff here to try and keep the math in check. Irrational numbers would actually really hurt things, so let's keep things even to within a few decimal places.

By Mass:

200 Kethane = 100 Monopropellant

5 Kethane = 100 Xenon

250 Kethane = 100 Liquid Fuel or Oxidizer

So, if we now account for the byproduct/waste ratios I mentioned earlier...

200 Kethane = 92.5 Monopropellant

5 Kethane = 2.5 Xenon

250 Kethane = 85 Liquid Fuel of Oxidizer.

And so, finally, based on those rates, I offer you my proposed Conversion rates on the KE-C190 Kethane Converter, without Heat or Elec consumption amounts:

4.0/sec Kethane in, 1.85/sec Monoprop out.

4.0/sec Kethane in, 2.0/sec Xenon out.

4.5/sec Kethane in, 1.53/sec Liquid Fuel out.

5.5/sec Kethane in, 1.87/sec Oxidizer out.

And for the C090:

1.0/sec Kethane in, 0.4625/sec Monoprop out.

1.0/sec Kethane in, 0.5/sec Xenon out.

0.9/sec Kethane in, 0.306/sec Liquid Fuel out.

1.1/sec Kethane in, 0.374/sec Oxidizer out.

These ratios also accomplish converting Liquid Fuel and Oxy per second at a perfect 9:11 Ratio, keeping them perfectly even as time passes if converting them simultaneously, which the current ratios fail to do.

Just remember, the exact numbers I proposed aren't really the point here, but rather the proportions, and the reasoning behind them. I just would love to see ratios adopted that reflect the logic I've presented here - in short, the Conservation of Mass, and a game-balanced output yield, preferrably accounting for conversion losses, especially for Xenon which is currently a big offender.

Thank you for your time, and I hope that what I had to say here has made an impression!

People have brought this up before. So allow me to counter with some science as well.

1. The entire solar system of Kerbol is 1/11th of the scale for real life yet Kerbal has a gravity well equal to earth.

2. You are running a space program that at best is held together by Duct Tape and a lot of luck

3. All your pilots are little green men

Now with that said if it bothers you THAT much then go and look at the Realistic Fuels mod as I believe they have a patch that will "correct" what you seem to see as such a crippling issue

[Camaron]

First, it's plain you didn't read the vast majority of it.

Second, your first point is a known statistic, and your other two points are literally one-line jokes. (lame ones, too.)

Also, I can easily edit my own copy to make sense for myself. I don't need another mod's help with that.

If your reply was going to be: TL: DR, Ignore, and fire back with trash-talk, why bother answering at all?

In addition to that, I didn't ask for drastically heightened game complexity with 10 more completely unnecessary fuel types. Not even a little bit.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Camaron

[BigD145]

People have brought this up before. So allow me to counter with some science as well.

We don't need bunk science here. Luck is not a factor as every success or failure is easily reproducible. Picking on the pilots' skin color is just racist and speciest.

Camaron made entirely valid points.

[KhaosCorp]

Camaron made entirely valid points.

Valid point????....he is trying to argue realism as physics in a video game.......

If you look at the GAME MECHANICS rather than real life physics the mass change when running conversions is perfectly logical.

Stop trying to apply real life physics to KSP, it wont work.....

Why to people treat this different than any other game.....this would be like complaining to Ubisoft that the Assasins Creed games are not true to physics....guess what, not the point....Ya learn the game mechanics and have fun killin badguys.....

KSP is NOT a real life simulation (the little green men are a good indicator of this), learn the game mechanics and have fun.

[taniwha]

KSP very much is a simulation. However, what most people who argue that KSP is not a simulation fail to realize is that simulations do not have to model anything real. Rather, simulations model hypotheses, and the results of those simulations can then be compared against reality.

Thus, KSP is a simulation, but it being a simulation is irrelevant. And it is exactly the same for KSP being a game.

[Othuyeg]

I have just installed this mod and I wanted to give my thanks to the creator. Very nicely done and adds an aspect to the game that creates alot of quality content.

Thank you.

[Camaron]

Khaos also didn't read - one of my largest points is directly about creating balanced game mechanics, practically word for word. I even explicitly re-iterated that 3 separate times!

"...my ultimate goal with this long-winded post is to propose a realistic set of conversion rates that don't break the laws of physics, and maintain fairness and balance within the Kethane game mechanism."

"Just a reminder, my goal here is to propose a set of conversion rates that are both balanced as a game component, and also makes sense with real-world physics/chemistry/reason&logic."

"Just remember, the exact numbers I proposed aren't really the point here, but rather the proportions, and the reasoning behind them. I just would love to see ratios adopted that reflect the logic I've presented here - in short, the Conservation of Mass, and a game-balanced output yield."

And from a game mechanics standpoint, it is absolutely NOT logical for Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer to manufacture at a rate different from 9:11, for example.

Please, guys. If you're going to trash-talk my points, at least bother to read it. Really.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Camaron

[Galane]

Seems obvious to me the Kethane converters are tapping into zero point energy or perhaps dark matter to come up with the "extra" mass.

In real world oil refining they get 44 gallons of product out of a 42 gallon barrel due to various solvents and other stuff added to make it easier to fractionate the crude oil. They call it "processing gain".

So just call it processing gain due to the addition of a bit of handwavium and move along...

[LameLefty]

So just call it processing gain due to the addition of a bit of handwavium and move along...

Yep. Totally agree.

Or just modify your own .cfg files and do whatever you want. Given that Majiir and others have been actively developing kethane for a LONG time the conversion rates are clearly something that didn't happen by accident.

Either way, it's a game - play it how you want and do whatever you need to make your experience satisfying.

[Aedile]

Khaos also didn't read - one of my largest points is directly about creating balanced game mechanics, practically word for word. I even explicitly re-iterated that 3 separate times!

And from a game mechanics standpoint, it is absolutely NOT logical for Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer to manufacture at a rate different from 9:11, for example.

Please, guys. If you're going to trash-talk my points, at least bother to read it. Really.

Yes kethane makes mass from nothing. And while a magical substance like kethane from which you can produce things you shouldn't be able to (from chemistry point of view, not to mention the KH4 thing), can be overlooked, the mass thing is a problem IMO, as your dv is of course is dependent on mass, so it affects game-play a fair bit.

Either way, easiest is to change your own configs. You can either change the converters, or simply change kethane's density. (it'll be easier, than trying to convince people here, as you probably figured out)

Alternatively, you can simply drop kethane (if you are using interstellar you don't really need it, and you can easily add ore for EL)

[KhaosCorp]

Khaos also didn't read - one of my largest points is directly about creating balanced game mechanics, practically word for word. I even explicitly re-iterated that 3 separate times!

And from a game mechanics standpoint, it is absolutely NOT logical for Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer to manufacture at a rate different from 9:11, for example.

Please, guys. If you're going to trash-talk my points, at least bother to read it. Really.

I read it 3 times, I stand by what I said.

And please, open up Squad resource config and kethane...now make note of the density of each resource....liquid fuel, oxidizer and kethane....

Now, with these density values and some very basic grade school math you can plainly see that within Kerbal game mechanics that the mass change makes perfect sense.....simple as that =P

edit:

Should note that Kethane used to have more mass per unit, but this was changed for balancing reasons, With the old density it was ALWAYS better to refine planetside and boost the fuel to space...now its not so, there are more options.......

Your only thinking of this small aspect and how it effects your gameplay...your not trying to balance a full mod for the use of many...like Majiir has done.

Edited May 14, 2014 by KhaosCorp

[Aedile]

I read it 3 times, I stand by what I said.

And please, open up Squad resource config and kethane...now make note of the density of each resource....liquid fuel, oxidizer and kethane....

Now, with these density values and some very basic grade school math you can plainly see that within Kerbal game mechanics that the mass change makes perfect sense.....simple as that =P

edit:

Should note that Kethane used to have more mass per unit, but this was changed for balancing reasons, With the old density it was ALWAYS better to refine planetside and boost the fuel to space...now its not so, there are more options.......

Your only thinking of this small aspect and how it effects your gameplay...your not trying to balance a full mod for the use of many...like Majiir has done.

There is a small gain, in mass, but it's nothing spectacular. IIRC for the big converter, something like 1ton extra LFO, for each 120 tons. Other processes such as the mono-prop production seem to actually have waste.

Though there definitely is some weirdness, and the small and big converter seem to have interesting difference in performance. If the tooltip is to be believed,

The big converter produces 10 units of xenon from 2kethane, and the small one 12 units from 1.5.

The big produces 1.28 units of monoprop from 3 kethane, while the small one produces only 0.23 from 1.5.

[Camaron]

@Khaos

See? That is a much more respectable argument. Why couldn't you say that the first time? Instead you had to give me crap about how Kerbal isn't about Physics (Seriously?!? It's almost purely about physics!)

Granted, the first set of numbers I presented IS a density comparison, but whatever, you rose another valid point.

I can see how, if you're only using one self-contained ship, that it would have been slightly advantageous to convert first,and blast off, when Kethane is heavier than the resultant fuels. But the way I see it, that makes perfect sense! And it complies with the laws of physics. Imperfect Conversions would always lose mass if waste is ejected, so why not do it on the ground? What was the problem there?

The way I play, there's always some un-landable behemoth in orbit. I can't convert on the ground because the drilling rig and its 300K Kethane far exceeds its in-house fuel/mon/xenon capacity. So in that case, mass of the fuels would be irrelevant to whether I converted on the ground or in orbit. For me, it would always be in orbit no matter how the mass plays out. So, I realize that's pretty much a "me" thing, but nonetheless, it turns your "always" into "usually".

And you know what else? While I respect Majiir and his immense contribution to our game, nobody is perfect. No you, not me, not Majiir. Even if nothing else were considered, and we assume that his numbers are otherwise flawless, why do Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer convert at rates different than a 9:11 proportion? If you run out of Kethane in conversion you now have significantly different Fuel VS Oxidizer. This has happened to me twice now, once in orbit, and once on the ground when the Kethane vein dried up. Where's the benefit in that?

And yes, Aedile, now you see what I'm talking about. Either there were some major typos while entering these numbers, or they just don't make much sense.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Camaron

[BudgetHedgehog]

It's intentional. A trade-off for having a smaller and lighter converter is that it doesnt produce as much.

[Camaron]

But again, makes no logical sense. If either of these units should be dealing with heat, it should be the small one. We already have a tradeoff with the fact that it's so much slower. Also, The difference in monoprop yields is tragically wider than any of the other materials. Why did monopropellant get singled out for abuse?

[Aedile]

It's intentional. A trade-off for having a smaller and lighter converter is that it doesnt produce as much.

So it's a 'feature' that the small converter produces MORE xenon, and the big converter's monoprop process is more than 2 times more efficient? (edit actually nearly 3 times)

The increase in efficiency for LFO between the two converters is barely noticeable. The small one actually produces more oxidizer than the big one.

I'd personally call it a bug.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Aedile