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

[AchronTimeless]

Stop arguing semantics of attachment and focus on the real problem.

Feel better after letting that out? Ok then.

See, you said that clampotrons cannot connect to large tanks using the nodes. This is absolutely wrong, and I corrected you. That's not semantics, that's easily observable fact. Now you can get mad at me for that, but you're just being silly.

[Eleven]

This thread is getting weird, and it all started with the addition of the Blender. Now everyone is arguing!!!!

[KhaosCorp]

This thread is getting weird, and it all started with the addition of the Blender. Now everyone is arguing!!!!

hehehe

I like the blender....besides, I thought kerbals were some kinda vegtable...its not evil...its like making juice in one of those high-end juice machines you can get off home shopping network.

KerbJuice, the delicious nutritious choice for the 2013 Kerbin Olympics team!

[af22man]

The part your arguing about is a known bug that's been around for the entire life of the mod. Arguing about that won't get you anywhere, but helping you learn how to put your creations together differently is something we can help with however.

Did you try the fuel lines I mentioned?

what I am trying to do with this building is connect multiple empty tanks to my minor so I cannot run fuel lines after they have already been launched. This used to work and now it does not. That is the bug.

[KhaosCorp]

what I am trying to do with this building is connect multiple empty tanks to my minor so I cannot run fuel lines after they have already been launched. This used to work and now it does not. That is the bug.

KAS=fuel lines that can be hooked up after launch, so long as there is a little green dude handy to do the leg work. I use KAS for at least one thing in almost every industrial build I do......even tried to make a kethane pipeline to carry from one deposit on Kerbin to the next...though it ended horribly when I tried to break the 2km load limit. But will work wonders for your above stated needs.

[malkuth]

Hey guys, had to pull the old video because I made a mistake in it.. So I fixed it.. Updated a few of the other little problems I had in original video and made it over.. Just felt that the video should be correct and not have to many Corrections.. Plus a lot of people don't have Annotations on and Having that kind of error could cause them time.. And thats not what I want.. So Its fixed.. And thanks to everyone that pointed out the issues.. Including the Mod Author Majiir.. Thanks a bunch for a great mod.. Love it.. And who ever does your Animations... Is freaking awesome.

Anyway so this tutorial covers the Mod For Kerbal Space program called KethanePack.. I had my issues when I first used this mod and thought that I would share a little what I learned with some tips and tricks.. Thanks to everyone that helped out with this mod and developed it.. You guys are great. .

This is the Video..

Edited June 12, 2013 by malkuth

[Seyvern]

Firstly, if you want to convey a sentiment to me, try to avoid starting posts with "sigh" and getting all uppity at people in the thread.

The scan width is fine if you're building your craft with enough power generation and battery storage. It takes very little time to find a deposit, and most people only need to find one. Even with one scanner, a properly equipped craft can get a decent map (revealing every deposit) within a few minutes. Things like orbital parameters can be important, too.

Regarding fuel flow, I thought this was well-established by now but I'll be clear: Kethane does nothing with regard to fuel flow. Kethane parts merely generate resources by calling RequestResource with a negative quantity. Any other issues are KSP bugs and should be reported to Squad. If you want advice on how to set up a Kethane craft to work around those issues, you may post that here, although I think a separate thread would be best. Yes, I could implement a fuel routing fix, but so could a dedicated mod. I'm focusing on Kethane as a resource exploration and harvesting mod.

Then ignore me, but sitting in timewarp for 20 minutes isn't really playing, as a number of people have pointed out.

I'll get 'uppity' with your cheerleader as I like when every single response he makes to anyone who points this fact out is a combination of techno-babble and 'deal with it'. In any case implement your mod however you want, you've heard my opinion.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Seyvern

[KhaosCorp]

!!!WOOOHOOO!!!!

I'm the Kethane Techno-babble Cheerleader(so it would seem)!!!!!

Majiir, can I get some sweet kethane pom-poms to stick on my mining rigs? =P

[mastercluff]

Then ignore me, but sitting in timewarp for 20 minutes isn't really playing, as a number of people have pointed out.

I'll get 'uppity' with your cheerleader as I like when every single response he makes to anyone who points this fact out is a combination of techno-babble and 'deal with it'. In any case implement your mod however you want, you've heard my opinion.

Go play EVE as a miner, THEN come back complaining about such a tiny amount of time as 20 minutes. Scanning is just another form of passively playing while doing other things on your computer, like waiting for the next cycle to finish or as in ksp, waiting for your craft to get to Jool. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding of the flow of time in sandbox games.

[malkuth]

2o mins.. Its possible it took this long.. I would say a proper polar orbit would take that long to get the whole picture... If not longer.. But if you want a quick map.. Equatorial orbit will have many landing spots for you within a few minutes. But you will only have a map of the middle of what your scanning.. Which is usually enough anyway.

Its just part of the game... And its going to work the same way when the developers come out with there own resource system.. So you might as well get use to the way it works.

[taniwha]

About docking ports: radially mounted ports will not transfer LFO (though they will transfer monoprop, xenon and kethane). But then there are very few parts that will transfer LFO when radially (notably, certain radially mounted engines and hardpoints). Stack mounted ports will transfer LFO automatically (sometimes to one's detriment, thus the "disable crossfeed" option), but getting ports to stack-mount can be iffy at times (sometimes it's the "radial attach bug", other times it's just a matter of getting the view angle and mouse pointer just right).

For those worried about "slow scan times": read and post on the forums while scanning . Twenty minutes is no time when composing a forum post or two .

[HoY]

what I am trying to do with this building is connect multiple empty tanks to my minor so I cannot run fuel lines after they have already been launched. This used to work and now it does not. That is the bug.

So, unless your willing to troubleshoot the problem your having, why are you complaining about it? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you didn't read my post about Where to install the fuel lines. Or how to install the docking ports. Doing either or both will solve your problem, and if you still can't manage then the How To section of the forums may have some more patient people to explain it again

[Mihara]

The scan width is fine if you're building your craft with enough power generation and battery storage. It takes very little time to find a deposit, and most people only need to find one.

...wait a moment.

Pardon me, but it appears that there is a considerable disconnect between the way you expect your mod to be used, and the way it actually ends up being used in practice. If most people would only ever need to find one deposit, this means that one deposit would be sufficient to serve their fuel needs in the reasonably foreseeable future. That would only be true if kethane was a supplementary system on an interplanetary mission, for example, something you add to a ship in lieu of the fuel required to get back.

That is very definitely not the way it usually happens, i.e. "most" people don't only need to find just one deposit. Seeing a screenshot of a ship with a kethane supplementary system like this is quite uncommon, (I've only seen one beside mine own, in fact.) instead, it is clear from all the screenshots and videos that people show off that the majority of players have adopted the path of strip mining and filling progressively larger orbital fuel or kethane storage systems with resources for extended exploration and base building operations. Even with the current increased density of kethane, creating a mining setup that completely drains a deposit in just a few cycles is trivial, and this is what you typically see done. That makes detailed maps of kethane deposits desirable.

That means that scanning as it currently works is not a particularly suitable game mechanic, since waiting for a scan to complete is not actually playing. There is no such problem with actually mining it, since that completes much faster on time warp, and can be readily tolerated, but scanning might take hours. While some people mentioned Eve Online, we're not Online here. Nobody can come in and interrupt you, so the waiting is just waiting.

Actually, I just had an idea. May I suggest a completely alternative scanning mechanic for such purposes? Burrowing explosive resonance scanners.

The scanning probe must land, upon which it either detaches or otherwise launches (or IS) a one-use-only device that burrows deep into the ground and then explodes. The seismic shockwave that specially tuned explosion produces is used as an acoustic radar pulse, revealing in detail all the surface kethane deposits in something like 200-300km radius -- possibly with level of detail being reduced with distance. This permits one to map an entire planetary body in terms of kethane in just a few uses of the device, but on the other hand, requires sending much more complicated (and heavier, since that device would probably weigh a few tons) and non-reusable survey missions.

P.S. As far as I can see, people don't typically use kethane as a supplementary fuel system not because it's not sufficiently efficient or doesn't offer enough advantages, but because they like being able to land wherever they please, and not on the first deposit located. My own ship that uses it is an airship meant for use on Duna, and moves by electric power otherwise. The only other example I saw was a plane.

[Weatherman159]

-exploding scanning probe-

Now that is an awesome idea.

[HoY]

How many people that use the strip mine method, which will take at least a full day of mining and moving fuel (unless you use mainsails) to orbit, are unwilling to spend 15 mins at 50x warp with one scanner at the proper orbit to map the entire planet??

This detail level of the map is really just to please the people that Have to have everything done completely, but having every deposit hit 4-5 times to give you a cross hatch image of it is more than enough if you Just want the gas, and not the map.

[Mihara]

How many people that use the strip mine method, which will take at least a full day of mining and moving fuel (unless you use mainsails) to orbit, are unwilling to spend 15 mins at 50x warp with one scanner at the proper orbit to map the entire planet??

I'm pretty sure you're misrepresenting things, or not experiencing the passage of time in the same way I do, at least. (I expect very few of us are actually clocking it.) Example from personal experience:

Minmus, ~150km orbit, inclination 90. Time before I got a complete crosshatch, not a full scan: ~1 hour, at x100 timewarp. The lines of the crosshatch are sufficiently far enough apart to miss a smaller deposit. As far as I can tell, the volume of the deposit has no relation to it's size on the map. (I'd need to look at the code to be sure.)

It might be that the orbit isn't at the optimal altitude, of course, but "15 mins" is never, ever what it takes. Time it took me to suck a deposit dry and get it to orbit: ~20 minutes, it's done in one landing and one launch. Time spent while mining under timewarp was the smallest part of it.

[HoY]

I just mapped Vall at 86 degrees at 120x121 km with 1 small scanner and an ISA scanner in 15 mins literally, at 50x. 86 is faster than 90. Also why are you orbiting so high around minmus?? Your orbital period is much higher at that altitude than you need, which adds unnessicarily to your total time needed to make a map.

[Mihara]

I just mapped Vall at 86 degrees at 120x121 km with 1 small scanner and an ISA scanner in 15 mins literally, at 50x. 86 is faster than 90. Also why are you orbiting so high around minmus?? Your orbital period is much higher at that altitude than you need, which adds unnessicarily to your total time needed to make a map.

Historical reasons. Mind you, planet rotation periods are different and in fact, that says nothing against my initial argument: The time I spend landing mining vessels and taking them up, arranging my mining setup, and otherwise messing with it is playing. The time spent actually waiting for the tanks to fill is negligible compared to the time spent in that activity. The time spent waiting for an orbital scan to complete is neither negligible compared to the time actively performing actions, nor it is time spent actually playing. The need for a sufficiently complete scan, however, is very definitely there. Reducing KSP to being an excuse to read a book is hardly good game design, especially for people who don't need any excuses to read a book.

While there are both technical and immersion considerations that make it sensible to do it this particular way, that's not the only way, and I suggest you consider whether other methods may in fact be an improvement.

[HoY]

I'm not arguing that it doesn't take time, simply that it takes less time if you choose an optimal orbit to scan from and that a 100% map is not nessicary to get to the mining process.

I'm also not talking about what we saw Scott Manley do in a recent video, and wait for a beep and drop orbital velocity to zero and start mining as he hit the ground lol.

Let's also not forget that we only need to scan each body one time (barring map breaking updates like this one) but can go back and mine it any time after the map is made. That 15 min map I made will do me just fine to get my new site I need to move to, but tonight before I go to sleep I'm going to do the 100% map because I do like to have it complete.

I'm also not arguing against (or for) an alternate scanning method. It would be interesting, and I may try it, but at the end of the day I probably still won't use them as my satellites are already dual or tri purpose and need to be installed regardless

[af22man]

KAS=fuel lines that can be hooked up after launch, so long as there is a little green dude handy to do the leg work. I use KAS for at least one thing in almost every industrial build I do......even tried to make a kethane pipeline to carry from one deposit on Kerbin to the next...though it ended horribly when I tried to break the 2km load limit. But will work wonders for your above stated needs.

please see Scott Manley's video here for an example of what i was building.

It clearly shows liquid fuel running into the available tanks across multiple docking nodes.

I built something similar in .18 and .19. no matter how i docked the nodes they worked perfectly fine. i am not going to use KAS to do what this mod has been doing since forever.

It is a good suggestion though, i might use that to transfer fuel to my rover train to deliver kethane from my mining rigs to my mun base. I just have to put my rig to rest for now until this problem is fixed.

[Majiir]

Hey guys, had to pull the old video because I made a mistake in it.. So I fixed it.. Updated a few of the other little problems I had in original video and made it over.. Just felt that the video should be correct and not have to many Corrections.

Thanks for the update!

And who ever does your Animations... Is freaking awesome.

Keptin made the animations for the heavy converter and heavy drill, and I made the particle effects for the heavy drill. I'm glad you enjoy them!

Pardon me, but it appears that there is a considerable disconnect between the way you expect your mod to be used, and the way it actually ends up being used in practice. If most people would only ever need to find one deposit, this means that one deposit would be sufficient to serve their fuel needs in the reasonably foreseeable future. That would only be true if kethane was a supplementary system on an interplanetary mission, for example, something you add to a ship in lieu of the fuel required to get back.

Yes, but you only need to locate one deposit at a time. With a proper craft in a proper orbit, it usually takes less than a minute to find a deposit (on an oceanless body). If you really want to strip an entire body, you can do your scan all at once, but that's many hours of landing and launching craft to mine. If you're obsessive about getting a full and detailed map, maybe you should build a more substantial scanning craft or accept that it won't happen instantly. Even if you are strip mining, you can scan for new deposits as you need them.

"But I have to identify a good landing site!" The first deposit you find might be on the side of a mountain, but it doesn't take long to find a second. You can get a full map and compare it with a topographic map to find the most perfectly flat mining site, but that's going to cost you a bit more than simply landing on the first thing you find.

I loaded up a simple Mun probe with a small scanner, two RTGs and a small battery. It took me ten seconds to find two deposits. After a minute, I'd found five more deposits. All of these have multiple data points so you can see that if you land in the middle, you'll certainly be over the bulk of the deposit. I'm running at 100x warp because it makes the first few deposits look better, but I can comfortably run at 1000x warp if I want a full map. With its large oceans, Laythe will be a lot harder, and I'm okay with that.

I'm no stranger to these kinds of balancing issues. When Kethane first came out, you could only 10x warp the detector, and you couldn't use time warp at all on converters, extractors or pumps. Refueling a small Kethane lander meant minimizing the game for thirty minutes. The whole reason I run Kethane now is because I said "this is ridiculous" and released a patch. I am looking at improving scanning, but the biggest problem (and what gets in the way of adding new mechanics) is its interface.

If you really just can't stand it, go ahead and edit your local part config files. When it comes to balancing the release, I want to make sure there's both easy and challenging gameplay available.

[HoY]

It clearly shows liquid fuel running into the available tanks across multiple docking nodes.

No it doesn't..

I'm not saying it doesn't work, but you need to take this to the how to sub forum at this point. Your problem isn't with the kethane mod it's with how you are installing your docking ports and unwillingness to read suggestions.

[rosenkranz]

About docking ports: radially mounted ports will not transfer LFO (though they will transfer monoprop, xenon and kethane). But then there are very few parts that will transfer LFO when radially (notably, certain radially mounted engines and hardpoints). Stack mounted ports will transfer LFO automatically (sometimes to one's detriment, thus the "disable crossfeed" option), but getting ports to stack-mount can be iffy at times (sometimes it's the "radial attach bug", other times it's just a matter of getting the view angle and mouse pointer just right).

For those worried about "slow scan times": read and post on the forums while scanning . Twenty minutes is no time when composing a forum post or two .

When you say they wont transfer LFO, are you talking about normal drain from engines running or the ability to alt-click on two tanks and transfer fuel? For the latter, I've never had a problem transferring fuel across a port via alt-click.

However, for the former, there is a trick. On the docking port attached to the main stack, put a fuel line from the port to the stack. Anything you then dock to that port should drain normally (so i've found). I can't take credit for that trick though as I saw it in another thread but i think that thread was lost to the kracken.

[HoY]

When you say they wont transfer LFO, are you talking about normal drain from engines running or the ability to alt-click on two tanks and transfer fuel? For the latter, I've never had a problem transferring fuel across a port via alt-click.

However, for the former, there is a trick. On the docking port attached to the main stack, put a fuel line from the port to the stack. Anything you then dock to that port should drain normally (so i've found). I can't take credit for that trick though as I saw it in another thread but i think that thread was lost to the kracken.

The trick you mentioned has been suggested to him but he would rather just blame the mod for the fuel flow problem :/ he's also mounting his docking ports on the end but having them mount via their radial system instead of snap to stack node option.

[KhaosCorp]

To those that want faster scanning:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/27999-ISA-Mapsat-Ideal-and-Non-Ideal-Altitudes

This thread was made in regards to ISA, but the math is the same, so it works for Kethane scanning as well. A true polar orbit is in fact not the best route.

Ive been using these charts basically since I started playing KSP for ISA and Kethane scans. Proper orbit can greatly change how long it takes to fully scan a planet.

For kethane scans here is what I do. Figure out the time warp speed I want to run the satellite at, for moons I do lowest at x50, planets I do on at least x100. Once you know how fast you want to run, use the charts in the link above and find the LOWEST possible orbit that will allow the warp speed you want.

Hope this is useful =P