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

[HoY]

Here's a question for you. I want to add kethane scanning support to an ISA dish, will that be as simple as copying and pasting some lines from the .cfg?

At some point it would be awesome if you two got together and shared the same UI just little toggle buttons to switch between what map is shown, or a hybrid map showing both topographical and deposit information.

[Majiir]

Here's a question for you. I want to add kethane scanning support to an ISA dish, will that be as simple as copying and pasting some lines from the .cfg?

At some point it would be awesome if you two got together and shared the same UI just little toggle buttons to switch between what map is shown, or a hybrid map showing both topographical and deposit information.

That depends on how heavily I modify the detector module. Currently the detector reference frames are locked, so the base must rotate on the Y axis and the second piece must rotate on the X axis. If the ISA part isn't arranged in precisely the right way, it won't work. That said, it's not toooo hard to generalize the detector. I just didn't do it last time I was playing with the animation code because the new detector design happened to be compatible, so Keptin built it to spec.

ISA and Kethane are unlikely to have integrated maps any time soon. To put that "soon" into perspective, I think it's much more likely Kethane will get the geodesic map overlay before ISA and Kethane end up integrating.

[HoY]

Will the scanner work without the animation? I really only want the functionality of it not the animation, as ISA dish is also similarly animated tho not the same shape or pivot points.

And if you are already thinking along the lines of adding the same functionality as ISA, would it be too much to add a visible light scan also to the list of potential features??

Keep up the good work

[Majiir]

Will the scanner work without the animation? I really only want the functionality of it not the animation, as ISA dish is also similarly animated tho not the same shape or pivot points.

That would be doable. I'd still need to do some module work since the scanner will crash if it doesn't find the transforms, but that would be fairly easy.

But... but why don't you love that compact Kethane detector? :-(

[Mihara]

But... but why don't you love that compact Kethane detector? :-(

Multiple probe carriers and trying to shave off part numbers in every way you can would be the only reason I can think of. I actually like it better than the big one.

[Kenobi McCormick]

Any chance for a smaller drill that weighs about 250kg tops and has suitably lowered drilling stats to match?

My rovers are all VERY tiny and weigh on the order of half a ton all up, and I'd like to use several of them as small, high speed, mobile drill rigs that would attach via KAS to a large tanker truck. But the smallest drill we have currently is too big, bulky and heavy for that to work. The rovers just flip over if I even sneeze at the steering.

[HoY]

Multiple probe carriers and trying to shave off part numbers in every way you can would be the only reason I can think of. I actually like it better than the big one.

This is the exact reason! My satellites have both scanners on them, and I already know that you can't add the ISA code to another part so I can't lose that dish yet. I do like the kethane scanner but the way I have them installed they are tricky to get to to activate.

[smunisto]

Any chance for a smaller drill that weighs about 250kg tops and has suitably lowered drilling stats to match?

My rovers are all VERY tiny and weigh on the order of half a ton all up, and I'd like to use several of them as small, high speed, mobile drill rigs that would attach via KAS to a large tanker truck. But the smallest drill we have currently is too big, bulky and heavy for that to work. The rovers just flip over if I even sneeze at the steering.

That, matching my idea of my planned Joolian long-term mission, brings up the question:

Does KAS work like a fuel pipeline with regards to converting fuel and directly transferring it - Converter -> KAS Line -> Receiving tank?

Or do you have to put a tank on the miner which will received the converted fuel and then transfer it via KAS from there?

[GavinZac]

Any chance for a smaller drill that weighs about 250kg tops and has suitably lowered drilling stats to match?

My rovers are all VERY tiny and weigh on the order of half a ton all up, and I'd like to use several of them as small, high speed, mobile drill rigs that would attach via KAS to a large tanker truck. But the smallest drill we have currently is too big, bulky and heavy for that to work. The rovers just flip over if I even sneeze at the steering.

Design idea: point the drill forward, and put (folded) landing legs on the top of the rover. Tip the rover forward onto the drill and landing legs; when done, unfold the landing leg(s) to push the rover back down. Or, stick it on a Damned Robotics hinge, no tipping needed.

[Monkthespy]

Is it able to be rescaled in a CFG edit without it breaking? You can just maybe half it's size, and half is power, etc.

[GavinZac]

That, matching my idea of my planned Joolian long-term mission, brings up the question:

Does KAS work like a fuel pipeline with regards to converting fuel and directly transferring it - Converter -> KAS Line -> Receiving tank?

Or do you have to put a tank on the miner which will received the converted fuel and then transfer it via KAS from there?

It seems to work fine - it fills up empty tanks regardless of which side of the KAS they are on, so long as it is connected in 'docked' mode.

[smunisto]

Great, I can already see the giant tanker trucks on my mission and the mining rigs which attach to the trailer rovers.

Worst thing is...i will not remember anything when i go home after work.

[Tanya Sapien]

Okay I hope I'm not the only one thinking this, but if I am then it's something I think others should be thinking about as well. Between Kethane, H.O.M.E. And the Extraplanetary launchpads mod that just came out, we now have all the utilities needed for complete colonization of the stars. All that remains is duct taping them together

Kethane allows us to create all fuels we need. In the case of a long-term base, the atmospheric miner in H.O.M.E. Lets us have a functionally infinite supply of liquid fuel and oxidizer on atmospheric planets in addition to habitation for our kerbals. This means we can gas up and crew up anywhere with kethane deposits and/or an atmosphere.

The new Extraplanetary Launchpads mod allows us to harvest ore in the same manner as kethane (actually exactly the same as kethane) to the end of processing it into metal and assembling ships from it. This means that leapfrogging and colonization is now a potential reality.

At this point in time, the Extraplanetary Launchpads are incompatible with Kethane because of a shared .dll file, but that's a simple matter of adding a secondary mineral spawn attribute to the generator and/or creating a parallel resource.

All that remains to be done is for somebody to work on crosspeak between them and to put some spit and polish on the meshes (because lets face it, Launchpads still needs some heavy work). Once launchpads and kethane can crossspeak, a line of code to probe fuel capacities of the vehicle being spawned in could be added, requiring that you have enough processed fuels or raw kethane to fuel it up before you're allowed to spawn it in. Or, a more ambitious and undoubtedly more complex method would be that if you don't have enough fuel, it spawns in only partially filled. Though, due to obvious problems with manually setting resource quantities on the fly, that would be more trouble than it's worth.

I've already been tinkering on my own install and I've had marginal success with combining these three mods, but I think if the original creators of Kethane were to get their hands into this, it would be the Midas touch it needs. As an added note, and what I think is the most pivotal point of my entire proposal, the ability to spawn ships in on other planets and moons is still very low on Squad's to-do list, meaning:

A Kethane update of this fashion would NOT become repugnant in an update that adds vanilla mining!

This means working on Kethane updates has purpose again! So mod devs, programmers, countrymen, please, the Kerbals need you, spare the time and help them get closer to the stars today!

[Mihara]

Does KAS work like a fuel pipeline with regards to converting fuel and directly transferring it - Converter -> KAS Line -> Receiving tank?

Or do you have to put a tank on the miner which will received the converted fuel and then transfer it via KAS from there?

Latter. I'm not sure whether KAS lines are always treated as separate stacks for the purposes of engine feeding, or it just usually happens, but if you plan to connect anything by KAS and fill it's tank, your best bet is to have a tank on the actual converting unit, though that tank can be absolutely minimal. That's how my first large scale mining rig worked - four individual landers connected by pipes.

It smoothly transfers from there on, though, and to save time, you can use the Fuel Balancer plugin, which continues pumping fuel around without you having to prod it every few seconds.

[GavinZac]

Great, I can already see the giant tanker trucks on my mission and the mining rigs which attach to the trailer rovers.

Worst thing is...i will not remember anything when i go home after work.

I sent a 'prospector' drill bot to The Mun with a KAS port, and when it worked, sent a Big Half-Spherical Tank from Talisar.

Now that I look at it, my converter is on the liquid/oxy tank, but it definitely works for Xenon. I'm not sure what this indicates. I haven't tried putting a Connector Port straight on the converter. Sorry.

[Weatherman159]

@Tanya Sapien: This is already the plan, as far as I know. Kethane 0.6 should introduce multiple resource support, which EL then use for its' ore resource. Also, if you check the EL thread (might be in the WIP one, not sure), you'll see the new EL UI, and also that it will require fuel, oxidizer and electric charge along with rocket parts to build something. So, basically, give it some time.

[Kenobi McCormick]

Design idea: point the drill forward, and put (folded) landing legs on the top of the rover. Tip the rover forward onto the drill and landing legs; when done, unfold the landing leg(s) to push the rover back down. Or, stick it on a Damned Robotics hinge, no tipping needed.

That's not really an option. When I said micro-rover I meant it. These things are absolutely diminutive, so small and so light that having the kerbals board them significantly alters the handling.

[KhaosCorp]

@Tanya Sapien: This is already the plan, as far as I know. Kethane 0.6 should introduce multiple resource support, which EL then use for its' ore resource. Also, if you check the EL thread (might be in the WIP one, not sure), you'll see the new EL UI, and also that it will require fuel, oxidizer and electric charge along with rocket parts to build something. So, basically, give it some time.

EL can already be set up to require materials and fuel to build a rocket...

[HoY]

I think they were referring to the kethane update, which will make it possible to run vanilla kethane and have its own multi-resource module manage the other materials rather than having to modify the kethane plugin to do something different like what has been done now.

[HoY]

That's not really an option. When I said micro-rover I meant it. These things are absolutely diminutive, so small and so light that having the kerbals board them significantly alters the handling.

I think your trying to get a vehicle too small to do too much. Yes you can get all the mod debs to modify their parts for you, or you can enjoy the mods they make how they make them! You can also edit the .cfg's of the drills yourself and scale them down to whatever size you like. Mass is also in the .cfg tho I'm not sure about power consumption and kethane output.

[rowns]

Is there a way i can get more information about how this mod works im mean how to search for kethane, and a effective way to do this because the wiki doesnt have much information.

[PringleMan]

Is there a way i can get more information about how this mod works im mean how to search for kethane, and a effective way to do this because the wiki doesnt have much information.

step 1: Build a probe with a kethane detector to find fields. Put it into an inclined orbit so that it scans the surface in a sinusoidal pattern on the map.

step 2: Build a lander with a kethane tank and a converter (or not on the converter, whatever) and a drill, send it to the field

step 3: Harvest the Kethane and do whatever you want with it

Step 4: Profit

[Majiir]

Regarding smaller detectors and extractors: I'd like to do it, but the scanning and extraction mechanics both need some love before it really makes sense. Plus, Keptin is MIA at the moment, so the only new part I foresee is the electrical generator (which I'm hoping to have out in the 0.6 release).

At this point in time, the Extraplanetary Launchpads are incompatible with Kethane because of a shared .dll file, but that's a simple matter of adding a secondary mineral spawn attribute to the generator and/or creating a parallel resource.

This is the entire purpose of the 0.6 update, and let me tell you, it's not a simple or minor change! I allowed Extraplanetary Launchpads to release an alpha version with a modified Kethane DLL knowing that I'd be working on multiple resources as a feature in mainline Kethane. It's been surprisingly straightforward to implement, but it's still a substantial reworking of the internals of the mod.

I fully realize the potential of Kethane as a bootstrapping plugin for other mods to use custom resources, which is exactly why I'm doing this. That's not where the plans end, either, so as long as I can keep the code flowing, there's a lot to look forward to.

[Kenobi McCormick]

Regarding smaller detectors and extractors: I'd like to do it, but the scanning and extraction mechanics both need some love before it really makes sense. Plus, Keptin is MIA at the moment, so the only new part I foresee is the electrical generator (which I'm hoping to have out in the 0.6 release).

Ahh, I see. No rush then. As long as I can manually adjust the and output through CFG I'll make my own shrunken set for the time being.

I think your trying to get a vehicle too small to do too much.

Also the scanner size is just fine. I've no problem with fitting the existing scanners to this car, and those small long radial-mount tanks fit on like saddle tanks perfectly. It's just the extractors and converters that lack a small size range.

That chassis has done everything I've asked it to do so far. Sedan, high-speed transport, recovery truck, kerbal equivalent of a muscle car...why not make it a remote mining drill that uses KAS to pump its contents to a larger tanker truck?

Yes you can get all the mod debs to modify their parts for you, or you can enjoy the mods they make how they make them! You can also edit the .cfg's of the drills yourself and scale them down to whatever size you like.

If I nudge Majir into getting smaller parts made, and it looks like he's up for including them in a future version, everyone gets the option of using smaller parts. If I just make CFG edits to the existing ones I get that option but nobody else does.

Which one's better for the community at large?

Mass is also in the .cfg tho I'm not sure about power consumption and kethane output.

That's the other reason I didn't shrink them. If the kethane output is in the .cfg I'll probably brew up my own set to stand in until a future version has them and just live with whatever bugs happen to show up.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Kenobi McCormick

[bear67]

For kethane 5.0 and 5.0.1, I'd have the tanks show up but was missing the drills and converter's. I figured out some of the parts had two "PART {}" in their config files.

Parts effected:

kethane_2m_converter

kethane_heavydrill

kethane_turbine

MMI.K Exploitation - Miner - Small

MMI.K FuelTank 01 - External Regular

MMI.K System - Converter - Medium

MMI.K System - Sensor - Medium

Edited June 14, 2013 by bear67