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

[ASnogarD]

Would this change require a high altitude scan resolution, or would a land based scanner be able to locate the richer deposits ?

Currently I just criss cross the target planet/moon which reveals 1 or 2 hexes of each deposit so its possible to see where most of the deposits are which allows for a land vehicle with a scanner equipped to scan the local area and basically fill in the holes the criss cross style left.

[Majiir]

Would this change require a high altitude scan resolution, or would a land based scanner be able to locate the richer deposits ?

I'll explain the proposed changes in more detail. Currently, when you drill a deposit, you extract Kethane from the entire deposit as a single unit. It doesn't matter what hex you're in; as long as you're inside the deposit, you'll be able to suck it dry.

The new deposit generator architecture affords a lot more flexibility, so the new deposits will have a different quantity in each individual cell. The small drill will only be able to extract Kethane from the hex immediately under it, but the heavy drill will be able to also draw from surrounding cells. My current thinking is that for every unit drilled from the main cell, half a unit (total) is drilled from the surrounding cells. Once the main cell is depleted, surrounding cells can no longer be accessed, so landing on the highest-density cell in a cluster is important for unlocking large quantities without relocating the drill. This is why a detailed scan of a deposit will be handy; if you know all the cell levels, you can plan out where to land to best satisfy your mission requirements. Of course, if you only need to refuel a small ship, a small drill landed anywhere on a deposit will do just fine.

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On a completely different note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KETHANE! On this day last year, MMI released Kethane 0.1 to the public. I loved the industrial nature of the mod and spent many hours building fuel depots around Minmus. During that time, I made myself a few fixes and improvements which I eventually released, and shortly after I took over the Kethane project in earnest. Kethane now gets a thousand or more downloads each day, even as KSP had changed dramatically. For my part, it's been a fun ride!

[BlazingAngel665]

Happy Birthday Kethane!!! Your great work has made KSP more fun for hundreds of thousands of people. To many more anniversaries!!!

[BigNose]

Happy Birthday from me, too!

Awesome mod, keep up the great work guys!

[KhaosCorp]

HAPPY BIRFDAY KETHANE!!!

I tried makin you a kethane cake...but it exploded when I light the candles....maybe kethane cupcakes...

[Mr.Desmond Tiny]

Happy birthday Kethane! Keep up with the great work!

[Pluto100]

Happy birthday, Kethane! To many more years of drilling The Kerbol System!

[Cooly568]

Kethane's come a long way, I've been with it ever since it was first released for 0.16.

I remember driving around trying to find kethane, ahh... back when I was a noob at kethane.

[British_Rover]

OK so I am trying to use the Unreconstitutionator and I must be doing something wrong because nothing happens. Does it need to be on the command pod on the kethane tank or somewhere else to work? I click on it and nothing even happens.

I am testing my orbiting kethane module before I send it to my Mun orbiting station and I need kethane in the tanks to test.

What do I need to do?

[Sapphire]

OK so I am trying to use the Unreconstitutionator and I must be doing something wrong because nothing happens. Does it need to be on the command pod on the kethane tank or somewhere else to work? I click on it and nothing even happens.

I am testing my orbiting kethane module before I send it to my Mun orbiting station and I need kethane in the tanks to test.

What do I need to do?

Step 1: Have a Kerbal on EVA.

Step 2: Walk towards the device.

Step 3: Activate the device.

Step 4: Gasp in horror.

[British_Rover]

Step 1: Have a Kerbal on EVA.

Step 2: Walk towards the device.

Step 3: Activate the device.

Step 4: Gasp in horror.

I did all that how do you activate it? I clicked on it both left and right and with ALT but got nothing? How close does the kerbal need to be?

Nevermind got it to work he has to be basically touching it and I wasn't close enough to even activate the module.

[Tw1]

The small drill will only be able to extract Kethane from the hex immediately under it, but the heavy drill will be able to also draw from surrounding cells. My current thinking is that for every unit drilled from the main cell, half a unit (total) is drilled from the surrounding cells. Once the main cell is depleted, surrounding cells can no longer be accessed, so landing on the highest-density cell in a cluster is important for unlocking large quantities without relocating the drill.

Does this mean we can get more out of the one deposit?

That would be useful.

Also, a late happy birthday for Kethane!

Edited August 17, 2013 by Tw1

[Majiir]

Does this mean we can get more out of the one deposit?

You'll be able to get more from one "deposit" (blob on the map) but less from one landing zone. In order to get large quantities, you'll need to move around a bit, but that movement is over much shorter distances than currently.

[LameLefty]

Happy birthday, kethane! (Albeit a day late). I've only been playing for a few months, but the depth and complexity added to the game by this single mod is amazing. Thank you, Majiir and your team, for all your hard work.

[Captain Sierra]

Wow, last I had checked on Kethane we were only up to 7.5! You work fast Majiir!

Will be grabbing this later today.

[Blaylock1988]

The new deposit generator architecture affords a lot more flexibility, so the new deposits will have a different quantity in each individual cell. The small drill will only be able to extract Kethane from the hex immediately under it, but the heavy drill will be able to also draw from surrounding cells. My current thinking is that for every unit drilled from the main cell, half a unit (total) is drilled from the surrounding cells. Once the main cell is depleted, surrounding cells can no longer be accessed, so landing on the highest-density cell in a cluster is important for unlocking large quantities without relocating the drill. This is why a detailed scan of a deposit will be handy; if you know all the cell levels, you can plan out where to land to best satisfy your mission requirements. Of course, if you only need to refuel a small ship, a small drill landed anywhere on a deposit will do just fine.

I don't like this new concept. Mining kethane is difficult enough for me as it is, this will make it harder. Also, some cells have absolutely terrible terrain large scale mining operations (edge of huge crators). This coupled with no control over the kethane deposit generator will leave for some very frustrating mining ops with tons of rigs that we have to switch to to drill, and land next to for spacelift.

Perhaps another idea you could consider, that uses your new grid generation, is something more similar to what we have now with real oil drilling. We could set up one large base/refinery anywhere within the deposit, but we have to drop smaller (fire and forget?) oil drills around, in each cell. As long as they have a certain part and are in the cell, they never need to be the active ship to transfer kethane to the main deposit refinery. They would all be connected by a theoretical pipeline underground just like how these work:

I would prefer this because then we dont need to relocate our main drill every time, or launch a bunch of seperate ship/mining rigs that we have to have as our active ship to drill.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Blaylock1988

[SyberSmoke]

I have looked around a little and experimented some, but is there a purpose...point....reason to have more then one scanner on a ship? From observations they do not appear to scan a wider area, nor does the data they produce seem more accurate or better. So besides sucking power out of my probes, is there a purpose?

As a note, for the Wiki, it may be a thought to add this and the general benefits of the scanners as it is not immediately apparent. I mean do they scan in parallel...if one scans a block will the next scan a block to the left or right depending on position and orientation...it is just hard to discern.

As another thought, has it been considered to give the larger scanner a larger scan radius? May be the compact scanner scans one hex. While the medium, a more advanced scanner can scan 7 (One in the center and the 6 around it). Ok, end of thought.

Edited August 17, 2013 by SyberSmoke

[OopsThatNotWork]

I have looked around a little and experimented some, but is there a purpose...point....reason to have more then one scanner on a ship? From observations they do not appear to scan a wider area, nor does the data they produce seem more accurate or better. So besides sucking power out of my probes, is there a purpose?

As a note, for the Wiki, it may be a thought to add this and the general benefits of the scanners as it is not immediately apparent. I mean do they scan in parallel...if one scans a block will the next scan a block to the left or right depending on position and orientation...it is just hard to discern.

As another thought, has it been considered to give the larger scanner a larger scan radius? May be the compact scanner scans one hex. While the medium, a more advanced scanner can scan 7 (One in the center and the 6 around it). Ok, end of thought.

The only reason to add more scanners is so that you can scan at a higher warp. You will notice as you increase warp with a single scanner it will start to miss a hex or two before it measures another. If you want to scan quickly (im not a huge fan of this) then add more scanners so you can warp faster and still pick up a clean scan line.

[SyberSmoke]

The only reason to add more scanners is so that you can scan at a higher warp. You will notice as you increase warp with a single scanner it will start to miss a hex or two before it measures another. If you want to scan quickly (i'm not a huge fan of this) then add more scanners so you can warp faster and still pick up a clean scan line.

Ok, yeah TBH I thin it would be better to have it so that adding additional units will increase your scan area or resolution instead of just allowing you to warp faster to get it done. As it stands no one likes to sit there watching it scan...fair enough right. But having a broader scan would be better if balanced.

[OopsThatNotWork]

yea but the problem is the way that KSP is currently set up such that ships cant scan things in the background (in order to save memory im assuming), its not a kethane problem.

[The Jedi Master]

I dropped it into the KSP folder and it destroyed all the parts, making all the ships unloadable. It's a good thing I had a backup. What am I doing wrong?

Edited August 17, 2013 by The Jedi Master

[SyberSmoke]

I dropped it into the KSP folder and it destroyed everything. It's a good thing I had a backup. What am I doing wrong?

Well first, find a copy of JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler, good piece of kit. Second, Follow the JSGME instructions. Third, this mod (the named folder) goes into the GameData folder, there it will be activated. PUT THE NAMED FOLDER in there, not just the data and so on folders. Using JSGME will allow you to turn off and on mods with out having to shuttle folders about. ;-)

So if you use JSGME, you should have you MOD folder (created by GME) and in side "Folder with mod name ---> Folder with desired directory to place mod (Game Data) ---> Folder containing mod files (usually named).

yea but the problem is the way that KSP is currently set up such that ships cant scan things in the background (in order to save memory im assuming), its not a kethane problem.

That I know. But having something scan faster and something scan a wider area are equal concepts. So in this case say having three medium scanners that each scan a three hex diameter would allow some one to scan a nine hex wide area instead of scanning just one or two hexes at 1000x warp. It is a more efficient use of the players time.

Edited August 17, 2013 by SyberSmoke

[The Jedi Master]

Well first, find a copy of JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler, good piece of kit. Second, Follow the JSGME instructions. Third, this mod (the named folder) goes into the GameData folder, there it will be activated. PUT THE NAMED FOLDER in there, not just the data and so on folders. Using JSGME will allow you to turn off and on mods with out having to shuttle folders about. ;-)

Oh, I thought that all you had to do was pop it into the main game folder. Thank you!

[KhaosCorp]

Oh, I thought that all you had to do was pop it into the main game folder. Thank you!

You DONT need to do all that to get Kethane working...

Unzip the download..inside will be a GameData folder..in that a Kethane folder.

Move the entire Kethane folder into the GameData within KSP

end path should be something like this:

KerbalSpaceProgram/GameData/Kethane

Squad

Any other mods you have installed...

[SyberSmoke]

You DONT need to do all that to get Kethane working...

Unzip the download..inside will be a GameData folder..in that a Kethane folder.

Move the entire Kethane folder into the GameData within KSP

end path should be something like this:

KerbalSpaceProgram/GameData/Kethane

Squad

Any other mods you have installed...

True enough, but I do like a good mod manager as it can make things easier if there is a conflict. Juggling folders is just not fun.