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

[Galane]

Can anyone else confirm this? Or let me know the Author decided to only give one 1.25m Kethane storage option for the time being?

Thanks

edit;

the External Drilling Unit also has two entries.

kethane_smallDrill & kethane_radialDrill - place holder, error or bug?

The older, less detailed tank and the older radialDrill have been deprecated. The smallDrill is a completely different design and mounts completely externally and has a shorter reach. There's no reason to keep the older small tank but I kept the textures for the old drill and still use it. To see it normally in the inventory a small edit has to be made to its cfg file.

The model file is still included with the mod so KSP won't delete crafts with it.

[Marrv]

The older, less detailed tank and the older radialDrill have been deprecated. The smallDrill is a completely different design and mounts completely externally and has a shorter reach. There's no reason to keep the older small tank but I kept the textures for the old drill and still use it. To see it normally in the inventory a small edit has to be made to its cfg file.

The model file is still included with the mod so KSP won't delete crafts with it.

Thank You for clearing that up for me

[deidara123]

Hey guys! Can you help me with one bug?

Well, I just sent a ship to Mun, but on the way I made a mistake so I held F9 for load previous save. After it, a drill increased and covered whole ship as you see on pictures.If I try turn on engines, ship explodes. I have last version of KSP and Kethane, also Modular Kolonization System and TAC life support. Do you know how repair it? Maybe can I reduce drill in cfg file? Sorry for my bad english.

Edit: links to pictures:

http://zapodaj.net/beed694b72b73.png.html

http://zapodaj.net/8bb1d2bb98421.png.html

Edited May 25, 2014 by deidara123

[DevL]

Is there a configuration flag for having the Kethane window closed by default if one is using the Toolbar? I find myself constantly closing it.

[Gaalidas]

Is there a configuration flag for having the Kethane window closed by default if one is using the Toolbar? I find myself constantly closing it.

Agreed, this is rather annoying.

[CommanderSmith]

I recently had both my persistent and quicksave files corrupted for no reason just before I was going to launch a massive interplanetary mission. Is it possible to place deposits where I want them, as I had already spotted a good landing site?

[Majiir]

I've written a new base class for resource generators. This should make it much easier to write custom generator plugins. Here's an example generator using the new system:

using System;
using Kethane;

namespace ExampleGeneratorPlugin
{
    public class ExampleResourceGenerator : CellularResourceGenerator
    {
        public ExampleResourceGenerator(ConfigNode config)
        {
            // This constructor is required, but it can be empty.
            // The parameter is the Generator node in the persistence file, which defaults to the Generator node given in the KethaneResource definition.
        }

        public override void Initialize(CelestialBody body, Cell.Map<double> amounts)
        {
            // Populate cells with initial values here.
            foreach (var cell in Cell.AtLevel(amounts.Level))
            {
                amounts[cell] = Math.Abs(Math.Asin(cell.Position.x));
            }
        }
    }
}

[Galane]

I recently had both my persistent and quicksave files corrupted for no reason just before I was going to launch a massive interplanetary mission. Is it possible to place deposits where I want them, as I had already spotted a good landing site?

Add the line

Debug = True

in settings.cfg in the Kethane folder. Then you should get the debug menu in map and tracking station views. If it doesn't display correctly, switch back to space center or VAB or SPH then go back to map or tracking station. If it still doesn't show right, quit and restart KSP.

When you get the debug menu, there's a reset button you can click until you get deposits where you want them. There's also a function to show the entire grid. Those work on the body the ship you are flying is orbiting. Very useful when all your Kethane on Laythe or Eve is under the oceans.

[Angelo Kerman]

Does Kethane handle asteroids yet? If not, perhaps I can help develop that feature?

Edited June 3, 2014 by Angel-125

[notfirestorm]

I know there's been tons of discussion on how to enable scanning while Away-From-Vessel, and I know the difficulties of working with hexagonal coordinate systems in 2D space, much less 3D space. However, I think there might be a relatively simple solution available if it is easy to convert Latitude & Longitude to a hex, and we are willing to sacrifice accuracy for the accessibility of AFV scans...

Short Version: Why not just randomly discover hexes based upon the orbital characteristics of the vessel? Inclination determines the max. latitude you will pass over, so with that constraint, you can use the hex diameter and the average surface velocity along with the time spent away from vessel to uncover that number of hexes within the max. latitude.

Detailed Version:

The short version gives a basic idea of what this suggestion is about, but here's more detail on how to derive some of the numbers, the algorithm, etc. Again, this is assuming there is an easy conversion or lookup from Lat & Long to hex (I make this assumption because there is a Center Lat. & Long. displayed when you hover your cursor over a hex)

Deriving the maximum latitude for a vessel is probably one of the easier calculations here, just normalize vessel.inclination to be between 0 & 90.

if Math.abs(vessel.inclination) > 90 )
    max_lat = 180 - (Math.abs( vessel.inclination) )
else
    max_lat = Math.abs( vessel.inclination )

Getting the average surface speed is a bit trickier. I don't know of a good way to calculate it, but I think it should be possible to ask for it while the vessel is active. Then you can have a limitation that to enable AFV scanning, you must activate the scanner and then complete an orbit (pass apoapsis twice) without running out of power or going above scanning altitude, and while doing that you can sample the surface velocity to get an average (or just find the minimum... we are sacrificing accuracy here, why not make things simple and not have to worry about time warp when trying to calculate the average?) Feel free to suggest better alternatives here, I imagine someone with an astrophysics degree could do better calculating it.

Next, hex diameter. This may already be known to Kethane, but if not, here's how I would derive it. Figure out the surface area of the body (4 * pi * CelestialBody.radius^2 ), divide the total surface area by the number of hexes to get an approx. surface area per hex. You can approximate a hex with a circle, so use the area of a circle formula (Area = Pi * radius^2) to solve for the radius and also, hex diameter. The simplified version should look something like this: (note that the two Pi cancel)

 hex_diameter = 2 * Math.sqrt( 4 * CelestialBody.Radius^2 / number_hexes )

You can get the time spent away from vessel by comparing the universal time when you unfocus the vessel and when you reload it. Using that time diff, the hex diameter, and the surface speed, it should be simple to get the number of hexes to unveil: time_away * surface_speed / hex_diameter. After this, its a simple loop:

for (int i = 0; i < num_hexes_to_unveil ; i++)
{
    latitude =  RandomFloat( -max_lat , max_lat);
    longitude = RandomFloat( -180.0, 180.0);
    uncoverHexAt( latitude, longitude);
}

Note that alot of this is psudocode, but I think it gets the point across. Yes, there are some tricks and mathematical hand-waving, but remember that the whole point of this approach is to sacrifice accuracy for accessibility, so I'm trying to make simplifying assumptions.

[Angelo Kerman]

Why do we need to do a hex scan? Asteroids are rather small compared to planets, so I could see the scanners simply taking time to scan the whole asteroid. The code could detect that you're attached to an asteroid or are near one, and then you start scanning. Once scanning is done, a context button on the part or a status text would tell you how much is there.

I don't see asteroids having much kethane compared to planets either. Either the units available are fixed by asteroid class (E being the biggest might have, say, at most 15,000 units), or you'd take a percentage of the asteroid's total mass.

Just my thoughts.

[notfirestorm]

Why do we need to do a hex scan? Asteroids are rather small compared to planets, so I could see the scanners simply taking time to scan the whole asteroid. The code could detect that you're attached to an asteroid or are near one, and then you start scanning. Once scanning is done, a context button on the part or a status text would tell you how much is there.

I don't see asteroids having much kethane compared to planets either. Either the units available are fixed by asteroid class (E being the biggest might have, say, at most 15,000 units), or you'd take a percentage of the asteroid's total mass.

Just my thoughts.

The scanning discussion was for scanning planets and moons while not focused on the scanning vessel, and had nothing to do with asteroids. Sorry for the confusion =)

[taniwha]

"Scanning" of asteroids is likely to involve surface samples. Or at least that's my plan for when I get back to working on it.

[Jananton]

Small question. Is the dll in the plugins folder named MMI_Kethane.dll in the 0.8.5 pack supposed to be 0 bytes? From the log file I can see KSP doesn't really like that. ;-)

Greets,

Jan

[Galane]

Yes, it's supposed to be 0 bytes. You can safely delete it. The only reason it's there is in case someone overwrites a much older version with the new one instead of deleting the old version like they should.

[Jananton]

Thanks for the info, pruning now. ;-)

Greets,

Jan

[hotwag]

Hi All,

Having trouble with Kethane in VAB. I am unable to attach either scanner unit, and whenever I attempt, the VAB breaks down, and I have to scrap my craft with the NEW button to get it to respond again.

Anyone else experience this? Anyone have a solution?

Thanks!

Michael

[Jananton]

This has probably been asked before, but searching didn't really provide a satisfying answer. ;-)

When scanning the planet surface for kethane deposits am I right to presume this only works when the scanning device is on the active vehicle / vessel? In other words, although switched on no scan is performed when another craft is the active one.

@Michael: This won't help you now, but I've no problems with the kethane scanner in the VAB, the small one that is, I haven't unlocked the bigger one yet.

Check the version of KSP you're using (should be 0.23.5 for the version down loadable via this thread) and that you installed all from the zip archive in the right place.

Greets,

Jan

[TheReaper]

Hello i have several questions,

is there a save file related to kethane overlay grid scanning? so far i havent found anything related, the game obviously saves my scan so it must be somwhere, i would like to edit it so i can get maximum or enough of scan of any planet , my time on computer is limited and i wish not to spend hours on just watcihng my probe orbit,

, if nothing helpfull ,will scanning for planets possible when you are not actualy piloting the ship in future updates, like passive scan, if still not maybe new scaning parts or models that allow faster scan without skiiping hexes or increasing the scan beam radius

thank you in advance

Edited June 11, 2014 by TheReaper

[Andrew Hansen]

I've encountered something very strange. First of all, when I was in the Tracking Station or in Map View, I wasn't able to see the Kethane scan map, despite the "Show map" thing checked (I don't remember exactly what it's called). But on the main menu, Kerbin had the hexagonal Kethane map showing on it just fine. I decided maybe it was time to upgrade Kethane, so I grabbed the latest version.

But now when I load up KSP, it acts as if I don't have Kethane installed at all. I tried removing it, re-downloading Kethane, and installing it again, but it still acts as if there's no Kethane installed. All my ships that use Kethane parts aren't loading.

My other mods are working just fine though. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be?

[Majiir]

Kethane 0.8.6 has been released. The download link on the first post has been updated.

This update makes notable improvements to the Kethane API, making it easier for third-party modders to extend and incorporate Kethane functionality in their mods. It also contains various fixes and improvements.

Changes in this version:

• Enabled toggling of converters, detectors, extractors and generators from EVA. Thanks oobayly for the pull request.
  
• Resource selector buttons now wrap around the resource list at each end.
  
• Fixed a number of issues which could cause the grid overlay or other UI elements to render incorrectly.
  
• Added CellularResourceGenerator, an abstract base class which makes it much easier to write resource generator plugins for Kethane. See this post for an example.
  
• Changed visibility from internal to public for all Kethane API components. Only utility classes remain internal.
  
• Kethane will automatically delete the empty MMI_Kethane.dll file on startup, so it shouldn't clutter up debug logs any longer.
  
• Packaged ModStatistics 1.0.1 with the installation.
  
• Fixed an incorrect part configuration which cluttered the debug log with texture load errors.
  
• Removed obsolete fixes for old KSP bugs (ScaledSpaceFix and KSPAddonFixed).
  
• Made various improvements to the geodesic grid code.

[Jananton]

Hello i have several questions,

second is there a save file related to kethane overlay grid scanning? so far i havent found anything related, the game obviously saves my scan so it must be somwhere, i would like to edit it so i can get maximum or enough of scan of any planet , my time on computer is limited and i wish not to spend hours on just watcihng my probe orbit,

The scan data are preserved in the persistent.sfs file in your Saves/<name of current started game> folder. I presume you can copy that part for safe keeping for future use. ;-)

Greets

Jan

[DMagic]

Changed visibility from internal to public for all Kethane API components. Only utility classes remain internal.

Excellent. Now I can finally get my hands on MapOverlay.

[stryth]

Will this update work without the mod statistics folder if I haven't run it yet? i'd rather not have any unneeded plugins on my game.

[Majiir]

Will this update work without the mod statistics folder if I haven't run it yet? i'd rather not have any unneeded plugins on my game.

Kethane will run fine without it, but keep the following in mind:

• ModStatistics is very lightweight and won't impact your game's performance.
  
• The recommended way to disable ModStatistics is to use its settings.cfg file. This is because any number of mods could be distributing it, and unless you disable it in the configuration, it could still appear later and start running. You can try to remove ModStatistics from every mod you download, but something may slip through or be bundled with another DLL.