[1.12.5] Gradual Progression Tech Tree - A mod-focused, slower early game tech tree (0.2.3)

[loki130]

Github Download

Spacedock Download

Requires Module Manager

Distributed under a Creative Commons 4.0 NonCommercial-Attribution-ShareAlike license, and uses some tech icons originally created for Community Tech Tree by Nertea, with the same license.

It was built using ksp-techtree-edit, but reworked to function through MM patches and so does not require the YongeTech plugin.

Additional Credits:

@Alex Starlight for node adjustment and lost-and-found tech

 

Gradual Progression Tech Tree is a tech tree built with 3 broad goals in mind:

• Take better advantage of some major part packs, in particular BDB and Nertea’s mods, without being held back by concerns over compatibility with different mod combinations.

• Make tech progression a bit more “rational”, focusing on increased capabilities rather than arbitrary distinctions of size that inconvenience the player without substantially affecting what they can achieve.

• Give an RP-1-like feeling of early progression, advancing gradually from early sounding rockets to first satellites to crewed spaceflight, while still working with the actual gameplay balance rather than getting caught up in historical reenactment.

 

In short, it is a probes-first tree built for mod-heavy campaigns with gradual (but hopefully not painfully slow) progression through more of the eras of early spaceflight. All of the nodes are new, so only parts from supported mods will appear, though as a fallback option there's a Lost and Found tech with 1 science cost, so unsupported mod parts may appear there and you can unlock those whenever it seems appropriate.

Aside from the tech tree, GPTT also includes a couple patches to tweak the science value return of the stock magnetomer from 45 to 5 to be more in line with mod magnetometers and the USI sounding rocket experiments all down from 25 to 4 for better balance as starting parts.

Compatibility

Spoiler

GPTT is naturally incompatible with any other tech trees like CTT or SkyHawk, but otherwise should generally work fine with any other campaign mods.

It is incompatible with HideEmptyTechTreeNodes (because of how the modulemanager patch ordering works), but if you have at least the most recommended part packs below you shouldn't see many empty intermediary techs, and a lot of the more mod-unique techs are already set to hide when empty.

I have had an issue with Kerbal Construction Time where it spams the log with exceptions the first time you leave the R&D building in a new campaign (it seems to be related to how KCT detects tech prerequisites), but this clears if you reenter R&D or do any other scene change and doesn't seem to reoccur or cause any lasting issues.

In terms of requirements, ModuleManager is the only hard dependency, but the tree is specifically built with some part packs in mind and will only really function as a balanced game if these are included:

• Bluedog Design Bureau is the most important, as most of the chemical rocketry and science branches are built around it and will be quite bare without it; the stock reliant, for example, doesn't unlock until the 5th liquid fuel rockets tech.
• USI Sounding Rockets provides many of the starting parts; without it you'll probably have to cheat your way to either powered flight or the starting science, avionics, and rocketry techs
• Near Future Technologies is the basis for most of the late midgame power and engine techs
• Far Future Technologies is the basis for the endgame engine techs.

In terms of other part packs, again only supported parts will actually appear in the tree, and similarly upgrades have to be patched in. I'll list out the currently supported mods here and also maintain a spreadsheet on the github repository with links and compatibility notes, but to start out with the two most notable exceptions for mods not supported at this time are:

• Interstellar Extended: it's a very big modpack with a lot of new functionality and I've never actually played with it, so I may get around to it eventually but I'm not sure how well it will integrate into the NFT/FFT-focused tree
• For Life Support Mods, the tree was built with USI-LS, and many parts from other mods are placed based on their performance with it,  but there is provisional support for TAC-LS and I may look at others in the near future.

In terms of mods that are supported:

Highly recommended to fill out sections of the tree:

• Kerbal Atomics for NTR engines
• Cryo Engines for hydrolox and metholox engines, and placement of some stock and NFT engines assumes use of the patches for NFAero, NFLV, and Restock
• Restock and Restock Plus to work with above
• Station Parts Expansion Redux for habitation parts
• Heat Control for thermal control parts
• Airplane Plus for early aircraft engines
• USI-LS is again the intended life support mod

Also integrate quite well:

• Dmagic
• SCANsat
• Coatl Aerospace Probes Plus (download from github repository, not releases)
• Feline Utility Rovers
• System Heat
• WaterDrinker (potential Airplane Plus alternative, but somewhat different TWR balance)
• Deep Freeze (gets a dedicated tech)
• Mk2 Expansion
• Supplementary Electric Engines (fills out early electric engine tree a bit)
• Kerbal Planetary Base Systems
• MkIV Spaceplane System
• Civilian Popuation Modernized (gets a dedicated endgame tech)
• OSE Workshop Reworked (gets a dedicated tech)
• Malemute
• Planetside Exploration Technologies MMSEV (wind power parts get some dedicated techs; patches for usi-ls available here https://github.com/Grimmas/Benjee10_MMSEV/tree/patch-usi )

Also variously well supported:

• TAC-LS
• Taerobee
• Tantares
• TantaresLV
• TantaresSP
• TantaresSAF
• Rational Resources
• GemstoneLV
• JX2 Antenna
• Simple Adjustable Fairings
• HullcamVDS Continued
• Tundra Exploration
• Kerbal Reusability Expansion
• SXT Continued
• SpaceY Heavy Lifters
• KIS
• KAS
• Tarsier Space Technology
• Research Bodies
• Buffalo 2
• MOLE
• RealChute
• QuizTech Aero Pack Continued
• Mk3 Stockalike Expansion
• Mk-X
• RLA Reborn
• SSR Microsat
• Fuji
• Bumblebee
• Universal Storage 2
• Bon Voyage
• Sterling Systems
• Ground Construction
• Extraplanetary Launchpads
• Breaking Ground
• Making History
• MKS
• Firespitter
• Kerbal Foundries 2
• Sandcastle
• Knes
• Completely NonAggressive Rockets
• Boring Crew Services

Tree Layout and Design

Spoiler

The tree is arranged somewhat similarly to ETT, radiating out from the center into a number of branches, with mostly independent progression along each one but a fair few interconnections where they make sense and help control progression. Tech science cost follows a curve broadly similar to stock/CTT, though the greater number of starting branches generally means a higher total cost to reach each tier in at least the early game. There are also a number of techs cheaper than their predecessors, representing cases where most of the fundamental research has already been done and it just takes a little more investment to apply it to new cases (e.g. surface labs combining research from surface habitation and orbital labs).

Techs can broadly be divided into 15 main tiers—though plenty of individual techs have intermediate costs—with each tier generally corresponding to a historical period, but with a fair few adjustments for gameplay balance, particularly towards the later tiers where I want to allow for non-historical techs and we start getting into the future (though the last few tiers are basically just FFT techs).

 

Tier	Era	Cost	Reference Examples
1	1920	1	WW1/interwar aircraft, early rocket experiments
2	1950	5	Jets, V2, sounding rockets
3	1955	20	X-1, Jupiter, Sputnik
4	1960	40	X-15, Atlas, Mercury, Luna
5	1965	80	Titan, Gemini, Surveyor, Mariner
6	1970	150	Saturn, Apollo, Lunokhod
7	1980	250	Shuttle, Skylab, Viking, Voyager
8	2000	400	Merlin, NERVA, Skylon, ISS, Cassini, Hubble
9	2010	600	Kepler, Dawn
10	2020	900	Starship, Orion, Mars mission
11	2050	2000	Advanced fission, Fusion, advanced ions, outer planet missions
12	2100	3000	NSWR, antimatter, colonies
13	2200	5000	Advanced NSWR, intermediate Fusion, cryogenics
14	2300	8000	Advanced Fusion
15	2500	10000	Beam-core Antimatter

Here’s a quick run through the logic and recommended mod compatibility for the major branches of the tree:

Atmospheric Engines

A fairly straightforward tree: Powered Flight only costs 1 science and gives both early engines and basic aircraft parts, allowing for a flight-first approach, and in general aircraft tech is cheaper than in stock; Easy progression can be made along a few cheap propellor and helicopter techs built around Airplane Plus’s engines, and then an extra mid-game tech holds tiltrotors and electric propellors. The jet techs are a bit more expensive, but ramjets are still much cheaper than in stock to make midgame SSTOs a bit more viable, and then there’s a vectoring/VTOL branch and a scramjet tech that for now just holds the one Mk2 Expansion engine.

Airplane Plus is the main mod recommended to make best use of this branch, but WaterDrinker, SXT, and Mk2 Expansion also work well.

Chemical Rocketry

Split into solid, monoprop, LFO/methalox, and hydrolox branches, all mostly built about BDB. They’re generally split into surface- and vac-optimized lines (except for monoprop), and individual engine placement is mostly based on Isp, with a few adjustments for TWR, and tiny vac engines are also generally placed a bit later.

The solid fuel branch is all fairly cheap, giving you an option for quick progression if you can deal with the control limitations, with one extra mid-game tech covering advanced solid fuel concepts like metal-oxygen rockets from Rational Resources or air-breathing solid rockets from Mk 2 Expansion.

The monoprop branch is just a single vac line, giving slightly quicker access to higher-end vac engines, but at the cost of losing some potential progression towards the upper-end LFO/hydrolox engines; and also branches to the RCS techs.

The LFO line is fairly long to take proper advantage of the BDB engines (and honestly could have been even longer, but I wanted each tech to feel like a tangible upgrade), with the stock reliant and swivel only unlocking at the 5th tech, and the whole line is capped off with a pair of techs for the CryoEngines methalox rockets.

And finally the hydrolox branch is fairly short, to the point that some engines may be effectively outdated by others as soon as they’re unlocked, but I figured if it was too long it might discourage its use compared to nukes and ion engines that start unlocking at about the same time. The hydrolox and methalox branches both reach the same maximum cost of 400 science, but the hydrolox branch is a bit shorter, giving a bit of tradeoff between going for the greater flexibility of LFO/methalox versus aiming to get higher Isp earlier.

Finally, there’s a short offshoot line for aerospikes and then R.A.P.I.E.R. and similar dual/mode engines (also requiring ramjets), with an extra tech for the air-augmented rockets included in a few mods.

The earlier techs are built largely around BDB and that’s perhaps the most critical mod for the overall tree to work well; TantaresLV also works okay but tends to unlock a bit later than you might expect because of their high Isp; and the later parts of the tree tend to work best with CryoEngines.

Power, Thermal, and Ion engines

The entry power storage tech unlocks all battery parts (aside from a couple starting ones), because they all seem to have about the same power density.

At the top, there’s a couple midgame wind power nodes specifically for the MMSEV parts, one for starting conventional windmills and one for the more flexible and robust vertical wind turbines.

Fuel cells is the cheapest power production tech (20 science), leading then to nuclear power (and a tech for near future’s capacitors), with 2 RTG techs split based on power density and then 2 reactor techs split based on a total output of 1000 Ec/s, with the latter reactor tech unlocking fuel cannisters and so allowing for in-flight reactor refueling, and then a final nuclear processing tech unlocks the NFT fuel reprocessor and FFT smelter. The overall cost curve is intended to be significant investment for early/mid game but still accessible for anyone who wants to commit early to outer planet probes or NTRs.

Solar power is split into an admittedly fairly gamey progression of static panels, deploying panels, and sun-tracking panels, then Solar Wings for deploying panels over ~12 Ec/s and a final tech for large rollout/blanket panels or a few other mod parts with high power density. The entry cost is a bit high for early game but then stays fairly low thereafter.

Conversely, the thermal branch starts cheap to give reasonably easy access to the heat shields tech, but then rapidly increases in cost to access the Heat Control high-temperature and graphene radiators, and a final tech for the Sterling Systems liquid film radiators, making them heavy investments that might be worth it for easier management of the FFT engines.

The ion/electric engines branch is also placed here for convenience, though it’s also locked behind more expensive science techs; it’s generally built around NFP engines with some allowance for other mods such as Supplementary Electric Engines; the first tech unlocks the NFP pulsed plasma rcs thruster, as well as any resistojets from other mods; the second tech unlocks basic ion engines and arcjets, and then later techs unlock higher-efficiency ion engines; this then branches off to a line for the NFP magnetoplasmadynamic and pulsed inductive thrusters. The cumulative cost is generally quite high compared to other midgame engine branches, though notably a bit lower than in CTT as somewhat a concession to these being somewhat unattractive engines gameplay-wise.

As you might expect, this whole tree works best with Near Future Technologies, though it’s not critical for the early progression; I also recommend picking up Supplementary Electric Engines for the early ion techs, Heat Control for thermal parts and the Sterling Systems liquid film radiators if you want a good endgame radiator option to go with FFT, though the rest of the Sterling submods aren’t all that well supported. RLA Reborn also adds a couple decent early electric engines.

Nuclear and Antimatter Engines

Lategame engine techs broadly follow 3 branches that branch of the nuclear reactor line but then stay independent, giving a bit of a potential tradeoff: fission offers the best early rewards and generally higher TWR, but terminates the soonest in terms of maximum Isp; antimatter requires a very high entry cost with fewer early benefits but ultimately leads to the most powerful engine in the game; and fusion is a bit of a compromise between the two.

The entry-level NTR tech comes at 400 science, intended to be high but achievable for the earlyish midgame, and then 3 more techs roughly cover the range of increasing Isp and thrust for both BDB and Kerbal Atomics engines, and then a couple branching techs cover combinations with jet techs for air-breathing and aerospike NTRs.

The other techs are then pretty much all built around FFT. Nuclear Pulse Propulsion branches off from the middle solid-core NTR tech with a cost of 1,000 science, a bit of a compromise between wanting it theoretically available as early as the midgame for alt-history fun but not wanting such a powerful engine to obviate the importance of NTRs and Ion engines; the enormous unlock cost in funds should help provide a bit of an extra barrier. This then leads into a couple more lategame techs covering various other FFT fission engines (NSWR, fission fragment, and pulsed fission).

Nuclear fusion branches off from the reactor tree, with overall costs generally balanced against the advanced fission line to try and ensure neither is obviously superior, with fusion generally offering higher efficiency but lower TWR at each tier.

And then finally antimatter branches off from the plasma propulsion line and nuclear reactor lines because I didn’t really have a better place to put it, wanted it to have a high cumulative entry cost, and didn’t want it too close to the fission or fusion lines. Note that though the antimatter-catalyzed fission and fusion drives unlock here, they need fuel tanks unlocked by the entry-level techs from the other lines.

There is also one final 15,000 science FTL tech that’s empty and hidden for the moment, but I’m sure I’ll add some warp drive mod eventually.

Far Future Technologies is, of course, the recommended mod for most of this section of the tree; The Sterling Systems engines and reactors are in there but don’t fill out the tree too well, and eventually I’ll probably add some Interstellar support but I’m not going to adjust the tree structure for it (though I can maybe add some side techs for stuff like solar sails at least). For the NTR branch, you could just get away with stock and BDB, but Kerbal Atomics and Near Future Aeronautics work best for the later techs.

Structural, Fuel, and Docking

The airframes branch along the top covers most aircraft parts and is all quite cheap, with Supersonic Airframes (for Mk 2 parts) and Heavy Airframes (for Mk3 and similar large mod aircraft) each costing just 40 science; in principle you might use this as cheap access to large tanks (though I’ve put some of the bigger LFO parts in the fuel tanks line instead), but I guess don’t do that if you want the intended progression. There’s also an extra tech for airbrakes, grid fins, and similar advanced aerodynamics parts, and a Huge Airframes tech essentially just for the Mk IV mod, but maybe I’ll add OPT eventually as well.

The structural branch is split into a construction line for adapters, decouplers, fairings, engine plates, etc., and a fuel tank line, both split based on size into <0.625, 0.625-1.5, 1.875-3, 3-4.5, and >4.5 m tiers, though with the quirk that the second size tier comes first and is split up a bit differently such that you can get some basic fuel tanks and parts for staging before unlocking fairings and >0.625 m decouplers. Each tier unlocks all parts for that diameter, because it’s a bit of an arbitrary inconvenience to require you to stack shorter tanks rather than have access to longer ones, save that the smallest 0.625 m tanks unlock with the Specialized Tanks tech, as that’s more of a substantial barrier to building small upper stages and probes. The whole tree is fairly cheap, topping out at 250 science for the largest tanks, the idea being that it should take some investment to build gigantic rockets but it should never be a serious barrier, and the alternating unlocking of construction and tank techs also allows for Saturn-IB-like kludges of sticking tanks together to cheat your way to larger sizes before unlocking the proper tanks.

Branching off from the structural tree is a somewhat expensive tech for fuel pumps; a couple techs for robotics and then grapplers; and then the docking ports line, starting with some small gendered docking ports from BDB; then unlocking androgynous ports up to 1.875 m; then a final tech for larger docking ports.

Parachutes get their own independent 2-tech line, because I wanted them available very early on and they don’t really tie into anything else (I could have them lead into inflatable habs, but it’d be annoying to get the arrow through neatly and it’s a bit pointless given the relative cost); one entry tech for main chutes and then a second tech for drogue and radial chutes. Maybe at some point I’ll add balloon mods and branch them off of here.

This overall branch should work basically fine with any mod combination, though for the starting docking ports you need either BDB or Tantares.

Command, Habitation, and Surface

The avionics line is fairly straightforward, with one entry-level tech (branching from basic science) for basic probe cores with no SAS modes, one for stability assist, and then one for everything else, because I don’t think the extra SAS modes past prograde/retrograde are really worth any extra investment; and then 2 extra techs unlock cores with remote guidance and non-command reaction wheel parts.

The first crew capsule tech unlocks at 40 science—87 cumulatively with all prerequisites, and more realistically probably around 150ish to get all the other necessary components. That hopefully ensures there’s a substantial pre-crew early game without making it too hard a goal to reach fairly quickly if you want to. You can in principle just use the cockpits from Powered Flight to do crewed spaceflight early, but I guess don’t do that. There are then 3 more capsule tiers for 2-crew Gemini-like capsules, 3+ crew capsules, and a final tech for various mod capsule with very high crew density or other nice features.

The habitation branch is a bit of a tangled mess to cover various habitation functionalities, and may not work well across different life support mods; at this point I’ve only balanced it for USI-LS, mostly with SPX and BDB parts. Habitation spaces are generally spaced out based on crew capacity and habitation time, first unlocking 1- or 2- crew modules as well as orbital command pods for early landers; then larger hab spaces as well as supply containers; and then branching out into the top line for ever greater habitation times and multipliers; the middle two techs for structural habitation concerns, unlocking first parts for modular station construction; and then the bottom science/life support line, unlocking first labs, then recyclers (most dedicated life support recyclers should be locked here, but some do get accessed earlier in labs and advanced capsules), then agriculture parts of increasing scale. The Huge Station Components tech is a bit of kludge to lock some large BDB and SPX parts behind both habitation and life support research, and then there’s a final endgame Colonization tech for the Civilian Population mod. The overall cost curve is meant to make habitation and life support a significant concern in the midgame but still not make it too hard to get what you need for interplanetary vessels and generally unlock everything before the lategame, with the funds cost to launch and supply stations and vessels probably being the greater concern.

The surface exploration line first unlocks basic landing legs and rover wheels, and then the later 2 techs serve as a bit of a catchall for various surface-related parts, including rover parts, larger wheels and landing legs, and BDB’s Icarus mun hopper, though I split off any boat parts into a separate tech, and there’s also a couple techs for habs and labs intended specifically for surface use; there’s also a preliminary EVA tech which basically just serves as a place to put inventory parts, the jetpack probably being the most significant.

Finally, there’s a couple mid-lategame techs for early parts production like in OSE Workshop and full extraplanetary vessel construction, though I haven’t used these sorts of mods much so I’m not certain how well they’re balanced.

The capsule line naturally works best with BDB, though Tantares, M.O.L.E., or Making History could also work with it; the habitation techs are built around BDB and Station Parts Expansion Redux; the life support/agriculture line is for now just built to support USI-LS; Buffalo2, Feline Utility, and the Malemute rovers are all supported for heavy vehicles.

Science and Comms

Comms parts follow a fairly straightforward progression along tiers of 1 M, 100 M, 5 G, 20 G, 200 G, and unlimited max power, though a couple very light 16 M antenna in BDB are placed a tech later so they don’t immediately obsolete heavier parts. Direct comms and relays are split to encourage sending early probes before being able to undertake more complex multi-vessel missions, following the same progression save that no relays unlock at the first tier and the final tier is just relays because I haven’t seen many mods with direct antennae for over 200 G.

The science tree is based mostly around BDB and DMagic, and is generally a compromise between a sensible arrangement that somewhat follows historical progression while still working with the gameplay balance (though I did add a patch to bring the stock magnetometer’s science return down to be in line with mod magnetometers, because it seemed silly to push it out to some later tech, and also reduce the science return of the USI sounding rockets to work better as starter science instruments). It’s hard to say how well balanced it is, I’ve mostly kept the costs fairly low to ensure that you’re not unlocking parts for more than the science you ultimately get out of them, and generally the idea is you should be more restricted by your ability to send out more missions to different bodies rather than availability of instruments to send on those missions. Generally the most expensive tree is imagery along the bottom, which is intended to work well with BDB’s intended film recovery gameplay, requiring you to recover the earliest film parts and then progressively unlocking parts that can transmit a larger portion of their data.

The end of the tree leads into resource surveying and ISRU, which are mostly kept on separate branches to help encourage diverse research and generally intended to become available around the midgame, and there’s a couple extra lategame techs for special NFT/FFT ISRU parts. I considered having more connections between the science tree and other branches, but it would’ve ended up looking very tangled and I think I prefer letting the progression be a little more flexible; as it is, the communications branch gets a short radio astronomy line, electromagnetic research leads into ion engines so that it requires a bit more leadup than just the basic power tech, and materials studies leads into labs because that should be tied into the science tree somehow, as well as a lategame cryogenics tech for DeepFreeze which doesn’t quite fit in anywhere else.

This whole tree is mostly built around BDB, but DMagic, Coatl Aerospace Probes Plus, Tantares SP, and ScanSat all integrate well with it.

Here's all these detail images reassembled into one big tree if anyone wants that:

 

This is the initial release so the tree still needs a fair bit of testing, both for overall balance and playability and part placement errors; BDB has a lot of multi-function parts and many mod packs add functionality as other mods are installed, so let me know if you see any parts that seem overpowered for their tier or oddly placed, and in general I'm looking for feedback at this point on the overall feel of the tree, and I'm also open to requests for extra mod integration. I'm doing my own playthrough of this tree in the Kcalbeloh system at 2.56x scale and I may start posting mission reports in a separate thread, but that's a rather different starting situation than the stock system.

Note, however, that I did this all as a bit of a lark and hyperfocused on it for a while, and it's entirely possible I may move on to other projects at some point, so if that happens, I very much encourage people to fork or otherwise develop on this tree themselves. For now, though, have fun and tell me how it goes.

 

Edited Sunday at 12:45 PM by loki130

[bigyihsuan]

Ooo new tree. Might check it out on a JNSQ run.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

Hi - thought I'd give this a go. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

I think you might also have an incompatibility with HideEmptyTechTreeNodes. Screenshot shows my tree with it installed. Seems ok once I removed it.

Spoiler

 

[loki130]

25 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Hi - thought I'd give this a go. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

I think you might also have an incompatibility with HideEmptyTechTreeNodes. Screenshot shows my tree with it installed. Seems ok once I removed it.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I think this is because most parts are added to the tree with one big modulemanager patch run after everything else (because rather than adding parts mod-by-mod with individual patches like a lot of other trees are done, I made the tree in techtree edit and then made a python script to pull parts from there and put them together in one big patch) and HideEmptyTechTreeNodes is seeing the tree before that. I'll make a note about the incompatibility, I think it shouldn't be an issue to play without it because if you have at least BDB and NFT there shouldn't be many empty intermediary nodes at least in the earlier parts of the tree, and I've already made a lot of the more mod-specific offshoot techs hideable.

[bigyihsuan]

Think this could be put onto CKAN?

[loki130]

4 minutes ago, bigyihsuan said:

Think this could be put onto CKAN?

Probably, and spacedock too, just wanted to wait to see if any obvious issues popped up

[The Dressian Exploder]

This looks really nice, definitely gonna have to give it a try! Have you considered CNAR or Knes compatibilty at all? I think it'd fill out the lineup of historical rockets nicely. Another thing that might be worth doing, if it isn't already the case, is mapping all the techs in the tree to stock techs (i.e using the same name as them in configs) so every mod has at least some level of compatiblity. You might also want to consider testing with AlphaMensae's Modular Launch Pads, which adds its own tech nodes.

Edited November 20 by The Dressian Exploder

[SheepDog2142]

This looks really good. Ive been working at doing something similar with unkerbalized start. Got around 40 mods supports 90% but this looks like a way better distribution to me.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

4 hours ago, loki130 said:

I made the tree in techtree edit and then made a python script to ...

I've always wondered about tech tree mods: do you have to make decisions on every part that appears in the tree? And does that require looking at the part or at least knowing what it is/does? I'm wondering how much tooling you have to help, or if it's just hardcore manual labor?

[loki130]

 

4 hours ago, The Dressian Exploder said:

This looks really nice, definitely gonna have to give it a try! Have you considered CNAR or Knes compatibilty at all? I think it'd fill out the lineup of historical rockets nicely. Another thing that might be worth doing, if it isn't already the case, is mapping all the techs in the tree to stock techs (i.e using the same name as them in configs) so every mod has at least some level of compatiblity. You might also want to consider testing with AlphaMensae's Modular Launch Pads, which adds its own tech nodes.

Good mods to look into, though I'm not certain where to put the knes shuttle; in general I'm not sure I've found a good solution to shuttle parts, because are lot could probably be best considered aircraft parts, which I want to be available fairly quickly, so it then it maybe feels like shuttle parts are a bit too accessible early on but there's no clear distinction to draw between aircraft and shuttle parts.

As to mapping stock nodes onto the tree, I've made a conscious decision not to, they mostly just don't have a good correspondance and so unsupported mod parts would end up in very weird places. For now it's more important to me that any parts on the tree are placed well than that all parts are on the tree regardless of mod list. Though again the stock nodes are still present as hidden techs to at least give you the option to unlock any unsupported parts that turn up there.
 

1 hour ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

I've always wondered about tech tree mods: do you have to make decisions on every part that appears in the tree? And does that require looking at the part or at least knowing what it is/does? I'm wondering how much tooling you have to help, or if it's just hardcore manual labor?

ksp-techtree-edit has a graphic interface which makes it a little easier, but the YongeTech plugin it's supposed to work with doesn't really function well anymore so I had to figure out a bit of a hack to convert it to modulemanager patches. But yeah, it is basically placing parts one-by-one: the general layout of the tree was decided mostly based on the combination of BDB, NFT, FFT, CryoEngines, and Airplane Plus, and then parts from most other packs were placed where they best fit in that layout, though I made a few extra branches here and there for a few mods where they're a bit more unique (like wind power from MMSEV). If you look through the layout and design description it gives you a bit of a sense of the rules for how parts are placed, for engines it's mostly down to Isp but with some considerations for size and TWR, for structural and fuel tanks parts it's basically just radius, etc.

 

[loki130]

(doublepost, forum weirdness)

Edited November 21 by loki130

[loki130]

Version 0.2

github

- Added mod support:
    - Knes: Mostly works quite well with some good early rockets, but a few odd parts; overpowered rcs units placed in Electric Engine Concepts on the logic that we could imagine they're resistojets?
    - Completely NonAgressive Rockets: Provides some good early rockets, though the command parts don't quite fit.
- Fixes:
    - Moved a number of NFT and RLA pod parts accidentally placed in the capsules line to avionics
    - Switched Wind Power to depend on Power Storage rather than the reverse.
- Balance:
    - Shifted around some of the BDB Leo service module parts: those with crew capacity are moved into Orbital modules (as well as the Kane service module for now), the rest into Advanced RCS. Still not totally happy having USI life support recyclers available so early, but don't want to make them inaccessible at the point you're using the Leo capsule, might look into patching in a part upgrade for that.
    - Moved the BDB TNSS-5BN power and comms section from Solar Power to Orbital Relays
    - DMagic Soil Moisture Sensor moved to Solar System Relays, the experiment is just a free bonus now I suppose.
    - DMagic Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons moved to Surface Geology, I did not notice it was a surface-only experiment.
    - BDB Micro Goo Radiometer moved to Instrument Miniaturization
    - BDB Radek-716 moved to Space Environment Research and MRNR-340 moved to Radiation Studies
    - Lynx Drill moved to Resource Extraction
    - BDB BE-SLR227 reflector moved to Gravimetry
    - Halved the costs for Oceanic Exploration and Exooceanography given that they're both a bit part-bare so far.

Think that's probaby good enough to add to spacedock and ckan now

[Alex Starlight]

Man, this thing is sexier than a bacon strip <3 I really wanna try it out, but is there any chance you might support TAC-LS in the near future?

[610yesnolovely]

Congratulations! This looks very interesting indeed. Probes before crew and even planes before probes! BDB and Nerteaverse! Also amazing that there's already a lot of mod support.

For  sounding rockets, I found that CNAR, Taerobee and Wacapella (together with BDB) provided way enough. Required some fiddling as there's overlap (this was for Skyhawk Science System).

Also there's bound to be some kind souls who provide PRs for mods, and things like life support (TAC-LS) and ... perhaps even Kerbalism (Science only)? I dunno, one can dream.

 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

@loki130 Congrats on the huge release. You have my attention. I may send PRs your way very soon.

I have two things to poke you about:

1. Sterling Systems includes a vertical windmill and currently 3 parts for air-breathing TCS, all in the World Power family. None of these are placed properly. related: I have air-breathing TCS panels coming, for use on spaceplanes.
2. It's curious that the advanced windmill node is distinguished by a certain specific parameter (being a vertical tower) and not by a more abstract parameter (great volume or sheer height). I've given consideration to making another windmill part that is neither tiny nor a looming tower. The part may be an analog to one of the two brands of airborne wind turbines featured late in this video:
   
    

 

[loki130]

5 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@loki130 Congrats on the huge release. You have my attention. I may send PRs your way very soon.

I have two things to poke you about:

1. Sterling Systems includes a vertical windmill and currently 3 parts for air-breathing TCS, all in the World Power family. None of these are placed properly. related: I have air-breathing TCS panels coming, for use on spaceplanes.
2. It's curious that the advanced windmill node is distinguished by a certain specific parameter (being a vertical tower) and not by a more abstract parameter (great volume or sheer height). I've given consideration to making another windmill part that is neither tiny nor a looming tower. The part may be an analog to one of the two brands of airborne wind turbines featured late in this video:

Hi, thanks

I think I added Sterling Systems before I added the wind power nodes, so yeah, they should probably be moved now. In general Extraplanetary Construction has served as a bit of a dumping ground for various mod parts I'm not super familiar with, it probably needs to be revisited eventually.

The wind power nodes were made specifically for MMSEV, which simulates wind direction and speed, with the potential for windmills to break in high winds; the advantage of vertical turbines in that mod is that they are of course agnostic to wind direction and (mostly) have better tolerance to high winds. If there are going to be more wind power parts from different mods then a more generic approach might make sense, though it doesn't necessarily have to break down by size, the greater bulk and cost of larger parts can serve as its own balance even if they unlock early.

[loki130]

12 hours ago, 610yesnolovely said:

Congratulations! This looks very interesting indeed. Probes before crew and even planes before probes! BDB and Nerteaverse! Also amazing that there's already a lot of mod support.

For  sounding rockets, I found that CNAR, Taerobee and Wacapella (together with BDB) provided way enough. Required some fiddling as there's overlap (this was for Skyhawk Science System).

Also there's bound to be some kind souls who provide PRs for mods, and things like life support (TAC-LS) and ... perhaps even Kerbalism (Science only)? I dunno, one can dream.

 

 

CNAR and Taerobee do add some good early parts, and I should probably add wacapella, the main thing that USI sounding rockets specifically adds is the starter avionics, batteries, payload bay, parachute, and science parts.

I will probably take a go at TAC-LS and kerbalism support at some point soon, they don't really add many parts, the difficulty is 1, tracking down extra parts added by mods like planetary bases when these mods are installed; 2, dealing with things like upgrades or experiment unlocking that I think kerbalism does; and 3, seeing how well parts placed based on their performance with USI-LS work with these mods

[Zorg]

Looks pretty interesting! Its not easy maintaining support for large part mods especially with custom nodes so well done!

[loki130]

Version 0.2.1

github

- Properly updated the main parts patch for Knes and CNAR compatibility, oops
- Implemented AlexSkylark's adjustments and new lost and found node in place of having the stock nodes sitting on the left side of the tree
    - anyone wanting to make a patch note that I've also added the gptt_exclude node to hold parts not intended to appear in the tree (so they don't end up in lost and found), which then gets removed before gameplay.
- Added the Sterling wind turbine, but will need to revisit the other World Power parts later

[loki130]

Does anyone happen to know if there's a way to change the stock R&D background texture? Might be nice to add labels to the main branches.

[Alex Starlight]

Hey, awesome, thanks for adding my pull request to the mod

About changing the stock background image for the tech tree UI, that will probably require some coding, or maybe HUDReplacer can help with that. I can look that up for you

Edited Friday at 02:06 PM by Alex Starlight

[Yaroslav]

Is it possible to add localization files to the tree?.. I just don't have an English version, but another language, I know that the extended tree mod already has support for the Russian language by the name of the icons, can I try to add them to the mod files?

[AlphaMensae]

Modular Launch Pads has some custom tech tree nodes, they are arranged in a vertical column branching from the stock Start node. What does this tree do with them? Or are the parts moved elsewhere?  I prefer my parts be in separate nodes from rocket and plane parts, so I may have to add a patch to Modular Launch Pads to move my nodes to where this tree's Start node is.

[loki130]

1 hour ago, Yaroslav said:

Is it possible to add localization files to the tree?.. I just don't have an English version, but another language, I know that the extended tree mod already has support for the Russian language by the name of the icons, can I try to add them to the mod files?

I suppose if anyone made localization files I could add them in, but I don't think it would work to add them based on the icons, many are used for multiple nodes and some not really for the original intended meaning of the icon

26 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Modular Launch Pads has some custom tech tree nodes, they are arranged in a vertical column branching from the stock Start node. What does this tree do with them? Or are the parts moved elsewhere?  I prefer my parts be in separate nodes from rocket and plane parts, so I may have to add a patch to Modular Launch Pads to move my nodes to where this tree's Start node is.

I haven't gotten around to them yet, I figured I'd probably put them in the construction nodes based vaguely on the size of rocket they're intended to hold

[Yaroslav]

2 часа назад AlphaMensae сказал:

Modular Launch Pads имеет несколько пользовательских узлов дерева технологий, они расположены в вертикальной колонке, ответвляющейся от стокового стартового узла. Что с ними делает это дерево? Или детали перемещены в другое место? Я предпочитаю, чтобы мои детали были в отдельных узлах от частей ракеты и самолета, поэтому мне, возможно, придется добавить патч к модульным стартовым площадкам, чтобы переместить мои узлы туда, где находится начальный узел этого дерева.