[1.12.5] Gradual Progression Tech Tree - A mod-focused, slower early game tech tree (0.2.4)

[DeadJohn]

Can any of you recommend particular contract packs that work well with this?

I am playing career mode with JNSQ planets. I am trying to avoid the contracts bundled in BDB; I've used those too many times before.

@loki130 Thanks for sharing this. It looks like a fun, challenging, and deep tech tree.

 

[Splatpope]

On 12/7/2024 at 5:18 PM, DeadJohn said:

I am trying to avoid the contracts bundled in BDB; I've used those too many times before.

 

 

As I've just discovered, you cannot even do the contracts bundled with BDB because they have tech tree node requirements that are based on node names (i.e. Survivability, Basic Science, etc) which do not exist in this tree.

I've notified the BDB devs so that they can decide if they should keep such hardcoded logic (can't blame them for thinking tech tree names are set in stone, tbh :p), but maybe a workaround can be found here (dunno if it's possible, but maybe something like having invisible tech tree nodes with the required names, that get unlocked alongside the ones with the new names; pretty bold but such a system would solve everything)

Edited December 10 by Splatpope

[Splatpope]

I've had another problem : the Orbital Docking node is locked although it's requirements (Precision Components) are unlocked

[loki130]

12 hours ago, Splatpope said:

I've had another problem : the Orbital Docking node is locked although it's requirements (Precision Components) are unlocked

You might need to upgrade your R&D building, I think it's a slight bug where it gives you the wrong tooltip if the cost is exactly equal to your building research cost limit.

On 12/10/2024 at 9:24 PM, Splatpope said:

As I've just discovered, you cannot even do the contracts bundled with BDB because they have tech tree node requirements that are based on node names (i.e. Survivability, Basic Science, etc) which do not exist in this tree.

I've notified the BDB devs so that they can decide if they should keep such hardcoded logic (can't blame them for thinking tech tree names are set in stone, tbh :p), but maybe a workaround can be found here (dunno if it's possible, but maybe something like having invisible tech tree nodes with the required names, that get unlocked alongside the ones with the new names; pretty bold but such a system would solve everything)

This is something that could probably be handled here with an MM patch, I think I'd just have to go track down the contract defs and figure out suitable replacement techs

[Splatpope]

1 hour ago, loki130 said:

You might need to upgrade your R&D building, I think it's a slight bug where it gives you the wrong tooltip if the cost is exactly equal to your building research cost limit.

Confirmed after testing on a new career with cheated funds and science, thanks for the help !

[DeadJohn]

2 hours ago, loki130 said:

This is something that could probably be handled here with an MM patch, I think I'd just have to go track down the contract defs and figure out suitable replacement techs

Please consider renaming some of the nodes in your tree so every stock tech node still exists. Or insert new nodes with those stock names, give them a 1 unlock cost, and stick them next to your closest matching tech.

That would fix contracts while also providing default compatibility with part mods. Your current "loose ends" node will hold fewer parts, maybe none.

[ChainDragonPT]

I have unlocked the mechjeb features in the tech tree yet I cant use them as they do not appear in the menu while in flight, it does work in sandbox and if I unlocked everything using cheats in my science save.

Has anyone else had this problem and is there any fix?

I can provide logs if needed

[NuclearFish]

I really like the mod, it's a huge inspiration for the current tech tree mod I'm working on,  and I wanted to ask, what is the workaround you figured out to convert the tech tree editor tech tree to a module manager patch?

[Pxtseryu]

Hi - having a lot of fun with this tech tree, and starting a community effort in the KC discord to create patches. One thing I'd personally advise is spacing out the hydrolox branch a little bit with one or two extra nodes so the J2 isn't getting its second and third generation, and moving the RL10 upgrades around so you're not unlocking the non-prototype RL10s alongside the CryoEngines J2X. And potentially adding one more node to the aerodynamics branch for advanced concepts such as the shuttle.

 

Loving the tree so far. Keep it up.

[Pxtseryu]

A number of other design changes I'd personally suggest:

-Add two nodes on top of heavy airframes with costs of 300 and 600 science respectively, to allow for slotting in the SOCK and the MK-33 (Venturestar) SSTOs

-Move some of the smaller laboratories, such as the Mercury Lab, down a node

-Move MORL and the wet workshop version of skylab down a node as both are intended to be less capable than skylab, and move the VFB module into the node that the interplanetary workshop currently resides in

-Move the initial RL10 model (the prototype models) into Liquid2 alongside the LR-87LH2 to allow for some very early access to these parts, and to allow the RL10 itself to be spaced out a little, and move its operational variants to Hydrolox1.

 

[Pxtseryu]

@loki130 Created a image containing all of the node names for  the tech tree to make it easier for modders to place their parts into the tree once they find a node they'd like.  I'd consider putting this into the initial post.

I've also started a patch effort  for mods on the Kerbal Community discord server. If you have Discord feel free to reach out either through that discord or to me (user: PXTSERYU) on Discord - would be fun to collaborate with some of the modders there to make it as compatible as possible.

[loki130]

On 12/14/2024 at 2:43 PM, ChainDragonPT said:

I have unlocked the mechjeb features in the tech tree yet I cant use them as they do not appear in the menu while in flight, it does work in sandbox and if I unlocked everything using cheats in my science save.

Has anyone else had this problem and is there any fix?

I can provide logs if needed

I'm not entirely sure how mechjeb's upgrade system is supposed to work if I'm honest, I tried patching it but I'll take another whack at it

On 12/24/2024 at 4:09 PM, NuclearFish said:

I really like the mod, it's a huge inspiration for the current tech tree mod I'm working on,  and I wanted to ask, what is the workaround you figured out to convert the tech tree editor tech tree to a module manager patch?

From the editor, I save the tree as both a stock and yonge tree, edit the first line of the stock tree to read " @TechTree:FIRST " (or else you get issues with KCT), and then there's a python script on the github to read the yonge tree and write all included parts into an MM patch; you might have to edit the script to change the patch ordering for a different tree. Then the zzzzstock_nodes.cfg patch suppresses the stock nodes, except for start which is retained because you get a lot of compatibility issues without it.

14 hours ago, Pxtseryu said:

Hi - having a lot of fun with this tech tree, and starting a community effort in the KC discord to create patches. One thing I'd personally advise is spacing out the hydrolox branch a little bit with one or two extra nodes so the J2 isn't getting its second and third generation, and moving the RL10 upgrades around so you're not unlocking the non-prototype RL10s alongside the CryoEngines J2X. And potentially adding one more node to the aerodynamics branch for advanced concepts such as the shuttle.

 

Loving the tree so far. Keep it up.

Some interesting ideas, but one broad thing to establish first is that even though the tree is constructed in some ways to try to recreate some of the feeling of historical eras of spaceflight, ultimately the placement of individual parts is always based on their actual gameplay function and not what historical technology they're trying to represent.

- hydrolox engines:
These probably could be extended by an extra step and maybe an earlier lifter/vac split. I chose not too because if the hydrolox line is too long and cumulatively expensive, it might not be worth it at that point of the game compared to just pushing for NTRs. Now that I've played with this tree a bit though, hydrolox engines aren't actually that big a step up when using stockalike tanks, so maybe the whole line's cost could be reduced anyway and spread out, and some of the NTR costs could also be increased a tad. But on the other hand, incremental engine improvements aren't as useful at that stage of the game, so smaller steps might just not feel that useful anyway. So I dunno, I'm a little split on it, I might look it over at some point and just compare how much could be spread out (because I think a lot of the cryoengines parts will still end up clustered towards the end anyway because they're similarly balanced). I wouldn't want to move any back into the standard LFO line regardless, though I'm still undecided on whether I'd rather that one BDB hydrolox aerospike be here or in the aerospike tech).

- Shuttles:
This is something I'm still not sure how to handle, because KSP doesn't really make much of a distinction between shuttles and heavy aircraft parts and I don't really want to make the latter too expensive. I added the huge airframes tech for Mk4 and I think I'll add Mk33 to it at some point (and maybe OPT if that ever updates) but overall I think shuttle development will just be limited by access to engines and rocket fuel tanks rather than arbitrarily separating out cockpits and cargo parts or whatever.

- Labs:
There's a lot I'm willing to reconsider about the whole hab/lab branch, but again it should be based on actual gameplay mechanics rather than any sort of historical reenactment. Sticking almost all the labs together in one tech is a weak point, but there's not much to divide them, the data capacity isn't that important, and to an extent they're naturally balanced against their size and so don't necessarily need to be split by tech. More broadly, I do admit it does kinda feel like there should be a distinct early station stage with some of the BDB parts before you can start making ISS-alikes, but A, a lot of SSPX and BDB parts are just similarly performing so there's not much reason to split them, and B, the separate modular stations tech is supposed to delay that progression a bit, but it would feel silly to charge all that much just for some slightly funky structural parts. I dunno, maybe there's some space there to splice out another early hab tech, and I can maybe look over the skylab parts again but I think they were all pretty high-performing.

[Pxtseryu]

7 hours ago, loki130 said:

- hydrolox engines:
These probably could be extended by an extra step and maybe an earlier lifter/vac split. I chose not too because if the hydrolox line is too long and cumulatively expensive, it might not be worth it at that point of the game compared to just pushing for NTRs. Now that I've played with this tree a bit though, hydrolox engines aren't actually that big a step up when using stockalike tanks, so maybe the whole line's cost could be reduced anyway and spread out, and some of the NTR costs could also be increased a tad. But on the other hand, incremental engine improvements aren't as useful at that stage of the game, so smaller steps might just not feel that useful anyway. So I dunno, I'm a little split on it, I might look it over at some point and just compare how much could be spread out (because I think a lot of the cryoengines parts will still end up clustered towards the end anyway because they're similarly balanced). I wouldn't want to move any back into the standard LFO line regardless, though I'm still undecided on whether I'd rather that one BDB hydrolox aerospike be here or in the aerospike tech).

Some good points here; glad to see you kind of agree with the hydrolox - the RL10s were a particular focus of mine as for BDB player's they're the backbone for...quite a few upper stages for quite a long time, so it felt weird that operational RL10s were so far down the line. 

As it stands the hydrolox branch in particular would benefit from one or two extra nodes in the progression - if BDB is one of the core facets some spacing out would be ideal as many of the higher end engines in BDB are hydrolox. Maybe 1 or 2 new nodes for hydrolox, then two heavy-lift hydrolox nodes, the first providing, say, the M1 and XLR129 alongside a few others, and the second providing the SSME etc. The heavy-lift hydrolox nodes could have spiked science costs.

Gives a decent flow of progression for powerful hydrolox engines and lets the XLR129 serve its purpose as a 'SSME-but-not-quite' sort of creature. The vaccum node could do with one extra node as well. I agree that for this to really work,

The thing with cryo vs ntr, in my general experience through many BDB playthroughs, is that NTR as a whole has its benefits and tradeoffs that justify continuing to use cryogenics while they exist. For NTR that's pre-aerospike based (aka most up to NTR3 and NTR4) they benefit the most from being on orbit. They have trouble lifting heavy payloads without nearly being all the way there. Cryogenic is heavier but often provides better thrust and is more convenient to use, and frankly there's not a whole lot of options for mounting nuclear engines that aren't the Alamo on anything smaller than 2.5m.

tl;dr 1-2 extra nodes for general cryogenics, for BDB moving the prototype rl10 and the lr87-lh2 to the first node and the rl10-a3 and lr87-lh2 upgrades to the second alongside the first iteration of the j2, to allow for relatively gradual progression of the early game upgrades for hydrolox rockets/upper stages and such

 

7 hours ago, loki130 said:

hydrolox engines aren't actually that big a step up when using stockalike tanks,

On the topic of tanks, could do with a bit of spacing out as while gameplay function is real, all of the Titan variant tanks unlocking at once feels...odd. Maybe for the 0.625-4.25m there's a couple of extra nodes in between form factors for say, lengthening rather than widening. Consider also segmenting 4.25m and 5m into their own nodes, and putting 6.25 and 7.5 into the final Tank node

Also on a quick, possibly strange note I'd consider moving the Saturn IB tank to one of the earlier nodes as it's a unique case of being 8 clustered redstone tanks and pays the price for it in mass and lack of fuel. Maybe it's an exception rather than the rule but it would work balance wise for people who want to mess with Saturn 1, which was flying by 1961. tl;dr historically accurate and being clustered 1.25 tanks , technically gameplay accurate

 

7 hours ago, loki130 said:

This is something I'm still not sure how to handle, because KSP doesn't really make much of a distinction between shuttles and heavy aircraft parts and I don't really want to make the latter too expensive. I added the huge airframes tech for Mk4 and I think I'll add Mk33 to it at some point (and maybe OPT if that ever updates) but overall I think shuttle development will just be limited by access to engines and rocket fuel tanks rather than arbitrarily separating out cockpits and cargo parts or whatever.

Solid point, XLR-129 was intended for SSTOs after all and a lot of shuttle stuff is limited by access to it - that being said a new node like GiganticAirframes might work better for the technological jump from shuttles to SSTOs. And balance wise the MK33 is hilariously optimistically overpowered for what it is so a little of that spacing out could be ideal.

 

7 hours ago, loki130 said:

There's a lot I'm willing to reconsider about the whole hab/lab branch, but again it should be based on actual gameplay mechanics rather than any sort of historical reenactment. Sticking almost all the labs together in one tech is a weak point, but there's not much to divide them, the data capacity isn't that important, and to an extent they're naturally balanced against their size and so don't necessarily need to be split by tech. More broadly, I do admit it does kinda feel like there should be a distinct early station stage with some of the BDB parts before you can start making ISS-alikes, but A, a lot of SSPX and BDB parts are just similarly performing so there's not much reason to split them, and B, the separate modular stations tech is supposed to delay that progression a bit, but it would feel silly to charge all that much just for some slightly funky structural parts. I dunno, maybe there's some space there to splice out another early hab tech, and I can maybe look over the skylab parts again but I think they were all pretty high-performing.

Yeah I think gameplay wise there should be a reason to be making little somewhat strange stations first before jumping to enormous ones. Thanks for potentially looking over the skylab tech stuff.

 

A couple of miscellanious things - some of the SRB costs should be raised, as it feels strange spending 60 science to unlock the AJ-260 in particular.

 

ALSO: Pull requests should be coming in the next few days for a few extra compatibility patches - I've personally made patches for:
-Procedural Parts
-Rocket Motor Menagerie
-X-20 Moroz (the Dynasoar)
-EngineIgnition
-Remotetech
-That one Stowaway mod Nertea did that has literally the best centrifuge tethers in all of KSP.

I can shoot you the link to the repo if you'd like - I plan to make quite a few more

 

Thanks for responding, I really am excited to see how this tree develops. It has a lot of potential to be the perfect mix between CTT and RP-1 and I wish you the best of luck.

Edited 14 hours ago by Pxtseryu

[loki130]

5 hours ago, Pxtseryu said:

Some good points here; glad to see you kind of agree with the hydrolox - the RL10s were a particular focus of mine as for BDB player's they're the backbone for...quite a few upper stages for quite a long time, so it felt weird that operational RL10s were so far down the line. 

As it stands the hydrolox branch in particular would benefit from one or two extra nodes in the progression - if BDB is one of the core facets some spacing out would be ideal as many of the higher end engines in BDB are hydrolox. Maybe 1 or 2 new nodes for hydrolox, then two heavy-lift hydrolox nodes, the first providing, say, the M1 and XLR129 alongside a few others, and the second providing the SSME etc. The heavy-lift hydrolox nodes could have spiked science costs.

Gives a decent flow of progression for powerful hydrolox engines and lets the XLR129 serve its purpose as a 'SSME-but-not-quite' sort of creature. The vaccum node could do with one extra node as well. I agree that for this to really work,

The thing with cryo vs ntr, in my general experience through many BDB playthroughs, is that NTR as a whole has its benefits and tradeoffs that justify continuing to use cryogenics while they exist. For NTR that's pre-aerospike based (aka most up to NTR3 and NTR4) they benefit the most from being on orbit. They have trouble lifting heavy payloads without nearly being all the way there. Cryogenic is heavier but often provides better thrust and is more convenient to use, and frankly there's not a whole lot of options for mounting nuclear engines that aren't the Alamo on anything smaller than 2.5m.

tl;dr 1-2 extra nodes for general cryogenics, for BDB moving the prototype rl10 and the lr87-lh2 to the first node and the rl10-a3 and lr87-lh2 upgrades to the second alongside the first iteration of the j2, to allow for relatively gradual progression of the early game upgrades for hydrolox rockets/upper stages and such

 

On the topic of tanks, could do with a bit of spacing out as while gameplay function is real, all of the Titan variant tanks unlocking at once feels...odd. Maybe for the 0.625-4.25m there's a couple of extra nodes in between form factors for say, lengthening rather than widening. Consider also segmenting 4.25m and 5m into their own nodes, and putting 6.25 and 7.5 into the final Tank node

Also on a quick, possibly strange note I'd consider moving the Saturn IB tank to one of the earlier nodes as it's a unique case of being 8 clustered redstone tanks and pays the price for it in mass and lack of fuel. Maybe it's an exception rather than the rule but it would work balance wise for people who want to mess with Saturn 1, which was flying by 1961. tl;dr historically accurate and being clustered 1.25 tanks , technically gameplay accurate

 

Solid point, XLR-129 was intended for SSTOs after all and a lot of shuttle stuff is limited by access to it - that being said a new node like GiganticAirframes might work better for the technological jump from shuttles to SSTOs. And balance wise the MK33 is hilariously optimistically overpowered for what it is so a little of that spacing out could be ideal.

 

Yeah I think gameplay wise there should be a reason to be making little somewhat strange stations first before jumping to enormous ones. Thanks for potentially looking over the skylab tech stuff.

 

A couple of miscellanious things - some of the SRB costs should be raised, as it feels strange spending 60 science to unlock the AJ-260 in particular.

 

ALSO: Pull requests should be coming in the next few days for a few extra compatibility patches - I've personally made patches for:
-Procedural Parts
-Rocket Motor Menagerie
-X-20 Moroz (the Dynasoar)
-EngineIgnition
-Remotetech
-That one Stowaway mod Nertea did that has literally the best centrifuge tethers in all of KSP.

I can shoot you the link to the repo if you'd like - I plan to make quite a few more

 

Thanks for responding, I really am excited to see how this tree develops. It has a lot of potential to be the perfect mix between CTT and RP-1 and I wish you the best of luck.

Again, I feel like a lot of this is based on what real historical technology these parts are intended to represent, which just doesn't enter into the equation for me. Though I want to create some of the feel of early spaceflight, I want it to emerge naturally from the gameplay rather than any enforced historical reenactment. With hydrolox there is some range of performance that could justify spacing them out a bit more, but if the various titan tanks are just different lengths of 1.875, I see no good reason to split them up; forcing a player to stack 2 short tanks rather than just having 1 long tank available with almost the same resulting performance is nothing more than an arbitrary inconvenience so far as I'm concerned, and in general I don't really see all that much point adding much cost or complexity to the tank tree generally; I guess it want to be a bit like RP-1, where there's never any actual technological barrier to building a 10m wide rocket, it's just more practical cost, launch complex, and engineering concerns holding you back. Here there is at least some token representation of the idea that it may take a bit of engineering research to figure out how to roll out giant tanks, but I don't really want it to be a significant obstacle that the player is constantly running up against.

Saturn IB though I will admit I was a bit in two minds about, I might double check if there's any difference in its mass ratio or capacity compared to other tanks of its size; but if not, then it's basically just an aesthetic fluorish.

I also don't feel like parts have to be clustered because they were intended to be on the same vehicle (apart from putting a few structural parts in the hab tree just for neatness sake, though I think a few also have CLS functionality); so if the Mk33 engines are overpowered, that informs placement of the engines, not the rest of the airframe. If someone wants to try to loft that thing early on with like vanguard engines, that's fine by me. That's more broadly why I'll probably never have a specific shuttle tech, it's ultimately just sticking airplane and engine parts together and those have their separate trees, so it's just down to the player to decide when they feel like trying to put them together; and given when dyna-soar was considered and X-15 was flying, that's not even particularly weird as an alt-history concept. IRL heat shielding should be a bigger part of that equation, but if that's not how the gameplay actually works then I'm not going to force it.

Solid rockets are pretty cheap, but I'm not sure I'd wanna increase them much; the idea is that you can get cheap access to higher-performing parts in the early game if you're willing to deal with their inflexibility and accept a bit of a delay getting to the LFO parts that you'll inevitably need to unlock eventually. Later on, some of their IRL advantages just don't matter much in game, like simplicity and easy ignition only come into play if you have specific mods for it and the high TWR doesn't matter as much in stock or even 2.5x scale where your launch mass is lower and it's not a big deal to adjust your main engine configuration, so I generally figure that solid rockets are never going to be a priority past the early game and the later techs are priced around the assumption that they'll be a side project you throw some science at when you've got some to spare well after you've already unlocked any similarly priced techs on the more important trees.

[loki130]

16 hours ago, Pxtseryu said:

@loki130 Created a image containing all of the node names for  the tech tree to make it easier for modders to place their parts into the tree once they find a node they'd like.  I'd consider putting this into the initial post.

I've also started a patch effort  for mods on the Kerbal Community discord server. If you have Discord feel free to reach out either through that discord or to me (user: PXTSERYU) on Discord - would be fun to collaborate with some of the modders there to make it as compatible as possible.

By the way a lot of the nodes you have as n/a here are just hidden if you don't have any the mods with parts for them

[Pxtseryu]

3 hours ago, loki130 said:

By the way a lot of the nodes you have as n/a here are just hidden if you don't have any the mods with parts for them

excrements, my bad - did my best to find them in the git code so if you can shoot the names of each that would be helpful :3