[1.12.x] Kerbal Alarm Clock v3.13.0.0 (April 10)

[TriggerAu]

Here you go TriggerAu!

I'm going to update to the new version. Hopefully all is well

[EDIT]

When the 64-bit Game Crashes the alarm clocks come back empty. They are still in the save game file. I'll post a new file soon (I just re-imported using my tool without thinking).

[EDIT 2]

Here is a good set of 3 files (with a readme).

Thanks bigorangemachines. Had a look at all three file in there and the other one. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what's gone wrong for you. I found that:

• I can load all three saves and get the alarms list
  
• The alarms section in persistent and #6 are identical
  
• The alarms diff for #7 is a single alarm that has fired, but is in both files
  

In 3.0.4.0 I added some additional logging so if the alarm load fails it should spiut the text stuff into the log. Perhaps you can shot through an ouitput_log.txt and appropriate saves if it happens again.

I cant think of - or see anything else that could be involved here - aside form the usual 64bit fun - which is annoying to say the least

[KevinTMC]

First of all, thank you for this essential mod. I've been using it through many versions of KSP.

I'm just now getting around to exploring some of the newer features, and am having difficulty with launch rendezvous. I'm on the ground at KSC, and targeting a craft in an equatorial 74km orbit. KAC is offering to set a Launch Ascent alarm for 5 1/2 hours from now.

I then tried switching to Closest Approach Alarm, and it's offering to set me one for 4 orbits (35 1/2 minutes) hence, where it says the distance will be 106 km...or if I force it to search just one orbit, it gives me what looks like an appropriate time of 5 1/2 minutes, but tells me the distance will be 321 km.

Am I not understanding what I'm seeing and what I am supposed to do? Is there some conflict somewhere? (I'm running the 32-bit Windows version of KSP. Installed plugins are BTSM, Deadly Reentry, KAC, ARP, PreciseNode, Chatterer, RCS Sound Effects, and Rover Wheel Sound Effects.)

Edited November 1, 2014 by KevinTMC

[bigorangemachine]

Thanks bigorangemachines. Had a look at all three file in there and the other one. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what's gone wrong for you. I found that:

• I can load all three saves and get the alarms list
  
• The alarms section in persistent and #6 are identical
  
• The alarms diff for #7 is a single alarm that has fired, but is in both files
  

In 3.0.4.0 I added some additional logging so if the alarm load fails it should spiut the text stuff into the log. Perhaps you can shot through an ouitput_log.txt and appropriate saves if it happens again.

I cant think of - or see anything else that could be involved here - aside form the usual 64bit fun - which is annoying to say the least

From the issue posted on github. If you are playing 64-bit and the game crashes; when you restart and there are no alarms in the menu. The fix is to load in 32-bit and save the game (such as just quitting back to the main menu) and closing KSP. Then restart in 64-bit and your alarms will be restored.

[Starman4308]

Is there any way to force KAC to start killing time warp sooner? I've been overshooting several alarms, and I suspect it might be because RSS over-writes the default timewarp settings, so KAC takes too long to kill timewarp.

[bigorangemachine]

Is there any way to force KAC to start killing time warp sooner? I've been overshooting several alarms, and I suspect it might be because RSS over-writes the default timewarp settings, so KAC takes too long to kill timewarp.

Every Node Alarm you make has a time margin

As you can see from this image. In the top right corner "Add new Alarm".

Change the "Margin" by whatever you wish. There is a default setting for how much Margin that should be default. You may also want to use pause instead of kill time warp. I always give myself 1m

[Starman4308]

Every Node Alarm you make has a time margin

That's not what I'm asking for. I know about the margins, and they usually work perfectly well, dropping you out of time warp basically on the dot.

What I'm asking for is whether there's an option to make KAC more aggressive about slowing time warp, because I've missed alarms by 45 minutes at high time warp: it's not stepping down quickly enough.

[Master Tao]

@Starman4308:

There's definitely something more to it. KAC can handle the faster time warps in RSS appropriately – it works if you have just KAC and RSS in a new save. All I know for certain is that one of my other mods changes persistence files in a way that breaks KAC. You could try tracking down which mod by setting up a simliar save and then adding mods one at a time until you can cause the problem. That will be a long, slow process because it's not clear that something's wrong until you reload.

[TriggerAu]

First of all, thank you for this essential mod. I've been using it through many versions of KSP.

I'm just now getting around to exploring some of the newer features, and am having difficulty with launch rendezvous. I'm on the ground at KSC, and targeting a craft in an equatorial 74km orbit. KAC is offering to set a Launch Ascent alarm for 5 1/2 hours from now.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/60350861/screenshot14.png

I then tried switching to Closest Approach Alarm, and it's offering to set me one for 4 orbits (35 1/2 minutes) hence, where it says the distance will be 106 km...or if I force it to search just one orbit, it gives me what looks like an appropriate time of 5 1/2 minutes, but tells me the distance will be 321 km.

Am I not understanding what I'm seeing and what I am supposed to do? Is there some conflict somewhere? (I'm running the 32-bit Windows version of KSP. Installed plugins are BTSM, Deadly Reentry, KAC, ARP, PreciseNode, Chatterer, RCS Sound Effects, and Rover Wheel Sound Effects.)

Hopefully this is just a terminology thing (and could well be my terminology ). The launch Rendezvous alarm sets an alarm to go off when your vessel is under the orbit path of the target. ie. so when you launch you can burn straight into the right orbital plane. The position of the vessel you are targeting when the launch vessel passes under the orbital path could be on the other side of the planet so it may not be very close, but by launching into that plane you can avoid having to change the inclination of your orbit later and makes docking against vessels in inclined orbits much easier.

The Closest distance will find the time at which the distance is at it shortest, regardless of the position of the launch site in regards to the orbit.

Basically if you want to launch straight into the orbital plane of an existing vessel the "Launch Rendezvous" alarm gets you that point on teh plane, but it may be better to wait an orbit or two to have the orbiting craft in a closer position.

Hope thats not confusing it more

Is there any way to force KAC to start killing time warp sooner? I've been overshooting several alarms, and I suspect it might be because RSS over-writes the default timewarp settings, so KAC takes too long to kill timewarp.

Yes there is. You can go back to the older style that uses immediate warp rate changes through the settings - "Use Instant Warp Transitions" on the General tab of the settings. This can have a detrimental affect if you have excessively high warp rates.

@Starman4308:

There's definitely something more to it. KAC can handle the faster time warps in RSS appropriately – it works if you have just KAC and RSS in a new save. All I know for certain is that one of my other mods changes persistence files in a way that breaks KAC. You could try tracking down which mod by setting up a simliar save and then adding mods one at a time until you can cause the problem. That will be a long, slow process because it's not clear that something's wrong until you reload.

I'm downloading RSS at the moment to work on a few things so I'll also fiddle with the warp rates in there and see if there's something up specific to RSS

[TriggerAu]

That's not what I'm asking for. I know about the margins, and they usually work perfectly well, dropping you out of time warp basically on the dot.

What I'm asking for is whether there's an option to make KAC more aggressive about slowing time warp, because I've missed alarms by 45 minutes at high time warp: it's not stepping down quickly enough.

@Starman4308:

There's definitely something more to it. KAC can handle the faster time warps in RSS appropriately – it works if you have just KAC and RSS in a new save. All I know for certain is that one of my other mods changes persistence files in a way that breaks KAC. You could try tracking down which mod by setting up a simliar save and then adding mods one at a time until you can cause the problem. That will be a long, slow process because it's not clear that something's wrong until you reload.

OK. So after a bit of RSS Fiddling and some other bits I think I can see whats happening. I'll go for the full length description, heres how it works

• In KACv3 the transitions are done using the gradual changes, same as when you press , or .
  
• These take a certain period of time to make the transition from starting to ending rate values, and a certain amount of game time passes during the transition
  
• KAC Calculates the amount of game time for each change periodically and uses that to determine when to reduce the warp rate.
  
• The v2 algorithm simply changed the rate instantaneously - which had the effect at high rates of breaking orbits of some vessels
  
• The installation of lots of mods may be affecting how quickly the transition can occcur and thus the miss occuring
  

And heres what I think is happening:

• The time that passes during warp rate transitions are calculated based on the average of a bunch of tests I did in a few games, using about 1 sec for the rates to change and a variable - UTToRateTimesOneTenths.
  
• If the transition takes longer than that then the calcs of time passed will be wrong and it may overshoot
  
• Also in flight if the alarm is too close and you jam the game into high warp it can get shoot past too, and then jam back to 1x warp
  

How to fix it... So heres my thinking, Currently you could do the following to test/fiddle with it to get it working:

1. Change the variable. In the settings.cfg file you will find WarpTransitions_UTToRateTimesOneTenths = 14 . If you increase the number it will start to step down rates further out from events
   
2. Change the transition method back to the instantaneous one which will be more accurate at stopping in time, but also more likely to cause an orbit bork if the transition is too much
   

I'm gonna look at doing the following:

1. Expose the transition variable as a slider or similar of changing that is helpful - instead of just in the settings.cfg file
   
2. look at when the amount of time left isn't enough to gracefully transition then fall back to instant changes till we can get it under control
   

EDIT: Re the quickload issue - the WarpRate calculator looks for changes in warp rate every 5 secs or so - also configurrable in the save file. So I think the issue Master Tao hit before is that after a quickload the warp is being performed before the rates are updated with the new values and thus it shoots past and halts immediately. I'll also add some extra checks in there for the first few secs to generate those rates sooner after game load

Edited November 2, 2014 by TriggerAu

[TriggerAu]

Codes all in for these changes - will be in the next version - would love to know how yo go with tweaking the settings manually

[Master Tao]

The installation of lots of mods may be affecting how quickly the transition can occcur and thus the miss occuring

Wow! Thanks for tracking that down – I don't think that cause is something I would have been able to identify and report.

Codes all in for these changes - will be in the next version - would love to know how yo go with tweaking the settings manually

Will do.

[Starman4308]

Codes all in for these changes - will be in the next version - would love to know how yo go with tweaking the settings manually

Will do. Testing with a value of 28 revealed it was way too cautious; testing at a lower value was inconclusive, because the Kraken ate my vessel*, and I think I ran into Master Tao's persistence file bug when I switched to another vessel. Will continue when the fix to that bug is released, so I don't have to re-launch after Kraken attacks.

*Vessel collided with the VAB. In high orbit​. I wonder if that's a record for that bug.

[KevinTMC]

The launch Rendezvous alarm sets an alarm to go off when your vessel is under the orbit path of the target. ie. so when you launch you can burn straight into the right orbital plane.

Ah. I think I see. So it's really just designed for matching up with highly inclined orbits, and doesn't care where the target is in its orbit. In which case, it's telling me that I should wait 5 1/2 hours if I want KSC to match up exactly with the roughly 1-2% inclined orbit of the target. (Thanks, I think I'll just deal with the plane change. ) I appreciate the clarification.

I still don't understand the Closest Distance thing at all. In my situation at least, the distance numbers it gives are wacky, and the times are sometimes accurate (based on where the target vessel is in its orbit, and how many orbits KAC is set to search) and sometimes way off. See here, for instance:

(The highlighted orbit is of the target vessel, which has just passed its apoapsis.)

Eh, maybe this tool just isn't really meant to be useful in my particular situation either. I can just eyeball it like I normally do...I was mainly just wanting to use KAC here to see at a glance, when focused on other vessels, how far away the target vessel was to its closest approach to KSC. (It would be then up to my best guess as to how far ahead of that to launch, as always.) I guess I could set a maneuver node for the target vessel as close to KSC as I can manage, and then set an alarm based on that instead.

And once I'm actually in orbit, Closest Distance seems to work splendidly...so again, I'm guessing I may be trying to get it to do things it's not designed to do.

Anyhow, thanks once more for this great mod, and for being so generous with your time in answering questions and hunting down bugs.

Edited November 2, 2014 by KevinTMC

[TriggerAu]

Will do. Testing with a value of 28 revealed it was way too cautious; testing at a lower value was inconclusive, because the Kraken ate my vessel*, and I think I ran into Master Tao's persistence file bug when I switched to another vessel. Will continue when the fix to that bug is released, so I don't have to re-launch after Kraken attacks.

*Vessel collided with the VAB. In high orbit​. I wonder if that's a record for that bug.

Yeah the value is a tradeoff like that - I'd suggest trying 17 or 18 as a cautious one - really depends on how long the machine takes to slow the warp. I'm trying to do some other RSS stuff for this release so it may be a little while off.

PS. Nice VAB impact

Ah. I think I see. So it's really just designed for matching up with highly inclined orbits, and doesn't care where the target is in its orbit. In which case, it's telling me that I should wait 5 1/2 hours if I want KSC to match up exactly with the roughly 1-2% inclined orbit of the target. (Thanks, I think I'll just deal with the plane change. ) I appreciate the clarification.

I still don't understand the Closest Distance thing at all. In my situation at least, the distance numbers it gives are wacky, and the times are sometimes accurate (based on where the target vessel is in its orbit, and how many orbits KAC is set to search) and sometimes way off. See here, for instance:

...

And once I'm actually in orbit, Closest Distance seems to work splendidly...so again, I'm guessing I may be trying to get it to do things it's not designed to do.

Anyhow, thanks once more for this great mod, and for being so generous with your time in answering questions and hunting down bugs.

You got it, yeah. At an equatorial launch point its not the most useful thing with low inclination orbits, but in say RSS where you rarely launch from the equator it can be quite beneficial.

TBH, I dont know that I tested closest distance from a landed vessel, so it could be some wacky numbers there, sorry about that

And lastly, no probs. Glad its useful

[xDGDZEx]

Been through this one as well, unfortunately nothing in that one that of use. The game resets that file on each start. If it happens again can you catch the log for the break and send it through, and the save and the backup from before the jump if thats cool

Ok, I will keep an eye out for another crash and upload the error log. However, things have been strangely stable the last few days. I keep trying to think back about anything that I changed right before the crashing stopped.

The only thing that I can think of is that I noticed somehow I had gotten two versions of Module Manager in my GameData folder, one of which was the older 2.5.0. I deleted that one, and haven't noticed nearly as much instability since then. I have no clue if that would explain any of the problems that I was experiencing, but in any case, I'll let you know if I see any more issues.

[Master Tao]

Yeah the value is a tradeoff like that - I'd suggest trying 17 or 18 as a cautious one - really depends on how long the machine takes to slow the warp. I'm trying to do some other RSS stuff for this release so it may be a little while off.

I'm finding 24 works fairly well. That catches all but the highest two timewarps, which I may never use anyway. 21 doesn't reliably catch those speeds.

[orven]

If you can keep an eye out for it and provide a log file and situation where it happens then perhaps I can look a bit deeper

For now I've noticed two cases which can cause alarm disappearing:

1. when I create an alarm ant then go to space center

2. when I create an alarm ant then switch to another vessel from map view

And here is the ksp.log and output_log.txt files (I closed the game after it happened so all the necessary stuff should be near the end I guess..)

Edited November 3, 2014 by orven

[Master Tao]

The output_log.txt is much more useful. Find it by reading this post.

[Bubbler3D]

Hey I'm having an issue with Kerbal Alarm Clock. Every time I create an alarm it gets deleted when I close the game. I've been checking my save files and have yet to see a single alarm get added. I've also tried uninstalling all other mods except KAC and there was no change. I tried re-installing KSP and only installing KAC and used a different directory (C:\KSP) and still no luck. Other than the alarms being deleted after I shut down the game everything else seems to be working just fine. This is the first and only issue I've ever had with KAC or any other mod I use for that matter. Any help in understanding what is going on here and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated. Here is a link to my most recent output_log.txt ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/tlzophplwnn6065/output_log.txt?dl=0 )

[Bubbler3D]

Hey I'm having an issue with Kerbal Alarm Clock. Every time I create an alarm it gets deleted when I close the game. I've been checking my save files and have yet to see a single alarm get added. I've also tried uninstalling all other mods except KAC and there was no change. I tried re-installing KSP and only installing KAC and used a different directory (C:\KSP) and still no luck. Other than the alarms being deleted after I shut down the game everything else seems to be working just fine. This is the first and only issue I've ever had with KAC or any other mod I use for that matter. Any help in understanding what is going on here and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated. Here is a link to my most recent output_log.txt ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/tlzophplwnn6065/output_log.txt?dl=0 )

Not sure what happened but I just did a full clean install again to make sure and re-installed KAC only and it worked fine but when I re-installed all my other mods and it disappeared again in-game and the save file was cleared of all my test alarms. Guess now I'll start adding the mods back in 1 at a time until I find which one is causing the issue. The mods I'm using are MechJeb, Engineer Redux, Astronomer's Visual Pack, Kerbal Attachment System, Kerbal Alarm Clock, DMagic Orbital Science, RasterPropMonitor, Tarsier Space Technology, Chatterer, Universal Storage including module for KAS, Final Frontier, Kerbal Pseudonym, Kethane and RemoteTech. Gonna be a long night lol

[Bubbler3D]

Not sure what happened but I just did a full clean install again to make sure and re-installed KAC only and it worked fine but when I re-installed all my other mods and it disappeared again in-game and the save file was cleared of all my test alarms. Guess now I'll start adding the mods back in 1 at a time until I find which one is causing the issue. The mods I'm using are MechJeb, Engineer Redux, Astronomer's Visual Pack, Kerbal Attachment System, Kerbal Alarm Clock, DMagic Orbital Science, RasterPropMonitor, Tarsier Space Technology, Chatterer, Universal Storage including module for KAS, Final Frontier, Kerbal Pseudonym, Kethane and RemoteTech. Gonna be a long night lol

Think I have found the offending mod. Looks like Tarsier Space Technology was preventing KAC from displaying any alarms. I've re-installed each mod and then tested KAC in-game after each one and Tarsier is the only one that created the problem and as soon as I deleted the mod from my GameData folder all my alarms came back up when I restarted the game. Guess Tarsier isn't compatible with KAC for whatever reason, I'll let the Tarsier author know about this issue as well so that hopefully they make it play with KAC better.

[TriggerAu]

Think I have found the offending mod. Looks like Tarsier Space Technology was preventing KAC from displaying any alarms. I've re-installed each mod and then tested KAC in-game after each one and Tarsier is the only one that created the problem and as soon as I deleted the mod from my GameData folder all my alarms came back up when I restarted the game. Guess Tarsier isn't compatible with KAC for whatever reason, I'll let the Tarsier author know about this issue as well so that hopefully they make it play with KAC better.

I cant see anything conclusive in the logs re interactions, but I can see the below error re Tarsier and the ScenarioModule components which is how Modders store stuff in the save file - if the NRE is borking the stack of events then maybe its not calling the next one in line. I found note of the same error in a log in the KCT thread and people mentioning issues too. I've managed to replicate it here too... looking deeper

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

at TarsierSpaceTech.TSTProgressTracker.OnLoad (.ConfigNode node) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ScenarioModule.Load (.ConfigNode node) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ScenarioRunner.AddModule (.ConfigNode node) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ProtoScenarioModule.Load (.ScenarioRunner host) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at ScenarioRunner+.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

[TriggerAu]

For now I've noticed two cases which can cause alarm disappearing:

1. when I create an alarm ant then go to space center

2. when I create an alarm ant then switch to another vessel from map view

And here is the ksp.log and output_log.txt files (I closed the game after it happened so all the necessary stuff should be near the end I guess..)

Am having issues finding the cause in this one - there are about 40000 exceptions in the log from various mods so theres lots of noise, I'll dig in a bit deeper as I go. Can you test if quicksave/quickload loses any alars too?

[TriggerAu]

Think I have found the offending mod. Looks like Tarsier Space Technology was preventing KAC from displaying any alarms. I've re-installed each mod and then tested KAC in-game after each one and Tarsier is the only one that created the problem and as soon as I deleted the mod from my GameData folder all my alarms came back up when I restarted the game. Guess Tarsier isn't compatible with KAC for whatever reason, I'll let the Tarsier author know about this issue as well so that hopefully they make it play with KAC better.

Found whats throwing that error and fixed it in Tarsier. The alarms seem to load OK in my game, but they didnt disappear every time before either -

Will look a bit more later. If you dont mind sharing a save file that has the problem with both mods installed that might help me test my pull request for updating Tarsier more (https://github.com/tobyb121/TarsierSpaceTechnology/pull/1 . )

[Aethon]

Congratulations TriggerAu on your new ( hopefully paid ) Squad position as Assistant QA Manager!

You're an asset.