[0.20] Ioncross Crew Support Plugin ([0.22] dev build)

[Starwaster]

How about you need to carry heavy soil to use them in space? So greenhouses would be good as bases, since you can use the soil present on the planet. But in space you have to carry and (from time to time) replace the soil?

Why would you use soil when you can use hydroponics?

Or is this about artificially introducing some arbitrary level of difficulty in the name of 'balance'?

[Schmonzo]

Why would you use soil when you can use hydroponics?

Or is this about artificially introducing some arbitrary level of difficulty in the name of 'balance'?

wow, someone is wearing his/her crankypants

Jupp, it was in the name of balance (that's why I quoted what I quoted). It of course just is an idea and I didn't think of hydroponics... How about carrying water then instead or indeed have it use tons of electricity?

[Ralathon]

The greenhouses would have to be well balanced so you'd need to go out reasonably far to be worth taking greenhouses over normal plain oxygen tanks.

How about a power-hungry, big fat 100% converter?

Just make it terribly slow and big.

Say 3 greenhouses to keep up with the CO2 production of a single Kerbal. That way you need a rather massive ship to keep up with even a small crew. For short trips it'd be cheaper mass wise to just stock up some oxygen, for bases or interplanetary cruisers its worth it to build a big greenhouse section.

[Spyritdragon]

Just make it terribly slow and big.

Say 3 greenhouses to keep up with the CO2 production of a single Kerbal. That way you need a rather massive ship to keep up with even a small crew. For short trips it'd be cheaper mass wise to just stock up some oxygen, for bases or interplanetary cruisers its worth it to build a big greenhouse section.

Bam! Alpha stage.

http://www./?lv0bjf8fmf62e3v (zip contains a single folder, parts, with a single part in it, the greenhouse, meant to be added to your original IonCross instalation)

Quick modification to the files of the config file of the big recycler. 1.5T greenhouse, holds Oxygen and Carbondioxide just like the original recycler, should convert .33 units of Carbondioxide per hour into oxygen, using 2 units of electricity per second. I thought, given the fact this thing has to produce artificial sunlight, air circulation, location of carbon atoms, and water cleaning, it would use a reasonable amount of electricity. I've also kindof had it with all my power problems being solved by a single gigantor panel.

Tell me what you think, and tell me about your opinion on weight, power usage and efficiency.

I also believe i am following the license here, credit to original author remains prominently displayed in the config file.

[Azimech]

Hydroponics? That's old. The future is aeroponics which is 10 times more efficient in water consumption and you get a much better yield. It's been developed together with NASA.

[Sandworm]

Hydroponics? That's old. The future is aeroponics which is 10 times more efficient in water consumption and you get a much better yield. It's been developed together with NASA.

Nasa? Try weed. Far more money is spent on aeroponics by marijuana cultivators than nasa. While plants seem good, they are in fact a very difficult and heavy means on converting co2 to o2. I've always thought that IonCross used something like a counter-rotating-ring receiver reactor recuperator to extract the carbon from co2.

[Spyritdragon]

Well i'll change it. What should i call it instead?

[Starwaster]

wow, someone is wearing his/her crankypants

Jupp, it was in the name of balance (that's why I quoted what I quoted). It of course just is an idea and I didn't think of hydroponics... How about carrying water then instead or indeed have it use tons of electricity?

Electricity already isn't well scaled. And it feels like this mod sucks up too much of it as it is. And what aggravates it further is that it's not even really possible to say with a reasonable degree of certainty 'X amount of electricity = Y amount of real life electrical unit of measurement'. Are we talking about watts or amp hours? And at how many volts? Most applications we should be ok just throwing a single RTG into the mission. Maybe a second one for manned missions with extra requirements but the stock RTG pulses its power output rendering it useless for situations where IRL it would excel. (referring mostly to ion engines here, one RTG is more than enough)

finally, I'm not really THAT cranky.. I just forgot this is teh intarwebz and that I need to do some kind of emote or something cause you can't see my face or hear my voice...

here ya go.

[/RANT]

Edited August 9, 2013 by Starwaster
Forgot to turn rant mode off before I exit the room

[Alttabmatt]

Bam! Alpha stage.

http://www./?lv0bjf8fmf62e3v (zip contains a single folder, parts, with a single part in it, the greenhouse, meant to be added to your original IonCross instalation)

Quick modification to the files of the config file of the big recycler. 1.5T greenhouse, holds Oxygen and Carbondioxide just like the original recycler, should convert .33 units of Carbondioxide per hour into oxygen, using 2 units of electricity per second. I thought, given the fact this thing has to produce artificial sunlight, air circulation, location of carbon atoms, and water cleaning, it would use a reasonable amount of electricity. I've also kindof had it with all my power problems being solved by a single gigantor panel.

Tell me what you think, and tell me about your opinion on weight, power usage and efficiency.

I also believe i am following the license here, credit to original author remains prominently displayed in the config file.

It may be just me but I see nothing in the zip.

[rkman]

Electricity already isn't well scaled. ...it's not even really possible to say with a reasonable degree of certainty 'X amount of electricity = Y amount of real life electrical unit of measurement'. Are we talking about watts or amp hours?

I agree, and i've spent some time trying to figure it out:

It works out quite reasonably if it is assumed that the units battery storage are Watt-hours.

To compare battery storage to electricity production and consumption, the per-second and per-minute units must be converted to hours (multiply by 3600 and 60 respectively), and then drop the time unit. What you are left with is Watts.

And at how many volts?

Doesn't really matter as long as all equipment works with the same Voltage.

The RTG is a bit overpowered, the solar panes are a lot overpowered; a single small solar panel can supply power for 20 of the spotlights. And energy production of the panels does not fall off with the square of the distance from the sun...

[Spyritdragon]

It may be just me but I see nothing in the zip.

My apologies - error on my behalf. I've updated it and it should now be in there.

http://www./download/lv0bjf8fmf62e3v/IoncrossCrewSupport.zip

Sorry if i made a mistake in the file. I haven't done much of this at all yet.

[Alttabmatt]

My apologies - error on my behalf. I've updated it and it should now be in there.

http://www./download/lv0bjf8fmf62e3v/IoncrossCrewSupport.zip

Sorry if i made a mistake in the file. I haven't done much of this at all yet.

Thanks! I also did a bit of config magic and got this http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/greenhouse/ to pump out oxygen instead of monoprop. Mind if I use a bit of your config with my config? Yours is well put together.

[Spyritdragon]

Sure, go ahead :-). Just remember most of this file was written by the writer of Ionocross, so you should credit him in a line somewhere if you use alot of it.

And if it works, could you send me the final file if it's not too much trouble?

[Alttabmatt]

Sure, go ahead :-). Just remember most of this file was written by the writer of Ionocross, so you should credit him in a line somewhere if you use alot of it.

And if it works, could you send me the final file if it's not too much trouble?

Oh for sure. I am going to up the output of oxygen by the greenhouse because the one I am using is about 5 tons in weight. This part is kind of interesting because not only do you need the power to get the thing running but also 'biomass' to build up to create the oxygen. So Electricity = lights = biomass = oxygen. At the moment it looks like 10 electric makes .01 biomass.

Okay here it is. Kind of wacky the way the gui is acting but I dont know how to fix it as it is my first real config mod.

Greenhouse.rar (1.7 MB)

https://mega.co.nz/#!Alc3QYiZ!Am-jhnRAO2SHy_qOs7mVozPH9W9UshzwhdlxkO9F0C4

The Glights should turn on and charge up when in sunlight. The top generator is the oxygen generator, the middle generator is the biomass generator, and the last one is the greenhouse lights generator.

Again this is not my mod at all besides a few lines.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Alttabmatt
file link

[LMA]

Love the greenhouse thanks wasn't expecting such a great detailed part

[Ralathon]

Love the greenhouse thanks wasn't expecting such a great detailed part

That greenhouse model has been floating around since forever. Pretty sure it was made by z (this guy/gal). All that was done to the part is tweaking resource consumption and production.

[Starwaster]

I agree, and i've spent some time trying to figure it out:

It works out quite reasonably if it is assumed that the units battery storage are Watt-hours.

To compare battery storage to electricity production and consumption, the per-second and per-minute units must be converted to hours (multiply by 3600 and 60 respectively), and then drop the time unit. What you are left with is Watts.

Doesn't really matter as long as all equipment works with the same Voltage.

You mean as long as we assume that everything is the same voltage. Ok. :SHRUG:

The RTG is a bit overpowered, the solar panes are a lot overpowered; a single small solar panel can supply power for 20 of the spotlights. And energy production of the panels does not fall off with the square of the distance from the sun...

RTGs in this game aren't capable of sustaining the levels of activity that IRL they should be. IRL All of Curiosity's power needs are met by one RTG. One RTG can handle the sustained power requirements of a real life ion drive indefinitely. Even for days and days of continuous operation. Granted the ion drive in the game is a bit overpowered so we don't all die of boredom while it finishes one burn and maybe that's why it sucks so much electricity, but the RTG should at least be able to handle that. Even if I have to use several of them. Well, when I first started, I DID use several of them. I had a very nice ion driven probe that I built and I sent it out to explore the Kerbol system. I knew from trying the stock ion probe that it was very power hungry and I stuck 3 ion drives on my probe. I gave it lots of batteries so that I thought would be enough to last through a typical burn and it still wasn't enough. I stuck a bunch of RTGs on it and it STILL couldn't get through one burn. (literally, I had the KAS system installed so I went out into space to the already launched probe and started pasting batteries all over the place).

The way an RTG in this game works is nothing like the way they work IRL. The game pulse's its output... I forget the rate, I think it's less than one unit every second. Or maybe it was one unit over a period of several seconds.

I ended up patching my RTG. Maybe NOW it's overpowered, on my end, because I wasn't sure what a good value to put was. But it's better than what I was experiencing with the stock part

[Ralathon]

You mean as long as we assume that everything is the same voltage. Ok. :SHRUG:

RTGs in this game aren't capable of sustaining the levels of activity that IRL they should be. IRL All of Curiosity's power needs are met by one RTG. One RTG can handle the sustained power requirements of a real life ion drive indefinitely. Even for days and days of continuous operation. Granted the ion drive in the game is a bit overpowered so we don't all die of boredom while it finishes one burn and maybe that's why it sucks so much electricity, but the RTG should at least be able to handle that. Even if I have to use several of them. Well, when I first started, I DID use several of them. I had a very nice ion driven probe that I built and I sent it out to explore the Kerbol system. I knew from trying the stock ion probe that it was very power hungry and I stuck 3 ion drives on my probe. I gave it lots of batteries so that I thought would be enough to last through a typical burn and it still wasn't enough. I stuck a bunch of RTGs on it and it STILL couldn't get through one burn. (literally, I had the KAS system installed so I went out into space to the already launched probe and started pasting batteries all over the place).

The way an RTG in this game works is nothing like the way they work IRL. The game pulse's its output... I forget the rate, I think it's less than one unit every second. Or maybe it was one unit over a period of several seconds.

I ended up patching my RTG. Maybe NOW it's overpowered, on my end, because I wasn't sure what a good value to put was. But it's better than what I was experiencing with the stock part

Yea the problem is balance. The Ion drive is too power hungry while pretty much anything else is way too conservative.

Lights barely consume power, the biggest probe body can be sustained by the smallest solar panel, reaction wheels are cheap as well and the list goes on. It'll need a rework at some point.

[Starwaster]

Yea the problem is balance. The Ion drive is too power hungry while pretty much anything else is way too conservative.

Lights barely consume power, the biggest probe body can be sustained by the smallest solar panel, reaction wheels are cheap as well and the list goes on. It'll need a rework at some point.

Well, to be fair (I hate being fair, especially when the Daleks are firing me at a planet...) the ion drive, as I mentioned above and has been mentioned elsewhere has a lot higher thrust than its real life counterpart so we can have burn times that are a half hour instead of a week long. I have no doubt that this has increased its power consumption as well as its fuel consumption.

The problem with the RTG can be helped by increasing the rate that it produces power at. As you said though, balance. How much does it need to be bumped up by? I think I gave mine a value of 48 and that DOES feel overpowered to me. But there's no real baseline to lock onto to calibrate thing. Though some of the numbers for the ion drive seem familiar, as though someone looked at the specs for the NEXT drive and said, "ok that's how much electricity the PB-ION should use. Except that it consumes that every time the drive consumes fuel instead of... hmmm can't think right now, my cat Melificent is crying at me right when I'm trying to wrap my head around numbers. And lying on my iPad so I can't do calculations on it... sigh.

[Spyritdragon]

I.m.h.o. we need a bigger ion engine. I don't really mind if they use alot of electricity, because they are more powerfull that RL ion drives, but the probe-size on just doesn't cut it. All i can really power with it is... well, probes really.

Ion engines have about the power of a mouse fart.

Oh for sure. I am going to up the output of oxygen by the greenhouse because the one I am using is about 5 tons in weight. This part is kind of interesting because not only do you need the power to get the thing running but also 'biomass' to build up to create the oxygen. So Electricity = lights = biomass = oxygen. At the moment it looks like 10 electric makes .01 biomass.

Okay here it is. Kind of wacky the way the gui is acting but I dont know how to fix it as it is my first real config mod.

Greenhouse.rar (1.7 MB)

https://mega.co.nz/#!Alc3QYiZ!Am-jhnRAO2SHy_qOs7mVozPH9W9UshzwhdlxkO9F0C4

The Glights should turn on and charge up when in sunlight. The top generator is the oxygen generator, the middle generator is the biomass generator, and the last one is the greenhouse lights generator.

Again this is not my mod at all besides a few lines.

Sounds nice :-). I don't really get the link between lights and electriccharge, but i guess ill figure it out once i get into the game :-).

I love how easy Ioncross is to add to . Much opportunity for being creative with this mod.

[Starwaster]

I.m.h.o. we need a bigger ion engine. I don't really mind if they use alot of electricity, because they are more powerfull that RL ion drives, but the probe-size on just doesn't cut it. All i can really power with it is... well, probes really.

There are several mods with bigger / more powerful ion drives.

DSM has one that fits on a 2.5m mount and comes with a giant nuclear reactor to power it.

KSPX has one that looks very similar to the stock drive except that it's 1.25m and the exhaust grid is split by a + shaped... thing....

There's another mod that also has some ion drives and I forget what it's named.

[wso277]

Hi, i have a few questions about this mod.

First should i reduce my co2 levels to 0 or always keep some around so the recyclers work at full capacity?

If i start getting high co2 levels or low o2 levels, is there anyway to be warned or do i need to regularly check up on my ships and bases?

Last what is the best way to have a auto sufficient base or station so i dont need to keep refuelling o2?

[Tassyr]

The RTG is a bit overpowered, the solar panes are a lot overpowered; a single small solar panel can supply power for 20 of the spotlights. And energy production of the panels does not fall off with the square of the distance from the sun...

I'm pretty sure it does scale... I was using large 'gigantors' to propel an ion-driven probe. At Kerbin orbit, it was -fine.- At Jool orbit, it produced so little power that it couldn't run the engine.

Aside- here's an idea. How efficient is electrolysis? Might -that- be an option for extremely compact oxygen storage? I don't know about it so.

https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/aerospace-defense/making-space-safer-with-electrolysis like that thing.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Tassyr

[danw13335]

So I just installed this mod and send a Kerbal X capsule into orbit to play around with it. I timewarped, watched my CO2 fill up, and then an hour later the timewarp stopped and one of the crew died. Perfectly normal, except my orbit changed - before it was circularized to 240km (so I could time warp), but after one of the crew died it was something like a periapsis of 190 and an apoapsis of 270. While running on timewarp some more I noticed that every hour, the time warp would stop and my orbit would be altered, sometimes drastically, regardless of whether one of my Kerbins died that hour from too much CO2.

In practice this isn't a gamebreaking issue since filling up on CO2 is hard to do accidentally, and since running out of oxygen is the end of the mission anyway, but this definitely shouldn't be happening.

Edited August 11, 2013 by danw13335

[Starwaster]

So I just installed this mod and send a Kerbal X capsule into orbit to play around with it. I timewarped, watched my CO2 fill up, and then an hour later the timewarp stopped and one of the crew died. Perfectly normal, except my orbit changed - before it was circularized to 240km (so I could time warp), but after one of the crew died it was something like a periapsis of 190 and an apoapsis of 270. While running on timewarp some more I noticed that every hour, the time warp would stop and my orbit would be altered, sometimes drastically, regardless of whether one of my Kerbins died that hour from too much CO2.

In practice this isn't a gamebreaking issue since filling up on CO2 is hard to do accidentally, and since running out of oxygen is the end of the mission anyway, but this definitely shouldn't be happening.

It's a KSP bug not an Ioncross bug. Adding or moving resources around can cause the ship to shift. It should NOT be doing that since no mass actually left the ship so it couldn't accrue any deltaV.

Unless maybe the surviving Kerbals had to open the hatch to give the departed a burial at space...... both the air being vented and the dead body would have caused a change in deltaV.

(ok, obviously that last is a bit facetious, it's just the KSP bug I mentioned before. If you use enough mods that shift resources around such as TAC fuel balancer (to name another mod), you'll see this happen occasionally)

(in fact it can happen in stock too. Move fuel from one tank to another and you can move your ship)