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

[Donziboy2]

I have 2 small recyclers. I have them both active and the vent. The oxygen never increases only decreases a little in the last hour of night when the batteries run low. Took a few days but it managed to fill the CO2 reserves also.

EDIT...

Ok I understand now... I have 4 Kerbals that need 4 O2 per hour, the recyclers produce up to 2 O2 each per hour consuming 4 CO2 in the process. Soon as I EVA'd a Kerbal the O2 started to go up really slowly. I will have to add a third recycler.

Edited August 18, 2013 by Donziboy2

[Valley]

Does this work for KSP 0.21?

[jrandom]

Does this work for KSP 0.21?

Yep! Works fantastically.

[GavinZac]

Is there a way to modify the default IoncrossCrewSupport.cfg file to add a ION_SUPPORT_KERBAL_RESOURCE *without* editing it directly? i.e. I was hoping to add a third resource that Kerbals can consume that *doesn't* kill them if they don't have it. I'm not sure if ModuleManager can target Ioncross's config file?

[Valley]

Question - I have an already existing (abandoned) Mun base at 1.7 S 39.4 W (according to the Kethane sat I put in Mun orbit). The nearest Kethane deposit is a 17. S 28.1 W. That is, give and take a few KM, 11 KM away. I assume that is the measurement the mod is using, yes? Now, if I reopen the base, besides needing to bring in Ironcross life support, I will need a fuel truck or fuel rover. Is 11 KM distance too long to ask a poor Kerbin to drive over again and again? I was just thinking about just delivering the fuel to a station in orbit but still need fuel at the base for refueling visiting landers. I do have the KAS mod, so transferring between craft should not be a problem...I hope.

Any suggestions?

[Keome]

To get around the logistics problems, I made a mining rig that has drills and a converter. It lands on a kethane deposit and mines, then converts it to fuel. It's also capable of re-launching and landing on new kethane deposits as needed.

A separate tanker comes by to get the fuel and move it to the orbiting station. Using a separate tanker lets me move more fuel at once, since I'm not constantly moving the converter and drill back up to orbit.

A third spacecraft handles all Kerbin - Mun/Minmus logistics, it has extra Ioncross oxygen tanks to keep the Kerbals on the station alive.

It creates a bit more work with the extra missions that need to be flown, but it also makes it a lot simpler. You only need to min and move fuel when it's needed.

[katateochi]

I really enjoy using this mod. I was playing KSP and also watching the FireFly episode "Out of Gas" and it just happened that the alert from Serenity "Life support failure, check oxygen levels at once" sounded at the same time as I was dropped out of timewarp with a life support issue. That made me think it would be really cool if there was a sound warning but even better would be if it could be a user customisable one, by replacing the default .wav file. Then I could actually have that sound byte from Firefly sound when I had life support issues.

How possible is that to do?

[jrandom]

Okay, I thought this was working well in .21, but I'd only been adding oxygen tanks. Yesterday I did mission to Dres and back and it was my first time in .21 using the algae recycler. I kept running out of oxygen and couldn't figure out why because I'd done the math and should have had enough.

I just now performed a test with 1 kerbal in the Mk1 pod, some oxygen tanks, one algae recycler, and plenty of RTGs for power. The recycler runs at 50% efficiency so that should effectively double the oxygen supply. For example, 100 units of oxygen breathed emits 100 units of carbon dioxide which are converted at 50% of efficiency to 50 units of oxygen which are breathed in and out to 50 units of carbon dioxide which get converted to 25 units of oxygen, etc. 100 + 50 + 25 + 12.5... == 200. Right?

But in my test rocket with the algae processor running at full blast, I'm not getting my 50% return on oxygen. In 20 days my oxygen supply dropped by a total of 480 units of oxygen instead of the predicted 240 after 50% conversion by the algae processor.

The math is correct, so am I missing something about how the converters work?

[Starwaster]

Is there a way to modify the default IoncrossCrewSupport.cfg file to add a ION_SUPPORT_KERBAL_RESOURCE *without* editing it directly? i.e. I was hoping to add a third resource that Kerbals can consume that *doesn't* kill them if they don't have it. I'm not sure if ModuleManager can target Ioncross's config file?

YES!

You dont target config files though you target parts, modules and keys by name (when they are named) and by index (when they do not)

Syntax is something like (if i know better what you're adding I can show you better what you need)

@ION_SUPPORT_KERBAL_RESOURCE

{

// use more @ if you need to drill down further to modify something

}

Okay, I thought this was working well in .21, but I'd only been adding oxygen tanks. Yesterday I did mission to Dres and back and it was my first time in .21 using the algae recycler. I kept running out of oxygen and couldn't figure out why because I'd done the math and should have had enough.

I just now performed a test with 1 kerbal in the Mk1 pod, some oxygen tanks, one algae recycler, and plenty of RTGs for power. The recycler runs at 50% efficiency so that should effectively double the oxygen supply. For example, 100 units of oxygen breathed emits 100 units of carbon dioxide which are converted at 50% of efficiency to 50 units of oxygen which are breathed in and out to 50 units of carbon dioxide which get converted to 25 units of oxygen, etc. 100 + 50 + 25 + 12.5... == 200. Right?

But in my test rocket with the algae processor running at full blast, I'm not getting my 50% return on oxygen. In 20 days my oxygen supply dropped by a total of 480 units of oxygen instead of the predicted 240 after 50% conversion by the algae processor.

The math is correct, so am I missing something about how the converters work?

I thought that half CO2 was DESTROYED (or at least lost) during each conversion 'cycle'. well actually that IS what is happening. Point is I thought that was intended...

Edited August 25, 2013 by Starwaster

[Ralathon]

Okay, I thought this was working well in .21, but I'd only been adding oxygen tanks. Yesterday I did mission to Dres and back and it was my first time in .21 using the algae recycler. I kept running out of oxygen and couldn't figure out why because I'd done the math and should have had enough.

I just now performed a test with 1 kerbal in the Mk1 pod, some oxygen tanks, one algae recycler, and plenty of RTGs for power. The recycler runs at 50% efficiency so that should effectively double the oxygen supply. For example, 100 units of oxygen breathed emits 100 units of carbon dioxide which are converted at 50% of efficiency to 50 units of oxygen which are breathed in and out to 50 units of carbon dioxide which get converted to 25 units of oxygen, etc. 100 + 50 + 25 + 12.5... == 200. Right?

But in my test rocket with the algae processor running at full blast, I'm not getting my 50% return on oxygen. In 20 days my oxygen supply dropped by a total of 480 units of oxygen instead of the predicted 240 after 50% conversion by the algae processor.

The math is correct, so am I missing something about how the converters work?

Nah, I ran into the same issue a few weeks back on a trip to Moho. To see what was causing it I did a few tests.

Setup:

Test procedure was to time warp till the clamps completely stocked the craft on O2 and then stage. From there I'd run the tests.

Test 1: Straight up timewarp at maximum speed with the capsule scrubber enabled. Result: 25 days and 12 hours before dropping out of time warp.

Test 2: Recycler enabled from the start at maximum capacity. Result: 25 days and 16 hours before dropping time warp.

You can quite clearly see that the recycler isn't doing much...

My first hypothesis was that because the CO2 tank stayed empty during time warp this was messing with the calculation (because it didn't have the juice on a iteration to iteration basis or whatever).

Test 3: Time warp at maximum until the CO2 tank was half full. At that point I switched on the recycler and fiddled with the capacity until it was consuming 1.6 CO2 per hour (so it wouldn't drain the CO2 tank). Result: 25 days and 14 hours before I was both out of O2 and CO2.

So yea, that wasn't it. So I decided to check if timewarp itself was the issue.

Test 4: Time warp at maximum until the CO2 tank was half filled. At this point I switched on the recycler at maximum capacity and timewarped at x1000. Once my CO2 tank was empty I switched off the recycler and time warped at maximum until I had a decent supply of CO2 to recycle at x1000. Rinse and repeat until I was out. Result: 35 days and 22 hours before I was out. So not the 2 times duration you would expect, but a significant step up.

So it seems that time warp messes up the calculations for recyclers. Probably floating point errors (space kraken but with time). I suspect that you'd actually get the full duration increase when you stick to slow time warp (or physical time warp). But I don't feel like running the game for a month to test this

Seems we just have to drag big O2 tanks around and avoid the recyclers for now.

[jrandom]

Seems we just have to drag big O2 tanks around and avoid the recyclers for now.

Well drat. Has the dev been active lately?

[Donziboy2]

Some of us on the Duna Permanent Outpost Mission Architecture Challenge ran into the same problem and we found that after warp 6 things start going nuts.

And yes the small Recycler will double your O2(large one triples it) at slower time warp speeds, for me at warp 7 its ok, but at max warp(8) it goes nuts as in consumption of O2 increased alot for the same amount of time. For others warp 7 was not so friendly to them.

I also notice my power would fluctuate which is odd since I had more RTG's running then power used.

[pina_coladas]

I also notice my power would fluctuate which is odd since I had more RTG's running then power used.

I've noticed this with stock. It's just KSP's weird, bad way of calculating resource use in warp. Hopefully they can fix it soon so mod developers don't have to hack their way around the problem. I'm super excited to use this mod once these issues are worked out.

[Patupi]

Yes, I did a long term test with a 8 Kerbal craft with a Large recycler rated at 67% efficiency on the Duna Architectural challenge. These were the results I got on the conversion.

Large Recycler results

Warp 6 and below: 16 CO2 converted to 11 O2

Warp 7: 16 CO2 converted to 9 O2

Warp 8: 16 CO2 converted to 0.3 O2!

These were in amount of CO2 and O2 per hour.

I think it's either the issue with batteries draining a fixed amount at high time warp or calculation errors on the conversion itself (ie floating point errors already mentioned). I have noticed that no matter how many RTGs and solar panels I put on a craft the batteries often drain by a fixed amount at high warps, then back up again when you slide down in warps.

Note, all these were done on 0.20.2, not 0.21.1, so I can't say if there are other issues with the new version of KSP.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Patupi

[jrandom]

Is there a table anywhere that lists how long it takes to get from Kerbin to another planet (assuming a good Hohmann transfer), the wait time for the next transit window, and the time it takes to get back to Kerbin?

My guesswork generally comes out too short or waaay too long (requiring a ridiculous amount of unneeded oxygen tanks).

[TaranisElsu]

Is there a table anywhere that lists how long it takes to get from Kerbin to another planet (assuming a good Hohmann transfer), the wait time for the next transit window, and the time it takes to get back to Kerbin?

My guesswork generally comes out too short or waaay too long (requiring a ridiculous amount of unneeded oxygen tanks).

The travel time is heavily dependent on when you leave. Here are two great links for planning your launch window and the travel time:

Web based: http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

Downloaded program: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36476-WIN-KSP-Trajectory-Optimization-Tool-v0-9-Now-with-Optimal-2-Burn-Orbit-Changes%21

[jrandom]

The travel time is heavily dependent on when you leave. Here are two great links for planning your launch window and the travel time:

Web based: http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

Downloaded program: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36476-WIN-KSP-Trajectory-Optimization-Tool-v0-9-Now-with-Optimal-2-Burn-Orbit-Changes%21

Beautiful! Should at least get me in the right ballpark and then I can pad things out a bit.

[apoch1999]

im having an issue where my kerbals just dissapear with plenty of oxygen and electricity. on liftoff they will be there then 3 seconds into liftoff they just dissappear one by one 2 or 3 seconds apart since i installed this, any idea?

[apoch1999]

im having an issue where my kerbals just dissapear with plenty of oxygen and electricity. on liftoff they will be there then 3 seconds into liftoff they just dissappear one by one 2 or 3 seconds apart since i installed this, any idea?

think i found out what happened...noticed life support warnings on switching to launch screen for liquid waste..apparently my kerbonauts were peeing their pants so much it was drowning them. on a more serious note. i added a couple waste containers to the ship and its still happening...soooo still having issues

[Starwaster]

think i found out what happened...noticed life support warnings on switching to launch screen for liquid waste..apparently my kerbonauts were peeing their pants so much it was drowning them. on a more serious note. i added a couple waste containers to the ship and its still happening...soooo still having issues

WASTE??? Looks like I missed an update.

Hmmm I wonder. NTRs can use nearly anything as fuel. I wonder what kind of Isp kerbal urine provides as nuclear rocket fuel...

[jrandom]

I haven't seen waste in IonCross... maybe he got it confused with TAC Life Support?

[apoch1999]

I haven't seen waste in IonCross... maybe he got it confused with TAC Life Support?

got to checking, turns out waste is handled by another mod..sorry...its another "mod pack" that was on the spaceport listed as ioncross only. the guy added alot of stuff to the ioncross mod apparently

[jrandom]

got to checking, turns out waste is handled by another mod..sorry...its another "mod pack" that was on the spaceport listed as ioncross only. the guy added alot of stuff to the ioncross mod apparently

That actually sounds really interesting. What's it called?

[apoch1999]

That actually sounds really interesting. What's it called?

well its called ion cross on the spaceport LOL...its got a greenpicture with the word on it instead of the regular pic...but i ended up having to un install it because even after going in and makeing liquid waste all_vessel and lowering the rate by 10% it still would kill them pretty much outright

[Starwaster]

got to checking, turns out waste is handled by another mod..sorry...its another "mod pack" that was on the spaceport listed as ioncross only. the guy added alot of stuff to the ioncross mod apparently

That's ok, there's no way I know of for the Kerbals to throw their bags of kerbal poop out the airlock so I'd just as soon it doesn't start stanking up the command module.