[1.0.5] TAC Life Support v0.11.2.1 [12Dec]

[Paul Kingtiger]

Changing TACLS over to using liters isn't that hard actually(using kilograms for food, as it makes more sense in my opinion)

Yep this is exactly what I've done, although I've used liters (1000 cm3) for food (I actually weighed a container full of camping food to get a rough density amount for the resource). For consumption rate I looked at a load of ISS and Space Shuttle meal photos and estimated the volume.

The nice thing about it is that you can play around with consumption rates at the TAC level without having to change the values of every part.

[jinks]

Also the life support consumption seems off since on the same 38 day mission I only use 10 days worth of life support items.

Are you running 0.23.5 set to Kerbin time? (1 day = 6 hours, 1 year = 426 days). TACLS has not been adapted to deal with Kerbin time, so you would of course see a 4x difference between Earth and Kerbin time then.

[...] but this was on a vessel that I kept active the entire time.

Time Warp puts the vehicle on rails the same as switching away from it. A vessel is only active during normal time and physics warp.

[TaranisElsu]

Loving this mod, thanks for all the hard work you have put into it.

I did several searches through the thread but could not find anything on the issue I have seen with TAC. I have noticed that with an active vehicle that is undergoing time warp, electric consumption rates stop increasing after 50X. So with zero solar panels I can fly a 38 day mission on 8hrs of battery life and only use 1 hrs worth of electricity. Also the life support consumption seems off since on the same 38 day mission I only use 10 days worth of life support items.

I know there are some things that were done for inactive ships to keep them from running out of power since power generation would not work, but this was on a vessel that I kept active the entire time.

I apologize if this was covered somewhere in this thread and I missed it.

Thanks.

As jinks said, it could be an issue with my mod still using Earth days (24 hours) and the game now defaulting to Kerbin days (6 hours). You can change that back in the game settings. I will be uploading a new version Soon^TM that switches away from "1 unit per day" because of the ambiguity. CoolBeer beat me to it so you can use his files until I get it finished.

Also, there is a known bug in the current release that incorrectly limited Electricity consumption on loaded vessels. It was an unintended side effect of disabling Electricity consumption on unloaded vessels. It has been fixed for the next release.

Time Warp puts the vehicle on rails the same as switching away from it. A vessel is only active during normal time and physics warp.

Actually jinks, the difference for this mod is between "loaded" and "unloaded". Everything within 2.4 km is "loaded" and consumption is calculated and applied with each time step, regardless of whether the vessel is being controlled by the user or if time warping. For unloaded vessels, I record the last updated time and do the consumption calculations when the vessel is next loaded. That's why you will sometimes notice it catching up when you switch to a vessel, and why the crew is not killed until you switch.

Seeing as all the other stuff is SI (metric) this makes 100% sense. We should make increasing efforts to remove all "imperial measurements" from KSP mods

Even though I am American, you will notice that I have not used any imperial units in any of my mods. I wish we would switch to the metric system. I did use "planning units" though (1 unit per day [24-hour]).

So wait, it does support vessels that are not on focus now? They consume resources? Just no warning for when their resources are low, right?

It always has calculated consumption for unloaded vessels. From the very first release. I just calculate how much would have been consumed the next time the vessel is loaded rather than continually calculating it. And yes, consumption will be calculated for the time spent time warping in the Space Center and Tracking Station scenes but there will be no warnings when resources become low. You will need to be in the Flight scene to see the monitoring window. I hope to have that fixed soon.

BTW, I am in the process of moving from one side of the US to the other (~2600 miles), so I am a bit busy and may be without internet for a while.

[DrHotdog]

You are correct that neither the Build Aid window nor the Life Support Monitoring window account for recycling. The recyclers effectively make any Water or Oxygen last 10x as long, so you only need to pack 1/10th the Water and Oxygen as Food.

Also, yes, you need enough resources for the trip there, the time spent waiting for a return window, plus the trip back. My favorite tool for planning that out is: http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/.

It seems to be worse than simply not being accounted for in the Build Aid window or Life Support Monitoring, the recyclers on my Duna mission and Mun base don't run unless the vessel they're part of is currently focussed. Each time I switch back to them after a week or two doing other things I find an accumulations of CO2 and waste water and have to keep them focussed for a bit to get the recyclers to turn them (or rather 90% of them) back into O2 and water. Is this a known issue with TAC or have I found a mod incompatibility? Interstellar seems a likely culprit in my case given the widespread changes it makes to the power generation mechanics.

[OldMold]

I am also planning to separate the mod into multiple downloads:

• the core plugin
  
• the supply containers
  
• the recycling and greenhouse parts
  
• the resource gathering parts.
  

A request for future core plugin feature - a module for hibernation space. Maybe make a part require crew to operate, and as long as it's crewed, the Kerbals crewing the part consume resources at a much reduced rate. I think someone already was playing with hibernation models in the development thread. Would be a neat addition to long range craft. Good luck with the move!

[Pigbear]

oh man cryo would be so useful in this mod, getting to other planets and packing enough is kind of hard for me and some sort of cyrogenics system where the kerbals cannot do anything until thawed (or EVA'd if that is easier) and the ship has to run on a probecore or single pilot capsule to reduce consumption.

[mdapol]

oh man cryo would be so useful in this mod, getting to other planets and packing enough is kind of hard for me and some sort of cyrogenics system where the kerbals cannot do anything until thawed (or EVA'd if that is easier) and the ship has to run on a probecore or single pilot capsule to reduce consumption.

How many Kerbals are you sending? I've sent crews of 4 to Eve, Jool and Duna with more than enough supplies for two round trips. Only took about 4 of the large containers.

Edited April 8, 2014 by mdapol
Misspelling

[SlyStalker]

Hello everyone, is the only way to transfer resources by docking and transferring as per normal with fuel and electricity?

[Crater]

Hello everyone, is the only way to transfer resources by docking and transferring as per normal with fuel and electricity?

Alternatively, if you use KAS, you can send up a load of Storage Bags that you can just carry across and attach to your station.

But otherwise, then yes - they are standard resources, so you can transfer them in all the ways you can transfer fuel etc.

[sidfu]

if u worried about supplies then send a remote craft before or after to carry extra supplies

[Crater]

Changing TACLS over to using liters isn't that hard actually(using kilograms for food, as it makes more sense in my opinion):

-Change the resource definition to reflect the new units:

...snip out the files...

NOTE: Some of the items in the ModuleManager file needs the latest version of ModuleManager(2.0.1 at the time of writing) for the math functions which reduce the file size quite a bit. *LINK*

WARNING: This is hardly tested for more than a few minutes in total, I might have messed up horribly and would advice backups of saves and whatnot before commencing.

I claim no warranty or responsibility if this breaks your game, on the other hand feel free to do whatever with the information/configs as you please.

Hopefully I got all the numbers correct.

Dropbox download with the files shown: *LINK*

(TaranisElsu: If you feel I'm stepping too much on your turf, please let me know and we'll work out something).

-

Kolbjorn

As jinks said, it could be an issue with my mod still using Earth days (24 hours) and the game now defaulting to Kerbin days (6 hours). You can change that back in the game settings. I will be uploading a new version Soon^TM that switches away from "1 unit per day" because of the ambiguity. CoolBeer beat me to it so you can use his files until I get it finished.

Sorry to be a nuisance, but all the stock resources actually use one unit equals five liters, not one liter.

For example, if we take the big orange Jumbo-64 tank, at 2.5m diameter, that gives a cross sectional area of about 4.9m2, so if we assume the 6,400 units are liters, that would require 6.4 m3 of volume, which gives the tank a height of 1.3m.... If we assume 5 liters per unit, that makes the tank more like 6.5m high, which is clearly closer to the case.

Using the stock volumetrics would ease the path for people using modular fuels, or converting other tanks across to store TACLS resources.

BTW, I am in the process of moving from one side of the US to the other (~2600 miles), so I am a bit busy and may be without internet for a while.

Best of luck with the move! Hope everything goes smoothly for you.

[Eggman360]

Hey everyone, I've been working on a mod that has procedural storage tanks, check out this page to see how it works and looks: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75761-WIP-%280-23-5%29-Procedural-Parts-mod-compatibility-extra-tanks

The mod is ready for release but I'm having trouble getting in touch with the mod author of this TAC Life Support Mod to see if I can use the TAC resources in my compatibility mod.

All I really need to know is "Do I need the mod makers permission to release something that contains the original mod's resources?

(And by the resources I literally just mean the "Food, Water, Oxygen etc")

[CoolBeer]

Sorry to be a nuisance

Don't worry, it's perfectly fine to have a discussion, it's even fine to have different opinions and to express those opinions.

but all the stock resources actually use one unit equals five liters, not one liter.

This is true(well, at least it fits with the tank sizes).

Using the stock volumetrics would ease the path for people using modular fuels, or converting other tanks across to store TACLS resources.

Now, this is where we differ in opinions. RealFuels(modular fuels mod) for example use liters for capacity. Universal Storage(Fuel Cell/wedge storage system) does also use liters. In my opinion using liters would make a lot of sense, it is a real-world unit, several mods are using it and it's easy enough to wrap your head around.

One problem one gets into with liters though is different types of oxygen, you have oxygen, which is measured in liters at STP, then you have liquid oxygen, which is measured in liters at liquid state(volume changes dramatically by pressure), so in my opinion it would be better to draw that up by kilograms, which makes for nicer numbers(in TACLF a kerbal uses 305ish liters oxygen a day, which means 27450 liters for a 90 day mission, while if you expressed it in kilograms you'd get 0.436kg oxygen used per day and 39.2kg for a 90 day mission), but this is somewhat of a digression on by part.

In any case, it's easy enough to change the values to your preference if you really wanted, for 5 liter units you can multiply everything by 5, the parts editing is one modulemanager cfg, you might have to manually edit the resource definition file(can't we get a modulemanager for resource definitions as well, that'd be sweet), but it's not a huge hassle, it's even easy enough to make a download one just unzips into the GameData folder which takes care of the issues. I'm pretty sure someone could do a quick edit of some files and create a download conversion pack if it were a demand for it.

-

Kolbjorn

[Eggman360]

Don't worry, it's perfectly fine to have a discussion, it's even fine to have different opinions and to express those opinions.

This is true(well, at least it fits with the tank sizes).

Now, this is where we differ in opinions. RealFuels(modular fuels mod) for example use liters for capacity. Universal Storage(Fuel Cell/wedge storage system) does also use liters. In my opinion using liters would make a lot of sense, it is a real-world unit, several mods are using it and it's easy enough to wrap your head around.

One problem one gets into with liters though is different types of oxygen, you have oxygen, which is measured in liters at STP, then you have liquid oxygen, which is measured in liters at liquid state(volume changes dramatically by pressure), so in my opinion it would be better to draw that up by kilograms, which makes for nicer numbers(in TACLF a kerbal uses 305ish liters oxygen a day, which means 27450 liters for a 90 day mission, while if you expressed it in kilograms you'd get 0.436kg oxygen used per day and 39.2kg for a 90 day mission), but this is somewhat of a digression on by part.

In any case, it's easy enough to change the values to your preference if you really wanted, for 5 liter units you can multiply everything by 5, the parts editing is one modulemanager cfg, you might have to manually edit the resource definition file(can't we get a modulemanager for resource definitions as well, that'd be sweet), but it's not a huge hassle, it's even easy enough to make a download one just unzips into the GameData folder which takes care of the issues. I'm pretty sure someone could do a quick edit of some files and create a download conversion pack if it were a demand for it.

-

Kolbjorn

I agree

The Rockomax Jumbo is 7.5m long with a radius of 1.25m, giving it 36.82m^3 of volume, assuming the game's units are 1 unit = 1 litre then 2880 units of liquid fuel + 3520 units of oxidiser give 2880+3520=6400 units (or 6.4 L^3)

6.4L^3 into a cylinder 7.5m long would only need a radius of 52.12cm to fit in 6400 Litres

A tank with a volume of 36.82m^3 needs 36820 litres to fill it,

36820/6400= 5.71Liters per unit, not an ideal number to work with I know...

--------------------------------------------

On a separate note, I think it would aid balance to make the EVA suits burn oxygen and water faster than Kerbals just sat in the pods, it would be more complicated, but might make a fun balancing act between limiting how often and how long players EVA because clearly someone working EVA or walking around on a planet/mood would burn more calories and burn through more O2 than a person sat in a pod.

On the other-hand, im not sure how physically strenuous it is being in zero/Micro-gravity, you can't just sit down, you'd be constantly moving and even have to hold yourself in place....I'll look into this and get back to you guys.

EDIT: the ISS crew consume 3000 calories a day while on station

and just read here: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/143163main_Space.Food.and.Nutrition.pdf on page 40 the EVA suits have fruit bars in them xD lol...am I the only one visualising a Kerbal's mouth fighting with a tiny probododyne/infernal robotic arm over a fruit bar xD lmao

Edited April 9, 2014 by Eggman360

[smunisto]

Hm, I wonder if I did something wrong with CoolBeer's cfg's for the conversion.

These values seem off to me, or maybe just the stock TAC LS tanks need more balancing.

Just 1 Combo Life support tank gives enough food for a round trip to Eeloo and back(and this is without recyclers for water and carbon dioxide), effectively making any other tank useless.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/udq65kdbp5oyicr/Screenshot%202014-04-09%2023.13.30.png

And the single resource type tanks it's even funnier...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9tolidw8s4w89ql/Screenshot%202014-04-09%2023.12.10.png

I am pretty sure the large tanks have been balanced against some realistic calculation of mass and size, right? If so...I will accept it somehow.

On first glance I am happy that it means you don't need to spam-stack tanks. On the other hand though...

Edited April 9, 2014 by smunisto

[SlyStalker]

Alternatively, if you use KAS, you can send up a load of Storage Bags that you can just carry across and attach to your station.

But otherwise, then yes - they are standard resources, so you can transfer them in all the ways you can transfer fuel etc.

Thanks! I do hope that KAS gets better textures to match the latest TACLS ones by thecoshman.

[Raptor831]

Hm, I wonder if I did something wrong with CoolBeer's cfg's for the conversion.

These values seem off to me, or maybe just the stock TAC LS tanks need more balancing.

Just 1 Combo Life support tank gives enough food for a round trip to Eeloo and back(and this is without recyclers for water and carbon dioxide), effectively making any other tank useless.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/udq65kdbp5oyicr/Screenshot%202014-04-09%2023.13.30.png

And the single resource type tanks it's even funnier...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9tolidw8s4w89ql/Screenshot%202014-04-09%2023.12.10.png

I am pretty sure the large tanks have been balanced against some realistic calculation of mass and size, right? If so...I will accept it somehow.

On first glance I am happy that it means you don't need to spam-stack tanks. On the other hand though...

Looks like you did the per-part adjustments correctly, but didn't update the usage config. Make sure the LifeSupport.cfg in the GameData/ThunderAerospace/TacLifeSupport/PluginData/TacLifeSupport/ is the updated version. You should have "OxygenConsumptionRate = 304.27" in the file. If it reads another number, you probably missed that file, which would cause you to have your resources last a very long time.

[Kerbies_are_my_Minions]

Personally, I could not care less about what unit the rations are measured in (liters, pounds, weight... In my mind, the perfect setup would have the resource bar show number of kerbin days, and have each kerbal use 1 ration of each per day. Let the parts be the difference in how much they hold. Obviously we need more water than we need food, so maybe the water container holds less days worth of rations. This cuts the quick math down on a trip from calculating knowing how much you have divided by how many kerbals you have divided by knowing how much each kerbal uses per day, and lets you quickly see how many days you have of each if you had ONE kerbal, and then your math has to be devide that by how many kerbals you have and there's the number of days you'll go. But I'm also not a hyper realist when it comes to KSP. it's a fun game, not a perfect real life simulator. So I like to be able to quickly piece things together, but still have the challenge of making sure it all goes right. So it comes back to altering how many days worth each part will hold. Yes, you can bundle an all-in-one pack to have 1 day's worth of each, but also have parts varried in size due to a days worth of water is going to take up more space than a days worth of snacks. Or the other way around.

I'm also in love with Solestis' (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667-0-23-0-23-5-WIP-TAC-Life-Support-0-8-22Dec?p=1063341&viewfull=1#post1063341) and somnambulist's (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667-0-23-0-23-5-WIP-TAC-Life-Support-0-8-22Dec?p=882230&viewfull=1#post882230) parts packs. I think the sizes are well thought out and they style is brilliantly Kerbal-y. I can't wait to see these released.

The other thing I think is missing is a way to extract water from atmosphere, or maybe even utilizing the new water biome. I wouldn't care if it's Drinkable or waste, but some way to extract it like we can air would be usefull. Imagine a Laythe base or space station that uses a craft to jump down into the water, soak up some oxygen and water, and then hopping back up to the station to refill it. It would mean supply runs to the station from mother Kerbin would only need to consist of food stuff and not all the added weight of water too.

I love this mod, and I use it. It puts the extra twist into ksp that I think is needed without having to go overboard on realism. It also gives my missions purpose when I have nothing else to do. "Does my station have enough supplies? Oh, they are low, better launch a supply run. How much do I want to take and what fun way can I get it up there?"

Thank you TaranisElsu for all the hard work you have put into this and good luck with the future efforts,

[Andorian Blues]

It seems to be worse than simply not being accounted for in the Build Aid window or Life Support Monitoring, the recyclers on my Duna mission and Mun base don't run unless the vessel they're part of is currently focussed. Each time I switch back to them after a week or two doing other things I find an accumulations of CO2 and waste water and have to keep them focussed for a bit to get the recyclers to turn them (or rather 90% of them) back into O2 and water. Is this a known issue with TAC or have I found a mod incompatibility? Interstellar seems a likely culprit in my case given the widespread changes it makes to the power generation mechanics.

I'm getting this same problem, and I'm only running TAC and vanilla (23.5). It seems really inconsistent - sometimes the recyclers work and the amounts update properly, but sometimes they don't. I can't work out what the issue is.

[smunisto]

Looks like you did the per-part adjustments correctly, but didn't update the usage config. Make sure the LifeSupport.cfg in the GameData/ThunderAerospace/TacLifeSupport/PluginData/TacLifeSupport/ is the updated version. You should have "OxygenConsumptionRate = 304.27" in the file. If it reads another number, you probably missed that file, which would cause you to have your resources last a very long time.

GlobalSettings
{
	MaxDeltaTime = 86400
	ElectricityMaxDeltaTime = 1
	FoodResource = Food
	WaterResource = Water
	OxygenResource = Oxygen
	CarbonDioxideResource = CarbonDioxide
	WasteResource = Waste
	WasteWaterResource = WasteWater
	FoodConsumptionRate = 0.32
	WaterConsumptionRate = 1.798
	OxygenConsumptionRate = 304.27
	ElectricityConsumptionRate = 1200
	BaseElectricityConsumptionRate = 2400
	EvaElectricityConsumptionRate = 200
	CO2ProductionRate = 261.78
	WasteProductionRate = 0.56
	WasteWaterProductionRate = 1.98
	DefaultResourceAmount = 86400
	EvaDefaultResourceAmount = 43200
	MaxTimeWithoutFood = 2592000
	MaxTimeWithoutWater = 259200
	MaxTimeWithoutOxygen = 7200
	MaxTimeWithoutElectricity = 7200

Well, yes, that's how it looks. Wonder if something else went wrong, I overwrote all three files as provided by CoolBeer.

[CoolBeer]

Hm, I wonder if I did something wrong with CoolBeer's cfg's for the conversion.

These values seem off to me, or maybe just the stock TAC LS tanks need more balancing.

Just 1 Combo Life support tank gives enough food for a round trip to Eeloo and back(and this is without recyclers for water and carbon dioxide), effectively making any other tank useless.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/udq65kdbp5oyicr/Screenshot%202014-04-09%2023.13.30.png

And the single resource type tanks it's even funnier...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9tolidw8s4w89ql/Screenshot%202014-04-09%2023.12.10.png

I am pretty sure the large tanks have been balanced against some realistic calculation of mass and size, right? If so...I will accept it somehow.

On first glance I am happy that it means you don't need to spam-stack tanks. On the other hand though...

The numbers fit perfectly(well, close enough, the math seems a tiny bit off), a Large Life Support Container does in stock TACLS contain 640 days of supply for a single kerbal, and a Large Oxygen Container contains 1920 days of supply for a single kerbal.

(Do note I did not do any balancing, I just did a modulemanager file that multiplies the "1 unit per day" with the actual units(in this case liters)).

-

Kolbjorn

[CoolBeer]

I agree

6.4L^3 into a cylinder 7.5m long would only need a radius of 52.12cm to fit in 6400 Litres

A tank with a volume of 36.82m^3 needs 36820 litres to fill it,

36820/6400= 5.71Liters per unit, not an ideal number to work with I know...

You have to take into account that the fuel is not store in the whole volume of the tank, it's usually in spheres or a cylinder with rounded ends(this configuration is much much more resistant to forces).

Here is an example from the Saturn V - S-IC (The first stage), you can see the RP-1 tank and the bottom of the LOX tank:

So in my opinion 5 liter per unit seems to fit nicely enough.

-

Kolbjorn

[smunisto]

I'm also in love with Solestis' (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667-0-23-0-23-5-WIP-TAC-Life-Support-0-8-22Dec?p=1063341&viewfull=1#post1063341) and somnambulist's (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667-0-23-0-23-5-WIP-TAC-Life-Support-0-8-22Dec?p=882230&viewfull=1#post882230) parts packs. I think the sizes are well thought out and they style is brilliantly Kerbal-y. I can't wait to see these released.

I even sent a p.m. to Solestis a week ago with a request for his tanks, for personal use of course. No response whatsoever

[Eggman360]

You have to take into account that the fuel is not store in the whole volume of the tank, it's usually in spheres or a cylinder with rounded ends(this configuration is much much more resistant to forces).

Here is an example from the Saturn V - S-IC (The first stage), you can see the RP-1 tank and the bottom of the LOX tank:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qC1cJmWDt0g/TbDOZm7L4wI/AAAAAAAAKh4/ffHynZ6mS8E/s640/lApolloSystemsDescriptionS-ICstageaft.JPG

So in my opinion 5 liter per unit seems to fit nicely enough.

-

Kolbjorn

I was trying to agree with you lol

but yeah 5 Litre units are better

[Crater]

Thanks for being so understanding.

I completely see where you are coming from with wanting to use 1u=1l for units, and my only reason for preferring 1u-5l is for interoperability with stock, and with the many many other mods that are balanced against it. It means that if you want to repurpose a tank model, you just change the resource name.

That said, it isn't exactly a hardship for me to multiply by 5 (I went through a save game file the other night converting from 1u=1day to your modified values to save Jeb from asphyxiation on his way to minmus!) if I'm editing a file. So I'll happily accept whatever standard is decided upon for the mod. I just wanted to raise the discussion point.

However..... for my next two discussion points.

You keep referring to STP and gasses taking up 22.4 litres per mole. Spot on... Except that nothing else is using STP. Breathing air (the 304.whatever liters per day thing) is at RTP (or NTp depending on where you live), which is 24 liters per mole, a little over 7% more volume per mass, and a heck of a big error if you run out 93% of your way home!

And.... I think that since tanks only matter for storage it would make more sense if you worked with the stored forms for the required volumes. I don't really care that it takes 304 litres of air at normal pressure to keep me alive for a day, compared to knowing that the 1.5 liter tank of O2 I have at 200 bar can happily do the job without cryogenic storage, or that I'd need less than a quarter of that volume if I was storing LOX, though that does come with additional complications.

But it doesn't seem right that a tank volume that can hold 10 units of water can also hold 3000 units of oxygen.

It would seem a lot more sensible to me if it went something like

* you need 304.27 liters of O2 per kerbal per 24 hours

* stored at 200bar, that is 1.52135 liters of tank volume.

Therfore this 50 liter tank can keep one kerbal alive for 32.86 (24-hour) days.

Use the storage units as liters, the stored medium as being (compressed) oxygen, and adjust the required units per day down to 1.512 to compensate for that. It would keep the units in a tank a lot more consistent regardless of what resource you were referring to.