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

[KerbMav]

I would love to see this mod adding some sort of health system.

I would love this to be a seperate mod.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67739-0-23-WIP-PLUGIN-KeepFit-Kerbal-fitness-degradation-mod-v1-0-28

[jinks]

I like the idea of greenhouse but I'd hope you could be talked into changing the values on the cfg, especially if it's going to go into the OP. Right now your violating the laws of physics with mass being created. The mass of .25 waste, and .25 water and the remaining carbon from the oxygen conversion just don't add up to 1 food. I don't have the opportunity to do the math right but even making it a simple, Waste 1 becomes Food .9, would be better, really needs to be some loss.

Yeah, I just plucked this numbers out of a config someone posted on reddit to have something to start with. If someone could give me more reasonable numbers I'd be more than willing to change them. Just remember my goal is also to stay somewhat simple. My PC just won't support 30 greenhouses per Kerbal, so I'll go for lower part-count over realism. Higher mass and/or consumption are of course possibilities.

Also, why does there have to be a loss? Plants can metabolize things we can't, add light (solar or artifical/EC) to that and you get growth.

(One of my main concerns is, if I set up a base on Laythe for example, it'll take at least 2 years from the moment I notice a problem to when I can send help. Being able to recycle stuff into food can bridge such a timespan, but only if it doesn't completely deplete another resource in the process.)

@RoverDude: My main gripe with MKS at the moment is that it will introduce yet another resource tree into my game next to extraplanetary launchpads/Kethane and KSPI. I'm just a single person managing a whole space program, NASA clearly has an advantage here. There are only so many requirements I can juggle at once and MKS seems to be pushing that beyond it's limit.

What are your thoughts on using ORS instead of Kethane as the backend for your resource management? Does it make sense? Is it workable?

I'm not a big fan of Kethane's system. Given the size of a typical off-world operation it seems counterintuitive one would be able to exhaust a resource in just a few months. (I've seen lots of Kethane deposits that fit completely into 3-4 large tanks.) ORS deals with extraction rates as limiting factor which seem more sensible to me. Just think about our use of fossil fuels, we've extracted about half the available supply and we've been drilling for it since 1700 years (ok, 150 years in earnest, but the first oil well according to wikipedia was in 347 CE). So we needed a huge infrastructure and hundreds of years to make a serious dent in the Earth's oil supply, but I can bleed a moon dry of Kethane in a few years?

Thus end my ramblings. Thoughts?

[mdapol]

I would prefer ORS as well. I think it's much more flexible.

[phoenix_ca]

Gods. If only. Kethane is a bit of a contrived method of resource gathering. To say nothing of how painful it is to scan with it. Ideally, I'd say, is at some point ORS would hook into ScanSat and let us use its mapping system to find resources. ScanSat is just miles ahead of Kethane when it comes to scanning for resources.

[Starstrider42]

Also, why does there have to be a loss? Plants can metabolize things we can't, add light (solar or artifical/EC) to that and you get growth.

Because plants metabolize, period. No life form keeps everything it consumes; whatever isn't used for structural material (i.e., edible stuff) gets used for its energy and turned into waste products. And that's assuming you're using some magic GM crop where everything is digestible, something that's certainly well beyond our own biotechnology. For real crops, only some of the matter that stays in the plant is actually fit for food.

While closed-matter biospheres can exist (the Earth is proof of that), it's extremely difficult to make one artificially. There are always sinks, which we can abstract into the TAC framework as an imperfect conversion efficiency.

Also, game balance. As RoverDude said, a life support system that lasts indefinitely defeats the purpose of having a life support system in the first place.

[Guest]

Actually, it is easy to make a closed-matter biosphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_garden

The thing is, any useful greenhouse is not a closed matter system. It is always losing matter to humans/Kerbals using it, unless the entire ship is a greenhouse. Also, even in nature there are plenty completely digestible plants. Parsley comes to mind. Both the root and the green parts are edible, and widely used in cuisine. While energy loss can be replaced by sunlight, matter loss is much more of a problem.

Also, it should be possible to build, at great mass expense, a self-sustaining system that would effectively negate the need for life support, only needing a lot of power. That would be balanced by the sheer difficulty of orbiting such a closed system, and bulkyness of power systems capable of powering it.

[phoenix_ca]

Also, it should be possible to build, at great mass expense, a self-sustaining system that would effectively negate the need for life support, only needing a lot of power. That would be balanced by the sheer difficulty of orbiting such a closed system, and bulkyness of power systems capable of powering it.

MKS.

................

[Vim Razz]

The stand-alone greenhouse is a nice little part. While Biomass+ and MKS are great projects, they're also pretty "greedy" in terms of forcing particular kinds of gameplay and it's good to have a variety of options available to suit different kinds of games. Not every mod configuration needs to be "hardcore". I love Realism Overhaul, for example, but if I had to to run it on every single KSP install that I have then I'd go &^%& crazy.

Sure, input/output balances might be tweaked a bit, but the information needed to do that is already in the relevant post. It's a decent low-upkeep gap-filler option between the zero-upkeep stock game (where you just have to ~pretend~ your greenhouses are there for a reason..) and some of the more heavily involved systems in development. The only major limitation is that it can't function of Kerbin or Laythe without subsidizing CO2 (since TAC won't provide it where you have breathable atmosphere).

[jinks]

For real crops, only some of the matter that stays in the plant is actually fit for food.

Yeah, I took a wrong turn there. My brain was thinking about turning waste and water into plants, but I'm turning it into food, completely ignoring the plant->food part, my mistake.

Also, game balance. As RoverDude said, a life support system that lasts indefinitely defeats the purpose of having a life support system in the first place.

The complete inability to create self-sustaining colonies defeats the play part of gameplay in my opinion. Running supplies to your colony is only fun so many times until it becomes a chore.

Actually, it is easy to make a closed-matter biosphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_garden

The thing is, any useful greenhouse is not a closed matter system. It is always losing matter to humans/Kerbals using it [...]

It's also gaining matter in form of waste and water.

The only major limitation is that it can't function of Kerbin or Laythe without subsidizing CO2 (since TAC won't provide it where you have breathable atmosphere).

I actually didn't think about that until now. There go my plans for an "easy" Laythe base. (I guess I'll have to trade CO2 for food with an orbital station then.)

Edited April 23, 2014 by jinks

[RoverDude]

@RoverDude: My main gripe with MKS at the moment is that it will introduce yet another resource tree into my game next to extraplanetary launchpads/Kethane and KSPI. I'm just a single person managing a whole space program, NASA clearly has an advantage here. There are only so many requirements I can juggle at once and MKS seems to be pushing that beyond it's limit.

What are your thoughts on using ORS instead of Kethane as the backend for your resource management? Does it make sense? Is it workable?

I'm not a big fan of Kethane's system. Given the size of a typical off-world operation it seems counterintuitive one would be able to exhaust a resource in just a few months. (I've seen lots of Kethane deposits that fit completely into 3-4 large tanks.) ORS deals with extraction rates as limiting factor which seem more sensible to me. Just think about our use of fossil fuels, we've extracted about half the available supply and we've been drilling for it since 1700 years (ok, 150 years in earnest, but the first oil well according to wikipedia was in 347 CE). So we needed a huge infrastructure and hundreds of years to make a serious dent in the Earth's oil supply, but I can bleed a moon dry of Kethane in a few years?

Thus end my ramblings. Thoughts?

Not opposed at all really. From my standpoint it's just an alternate set of configs. And once I have the core stuff wrapped up, I would not mind having a couple of alternate resource generation packs (I have no ties directly to Kethane the resource, just use it for resource distribution). And yeah, MKS is (intentionally) meant to be making an actual self-sustaining lights-off colony hard. That being said, you can pretty much stop at three modules (Kerbitat, Greenhouse, and Terraformer [for it's purify function]) and still be able to greatly extend your time between supply runs (supplies are about half the cost). And with a config change, even turn that dependency off (tho I think it kinda defeats the whole 'This is a HARD problem' angle).

It's a fine line... if you OP a greenhouse too much, LS becomes meaningless. For me, it's the fun of managing what ends up being a 10-15 in-game year project in addition to my other launches, etc. so MKS is definitely angled at a more end-game crowd.

[RoverDude]

I would prefer ORS as well. I think it's much more flexible.

Actually, if someone wanted to give me some ORS configs for minerals, ore, and water, I'd plug it in as an option for the next push

[RoverDude]

The complete inability to create self-sustaining colonies defeats the play part of gameplay in my opinion. Running supplies to your colony is only fun so many times until it becomes a chore.

Agreed That's why MKS ends at a closed system (and at the extreme end-game, one that doesn't even require drilling up more stuff due to recycling). I think I spent more time in Excel than I did in Visual Studio and Blender.... I think the question is how you get to that point. MKS is at one extreme end, a 2-ton part is at the other. I think the 'game balance' size would be something where a five year journey of supplies weighs as much as the corresponding part, so anything under five years, just send stuff. Over that, add the part and deal with launching it. Although usually the issue is less launching a part that big, and more of landing it

[mdapol]

Actually, if someone wanted to give me some ORS configs for minerals, ore, and water, I'd plug it in as an option for the next push

KSPI has a bunch. It would be extra nice if both TACLS and KSPI were using the same "water" resource.

[ArcFurnace]

For KSPI/TACLS integration, there's two ways you could do it.

One is to alter KSPI to use TACLS "Water" instead of its default "LqdWater"; Eadrom made a ModuleManager config to do that, although reading the thread it seems like it might not be working properly at the moment. That lets you harvest TACLS Water from the places defined as having water in KSPI (mostly oceans, and some planets/moons with ice deposits) and use the TACLS Water Splitter to produce Oxygen.

The other option is to add converters, either as new parts or as additions to the TACLS recyclers. You would need one to convert LqdWater into Water (almost seems reasonable to me, if you assume the KSPI LqdWater is "industrial-grade" water not necessarily safe for drinking without further purification - just add another module to the Water Filter), and a second converter to turn Oxidiser into (life-support) Oxygen (perhaps add this to the Carbon Extractor, it already deals with producing life-support oxygen). Every refinery module in KSPI that can extract LqdWater also has the ability to electrolyse it into LiquidFuel and Oxidiser, so that would let you get Oxygen from LqdWater, similarly to the TACLS Water Splitter. I actually like this second method better, as you only have to add two converter modules instead of redoing KSPI's resource definitions. I might have to try making something myself ...

Of course, you still need to deal with food. Neither of these options help you produce food without further support.

[jinks]

I think the question is how you get to that point. MKS is at one extreme end, a 2-ton part is at the other. I think the 'game balance' size would be something where a five year journey of supplies weighs as much as the corresponding part, so anything under five years, just send stuff.

5 Years of TAC life support weigh in at about 5.33t per Kerbal, Food is actually the lightest part of that, clocking in at only 0.76t. Going by that measure my greenhouse should have a weight of about 4 tons (it weights 5 now). The greenhouse supports 4 Kerbals, 5t of food would supply 4 Kerbals for ~10 (Earth) years, so that would be the break-even point for a greenhouse right now if we go by weight alone.

Actually, if someone wanted to give me some ORS configs for minerals, ore, and water, I'd plug it in as an option for the next push

KSPI has a bunch. It would be extra nice if both TACLS and KSPI were using the same "water" resource.

The main problem with ORS will be that it doesn't use autogenerated resources, someone would have to create resource maps (png grayscale) for the bodies.

Also I don't see any converters in ORS, that'd have to be done externally. (Or use TACGenericConverter maybe?)

I'm not sure that all requirements can be met by just plugging in an alternate config, there may be some coding involved.

EDIT: Actually, if someone here has or can come up with a way to generate reasonable resource maps for planets in an at least semi-automated fashion I'd be kind of interested in trying to convert Kethane to use ORS.

Edited April 23, 2014 by jinks

[jinks]

The other option is to add converters, either as new parts or as additions to the TACLS recyclers. You would need one to convert LqdWater into Water (almost seems reasonable to me, if you assume the KSPI LqdWater is "industrial-grade" water not necessarily safe for drinking without further purification - just add another module to the Water Filter)

I posted a MM config to do just that over here, I even called it "Industrial Water purifier"

[RoverDude]

The main problem with ORS will be that it doesn't use autogenerated resources, someone would have to create resource maps (png grayscale) for the bodies.

Also I don't see any converters in ORS, that'd have to be done externally. (Or use TACGenericConverter maybe?)

I'm not sure that all requirements can be met by just plugging in an alternate config, there may be some coding involved.

That's pretty much the barrier to using ORS with MKS... I just do not, at this stage, have time to make resource maps (so yeah, if someone made some, I'd happily use them). The resource harvesting bit is fairly trivial to add into a new part that handles the minerals, ore, substrate, and water. I may do it down the road, but don't want it as a barrier to launch.

[RoverDude]

5 Years of TAC life support weigh in at about 5.33t per Kerbal, Food is actually the lightest part of that, clocking in at only 0.76t. Going by that measure my greenhouse should have a weight of about 4 tons (it weights 5 now). The greenhouse supports 4 Kerbals, 5t of food would supply 4 Kerbals for ~10 (Earth) years, so that would be the break-even point for a greenhouse right now if we go by weight alone.

I think your numbers are off. To support 4 Kerbals for 5 years, you would need 7300 of Food/Water/Oxygen for a total of 18.5 tons (Just over 21 tons with containers). To support 4 kerbals for 10 years, you're looking at almost 40 tons of supplies.

[jinks]

I think your numbers are off. To support 4 Kerbals for 5 years, you would need 7300 of Food/Water/Oxygen for a total of 18.5 tons (Just over 21 tons with containers). To support 4 kerbals for 10 years, you're looking at almost 40 tons of supplies.

The latter numbers concern just food, since that's the only thing the greenhouse is supposed to supply and you can get the other resources replenished already by other means. (I literally just stacked food containers until I got 5t and then divided the days of supply by 365 and that result by 4 (Kerbals)).

Edited April 23, 2014 by jinks

[RoverDude]

The latter numbers concern just food, since that's the only thing the greenhouse is supposed to supply and you can get the other resources replenished already by other means. (I literally just stacked food containers until I got 5t and then divided the days of supply by 365 and that result by 4 (Kerbals)).

Also, how do you get at 7300? TAC-LS "units" are in days, and 5 years = 1825 days.

4 * 365 * 5 = 7300. 1825 would be one Kerbal. And I would assume using the greenhouse for oxygen, etc (which is why it got added in). Another consideration (going for realism) is just how much SPACE it takes to make that food - you have to work in soil weight, non-edible plant mass, equipment, etc. - there are some really good articles from NASA about all of the issues RE food generation for astronauts (including fun stuff like living off of algae and growing fish in the algae pond as a treat, etc.)

Again, it's just my take that the weight seems light, but that's the beauty of a moddable game - to each their own

[phoenix_ca]

Food is easy to calculate. What I have problems with are the converters, mainly because they aren't 100% efficient. The all lose a bit of the resource they're converting to Waste. But that loss in conversion is less than what it's defined in the config if you have less than the max number of Kerbals that converter can support (because it's not converting the full amount each day)...

I don't suppose anyone has done a spreadsheet for that yet? That'd be...nice. The math isn't all that bad, just some basic algebra.

[jinks]

And I would assume using the greenhouse for oxygen, etc (which is why it got added in). Another consideration (going for realism) is just how much SPACE it takes to make that food - you have to work in soil weight, non-edible plant mass, equipment, etc.

Yeah, like I said, I just plopped in the fist config I found, needs tweaking. My goal for the part is to make it "not hard" without being outright cheaty. (All while keeping the part-count down and not requiring a ton of greenhouses to supply a medium-sized base. As an example eLpads wants 15 Kerbals for its workshop to be at peak efficiency and putting up 4 greenhouses is already quite a drain on parts considering what else you need for a eL base.)

[Starstrider42]

Food is easy to calculate. What I have problems with are the converters, mainly because they aren't 100% efficient. The all lose a bit of the resource they're converting to Waste. But that loss in conversion is less than what it's defined in the config if you have less than the max number of Kerbals that converter can support (because it's not converting the full amount each day)...

Huh? This is news to me. I thought all the stock converters had a flat 90% efficiency.

[ArcFurnace]

Food is easy to calculate. What I have problems with are the converters, mainly because they aren't 100% efficient. The all lose a bit of the resource they're converting to Waste. But that loss in conversion is less than what it's defined in the config if you have less than the max number of Kerbals that converter can support (because it's not converting the full amount each day)...

I don't suppose anyone has done a spreadsheet for that yet? That'd be...nice. The math isn't all that bad, just some basic algebra.

The CO2/WasteWater converters work at 90% efficiency, and their output can be run back through the converter once it's used again. It takes a little bit of math to calculate the total (1 + [sum from n=1 to infinity](0.9ⁿ) ), but it winds up being a simple 10x multiplier on how long your Oxygen/Water supplies will last. I believe it only converts as much as it needs to in order to fill up your Oxygen/Water tanks, always at the same efficiency, so having fewer Kerbals than the converter can handle doesn't matter.

If you use the 2.5m stack supply containers and converters, 3 Food Containers, 1 Life Support Container, and a CO2 Converter/Water Purifier will provide 6400 Kerbal-days of life support at a mass of 4.7 tons. Additional sets of 3 Food/1 Life Support 2.5m containers will add 6400 Kerbal-days per set at a mass of just over 4 tons each. Each converter can handle 8 Kerbals, so if you have more than 8 you'll need extra converters, at a mass of 0.65 tons per 2.5m converter pair. You can also use the 1.25m containers and converters if you can't fit 2.5m components into your ship, although it's not quite as mass-efficient for the same duration. The 1.25m components will give you 800 Kerbal-days of life support for 1.26 tons of mass in the basic 3 Food/1 Life Support/Converters stack. Extra stacks of 3Food/1LS are 0.71 tons each, extra converter pairs are 0.55 tons each.

I have a ship that uses the 2.5m basic stack for long-duration life support (I wanted to put up an ultra-high-endurance drive unit to push orbital science modules, I had a bad experience with Jeb running out of oxygen on the return from Jool earlier in my career mode); it's currently at 5342/6400 Food and 534/640 Oxygen/Water. It's never supported a load of more than one Kerbal at a time.

Edited April 24, 2014 by ArcFurnace

[phoenix_ca]

Right well that makes things easier. Multiply by ten. Talk about over-thinking the problem. I always was terrible at algebra. Not so bad at calculus. Terrible with the less abstract stuff. God damn my brain is weird.