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

[Aeolun]

Ok, so I came here to report a, well, maybe not a bug, but ridiculousness. When you enter a module that has one resource missing (electricity, causing air toxidity), from the outside, wearing your EVA suit, you instantly die. This makes no sense, considering the kerbals would likely keep wearing their EVA suit if the alternative means instant death. I'll admit his stupidity level was quite high, but not quite that bad, and the kerbal should be able to survive without air for some time either way (at least, that's what the game told me).

[TaranisElsu]

Ok, so I came here to report a, well, maybe not a bug, but ridiculousness. When you enter a module that has one resource missing (electricity, causing air toxidity), from the outside, wearing your EVA suit, you instantly die. This makes no sense, considering the kerbals would likely keep wearing their EVA suit if the alternative means instant death. I'll admit his stupidity level was quite high, but not quite that bad, and the kerbal should be able to survive without air for some time either way (at least, that's what the game told me).

That would qualify as a bug. Thanks, I will look into it.

[TaranisElsu]

Now available on Curse: http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/221022-tac-life-support

(Actually, it was 10 days ago )

[MDBenson]

For Module Manager config files, what is the correct way to state TAC LifeSupport as a dependency. Some people use ':NEEDS[]' and some use ':FOR[]', also, what is the keyword for TAC, is it 'TACLifeSupport'?

[Starstrider42]

For Module Manager config files, what is the correct way to state TAC LifeSupport as a dependency. Some people use ':NEEDS[]' and some use ':FOR[]', also, what is the keyword for TAC, is it 'TACLifeSupport'?

Use NEEDS for dependencies. FOR does not introduce dependencies, it just controls the order in which patches are applied relative to BEFORE and AFTER statements with the same keyword. (It also introduces valid keywords for NEEDS, but you should only be doing that for your own mod).

Since TAC does not, as far as I know, use FOR in any of its configs, you want to use the DLL name, which is TacLifeSupport. I don't know if case matters.

Edited June 14, 2014 by Starstrider42

[MDBenson]

Use NEEDS for dependencies. FOR does not introduce dependencies, it just controls the order in which patches are applied relative to BEFORE and AFTER statements with the same keyword. (It also introduces valid keywords for NEEDS, but you should only be doing that for your own mod).

Since TAC does not, as far as I know, use FOR in any of its configs, you want to use the DLL name, which is TacLifeSupport. I don't know if case matters.

Many thanks

Also, am I likely to screw anything else up if I declare my configs with :Final?

For example, will this work?

@PART[Progress_Orbitalmodule]:NEEDS[TacLifeSupport]:Final

Edited June 14, 2014 by MDBenson

[Starstrider42]

Also, am I likely to screw anything else up if I declare my configs with :Final?

Only if somebody else tries to make a conflicting change (e.g., adding or deleting a module you're checking for) using :Final. I don't think there's any approach that will let you escape problems like that, though.

[Furious1964]

Game crashes as soon as I install this.

Here is a screenshot of what I have installed:

[aristurtle]

You probably ran out of memory. Go try Active Texture Management.

[MDBenson]

Can I also ask if there is a way to stop TAC auto-assigning Resources to modules by default? I am having to 'clean' every module I write a config for to remove unwanted resources. It's okay but it's a little annoying. Is it in a MM config file int he directory or a hard-coded thing?

[volkkeslate]

with all this talk of configs i'm curious if anyone has any alternative configs/modulemanager files for the recently re-released bobcat parts? while the preconfigured ECLSS life support resources work, the quantities they have are imbalanced for TAC. (300 days of oxygen and one day of food and water do not work well.)

Failing an actual file, what's a good rule of thumb for resource amounts so i can tweak the parts myself?

[Corax]

with all this talk of configs i'm curious if anyone has any alternative configs/modulemanager files for the recently re-released bobcat parts? while the preconfigured ECLSS life support resources work, the quantities they have are imbalanced for TAC. (300 days of oxygen and one day of food and water do not work well.)

Failing an actual file, what's a good rule of thumb for resource amounts so i can tweak the parts myself?

I don't know what units ECLSS uses, but here's CoolBeer's post about converting TACLS "day" units to litres:

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:

RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
name = Food
density = 0.001
flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
transfer = PUMP
isTweakable = true
}
RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
name = Oxygen
density = 0.0000014290
flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
transfer = PUMP
isTweakable = true
}
RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
name = Water
density = 0.001
flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
transfer = PUMP
isTweakable = true
}
RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
name = CarbonDioxide
density = 0.00000184212
flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
transfer = PUMP
}
RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
name = Waste
density = 0.001
flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
transfer = PUMP
}
RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
name = WasteWater
density = 0.001
flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
transfer = PUMP
}

-Add aditional ModuleManager file to change parts over to new units:

@PART
[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleCommand]]:Final
{
@RESOURCE[Food]
{
@amount *= 0.317
@maxAmount *= 0.317
}
@RESOURCE[Water]
{
@amount *= 1.798
@maxAmount *= 1.798
}
@RESOURCE[Oxygen]
{
@amount *= 304.27
@maxAmount *= 304.27
}
@RESOURCE[CarbonDioxide]
{
@maxAmount *= 261.78
}
@RESOURCE[Waste]
{
@maxAmount *= 0.56
}
@RESOURCE[WasteWater]
{
@maxAmount *= 1.98
}
}

@PART[Tac*]
{
@RESOURCE[Food]
{
@amount *= 0.317
@maxAmount *= 0.317
}
@RESOURCE[Water]
{
@amount *= 1.798
@maxAmount *= 1.798
}
@RESOURCE[Oxygen]
{
@amount *= 304.27
@maxAmount *= 304.27
}
@RESOURCE[CarbonDioxide]
{
@maxAmount *= 261.78
}
@RESOURCE[Waste]
{
@maxAmount *= 0.56
}
@RESOURCE[WasteWater]
{
@maxAmount *= 1.98
}
}

@PART[HexCan*]
{
@RESOURCE[Food]
{
@amount *= 0.317
@maxAmount *= 0.317
}
@RESOURCE[Water]
{
@amount *= 1.798
@maxAmount *= 1.798
}
@RESOURCE[Oxygen]
{
@amount *= 304.27
@maxAmount *= 304.27
}
@RESOURCE[CarbonDioxide]
{
@maxAmount *= 261.78
}
@RESOURCE[Waste]
{
@maxAmount *= 0.56
}
@RESOURCE[WasteWater]
{
@maxAmount *= 1.98
}
}

@PART[TacAirFilter]
{
@MODULE[TacGenericConverter]
{
@outputResources = Oxygen, 304.27, false
}
}

@PART[TacCarbonExtractor*]
{
@MODULE[TacGenericConverter]
{
@inputResources = CarbonDioxide, 261.78, ElectricCharge, 1000
@outputResources = Oxygen, 273.843, false, Waste, 1.24208, true
}
}

@PART[TacWaterSplitter]
{
@MODULE[TacGenericConverter]
{
@inputResources = Water, 1, ElectricCharge, 100
@outputResources = Oxygen, 3126.4, false, Waste, 3.581, true
}
}

@PART[TacWaterPurifier*]
{
@MODULE[TacGenericConverter]
{
@inputResources = WasteWater, 1.98, ElectricCharge, 1000
@outputResources = Water, 1.6182, false, Waste, 6.382, true
}
}

-Change default consumption values in GameData\ThunderAerospace\TacLifeSupport\PluginData\TacLifeSupport\LifeSupport.cfg

(This step is needed because you can't input decimals in the ingame TAC consumption editor(or at least I failed at it)).

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
}

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

That should take you at least half the way through

[TaranisElsu]

Game crashes as soon as I install this.

Here is a screenshot of what I have installed:

http://imageshack.com/a/img820/7513/1u3a.png

Where is your log file? Please post it somewhere that I can see it. And when does it crash? Immediately? When launching? After playing for a while?

Please, please, please don't just post "it doesn't work". How am I supposed to do anything with that?

Edited June 16, 2014 by TaranisElsu

[MDBenson]

with all this talk of configs i'm curious if anyone has any alternative configs/modulemanager files for the recently re-released bobcat parts? while the preconfigured ECLSS life support resources work, the quantities they have are imbalanced for TAC. (300 days of oxygen and one day of food and water do not work well.)

Failing an actual file, what's a good rule of thumb for resource amounts so i can tweak the parts myself?

I'm writing them currently, I have rough figures for the ISS Resupply craft, MIR, Soyuz and Progress, with ISS modules coming soon, I hope. so far as I'm concentrated on working them out for the real-world parts rater then HOME right now. It's slow going but I'm getting there, you can find the prototypes at: https://github.com/MDBenson/TAC_Configs

I am also working on CLS configs but am less far in with those and still working out issues.

Edited June 16, 2014 by MDBenson

[Rayder]

This may seem like blasphemy to some of you, but hear me out.

I've been using TAC LS for a little while, and I've started to wonder if having three different resources is completely necessary. Why not have just one resource, "Life Support"?

You may say that well you can alter the times that kerbals can go without food, oxygen or water. But in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? If you run out of food, are you going to just send food up to your station? Or will you send up all three anyway?

Do you come into situations where your craft has a serious imbalance of resources where you don't supply all three resources at once? I only pose this question in order to simplify this mod a little without losing the core function, being supplying life support to your kerbals. The only thing that this would change a lot is the processing of waste products, which I have thought about, but it's not my main thought. But what are your thoughts?

[Cerebrate]

This may seem like blasphemy to some of you, but hear me out.

I've been using TAC LS for a little while, and I've started to wonder if having three different resources is completely necessary. Why not have just one resource, "Life Support"?

You may say that well you can alter the times that kerbals can go without food, oxygen or water. But in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? If you run out of food, are you going to just send food up to your station? Or will you send up all three anyway?

Do you come into situations where your craft has a serious imbalance of resources where you don't supply all three resources at once?

I find it much more relevant on the demand side than on the supply side, and principally when TAC-LS is used with other mods, but it's another part of the same issue.

I use Universal Storage fuel cells for power quote a bit, for example, which also consume oxygen; water is a resource I can use to produce oxygen and hydrogen with US electrolysers, and is also a resource used by KSPI ISRU refineries, et. al.; and those are just the two obvious multi-mod interactions I can think of off the top of my head. Creating a situation where you have to think about the trade-offs between keeping oxygen to breathe and using it to create power, possibly with the option of regenerating the oxygen via your solar panels later, etc., etc., adds another layer of complexity to the game.

(And I, for one, like it that way.)

-c

[magnemoe]

I find it much more relevant on the demand side than on the supply side, and principally when TAC-LS is used with other mods, but it's another part of the same issue.

I use Universal Storage fuel cells for power quote a bit, for example, which also consume oxygen; water is a resource I can use to produce oxygen and hydrogen with US electrolysers, and is also a resource used by KSPI ISRU refineries, et. al.; and those are just the two obvious multi-mod interactions I can think of off the top of my head. Creating a situation where you have to think about the trade-offs between keeping oxygen to breathe and using it to create power, possibly with the option of regenerating the oxygen via your solar panels later, etc., etc., adds another layer of complexity to the game.

(And I, for one, like it that way.)

-c

Add that the water and oxygen recycler reduce the water and oxygen demands a lot however this is not something you will put on a small lander.

In my opinion the recyclers are a bit OP, should like two versions one simple an light like the one we have now but only 80-90% efficiency. One heavier one like the large recycler is as efficient as the current but only suited for larger ships and space stations as its now the large one is pointless.

[Starstrider42]

This may seem like blasphemy to some of you, but hear me out.

I've been using TAC LS for a little while, and I've started to wonder if having three different resources is completely necessary. Why not have just one resource, "Life Support"?

You may say that well you can alter the times that kerbals can go without food, oxygen or water. But in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? If you run out of food, are you going to just send food up to your station? Or will you send up all three anyway?

Do you come into situations where your craft has a serious imbalance of resources where you don't supply all three resources at once? I only pose this question in order to simplify this mod a little without losing the core function, being supplying life support to your kerbals. The only thing that this would change a lot is the processing of waste products, which I have thought about, but it's not my main thought. But what are your thoughts?

Not blasphemy at all. Here's my (incomplete) analysis of the three resources: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667?p=1087168#post1087168. Last sentence is basically what you just said.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Add that the water and oxygen recycler reduce the water and oxygen demands a lot however this is not something you will put on a small lander.

In my opinion the recyclers are a bit OP, should like two versions one simple an light like the one we have now but only 80-90% efficiency. One heavier one like the large recycler is as efficient as the current but only suited for larger ships and space stations as its now the large one is pointless.

The recyclers we're working on for Universal Storage tend to have very high power requirements and require additional input resources to use. For example to reclaim CO2 you have to input H2 to create H2O and CH4 (which we treat as liquid fuel as a closest approximation*). Even then you'd have to crack the H2O into O2 and H2 which requires even more power. There is always a trade off somewhere.

Our numbers for the above come from the real Sabatier reactor and Elektron water cracker on the ISS. I've not looked at power requirements for purifying water yet but have some really great NASA documents on life support.

* the amounts generated are tiny and don't unbalance things.

The chart below gives you an idea of what we're going for (I should add in some numbers so you can see how much flows where).

There are a few things missing on the chart below. The water purifier should also produce a small about of waste as well as water. Also I've left out the fuel cell which turns Oxygen and Hydrogen into water and power.

Edited June 16, 2014 by Paul Kingtiger

[Crashy_McSplodey]

Just a thought wrt the timewarp incompatibility; I don't know if it has been mentioned before. 66 pages is too much reading ^^;

just set a Kerbal alarm Clock for a suitable lead time to get a fresh set of resources despatched to wherever needs them, ie orbital Duna station, 4 month trip there, 6 months of consumables with recycling, set alarm for 1.5 months, then KAC will let you set an arrival time for the insertion manoeuvre at Duna

...profit

P.S. Mr Kingtiger, US is a beautiful mod and i eagerly await the TAC addon

Edited June 16, 2014 by Crashy_McSplodey

[Queril]

For some reason, TAC build aid does not work for me.

I can see the button in the toolbar's setup menu but it does not show on the bar itself, any help?

edit: is it because of TAC being disabled for the save?

If so, then it's a huge oversight.. I kinda need it to replace a few modules on my ships before I can safely turn it on.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Queril

[Shiv]

Is there any issue with any of the parts in TAC? I'm having issues with reverting to launch on a delivery ship. I've never used any TAC parts before, but I put them on my workhorse base (that I've used hundreds of times with no issue) with just TAC stuff stacked on it, so the only real new stuff is TAC stuff. Anyhow it's got two large waters, two large oxygens, two large foods, one large 'life support', one small carbon extractor, and one small water purifier mounted on it.

The problem with it is that when I go to launch it, it'll launch alright, but if I 'revert to launch', it loads with this:

Which is clearly bugged. It doesn't immediately break the game (I can still revert to the Assembly Building and other rockets seem to launch and revert to launch OK) but in my experience when things like that happen it usually means it's screwing up something else in the background (such as launchpad physics) as well.

Edit: And indeed it seems to cause my rocket to randomly explode around 6,000 meters up. I had this happen once before when a ship that was too large caused the game physics to flip out. I'm fairly certain TAC is the cause too since none of this was happening until I installed it.

Edit2: OK definitely one of the parts causing the ship to react that way. I can launch a good ship, it launches fine all the way to orbit (where I stopped), launch the TAC ship and it explodes at 6km, launch the good ship and it no longer works prompting me to have to replace my save game file with a backup.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Shiv

[Johnman]

From the testing that I have done, this works fine in 0.23.5/ARM.

There is one caveat though: be careful using time warp in the Space Center and Tracking Station scenes. There is no Monitoring Window to alert you that a ship is running low on supplies and it will not stop time warp when supplies become low or run out. Consumption is still calculated the next time the ship is loaded, just it's not showing the status in those scenes.

Sweet. I consider this a feature.

[TaranisElsu]

For some reason, TAC build aid does not work for me.

I can see the button in the toolbar's setup menu but it does not show on the bar itself, any help?

edit: is it because of TAC being disabled for the save?

If so, then it's a huge oversight.. I kinda need it to replace a few modules on my ships before I can safely turn it on.

Yes, everything but the settings window is disabled when TAC is disabled for the save. I will look at what consequences or weirdness might exist if I don't disable the Build Aid. As a temporary workaround, you can enable the mod when building ships and then disable it when launching. Just don't spend much time in the Space Center or Tracking Station scenes (including the astronaut complex and R&D building). Time is stopped in the editors (VAB & spaceplane hanger) so you can take all the time you need in there.

Is there any issue with any of the parts in TAC? I'm having issues with reverting to launch on a delivery ship. I've never used any TAC parts before, but I put them on my workhorse base (that I've used hundreds of times with no issue) with just TAC stuff stacked on it, so the only real new stuff is TAC stuff. Anyhow it's got two large waters, two large oxygens, two large foods, one large 'life support', one small carbon extractor, and one small water purifier mounted on it.

The problem with it is that when I go to launch it, it'll launch alright, but if I 'revert to launch', it loads with this:

http://imgur.com/fAMq4uI.jpg

Which is clearly bugged. It doesn't immediately break the game (I can still revert to the Assembly Building and other rockets seem to launch and revert to launch OK) but in my experience when things like that happen it usually means it's screwing up something else in the background (such as launchpad physics) as well.

Edit: And indeed it seems to cause my rocket to randomly explode around 6,000 meters up. I had this happen once before when a ship that was too large caused the game physics to flip out. I'm fairly certain TAC is the cause too since none of this was happening until I installed it.

Edit2: OK definitely one of the parts causing the ship to react that way. I can launch a good ship, it launches fine all the way to orbit (where I stopped), launch the TAC ship and it explodes at 6km, launch the good ship and it no longer works prompting me to have to replace my save game file with a backup.

Thank you for a good description of the problem. Would you upload a log file somewhere that I can see it? Along with a list of mods? I have not run into that problem myself, and I have done a lot of testing with reverting to the launch pad and the VAB. I need more information before I can do anything.

[MDBenson]

with all this talk of configs i'm curious if anyone has any alternative configs/modulemanager files for the recently re-released bobcat parts? while the preconfigured ECLSS life support resources work, the quantities they have are imbalanced for TAC. (300 days of oxygen and one day of food and water do not work well.)

I'm working on it. I have a test file available for Soyuz, Progress and MIR at: http://GitHub.com/MDBenson/TAC_Configs

The MIR config currently has no recyclers configured. I don't know which modules coped with what so it's hard to do without guessing.

Also working towards ISS configs but that's taking a while owing to the original configs being very bare, and I need to research what modules on ISS have what storage, recyclers etc.

I haven't just gone for the standard approach of adding everything to all the modules, I tried to make it so you can add modules to boost certain systems, like one will have water storage, another will have food capacity. All have somer Oxygen but I also varied that based on what air systems I can find on the modules.

Edited June 18, 2014 by MDBenson