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

[panarchist]

My apologies if this has come up before, but is there a configuration tweak so TAC Life Support will display time remaining in Kerbin six hour days instead of 24 hour days?

It's just that I've got Alarm Clock displaying in Kerbin days and this is a bit of a disconnect.

Thanks!

John - TaranisElsu stated upthread that it's being fixed in the next release, coming out "soon".

Edited April 29, 2014 by panarchist
added link to TaranisElsu post

[John Nowak]

Thanks very much -- I searched, but didn't see it.

[valthonis_surion]

First off I've been using this mod for a while now, love it and can't play without it.

But are there any additional mods for growing food, mining for water, or generating O2?

[panarchist]

First off I've been using this mod for a while now, love it and can't play without it.

But are there any additional mods for growing food, mining for water, or generating O2?

Echoing - I've been using this mod for a while also, and I love it - best of the LS mods, and TaranisElsu has been awesome at incorporating community suggestions.

Re: growing food - try the Biomass mod.

Spaceport download

Development thread

You might consider tweaking some of the values in the part.cfg for the various components - they don't all balance out. The dev is currently writing a new version, but the current one is functional if unbalanced, and fun to play around with.

As for mining for water, I don't think there is anything specific to that at this time, but both KSPI and Kethane support resource mining. You'd need to do some playing around with files and part.cfgs to modify those addons to specifically handle water, but if you're comfortable with that, then they are potential options.

[panarchist]

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.

What did you get as a value for food density? The numbers I saw in the NASA Adv. LS baseline document and other sources indicate values of roughly 0.8kg/L for the actual food, but 0.4kg/L for food + packaging. (0.367kg/L specifically for food packaged for use on ISS)

Another reference is the standard Army MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat) - a case of 12 is 42cmx27cmx24cm (0.027m3) and masses 10kg, for a (packaged) density of (again) 0.367kg/L - apparently ISS either uses relabeled MREs, or NASA took some packaging tips from the US Army when designing the food.

[blitz2190]

Echoing - I've been using this mod for a while also, and I love it - best of the LS mods, and TaranisElsu has been awesome at incorporating community suggestions.

Re: growing food - try the Biomass mod.

Spaceport download

Development thread

You might consider tweaking some of the values in the part.cfg for the various components - they don't all balance out. The dev is currently writing a new version, but the current one is functional if unbalanced, and fun to play around with.

As for mining for water, I don't think there is anything specific to that at this time, but both KSPI and Kethane support resource mining. You'd need to do some playing around with files and part.cfgs to modify those addons to specifically handle water, but if you're comfortable with that, then they are potential options.

the Interstellar mod supports extracting water from ice on the mun and minimus as well as from oceans, i posted a config a few pages back that modifies the KSP Interstellar refinery to convert its LqdWater to Water using the kethane module, I'm currently working on a few ships and stations that use BioMass, KSP Insterstellar, and TAC LS along with the hollow structure mod to make a full mining op that supports up to ~12 kerbals

*Edit

here's the config

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11863219/part.cfg

also just found this

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/63798-0-23-Beta-KESA-Resource-Integration-v0-1-%28TACLS-KSPI-Water%29

Edited April 30, 2014 by blitz2190

[Kerbies_are_my_Minions]

TAC needs a part that can condense Hydrogen(waste) and Oxygen to make water. And the air filter part should produce oxygen and waste.

[OOZ662]

TAC needs a part that can condense Hydrogen(waste) and Oxygen to make water.

I believe Universal Storage will provide that functionality. Unfortunately they're waiting to see whether TAC keeps the weird 1-day=1-unit system or switches to liters.

[Aedile]

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

You don't need soil to grow food, lot's of RL earth greenhouses don't use soil. Hydroponics are pretty common.

The most difficult parts in RL and growing plants in space -

Lack of Gravity - this is the biggest issue, you can't grow complex plants without gravity.

Nitrogen - well, yeah

A lot of water.

A lot of energy. This is pretty complicated, you need to let just enough sun, keep radiation out etc. and well, glass could be kind of heavy.

The plant mass itself could be really heavy as well, and not all of it is food.

In addition, humans have pretty complex diet, you'll need rather large variety of plants.

It is much much easier to pack dried food or paste, however it's plausible for long voyages, and rather promising for planetary colonies.

As far as KSP goes - yes greenhouse should be at least 5 times heavier than the food it produces. You need to factor equipment weight, biomass other than the food. If you assume food is dried and compacted to become TAC food, the food would be some 10% of the total biomass.

[Aedile]

Not sure where you got your numbers from, but I think they may be off. For humans, the numbers by mass are:

Inputs:

* Oxygen - 0.835 kg/day

* Water - 3.909 kg/day

* Food - 0.617 kg/day

Total: 5.361 kg/day

Outputs:

* CO2 - 0.998 kg/day

* "Waste" - 0.109 kg/day

* "Wastewater" - 4.254 kg/day

Total: 5.361 kg/day

Numbers per NASA's "Advanced Life Support Baseline" document - found here (numbered page 27, "page 39" of the PDF)

Personally, I set Kerbal values at half the human values - Kerbals appear to be about 0.8m high, and their huge heads argue for about 1/2 human volume. Close enough for government work. ;-)

It hardly there is a 'single right answer'.

It depends on your food really.

For example if you ate only vegetables/fruits you need up to 7kg, and almost no water.

But 3600 calories a day is way too much for a spaceman. It's pretty large for a physically active male in cool environment, at standard gravity. Most people would need around 2000 if they are sitting the whole day. The amount of oxygen you need would be proportional to your energy use. So it looks quite correct - double food double oxygen.

Also interesting to note is that most of the food and drink will leave your body through your nose.

NASA largely assumes 'dry food / paste', so that's why the water is higher.

And on the question of food/waste - well you know there is such thing as the weight of the packaging.

There is of course the issue of hygiene, so you'll have some extra waste coming from there.

[Aedile]

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.

They shouldn't add up as the TAC units are not units in mass, but rather the daily kerbal consumption. So for example the carbon extractor creates 0.9 oxygen and 2.2 waste. The mass of CO2 of course is 72% oxygen 28% carbon.

The densities can be found in TacResorces.cfg

[panarchist]

It hardly there is a 'single right answer'.

It depends on your food really.

For example if you ate only vegetables/fruits you need up to 7kg, and almost no water.

But 3600 calories a day is way too much for a spaceman. It's pretty large for a physically active male in cool environment, at standard gravity. Most people would need around 2000 if they are sitting the whole day. The amount of oxygen you need would be proportional to your energy use. So it looks quite correct - double food double oxygen.

Also interesting to note is that most of the food and drink will leave your body through your nose.

NASA largely assumes 'dry food / paste', so that's why the water is higher.

And on the question of food/waste - well you know there is such thing as the weight of the packaging.

There is of course the issue of hygiene, so you'll have some extra waste coming from there.

Aazard was trying to modify TAC values for the "Realism Overhaul" set of mods - in his case, there *is* one real set of numbers, and it's based on NASA/ESA/RSA figures. I was responding with values from an actual NASA document. The numbers in question aren't intended for Kerbals, nor are they meant to be all-encompassing. If you start with different assumptions, you're going to get different numbers - and those numbers are also perfectly valid.

Regarding the rest - where did you get the 3,600 kcal/day figure? I never mentioned caloric intake, and the numbers in the linked NASA doc are 11.82Mj (2,823 kcal), which are totally reasonable for the average NASA astronaut with typical on-orbit activities. 2,000 kcal is pretty low for most people in orbit - 40+ years of observations indicate that metabolism in microgravity works a little differently than on the surface, and activity levels tend to be higher due to muscle use to compensate for the lack of gravity.

Re: food and packaging, NASA's figures are 0.26kg/day per crewperson, but again, assumptions apply here - if you're using a greenhouse, for example, you won't have packaging. (though you *will* have inedible organic waste which will most likely be recycled back into the system)

[panarchist]

You don't need soil to grow food, lot's of RL earth greenhouses don't use soil. Hydroponics are pretty common.

The most difficult parts in RL and growing plants in space -

Lack of Gravity - this is the biggest issue, you can't grow complex plants without gravity.

What do you consider to be "complex plants"? National Geographic and NASA appear to think otherwise:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/121207-plants-grow-space-station-science/

[seanth]

What do you consider to be "complex plants"? National Geographic and NASA appear to think otherwise:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/121207-plants-grow-space-station-science/

Agreed: you can grow many plants in low/zero gravity just fine.

For those interested: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53009-0-23-BioMass-Renewable-Bio-Fuel-Modules

The version on github is dated and will hopefully be updated soon. It is not 100% accurate as far as the plant growth and fuel generation, but I'm fairly happy with it (all things considered)

[Taki117]

Question: If a Kerbal is on Kerbin with adequate food and water, will he survive without power to his suit?

[Aedile]

Aazard was trying to modify TAC values for the "Realism Overhaul" set of mods - in his case, there *is* one real set of numbers, and it's based on NASA/ESA/RSA figures. I was responding with values from an actual NASA document. The numbers in question aren't intended for Kerbals, nor are they meant to be all-encompassing. If you start with different assumptions, you're going to get different numbers - and those numbers are also perfectly valid.

Regarding the rest - where did you get the 3,600 kcal/day figure? I never mentioned caloric intake, and the numbers in the linked NASA doc are 11.82Mj (2,823 kcal), which are totally reasonable for the average NASA astronaut with typical on-orbit activities. 2,000 kcal is pretty low for most people in orbit - 40+ years of observations indicate that metabolism in microgravity works a little differently than on the surface, and activity levels tend to be higher due to muscle use to compensate for the lack of gravity.

Re: food and packaging, NASA's figures are 0.26kg/day per crewperson, but again, assumptions apply here - if you're using a greenhouse, for example, you won't have packaging. (though you *will* have inedible organic waste which will most likely be recycled back into the system)

The caloric intake was in the post you quoted, which assumed more food in general, both as weight,

On the actual caloric intake - average woman or short man needs around 2000 calories (depending on activity level temperature etc, a GI could easily need 5-8000). However there is a difference between energy absorbed (measured by co2), and the actual energy intake. But more on this 'later'

[phoenix_ca]

2,000 calories is a pretty high estimate. You need to be pretty active for that to be accurate. One can live on a fair bit less. Not well by our zomg-so-wealthy-we-can-waste-food standards but still.

[onlinegamesz]

My spacestation is just in the light side of kerbin but still the electricity is going down, my spacestation does have solar panels, is this a bug?

[Taki117]

My spacestation is just in the light side of kerbin but still the electricity is going down, my spacestation does have solar panels, is this a bug?

Not a bug, what's happening is you don't have enough power input to supply all of your kerbal carrying modules. (Which have their own life support that needs powered) Try adding more solar panels.

[onlinegamesz]

Not a bug, what's happening is you don't have enough power input to supply all of your kerbal carrying modules. (Which have their own life support that needs powered) Try adding more solar panels.

I forgot to say it only happens when i'm on another vessel, if I go to the spacestation again it has full electricity again.

[Shania_L]

Hi, I am having a look at this mod as an alternative to ECLSS which I currently use. I have a few questions about this mod and the ease of switching.

I notice TAC monitors more resources than ECLSS, are there any differences between water->wastewater and food->waste? or are they simply two timers with differing speeds? Surely the fastest timer determines the duration of the mission and the longer ones do little more than clog the resources panel and can be forgotten?

I had heard something about ECLSS better modelling inactive ships than TAC but I am not sure on the details of this, could someone clarify or kill this rumour for me?

I had to mod my own ECLSS parts to get a better balance (not a ship with 90% o2 tanks) how does the balance of TAC match? I am not so concerned with reality as much as enjoyment from a game perspective.

I chose ECLSS initially because of its simplicity and prettier models. But with the Universal storage mod and the seeming lack of development on ECLSS, TAC seems to be pulling ahead, how easy is it to swap from one mod to the other?

[panarchist]

The caloric intake was in the post you quoted, which assumed more food in general, both as weight,

On the actual caloric intake - average woman or short man needs around 2000 calories (depending on activity level temperature etc, a GI could easily need 5-8000). However there is a difference between energy absorbed (measured by co2), and the actual energy intake. But more on this 'later'

Well, no, they need about 2,800 calories. I'm sorry, but the NASA figures are based on 50 years of actual data. If you want me to accept other numbers, you'll need to quote a source.

[Taki117]

I forgot to say it only happens when i'm on another vessel, if I go to the spacestation again it has full electricity again.

Also not a bug. It's calculating how much charge is being used since it was last loaded, it does not take into account any power generation capabilities of the station.

[panarchist]

Agreed: you can grow many plants in low/zero gravity just fine.

For those interested: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53009-0-23-BioMass-Renewable-Bio-Fuel-Modules

The version on github is dated and will hopefully be updated soon. It is not 100% accurate as far as the plant growth and fuel generation, but I'm fairly happy with it (all things considered)

Glad to hear it - I love using the older version of that mod, and would love to mess around a bit more with the "more scientific" version.

[Taki117]

Hi, I am having a look at this mod as an alternative to ECLSS which I currently use. I have a few questions about this mod and the ease of switching.

I notice TAC monitors more resources than ECLSS, are there any differences between water->wastewater and food->waste? or are they simply two timers with differing speeds? Surely the fastest timer determines the duration of the mission and the longer ones do little more than clog the resources panel and can be forgotten?

I had heard something about ECLSS better modelling inactive ships than TAC but I am not sure on the details of this, could someone clarify or kill this rumour for me?

I had to mod my own ECLSS parts to get a better balance (not a ship with 90% o2 tanks) how does the balance of TAC match? I am not so concerned with reality as much as enjoyment from a game perspective.

I chose ECLSS initially because of its simplicity and prettier models. But with the Universal storage mod and the seeming lack of development on ECLSS, TAC seems to be pulling ahead, how easy is it to swap from one mod to the other?

1. All resources are consumed at the same rate, equivilant to 1 unit per day per kerbal (Currently, this may change)

2. I've never heard of this rumor, TAC calculates consumption rates on unloaded vessels regardless of production. Once a vessel is reloaded the appropriate amount of resources is calculated.

3. TAC parts are very balanced (If unrealistic, there's a discussion about that elsewhere in the thread) If your mission is a certain duration you better have a certain amount of food, water, and Oxygen (Or converters) to allow your kerbals to last long enough to get there (and hopefully back)

4. Ridiculously easy. Delete ECLSS and Install TAC, that's it. No muss no fuss.