[1.02] BioMass - Renewable Bio Fuel and Supplemental Life Support Modules

[RoverDude]

This is one of the areas that I will probably need to go in and address. As it stands right now, we manage time stamps in the space center scene. Every time you enter the space center, the script will check time stamps of any craft with a biogen module, and will attempt to update its resources based on the difference in time, rate and if the module is enabled or not. BUT, lets say for example you are focused on one craft and use Timewarp, then jump directly to another ship, there will be a discrepancy here. I need to go back in and add some points where it checks and/or updates time stamps for more than just entering the space center.

A suggestion. TAC's Generic Converter is probably the most robust I've seen out there (we derived from it for the USI Converter it was so good). Definitely worth a look, and the license is friendly.

[Roboto]

Yep, I have it! I referred to that code A LOT while trying to figure out how to build this. I didn't really follow the same recipe, but it was a extremely helpful and I learned quite a bit from it. The only reason I didn't choose to use it outright is, I'm really focused on learning to code and code well myself.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Roboto

[seanth]

A suggestion. TAC's Generic Converter is probably the most robust I've seen out there (we derived from it for the USI Converter it was so good). Definitely worth a look, and the license is friendly.

If the TAC Generic Converter was a stand-alone and not bundled with TAC-LS, I bet practically everyone would use it. Squad's is less than ideal.

[RoverDude]

If the TAC Generic Converter was a stand-alone and not bundled with TAC-LS, I bet practically everyone would use it. Squad's is less than ideal.

Take a look at the USI_Converter. It's a port of the TAC Generic converter (with attribution) and some updates/extensions. It's what I use for all of my mods, and it is 100% stand alone.

[seanth]

Take a look at the USI_Converter. It's a port of the TAC Generic converter (with attribution) and some updates/extensions. It's what I use for all of my mods, and it is 100% stand alone.

I will definitely take a look. There's no plan to replace the converter BioMass uses right now since it's tied in with the new control window and has some customization, but I will looksie.

[KBluey]

I'm having a lot of trouble with the mod. I'm running TAC life support, as well as a couple of science mods (LTech and Tarsier) that may interfere with Biomass. The problem I'm seeing is that the vessel's mass is increasing over time, with both the food greenhouse and aquatic greenhouse. Also, I'm not seeing seeds as a resource--should those be appearing? The food greenhouse is also using a heck of a lot of electricity (7 or 8 per second) even with the lights off.

[seanth]

I'm having a lot of trouble with the mod. I'm running TAC life support, as well as a couple of science mods (LTech and Tarsier) that may interfere with Biomass. The problem I'm seeing is that the vessel's mass is increasing over time, with both the food greenhouse and aquatic greenhouse. Also, I'm not seeing seeds as a resource--should those be appearing? The food greenhouse is also using a heck of a lot of electricity (7 or 8 per second) even with the lights off.

Since you said "food greenhouse," I will assume you are playing in Classic mode.

The Classic parts do not try to maintain a mass balance. The massive energy consumption should only happen when the greenhouse is in light (sunlight) or when the lights are on. As I understand it, Roboto set the electrical usage fairly high in the original BioMass release so the parts were not making "free" food, oxygen, and fuel. I will ping Roboto and get him to weigh in.

EDIT: I just re-read your post and realized I didn't answer your question about seeds. The Classic version does not produce seeds. Easy, Medium and Hard do.

If you don't like how Classic is working, may I be so bold as to suggest that you try Easy? Easy, Medium, and Hard aim for maintaining mass balanced reactions, though things need to be play tested and tweaked.

Edited September 27, 2014 by seanth

[seanth]

To help distinguish the difference between Classic and other levels of play, I say down and put together some tables showing the difference between parts.

The first draft can be seen at https://www.dropbox.com/s/a9aweh6oot9yavq/BioMassGuideV1.pdf?dl=0

Things which are outlined in green boxes are biological/chemical processes that the player can not turn on/off. As you can see, the parts function in the same way, but Easier and up is more complex.

[Roboto]

I'm having a lot of trouble with the mod. I'm running TAC life support, as well as a couple of science mods (LTech and Tarsier) that may interfere with Biomass. The problem I'm seeing is that the vessel's mass is increasing over time, with both the food greenhouse and aquatic greenhouse. Also, I'm not seeing seeds as a resource--should those be appearing? The food greenhouse is also using a heck of a lot of electricity (7 or 8 per second) even with the lights off.

The mass should increase over time as the plants in the green house grow. If it's out of sync with the amount of biomass present on the craft, then it may have an issue we need to look at. The ElectricCharge usage should be fairly high as there are many pumps and filters required to run the hydroponics systems inside the greenhouses. I'll have another look at the consumption and see if it needs to be reduced.

[RoverDude]

The mass should increase over time as the plants in the green house grow. If it's out of sync with the amount of biomass present on the craft, then it may have an issue we need to look at. The ElectricCharge usage should be fairly high as there are many pumps and filters required to run the hydroponics systems inside the greenhouses. I'll have another look at the consumption and see if it needs to be reduced.

For my own curiosity.

How do you (scientifically) explain the increase in mass (conservation of mass and all that jazz)?

[seanth]

How do you (scientifically) explain the increase in mass (conservation of mass and all that jazz)?

We don't

When BioMass was first released, it was meant to be just a fun addition for casual players. For that reason, things are not mass balanced. Hell, there are some parts that make some resources appear de novo.

When I came around and started bugging Roboto, I wanted to make things harder and mass balanced...which led to greater complexity. KSP as made by Squad isn't really made for mass balanced conversions of one (or more) resource into another. I have a whole spreadsheet dedicated to taking molar mass chemical rxns and resource densities and outputting the corresponding masses and liter input/outputs...and then doing a sanity check to see whether the masses balance. That last bit is because different mods use different (sometimes odd) resource densities, and you need to math things to make sure.

I believe we can rework things so we have a mass balanced version of Classic, but that wouldn't be Classic anymore. It'd be Easy.

Having said that, maybe Easy should be exactly that: a mass balanced version of Classic. Right now Easy is closer to what Hard will be in terms of reaction complexity.

What do people think? Should we alter Classic and make it not Classic, or make Easy a mass balanced version of Classic?

[Roboto]

For my own curiosity.

How do you (scientifically) explain the increase in mass (conservation of mass and all that jazz)?

...

After thinking about this and looking over the thread, I realized that there isn't a clear statement or blueprint for what we are trying to achieve, so I wanted to make a post to try and lay out our game plan...sort of.

TLDR; Classic and even easy will probably break all sorts of laws and will essentially be casual modes for the fun and interest of simulating the concepts used in the mod (greenhouses in space that generate useful resources). Beyond that, we are kinda still experimenting with how real we can get, before its just not fun or useful anymore.

More detailed version:

Most of all, we want build BioMass in a way that allows the player to choose the difficulty/realism of the mod, and even tune it to their own preference. We want to build cool parts that have fun and interesting uses, while adding to the aesthetics and variation of player created spacecraft and bases. We want to experiment and learn. We want to create something players can experiment and learn with.

When I first put biomass together, I didn't model it after any real biological processes. It basically just took A LOT of electricity and light and assumed the Kerbals were creating waste, which the plants would then consume to produce the biomass resource, which in turn went into making fuel. A lot of players really liked it. I got a lot of good feed back and requests to incorporate more resources so it work with some of the life support mods. I also caught a small amount of .... for it because it was breaking the laws of physics. So fast forward a little, I get a message from seanth about collaborating on the mod, and he had bunch of really cool ideas, knew the science behind all the processes and offered to help develop the new versions with me. Now, we both for whatever reason ended up working extremely well together and our ideas seem to always line up really well..."great minds" and all that. But there is one place that we actually don't line up, and it turns out that this difference is perfect for developing this mod for this game.

Two important points, that I think illustrate the dynamic.

1. Sean went to Doctor Camp and has a PHD in Biology. He also works on simulating plant and forest growth, like for real.

2. I am a filthy casual. I also model and code games for ....s n' giggles.

So what this means is, when things don't jive scientifically it makes Sean CRAZY....Like he starts hitting himself kind of crazy. On the other hand, I'll ignore things like that until I'm griped at about it.

The way I see it, we are making a mod that adds eye candy and fun to the experience of play KSP ..."TO HELL WITH REALISTIC RESULTS, IT'S TOO SLOW!!"

The way Sean sees it we should be, at the very least, some where in the same solar system as The Ball Park..."PLEASE!!!!!!! IF WE COULD JUST SHOW THE SMALLEST AMOUNT OF RESPECT FOR THE LAWS OF NATURE!!! PLEASE!?!?!"

And so, that's where we are at. As we work on the project, Sean and I tend to balance the others drive to pull it in one direction or the other. Personally I feel that people play KSP for a wide range of reasons and want a wide range of experience out of it. Between the two of us I think we represent two types of KSP players, and what they want, pretty well. Hopefully as we progress we'll end up with something that players of any style can use and enjoy, in what ever way they see fit.

At least, this is how I see it.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Roboto

[DavidBowman]

Love this mod! Brilliant! Can't wait for the official release. Also, it would be nice to see it compatible with TAC life support. Universal Storage is also a great corner to explore.

[seanth]

Love this mod! Brilliant! Can't wait for the official release. Also, it would be nice to see it compatible with TAC life support. Universal Storage is also a great corner to explore.

I believe it is compatible with Tac Life Support. Give it a try and if you run into problems making it work with TAC-LS, let us know and we'll try and fix it.

[Roboto]

CHECK IT OUT! The BioMass Mod IRL!

Really cool videos I just found I thought I'd share....

Full Documentary

Edited September 30, 2014 by Roboto

[seanth]

Update 0.2.0.0 (2014.09.29):

-Added version file for Automatic Version Control (AVC) mod integration (suggested by Bit Fiddler)

-Added file paths to resources for use by Alternate Resource Panel mod.

-Fixed purple icon in toolbar at Space Center view (bug reported by Bit Fiddler)

-In-flight button moved

-Made "Easy" play mode a mass-balanced version of Classic (mass balance bug reported by KBluey). Seanth is punching himself in the head. Note: there are no plans to alter how Classic works.

-Most "Easy" play mode parts shifted into Utility vs Classic having them in "Science".

-Some "Easy" play mode parts have slightly different description compared to "Classic" to make it easier to go from Easy to Hard.

-Misc spelling and other fixes

[TavishThomas]

any plans for a .25 release? I really wanna set up some resupply colonies in the far reaches of my kerbol system with this nice looking mod you have here.

[seanth]

I will be testing things to make sure they work with 0.25...or you could help us test by giving it a shot and reporting problems

-STH

[Cdr_Zeta]

Hello,

I hope to use and test this mod ... I had it installed and tested a few times but the regeneration rates were very slow making them difficult to test.

Cmdr Zeta

[seanth]

Hello,

I hope to use and test this mod ... I had it installed and tested a few times but the regeneration rates were very slow making them difficult to test.

Cmdr Zeta

It's true, rates are slow, but have you ever heard the phrase "boring as watching grass grow"? There's a reason the rates are low :-)

[lextacy]

It's true, rates are slow, but have you ever heard the phrase "boring as watching grass grow"? There's a reason the rates are low :-)

if i wanna edit these to provide liquid fuel and oxidizer to simulate Duna refueling, what line of code would I need to put it?

[lextacy]

I cant get any biomass to work. I have all the necessary needs. I have CO2, water, and O2 and thier compressors going. There is natural light coming in and ive made sure there is seeds in the greenhouse. Is this mod broken for .25?

[Olympic1]

Do you have the Test Version of BioMass?

[lextacy]

Do you have the Test Version of BioMass?

no, but i got it to work, i had to time warp to death for the number to change from 0.00 to 0.01 hahaha

[seanth]

no, but i got it to work, i had to time warp to death for the number to change from 0.00 to 0.01 hahaha

I think I have said before that the idiom "boring as watching grass grow" exists for a reason.

If you are interested in less realistic growth rates, change the difficulty level to Easy. If you are already on Easy, lolz.

After the holidays I'll get this whipped into shape for KSP 0.9