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

[BigD145]

Is your Test-Tank supposed to be overwriting the FL-T200? It causes duplication in career mode, making the FL-T200 unusable.

[seanth]

Is your Test-Tank supposed to be overwriting the FL-T200? It causes duplication in career mode, making the FL-T200 unusable.

Oops. No, it was just there for testing. I'll upload a new .zip by tonight (14 Dec)

[KeithStone]

Not sure if i'm doing this right, but i just pulled the new version of github down and installed (from the biomass+science zip), on a clean install of kerbal (plus maybe a dozen other mods lol). I have kethane installed (newest version), but I dont seem to be able to find the seed bank and snack hub in the utilities parts. The greenhouse seems to consume seeds and make biomass, but the biomass is quickly converted to biocake without having any other generators on. I've tested this with having "one of every part installed", both off and on, with kerbals and without. I am running Tac life support and KAS, novapunch, aies, texture reduction, magicsmoke and droman robotics, mechjeb, engineer and remote tech.

The greenhouse itself seems to be the one consuming its own biomass to make cake, but im not certain, more research required.

Oh, and even at 1900x resolution, the tooltip for the greehouse and one of the other parts (i think the composter) extend so far as to not show the name or description, but most of the important mathy-bits are there

Not sure if these are bugs, conflicts, or me just doing something wrong. I would love to do a clean reinstall with only kethane, tac, and biofuels, but that will have to wait as the night grows cold here.

Great mod, I loved the original biofuels and this is a wonderful extension. Just let me know the best way to test so I can help.

[Capn]

It would be awesome if this worked with TAC life support.

[KeithStone]

The resources are the same with the new tac since it looks like they made the resources universal (tac used to have the TAC_Oxy and TAC_CO2 but that appears gone in the newest version), so it definitely works! Its just trying to get seeds to not be consumed so quickly, leaving me with no seeds and no biomass to work with....

[seanth]

Not sure if i'm doing this right, but i just pulled the new version of github down and installed (from the biomass+science zip), on a clean install of kerbal (plus maybe a dozen other mods lol).

I've updated what is on github. I'm not sure why the harvester module would be running all the time and consuming the biomass.

If things are installed correctly, you should see something like this in the utilities view:

And here's the science view:

The most basic greenhouse setup is a greenhouse, a seed bank, a CO2 tank, a O2 tank, and a water tank

And the in-game GUI should look like:

Transfer seeds to the greenhouse and give them light (using the built in light or by opening the panels).

Give that a try and let us know whether BioCake is still increasing when the Harvester is not on.

Edited December 15, 2013 by seanth

[seanth]

It would be awesome if this worked with TAC life support.

It does. Give it a shot

[KeithStone]

ok, on a new clean install I now have the seed banks, and biocake is no longer being produced when the harvester is not on! YAY! However, does biomass "die" if there's no light? At higher than 100 warp my biomass depletes and I have no seeds left, leaving me stranded. I'm about to go on vaca for a week, so I'll come back and fiddle with it more after then

[seanth]

However, does biomass "die" if there's no light? At higher than 100 warp my biomass depletes and I have no seeds left, leaving me stranded.

Plants, just like animals, respire (i.e. they use their built up sugars--biomass--as energy, converting it into CO2 and water). Plants do this all of the time, whether in the light or the dark. Luckily or us, the rate of photosynthesis is about 4x greater than the rate of respiration.

So, yes. BioMass, in this mod will "die" without any light...just like real plants. In this mod, the BioMass will generate seeds in the dark, so you may actually have some, but so few they might not show up in the resources window.

The problem with warping and BioMass is a known bug, but probably stems from how the game does calculations are higher warp. I think what is going on is that there are rounding errors at high time warp, which imbalances things. I would consider this a Squad bug, but it results in super inconvenience. As a rule, don't try time accelerating over 50x while you have a craft with a greenhouse selected.

[Sakata]

... As a rule, don't try time accelerating over 50x while you have a craft with a greenhouse selected.

Biggest issue with this is actually where Biomass shines the best -- long distance missions. I didn't know that resources weren't calculated if the ship wasn't actively loaded though. That is useful -- I'd assumed that due to many mods having non-selected ships still 'function' (life support mods, KSP interstellar, maybe others) that resources were always being calculated.

[seanth]

Biggest issue with this is actually where Biomass shines the best -- long distance missions. I didn't know that resources weren't calculated if the ship wasn't actively loaded though. That is useful -- I'd assumed that due to many mods having non-selected ships still 'function' (life support mods, KSP interstellar, maybe others) that resources were always being calculated.

Yeah. We are aware of the issue. The ability to have resources calculated when you deselect and the reselect a craft some time later requires a custom .dll. To the best of my knowledge, any mod that calculates the resource levels when you reselect a craft does so with a dll each mod makes for themselves. By that, I mean there is no common-purpose dll that these different mods use; everyone rolls their own.

Hopefully we will be able to provide a dll that does this for BioMass, but is something we can provide independent of BioMass so others can use it if they want. We'll see.

[JeffreyCor]

With the time acceleration limit along with not calculating when not selected, it sounds like a high production rate, even if not a "realistic" value, would be a good trade off for gameplay function.

[Chris_W]

Hey there,

I understand you're working on the science part a lot, but I'm more interested in the basic (spaceport) version.

I did a lot of experimenting with it and well, it is brilliant so far, although with small exceptions!

One is the greenhouses themselves as a model/hitbox.

They lack a clean outline in the VAB, meaning you can't go forth and attach 4 landing legs to them.

Now if you use a big round battery on each end, sure you can just attach them to those - but that's a lot of battery storage for a station there - and batteries are as wobbly as ASAS modules, coming off under stress from landing.

It would be extremely helpful if you could give them a really round hitbox model at each end of the greenhouse, just so we can attach stuff properly, maybe the width of a big landing leg.

It already looks round, but the hitbox seems to be hexagonal, with the edges on the sides instead of the flat surface. Maybe even flipping the hitbox does the trick already, or making it octagonal.

Second issue I'm having is with the part that's supposed to be inflatable, for bases.

It pushes the top and the bottom away on unfolding, the bottom ending up higher in the air than the bottom of the actual greenhouse. Also, stuff attached above and below will come off from unfolding, meaning you can't do anything with it anymore. Wouldn't it be better to keep the height of the base part the same and instead open it like a cargo bay e.g. from B9 or 6S, pushing it out to the side and then inflating it to have its bottom in line with the bottom of the part? That way we could really make use of it by attaching it to the sides of something, door facing outwards, and have 4 greenhouses right there.

Not really a big issue next, but since I'm using TAC LS, my Kerbals would be a cheap ressource for getting CO2 and waste.

Sadly they don't produce a lot of either, while the greenhouses etc consume quite a lot of them.

I'm already lacking parts to produce water, so constant water shipments are a must (until Taranis comes up with water supply parts).. but CO2 shipments tend to really dangerously increase the part count when the tanker approaches the base.

Wondering if we could either get one or two bigger containers of CO2 (say, X200-16 or X200-32) or if you would, for compatibility, reduce the amount of CO2 and waste needed over time so.. say 1 Kerbals per greenhouse could already meet the requirements? Would mean one gardener per greenhouse to keep it fully functional, I kinda like the idea of that.

Just my thoughts about long term usability of those awesome parts, I hope they give you an idea. Keep up the good work!

[Roboto]

Hey there,

I understand you're working on the science part a lot, but I'm more interested in the basic (spaceport) version.

I did a lot of experimenting with it and well, it is brilliant so far, although with small exceptions!

One is the greenhouses themselves as a model/hitbox.

They lack a clean outline in the VAB, meaning you can't go forth and attach 4 landing legs to them.

Now if you use a big round battery on each end, sure you can just attach them to those - but that's a lot of battery storage for a station there - and batteries are as wobbly as ASAS modules, coming off under stress from landing.

It would be extremely helpful if you could give them a really round hitbox model at each end of the greenhouse, just so we can attach stuff properly, maybe the width of a big landing leg.

It already looks round, but the hitbox seems to be hexagonal, with the edges on the sides instead of the flat surface. Maybe even flipping the hitbox does the trick already, or making it octagonal.

Second issue I'm having is with the part that's supposed to be inflatable, for bases.

It pushes the top and the bottom away on unfolding, the bottom ending up higher in the air than the bottom of the actual greenhouse. Also, stuff attached above and below will come off from unfolding, meaning you can't do anything with it anymore. Wouldn't it be better to keep the height of the base part the same and instead open it like a cargo bay e.g. from B9 or 6S, pushing it out to the side and then inflating it to have its bottom in line with the bottom of the part? That way we could really make use of it by attaching it to the sides of something, door facing outwards, and have 4 greenhouses right there.

Not really a big issue next, but since I'm using TAC LS, my Kerbals would be a cheap ressource for getting CO2 and waste.

Sadly they don't produce a lot of either, while the greenhouses etc consume quite a lot of them.

I'm already lacking parts to produce water, so constant water shipments are a must (until Taranis comes up with water supply parts).. but CO2 shipments tend to really dangerously increase the part count when the tanker approaches the base.

Wondering if we could either get one or two bigger containers of CO2 (say, X200-16 or X200-32) or if you would, for compatibility, reduce the amount of CO2 and waste needed over time so.. say 1 Kerbals per greenhouse could already meet the requirements? Would mean one gardener per greenhouse to keep it fully functional, I kinda like the idea of that.

Just my thoughts about long term usability of those awesome parts, I hope they give you an idea. Keep up the good work!

Hey thanks for the feedback , glad you like it!

The inflatable greenhouse is somewhat experimental. Once i started using it i realized the design has issues, so I'll rework that model at some point. As far as resources go, I'll put some thought into making it easier to balance and replenish resources. Maybe a part or two that can pull o2 and co2 out of atmosphere for your bases like there is in the git hub version. Another way to go about it is a part that will burn off one of the fuels and capture released Co2 and put back into the system. Also something that can reclaim water from the waste that is being converted to nutrients.

We have a few tutorials we're working on for the GitHub version, and then I'll start working on some tweaks for the Spaceport one.

Thanks!

[Chris_W]

Actually, Taranis already made an atmosphere filter device for TAC LS. It uses IntakeAir and works really nicely.

O2 generation is really high atm, I cannot notice any drop on my 4 greenhouses station. It just stays full.

Co2 is critically low at all times tho, as is Water - but Taranis already said he'd handle water in the future.

So really, all we need is more efficient generator use of the tiny amounts of waste and Co2 the Kerbals produce while gardening.

My station orbits Kerbin btw and is basically a giant gas station, including a repair shop. ^^

1 Eco, 3 Bio greenhouses, one generator (that uses up more biomass than is generated), 4 microbiomes, one oxidizer converter.

Whe running the fuel generator, this is what it looks like..

Stays full: Food, O2, MicroFlora, Light

Drops rapidly: BioMass, CO2

Stays empty: Waste, Wastewater

Too minor changes to tell: Nutrients

Increases slowly: LiquidFuel, Oxidizer

http://i.imgur.com/0y5MCGs.jpg

(There are 2 more Kerbals in the crew module, totalling 4 crew)

[Roboto]

Actually, Taranis already made an atmosphere filter device for TAC LS. It uses IntakeAir and works really nicely.

O2 generation is really high atm, I cannot notice any drop on my 4 greenhouses station. It just stays full.

Co2 is critically low at all times tho, as is Water - but Taranis already said he'd handle water in the future.

So really, all we need is more efficient generator use of the tiny amounts of waste and Co2 the Kerbals produce while gardening.

My station orbits Kerbin btw and is basically a giant gas station, including a repair shop. ^^

1 Eco, 3 Bio greenhouses, one generator (that uses up more biomass than is generated), 4 microbiomes, one oxidizer converter.

Whe running the fuel generator, this is what it looks like..

Stays full: Food, O2, MicroFlora, Light

Drops rapidly: BioMass, CO2

Stays empty: Waste, Wastewater

Too minor changes to tell: Nutrients

Increases slowly: LiquidFuel, Oxidizer

http://i.imgur.com/0y5MCGs.jpg

(There are 2 more Kerbals in the crew module, totalling 4 crew)

Ha! cool thanks. Yea there is some fine tuning and tweaking still to be done.

I notice you said the Co2 drops while running the reactor?..pretty sure this is supposed to be the reverse, I'm wondering if i configed it wrong and didn't notice! I'll look into it tonight. Let me know if maybe you stated that wrong so i don't kill myself trying to chase down a ghost! Glad Taranis liked Seans atmo gas extractor idea, it's very clever.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Roboto

[Chris_W]

I might have figured it out..

BioMass, even with 3 greenhouses to produce it, is permanently used up to zero by the fuel generator.

That way he can't keep up and the 4 greenhouses are faster at consuming CO2 than he is producing them.

That station started out with 700 Liquidfuel and already completed .. at this moment its 15th day in space. It managed to produce only 450 LF so far, CO2 is at 304.

Biomass stays at 0.something, it just can't keep up producing it.

Food on the other hand is up to 4055 already, using only one greenhouse. I guess I should rename it from Refuelling Station to McKerbal.. maybe you can do something about it, its really designed to produce fuel and the generator has been running at realtime for the most of the mission.

Btw, I'm over in IRC if you want to talk...

The Converter eats 60 BioMass per minute, each Greenhouse produces 3 per minute.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Chris_W

[Chris_W]

0.23 Tweakables fix for SpacePort version:

GameData\BioMass\Resources\BioMass.cfg

http://pastebin.com/vc03JXkf

[Sakata]

Hrmmm... Is the github version .23 compatible?

[seanth]

Hrmmm... Is the github version .23 compatible?

GITHUB VERSION ONLY

It will be soon. Cultivate patience.

Resources have been updated to be "tweakable."

There is a known bug with the Station Hubs. It's a bug that some other mods are seeing with some of their models (i.e. not isolated to BioMass). I'm sure someone will diagnose the problem soon.

Edited December 18, 2013 by seanth

[Chris_W]

seanth:

I found not only the resources to be off, but also the experiments stopped working.

Fixed Spaceport version

Changes:

1 annoying typo in the small experiment fixed ("perfrom experiment")

Both experiments are collectable on EVA and repeatable again

Biomass base greenhouse inflatable.. thingy lacked tree integration - done

Resources made the same TAC LS uses (had different densities)

O-RadialLong lacked Techtree integration - done

The bug with the hubs is about to be shot down, it's a glitch on resources without modules. Modulemanager will tackle that.

Sit back and enjoy.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Chris_W

[Chris_W]

Another bug I found is in the animations. I don't really know how the animated bits of the greenhouses work, much less the reactor one, but they need to be checked out a bit.

Greenhouse has issues with IgnoreCollision "both colliders need to be activated when calling IgnoreCollision".

Reactor gives me weird behaviour when first activating it.

Also, MaxAmount = 0 seems to set the value for a resource on an entire craft to NaN and throw out an error spam. I set it to 1 and updated the zip, since this is kinda gamebreaking.

[BigD145]

The big pancakes are having some trouble when you mouse over them in VAB. Interstellar also uses the model and it has the same issue. The part expands until it fills the screen and disappears.

[seanth]

I literally have nothing to do with the version of BioMass on Spaceport, but I'll let Roboto know there are issues.

[JeffreyCor]

Is the BioMass Biology+ (GetHub) version stable and functional in career mode now? Last time I looked into it, it was recommended not to use that version in career which is the reason I've stuck with the other version for now.