VetTech - Lightweight Tech Tree reordering for experienced players (1.4)

[rhoark]

The vanilla tech tree was made as a teaching aid, which is laudable, but it means it deliberately backloads essential components to avoid presenting the concepts they depend upon. This is a problem for the experienced player, who would like to apply the full repertoire of concepts to address science missions - not only after the need for science missions is almost exhausted.

The primary aim of this mod is to bring forward the essential concepts and capabilities, such as wings, jets, rover wheels, and docking, while holding back refinements and quantitative improvements in these areas. There are several other mods of this type. To put this one in context of the others, it takes the real historical development path into account more than stock, but is still primarily gameplay-motivated. It keeps the stock arrangements of nodes to maintain forward compatibility.

The Stayputnik is available from the start, but you'll still need crew and EVA reports to advance to science parts at a tolerable pace. Probe cores in more convenient form factors remain a fairly late development.

Science parts have been reordered to put the basic pre-.22 sensors earlier, and give some science-generation opportunities in the upper (rocket/aerodynamics) half of the tech tree.

Heavy and Heavier Rocketry have been rearranged to fulfill the expectation that 2m 1st stages will generally precede 2m orbital stages.

A new save is ideal, but not required. Parts that have moved down the tech tree to a node you've already opened can be clicked in the R&D building to enable. Parts that have moved up to a node you don't have will prevent a new launch, but not prevent controlling a vessel that already exists.

Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/4pnchiyrrn2l98a/VetTech1-4-2.zip

Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States

Changelog:

1.1

Added configs for KW Rocketry, KSPX, and Kerbal Engineer
Probes other than Stayputnik have kOS if kOS is installed
Added the decoupler that was left out from Deadly Reentry

1.2

Fixed placement of small control surface and KW 1.25m nosecone

1.3

Fixed placement of LV-909
Science jr. now has 0% radio efficiency so there will still be return missions in the late game

1.4

added configurations for B9, KAS, Infernal Robotics, IonCross Crew Support, and a subset of NovaPunch (liquid engines only)
moved the basic ladder down to Start
fixed some typos in node names

1.4.2

Fixed problem of missing mod parts

Edited October 27, 2013 by rhoark

[jordanjay29]

Nice idea, I like it. I may uninstall Novapunch and try this out.

[rhoark]

Uninstalling NovaPunch shouldn't be necessary. From what I've seen, it adds its parts in reasonable locations. The extension I'm planning is for ensuring consistency and avoiding redundancy when using KSPX, NovaPunch, and KW all together. (KSPX has the best looking escape tower, NovaPunch the best looking Mainsail equivalent, KW has the best looking 1.25m fuel tanks, etc.)

[jordanjay29]

NP also has a 2.5m NERVA (Nuclear) rocket, which is excellent for making extremely large vessels.

But the reason I'd want to uninstall is to try out your flavor of stock tree reordering. Certainly when your reordering of NP/KW, etc comes out I'll reinstall NP again. Maybe even KW if I can keep it all under the 3.5gig limit.

[jpkerman]

How fast can you advance techs? I think the current tech tree lets advancements too easy. I feel that at least 5-6 launches with the starting parts should be needed since (for novice players) it is a learning experience and for veteran players it makes them use the basic parts for a while since they become so quickly forgotten once more advanced parts are available.

[Synthesis]

An excellent idea, I commend you for it! My first thought after clicking the new building was, "Why the heck can I send a manned module up, but not an unmanned probe? Are we using abacuses?" I'm definitely giving this a try, hopefully it'll mesh well with K&W parts (I've come to think of K&W as a more modern, efficient take on existing Squad parts shaped by experience, but we'll see).

[rhoark]

1.1

Added configs for KW Rocketry, KSPX, and Kerbal Engineer
Probes other than Stayputnik have kOS if kOS is installed
Added the decoupler that was left out from Deadly Reentry

Going through the parts one by one, I decided I'm not going to do a cfg for NovaPunch after all, for two reasons:

Its node assignments are generally good

I only really like the engines, so it would be easier to just cut it down to the engine folder than copy down every part id of what I don't want.

[rhoark]

I wanted to reduce the transmit efficiency of surface samples to 0%, to close the loophole that physically returning anything becomes obsolete with solar panels. I can't get it to work, though, so you're on your honor.

[jordanjay29]

I wanted to reduce the transmit efficiency of surface samples to 0%, to close the loophole that physically returning anything becomes obsolete with solar panels. I can't get it to work, though, so you're on your honor.

I'm not sure I agree. It's one thing for a rover/human to get a surface sample and examine it on a faraway rock.

It's quite another thing for that sample to be brought back to Kerbin to unleash the full potential of science against it. We can learn far more from extraterrestrial rocks on Earth than we can in their natural habitats. For example, one company just made a special fall beer that's brewed with moon dust. No joke! While it may not seem like the biggest scientific revolution, it's certainly one application that is only possible with the physical sample.

Consider reducing the transmission efficiency to a lower percentage, like 40 or 20.

[rhoark]

I think you misunderstand. I want there to be strong incentive to physically return samples. The problem is, once you have solar panels you can repeatedly pick up rocks and transmit data, removing any incentive to return the samples to Kerbin. So for now, sample return will just have to be for personal satisfaction.

[rhoark]

1.2

Fixed placement of small control surface and KW 1.25m nosecone

[jordanjay29]

I think you misunderstand. I want there to be strong incentive to physically return samples. The problem is, once you have solar panels you can repeatedly pick up rocks and transmit data, removing any incentive to return the samples to Kerbin. So for now, sample return will just have to be for personal satisfaction.

Ahh, I misread your original post. That makes more sense.

[rhoark]

Sorry for the update spam - I think I'm done now.

1.3

Fixed placement of LV-909
Science jr. now has 0% radio efficiency so there will still be return missions in the late game

[CrazyCanadian]

so far I like it.

[Synthesis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're using mods like, for example, KAS and Service Module Adapter, we won't be able to get them working with this, right? Only Novapunch/K&W. Can we take a crack at them with a tree editor? Sorry for the questions, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the tree.

[sidfu]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're using mods like, for example, KAS and Service Module Adapter, we won't be able to get them working with this, right? Only Novapunch/K&W. Can we take a crack at them with a tree editor? Sorry for the questions, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the tree.

add them to a existing node is all u have to do. if u look at any stock part u will be able to see the simple line to add to the .cfg

for example i added all my kethane and kas to when u get base building parts.

[Synthesis]

add them to a existing node is all u have to do. if u look at any stock part u will be able to see the simple line to add to the .cfg

for example i added all my kethane and kas to when u get base building parts.

Thank you, I'm going to try this, once I actually figure out the mod's new tech tree--I'm comfortable with CFG editing (for some reason, modulemanager always seems to crash for me).

Edited October 20, 2013 by Synthesis

[sidfu]

Thank you, I'm going to try this, once I actually figure out the mod's new tech tree--I'm comfortable with CFG editing (for some reason, modulemanager always seems to crash for me).

modmanager has issues at times if there flaws in the cfg like a bad space in a word. also like any .dll if there to much for it to do it can crash. since this just modifies the tree but keeps all stock parts on it go to stock parts and also check out he cfg he is using to best judge where u want the parts if u spreading them out. also fyi modmanager hates database refreshes from ingame. if u refresh ingame modmanager stops working also u lose any loaded things from it. a good example is if u refresh ingame ironcross life support stops working and is removed till game restart.

best thing to do is say u adding a solar pannel then loock at stock and compare it with what u putting in and decide which node from those.

[Hontik1969]

not bad not bad at all i am looking forward to downloading

[rhoark]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we're using mods like, for example, KAS and Service Module Adapter, we won't be able to get them working with this, right? Only Novapunch/K&W. Can we take a crack at them with a tree editor? Sorry for the questions, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the tree.

Any mod I haven't specifically addressed isn't affected by VetTech at all. So if it puts its parts in the tree, they will be there, and if it doesn't, they won't.

[iueras]

I can't seem to get this to work at all. I have the modulemanager dll in the GameData folder, the VetTech folder also in GameData. I only wanted the Deadly Reentry heatshields, so I deleted every cfg except the deadlytech.cfg. Nothing shows under any of the nodes as far as the heatshield parts go. I started a new career game as well, and unlocked the survival node. Still no heatshields. Am I doing something wrong? The Deadly Reentry parts do show under sandbox mode.

[Photonically]

I'm having the same problem with heat shields not showing up.

[rhoark]

Definitely works for me, so I don't know what guidance to provide.

[iueras]

Adding the TechRequired line manually into the part.cfg seems to work. I honestly have no idea why it wouldn't work, I've gone over the deadlytech.cfg several times now and all the part names look good, everything SHOULD work fine. Nothing I have changed or tried has made it work except adding the techrequired info straight into the part.cfg for the heatshields. I don't have any other mods loaded for career mode so I can't test any of the other .cfg except the stocktech.cfg, which works exactly as expected.

[NathanKell]

Ah. Don't the part names have weird characters in them, like periods or something?