[WIP][TechTree @ 0.23.5] - [MS19e] - Realistic Progression LITE

[Intercross21]

I hope Procedural Fairing will be added in this

[issarlk]

Thank you MedievalNerd and all others involved. It works nice and is a new KSP experience. It's a nice change not being able to get to the mun with your first rocket, and strugling to get into orbit.

Only problem I have is that when I recover ships their science is recovered (thankfully) but the ship is not. It stays on Kerbin. I suppose it's just my KSP not being cleaned enough before I added RPLITE mods. I'll try reinstalling from scratch.

[MedievalNerd]

I hope Procedural Fairing will be added in this

Doh, one more thing to add to the original post. It does have Procedural fairings! A must with FAR. If you put it in your game, you'll see they are all in the fairings tree line.

Thank you MedievalNerd and all others involved. It works nice and is a new KSP experience. It's a nice change not being able to get to the mun with your first rocket, and strugling to get into orbit.

Only problem I have is that when I recover ships their science is recovered (thankfully) but the ship is not. It stays on Kerbin. I suppose it's just my KSP not being cleaned enough before I added RPLITE mods. I'll try reinstalling from scratch.

Hmm, I recall someone talking about this issue on some other thread related to a mod. I use so many I can't recall what it is. But yeah, I'm currently a few launches into my balance pass, and I was able to recuperate a few ships and no, they don't stay on the map after recuperated. Well, just to be clear, do you see them when you go to the radar tracking menu? IE, show up as available flights?

[RaccoonTOF]

Yes, I was referring to "dish" antennas, not the omnis. The longest range omni available at my current tech level is the CommTech EXP-VR-2T (which I just unlocked) and it does make things a lot easier on power needs (0.18e/s and 3Mm range - instead of the 0.82e/s of the directional dish) but the range is still short enough to require powering at least 1 dish aimed at the "active vessel" for any trips beyond Kerbisynchronous distances. And even with the new omni, it now requires 8 commsats in KSO, one of which must be nearly directly over KSC, instead of just 3 - but it does take the power-generation infrastructure down to only weighing bout 9t instead of 15t, which has made my launches much more stable . Still seems a bit excessive though. I think that perhaps halving the energy drain on all of the omni antennas and cutting the dish energy needs to 1/4 of current values seems like a "doable" if still not entirely realistic solution - it still means that you need a pretty extensive power generation infrastructure on any permanent comsats through at least the first 3 tiers of solar panels (as far as I've gotten so far) but makes the structural requirements to mount all of them not quite so insane. With the current setup, and powering just 1 dish and 1 omni plus the probe core, I can just barely keep them all powered by only having a unidirectional solar array of panels on 8 long I-beams, put the whole comsat assembly under a procedural fairing which is at its widest about 5m wide, cut all of my dV amounts to the bare bones necessary (with a takeoff TWR only at 1.2 in the end), and get a stable launch to place the sat into KSO with less than 30m/s dV spare for fine-tuning. Then orient the whole thing to surface normal and point the panels at the sun, and it just barely manages to have enough power to make it through the (rather long at some parts of the year) eclipse period, dipping down as low as 200 charge left in the battery array before re-entering sunlight and beginning the long recharge cycle again (57,700 max charge in the battery banks). Trying to power 2 additional dish antennas renders the entire endeavor not possible if I want to have truly continuous power requirements met - the structural requirements for the panels that would be needed ends up being nearly 30m in diameter, which even under a fairing does not play well at all with FAR . My earlier dish-based comsats were able to provide a "lifetime" of about 6 months though on battery power with a 10m diameter unidirectional array, so I might just need to end up putting up a few "short duration" sats like those in order to head out beyond the Mun...

EDIT: Pics of the current comsat

Sunside View

Rear View

On the pad waiting to launch

Edited November 20, 2013 by RaccoonTOF

[stevron]

I don't understand what the tweak's are for. Solar panel's generate so little power with the tweaks in place that you need 5 million single cell panel's just to power the SAS. Are they for use with RSS or not?

[MedievalNerd]

Yes, I was referring to "dish" antennas, not the omnis. The longest range omni available at my current tech level is the CommTech EXP-VR-2T (which I just unlocked) and it does make things a lot easier on power needs (0.18e/s and 3Mm range - instead of the 0.82e/s of the directional dish) but the range is still short enough to require powering at least 1 dish aimed at the "active vessel" for any trips beyond Kerbisynchronous distances. And even with the new omni, it now requires 8 commsats in KSO, one of which must be nearly directly over KSC, instead of just 3 - but it does take the power-generation infrastructure down to only weighing bout 9t instead of 15t, which has made my launches much more stable . Still seems a bit excessive though. I think that perhaps halving the energy drain on all of the omni antennas and cutting the dish energy needs to 1/4 of current values seems like a "doable" if still not entirely realistic solution - it still means that you need a pretty extensive power generation infrastructure on any permanent comsats through at least the first 3 tiers of solar panels (as far as I've gotten so far) but makes the structural requirements to mount all of them not quite so insane. With the current setup, and powering just 1 dish and 1 omni plus the probe core, I can just barely keep them all powered by only having a unidirectional solar array of panels on 8 long I-beams, put the whole comsat assembly under a procedural fairing which is at its widest about 5m wide, cut all of my d/V amounts to the bare bones necessary (with a takeoff TWR only at 1.2 in the end), and get a stable launch to place the sat into KSO with less than 30 d/V spare for fine-tuning. Then orient the whole thing to surface normal and point the panels at the sun, and it just barely manages to have enough power to make it through the (rather long at some parts of the year) eclipse period, dipping down as low as 200 charge left in the battery array before re-entering sunlight and beginning the long recharge cycle again (57,700 max charge in the battery banks). Trying to power 2 additional dish antennas renders the entire endeavor not possible if I want to have truly continuous power requirements met - the structural requirements for the panels that would be needed ends up being nearly 30m in diameter, which even under a fairing does not play well at all with FAR . My earlier dish-based comsats were able to provide a "lifetime" of about 6 months though on battery power with a 10m diameter unidirectional array, so I might just need to end up putting up a few "short duration" sats like those in order to head out beyond the Mun...

EDIT: Pics of the current comsat

Are you playing with RSS? If so, the 3Mm should be 30Mm! Make sure you use the RT tweak files in my pack. (copy them over the "stock" RT ones) And the power con value I have is 0.04 charge/s for that antenna.

Use these files and replace your remote tech 2 files. (The ones in the actual RT2 folder)

LINK

Yeah, antenna power consumption needs to be tweaked more! And perhaps make it a bit less expensive tech wise to get better SPs earlier on.

I don't understand what the tweak's are for. Solar panel's generate so little power with the tweaks in place that you need 5 million single cell panel's just to power the SAS. Are they for use with RSS or not?

5 Million? How many SAS units are you using? And the second tier of solar panel doubles the output. (1.1/min to 2.2/min)

Haven't gotten around to it yet, but reaction wheels need their torque levels nerfed, and by result will lower their power consumption. Right now, reaction wheels are so powerful that you basically don't need RCS for anything other than translation. I'm not super keen on the math, but I believe Nathan said it was off by an order of magnitude.

In the meantime, you can start using RCS to maneuver your ship. (in prep for nerf too)

[RaccoonTOF]

That's pretty much exactly what they are for (among a few other balancing things) - to diminish the OP nature of the stock solar panels. No longer can you just slap a pair (or 4) panels on to power your entire craft forever .

EDIT: No, I'm not using RSS (it causes graphical issues on my laptop still - hoping that at a later stage of its development it will play friendlier with the textures ) but because of that I have left the RT range values unadjusted as well - so proportionally it works out to be the same. That said, I can only imagine the nightmare of trying to launch the comsat pictured above under RSS dV requirements...even with the KATO engines. However, I guess I didn't look closely enough at the antenna power reqs in your RT tweaks...I'll go back and look over all of them again, will change the power reqs per your replacement configs but not the ranges and see how things balance then.

Edited November 20, 2013 by RaccoonTOF

[Senshi]

I grow more and more happy with my 10% energy usage for all RT antenna/dishes. I also boosted range a bit to get things closer to RT1 levels and give a tad more leeway in establishing a comsat network.

I'll probably up the energy usage a bit again, but I think 10-20% is a good range for testing.

@MedievalNerd: Additional suggestion: For the sake of accessibility, would you mind porting your excel mod sheet being ported over to Google Drive or similar? Then it'd be accessible for everyone directly by web browser. You could also do updates there live that would be immediately applied, so no danger of outdated sheets floating around. As an example I simply uploaded your sheet to GDrive and let it auto-convert, and this is the result. You can easily set it up on you own and I'll take mine down again.

[MedievalNerd]

That's pretty much exactly what they are for (among a few other balancing things) - to diminish the OP nature of the stock solar panels. No longer can you just slap a pair (or 4) panels on to power your entire craft forever .

EDIT: No, I'm not using RSS (it causes graphical issues on my laptop still - hoping that at a later stage of its development it will play friendlier with the textures ) but because of that I have left the RT range values unadjusted as well - so proportionally it works out to be the same. That said, I can only imagine the nightmare of trying to launch the comsat pictured above under RSS dV requirements...even with the KATO engines. However, I guess I didn't look closely enough at the antenna power reqs in your RT tweaks...I'll go back and look over all of them again, will change the power reqs per your replacement configs but not the ranges and see how things balance then.

Ahh ok! Cool, so range is fine then.

But yeah, you'll want to look at power con. Senshi is doing 10%, if you look at the RT2 folder in game data, there is a settings file, with a line about power consumption. Try it at 0.1.

[RaccoonTOF]

Ok, I double checked my modmanager alterations, and they match your current power levels and the original RT2 ranges. I'm using the ":Final" operator so they SHOULD be the last things changed in the configs before KSP loads the parts. I hadn't noticed the "ConsumptionMultiplier" in the settings cfg file before though...but theoretically if I'm already overwriting the energy requirements with your own values, then the power consumption multiplier should still be left at 1 shouldn't it? Or does the change in ranges affect the power consumption also? On top of that - the antennas that I'm using are the AIES ones anyway...those don't have ANY default configs in RT2, so they are only using your own cfg changes to them, with the ranges adjusted due to the lack of RSS use.

EDIT: Ok, found my problem - my custom config files were not properly overwriting the RT2 files, even with the ":Final" operator. I made backups of the original RT2 files, and moved my custom config files into the RT2 directory, and now everything is working properly with your power values, and ranges appropriate to non-RSS. I'm guessing that the RT2 plugin is somehow searching for things in a directory-dependent manner, even though it is using modmanager to make the changes to the PART definitions (and thus theoretically the .cfg files should be able to be present anywhere in the gamedata directory) but whatever the issue it now seems like I have the correct values on all the antennas (all the ones I have unlocked so far at least). Time to redesign the 4th generation of comsats and put up a new array - this one hopefully with the capability of reaching at least Minmus without drastic power infrastructure

Edited November 20, 2013 by RaccoonTOF

[MedievalNerd]

Ok, I double checked my modmanager alterations, and they match your current power levels and the original RT2 ranges. I'm using the ":Final" operator so they SHOULD be the last things changed in the configs before KSP loads the parts. I hadn't noticed the "ConsumptionMultiplier" in the settings cfg file before though...but theoretically if I'm already overwriting the energy requirements with your own values, then the power consumption multiplier should still be left at 1 shouldn't it? Or does the change in ranges affect the power consumption also? On top of that - the antennas that I'm using are the AIES ones anyway...those don't have ANY default configs in RT2, so they are only using your own cfg changes to them, with the ranges adjusted due to the lack of RSS use.

EDIT: Ok, found my problem - my custom config files were not properly overwriting the RT2 files, even with the ":Final" operator. I made backups of the original RT2 files, and moved my custom config files into the RT2 directory, and now everything is working properly with your power values, and ranges appropriate to non-RSS. I'm guessing that the RT2 plugin is somehow searching for things in a directory-dependent manner, even though it is using modmanager to make the changes to the PART definitions (and thus theoretically the .cfg files should be able to be present anywhere in the gamedata directory) but whatever the issue it now seems like I have the correct values on all the antennas (all the ones I have unlocked so far at least). Time to redesign the 4th generation of comsats and put up a new array - this one hopefully with the capability of reaching at least Minmus without drastic power infrastructure

Awesome you figured it out! With zillions of tweaks everywhere it's easy to overlook something. We'll get it down to a tea before late.

[Guest]

Hi, know that others have mentioned this but i thought i would throw out my opinion/thoughts. BTW I am not using RSS or the increased range tweaks for RT2. The solar panel nerfing has rendered it nearly impossible for me to set up a feasible KEO comm sat network due to power consumption of antenna/dish's vs the power generation of the 1st 3 tiers of solar panels (the 1/4 battery suggested to make it correct for normal game scale hasnt help AT ALL with this issue either lol). Is the suggestion of editing the power consumption of antenna from 1.0 to 0.1 still current or has this been fixed in a newer version of the "tweaks"?? This issue is causing me large headaches landing a probe on the Mun (even running a timed to landing while in "line of sight" to mission control with 1 single dish on the probe itself, coated in as many solar panels that will fit (over 48 of the large retractable non-tracking panels) and over 5000 battery capacity onboard. Have the solar panels been "over nerfed" or am i missing something or do i indeed need to edit the config file manually.?.

On a positive note everything else seems to be working 100% for me with a great tech tree progression speed and scale that is much more realistic, the only issues i am having is the inability to generate the needed power for a single dish equiped probe or comm sat network. Please let me know and keep up the amazing work!!

[andqui]

What is supposed to be present in the start node? In my start engines category I have: H2, A9, FOWDS SRB, RT-5 SRB, LR29, LR37, Decurion, LR11R, LR12R, Sepratron I, B7. Then I have all three types of stretch tanks from the beginning, the oscar B fuel tank, and a Lithium tank.

I just went through the excel sheet and installed the mods I didn't have, so I don't know what comes from where exactly. Its also my first time using treeEdit rather than TreeLoader and I wanted to make sure things were working correctly. Some of the engines above seem rather large for the start node.

thanks, and great tree

That sounds about right.

Then why are some of those engines like the H2 and the A9 Tech Level 2+ in the starting node, when you are only supposed to use Tech level 2 several nodes down the tree? And why does the Stayputnik Mk 2 start as unlocked and the Stayputnik Mk 1 start as requiring research cost within the starting node? Also I seem to start out with every type of heat shield, some of the larger decouplers like the 5 m HS-500, and every type of parachute from RealChutes.

I know the tree is WIP, but I just want to make sure that the above is due to that and not to me doing something wrong when installing.

Many of the above parts in the start node require research points, some 0 others a certain amount? Is it intended to use some sort of economy mod like mission controller with this to stop you from researching everything within the starting tech node? I'm not using it yet because it's not fully integrated yet.

thanks

[MedievalNerd]

Then why are some of those engines like the H2 and the A9 Tech Level 2+ in the starting node, when you are only supposed to use Tech level 2 several nodes down the tree? And why does the Stayputnik Mk 2 start as unlocked and the Stayputnik Mk 1 start as requiring research cost within the starting node? Also I seem to start out with every type of heat shield, some of the larger decouplers like the 5 m HS-500, and every type of parachute from RealChutes.

I know the tree is WIP, but I just want to make sure that the above is due to that and not to me doing something wrong when installing.

Many of the above parts in the start node require research points, some 0 others a certain amount? Is it intended to use some sort of economy mod like mission controller with this to stop you from researching everything within the starting tech node? I'm not using it yet because it's not fully integrated yet.

thanks

V18 was updated using a yet to be released updated KATO engines resize/tweak file. NathanKell should be releasing it any time now. Ran into some issues he wants to fix for Stretchies and MFT.

For now, just drop tech levels to the highest node you have. And it should be ok.

And yes, Realchutes, I added them last night. Not setup properly entirely.

The large decoupler 5M is there due to the weird launchpad issue you can have with RSS, and use it as a 'base' to launch your vessel. RSS seems to exacerbate the stock issue where when the ship is loaded it's a bit offset (you can see an error message in debug about ground contact error). Hopefully 0.23 will fix this, or bring it back to an acceptable range. To be fair, I've been able to launch with clamps, just have to revert to launchpad a few times in some cases.

I'll give a stab at resorting the heatshields after my balance pass. If you want to make a list of things you found weird, by all means post it and i'll revise it along with my own notes.

You did everything right, just a bit wonky in sections for now.

Also, with the new 0.5 to 10M rebalance, I'm still moving stuff around. Thanks for everyone's feedback/patience.

[MedievalNerd]

Hi, know that others have mentioned this but i thought i would throw out my opinion/thoughts. BTW I am not using RSS or the increased range tweaks for RT2. The solar panel nerfing has rendered it nearly impossible for me to set up a feasible KEO comm sat network due to power consumption of antenna/dish's vs the power generation of the 1st 3 tiers of solar panels (the 1/4 battery suggested to make it correct for normal game scale hasnt help AT ALL with this issue either lol). Is the suggestion of editing the power consumption of antenna from 1.0 to 0.1 still current or has this been fixed in a newer version of the "tweaks"?? This issue is causing me large headaches landing a probe on the Mun (even running a timed to landing while in "line of sight" to mission control with 1 single dish on the probe itself, coated in as many solar panels that will fit (over 48 of the large retractable non-tracking panels) and over 5000 battery capacity onboard. Have the solar panels been "over nerfed" or am i missing something or do i indeed need to edit the config file manually.?.

On a positive note everything else seems to be working 100% for me with a great tech tree progression speed and scale that is much more realistic, the only issues i am having is the inability to generate the needed power for a single dish equiped probe or comm sat network. Please let me know and keep up the amazing work!!

Yes, need to lower power values by at least 10. So go for a 0.1 in the settings file. Senshi is using that and he seems to be enjoying it. This is one of the reasons I wanted to release the tech tree is to get people feedback on the whole balancing side of things.

Thanks,

[RaccoonTOF]

There is actually no need to set the consumption to 0.1 if you use your RT tweak files, EXCEPT for the range changes. If you divide all of your range values in the RT tweak files by 10 (just drop the last 0 on all the Max range lines) then everything balances out fairly well. As noted above, it still requires some pretty extensive power infrastructure for "permanent" satellites, but I think that is actually fairly realistic and if you were to reduce the consumption to 10% of that also, it would basically eliminate the whole purpose of reducing the solar panel efficiency values in the first place. My MkIV comsats are basically the same as the ones I posted pics of above, but they now power 3 dishes which can reach Minmus (one aimed at Active Vessel, and one aimed at each of the previous and next sats in the array), one Omni (used to maintain comms with KSC during launch), and have HALF the panel infrastructure as that one there. Much more balanced overall without being as OP as stock power rates.

However, there is another issue I've discovered (which may be present with stock parts as well...I've honestly never actually tried this using DR before...): All of the structural girders seem to be impervious to re-entry heat. Upon de-orbiting my outdated comsats, which of course never had any parachutes equipped, I was quite surprised when they did not just burn up entirely on re-entry...all of the solar panels blew off/exploded of course, and the RCS tanks were popped off due to aerodynamic stresses...but the core of the structure survived until impact. Even after impact, all of that structure creating extra drag actually managed to slow down the probe core itself enough that it actually survived the final impact...and this was with a direct drop from a Kerbisynchronous orbit to about 12k periapsis (as far as I was able to lower the orbit with the fuel remaining on board, including the RCS fuel...).

You might want to take a look at the max heat tolerance on those parts and do a few tweaks there as well...

[MedievalNerd]

However, there is another issue I've discovered (which may be present with stock parts as well...I've honestly never actually tried this using DR before...): All of the structural girders seem to be impervious to re-entry heat. Upon de-orbiting my outdated comsats, which of course never had any parachutes equipped, I was quite surprised when they did not just burn up entirely on re-entry...all of the solar panels blew off/exploded of course, and the RCS tanks were popped off due to aerodynamic stresses...but the core of the structure survived until impact. Even after impact, all of that structure creating extra drag actually managed to slow down the probe core itself enough that it actually survived the final impact...and this was with a direct drop from a Kerbisynchronous orbit to about 12k periapsis (as far as I was able to lower the orbit with the fuel remaining on board, including the RCS fuel...).

You might want to take a look at the max heat tolerance on those parts and do a few tweaks there as well...

Woa, ok. Can you post this in the DR thread so that NathanKell can have a look? (He's looking at this thread from time to time, but since this is a DR issue)

And yeah, the power consumption to 0.1 is if the tweak files aren't working properly.

[RaccoonTOF]

Done and done . Now off to test my new MkIV Comsats on a mission to Minmus for some more tech...

[RaccoonTOF]

BTW: As a solution to the launch clamp issues, what I've started doing is just attaching the clamps to some girders which are themselves attached to the main vessel with radial decouplers. Launch staging is to fire your engines, next stage triggers the clamps, and the stage after that fires off the radial decouplers to ditch the structural girders. The clamps always seem to separate properly from girders, even when they won't do so from any attachment point on the main vessel itself, and then you just drop them once you are clear of the pad so you don't have to carry the weight/added drag with you. Since I've started using this setup, I've never had a clamp malfunction on launch. See pic below for example:

[MedievalNerd]

BTW: As a solution to the launch clamp issues, what I've started doing is just attaching the clamps to some girders which are themselves attached to the main vessel with radial decouplers. Launch staging is to fire your engines, next stage triggers the clamps, and the stage after that fires off the radial decouplers to ditch the structural girders. The clamps always seem to separate properly from girders, even when they won't do so from any attachment point on the main vessel itself, and then you just drop them once you are clear of the pad so you don't have to carry the weight/added drag with you. Since I've started using this setup, I've never had a clamp malfunction on launch. See pic below for example:

Interesting! I'll give this a try!

Thanks,

[andqui]

There is actually no need to set the consumption to 0.1 if you use your RT tweak files, EXCEPT for the range changes.

Ok sorry I'm confused now. I'm using RSS, and then on top of that I've replaced the RT2 cfg's with the ones from RPL_V17. Is it better to leave consumption at 1 or change it to 0.1? Are the range changes (reducing by a factor of 10) for those who are not using RSS?

thanks

[Guest]

Ok sorry I'm confused now. I'm using RSS, and then on top of that I've replaced the RT2 cfg's with the ones from RPL_V17. Is it better to leave consumption at 1 or change it to 0.1? Are the range changes (reducing by a factor of 10) for those who are not using RSS?

thanks

not that i really know, but the range changes are for "stock solar system scale" i believe, not "RSS scale", & user "RaccoonTOF" seems to be saying that consumption in the tweaked files is fine for stock scale and RSS scale. But MedievalNerd should know 100%

[Guest]

WOW! these guys are amazing, they basically held my hand though editing the files and getting the correct values to make this work with stock scale, NathanKell & MedievalNerd (and other people working on this) you guys rock!! I cant wait for the "full treeloader" release but i'll be trying this out from now on, as this techtree is one of VERY FEW that makes sense. Respects, hats off and all that jazz!!

[MedievalNerd]

Ok sorry I'm confused now. I'm using RSS, and then on top of that I've replaced the RT2 cfg's with the ones from RPL_V17. Is it better to leave consumption at 1 or change it to 0.1? Are the range changes (reducing by a factor of 10) for those who are not using RSS?

thanks

The reducing of the ranges if for non-RSS people.

If you open my pack directory, you'll see that there is an RT2 folder with setting files. If you overwrite your RT2 installation folder with those files you do not need to lower the power consumption to 0.1 in the settings file. Eventually I think I'll move to just using that settings file, as it's 1 tweak for all antennas. Instead of multiple files/tweaks.

You 'have to' move the files in that folder over the RT2 installation folder in order for them to work, they aren't 'regular' MM files, they are just another version of the RT2 files.

I'll get this sorted for the V18 update.

Cheers,

[RaccoonTOF]

Ok, decided to give your Mun custom experiments a go now that I finally have the power generation ability to actually run the data recorder for an extended period of time. However, I ran into an issue once I reached Munar orbit. The data recorder on the probe only appears to be "calibrated" for one Mun altitude while it has 4 experiments on it at varying altitudes (including surface). So I am unable to gather data for all of the different experiments... (trying to use the data generated at the "calibrated" altitude, even at the proper altitude for the experiments themselves, fails with the message that I need "at least 100/200/etc data"...

EDIT: Also, gravity scans show a value of 198 science, but upon completing the transmission they actually deliver 0.0 science...

Another Edit: Ok, so gathering all of the data for the upper experiments and then actually performing them, will allow you to gather data for the lower experiments - but still at the upper altitude. So you need to gather 350 data in the upper orbit, then do both upper orbit experiments, then gather another 500 data, then go to low orbit, do readings there, then land, then do readings there with the last 300 data...seems a bit awkward, but it DOES work at least...

Edited November 20, 2013 by RaccoonTOF