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

[RaccoonTOF]

Personally I actually prefer to have the separate files. Couple of reasons: a) it makes it a lot easier to update the individual mods as their creators release new versions, rather than waiting for the big compilation to be updated and having to download the entire thing again just because, say, StretchyTanks got an update. Especially in the case of interdependent mods with tweaks applied through modmanager. Secondly, I don't necessarily want ALL of the mods that the tree is designed to be capable of using. For example, in this case, I don't use KW (which is a rather large mod) but I do use NovaPunch and AIES. It also supports multiple life support mods, but really you only want to have one of them installed at a time. I also don't use RSS due to issues it has graphically with my laptop atm - hopefully soon to be fixed when they get the textures and such sorted nicely though. Others might choose a different subset themselves. Having them all independent just makes it easier for me to maintain, especially when I make custom changes to the individual mods on top of the tweaks in this particular setup.

To Stevron: I believe "default" is actually what would be used there, but I forget. I didn't bother backing up the settings config file, because if it doesn't exist (like on a new install) RT2 will auto-create it with the default settings anyway. As for the angle issues - not so much inclination of the orbit (although a highly inclined orbit would make it worse) but how close to "directly overhead" KSC the comsat is. If you right-click the dish antenna, and select target Kerbin, then activate it, you should have a pair of lines coming out from your ship towards the planet showing in your orbital map (assuming you have all of the default RT indicators still turned on) which are separated by 45 degrees and centered on the center of the planet. As long as KSC (which you can see from the big red dot) is between those lines - and assuming it is not blocked by the planet itself - then you should have a control connection to it active.

Edited November 21, 2013 by RaccoonTOF

[stevron]

The line saying that there is a connection is from a second Comms DTS pointed at mission control, if I turn that dish off I lose connection. As you can see the arc blankets Kerbin and extends a good deal further beyond what is illustrated.

Based on my exp with RT2 what I have there should work perfectly fine. The game install I have elsewhere which does not have RSS installed has a geosync network up consisting of 4 sats, 90 degrees apart, and it all works perfectly. I used the same method to starting this network with the difference being altitude, 35786Mm instead of 2868.75Mm, but when I switched off the direct link I lost all connection.

So I'm just confused as to based on what you can see if a direct link can be established it makes no sense that pointing the dish at Kerbin wuld give a different result

[BrickedKeyboard]

Alright, so I fired up this mod, i think. I downloaded all 35 files, put them in my ksp, loaded up the game and downloaded V18 via Tree Edit.

I saved it, then removed tree edit (so I won't be tempted to cheat), then hit the VAB.

Uhh...the start node is completely empty. I get this is supposed to be a hardcore challenge, but since I don't even have a kerbal to put on the runway, I cannot even get started.

What gives?

Ok, I deleted modular fuels. Then I relaunched the game. Suddenly, craptons of stuff is available.

What is going on here? (I deleted modular fuels because that mod is on the "honor system" regarding tech level unlocks, and I find that far too tedious to deal with)

Edited November 22, 2013 by BrickedKeyboard

[BrickedKeyboard]

It seems like V18 is incomplete. I saw the warp drive was available super early under science, and there was a bunch of stuff unassigned.

[MedievalNerd]

It seems like V18 is incomplete. I saw the warp drive was available super early under science, and there was a bunch of stuff unassigned.

I'm pretty sure you need to keep TreeEdit installed, until TreeLoader has my tree. I believe that is the source of your woes.

[Senshi]

Keeping a combined modpack entirely up to date would be a lot of work and is unlikely to be possible, given the rate of change with some mods. I much prefer the current simple list of mods, their supported version and a link to the download like Medieval offers it already. Only my suggestion to move that sheet to Google Drive or similar still stands .

I also do hope that this pack will be offered both to the RSS fans and those that prefer to stay with the stock scale Kerbol system. Currently it's a bit tricky to figure out which tweaks are specially designed for RSS (I guess the RT2 tweak files?) and which should be used for stock scale system (SSS). While I admire the RSS efforts and in general am a realism fan, tiny cute Kerbin has kind of grown on me, especially considering that most mods, mod parts and plugins are geared to stock scale. I'm entirely happy not having to use gargantuan rockets to bring a tiny comsat to orbit, let alone SSTO planes...

[BrickedKeyboard]

Alright, got it to work.

The reason why I want a pack is that I can be 100% sure I am playing exactly the pack as intended, and if any errors occur, they are not due to a mistake that I made.

Also, it took me about 30 minutes to dig up all those mods and set everything up. Not as bad as I feared, but it was still annoying.

[RaccoonTOF]

Stevron: Ok, that has me confused too then...everything looks to be lined up properly and should indeed be making a connection. The only thing I can think of is that the "additive" mode isn't working with untargeted dishes. Try launching a sat up to about 20Mm instead (within the base range of the dish) and point it just at the planet (with the other comsat disabled), see if you get connection to KSC. If so, it's an issue with the additive mode. If not, it's some issue with RSS that I don't have a way to test...

Senshi: For stock-scale, you still want to install the tweaks for RT2 and everything else suggested...the only difference is that you will need to go into the config files included and divide the max ranges for all of the antennas by 10 (drop the last 0 off of all of the Max range values). The RT2 tweaks also include the power consumption changes and transmission rate changes, and you want to keep those even with stock scale, since you still want all of the other tweaks installed.

[andqui]

Senshi: For stock-scale, you still want to install the tweaks for RT2 and everything else suggested...the only difference is that you will need to go into the config files included and divide the max ranges for all of the antennas by 10 (drop the last 0 off of all of the Max range values). The RT2 tweaks also include the power consumption changes and transmission rate changes, and you want to keep those even with stock scale, since you still want all of the other tweaks installed.

What about the engines? The first post says the tweaks are balanced for the KATO engines config in modular fuels, and I believe this leads to engines that are too powerful for the Kerbol system, correct? Is it safe to use the regular engine.cfg in real fuels, or does that mess with some tweaks? I'm not determined to switch back to Kerbol-scale yet, but it is getting a bit tiring building massive 12000+ dV rockets just to lift a small satellite into orbit, which doesn't have good enough solar panels installed to do much with it.

Some balance/ordering comments: As above, with the tier1 rocket and SRB nodes, it's extremely difficult to get anything other than a tiny probe into orbit, let alone a manned pod or a geosynchronous comsat. I realize it should be this way, as it's based off of early 1950's tech I believe- but the problem is that once I've achieved that, I'm having trouble getting anywhere from there. I believe that the mythically perfect tech tree is one that makes it worth your while to use some parts from every node at least once, and carries the player along a path of technical necessity so that the next thing to unlock is something that the player really needs, and will help them progress further when they use it. As an example: I shouldn't need need to unlock 5-6 different types of probe cores, some of which are meant for deep space probes/exploration of other bodies, before I can get a simple 1-man command pod, which technologically seems one of the simpler things to make in the progression of space technology.

Other problems are that without supersonic flight, flying to other biomes on Earth-sized Kerbin is a chore. My probes are low on batteries and rarely in contact with mission control, so I'm able to only get a few gravity readings in for science points. My rockets aren't powerful enough to get a Kerbal into orbit to control things and take readings and land wherever I please. I haven't done any of the custom experiments yet, so there's that to look forward to, but I don't many fun ways to get more science and progress to launching something heavier and more controllable into orbit. Also, I don't believe that control surfaces should be locked behind a 500-science hypersonic flight category; elevators and ailerons have been around since ww1. Finally, the order in which the mechjeb components are unlocked could be improved, in my opinion; I think that the SMART A.S.S. should be around from the beginning, especially since it's already around in a clunkier format in the RT2 flight computer. Having ascent and landing guidance around from the beginning is great, but with the 1950's tech, it's very difficult to build a rocket with enough dV and a reasonable TWR at the same time, and the ascent autopilot has big trouble controlling the turns. Who knows, maybe all my troubles above are just me being a bad rocket scientist?

Basically, to sum it up, it's a great tech tree, tweak pack, and mod recommendation list; with the need for a few "flow" changes, at least in the early stages that I've played. 500+ science isn't much when you can do things like go to high Earth orbit or the moon, but it is when you can barely get into orbit, and that's where I'm stuck at. For example, it's great that the tree forces you to rely on probes very early on, but since those probes are so feeble I can't progress from there. Maybe it's just me being incompetent- has anyone else had success in putting up more than tiny probes with the Basic rocketry and early SRB nodes?

thanks

Edited November 22, 2013 by andqui

[RaccoonTOF]

As long as you use the standard engine configs for stock-scale in MF instead of the KATO engines, you'll be fine. What you WILL still have to do though is to manually adjust your engine tech levels as you unlock them - so when you are unlocking the rocketry tree, when you first get an engine, make sure that it is set to the appropriate tech level when you install it. This can still result in some slightly overpowered engines in the very beginning of the tree (as some of the engines have minimum tech levels higher than 1) but you can either a) just not use those engines till you reach the appropriate tech level or use them at their "minimum" tech level and only using the default fuel type for the engine until you actually get to the appropriate higher tech levels (which is the approach I am using - primarily because I'm not using KW, so without doing that I end up not having some engine classes available at all until much later in the tree than they should be. Bit of a compromise, but it seems to work without unbalancing it all that much.)

That does cause some interesting issues for building rockets for the Mun...I went and built a good sized 2-stage exploration rover, with mini-SRBs that were intended to be used during the braking maneuver for the Mun landing as well as a set for the upper atmosphere braking on return to Kerbin. Everything was going great until I accidentally triggered the Kerbin braking boosters during Munar descent...which caused me to have to ditch the rover chassis before even landing it, and then basically spin a few thousand meters above the surface until the SRBs died out. Then I ended up needing to use my ascent/return fuel for the final descent instead...leaving me without enough fuel remaining to even return to Munar orbit. And, as I'm using TAC LS...this means I'm going to have to be mounting a recovery mission soon. I've got recyclers for the CO2 and the H2O on board - and plenty of solar power since I don't have the rover wheels to power anymore - but they've only got 42 days worth of food with them.

[BrickedKeyboard]

So once I got this tree installed last night I started playing it. (by the way, you NEED to mention this in the install instructions. The game WILL CRASH on windows systems without reduces textures for KW rocketry AND Novapunch. I do not have any other mods installed that were not on that excel doc, and I used a fresh install of Kerbal)

I did the upper atmosphere probe and built a crude airplane and got some early points. I said "wow, this isn't hard at all". The custom experiments plugin needs some work, by the way : it needs to say what conditions you need in order to do the experiment instead of the message "not calibrated for these conditions".

I noticed that early on you get tons and tons of stuff, a lot easier than another custom tech tree I tried.

I did a suborbital flight, and I said alright, time to put up a communications satellite. And, well :

This rocket keeps getting more and more ridiculous as I add more fuel and more engines, and it has yet to reach orbit. I don't actually know how much delta-V I even need, but apparently, 8k is not enough.

Fun, but I agree with the poster above : this tree needs to be designed to encourage you to play all aspects of the game. As currently designed, you can completely skip tons of stuff because it is not optimal. The whole solid rocket booster tree, for instance.

[andqui]

Low earth orbit takes around 9500-10500 delta V if you fly the ascent well. From there you need another 3-4 thousand to get to geostationary. Not really possible at Tier 1, best I've gotten is 12k or so to put a tiny probe in 500x500 orbit.

So far, I have 48 science points left. In line to unlock: High altitude flight for 500, Advanced Science for 250 (by the way I'd say a grav-meter is a much more advanced instrument than a barometer), Basic Probe Propulsion for 100, Advanced Probes for 250, Survivability for 500 (this is where the manned pod is- at this rate I'm going to need to go to the moon before even putting a kerbal in space), electronics for 200, Early Landing Legs for 90, General Rocketry for 500, SRB for 500, Advanced Construction for 50, Adapters for 50, Control Systems for 250, Advanced Aerodynamics for 100).

None of those, with the exception of rocketry or survivability, will really help me to progress, and those are essentially unobtainable at the moment, being 500 each.

[BrickedKeyboard]

Ouch. Uh, is needing 10.5k delta V realistic to Earth? How on earth did they get early satellites into orbit...

[andqui]

Apollo program planned on 13k to the initial parking orbit. I assume there's some reserve in there for contingencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ApolloEnergyRequirementsMSC1966.png

[MedievalNerd]

Ouch. Uh, is needing 10.5k delta V realistic to Earth? How on earth did they get early satellites into orbit...

Yup, and early satellites weighed a feather! I see that your payload stage is nearly 4 tons. That's a lot of payload for early tech. My first probes, and early satellite links (with antennas only) weights 175kg.

The change in scale and engine refit really changes how you normally build your rockets. I saw that in your image, your last payload is almost 4 tons. That's huge for early tech.

Here are some early US satellites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_1

I also suggest reading up on Delta & Atlas rockets, so that you can have an idea of how big/small they need to be in order to achieve orbit.

I'm almost done with the V18 reshuffling.

I highly suggest you all go have a look at the grand rescaling I helped NathanKell with:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59207-0-22-Realism-Overhaul-ROv1-Modlist-for-RSS

If you follow those instructions you'll have Real fuel & real masses, with tech levels for each engine (Modular fuel tanks). You'll have Stretchy tanks (seriously needed for 'real life' scales 0.5M, 1M, 2M, etc.). Deadly re-entry, for heatshields! And most importantly, the tweak file for getting all the engines to their rate scale/tech levels.

Just a side note regarding Modular Fuel tanks, you NEED TO manually increase the tech level of your engines to match the highest tech level you researched. This increases engine efficiency, and thrust. So tier 0 engines can still be relevant as you progress depending on what type of engine you need.

Important note to everyone, there is definitely not enough 'custom experiments' to allow for full progression. I haven't added much past the Munar probes, and the 2nd batch is bugged due to grouping them erroneously by wrong altitude mask. That's my bad.

I've put adapters & fairings together, and brought decouplers & seperators together along with parachutes (staging).

Using this pack will give you countless new parts and sizes, I highly recommend for the tech tree and the placement of engines and sizes is based on this for now.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, with the updated V18 tech tree, i'll also fix the experiments and add new ones to help have more science points and progress using those experiments.

Cheers,

[BrickedKeyboard]

Apollo program planned on 13k to the initial parking orbit. I assume there's some reserve in there for contingencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ApolloEnergyRequirementsMSC1966.png

That chart is in feet per second. Meters/second would be 1/3 of that, or 4k m/s.

I guess the chart is wrong, because the wiki article you pulled that from says the minimum delta-V is about 9.8 kps including atmospheric drag.

Edited November 23, 2013 by BrickedKeyboard

[BrickedKeyboard]

I did try to install that linked plugin, but it's confusing. There's 50 different steps now, and critical steps are missing. Also, if users follow your instructions to the letter, they will crash every 5 minutes because of lack of memory. You never mentioned installing reduced textures. Also, so this tech level thing has to be applied manually to every engine I place? That's absurd. Look at how KSP interstellar unlocks different tech levels for engines based on research nodes that are present - it's right there in the part config files.

Also, you have tier 2-3 "minimum" engines unlocked right at the start -> so you aren't done reshuffling, yet? I downloaded the version I found last night.

[BrickedKeyboard]

Oh, another annoyance : so my rockets were running out of fuel, yet there was still fuel left in the tanks. Weird. I eventually figured out that modular fuels, by default if you just place a tank down, will put the wrong ratio of kerosene : liquid oxygen.

[RaccoonTOF]

That chart is in feet per second. Meters/second would be 1/3 of that, or 4k m/s.

I guess the chart is wrong, because the wiki article you pulled that from says the minimum delta-V is about 9.8 kps including atmospheric drag.

The chart isn't wrong, you are reading it wrong. The first dV value listed is for the trans-Lunar injection, at just about 10k FPS dV, or a bit over 3k m/s dV. The dV required for launch is not shown on the chart, only the propellant (5,600,000 lbs at launch). This is because the dV required for launch and orbit varied depending on which launch window was used, which orbit was chosen prior to the trans-Lunar injection, and even atmospheric variables for each launch. The values further down in the wiki article are fairly accurate though for the standard TWR and typical orbital altitudes of rockets in common/historical use.

As for lack of memory issues - that is a standard issue with all mods in KSP due to the Unity engine memory-addressing limitations (32-bit address space). This is one of the reasons why I don't use KW Rocketry, since most of the things that I would want from it I can find alternatives for in either AIES or NovaPunch, and both of those also provide additional things which cannot be found in KW at all.

As for the tech levels - yes, you need to apply them manually, just like you need to adjust tanks manually if you are using anything other than the default fuel types. It's one of the "limitations" of Modular Fuels, but it does also allow for more customizability than the way that KSPI does it as well.

Honestly, when you consider the amount of effort that goes into RL rocket design...the "30 minutes" you had to spend installing addons is hardly anything in comparison. It's not even a significant fraction of the time I generally spend perfecting a single lifter design...which then gets saved as a subassembly to be used over and over for future rockets .

EDIT: Also, your rocket design is not taking into account the way FAR works at all. You will get MUCH more savings in dV for launch by making a skinnier but longer 2-atmospheric-stage lifter that is streamlined well than you will save by a pancake-orientation asparagus staging method like your rocket is setup. Even with nosecones on all the separate stages, you are losing a HUGE amount to aero-drag that you would not be with a single longer stage.

Edited November 23, 2013 by RaccoonTOF

[RaccoonTOF]

Low earth orbit takes around 9500-10500 delta V if you fly the ascent well. From there you need another 3-4 thousand to get to geostationary. Not really possible at Tier 1, best I've gotten is 12k or so to put a tiny probe in 500x500 orbit.

So far, I have 48 science points left. In line to unlock: High altitude flight for 500, Advanced Science for 250 (by the way I'd say a grav-meter is a much more advanced instrument than a barometer), Basic Probe Propulsion for 100, Advanced Probes for 250, Survivability for 500 (this is where the manned pod is- at this rate I'm going to need to go to the moon before even putting a kerbal in space), electronics for 200, Early Landing Legs for 90, General Rocketry for 500, SRB for 500, Advanced Construction for 50, Adapters for 50, Control Systems for 250, Advanced Aerodynamics for 100).

None of those, with the exception of rocketry or survivability, will really help me to progress, and those are essentially unobtainable at the moment, being 500 each.

You can actually get a significant amount of science with the stock science experiments just in Kerbin orbit if you hit up all of the different biomes. Then a tiny research probe landed on Minmus and returned will get you a good bit more, and can be done without any engines past basic rocketry. That should get you to at least General Rocketry, as well as the probes and all science tech prior to the lab. Enough to get you to the Mun, which is LOADED with science possibilities even without custom experiments. There are more biomes on the Mun than on Kerbin...and they have a much higher multiplier to their values. No, you won't be able to do it with a single mission...but that's part of the point of the more difficult tech tree in the first place .

[andqui]

You can actually get a significant amount of science with the stock science experiments just in Kerbin orbit if you hit up all of the different biomes. Then a tiny research probe landed on Minmus and returned will get you a good bit more, and can be done without any engines past basic rocketry. That should get you to at least General Rocketry, as well as the probes and all science tech prior to the lab. Enough to get you to the Mun, which is LOADED with science possibilities even without custom experiments. There are more biomes on the Mun than on Kerbin...and they have a much higher multiplier to their values. No, you won't be able to do it with a single mission...but that's part of the point of the more difficult tech tree in the first place .

I can do that no problem with a Kerbol sized environment, but not real solar system size, where the biggest rocket I can figure out how to build in basic rocketry gives me 10-12k dV with a tiny probe, just barely enough to put it into low earth orbit. I've done all of the Kerbin environmental science points that are nearby the launch pad (runway, launchpad, KSC, grasslands, coast, ocean, highlands), and have only the custom experiments left to easily do, when I described my situation with the points as above. Reaching farther off biomes on Kerbin is very difficult because I can only put a tiny probe into orbit, no comm network for controlling that probe away from base- putting a capsule with a Kerbal inside is too heavy. Maybe I just invested unwisely early on- I did go for solar panels because I heard people were having trouble with that, but maybe I should have just stuck to rocketry/construction and then gone for the "extra stuff" later when I could put meaningful things in orbit.

Anyways, I look forward to trying again after the V18 reshuffling. This is the best tech tree I see out there, at least the one with the most potential, realism, and integration of other mods, so I'll be patient.

[MedievalNerd]

Sorry if it's taking so long, but I'm going over the plugin for Custom Experiments to make sure it's working properly. The Data Recorder was actually not looping in it's body check. And I'm currently adding more intuitive error messages from Experiments and the Data recorder modules. So rather than say not calibrated for the current conditions. it'll say in the following order, TargetBody & TargetSituation.

I've been able to get the SrfLanded flag, so it's probably something else causing the SrfLanded experiment not being detected properly! I'll get it sorted.

I'm also checking with NathanKell if I could maybe have a pack for the whole realism mods in one download and already set to real fuel and real masses. (Real Solar System, Modular Fuel Tanks, Realism Overhaul Tweaks, StretchySRB/Tanks) I'd include those with my tech tree tweak pack (extra probes, custom experiments and Data Recorder).

That would basically set the stage to make sure your tweaks are in place and you aren't forgetting anything balance related.

[BrickedKeyboard]

Sorry if it's taking so long, but I'm going over the plugin for Custom Experiments to make sure it's working properly. The Data Recorder was actually not looping in it's body check. And I'm currently adding more intuitive error messages from Experiments and the Data recorder modules. So rather than say not calibrated for the current conditions. it'll say in the following order, TargetBody & TargetSituation.

I've been able to get the SrfLanded flag, so it's probably something else causing the SrfLanded experiment not being detected properly! I'll get it sorted.

I'm also checking with NathanKell if I could maybe have a pack for the whole realism mods in one download and already set to real fuel and real masses. (Real Solar System, Modular Fuel Tanks, Realism Overhaul Tweaks, StretchySRB/Tanks) I'd include those with my tech tree tweak pack (extra probes, custom experiments and Data Recorder).

That would basically set the stage to make sure your tweaks are in place and you aren't forgetting anything balance related.

You could politely ask permission to throw in FAR, Remote Tech 2, Deadly Reentry, and TAC or ECLSS as well. I don't really mind if the versions of those mods got out of date, I'd rather play with a set of mods that are throughly tested in the pack version.

That would mean that all balance related mods are in one file - then you could just list everything else as either an optional part pack, an optional utility pack, or an optional gfx improving pack.

[BrickedKeyboard]

Reaching farther off biomes on Kerbin is very difficult because I can only put a tiny probe into orbit, no comm network for controlling that probe away from base- putting a capsule with a Kerbal inside is too heavy. Maybe I just invested unwisely early on- I did go for solar panels because I heard people were having trouble with that, but maybe I should have just stuck to rocketry/construction and then gone for the "extra stuff" later when I could put meaningful things in orbit.

Perhaps suborbital hops? I smirk whenever I do this, throwing an enormous rocket away just to get a kerbal to the ice caps or badlands, but it works. You don't have to achieve orbit, and need only a fraction of the delta-v.

[NathanKell]

A note: For non-rescaled Kerbin folks, there's no reason you need to ditch RftS Engines. Just install MFS in RF mode, not RFRM mode. That's why there's the realisticMass option, after all, so you just flip a switch and you get KSP-balanced stats or RL stats.