[TechTree] [0.23.5] Ackander's Vertical Tech Tree - Release v1.16 - May 13, 2014

[Talisar]

Just a feedback post here, I have started a completely new career, and I have most of your supported mods installed. My initial impression was that you went a bit too far in the other direction by allowing unlocking nodes too quickly, but I have adjusted that opinion after some playtime. It seems you have done an excellent job balancing the rate at which you can unlock nodes and work forward, while still giving us enough to play with at the start of the game to keep it from feeling grind-y.

So far, I'm loving the update!

[Ackander]

Just a feedback post here, I have started a completely new career, and I have most of your supported mods installed. My initial impression was that you went a bit too far in the other direction by allowing unlocking nodes too quickly, but I have adjusted that opinion after some playtime. It seems you have done an excellent job balancing the rate at which you can unlock nodes and work forward, while still giving us enough to play with at the start of the game to keep it from feeling grind-y.

So far, I'm loving the update!

I'm glad to hear it! The balance is what most concerns me with this tech tree. And.. this version has a more expensive first 4 steps than when I first started the overhaul.

I feel like the problem I faced most was how to justify the cost of most nodes because I cannot predict what mods users will have installed. For the most part I tried to sort parts by their value and what mod they come from, but there are some places where there are discontinuities for a mods' parts. If I start seeing a problem concerning this, I may have to seperate each mod and sort them more linearly. The problem with this is that one mod may have parts that scale faster than another mods, mostly storage parts.

We shall see.

Let me know if anyone sees problems with regards to sorting.

Right now I am going through the forum and spaceport looking for mods to add support for.

[Talisar]

Right now I am going through the forum and spaceport looking for mods to add support for.

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest Kommitz's pack. It's only 3 engines and a tank, but they're nice nukes

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

Well, there's Jool, three moons and... something lined up. Since neither Bop nor Pol can be seen from Earth, well, I really don't know what has happened to your picture. Maybe you got a shot of a Giant Kraken from afar?

EDIT: How about adding Space Shuttle Engines? They're pretty popular, and they allow us to make SPACE SHUTTLES!

Uhm, Thats jupiter. And mars and the moon.

[Ackander]

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest Kommitz's pack. It's only 3 engines and a tank, but they're nice nukes

Coincidentally, I already downloaded that last night. But only because I noticed your cfg file for it.

Although, I would hope to have found it anyways, they do look like very nice engines.

[Ackander]

Uhm, Thats jupiter. And mars and the moon.

Indeed you are correct. I do believe, however, that Wasmic was roll playing and said Earth rather than Kerbin. I will admit, I too was confused at first. :wink:

[mk-fg]

I found the tech costs a bit too grindy for my liking with .23 and a few supported mods (only few which looked most fun) - guess with .22 science might've been easier, but I'm probably not hardcore enough anyway

Also, while I see why more hardcore folks might want to have MechJeb pushed high-up the tech tree (as it kinda is with vanilla), I find fiddling with nav curves, horrible locked map-cam and pixel-hunting nav-nodes' controls a bit too much, so can suggest moving MechJab-unlock nodes waaay lower.

It doesn't prevent plotting and calculating stuff manually, which I guess people who like it will do anyway, but makes game more playable for more casual (or just interested in diff aspects) folks.

Easy cheat to get these, of course, is just to set cost=1 in tree.cfg and parent=node0_start.

Also wrote a little script to parse and adjust costs for all tech nodes - https://gist.github.com/mk-fg/8164365 - by factor of 0.5 by default (half the cost, --cost-factor option), with nodes costing 10 or less (--cost-min option) untouched.

Maybe would save someone else a lot of manual editing as well

Should probably work on windows, but will need python installed and should be started from cmd or something like that.

Nice part is that it can be applied on-the-fly - just update the file, exit R&D center and go back, see stuff updated there.

Having played a bit of vanilla career and Ack's, can attest that latter seem to be way better. Awesome work, thanks a lot.

[Ackander]

I found the tech costs a bit too grindy for my liking with .23 and a few supported mods (only few which looked most fun) - guess with .22 science might've been easier, but I'm probably not hardcore enough anyway

Also, while I see why more hardcore folks might want to have MechJeb pushed high-up the tech tree (as it kinda is with vanilla), I find fiddling with nav curves, horrible locked map-cam and pixel-hunting nav-nodes' controls a bit too much, so can suggest moving MechJab-unlock nodes waaay lower.

It doesn't prevent plotting and calculating stuff manually, which I guess people who like it will do anyway, but makes game more playable for more casual (or just interested in diff aspects) folks.

Easy cheat to get these, of course, is just to set cost=1 in tree.cfg and parent=node0_start.

Also wrote a little script to parse and adjust costs for all tech nodes - https://gist.github.com/mk-fg/8164365 - by factor of 0.5 by default (half the cost, --cost-factor option), with nodes costing 10 or less (--cost-min option) untouched.

Maybe would save someone else a lot of manual editing as well

Should probably work on windows, but will need python installed and should be started from cmd or something like that.

Nice part is that it can be applied on-the-fly - just update the file, exit R&D center and go back, see stuff updated there.

Having played a bit of vanilla career and Ack's, can attest that latter seem to be way better. Awesome work, thanks a lot.

Thank you for trying the Vertical TechTree. Your description, however, suggests you are not playing on the current version? Did you download the file or get it off of TreeEdit? I was a bit late getting the TreeEdit save updated, but the download is current as well as the TreeEdit version now.

I say you might have been playing on the old version because MechJeb is available after you gather 53 science in electronics.

[table][tr][td][/td]/[td]-(3)->Basic Electrics-(5)->[/td]/[td][/td][/tr]

[tr][td]Start-(1)->Logic-(2)->The Investigative Method-(3)->-(4)->[/td]/[td][/td]/[td]-(5)->Electronics[/td][/tr]

[tr][td][/td]/[td]-(4)->Miniaturization-(5)->[/td]/[td][/td][/tr]

[/table]

Science per step

1- 1

2- 2

3- 10

4- 10

5- 30

Pretty close to start if you ask me, and cheap for 53 total science. Also, overall science costs to get all stock parts is only 6,295 science, almost half the cost of the stock tree.

If you do not mind, make sure you have version 1.12.18.b, and then re-review it please. If you are playing with v1.12.18.b.. then I have no words except thank you for trying it in the first place.

I have an excel sheet that will generate the text for tree.cfg, it would be pretty simple to add a cost multiplier to it too. Anyone want it, I do not mind sharing. Only thing that it needs are the return placeholders replaced with \r\n in notepad++.

Hope everyone else is somewhat enjoying the Vertical TechTree. Let me know if there is anything else I might look at fixing.

Today I spent the day trying to figure out why my computer has been crashing so much the past couple days. I lost everything I did last night towards the next update too.

[mk-fg]

I say you might have been playing on the old version because MechJeb is available after you gather 53 science in electronics.

...

Pretty close to start if you ask me, and cheap for 53 total science. Also, overall science costs to get all stock parts is only 6,295 science, almost half the cost of the stock tree.

True, but with Electronics it gives just the most basic info like "orbit info" and such (3-5 absolutely useless tabs, not even delta-V), and to get anything useful out of it, you also need: flightControl, advFlightControl, fieldScience, unmannedTech, advUnmanned.

advUnmanned is 200, unmannedTech is 100, and so on...

Fairly sure these techs are also fairly expensive in vanilla tree though, so also annoying there

Full list can be found in part.cfg files of MechJeb2, and being disappointed at all these goodies being locked-out, tried to change tech names there to something researched, but to no effect - not sure if MJ2 code caches this list somewhere (haven't looked at it myself) or something like that, or maybe I just missed something.

Today I spent the day trying to figure out why my computer has been crashing so much the past couple days. I lost everything I did last night towards the next update too.

Ouch. Doesn't sound like a fun way to spend end-of-the-year holidays.

[Ackander]

True, but with Electronics it gives just the most basic info like "orbit info" and such (3-5 absolutely useless tabs, not even delta-V), and to get anything useful out of it, you also need: flightControl, advFlightControl, fieldScience, unmannedTech, advUnmanned.

advUnmanned is 200, unmannedTech is 100, and so on...

Fairly sure these techs are also fairly expensive in vanilla tree though, so also annoying there

Full list can be found in part.cfg files of MechJeb2, and being disappointed at all these goodies being locked-out, tried to change tech names there to something researched, but to no effect - not sure if MJ2 code caches this list somewhere (haven't looked at it myself) or something like that, or maybe I just missed something.

I understand now what you mean. I thought you meant something else, sorry. So it is more a factor that MechJeb functions are locked than the TechTree is too expensive. If it makes you feel any better, here is a comparison between stock costs and Vertical TechTree costs to unlock the modules. Also, I considered adding a cfg to change what modules unlocked where on the Vertical TechTree, but I don't think it's possible to affect the tech Requirements with ModuleManager.. If someone does know, I will include a cfg to change it in future releases.

[table]

[tr][td] [/td]/[td] Stock [/td]/[td] Stock [/td]/[td] Vertical [/td]/[td] Vertical [/td]/[td] [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] [/td]/[td] Node cost [/td]/[td] Need at least [/td]/[td] Node cost [/td]/[td] Need at least [/td]/[td] [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleCustomWindowEditor [/td]/[td] 45 [/td]/[td] 83 [/td]/[td] 40 [/td]/[td] 57 [/td]/[td] flightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleSmartASS [/td]/[td] 45 [/td]/[td] 83 [/td]/[td] 40 [/td]/[td] 57 [/td]/[td] flightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleManeuverPlanner [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleNodeEditor [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleTranslatron [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleWarpHelper [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleAttitudeAdjustment [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleThrustWindow [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleRCSBalancerWindow [/td]/[td] 90 [/td]/[td] 173 [/td]/[td] 80 [/td]/[td] 137 [/td]/[td] advFlightControl [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleRoverWindow [/td]/[td] 300 [/td]/[td] 1018 [/td]/[td] 60 [/td]/[td] 113 [/td]/[td] fieldScience [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleAscentGuidance [/td]/[td] 300 [/td]/[td] 768 [/td]/[td] 100 [/td]/[td] 153 [/td]/[td] unmannedTech [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleLandingGuidance [/td]/[td] 300 [/td]/[td] 768 [/td]/[td] 100 [/td]/[td] 153 [/td]/[td] unmannedTech [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleSpaceplaneGuidance [/td]/[td] 300 [/td]/[td] 768 [/td]/[td] 100 [/td]/[td] 153 [/td]/[td] unmannedTech [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleDockingGuidance [/td]/[td] 550 [/td]/[td] 1318 [/td]/[td] 200 [/td]/[td] 383 [/td]/[td] advUnmanned [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleRendezvousAutopilotWindow [/td]/[td] 550 [/td]/[td] 1318 [/td]/[td] 200 [/td]/[td] 383 [/td]/[td] advUnmanned [/td][/tr]

[tr][td] MechJebModuleRendezvousGuidance [/td]/[td] 550 [/td]/[td] 1318 [/td]/[td] 200 [/td]/[td] 383 [/td]/[td] advUnmanned [/td][/tr][/table]

Ouch. Doesn't sound like a fun way to spend end-of-the-year holidays.

Indeed not. The thing seems to have stabilized though. Upgraded some drivers and turned off the graphics overclocker. It was almost funny last night. I rebooted in safe mode after a crash and started a system file scan.. It was late so I dozed off in my chair, only to wake up some time later to another blue screen crash..

[Nelien]

I have an excel sheet that will generate the text for tree.cfg, it would be pretty simple to add a cost multiplier to it too. Anyone want it, I do not mind sharing. Only thing that it needs are the return placeholders replaced with \r\n in notepad++.

I would love it if you shared that spread sheet! I tend to tweak most things I download myself and that sounds like a great tool for tweaking your tree.

On a different note, it seems like your tree is not up to date with the latest version of Procedural Fairings. The name of the modules in your tree are something like "KzProcFairingBase1.25" while the mod calls them "KzProcFairingBase1_25".

Thanks a lot for you work!

[Ackander]

I would love it if you shared that spread sheet! I tend to tweak most things I download myself and that sounds like a great tool for tweaking your tree.

On a different note, it seems like your tree is not up to date with the latest version of Procedural Fairings. The name of the modules in your tree are something like "KzProcFairingBase1.25" while the mod calls them "KzProcFairingBase1_25".

Thanks a lot for you work!

This was something of an annoyance some time ago. I tried working around some issues with TreeLoader and for whatever reason it not rendering all connections between all nodes. I tried making a big ModuleManager cfg to add every part to the right node, hoping that would work.. but to do that, I need the 'real' part name, not the name TreeEdit uses, which turns all "_" in the parts names into "." and all "." in a part's name stays a "." in the tree.cfg file. Took me a bit of work to sort and rename all the parts in the TechTree. Which, by the way, you will need to do in my spreadsheet to add new parts.

Let me assure you I am rocking the ProcFairings v2.4.3... which reminds me I need to release a mini update to account for a bunch of mods updating to 0.23.

Here is a link to that .xls file.

[Ackander]

Just out of curiosity, how is everyone who is trying the Vertical TechTree fairing? I had to stop playing to kick my computer in the face, and work on the next update and stuff. There has been a couple of hundred downloads so far, and I am curious what everyone thinks so far.

Has anyone had problems with the start? Anyone try a capsule rover? Any rage quits? Let us hear about it.

[ZaPPPa]

I tried it and definitely see the potential. It creates a good sense of progress and makes it easier for new players to learn KSP. Also, most, if not all, the major mods are included which puts this tree above many others.

A couple of notes:

I play with Real Solar System and Remote Tech and it becomes a bit of a grind to get to the point that you can send probes to orbit. The manned pods are too heavy to send very far and the probes need connectivity. Normally I'd set up three or more satellites in GSO to take care of that, but it takes a ton of fuel and strong engines to get a probe into orbit with RSS. I ended up grinding for science on Kerbin itself by sending manned pods in sub-orbital science runs to various biomes. I'm going to need approximately 13.6K dV to get into GSO and even getting 9.4K to get into low orbit is very difficult (probes lose connectivity before being able to complete their ascent.). Not sure what the solution is, but something to think about.

Also, it looks like the procedural fairing adapters for 0.625 and 1.0 are available before the actual fairings are. This makes them useful as a decoupler only.

[Ackander]

I tried it and definitely see the potential. It creates a good sense of progress and makes it easier for new players to learn KSP. Also, most, if not all, the major mods are included which puts this tree above many others.

A couple of notes:

I play with Real Solar System and Remote Tech and it becomes a bit of a grind to get to the point that you can send probes to orbit. The manned pods are too heavy to send very far and the probes need connectivity. Normally I'd set up three or more satellites in GSO to take care of that, but it takes a ton of fuel and strong engines to get a probe into orbit with RSS. I ended up grinding for science on Kerbin itself by sending manned pods in sub-orbital science runs to various biomes. I'm going to need approximately 13.6K dV to get into GSO and even getting 9.4K to get into low orbit is very difficult (probes lose connectivity before being able to complete their ascent.). Not sure what the solution is, but something to think about.

Also, it looks like the procedural fairing adapters for 0.625 and 1.0 are available before the actual fairings are. This makes them useful as a decoupler only.

I may have to make some changes to miniaturization. Perhaps I can replicate the regular size disciplines into it, like a tree within a tree so to speak. I would have to make new nodes for spaceframes, aerospaceframs, decouplers, solid rockets, liquid rockets, and maybe a few others to account for those mods dealing with miniature parts.

I can see how the tech tree might not be balanced for RSS. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to make seperate versions of the tech tree balanced for certain mods like RSS.. but I certainly would not mind if someone wanted to make an RSS specific version of the Vertical TechTree to go next to the "regular" version.

[ZaPPPa]

After a couple of hours of trying I finally managed to get a monstrosity of a satellite into space to form the beginning of a comms network. The second satellite will be easier because I can wait for the first one to be over the space center before launching it to allow for better connectivity.

The issue with remotetech could actually be solved quite easily if any object below, say 200K altitude automatically has connectivity. This assuming that Kerbal has a radio network much like earth has. The biggest science issue is that doing science runs on remote biomes on Kerbin cannot be done with probes because you need connectivity to be able to execute the experiments. Another solution you can try is to make an item available early that allows for "local command" on a probe, like the FASA MIRV core. This will let probes work without needing RemoteTech connectivity (though it could be used as a way to circumvent the need for RemoteTech altogether)

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Eh... Just pop a ballistic capsule with Jeb in it to a far off, remote place... Or build aircraft.

Antipodal flights only take an hour and a half at mach 0.92.

[Ackander]

After a couple of hours of trying I finally managed to get a monstrosity of a satellite into space to form the beginning of a comms network. The second satellite will be easier because I can wait for the first one to be over the space center before launching it to allow for better connectivity.

The issue with remotetech could actually be solved quite easily if any object below, say 200K altitude automatically has connectivity. This assuming that Kerbal has a radio network much like earth has. The biggest science issue is that doing science runs on remote biomes on Kerbin cannot be done with probes because you need connectivity to be able to execute the experiments. Another solution you can try is to make an item available early that allows for "local command" on a probe, like the FASA MIRV core. This will let probes work without needing RemoteTech connectivity (though it could be used as a way to circumvent the need for RemoteTech altogether)

That is one thing I tried to anticipate. I made it somewhat more expensive to get to the MechJeb pod to make it take longer to be able to circumvent RT. But the issue with probe control seems to be more about balance between RT and RSS rather than between the Vertical TechTree and RSS. Also, is there not connectivity using the shortantenna? It's range is 500km, and is in electronics so probes can be launched remotely...

[Nelien]

First of all, thanks for the .xls Ackander! That's going to be handy when I'm itching for changing stuff . Allright, here's my initial review of your tree so far:

I've only played for a few hours and unlocked maybe 500 worth of science, so it's only relevant for the start of the tree. I'm also only not playing with all the mods as I don't like having too many parts (and neither does KSP 0.23...), especially space plane stuff which I don't care about. So these are the mods I have:

Deadly Reentry Continued

Remote Tech 2

MechJeb 2

ECLSS Life Support

SCANSat

Kethane

Extraplanetary Launchpads

Kerbal Attachment System

KW Rocketry

KOSMOS

FusTek Munox

FusTex Common Berthing

Infernal Robotics

Procedural Fairings

KSPX

ReStock

KSP Interstellar

NearFuture Propulsion

Ion Hybrid Electric Engines

RealChut Parachute System

I tried to make sure all nodes on your tree had something interesting to give and that there were always new interesting mechanics to unlock and look forward to, like life support, resource mining, winching, remote probes, etc.. But I didn't really want more parts than this and I would've preferred to go with even fewer mods, like removing KW Rocketry or KOSMOS, but that would've left too many nodes empty and pointless.

Another important mod I'm running with is Achievements by blizzy, this one gives you +5 science for every achievement you get. This might skew the amount of science I can get, but it's mostly just noticeable at the start since +5 science isn't much later on and achievements are much harder to get.

Now the first thing I noticed is that getting to the first couple of nodes, Logic and Basic Rocketry, is extremely easy. All you have to do is launch a Pod and do a Crew Report. That doesn't feel very satisfactory, I would rather you felt like you had to make an effort to kick the tech tree off. So I increased the cost of those two nodes to 20 and 25 respectively, forcing you to at least do a couple of crew reports and surface samples around KSP, nothing too hard or time consuming anyway. The second level of nodes that unlock after that I increased to around 6-8 instead of 2-5, but that's it, I didn't touch any other node costs. This had me do quite a thorough research around KSP which took me around 30 minutes or so and I liked it!

Before reaching parachutes I had to explore a little outside KSP so I built myself a "hover rocket" with a Rockomax 48-7S (Basic Liquid Fuel Rocketry, 25+8 science from start, very easy to get), which I could carefully "crash" into the water and shorelines around KSP giving me more science to get. Pretty quickly I had parachutes and it felt like a huge success! Loved it.

Now, since the tree starts branching out at this point, I didn't feel the need to increase the cost of nodes any more as it felt fairly balanced.

Going back to the first couple of nodes (Basic Rocketry and Logic), the parts that unlocks for me are: the command seat, the rover base, the RT-10 Solid Rocket Booster and a larger booster from KW rocketry. Now I feel like every node you unlock in the tree should give you new possibilities. These two don't. At the start, without parachutes, there's nothing you can do with those parts so essentially you have to use the same methods as you used at the start. I feel like it would be better if you unlocked the tiny Rockomax and Liquid fuel tanks in the first unlock rather than the second, giving you some new options to get science.

Later on I started to unlock things at a steady rate with new useful parts to play with at every step without ever feeling like a grind. MechJeb was an important one for me and I recently reached the node which unlocks the Maneuver Planner for it and it didn't feel like it was too far away at all, had to do a couple of manual orbits, and even a fly-by of the mun manually, but that's the way it should be.

ECLSS Life support gives you enough life support in the Mk1 Pod to go the Mun and back without too much trouble, but soon enough I'll want to land on it and would have to start unlocking Logistics. Heatshields are also not much of a problem since the Mk1 Pod has a basic heat shield integrated but soon I'll have to start unlocking that to bring back larger science vessels safely.

Like ZaPPPa said earlier, the fact that fairing bases for procedural fairings come without their fairings is a bit strange since they're (almost) useless on their own. And finally, maybe the layout of the tree could do with some minor tweaking, some nodes seem to overlap lines without actually being a requirement for that line so it looks a bit confusing, but that's only minor .

Ok. Let's wrap up.

All in all I'm really enjoying this tree. The fact that it's integrated with a lot of interesting mods is definitely a major major plus. The start is a bit too easy, but overall it seems balanced, maybe even on the easy side. I feel like a strong focus should be on making every node a useful unlock, so far, except for the first two, every one does, but there could possibly be some adjustments. If possible I also feel like the tree should work better with less mods for those who don't like to have too many mods installed. Especially when you're adding new mods for new updates, I would encourage you to try to spread out the parts in such way that you minimise the nodes which are dependent on exclusively one mod, allowing people to have fewer mods installed without too many empty nodes.

Again, thanks a lot for the immense work! I'm off to try to land on the Mun .

[ZaPPPa]

Also, is there not connectivity using the shortantenna? It's range is 500km, and is in electronics so probes can be launched remotely...

It's a line-of-sight issue. The curvature of Kerbin breaks the line-of-sight when visiting far away biomes with an unmanned probe.

Like I said, it is really an issue that should be solved in RemoteTech2. A civilization that can send rockets into space should have global short-range connectivity. The reason why I do not send manned pods to biomes is because in the progress of rocketry, you do not start with sending manned pods in sub-orbital trajectories; you start with sending unmanned rockets at a target (in real life that target was London :/ )

[NathanKell]

Fixed in latest RT2. You can add multiple ground stations now (to the cfg).

[ZaPPPa]

Fixed in latest RT2. You can add multiple ground stations now (to the cfg).

Awesome.. I was not aware of that.. I tried it and it works. Ackander, consider my problem solved.

By the way, It looks like the latest procedural fairings release has a couple of large size fairings that your tree does not yet support. The KzProcFairingBase3,4,6,7,8 and the Interstage fairing adapter 2 and shroud.

I'd also suggest putting the conic side fairings into the 'basic stability and aerodynamics; node as it makes sense and it has the fastest/cheapest route to the first procedural fairing adapter.

[NathanKell]

Those are from Realism Overhaul btw

[Ackander]

And thus, the pendulum swingeth.

First of all, thanks for the .xls Ackander! That's going to be handy when I'm itching for changing stuff . Allright, here's my initial review of your tree so far:

Not only that, but it will be handy for me when I start adding parts for mods that I can't load with the original bunch of mods I sorted. Since I probably cannot have all 88 parts mods installed at once without outright deleting all the texture files, I have to take it in steps. With the xls file I can more quickly merge the PARTS { } from multiple tree.cfg files than if I had to do it by hand.

I tried to make sure all nodes on your tree had something interesting to give and that there were always new interesting mechanics to unlock and look forward to, like life support, resource mining, winching, remote probes, etc.. But I didn't really want more parts than this and I would've preferred to go with even fewer mods, like removing KW Rocketry or KOSMOS, but that would've left too many nodes empty and pointless.

Another important mod I'm running with is Achievements by blizzy, this one gives you +5 science for every achievement you get. This might skew the amount of science I can get, but it's mostly just noticeable at the start since +5 science isn't much later on and achievements are much harder to get.

I agree, pointless nodes are pointless. This just illustrates the difficulty in planning a tech tree with so many mods. I have to do two things at the same time when I plan part sorting: make sure the 'value' progression is balanced, and try to minimize gaps between nodes with parts when someone does not play with a particular mod. Before I realize it might be a problem, I just lumped all the mod parts together, and sorted them by their 'value' technology-wise. So all fuel containers are sorted by size and capacity regardless of mod, likewise with engines. An example problem would be Hex Cans. They get bigger faster compared to other similar containers, so they have gaps in capacity where other mods would have a container that would fill the gap. But the current tree structure does not have the room for extra levels. In other words, the small, medium, and large fuel HexCans do not have the same tech 'value' as round small, medium, and large containers.. So if I have three levels, the last level will have parts that can store 10 times what the other parts at that level can store, and if I add levels, there will be gaps between the HexCans. What happens when the gap mod is not installed though. Or, if I move all Hex Cans to be next to each other, why would someone use a far inferior container from the same node?

I am seriously tempted to make each node represent a range of part properties like capacity, thrust, etc. and write a ModuleManager config to change everything accordingly, so no matter what mods you have installed, if they are supported, they will be comparable to stock and thus one another leaving no gaps in the TechTree, except silly nodes like nanolathing and the like.

Quite a task, though. I counted 1,685 mod parts in v1.12.18.b alone, and am sorting another 354 now for the next update.

Now the first thing I noticed is that getting to the first couple of nodes, Logic and Basic Rocketry, is extremely easy. All you have to do is launch a Pod and do a Crew Report. That doesn't feel very satisfactory, I would rather you felt like you had to make an effort to kick the tech tree off. So I increased the cost of those two nodes to 20 and 25 respectively, forcing you to at least do a couple of crew reports and surface samples around KSP, nothing too hard or time consuming anyway. The second level of nodes that unlock after that I increased to around 6-8 instead of 2-5, but that's it, I didn't touch any other node costs. This had me do quite a thorough research around KSP which took me around 30 minutes or so and I liked it!

Before reaching parachutes I had to explore a little outside KSP so I built myself a "hover rocket" with a Rockomax 48-7S (Basic Liquid Fuel Rocketry, 25+8 science from start, very easy to get), which I could carefully "crash" into the water and shorelines around KSP giving me more science to get. Pretty quickly I had parachutes and it felt like a huge success! Loved it.

Now, since the tree starts branching out at this point, I didn't feel the need to increase the cost of nodes any more as it felt fairly balanced.

About the pendulum swinging. I do not know if you played on the first first of the Vertical TechTree, but I designed the start of it to be grind intensive.. Most of the science around KSP needed to be harvested before you get Parachutes or General Rocketry. Seemed like a good idea at the time to force a player to use the limited capacity of a pod, and truss to start gathering enough science to earn less than helpful parts. The response to this was overwhelmingly negative, so I changed it. Instead of having to spend science on a relatively useless node like Logic and Basic Rocketry, I basically lowered the price to where it sort of became start, and this other node that you get when you do a mission using only a pod and truss, because I concocted a story about the Kerbals and this TechTree is the byproduct. I wrote it down earlier, in one sentence.

Oddly enough, you increased the cost of Logic and Basic Rocketry to almost v1.0 levels.. and you felt the success I originally intended, good job.

Going back to the first couple of nodes (Basic Rocketry and Logic), the parts that unlocks for me are: the command seat, the rover base, the RT-10 Solid Rocket Booster and a larger booster from KW rocketry. Now I feel like every node you unlock in the tree should give you new possibilities. These two don't. At the start, without parachutes, there's nothing you can do with those parts so essentially you have to use the same methods as you used at the start. I feel like it would be better if you unlocked the tiny Rockomax and Liquid fuel tanks in the first unlock rather than the second, giving you some new options to get science.

Later on I started to unlock things at a steady rate with new useful parts to play with at every step without ever feeling like a grind. MechJeb was an important one for me and I recently reached the node which unlocks the Maneuver Planner for it and it didn't feel like it was too far away at all, had to do a couple of manual orbits, and even a fly-by of the mun manually, but that's the way it should be.

ECLSS Life support gives you enough life support in the Mk1 Pod to go the Mun and back without too much trouble, but soon enough I'll want to land on it and would have to start unlocking Logistics. Heatshields are also not much of a problem since the Mk1 Pod has a basic heat shield integrated but soon I'll have to start unlocking that to bring back larger science vessels safely.

You are right, those two nodes do not give you anything helpful. See above about the triple-split 'start' node, in essence you have to pay to start like no other TechTree I know of. Almost like you start the game before rockets are invented, and your entire species is relegated to walking and rolling around in capsule rovers. I liked the 'before rockets are invented' part, but didn't feel it neccessary for a ton of walkabouts to discover them. Think of it as time compression in effect, so you do not have to walk-n-roll grind KSC and environs now.

Like ZaPPPa said earlier, the fact that fairing bases for procedural fairings come without their fairings is a bit strange since they're (almost) useless on their own. And finally, maybe the layout of the tree could do with some minor tweaking, some nodes seem to overlap lines without actually being a requirement for that line so it looks a bit confusing, but that's only minor .

Fairings are unlocked with composites. I figured it was no big deal to have a fairing base and not be able to make fairings yet. I did not think the fairing bases could decouple though.. just the adapter (they do not have the decouple module at least)?

Ok. Let's wrap up.

All in all I'm really enjoying this tree. The fact that it's integrated with a lot of interesting mods is definitely a major major plus. The start is a bit too easy, but overall it seems balanced, maybe even on the easy side. I feel like a strong focus should be on making every node a useful unlock, so far, except for the first two, every one does, but there could possibly be some adjustments. If possible I also feel like the tree should work better with less mods for those who don't like to have too many mods installed. Especially when you're adding new mods for new updates, I would encourage you to try to spread out the parts in such way that you minimise the nodes which are dependent on exclusively one mod, allowing people to have fewer mods installed without too many empty nodes.

Again, thanks a lot for the immense work! I'm off to try to land on the Mun .

Continue to enjoy, please. Any ideas on how to write an MM config for every part would be most welcome. But for that, there shall be much researchign, nerfing, and squabbling over values. Fat are the chances one can make an end-all-be-all parts mod which everyone happens to download only the portions they want of it, and be happy with it at the same time, and is compatible with other plugins like Modular Fuel System and FAR.. that would just be crazy.

I am considering the empty node issue now while adding the 354 parts to the tree.

Thus ends another Ackander Ramble.

~tschüss

[Ackander]

Awesome.. I was not aware of that.. I tried it and it works. Ackander, consider my problem solved.

By the way, It looks like the latest procedural fairings release has a couple of large size fairings that your tree does not yet support. The KzProcFairingBase3,4,6,7,8 and the Interstage fairing adapter 2 and shroud.

I'd also suggest putting the conic side fairings into the 'basic stability and aerodynamics; node as it makes sense and it has the fastest/cheapest route to the first procedural fairing adapter.

I will be sure to include any mod updates with a techtree update.

I could do that.. but then the fairings would be out of their aerodynamical structural element, so to speak. Controls Discipline is primarily for control surfaces, SAS, and similar devices. I could consider adding a basic aerospaceframe node under the first level of aerospaceframes..