BioMass Ongoing Development

[Roboto]

Any bug reports issues and general discussion regarding BioMass should be posted here.

[therealcrow999]

From the Biomass+ download, which one do I use? Do I use the one in Gamedata folder or the BioMass+Science.zip thats in the zip?

Sorry just saw post about posting here.

[Sigma52]

Looking forward to seeing this come back in 23. Loved this mod in 22

[seanth]

From the Biomass+ download, which one do I use? Do I use the one in Gamedata folder or the BioMass+Science.zip thats in the zip?

You can do either. The zip file on github is exactly the same as what is in Gamedata.

[seanth]

I moved this from the old thread-STH

Is there an idea why compressor is making monopropellant fine, while doesn't make xenon? Efficiency shown is 0 =\ Can it be related to using modded xenon tanks?

Update: it works on time compression. All the resources are in great abundance so it can't be a deficit of something.

I assume you are using the github science+ atmospheric extractor?

It's odd that the monopropellant should be working fine but xenon is not. We assume Xenon is 9.5x more common in Kerbin's atmosphere than hydrogen (which is compressed to monopropellant). Can you attach a screenshot?

The following can act as a rough estimate of how rapidly gasses(and water) can be recovered. The percentages translate into rates of recovery 1:1:

78.08% Nitrogen

20.95% Oxygen

0.035% Carbon Dioxide

0.0001745% Kethane

0.000524% Xenon

0.000055% Hydrogen

~1.0% other gasses

1% water

[Chris_W]

Some news from the "core redesign" front here..

I managed to revamp all of the BM stuff that's on Spaceport at the moment.

Right now my core BioMass pack contains:

* 3 resources

.. BioMass of course stands for sugars and plant fibre. MicroFlora stands for useful bacteria, Nutrients are made by them from waste products and water. All of them are treated as near-liquid in state, since Nutrients now also include the water plants need.

I had to change density of BioMass to make it possible to work with smaller numbers that make container sizes appear more game-like and ease up the math I had to put into all this. We're now just moving around more at once if we look at 1 unit.

* MicroFlora Experiment

.. takes bacteria into space to study them. This unlocks prior to any other parts of the mod.

.. I also rewrote the science results.

* Plant Life Experiment

.. takes plants into space for study. Unlocks second, and just before you get the greenhouses.

.. I also rewrote the science results.

* Supply Tanks

.. 2 small and 2 large tanks for both CO2 and Nutrients, unlocking with Survivability already.

You don't need them, except if you plan on speedy specialized production of one resource only, then they can hold extra resources usually produced by Kerbals or bacteria. Also they are useful for resupply runs in case you miscalculated something.

Greenhouses can collect light from built-in artificial lights (using up electricity) or sunlight (opening the shutters) or even both and are researched after the experiments. They come with 3 different collections of plants inside.

* Food Greenhouse

.. photosynthesis (using up light, CO2 and nutrients) gives you edible fruits and plants (aka food), some oxygen and some biomass.

.. respiration (always happening, tiny amounts) gives CO2 and water while consuming biomass and oxygen.

* BioMass Greenhouse

.. photosynthesis (using up light, CO2 and nutrients) gives you some oxygen and lots of biomass.

.. respiration (always happening, tiny amounts) gives CO2 and water while consuming biomass and oxygen.

* Eco Greenhouse

.. photosynthesis (using up light, CO2 and nutrients) gives you lots of oxygen, wastewater and some biomass.

.. respiration (always happening, tiny amounts) gives CO2 and water while consuming biomass and oxygen.

The greenhouses all can store whatever they produce, with more space for the things their plants specialize in.

They also hold a small "starter kit" of CO2 and Nutrients.

Usually a set of 2 BioMass, 1 Eco and 1 Food greenhouse can support up to 4 Kerbals near(!) indefinately, provided you use some Lifesupport mod part that turns Wastewater back into clean Water (TAC LS can).

New models for them are in the works and looking extremely promising.

ALL production levels have been somewhat reduced. Users can now watch for a minute and see slight changes in numbers, but will not end up having produced 300 days worth of food for instance in a single hour. Production rate of food is about 5 units per day, so with 4 kerbals around you have exactly 1 unit overhead left per day. I kept overheads small on purpose, it just feels more realistic.

* MicroBiome

.. this cultivates bacteria for the greenhouses. They feed on Waste or Wastewater or BioMass, whatever happens to be around will be used and speed up bacteria production. As they grow in number, some also die over time while producing Nutrients for the plants. The whole lifecycle uses up a tiny amount of oxygen and sets free some CO2. Usually one container per greenhouse is enough.

Note that plants now create BioMass, while bacteria and plants both consume a portion of it. This is meant to symbolize plants and bacteria dieing and growing back and creates lifecycles.

If the bacteria are not supplied with waste products properly, they will die and Nutrient production will stop, causing plants to decay next.

If BioMass reaches zero and nutrients reach zero craft-wide, all plants are considered dead until you resupply.

With this it is now possible to build greenhouse stations/bases, relying either on occasional resupply runs or a gardener being around (producing waste products and CO2 while caring for the plants).

* Station Command Hab

.. a habitat module made for 4 Kerbals to build your station or ground base around. It has controls, can be used to store science results in and looks really cool. Can create crew reports, too, which is nice for low orbit stations that pass over a lot of biomes on their orbit.

* Station Supply Hub

.. basically the same design, but without a glass dome for observation. Offers space for a lot of storage as well as one Kerbal, possibly the gardener of a station or base. No control features in here, no science storage or crew reports either.

Main idea here being to reduce part count on your stations by holding a lot of stuff that usually is put in dozens of containers in one central place instead.

* BioReactor

.. this thing, once turned on, creates either LiquidFuel or Oxidizer using algae and bacteria.

It is a slow process and uses up ElectricCharge, BioMass and a little MicroFlora (which decays in the process).

Byproducts are CO2 and Waste, as well as Wastewater, yet in tolerable amounts. (Can supply your bacteria!)

The production rate is slow, yet can be feasible for larger stations so they can supply the crafts visiting them once in a while.

New model for this is in the works.

* Gas Compressor

.. true in-situ engineering at work, this thing can produce Monopropellant and XenonGas through compression and mixing of gases.

The compressor runs on ElectricCharge and is able to turn LiquidFuel, Oxidizer and BioMass (requiring all 3) into either a moderate amount of Monopropellant or a small amount of XenonGas, giving CO2, Waste and Wastewater as byproducts of the process.

The production rate is slow, yet can be feasible for larger stations so they can supply the crafts visiting them once in a while.

New model for this is in the works.

I also looked over the things you have in the Science+ pack, and noticed how much you relied on Kethane for most of the new things.

I see two roads ahead now - either I can try to include basic functionality of the added parts, but without requiring users to use Kethane for them, or I could just call it a day for "BioMass Basic" and we could call the rest "BioMass Kethane Expansion". Personally I prefer to keep the core separate and the "plus pack" to just use it as a foundation.

Let me know if you have more ideas, comments or questions on the whole thing.. I'll have to wait for the new models before release anyway.

If you want to check it out using the old models, here goes.

Known bugs: Animations and colliders are broken, some of the models don't have collision set right and are wobbly, some look bad, some have problems with attaching. (Guess why I'm getting new models for all this.)

I lacked the source of the old DLL so I made everything work with the help of TaranisElsu's TAC converter instead of coming up with an own way of doing the exact same thing.

The old BioMass DLL is not needed anymore. Math does all the stuff now.

I did get TE's permission for use and he has his source on display in the lifesupport thread.

Converter and resources included in zip file.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Chris_W

[Sakata]

I'm confused. Did Roboto/Seanth abandon biomass? or are they just busy with holiday and you updated while they're out?

[Chris_W]

They do have a lot to do, so Roboto was fine with me updating it for .23, as I did in the main thread.

I also asked permission to rewrite it since I found a lot of it outdated with .23, and have been doing so since I got the go-ahead.

He and the other BioMass guys still get the final word on things, is why I posted the first working suggestion here in development instead of in the release thread, so they can evaluate what I'm up to and make up their minds about it.

[seanth]

Some news from the "core redesign" front here..

I managed to revamp all of the BM stuff that's on Spaceport at the moment.

The Spaceport and github versions of BioMass are becoming increasingly divergent. I think we might want to talk about how to unify things so we have a single mod. We need to find a way to make BioMass useful, fun and yet not too much of a cheat.

In general, my approach since joining Roboto has been to make things biologically realistic, but not too boring. At the same time, I (personally) want to force the player to make decisions in how they use the biomass mod: do they want it for O2/CO2 control and water purification, food production, or fuel production. Allowing all three, or even two at a time, would make biomass too much of a cheat imho.

So, do you want to breath, eat, or go places? If you want all three, be prepared to make a big station/ship.

Here's what is on Github part and purpose wise. Any biologic/chemical process (respiration, photosynthesis, biofuel production) is done in a realistic, mass balanced way (masses of reactants going in equals the masses of products coming out). Underlined items are the resources. Might seem complex, but it's actually a lot simpler than rocket science

O2 compressor/regulator: Compresses O2 gas into oxidizer for use with liquid fuel/releases oxidizer pressure to make breathable O2

H2 compressor/regulator: Compresses H2 gas into monopropellant/releases monopropellant into H2 gas for use in biofuel reactions (if needed)

CO2 compressor/regulator: Compresses CO2 gas into compressed CO2/releases compressed CO2 into gas plants can use

O2/H2/CO2/Compressed CO2/water tanks: tanks to hold those things

Cryogenic Atmospheric Separator: Purifies O2, CO2, N2, H2, Xenon and Kethane from Kerbin's atmosphere.

Seed bank: Store Seeds

Snack container: Stores food

Plant Greenhouse: In presence of light, seeds are converted to biomass. In the light: Biomass takes water and CO2 and converts it to O2 and more biomass. Always: Biomass consumes O2 and biomass to produce water and CO2 (yes, plants respire. Just about 4x slower than they photosynthesize). In the dark: converts biomass into Seeds. Using wasteWater makes the biomass grow faster. Activate a harvester on the greenhouse and you get biocake. The growth rate of the biomass should be nearly the same as the rate of the harvester. The greenhouse has lights that can replace the sun if you go behind a planet. This is important since the biomass respires (will consume O2 and "eat" itself in the dark).

Algae Greenhouse: Works exactly the same as the Plant Greenhouse, but using wasteWater results in faster growth AND clean water

BioReactor: Biocake is converted into liquidFuel along with some gasses. This used to be much more complicated, involving a Fermenter and Reactor, but now the fermentation and transesterification steps are invisible to the player and it all "happens" in this one part.

Koylent Maker: Biocake and seeds are combined to make food.

Composter: Takes all sorts of things (biomass, biocake, seeds, solidWaste, even liquidFuel) and breaks it down into gasses or Kethane. Adding water results in wasteWater for use in the greenhouses

Bio Containment Study: Provides science points

Biological Systems Study: Provides science points

Station Hubs: Their role is sort of evolving

Plans: A bit more balancing on rates of biomass growth and conversion to food or fuel. I'd also like to see a whole series of science parts that act as tutorials, telling a player how things work. For example, a mini greenhouse experiment(s) where the player learns that seeds-->biomass, biomass respires, biomass photosynthesizes, etc.

I also looked over the things you have in the Science+ pack, and noticed how much you relied on Kethane for most of the new things.

Yeah. The generator modules that Squad uses really suck. If you have two input resources and one output resource, and run out of one of the inputs, the other input will continue to be consumed. Pretty much makes doing balanced chemical reactions impossible. Kethane come with better generator modules, thus the reliance on the kethane dll. I'm not necessarily wedded to using the Kethane dll. If the TACLS dll can mimic the biology, it makes _more_ sense to use it vs kethane since kethane is about mining resources.

Edited December 26, 2013 by seanth

[Chris_W]

In general, my approach since joining Roboto has been to make things biologically realistic, but not too boring. At the same time, I (personally) want to force the player to make decisions in how they use the biomass mod: do they want it for O2/CO2 control and water purification, food production, or fuel production. Allowing all three, or even two at a time, would make biomass too much of a cheat imho.

Exactly my take on things, too. Still, some processes have been so slow the user would have to spend hours sitting there, watching, while others, like food production, were absolutely through the roof. It makes no sense waiting a long time for 500 grams of sugar to be produced while that other greenhouse grows 500 pumpkins a day.

I don't see how using all of them is cheating however. On a mission to Jool or other far places, you need all the lifesupport you can get. If we can make it feasible to take some greenhouses out there so you don#t have to watch your mission elapsed time that carefully.. why not? With the amounts I used the best you can get out of it, with part count still being reasonable, is a slight food production of 1-2 units per day overhead and try(!) to keep O2 and CO2 along with water levels from dropping too fast. If you're perfect, you can achieve balance. Takes a whole lot of math though. I see it as a reward. Learn about it enough and you actually can create natural balance on a spaceship.

I'll try to list how I went about it. One unit is a daily Kerbal ration, production rate is per day.

Kerbal (in TAC LS)

-1 Food, -1 O2, -1 Water = +1 Waste, +1 CO2, +1 Wastewater

Eco Greenhouse

Photo: -4 Nutrients, -2 CO2, -all light = + 3 O2, +1000 Biomass, +2 Wastewater

Resp: -500 Biomass, -0.5 O2 = +2 Water, +0.5 O2

Biomass Greenhouse

Photo: -4 Nutrients, -2 CO2, -all light = + 2 O2, +2000 Biomass

Resp: -500 Biomass, -0.5 O2 = +1 Water, +0.5 O2

Food Greenhouse

Photo: -4 Nutrients, -2 CO2, -all light = + 0.5 O2, +1000 Biomass, +4.5 Food

Resp: -500 Biomass, -0.5 O2 = +1 Water, +0.5 O2

MicroBiome

-1 Wastewater, -0.125 O2 = +12 Microflora

-1 Waste, -0.125 O2 = +12 Microflora

-100 Biomass, -0.125 O2 = +12 Microflora

and -6 Microflora = +6 Nutrients, +0.125 CO2

The varying rates are from different plant types inside the greenhouses and should make it more fun to specialize production.

I excluded the Seeds here for a reason, namely the formula already being rather complex on one hand, and the part count of a station not growing excessively on the other. If you have to build a huge station to produce all of the resources, you still should be able to dock large ships so they can pick up those resources you produced.

Compressors/Reactor/in-situ engineering:

I went over it to make it more plausible. You don't just compress O2 into Oxidizer or compress Hydrogen into fuel on their own. Likewise, you only get a small amount of Xenon out of a lot of resources. Putting Biomass into the equation brings elements like N and ammonia into the equation that you need to produce usable fuels.

It also is a great way to create waste products for occasions where you just don't have enough Kerbals around or are not using LifeSupport mods to begin with, which was a point I really missed. It wasn't independant at all, now it can be a little.

Atmospheric Separator:

Like I said, Lifesupport mods already have those things, no need to double up or "make a more OP version" or anything. Because you know people will say this.

Koylent Maker:

I totally like this idea, fun parts!

I'd use BioMass instead of Biocake. Again, too many resources around already, let's not puzzle the users.

Composter:

That is basically the MicroBiome.

Bio Containment Study: Provides science points

Biological Systems Study: Provides science points

Station Hubs: Their role is sort of evolving

..aye, took care of that. Check it out.

Plans: A bit more balancing on rates of biomass growth and conversion to food or fuel. I'd also like to see a whole series of science parts that act as tutorials, telling a player how things work. For example, a mini greenhouse experiment(s) where the player learns that seeds-->biomass, biomass respires, biomass photosynthesizes, etc.

Hm. Yes, I understand that having this idea seems great and complex and shiny at first.

But do you really want to write a piece of software that is so complex that a user has to rely upon understanding tutorials to use it?

KSP is about "grab the stuff, make it work somehow, launch it into space, enjoy".. so I tried keeping things rather simple and let out a few details, or used stuff like biomass and nutrients in a much broader role (instead of seeds for instance).

I'm afraid this is a point where mods lose their first big chunk of users already.

Look at Bargain Rocket Parts for instance.. so very simple, so much enjoyment inside. Noone goes "but this wouldn't work" or anything. Its pure fun, but it still teaches you you need fuel for that rocket, or how to get the mass right.

Biomass could be just as enjoyable as a kid's first fishtank. You set it up, watch what happens, pour in some food (Nutrients, CO2), maybe turn on the lights, and watch it grow while learning the dependancies and having fun.

Wouldn't that be a more desireable goal? Seeing it as an experiment that you can have fun with and learn stuff at the same time?

If the TACLS dll can mimic the biology, it makes _more_ sense to use it vs kethane since kethane is about mining resources.

It can, and it also lets you set up reaction chains such as photosynthesis. If light is missing in the equation, the whole thing does not happen and only respiration happens.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Chris_W

[seanth]

When I approached Roboto initially, I just wanted to make things more biologically realistic. The "tutorial" idea is just because I'm a plant biology professor and I (unfortunately) think game mechanics that are are pedological tools are cool.

It can, and it also lets you set up reaction chains such as photosynthesis. If light is missing in the equation, the whole thing does not happen and only respiration happens.

That's cool. I'm going to try and look at it tonight and run some tests to see how well it does in matching the balanced rxns. I have no reason to think it won't do well.

At the very least, it'd be nice to have the spaceport and github versions have the same parts that do the same general things, even if exactly _how_ they do them differs. My hope is that the two versions will evolve closer and closer until they become one that fuses accurate biology and chemistry with fun and...fishtankiness.

Edited December 27, 2013 by seanth

[Roboto]

I'm confused. Did Roboto/Seanth abandon biomass? or are they just busy with holiday and you updated while they're out?

No we've not abandoned, just the holiday and whatnot. I did give permission to Chris_W to play around with the mod and submit changes and alterations. He had been doing a lot of bug hunting and 0.23 fixing, so I didn't see any harm in it since I hadn't had a chance to really update for .23 yet. However, I also didn't really explain the relationship between the github and the spaceport versions or the overall direction of the mod that was already planned by sean and myself. So if anything seems out of whack, it's just a communication issue or the fact that I've been unplugged for a few days.

Gimme a day to sober up and digest everything and I'll catch everyone up.

[Sakata]

Ahh no problem figured it was you guys on holiday, just was curious -- I didn't think it was being hijacked or anything.

One thing I'd say would be a really nice (though complex possibly on the programming side) is detection of TAC or (insert life support mods here), so that parts work slightly different based on that.

Personally, I find that the life support mods tend to add a bit too much realism I like building cool things and flying around. I don't want it to be too cheaty, and I do realize that there is a loss of real materials when you make fuel and such and you (effectively) jettison the stuff into space, so I can handle some form of resupply and such... but at the same time, I hate micromanagement. Usually just the logistics of getting a full station into place with the correct ratios of power, bio-generation, etc. and assembling the whole thing is fun, and while it does get a tad bit 'cheaty' to have an infinite supply of... supplies doesn't make much real sense, I think I'd end up having to spend more time supplying the things than using them to supply interplanetary vehicles.

Perhaps even a configuration option eg "RealismLevel==varX" that determines the 'cheat factor' would be nice. It would allow for people to have a choice of how much micromanagement they want to do. Having such a setting would allow the mod to function as one mod, while catering to different playstyles and choice of mods.

Also, Chris does make a point that I can get. Biomass R1 I got really wel, and while on some levels I do understand it was too simplistic, R2 (github) is a bit past my league. I do LOVE that the project is being looked at in more detail for realism and the ideas that are going into it -- very cool. But on the flip side of that, I tend to get lost between reading about a part then constructing a ship, as there are just so many different resources -- last ship I designed had the resource tab take over 50% of the vertical space (a station with biomass, interstellar, and the launch vehicle (or ship that comes to dock).

There is so much that is there that I feel like the builds may end up getting so complex I'll need a printed 'field manual' of sorts just to make a proper resupply station that can process quickly enough to function as I want, and still be able to launch the thing into space. Perhaps along with the 'realismlevel' idea, make the resources a bit more simplistic based on the variable.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Sakata

[Bothersome]

In the Agricultural Science Research Module, I added the following to my install.

dataIsCollectable = True

collectActionName = Collect Data

interactionRange = 1.2

I kind of thought it didn't fit well to have to bring the module back down to Kerbin for the full science value when I have a science lab attached right to it.

Basically the Kerbals would pull some plant samples and send them back home in a box for further analysis. Transmit values seemed to fit logically and even returning samples doesn't bring the whole value home. Must do it a few times to get the max science from it.

Playing in Career mode in RealScaleSolar (with Deadly Re-entry) is quite a challenge. We don't have enough science handy at Kerbin, Mun, and local space to fill out the tree, so we have to be VERY careful on what science nodes to unlock. We can't just be bringing modules back to Kerbin at the whim ya know. Things need shielding and stuff to get it back down. It's usually just as hard to get them down as it was to get them up.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Bothersome
Fixed lines copy pasted

[TaranisElsu]

My plan is to add a simple food greenhouse to TAC Life Support, while making a greenhouse module that hopefully will be useful to you guys. I like what Chris did with my TacGenericConverter module, but I don't think it works as well for your purposes as something made specifically for greenhouses. My thought is that people can use my greenhouse if they just want to keep it simple, but replace it with yours (or add yours?) if they want the complexity and greater realism.

"Dang it Jim, I'm a programmer not a plant biologist!"

The following is based on my limited understanding and the work that Chris_W did. I would like to make it into a single "Greenhouse" part.

Composter/MicroBiome

* Converts waste into Fertilizer/Nutrients: Waste + Oxygen -> CarbonDioxide + Fertilizer [Chris did: Waste/WasteWater/Biomass + Oxygen -> MicroFlora -> CarbonDioxide + Nutrients]

Food Greenhouse

* Respiration: Fertilizer + Water + Oxygen -> CarbonDioxide + Water [Chris did: BioMass + O2 -> CarbonDioxide + Water]

* Photosynthesis: Light + Fertilizer + Water + CarbonDioxide -> Oxygen + Food + growth [Chris did: Light + Nutrients + CarbonDioxide -> Oxygen + Food + BioMass]

Additional comments:

• Plants die if inputs are missing, and are converted to Waste for conservation of mass reasons. Also, excess growth is assumed to be pruned and converted to Waste.
  
• Note that I prefer the name "Fertilizer" over "Nutrients".
  
• I am not having the plants "eat themselves". Should I add in some continual plant death in addition to that caused by missing inputs?
  
• Since I want the module to function even while the vessel is unfocused, I was thinking of saying that Photosynthesis is active between 50-75% of the time and calculate everything based on that.
  
• I want my greenhouse to require Kerbals to take care of everything.
  

What do you think? And thanks in advance for any help.

EDIT: Based on some further reading, including http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/141.html, I think that I should change the above to:

Food Greenhouse

* Respiration & Transpiration: glucose + Oxygen + Water + Fertilizer -> growth + Food + Carbon Dioxide + Water

* Photosynthesis: Carbon Dioxide + Water + Light -> glucose + Oxygen

I might need some way of tracking the glucose production/consumption, but I don't really want to make it a resource.

Edited December 27, 2013 by TaranisElsu
Further reading

[seanth]

What do you think? And thanks in advance for any help.

EDIT: Based on some further reading, including http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/gardennotes/141.html, I think that I should change the above to:

Food Greenhouse

* Respiration & Transpiration: glucose + Oxygen + Water + Fertilizer -> growth + Food + Carbon Dioxide + Water

* Photosynthesis: Carbon Dioxide + Water + Light -> glucose + Oxygen

I might need some way of tracking the glucose production/consumption, but I don't really want to make it a resource.

From a purely selfish perspective, I'd like to see it more biological (i.e. what's on github) than what Chris_W is proposing. Chris_W has some good ideas, but are not necessarily in the same vein as what Roboto and I have been talking about.

[Sigma52]

The Spaceport and github versions of BioMass are becoming increasingly divergent. I think we might want to talk about how to unify things so we have a single mod. We need to find a way to make BioMass useful, fun and yet not too much of a cheat.

In general, my approach since joining Roboto has been to make things biologically realistic, but not too boring. At the same time, I (personally) want to force the player to make decisions in how they use the biomass mod: do they want it for O2/CO2 control and water purification, food production, or fuel production. Allowing all three, or even two at a time, would make biomass too much of a cheat imho.

So, do you want to breath, eat, or go places? If you want all three, be prepared to make a big station/ship.

Here's what is on Github part and purpose wise. Any biologic/chemical process (respiration, photosynthesis, biofuel production) is done in a realistic, mass balanced way (masses of reactants going in equals the masses of products coming out). Underlined items are the resources. Might seem complex, but it's actually a lot simpler than rocket science

O2 compressor/regulator: Compresses O2 gas into oxidizer for use with liquid fuel/releases oxidizer pressure to make breathable O2

H2 compressor/regulator: Compresses H2 gas into monopropellant/releases monopropellant into H2 gas for use in biofuel reactions (if needed)

CO2 compressor/regulator: Compresses CO2 gas into compressed CO2/releases compressed CO2 into gas plants can use

O2/H2/CO2/Compressed CO2/water tanks: tanks to hold those things

Cryogenic Atmospheric Separator: Purifies O2, CO2, N2, H2, Xenon and Kethane from Kerbin's atmosphere.

Seed bank: Store Seeds

Snack container: Stores food

Plant Greenhouse: In presence of light, seeds are converted to biomass. In the light: Biomass takes water and CO2 and converts it to O2 and more biomass. Always: Biomass consumes O2 and biomass to produce water and CO2 (yes, plants respire. Just about 4x slower than they photosynthesize). In the dark: converts biomass into Seeds. Using wasteWater makes the biomass grow faster. Activate a harvester on the greenhouse and you get biocake. The growth rate of the biomass should be nearly the same as the rate of the harvester. The greenhouse has lights that can replace the sun if you go behind a planet. This is important since the biomass respires (will consume O2 and "eat" itself in the dark).

Algae Greenhouse: Works exactly the same as the Plant Greenhouse, but using wasteWater results in faster growth AND clean water

BioReactor: Biocake is converted into liquidFuel along with some gasses. This used to be much more complicated, involving a Fermenter and Reactor, but now the fermentation and transesterification steps are invisible to the player and it all "happens" in this one part.

Koylent Maker: Biocake and seeds are combined to make food.

Composter: Takes all sorts of things (biomass, biocake, seeds, solidWaste, even liquidFuel) and breaks it down into gasses or Kethane. Adding water results in wasteWater for use in the greenhouses

Bio Containment Study: Provides science points

Biological Systems Study: Provides science points

Station Hubs: Their role is sort of evolving

Plans: A bit more balancing on rates of biomass growth and conversion to food or fuel. I'd also like to see a whole series of science parts that act as tutorials, telling a player how things work. For example, a mini greenhouse experiment(s) where the player learns that seeds-->biomass, biomass respires, biomass photosynthesizes, etc.

Yeah. The generator modules that Squad uses really suck. If you have two input resources and one output resource, and run out of one of the inputs, the other input will continue to be consumed. Pretty much makes doing balanced chemical reactions impossible. Kethane come with better generator modules, thus the reliance on the kethane dll. I'm not necessarily wedded to using the Kethane dll. If the TACLS dll can mimic the biology, it makes _more_ sense to use it vs kethane since kethane is about mining resources.

Hey sean, is there any download link to your above post? I tried searching for it on the parent thread but i can't seem to find it. The home page doesn't make it clear where to download it.

[seanth]

Hey sean, is there any download link to your above post? I tried searching for it on the parent thread but i can't seem to find it. The home page doesn't make it clear where to download it.

No problem. You can get the github version at https://github.com/VigilanteInc/BioMass. I'll ping Roboto and see if he'll update the OP.

[Sigma52]

No problem. You can get the github version at https://github.com/VigilanteInc/BioMass. I'll ping Roboto and see if he'll update the OP.

Ah you rock! Thank you!

[seanth]

"Dang it Jim, I'm a programmer not a plant biologist!"

As an actual plant biologist I think I can help out. I sent you a PM and we can talk details. In general would would be great is to somehow tie in the biological processes with the biological mass. So, for example, more units of biomass present would result in more O2 production per unit time.

Also, a way to deselect ships, reselect them some time later and have resources calculated would be great.

I might need some way of tracking the glucose production/consumption, but I don't really want to make it a resource.

Gug. Someday I will learn not to end drafting a message too early.

Right now, Roboto and I are assuming that BioMass is glucose, so we do track sugar, but call it Biomass.

Transpiration and Respiration are different processes. You can effectively ignore transpiration in my opinion.

Respiration always takes place: 1BioMass(C6H12O6)+6(O2)-->6(CO2)+6(H2O)

Photosynthesis is 3 to 4x greater than respiration: 1Biomass+6(CO2)+6(H2O)+light-->2Biomass(C6H12O6)+6(O2)

The holidays have gotten in the way of me revising things, but the respiration is going to be in line with the calculations you did for TAC-LS. So, 1 unit (kg) of biomass would, for example

Respire:0.1795units of biomass+0.04097units of O2 --> 0.1717units of water + 0.0488units of CO2 per 1 human day

Photosynthesis would be the opposite reaction and 3.7x greater:

0.6353units of water + 0.1806units of CO2 --> 0.6642units of biomass+0.1516units of O2

Right now I have photosynthesis 3.7x greater than respiration, but in the presence of wasteWater, the rate increases to 4x

Dead biomass is what is called Biocake in the science+ version. It's used to make food or fuel in what's on github.

Edited December 28, 2013 by seanth

[Sakata]

Sean, could you perhaps ramp up the 'speed' of the resource use/generation? Keeping it realistic of course, but just get the resources up to 1-2 units/tick. I think one reason I have a hard time figuring out what to turn on/off is the lack of any meaningful resource use (mine generally shows 0.00)

Also in .23 the greenhouse models 'blow up' in the VAB

[seanth]

Sean, could you perhaps ramp up the 'speed' of the resource use/generation? Keeping it realistic of course, but just get the resources up to 1-2 units/tick. I think one reason I have a hard time figuring out what to turn on/off is the lack of any meaningful resource use (mine generally shows 0.00)

Yeah. I'm still trying to balance rates. How everything works feels correct to me, but the rates are not correct. Growth rate is probably realistic, but boring, and CO2 consumption/O2 production is probably too fast. I need to look at it closer.

As for the greenhouse doing that weird expansion thing: I hadn't noticed that. Or did you mean the Station Hubs? Because that's a known problem.

[nickma]

Put Issues in the gitHub "issue" section... https://github.com/VigilanteInc/BioMass/issues

[Roboto]

Ok, here's where I'm at.

As far as a "core redesign" of biomass, the github version is that redesign. I'm not really looking to make major changes to the spaceport version beyond tweaks, fixes and version updates for the time being. The goal Sean and I have been working toward is a unified version that is a happy medium between the github version being developed and the spaceport version that already exists. So I think any nuts and bolts work should be focused on the github version. As far as Chris_Ws changes and ideas, if models are changing, configs are changing and the mod is becoming dependent on other mod dlls, then I feel like it's moving in a different direction than Sean and I were already planning on, and it's probably better that it is it's own mod.

That said, the dilemma I'm facing even now is that I like both versions and I kind of want to keep both. As far as my preference goes, no offense to Sean, but I prefer to use the spaceport version over the github version when I do choose to play them. And it's because of this, that I want to keep both around. Does that mean they are 2 different mods? I'm not sure. That point is up for discussion. I like Sakatas suggestion of a "RealismLevel" variable, but I have a feeling that would be a pretty big undertaking.

Edited December 30, 2013 by Roboto
Clarification

[seanth]

Oh, I totally love the RealismVariable idea.I think we can pull it off (I have some ideas)