BioMass Ongoing Development

[Nachocuban]

the only options I have on the Greenhouse are

Lights (on/off)

Extend/Retract Panels

Activate Harvest Biomass....

Activate Harvest Seeds Co...

both of the bottom two options drain seeds.

Harvest seeds drains my seeds at -.02 (in the resource bar on top) at 50x speed.

Both with harvest Biomass, and with both options off, drains my seeds at -.08 at 50x speed.

With full light, BM, and Biocake, 0 waste, and 0 waste water.

[cfds]

Negative drain means that you gain resources, compare it to Electric Charge.

[Nachocuban]

I added in the '-' myself, it was showing .02 in the resource bar, and the seeds were going down.

[koksny]

I added in the '-' myself, it was showing .02 in the resource bar, and the seeds were going down.

Do you have seed container mounted on vessel?

If yes - try changing in BioMass_b.cfg

RESOURCE_DEFINITION

{

name = Seeds

//density = 0.00765

density = 0.001

flowMode = STACK_PRIORITY_SEARCH

transfer = PUMP

isTweakable = true

}

flowMode to "ALL_VESSEL". I'm probably wrong, but last time i had similiar problem with food resource and it helped.

[seanth]

Also, how do you net seeds? It seems that I am always consuming them.

This is embarrassing, but you just found a bug that roboto and I had previously talked about, came up with a solution for, and which I completely ignored in the latest release.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the problem:

Seeds germinate in light

Biomass needs light to grow

Biomass makes seeds...in light...and they germinate.

Sigh.

I will push an update to github tonight. It will add an additional button to greenhouses, basically allowing you to turn germination on/off. When off, seeds will accumulate. The only other easily implementable solution would be to introduce another part, which I would rather not do. It would add to part count (which some people have been vocal about), and would also potentially break existing craft.

EDIT: github updated 2014-01-31 22:21:50 MT

To make seeds germinate, click the "IR Light" button on the greenhouse. Make sure you turn it off if you want to accumulate seeds.

Right now biomass starts making seeds only once a greenhouse is full. Would people like seeds to be made constantly, instead?

Edited February 1, 2014 by seanth

[enneract]

Does this still not work when the vessel does not have focus?

[seanth]

Does this still not work when the vessel does not have focus?

It still doesn't work when the vessel does not have focus. It is still a planned feature.

[positivewun]

out of curiosity where is the github?

also I was reading earlier in here what sounded like an attempt at making this TAC compatible? is this right? is it done?

Edited February 2, 2014 by positivewun

[enneract]

It still doesn't work when the vessel does not have focus. It is still a planned feature.

Sad. Unfortunately, I can't see actually using this mod until that works :\ I would want to use it to allow for food production on off-planet colonies (can crack o2 from water with KESA & KSPInterstellar), and that isn't viable unless this produces food (and o2\water I guess) very quickly.

[seanth]

out of curiosity where is the github?

also I was reading earlier in here what sounded like an attempt at making this TAC compatible? is this right? is it done?

Github: https://github.com/VigilanteInc/BioMass

Settings to use with TAC: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62631-BioMass-Ongoing-Development?p=922053&viewfull=1#post922053

Eventually we'll include a zipped up ModuleManager file that will configure TAC-LS vs just telling people the settings. Biomass is still in testing and development.

[positivewun]

Github: https://github.com/VigilanteInc/BioMass

Settings to use with TAC: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62631-BioMass-Ongoing-Development?p=922053&viewfull=1#post922053

Eventually we'll include a zipped up ModuleManager file that will configure TAC-LS vs just telling people the settings. Biomass is still in testing and development.

thanks a lot for your quick response. I understand development takes steps .. some painful not very comfortable. np with that thanks for the help again ... (sidebar : not that the steps are both describing discomfort .... heh it's the nature of the beast)

[koksny]

Sad. Unfortunately, I can't see actually using this mod until that works :\ I would want to use it to allow for food production on off-planet colonies (can crack o2 from water with KESA & KSPInterstellar), and that isn't viable unless this produces food (and o2\water I guess) very quickly.

I dont really understand why do you need very quick food production process. Right now, with greenhouse full of biomass and one Koylent generator you easly generate more food than the amount that will be deplated by Kerbals in same time. You just need to plan with KAC some short sessions of BM generating/biocake conversion.

I mean, food really isn't deplating THAT fast. I was really afraid at the beggining of using BM+S that it will be too much hassle, but it really is not. Within one base you really should be able to keep it up without any cargo/maintenance interaction for at least few months, and so far managing this way my own stations/bases seem to work well. That said, i did not yet emptied any of my large greenhouses, sending them in space already prepared and full.

I can understand frustration of people who like to play with heavy time-warp or brute force transfer windows, but right now there is really not that much point in leaving Kerbals for years in one place anyway.

[seanth]

I dont really understand why do you need very quick food production process. Right now, with greenhouse full of biomass and one Koylent generator you easly generate more food than the amount that will be deplated by Kerbals in same time.

Just a heads up: food production will be changing soon. I can't say for sure how much it will impact things, but the food production will be slower.

[Doctor Axel]

Greetings gents. ^^ Noticed something that might have been missed in the rebalance of TAC - EVAing a Kerbal still only gives him ONE unit of O2, when his new cap and daily usage are much higher. Meaning he gets to EVA for like 15 minutes before he's gasping. =P

Haven't found anything else glaringly out of the ordinary, but I did have one question - are the command pods still supposed to carry one day's worth of each resource per Kerbal by default? They don't, at the moment - they have about 5 days of food, 3 of water, and about 20 minutes of oxygen. I know there's been some messing around with TAC's resources, just wondering if something was overlooked here.

[Hayden06]

Is there any way you can make the air separator account for different atmospheric make-ups of other planets? It looks like you have the config setup to separate the air based on Earth standards, but I'd be more interested in separating the air at Duna. There's a gas spectrometer part with the Interstellar mod which gives a detailed composition of the atmosphere it is in, but I don't know where it gets the numbers from.

[Roboto]

Greetings gents. ^^ Noticed something that might have been missed in the rebalance of TAC - EVAing a Kerbal still only gives him ONE unit of O2, when his new cap and daily usage are much higher. Meaning he gets to EVA for like 15 minutes before he's gasping. =P

Haven't found anything else glaringly out of the ordinary, but I did have one question - are the command pods still supposed to carry one day's worth of each resource per Kerbal by default? They don't, at the moment - they have about 5 days of food, 3 of water, and about 20 minutes of oxygen. I know there's been some messing around with TAC's resources, just wondering if something was overlooked here.

If TAC resource definitions have changed on their end, this could effect the way our processes are working when the mods are used together. I will check over the definitions ASAP and let you know. Thanks!

[Roboto]

Is there any way you can make the air separator account for different atmospheric make-ups of other planets? It looks like you have the config setup to separate the air based on Earth standards, but I'd be more interested in separating the air at Duna. There's a gas spectrometer part with the Interstellar mod which gives a detailed composition of the atmosphere it is in, but I don't know where it gets the numbers from.

This is in the development plan in someway, but off the top of my head I don't have the details to tell you exactly how it will work. As we move along this will almost certainly show up in our mod as well.

[seanth]

Greetings gents. ^^ Noticed something that might have been missed in the rebalance of TAC - EVAing a Kerbal still only gives him ONE unit of O2, when his new cap and daily usage are much higher. Meaning he gets to EVA for like 15 minutes before he's gasping. =P

There was something about a bug being found with EVA over at the TAC thread. Not sure if this is related or not

Haven't found anything else glaringly out of the ordinary, but I did have one question - are the command pods still supposed to carry one day's worth of each resource per Kerbal by default? They don't, at the moment - they have about 5 days of food, 3 of water, and about 20 minutes of oxygen. I know there's been some messing around with TAC's resources, just wondering if something was overlooked here.

I just did the math on this, and those values seem correct given the values TAC puts on the command pods. Breakdown for oxygen:

TAC-LS currently uses a 1 unit per 1 kerbal per 1 day (86400sec day) system, and sets the density of materials accordingly. Because BioMass is dealing with respiration (like what the Kerbals do) AND photosynthesis AND some other chemical reactions, we can't easily lock things into this same method. Luckily TAC-LS lets you configure consumption rates as you see fit. You just need to know how to change the resource densities.

What I didn't know until just now is that the 1 unit/kerbal/day extends to the command pods...which is editable, but I'm not sure it's worth it yet. Let's take a look at what is going on:

The Mk1 pod has all the resources just set to 1. If you visit http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CFG_File_Documentation#Resources it will explain a bit how to take the amount defined in the RESOURCE node, the density, and get the mass.

In this case, the resource oxygen amount is 1. The density biomass uses is 0.00000643tonnes/L (which is not arbitrary. I can explain if people want). Therefor 1*0.00000643=0.00000643tonnes or 0.00643kg of oxygen

Both TAC-LS and Biomass assume 1 kerbal consumes about 0.4295kg of oxygen every 86400sec day. The 0.00643kg of oxygen in the mk1 pod will therefore be enough for 1 kerbal for 1293.49seconds, or 21.5 minutes.

Long story short: the values you are seeing are correct for the current settings. If you wanted the mk-1 command pod to hold 1 day's worth of oxygen, the resource node should be changed to the same value as given in the configuration window. In this case: 66.80. The same applies for other resources that were originally "1" in the TAC configuration window.

NOTE: I know this is a pain in the butt and am not pleased with the amount of monkeying necessary .

Edited February 13, 2014 by seanth

[Raffo]

I'm a big fan of using "real" values myself, so I would normally completely vote for your approach anyway, but with the obvious integration to TAC LS, together with the popularity of TAC LS, this manual adjustments are simply no real option for the long run. I only see 2 alternatives here (well, 2.5 maybe), otherwise I think this mod will be doomed to be mainly ignored.

1. Get in contact with the TAC LS people and convince them to change their "Kerbalday units" to the real stuff. That would of course be optimal, but would ruin usability ("I'm in space for 300 days, so for 3 Kerbals I need 900 worth of everything") and most likely compatibility between TAC versions... Definitely the toughest way to go with the most beautiful ending.
   
2. Change your mod to use the TAC day-units. From what I read here, you already worked out all the real formulas based of real units, and you know how much of everything a Kerbal needs per day, so my question is: is it really that hard to apply a fixed unit conversion from what you currently have to these day-units at the end? Sure, this truly "masks" all your effort, you put into your scientifically sound system, but you instantly have full compatibility with TAC, no more number adjusting, and you gain this nice usability of being able to directly see "OK, my Kerbals will survive another week before I have to dock with my hydroponic station again".
   
3. This is the half point, as I'm not sure if this is technically possible: You could add some kind of detection to your mod, to see if TAC LS is installed, and automatically adjust all the required numbers (storage, consumption, command pods, EVA etc.).
   

I'll probably keep a keen eye on this nonetheless and try using it every now and then, but for now I fear I'll just keep this mod around for it's beautiful experiments, while sticking with regular TAC when it comes to feeding my Kerbonauts...

[Roboto]

I'm a big fan of using "real" values myself, so I would normally completely vote for your approach anyway, but with the obvious integration to TAC LS, together with the popularity of TAC LS, this manual adjustments are simply no real option for the long run. I only see 2 alternatives here (well, 2.5 maybe), otherwise I think this mod will be doomed to be mainly ignored.

1. Get in contact with the TAC LS people and convince them to change their "Kerbalday units" to the real stuff. That would of course be optimal, but would ruin usability ("I'm in space for 300 days, so for 3 Kerbals I need 900 worth of everything") and most likely compatibility between TAC versions... Definitely the toughest way to go with the most beautiful ending.
   
2. Change your mod to use the TAC day-units. From what I read here, you already worked out all the real formulas based of real units, and you know how much of everything a Kerbal needs per day, so my question is: is it really that hard to apply a fixed unit conversion from what you currently have to these day-units at the end? Sure, this truly "masks" all your effort, you put into your scientifically sound system, but you instantly have full compatibility with TAC, no more number adjusting, and you gain this nice usability of being able to directly see "OK, my Kerbals will survive another week before I have to dock with my hydroponic station again".
   
3. This is the half point, as I'm not sure if this is technically possible: You could add some kind of detection to your mod, to see if TAC LS is installed, and automatically adjust all the required numbers (storage, consumption, command pods, EVA etc.).
   

I'll probably keep a keen eye on this nonetheless and try using it every now and then, but for now I fear I'll just keep this mod around for it's beautiful experiments, while sticking with regular TAC when it comes to feeding my Kerbonauts...

We agree and are actually hard at work on all of this already as we develop our plugin dll. sean has also been in steady contact with all the top mods about standardizing the densities/resource values and rates so they make more sense, and will be easier for mods to integrate with each other. I believe they have a thread somewhere where they have been debating the way forward, and If I'm remembering correctly, TAC may be converting off of the per day units, but I'm not positive about that so don't quote me on it .

The github version of this mod has some major shifts a head that should fix all the pain-in-the-assedness that it has too it at the moment.

Hang tight, well get it worked out.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Roboto

[seanth]

We agree and are actually hard at work on all of this already as we develop our plugin dll. sean has also been in steady contact with all the top mods about standardizing the densities/resource values and rates so they make more sense, and will be easier for mods to integrate with each other. I believe they have a thread somewhere where they have been debating the way forward

That makes things sound way more optimistic than I think things are. I have been talking to different mod makers, yes. But honestly, the chances of standardization are really low. Only Squad would bring order to chaos, and then there would be only two camps (those using Squad's values and those insisting on real-world values) instead of the plethora ways things are done now.

But, I think it's important for the mod makers to keep talking to one another. But then again I work where collaboration is the desired state.

[Raffo]

That is great to hear, indeed! Looking forward to updates on this.

I agree, I think Squad should provide some "physical" units... I once did this myself in a completely independent project, where I would create a class only for distances, with functions to set meters and millimeters and the like, and functions to get either of them, too. All conversions happened inside, and I had no more problems with this. Having a more general class would probably be great for KSP, where you would set a name and density (e.g. "Liquid Oxigen" with "1.141" g/cm³), and then you could set and get the stored amount either in kg, t, l, m³ or whatever you want. But I'm drifting... ^^

[MiffedKitty]

Hi! Really like how the +Science version of the mod looks. However, running into some very severe bugs (not producing seeds, biomass decay stops when CO2 is full, producing biomass without drawing CO2, etc). I am running the 16 Jan update with the seeds fix posted 31 Jan. I'll try to post how to recreate the bugs in the next day or two.

Thanks!

[seanth]

Hi! Really like how the +Science version of the mod looks. However, running into some very severe bugs (not producing seeds, biomass decay stops when CO2 is full, producing biomass without drawing CO2, etc). I am running the 16 Jan update with the seeds fix posted 31 Jan. I'll try to post how to recreate the bugs in the next day or two.

Thanks!

If you can, please also include screen shots of your ship resource window along with a shot of your vessel? That will help troubleshoot things.

[MiffedKitty]

If you can, please also include screen shots of your ship resource window along with a shot of your vessel? That will help troubleshoot things.

Work has been killing me, so haven't done it yet. Would a video be better for you?