BioMass Ongoing Development

[Sakata]

I think the realism variable would be a workable idea. The other issue that I've come up with is possibly a detection issue. Many of the changes on the new version seem to expect or almost require a life support mod to make sustainable, which would fit perfectly well with the reliance on another DLL. On the flipside, perhaps along with RealismLevel variable, put in detection of other mods, and based on that, define (or don't) new resources based on those mods, and tweak resource gain/loss based on the presence or lack of those mods. I'm not sure if this is possible in KSP -- my modding experience is from MC.

[seanth]

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.

Is there documentation on generator somewhere?

Herp. Github code is the best documentation

Edited December 31, 2013 by seanth

[TheDude]

I'm doing some testing with this mod and the numbers and resource generation is all over the map and I can't explain it. It seems that no matter how many Kerbals I stuff into a space station, one food and one biomass greenhouse will sustain them for as long as there is water available. Food production seems to equalize around 110 Kerbals but CO2, waste and wastewater consumption is off the charts. In all of my testing I could __NEVER__ get CO2, waste and wastewater to increase beyond 0.00 units no matter how many Kerbals were around. I then started increasing the resource consumption rates and waste production rates via the TAC LS options menu and that didn't help one bit. Here is a summary of my testing:

1: Initial Test

24 x Kerbals with all food and waste settings on "1 unit".

1 x Biomass

1 x Eco

2 x Food

4 x Microbiome

Results - Food and O2 production was off the charts. Within 2 days both were maxed out. Nutrients slowly but steadily increase. Flora maxed out. All wastes never moved beyond 0.00. Water consumption seemed a bit low considering the extra load the Biomass stuff should have placed upon it.

"OK..." I thought. "Maybe the 4 microbioms are consuming the wastes faster than they're being produced. 24 Kerbals though.... " So, on to test #2

#2:

24 x Kerbals with all food and waste settings on "1 unit".

1 x Biomass

1 x Eco

2 x Food

1 x Microbiome

Results: The same as before. No changes at all.

"Wow" I thought. On to Test 3

#3:

24 x Kerbals with food, water and O2 rates set to 5. CO2, waste and wastewater production set to 10. (Yes 10.)

1 x Biomass

1 x Food

1 x Microbiome

Results: Now we're getting some where. Food and O2 levels decreased slowly over time which tells me the food greenhouse is producing food but can't keep up with demand. Water levels dropped pretty quickly which again is expected considering the number and consumption rates. Now for the interesting part: CO2, waste and waste water never, I repeat NEVER, moved beyond 0.00 while flora and nutrients slowly decreased from the base numbers.

#4 Final Test

24 x Kerbals with all food and waste settings on "1 unit".

4 x Large TAC LS cans

Results - As expected. Consumables decreased at a steady rate while waste products increased at a steady rate.

The only conclusion I can come up with is the Biomass mod is functioning but is way, way out of balance. The Microbiome appears to be consuming 100% of the waste products no matter how much is being produced. I would have expected one microbiome to produce X amount of nutrients per second/minute/hour/day. If it can't keep up or the nutrients are filled or are in low demand then the waste resources should start increasing.

2. Greenhouse production is insane. One greenhouse was just behind the curve for 24 Kerbals at 5 times the consumption rate. If I'd dropped back to 22 Kerbals at those rates I bet it would have equalized. I would have expected one food greenhouse to support 2 Kerbals. 4 at the most.

Maybe I'm doing something very wrong. Maybe I'm being very stupid. Both are quite possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Boy, it's late and I'm starting to ramble so I'll stop here.

Best regards,

"The Dude"

3.

[seanth]

I'm doing some testing with this mod and the numbers and resource generation is all over the map and I can't explain it.

I'm in the process of trying to come up with values for Easy, Normal and Hard modes of Biomass, and am looking at this, too.

Along those lines, I'd love to hear from people as to what these different modes would mean to them. I have heard some people say that micromanagement would make something too hard, and others say that too slow growth rates would make things too hard. So what do you think? For example, if a greenhouse is 3.5m long and 2.5m in diameter, the approximate growing area is 8.75m^2. That's about the size of a parking spot. How long do people think it should take for the growing biomass to fill that area (imagine it grows like kudzu. More horizontal and not much vertical)?

Right now I'm imagining providing files that would work with Module Manager to let players choose what difficulty level, and here's my very vague idea of what the levels would be like. Ideally all difficulty levels would have all the same parts, but they would act in different ways:

Easy: 1 Greenhouse makes enough food, O2, and purifies water to support 3 Kerbils (using stock TAC-LS) indefinitely. The same greenhouse also produces enough biomass to make monopropellant, liquid fuel, and oxidizer. Kethane production would be optional. Compressor parts needed to make the fuels, but they work automatically and don't consume electricity. Plants do not respire. All chemical reaction inputs and outputs are accurate, but the rates are very fast. It would be very difficult to kill all the biomass in a greenhouse.

Normal: 1 Greenhouse makes enough O2 and purifies water to support 2 Kerbils (using TAC-LS) indefinitely. Plants respire, meaning you will need to use greenhouse lights for optimal growth. If you also want to make food or fuel, you will require an additional greenhouse. You can make monopropellant, liquid fuel, and oxidizer. Kethane production would be optional. Compressor parts are needed to make fuel, and they consume a minimal amount of electricity. All chemical reaction inputs and outputs are accurate, but the rates are faster than reality. It would be possible to kill all the biomass in a greenhouse, but not likely.

Hard: 1 Greenhouse makes enough O2 and purifies water to support 1 Kerbil (using TAC-LS) indefinitely. Plants respire, meaning you will need to use greenhouse lights for optimal growth. If you also want to make food or fuel, you will require an additional greenhouse. You can make monopropellant, liquid fuel, and oxidizer. Kethane production would be optional. Compressor parts are needed to make fuel, and they consume a lot of electricity. All chemical reaction inputs and outputs are accurate, but the rates are close to reality. If you try and make food and fuel from a greenhouse, you'll definitely kill the biomass off through over harvesting.

Along these lines: Greenhouses would make food, though less efficiently than if players used the Koylent Maker. I'm pretty resistant to the idea of XenonGas generation through biological processes. I suppose it could happen in the Easy version, but there is simply no way in any universe that you can get a nobel gas from a biological process...unless the life form is some sort of radioactive creature.

So, please do say something about how you think the levels should work.

[JeffreyCor]

After trying both, I prefer the Spaceport version as I find the Github version to be far too complex nearing the point of being its own independent simulation.

I like the idea of the difficulty levels, as this seems to make the mod fix everyone's style of play. I an understand the reasoning behind not having xenon produced though Biomass and it makes sense.

For how long it should take to produce things I believe rests heavily on if it will produce when not the active ship and how friendly it is to time compression. Under both it should be an inverse relationship such as if it does not produce when not actively selected this should be compensated for by a faster growth rate. Similarly the less friendly it is to time compression, the faster it should produce and vice versa the friendlier it functions under time compression the slower the base production / growth rate.

With all these factors in mind, I am leaning toward the rates mentioned under Easy with the requirements of Normal being ideal.

[seanth]

I find the Github version to be far too complex nearing the point of being its own independent simulation.

Would you be willing to expand on this? I agree that what's currently on Github is too complex, but what I think is too complex might not be what other people think is complex. Can you give specifics on what is just too much?

[Bothersome]

seanth, I think your ideas are great. Can we have a setting for the difficulty level somewhere?

Also, I think there is a bug in the Hydrogen/mono-propellent compressor. It seems to be able to make hydrogen from only electricity. Even when mono is present, the release doesn't remove any mono.

I'm gonna try and fix that on my end now to get it working correctly. You need to update the github version.

PS.. I don't think the github version is too complex. I like it so far. It just needs a bit of explaining of what does what. Like a flowchart or something.

PSS. Found your bug, you got "Monopropellant=1.0" in stead of "MonoPropellant=1.0" on the input side. Note the small letter p in the word.

PSSS. One more thing,... Since we have hydrogen and oxygen present, is there a way or can a way be made, realistically, to make water from them? 2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen > 1 part water + 10 electricity out. ?? Actually, more electricity out. I don't know the efficiency of a fuel cell. 100 electricity, more?

Edited December 31, 2013 by Bothersome

[Roboto]

I'm doing some testing with this mod and the numbers and resource generation is all over the map and I can't explain it. It seems that no matter how many Kerbals I stuff into a space station, one food and one biomass greenhouse will sustain them for as long as there is water available. Food production seems to equalize around 110 Kerbals but CO2, waste and wastewater consumption is off the charts. In all of my testing I could __NEVER__ get CO2, waste and wastewater to increase beyond 0.00 units no matter how many Kerbals were around. I then started increasing the resource consumption rates and waste production rates via the TAC LS options menu and that didn't help one bit. Here is a summary of my testing:

1: Initial Test

24 x Kerbals with all food and waste settings on "1 unit".

1 x Biomass

1 x Eco

2 x Food

4 x Microbiome

Results - Food and O2 production was off the charts. Within 2 days both were maxed out. Nutrients slowly but steadily increase. Flora maxed out. All wastes never moved beyond 0.00. Water consumption seemed a bit low considering the extra load the Biomass stuff should have placed upon it.

"OK..." I thought. "Maybe the 4 microbioms are consuming the wastes faster than they're being produced. 24 Kerbals though.... " So, on to test #2

#2:

24 x Kerbals with all food and waste settings on "1 unit".

1 x Biomass

1 x Eco

2 x Food

1 x Microbiome

Results: The same as before. No changes at all.

"Wow" I thought. On to Test 3

#3:

24 x Kerbals with food, water and O2 rates set to 5. CO2, waste and wastewater production set to 10. (Yes 10.)

1 x Biomass

1 x Food

1 x Microbiome

Results: Now we're getting some where. Food and O2 levels decreased slowly over time which tells me the food greenhouse is producing food but can't keep up with demand. Water levels dropped pretty quickly which again is expected considering the number and consumption rates. Now for the interesting part: CO2, waste and waste water never, I repeat NEVER, moved beyond 0.00 while flora and nutrients slowly decreased from the base numbers.

#4 Final Test

24 x Kerbals with all food and waste settings on "1 unit".

4 x Large TAC LS cans

Results - As expected. Consumables decreased at a steady rate while waste products increased at a steady rate.

The only conclusion I can come up with is the Biomass mod is functioning but is way, way out of balance. The Microbiome appears to be consuming 100% of the waste products no matter how much is being produced. I would have expected one microbiome to produce X amount of nutrients per second/minute/hour/day. If it can't keep up or the nutrients are filled or are in low demand then the waste resources should start increasing.

2. Greenhouse production is insane. One greenhouse was just behind the curve for 24 Kerbals at 5 times the consumption rate. If I'd dropped back to 22 Kerbals at those rates I bet it would have equalized. I would have expected one food greenhouse to support 2 Kerbals. 4 at the most.

Maybe I'm doing something very wrong. Maybe I'm being very stupid. Both are quite possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Boy, it's late and I'm starting to ramble so I'll stop here.

Best regards,

"The Dude"

3.

Hey Dude, thanks for the input!

From your explanation, I'm fairly certain that the version you are referring to is the spaceport version, which is admittedly "cheaty", even severely so.

I am the walrus?

Shut the **** up, Donny.

The idea behind it when I created and expanded that version was that it was more about adding variety, novelty and to give those that aren't all that concerned with realism something to play with, build cool stations or take a single ship for a joyride around the solar system.

By the way Walter, if you can't drive a car, how do you get around on Shabbos?

To be honest I don't think i put much calculation into the consumption of waste, as it's presence is actually optional. So I just picked a number that I knew would cover a range of situations. This may need to be re-addressed if it is too out of whack, but keep in mind that Seans version on Github is focused on realistic values and rates, where as the spaceport version is deliberately simplistic, over efficient and for more casual play. But, taking your numbers here into account, they are a bit more insane than they should be. Biomass shouldn't totally remove the purpose of the life support mods by being TOO over-efficient.

That said, thanks again for the detailed analysis, it will be very helpful while we do some tweaking! In the mean time...

Phone's ringing Dude!

No, I don't think you're doing anything wrong, and certainly not stupid, it's just that I didn't try to make the spaceport version realistic. When I went about testing it, I was looking at it from the perspective of "does it feel like it's working" or "does it feel beneficial" as i played it. If it didn't feel right, I played with the rates until it became more visually active. I could see it working and I could get the extra fuel I needed in a period of time that wasn't spirit crushingly long. Because of this, its consumption/production rates are...well "insane."

I am totally open to debate on all aspects of this, so if even the rates on the spaceport version need to be brought down a bit for the sake of public decency..lol, we can address that. Just keep in mind that, fairly strict realism and perfecting the biological processes is at the heart of Seans work with the github version.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Roboto

[Sakata]

Roboto:

If the "Realism_Level" variable ends up 'doable', then there will not be a need for two separate versions of the mod. This will reduce confusion in both bug reporting and the hassle of maintaining two branches of code.

Sean:

As far as the rates I agree with the post a page back. The conversion rates are fine, but perhaps a multiplier could be used for the throughput. I like the realism bit, to a degree. Another thought is I'm not sure how accelerated Kerbin time is in relation to Earth time. Basically I'd be happy to see the rates move enough to be able to see the growth with no time compression (but this may mess with life-support mods).

Both:

The other thing is the detection of life support mods. If there are no life support type mods installed, i would suggest turning off food production for one (unless this can be recycled to simulate kerbals' living and obtain the CO2, waste, etc. that they'd generate (or it could do this automagically based on detection of "life support mod X". As it stands I think the mod assumes that there is a life support mod installed to account for the complete biological ecosystem.

I've been toying with the idea of just HTFU and getting TAC life-support, since I do believe that the base game will most likely have some system like this eventually anyway, and it's better to get used to it now than have to tear up a whole solar infrastructure and rebuild it

[Roboto]

Roboto:

If the "Realism_Level" variable ends up 'doable', then there will not be a need for two separate versions of the mod. This will reduce confusion in both bug reporting and the hassle of maintaining two branches of code.

Sean:

As far as the rates I agree with the post a page back. The conversion rates are fine, but perhaps a multiplier could be used for the throughput. I like the realism bit, to a degree. Another thought is I'm not sure how accelerated Kerbin time is in relation to Earth time. Basically I'd be happy to see the rates move enough to be able to see the growth with no time compression (but this may mess with life-support mods).

Both:

The other thing is the detection of life support mods. If there are no life support type mods installed, i would suggest turning off food production for one (unless this can be recycled to simulate kerbals' living and obtain the CO2, waste, etc. that they'd generate (or it could do this automagically based on detection of "life support mod X". As it stands I think the mod assumes that there is a life support mod installed to account for the complete biological ecosystem.

I've been toying with the idea of just HTFU and getting TAC life-support, since I do believe that the base game will most likely have some system like this eventually anyway, and it's better to get used to it now than have to tear up a whole solar infrastructure and rebuild it

Oh yea, I agree and would love to pull that off. I have SOME experience with coding a dll, but I'm still pretty novice at it. I know sean is actively hunting someone willing to code something up, but I will still plug away at solutions of my own in the meantime.

[Sakata]

There is a plugin that you may be interested in. Lemme dig a little...

Here it is

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62282-Resource-Flow-Mechanics-Overhaul

[JeffreyCor]

Would you be willing to expand on this? I agree that what's currently on Github is too complex, but what I think is too complex might not be what other people think is complex. Can you give specifics on what is just too much?

I can try, but without actively taking notes while doing it the quality and precision will undoubtedly be lacking. One big item is the buttons, the descriptions for each were so long they cut off so it was extremely hard to even know what a button would do let alone the result. I also found it cumbersome piecing together all the various parts needed to accomplish a goal. Don't get me wrong, the premise is great but I think a more streamlined implementation would be an improvement.

If it would be beneficial I'll make a separate install of KSP for testing purposes of Biomass and specific notes, though your difficulty level idea seems to solve pretty much everything.

[6.forty]

Oh yea, I agree and would love to pull that off. I have SOME experience with coding a dll, but I'm still pretty novice at it. I know sean is actively hunting someone willing to code something up, but I will still plug away at solutions of my own in the meantime.

I checked github, but the only code I could find was BioGen.cs. I guess there's no public source?

[Chris_W]

Actually, Seanth, we could make the difficulty setting a .cfg thing, methinks.

I think I could come up with a solution once you tell me what .. let's call it "production rate" should be in which difficulty.

The user then could just copy his favourite difficulty folder over the biomass folder, thereby overwriting the part cfgs with the new production levels.

If you check out the most recent balanced spaceport modification I made (still a WIP but works fine already), and think of it as the medium difficulty.. how much easier / harder should we make it on the other settings? If I knew that, all it would take were some cfg changes that I could do via the "time" variable in there. Like.. easy mode could run the reactions/growth at 1.5 times the speed, while hard would use I dunno.. 0.75 times the speed.

Would that be an idea? We'd have to find a nice setting for medium (aka standard) tho.

[seanth]

Actually, Seanth, we could make the difficulty setting a .cfg thing, methinks.

Me thinks, too. In fact, I have done it and am testing it. It's what I've been working on for the past ~ week.

For those interested in seeing the spreadsheet I am using to do the calculations and adjustments for easy/normal/hard:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvsd7knx29aepjz/BioMass%20Calculation%20Helper.xls

Please keep in mind that that sheet is a work in progress.

My hope is to have a new github version up late tomorrow (mountain time, USA). The github version will ship set to "normal". If players want "easy" or "hard" they would need to unzip a module manager file provided.

Spoilers:

Easy: 1 Greenhouse holds 30kg of biomass. Starting with 0.1kg of seeds, it takes 6 kerbal days(kday) to fill the greenhouse if given light, CO2 and water constantly. Once full, the greenhouse produces 4 seeds/kday. It will supply enough O2 to keep 3 kerbals alive indefinitely (using TAC-LS and assuming it is set so O2 consumption is ~0.42kg/86400sec/kerbal. This applies to all settings). The biomass does not respire. One water, CO2 and O2 tank supply more than enough material to allow the biomass to fill the greenhouse.

Normal: 1 Greenhouse holds 25kg of biomass. Starting with 0.1kg of seeds, it takes 12 kdays to fill the greenhouse if given light, CO2 and water constantly. The biomass respires. Once full, the greenhouse produces 3 seeds/kday. It will supply enough O2 to keep 2 kerbals alive indefinitely. One water, CO2 and O2 tank supply just enough material to allow the biomass to fill the greenhouse.

Hard: 1 Greenhouse holds 20kg of biomass. Starting with 0.1kg of seeds, it takes 24 kdays to fill the greenhouse if given light, CO2 and water constantly. The biomass respires. Once full, the greenhouse produces 2 seeds/kday. It will supply enough O2 to keep 1.6 kerbals alive indefinitely. One water, CO2 and O2 tank do not supply enough material to allow the biomass to fill the greenhouse. You will need more than 1 tank of each.

Once I get new materials up, I was hoping people could test out specifics. I can supply expected results (like the above numbers) and would love it if people would confirm things work as expected for the different levels. But that's for when I finish up the last stuff and get an OK from Roboto.

Once that gets posted, I'll start checking the rxns and rate of the bioreactor and microbiome.

[seanth]

TESTERS WANTED

Holy deep problems. Hey kids: never trust automated scripts to do everything correctly for you. At the very least check first.

Edited January 8, 2014 by seanth

[Raffo]

Hey guys, I discovered this mod on Space Port, then went through the comments there to both of the threads here, so I hope I didn't confuse anything when I post here now...

First of all: Great job, I really love the idea, the models look awesome and everything! I also installed it with a ton of other mods for my brand new .23 game (I was especially hoping for the interaction with TAC LS of course), and just recently I managed to get to a tech level, where it made sense for me to try all those greenhouses. The first problem I noticed was that in the version I recently downloaded from Space Port, the greenhouses consume *Massive* amounts of electricity (with capital M for massive!), and on my search for answers I got here, as described above. Now I do understand that this mod in a major reworking, and probably the version on Space Port was more an accidental release or something without big testing. My question now is: In order to get something bio-related in my game, what is your up-to-date recommendation? Should I stick to the Space Port version for now and hack a few values myself (I already reduced the power consumption), should I go for that "Dropbox-Release" a few days ago (Jan 5th actually), or dive into the bleeding edge of the GitHub-Version? If so, what else will I need?

I really would like to get some missions with gardens running, and while I can't speak for my current KSP installation, I'm still willing to add more plugins if need be.

I would also offer my help for testing! Theoretically I could also do some programming or other things, it's just that my time schedule is pretty tight the next few weeks...

[Roboto]

Hey guys, I discovered this mod on Space Port, then went through the comments there to both of the threads here, so I hope I didn't confuse anything when I post here now...

First of all: Great job, I really love the idea, the models look awesome and everything! I also installed it with a ton of other mods for my brand new .23 game (I was especially hoping for the interaction with TAC LS of course), and just recently I managed to get to a tech level, where it made sense for me to try all those greenhouses. The first problem I noticed was that in the version I recently downloaded from Space Port, the greenhouses consume *Massive* amounts of electricity (with capital M for massive!), and on my search for answers I got here, as described above. Now I do understand that this mod in a major reworking, and probably the version on Space Port was more an accidental release or something without big testing. My question now is: In order to get something bio-related in my game, what is your up-to-date recommendation? Should I stick to the Space Port version for now and hack a few values myself (I already reduced the power consumption), should I go for that "Dropbox-Release" a few days ago (Jan 5th actually), or dive into the bleeding edge of the GitHub-Version? If so, what else will I need?

I really would like to get some missions with gardens running, and while I can't speak for my current KSP installation, I'm still willing to add more plugins if need be.

I would also offer my help for testing! Theoretically I could also do some programming or other things, it's just that my time schedule is pretty tight the next few weeks...

I will have a look at the consumption rates tonight, and if i find they are set improperly I'll make some changes and let you know about getting the updated version. The rate of power consumption from the beginning was always supposed to be pretty high because the technology required to maintain a healthy biosphere is power intensive. But that does not mean in the course of things that the numbers were not screwed up along the way and may need to be readjusted! Thanks!

For the github version: We are actually prepping a new release that includes difficulty level and a few other changes pretty soon, so you may want to hold off till that happens.

[Roboto]

I really would like to get some missions with gardens running, and while I can't speak for my current KSP installation, I'm still willing to add more plugins if need be.

I have modified the calculations and updated the spaceport download. I cut the electric charge usage by half in some places, but also slowed down the production rates of resources to balance better for TACLS. As The Dude pointed out, it was producing WAY to fast and in effect removed the purpose of the life support mod when they were used together. Im sure it's still not perfect, but it should be A LOT better.

[Raffo]

Thanks a lot, I'm downloading the new version in this very moment! I can live without it for a bit longer, though, so I might end up waiting for the Git-Version in the end... I'm excited to see the "final" version, anyway.

[JeffreyCor]

Spaceport version, the biomass reactor isn't producing fuel+oxidizer and the compressor isn't producing monopropellent. With the reactor the biomass drops as expected and consumes power but no fuel is made. I even attached a tank right in line to ensure there isn't a hub problem and made sure all docking ports had crossfeed enabled. With the compressor, it seems to not work at all as even the efficiency stays at 0 instead of changing to 1 as the reactor does when activated.

Interestingly, this used to work but no longer is. Is it possible another mod could be interfering with the way Biomass works and causing this problem?

Had a problem with Kethane too producing fuel, but only on one ship. It looks like the problem may be something went nuts on my space station that is keeping it from working

Edited January 10, 2014 by JeffreyCor

[Nachocuban]

First, thanks for all the work going into this mod. (Using the new spaceport version)

I believe the Greenhouses should be able to be shut off.

I understand why they can't, the biological processes inside them, would quickly die without the power to maintain the climate controls. But, an emergency shutoff (that is permanent, or requires some sort of jump start to turn back on) should be an option, even if it is hidden behind a layer of dialog boxes or something.

I was transporting a greenhouse to my Minmus research facility, and grossly underestimated the power draw, I ran out of electric charge half way to Minmus. As soon as I realized my error, I attempted to return to Kerbin, but a Kerbal died because I just couldn't produce enough charge to power the greenhouse, and keep him alive. If I could have shut the greenhouse down, I would have had plenty of charge to make it safely back to Kerbin.

[seanth]

I believe the Greenhouses should be able to be shut off.

Hopefully the next update will allow you to "shut them off" in that you can just not plant anything until you get to your destination. Or you can turn off the lights and just let the biomass die and then replant again later.

A quick update: everything is in place for the "difficulty level" update. Things work on paper, but it turns out KSP is not very good at doing simulations. Go figure.

Lessons I have learned:

1.) The units you enter into a part's Resource node are the numbers that show up in the in-game resource UI and have no inherent relationship to volume or mass

2.) The units you enter into most generator modules reference the number of the Resource node. Again, not directly linked to volume or mass.

3.) The density value in a resource definition is used to calculate the mass of the part when filled with that resource. So, if a solid rocket booster has 433 of SolidFuel, and the SolidFuel density is 0.0075, then resulting mass is 3.2475 metric tonnes.

4.) Biological reactions are usually much smaller than metric tonnes, but KSP, in my testing, ignores values with more than 5 decimal points in generator modules. To get around this, one needs to multiply the resource numbers in the module by some value, and have that resource appear in both the input and output to get the actual desired changes.

The take home is that, because I completely misunderstood what the Resource node was, the most recent test release was completely FUBARed. I updated http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CFG_File_Documentation to reflect my realizations (which probably everyone else knew. Herp).

I was testing "Easy" mode last night and will test "normal" today, if I have time.

[seanth]

Let's try this again:

Testers Wanted!

Required:

**Kethane Mod (for the generator module):

**Module Manager

I believe I have sorted out the most significant problems with the version that allows for difficulty levels. For those interested in helping by testing, please download the latest (2.4a). I'm especially interested in people familiar with Module Manager because I have a sneaking suspicion my Module Manager files might have errors.

I will be updating things as I get feedback. Once testing gets a bit further I'll move it to github. I just thought people would like "snapshots" to see how things are working. Next up is to look at the generation of fuels and gasses.

To help testers, there's a file giving some basic expectations on how the difficulty levels should work here.

My focus has been on how the greenhouse behaves, but compressors also have difficulty levels. Please do give it a try and see how it is for playability.

UPDATE: 2014.01.16--new test version up. Fixes AgStudy attachment problem

Edited January 17, 2014 by seanth

[landeTLS]

Any plans to make a version compatible with asmi's lifesupport mod. I made the greenhouse work myself but the balancing isnt my strong suit(co2/o2 densities are different from tac). The upcoming version of asmis lifesupport will have a really sweet ui and kerbals will consume more resources. His models are also really nice.