[1.8.x] DMagic Orbital Science: New Science Parts [v1.4.3] [11/2/2019]

[nanowinner]

How do I remove this mod safely? Cause when I delete the folder from GameData my game goes crazy! I can't open VAB, but can open R&D, and once there I can't exit cause the whole thing just mashes up in one screen and freezes.

[DMagic]

How do I remove this mod safely? Cause when I delete the folder from GameData my game goes crazy! I can't open VAB, but can open R&D, and once there I can't exit cause the whole thing just mashes up in one screen and freezes.

Thankfully Squad seems to have improved their error checking for dealing with non-existent contract types. Now when you try to load a contract type that doesn't exist it simply fails and moves on to the next rather than blowing up the whole system.

So you should be able to leave any DMagic contracts in your offered, active, or completed contracts list without problems.

They didn't, however, improve error checking for agencies. So if any contract (stock or mod) uses an agent that no longer exists it will totally break the save file.

There are two ways to fix this.

1. Before deleting the addon go through your contract list; check all three types in the mission control center. Anything that has the DMagic agent, signified by the red DMagic flag and a note about the agency in the contract list, must be deleted. For offered contracts you can decline these (and make sure that no new contracts are generated), for active contracts you will have to cancel them (and suffer the cancellation penalties) or finish them, for completed contracts you must remove them through the Alt+F12 debug menu. Go to the contracts tab, select completed, and select the "Rem" button next to any contract with the DMagic agent (all contracts can be removed this way).

2. After deleting the addon you will have to check the mission control center for any contracts with a blank agent flag, these contracts will also fail to give any type of description when you click on them. You will have to remove all of these contracts through the mission control center or through the Alt+F12 debug menu*.

Send any complaints about this onerous method to Squad, as there is nothing I can do about error checking for non-existent agencies.

* See the picture below for a demonstration of what a broken contract looks like and how to remove it (the orange text in the debug log is triggered by trying to load non-existent contracts and should be harmless).

[nanowinner]

This is all well and good but I'm only removing this because I can't properly use it. It's not that I don't want to. If I knew of a proper way to fix it, I'd definitely use the mod.

[Haemogoblin]

Just grabbed my first anomalous reading mission and can't seem to find any anomaly anywhere near the suggested coordinates. It says anything between 0-10 south and 140-150 west, i've flown over the area at least a dozen times at varying altitudes but there simply doesn't appear to be an anomaly to find. There are no spikes in the magnetom readout and the scanner picks up nothing within its radius. I've zig-zagged across the square, flown the perimeter, spiralled in and even driven across the surface. I ran strips from 10 north to 20 south between 130-160 west and I simply cannot find anything. Anyone else experienced this, or have any idea what I can do to complete the job? It wants me to anomaly scan in the air and magnetometer scan on the ground.

[DMagic]

Just coming back to say all my probe and rover parts are super small, at even the highest tweakscale setting. The onlt two parts that look normal to me are the soil moisture collector and the solar particle collector. Any ideas?

Tweakscale version? Does this happen with any other part?

Just grabbed my first anomalous reading mission and can't seem to find any anomaly anywhere near the suggested coordinates. It says anything between 0-10 south and 140-150 west, i've flown over the area at least a dozen times at varying altitudes but there simply doesn't appear to be an anomaly to find. There are no spikes in the magnetom readout and the scanner picks up nothing within its radius. I've zig-zagged across the square, flown the perimeter, spiralled in and even driven across the surface. I ran strips from 10 north to 20 south between 130-160 west and I simply cannot find anything. Anyone else experienced this, or have any idea what I can do to complete the job? It wants me to anomaly scan in the air and magnetometer scan on the ground.

Screenshots? What planet is this on? Anomalies can be very small and sometimes underground and that is a very large area to search.

This is all well and good but I'm only removing this because I can't properly use it. It's not that I don't want to. If I knew of a proper way to fix it, I'd definitely use the mod.

I can't do anything without log files.

[Haemogoblin]

I'll fly out to the area again now, this is the mission: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/30723057325971189/3BA6ED1DB20EF97D46F251883C326BFF2D9301FA/

Edit: ROFL well it just goes to show that the universe has a warped sense of humor. Lo and behold I saw nothing on my way out but circled back over a mountain and it picked something up 20km away. I can only surmise that I was too far above what I needed to be looking for and somehow missed it on at least 3 separate occasions lol.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Haemogoblin

[DMagic]

I'll fly out to the area again now, this is the mission: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/30723057325971189/3BA6ED1DB20EF97D46F251883C326BFF2D9301FA/

There is definitely an anomaly in that area, I don't think it was buried in the last update, but it should be relatively easy to spot from nearby (nearby being within a few km).

Edited October 20, 2014 by DMagic

[UAL002]

I believe tweakscale was updated to the latest. I removed all the configs as I only use it on infernal robotics and this. I went into the DMagic cfgs and just edited their resale factor. They weren't perfect but it works.

[Specific Alduin]

It did not give me the US Wedges. I have US Installed

[dualmaster]

It did not give me the US Wedges. I have US Installed

You probably did not install US correctly (I did the same thing). The US install is slightly confusing - when you open the zip it shows a folder labeled "US_Core_0.9.0.24". This folder SHOULD NOT be copied directly into your /Gamedata folder. Instead, go one level deeper and copy the "UniversalStorage" folder (and other ones) into your /Gamedata folder.

Also, thanks to Dmagic for the great parts. It makes science collection much more interesting. And having US wedges for the Goo/Science bay is such a huge improvement. I had taken to leaving those parts behind just because they made my rockets so ugly.

Edited October 20, 2014 by dualmaster

[DMagic]

Version 0.8.6.1 is released: Kerbal Stuff

This primarily fixes a number of minor bugs and tweaks contract rewards and part costs. See the change log below.

v0.8.6.1
- All textures replaced by .mbm files
      - .tga files available on GitHub repo for anyone interested
- Numerous minor bug fixes
      - Update scale and rescaleFactor values for KSP 0.25
      - Fix bugs in KAS modules
      - Storable KAS science parts can be recovered with Science Data intact
      - KSC biomes register properly
      - .version file should be pointed at the correct location now
- Tweaks to contracts and parts
      - Primarily reduced reward amounts and duration
      - Reduced initial purchase price for all parts

[Las-pen]

How does the telescope work. Does it just bring up a pop up that says something "You're looking at the Jool. Can you spot all the moons?" Or can you actually see through it?

[BadManiac]

I think something might be wrong with the tweakscale settings, all my non Universal Storage instruments are tiny. Will mess around and see if it's something on my end.

Never mind, reinstalled TweakScale seems to have fixed it.

Edited October 21, 2014 by BadManiac

[Nori]

How does the telescope work. Does it just bring up a pop up that says something "You're looking at the Jool. Can you spot all the moons?" Or can you actually see through it?

Works just like any other science part. Pops up and gives you the science dialog.

[sp1989]

I think there might be a problem with the Soil array? I tried a few launches and it just doesn't work the error pops up that says it needs to be used in space.

[Tahib]

Low Orbit not High Space

[pvtnum11]

Okay, so I grabbed OS and I really like it - but then it would appear that when I grabbed the KAS and TAC LS addons for Universal Storage, it strips off the wedges from the OS parts. I'll delete the LS and KAS stuff and see if the wedges come back to see if there's an incompatibility issue or something.

[acc]

for a contract I had to get material study in high orbit above the sun. I never did this experiment there before but the plugin was complaining about not enough science points to complete. I'm using remotetech to transmit, so maybe that's the cause.

Edited October 24, 2014 by acc

[Akira_R]

Anyone know if the new update will still work on .24.2?

Would like to finish out this save before updating as there are a few mods that I use that just aren't quite right on .25 yet and I would very much like to use the new parts.

[ndiver]

I've a small question concerning the amount of Science generated by each part (I'm updating a checklist of the points of Sciences).

For the surface laser scans, the ScienceDef.cfg file refers to some biomes in planets without biomes. How does it work ?

[DMagic]

Okay, so I grabbed OS and I really like it - but then it would appear that when I grabbed the KAS and TAC LS addons for Universal Storage, it strips off the wedges from the OS parts. I'll delete the LS and KAS stuff and see if the wedges come back to see if there's an incompatibility issue or something.

Need more info; make sure US is installed in the right location, specifically the empty US science bay.

for a contract I had to get material study in high orbit above the sun. I never did this experiment there before but the plugin was complaining about not enough science points to complete. I'm using remotetech to transmit, so maybe that's the cause.

You can always return it to complete the parameter. Otherwise there could be problems caused by Squad not using all of the celestial body science multipliers. For most planets the difference is small, but for the sun the multipliers are 11 for low orbit and 4 for high orbit. By not using the high orbit multipliers you get really high science from the sun; this difference might be confusing the parameter completion calculations. It's also possible that RemoteTech is the issue, but as long as the data is successfully being transmitted I don't think it should be a problem.

Anyone know if the new update will still work on .24.2?

It doesn't.

I've a small question concerning the amount of Science generated by each part (I'm updating a checklist of the points of Sciences).

For the surface laser scans, the ScienceDef.cfg file refers to some biomes in planets without biomes. How does it work ?

See the recommended mod list on the first post; check for Custom Biomes.

Edited October 25, 2014 by DMagic

[falcon2000]

Okay, so I grabbed OS and I really like it - but then it would appear that when I grabbed the KAS and TAC LS addons for Universal Storage, it strips off the wedges from the OS parts. I'll delete the LS and KAS stuff and see if the wedges come back to see if there's an incompatibility issue or something.

Make sure when you extracted the zip files for the US files into your gamedata, that you followed the included installation instructions - which is to copy out the Universal Storage folder into the main gamedata folder instead of leaving it nested in the "US_Core..." folder. This is basically the same thing that DMagic himself said but with a little more detail. I was able to replicate your issue by nesting the folders, so I'm thinking that may be what you've done. If you leave them nested the game reads the subfolders fine and adds the actual US parts, but the DMagic parts won't show because are looking for the "correct" path, not the "working but technically incorrect path" that leaving the nested folders results in.

[DMagic]

Chapter 1: Radio and Plasma Wave Science

Chapter 2: Magnetometer

Chapter 3: Telescopes and Imaging Systems

Chapter 4: Laser Ablation

Chapter 5: Core Drill and Biological Experiments

Chapter 6: Neutron Reflections and Subsurface Water

Chapter 7: X-Ray Diffraction and Surface Composition

Next up in the science instrument explainer series is laser ablation spectroscopy, technically known as laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). The most well-known example of this type of instrument is Curiosity's ChemCam module, a laser ablation and remote imaging spectrometer mounted at the top of its upper mast.

 

 

The principal component here is a high power, low duration laser that can be fired rapidly and repeatedly at a given target. The laser light strikes the surface of the target, vaporizing a small amount of it. This now-vaporized material is excited by the laser, and when it returns to its ground state it emits photons at frequencies characteristic of its chemical makeup. By matching the resulting signals to that of known samples the chemical composition of the target can be determined.

The Laser

To be effective a very high power laser is needed. Curiosity's has an output of over 10MW/mm², which is incredibly high, but it only fires pulses of around 5 nanoseconds (five billionths of a second) to a target less than 1mm around, so the total energy delivered is more like 30mJ per pulse. This very focused approach means that anything outside of the target area will remain unaffected.

The laser itself (a diode-pumped, rubidium titanium phosphate Pockels cell Q-switched, neodymium-doped potassium-gadolinium tungstate (Nd:KGW) linear oscillator, if you must know) is a solid state design, able to operate under a wide range of temperatures, withstand the trip to, and the hostile environment of, Mars, and to be very lightweight, about 500g. Because this instrument can be used repeatedly, and at relatively long ranges, many more samples can be analyzed than could be using the older techniques of other Mars rovers. These used physical drills to study samples, requiring close contact and sometimes multiple days to analyze one sample. The laser is also not susceptible to the same type of physical wear-and-tear of those instruments.

Electron Excitation

When the laser strikes the target a small amount of it is atomized in the process known as laser ablation. The initial portion of the blast is sufficient to ablate a small amount of the surface, usually only a few nanograms, or even picograms, making this essentially a non-destructive analytical technique (repeated blasts can cause more damage though). After a few nanoseconds the trailing end of the laser blast excites the resulting plasma, creating a kind of self-propagating reaction where electrons are stripped off of their atoms and react with other atoms, causing further electron excitation.

This is a thermal image of the expanding plasma plume shortly after the laser blast.

For a short period while the plasma plume cools a soup of photons are released as the electrons fall back to less energetic states, little useable signal can be collected during this period. After about 1 microsecond the electrons begin to fall back to their ground states, emitting discrete bands of photons. The frequency of these photons can be correlated with the composition of the atoms in the plasma. By matching up the emission lines produced by known samples the composition of the experimental sample can be determined.

By recording these emissions with a spectrometer (see chapter 3), which is built into Curiosity's ChemCam module, a nearly complete analysis of the composition of any sample can be made.

This is the spectrograph of Curiosity's first target. The photon counts are arranged by wavelength and labelled according to their corresponding source element.

The ability to rapidly fire the laser allows for multiple samples to be recorded in a very short time. It also allows for interior samples to be collected by drilling down through the outer few mm of the surface (or more if it is merely loose dust covering the surface).

LIBS Science

The ability to quickly analyze the composition of most any sample (it can be used for liquids too) obviously makes for a very powerful tool.

Rocks can be studied to determine their origin. Are they volcanic, what might they tell us about the interior of the planet, were they formed in the presence of water, do they contain any unexpected compounds, etc…?

Meteorite fragments also make for excellent targets. Their composition could tell us about the source of the meteor, or whether it differs in some way from meteorites found on Earth.

A LIBS instrument can also serve as a useful way to select interesting targets for further analysis. Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument (Curiosity's largest) can be used for a more accurate chemical analysis as well as for determining isotopic abundance. This can give clues about the age and possibly origin of a rock or meteorite. Or the exact mineral composition (rather than a list of chemical elements and their abundance provided by LIBS) of a sample can be determined through X-ray diffraction using Curiosity's CheMin instrument.

In the next segment we'll look more closely at the biodrill and its inspirations.

Edited March 3, 2016 by DMagic
links

[Exitalterego]

Make sure when you extracted the zip files for the US files into your gamedata, that you followed the included installation instructions - which is to copy out the Universal Storage folder into the main gamedata folder instead of leaving it nested in the "US_Core..." folder. This is basically the same thing that DMagic himself said but with a little more detail. I was able to replicate your issue by nesting the folders, so I'm thinking that may be what you've done. If you leave them nested the game reads the subfolders fine and adds the actual US parts, but the DMagic parts won't show because are looking for the "correct" path, not the "working but technically incorrect path" that leaving the nested folders results in.

I'm clearly doing something wrong as well as I can't seem to get the OS US parts to appear in the VAB.

Inside my GameData folder I have US_Core_0.9.0.24, US_KAS_0.9.0.14 and US_TAC_0.9.2.7. These all work perfectly with all parts showing up correctly.

I've then also got GameData/DMagic Orbital Science, which also work except for the US parts (Goo, Materials etc.), so I'm 99% certain I've got everything installed correctly.

So what am I missing with regards to the OS US parts?

[fizzboy]

I'm clearly doing something wrong as well as I can't seem to get the OS US parts to appear in the VAB.

Inside my GameData folder I have US_Core_0.9.0.24, US_KAS_0.9.0.14 and US_TAC_0.9.2.7. These all work perfectly with all parts showing up correctly.

I've then also got GameData/DMagic Orbital Science, which also work except for the US parts (Goo, Materials etc.), so I'm 99% certain I've got everything installed correctly.

So what am I missing with regards to the OS US parts?

It sounds like you have Universal Storage installed incorrectly because you should only have a single UniversalStorage folder. Open the US_Core_0.9.0.24 folder and inside of that you'll probably find a UniversalStorage, UmbraSpaceIndustries, and PartCatalog along with installation instructions. If so, read and follow the instructions and try again.