The Project to Develop a Dynamic Vertical TechTree

[Ackander]

Kerbal Space Program's first vertical technologies tree now has too many mods integrated into it.

To keep the Vertical TechTree challenging yet relavent, we will be working to create some kind of plugin or utility to be able to modify the tree.cfg in such a way as to not penalize or give unfair advantage to users who use different sets of mods. Mostly the science cost of a node will be dynamically reduced when you do not have parts that are assigned to that node. Likewise, overall science may increase slightly if you have installed a science mod such as L-Tek or Station Science or Beastly Science Pack or any of the other much needed science mods.

As details become available, they will be posted here.

For now, if you have not done so already, check out Ackander's Vertical TechTree and let me know what you think.

[miracmert]

A little idea: Maybe you can make a little client that works like a manager, and as you load mods into that client it automatically integrates those mods into the tech tree and than it adds specific amount of science points into nodes. For example, I have vanilla and I download dynamic vertical techtree, and then I decide to download KW Rocketry and Tarsier Space technology. I run your client and load those mods to your client, then it integrates mods to the tech tree adding the science points to the nodes that are only related to those 2 mods.

You might already figured out a way since you posted a dev thread but I wanted to give an idea just in case

[cxg2827]

Is your idea to increase the science requirements for nodes when using parts pack suck as KW rocketry and NovaPunch, or is it more for mods/add-ons that add parts that don't have a stock equivalent, such as the ALCOR, BOBCAT Colonization, Kethane, etc?

I personally almost exclusively use KW parts because it gives cleaner looking rockets. I don't think parts like these really give an advantage over the stock ones as it just gives a different look, rather that provide any advantage over stock (maybe just the engines, as some I think might be more powerful than the stock equivalents).

ps, Started trying out your vertical tree last night. Nice work.

[Ackander]

A little idea: Maybe you can make a little client that works like a manager, and as you load mods into that client it automatically integrates those mods into the tech tree and than it adds specific amount of science points into nodes. For example, I have vanilla and I download dynamic vertical techtree, and then I decide to download KW Rocketry and Tarsier Space technology. I run your client and load those mods to your client, then it integrates mods to the tech tree adding the science points to the nodes that are only related to those 2 mods.

You might already figured out a way since you posted a dev thread but I wanted to give an idea just in case

Indeed this is the direction I would like to take, or rather the opposite direction? At least at first. Since tree.cfg already as part assignments, any tree manager would essentially trim away the parts that are not installed every time a user chooses to do so. During the trim process, the manager would revalue each node depending on how much science value in parts had been removed from each node and adjust the nodes' costs accordingly. Right now, I have an excel sheet that essentially does the trimming and the revalueing, the only problem is that the user must have TreeEdit and Excel or similar installed and do some work as outlined below to complete the process:

1. download tree.cfg, put in save folder
   
2. open your save file in KSP
   
3. goto research and development, if you have treeloader installed and this is your first time there is will ask you to sellect a tree, I always click stock here
   
4. press F5 to save locally, this will overwrite the existing tree.cfg with the one loaded into TreeEdit, all parts that are not loaded into KSP will not be put into the tree.cfg file but all nodes will remain otherwise intact
   
5. return to KSP's main title screen
   
6. alt+tab to excel, load the revaluer 'program'
   
7. open tree.cfg in a text editor
   
8. copy the text from tree.cfg
   
9. paste the text to the excel program in the space indicated
   
10. copy the output text back into tree.cfg and save
    
11. go back to KSP and reload your save file
    
12. done
    

So you can see why I am hesitant to require this process just to change the cost of the nodes, even if it make the experience better. For now I have friends willing to help write a program to do all this behind the scenes. Eventually I would like it to have some sort of rudimentary sorting system of its own, so there may never be an unsupported mod again for this tech tree. I imagine it would be pretty simple, or even user driven to help understand the function and category of various parts so it knew where to place them and have generic cost modifiers.

Right now a problem I see is how to treat the parts' science value. Some parts are obviously more valuable than others, while others still, as pointed out by cxg, do not neccesarily contribute to science production, so they may or may not even change node pricing. Currently there are 2,270 parts assigned to the TechTree, and to give each part a relative science value might take a bit of time.

The way I see it is through supply and demand. The tree is there to supplies the user's demands for parts and technology to a degree, but mostly for parts. Ideally, to solve this would be to lock the parts themselves from the user until they pay for them piecemeal after first buying access to the node for an amount that never changes between mod sets, something that I do not know if it is even possible to do right now without over-writing R&D entirely.

Is your idea to increase the science requirements for nodes when using parts pack suck as KW rocketry and NovaPunch, or is it more for mods/add-ons that add parts that don't have a stock equivalent, such as the ALCOR, BOBCAT Colonization, Kethane, etc?

I personally almost exclusively use KW parts because it gives cleaner looking rockets. I don't think parts like these really give an advantage over the stock ones as it just gives a different look, rather that provide any advantage over stock (maybe just the engines, as some I think might be more powerful than the stock equivalents).

ps, Started trying out your vertical tree last night. Nice work.

I would like the science costs in R&D to be more meaningful and not as arbitrary. A goal of mine is to make using R&D feel more researchy (giving me an idea for another related mod). The tree kind of does what I want by putting bigger and better parts higher up, but take away any user experience from reading some of the descriptions and the entire tree just feels like a store selling parts rather than technological research department, which is little different from how I feel about the stock tree. But, until reforms are made with the research and development via Squad or mods, the parts store view is still the best way to look at the TechTree I think.

Ah, something that would be interesting is if in addition to parts, buying nodes also unlocked performance or abilites, just as MechJeb does with its modules, and dynamically. Imagine if when you load KSP, the techtree manager builds MM configs or similar that suppress the performance or abilites of most parts, such as engine thrust/isp being diminished and increased incrimentally with buying certain nodes, or gimballing is locked until you buy the node containing the relavent research. Or modifications to the mass of parts as better materials are researched. Or any variable really for that matter.

As far as part packs like KW and NP2, using the tech tree like a store and science like money imbues value even to these kinds of parts that are technologically/performancly similar to stock parts. Unfortunately, that value cannot be conveyed unless it is grouped with parts of the same value, otherwise it is worth the average value of all the parts in the node. (A thousand or so nodes is probably impractical as well, each with only a couple of parts in it).

So, to make a longer post long, there are mods that add a little to a lot of science potential to the game and these should have the effect of increasing the total science cost of all the nodes that lie beyond the science giving parts. For this the manager must know the structure of the tech tree and what parents what. I did this in excel, so I should think C# can handle it too.. I did however need more than 4.5 million cells to map out the connections for 146 nodes, now there are 188 nodes and more than the difference in new connections.

Hope you enjoy the TechTree.

[Nelien]

A little idea: Maybe you can make a little client that works like a manager, and as you load mods into that client it automatically integrates those mods into the tech tree and than it adds specific amount of science points into nodes. For example, I have vanilla and I download dynamic vertical techtree, and then I decide to download KW Rocketry and Tarsier Space technology. I run your client and load those mods to your client, then it integrates mods to the tech tree adding the science points to the nodes that are only related to those 2 mods.

You might already figured out a way since you posted a dev thread but I wanted to give an idea just in case

It's funny you say this since that's almost exactly the kind of application I'm developing . I'm helping Ackander out by creating a Manager of sorts, but like Ackander said it would also serve to re-evaluate the costs based on a variety of factors.

You can check out the latest version of the application over here. A reasonably functional version with the functionality to generate a tree based on what mods are installed will soon be done, but the actual science cost will still be the same as Ackander manually specified, at least for now. Once we figure out a good algorithm for calculating the cost that should be spiffy to add to the tool.

[DerekL1963]

For now, if you have not done so already, check out Ackander's Vertical TechTree and let me know what you think.

Requiring weird vehicle designs to away from the root of the tree is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I'm intrigued by the general idea of a vertical tree, but it's not even as realistic as the stock one.

[cxg2827]

Requiring weird vehicle designs to away from the root of the tree is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I'm intrigued by the general idea of a vertical tree, but it's not even as realistic as the stock one.

Check out post 239, I managed to expand the tree without weird designs.

[miracmert]

It's funny you say this since that's almost exactly the kind of application I'm developing . I'm helping Ackander out by creating a Manager of sorts, but like Ackander said it would also serve to re-evaluate the costs based on a variety of factors.

You can check out the latest version of the application over here. A reasonably functional version with the functionality to generate a tree based on what mods are installed will soon be done, but the actual science cost will still be the same as Ackander manually specified, at least for now. Once we figure out a good algorithm for calculating the cost that should be spiffy to add to the tool.

I definitely will check it out! Once I get rid of my useless mods though...

[Ackander]

Requiring weird vehicle designs to away from the root of the tree is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I'm intrigued by the general idea of a vertical tree, but it's not even as realistic as the stock one.

Hm. Have you tried it yet? Nothing is required except your imagination. I cannot help you there, however, I am all out, sorry.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Ackander
Almost forgot to be polite.

[DerekL1963]

Hm. Have you tried it yet? Nothing is required except your imagination. I cannot help you there, however, I am all out, sorry.

You asked what people thought, and I told you. If you want to do things your way, that's OK, it's your mod that's how it works, but being insulting... that's uncalled for. If you didn't want opinions that varied from yours, you shouldn't have asked.

[likke_A_boss]

Another thought is eliminating extra nodes from the tree that rely on certain mods.

I mean, I don't use DRE or any life support or NFP, so it ends up that I have lots and lots and lots if empty nodes that must be purchased for me to advance. I mean, I solve that problem easily by simply editing myself the exact number of science I need for that node in my career settings, but it would nice to see a feature from that.

[Ackander]

You asked what people thought, and I told you. If you want to do things your way, that's OK, it's your mod that's how it works, but being insulting... that's uncalled for. If you didn't want opinions that varied from yours, you shouldn't have asked.

There were honestly no insults given. I asked if you tried it. Maybe you saw my example run with the capsule rover and thought you were required to do something like that. Obviously you are not. I do want your opinion, but to say something is required when it clearly is not is intellectually dishonest. I only said the beginning required imagination to get through, since you have no rocket parts and walking is slow and boring.

Sorry you took it the wrong way.

[Ackander]

Another thought is eliminating extra nodes from the tree that rely on certain mods.

I mean, I don't use DRE or any life support or NFP, so it ends up that I have lots and lots and lots if empty nodes that must be purchased for me to advance. I mean, I solve that problem easily by simply editing myself the exact number of science I need for that node in my career settings, but it would nice to see a feature from that.

The only nodes that have mod specific parts are not required to advance, actually. Deadly reentry parts are in a seperate branch of heatshields, and all life support parts are in a seperate branch too. I know you do not need those nodes to advance. The Near Future parts should be with and after stock parts as well. I went through with stock only parts and only two or three nodes where empty that needed to be bought to get to more nodes. Let me know where you are seeing holes so I can look at it too? Thanks.

[DerekL1963]

There were honestly no insults given. I asked if you tried it. Maybe you saw my example run with the capsule rover and thought you were required to do something like that. Obviously you are not. I do want your opinion, but to say something is required when it clearly is not is intellectually dishonest. I only said the beginning required imagination to get through, since you have no rocket parts and walking is slow and boring.

The same answer applies in any case. I find the concept of a vertical tree intriguing, but if I can't launch and reasonably recover a vehicle with the first node, it's a deal breaker. At it's core this is a game of building and flying rockets. Imaginative rockets are cool (and even in the stock tree you have to be clever with your designs). Imaginative not rockets right out of the gate? Uncool.

[Ackander]

The same answer applies in any case. I find the concept of a vertical tree intriguing, but if I can't launch and reasonably recover a vehicle with the first node, it's a deal breaker. At it's core this is a game of building and flying rockets. Imaginative rockets are cool (and even in the stock tree you have to be clever with your designs). Imaginative not rockets right out of the gate? Uncool.

It is just for one mission, geez. It is supposed to shine a light on the fact that at one point, the Kerbals had no rockets. This is what it was like in my version of the historic accounts. They started with a truss and a capsule. Just give yourselve 10 science if it is a problem and you will be past the uncool part for good. At least skip the uncool part, and tell me about the rest of it, is all I am asking. Kindly, too. I feel lucky to get any feedback.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Ackander