[Ongoing Dev] [0.23.5] Modular Kolonization System v0.16 (RELEASE) [05-10-2014]

[RoverDude]

Thanks - I'm sorting out all of the basic configs before tossing up a dropbox link (also wrote a tutorial to get folks started). Just fighting with some configurations at the moment... many kerbals have died of starvation and other ailments, and I've had to airlock a few to test out balancing when there are fewer kerbals than the biodomes can support

[RoverDude]

Dropbox link posted for super experimental pre alpha stuff.

REQUIRES KETHANE and TAC-LS. Note that this is SUPER PRE ALPHA, and while I have tested it in a bare install, horrible things may happen, so do not put this in any save you care about. It will very likely, upon installation, unleash things and possibly eat children. That being said, thanks for helping out

Please post bugs, questions, etc. here!

[Fraz86]

Can I delete TacLifeSupport.dll (in the MKS folder) if I already have TAC-LS installed?

[RoverDude]

For whatever reason, when I delete it in the local folder it decides to not install my DLL due to reference paths, so that's on me to fix it (probably just a matter of moving my ref into the right relative path). So for now please keep it there or MKS will not load. I'll fix this with the first patch.

[Garibaldi2257]

2 things. I'd suggest some sort of colour scheme for the scanners. blue for water, black or brown for substrate, something else for the minerals and metal ores, maybe red and yellow since metallic colours are hard to do. Also, I don't know if its possible with kethane, but instead of doing randomized resource locations, you might try defining them, thats my single biggest issue with any of the mods that add resources.

[RoverDude]

2 things. I'd suggest some sort of colour scheme for the scanners. blue for water, black or brown for substrate, something else for the minerals and metal ores, maybe red and yellow since metallic colours are hard to do. Also, I don't know if its possible with kethane, but instead of doing randomized resource locations, you might try defining them, thats my single biggest issue with any of the mods that add resources.

hm, colors should already be in place in the current version (blue for water, purple for minerals, Ore I kept as compatible with EL as a Red->yellow, substrate should be orange). I know that the plugin that KSP Interstellar uses lets us do resource maps, not sure if Kethane allows pre-definition

[RoverDude]

Working models (textures need normal maps, etc.) for the modules. The idea is that rather than having inline and surface parts for each of the 20 or so MKS modules, separate the core functionality (the orange and white bit - it's mostly foam) with the cap that would house the workshop, etc. and caps would come in inline (shown) or domed/tapered versions that look prettier on the surface of planets.

One of the current coding parts is to enforce this dependency (a module must always be the child part of a cap), then extend this as I work on crew efficiency. More Kerbals and more space for those Kerbals means modules operate at higher efficiencies, so the idea of dropping in a 20-kerbal construction crew, then leaving fewer behind to man the colony makes gameplay sense, and the initial robotic factories save on life support, but are not nearly as efficient as having a Kerbal there to maintain things.

[RoverDude]

Finishing up alpha models - non-inline version

[plausse]

As you know, they once envisaged a grand resource system in KSP, and something like this (if im not getting things awkwardly wrong here). They then came to the conclusion that it was complicated - and required a lot of micromanagement, and whilst theoretically sound, it detracted the focus of KSP from building and launching rockets, to becoming a hypercomplex RTS game. I realise that im probably just not clever enough and that there sure is an audience for that. But still - whilst on paper super-exciting, it worries me that actually playing with the system you describe in the OP might not be that fun.

I only said that because I genuinely think the idea is awesome, and if it is somewhat simplified it would fill a niche I would love. Also the mish mash of retextured (licenced) models, and original assets both looks good and creates a unified feel with parts the user might already have. So.. Hope Im not being offensive, because the work you put in looks great.

[kiwiak]

Finishing up alpha models - non-inline version

http://i.imgur.com/a36LSbR.png

It looks like radar dome. Is it a radar dome?

[RoverDude]

As you know, they once envisaged a grand resource system in KSP, and something like this (if im not getting things awkwardly wrong here). They then came to the conclusion that it was complicated - and required a lot of micromanagement, and whilst theoretically sound, it detracted the focus of KSP from building and launching rockets, to becoming a hypercomplex RTS game. I realise that im probably just not clever enough and that there sure is an audience for that. But still - whilst on paper super-exciting, it worries me that actually playing with the system you describe in the OP might not be that fun.

I only said that because I genuinely think the idea is awesome, and if it is somewhat simplified it would fill a niche I would love. Also the mish mash of retextured (licenced) models, and original assets both looks good and creates a unified feel with parts the user might already have. So.. Hope Im not being offensive, because the work you put in looks great.

Thanks for the reply I agree with the difficulty of micromanagement, so a lot of the design has been in building it in a way that once you have the pieces in place, it pretty much runs on it's own, so the difficult part will be in selecting a site, and the assembly and logistics of get all of the parts there (which I think fits well with KSP overall). It's been a lot of Excel spreadsheets making sure there were no weird resource gaps, etc. specifically to keep it simple enough to be approachable, with some shortcuts at the expense of simplicity.

I'm wrapping up phase 2 right now, so the next preview should give folks a good idea of what it would take. As an example, if you wanted to have a 100% self sufficient colony to support 10 Kerbals, you'd need about 30 MKS parts (although you could always ship stuff in). I expect the niche would be the same folks who use TAC LS today and are tired of sending supply ships to their stations every year

[RoverDude]

It looks like radar dome. Is it a radar dome?

Nope, just a little geodesic dome for a Kerbal to work in I'm going to play with a few different designs and see what sticks (was playing with the greenhouse version today with a translucent dome).

[Majiir]

hm, colors should already be in place in the current version (blue for water, purple for minerals, Ore I kept as compatible with EL as a Red->yellow, substrate should be orange). I know that the plugin that KSP Interstellar uses lets us do resource maps, not sure if Kethane allows pre-definition

Kethane has an API that lets you swap in your own resource generator code, so you could do static maps or something much more complex. The generator classes also control how the data is parametrized and saved.

[gutza1]

My ₵2:

I am very impressed with this mod. Finally, somebody has decided to make bases so much more interesting to construct and manage. Hopefully, once 0.24 is out, bases will become more than glorified launch/drilling facilities with the help of this mod. This mod could integrate with other long-term science mods, and provide a source of ingame money & prestige (this is going to be a feature in 0.24). I have one suggestion: Rename PunchCards to something indicating more technological progression, like MegaBytes. I think that by the time kerbals have started permanent colonies, they would have progressed beyond primitive data input systems (at least at RSS difficulty. In stock, less advanced technologies are required to perform the same interplanetary feats because of KSP's space compression). That's just a small suggestion, so don't worry about it too much.

[TimMartland]

These parts look worryingly familiar.

Have you been given permission to use FusTek parts (I see the re-textures, but its a really small change. Really small) and the part from that BioFuel greenhouse mod? The plan for the mod looks quite good, but you really should do your own parts. It makes the mod so much better when it has its own look (Or maybe thats just me )

On a lighter note, this looks really good and I hope to see some really cool stuff coming out of here. Best of luck!

[RoverDude]

These parts look worryingly familiar.

Have you been given permission to use FusTek parts (I see the re-textures, but its a really small change. Really small) and the part from that BioFuel greenhouse mod? The plan for the mod looks quite good, but you really should do your own parts. It makes the mod so much better when it has its own look (Or maybe thats just me )

On a lighter note, this looks really good and I hope to see some really cool stuff coming out of here. Best of luck!

Nothing worryingly familiar about a Creative Commons share-alike license with attribution. RE new models - may want to look further up the post. As noted before, I needed something other than white cylinders to start iterating (and initial feedback has certainly changed how I am making the final models).

Not trying to be snarky, but it seems that despite having the license spelled out with attribution in my first post, I seem to have to answer this question once per page.

[RoverDude]

Greenhouse top...

[Rockstar04]

Not trying to be snarky, but it seems that despite having the license spelled out with attribution in my first post, I seem to have to answer this question once per page.

It's not you, the vast majority of people on the internet think they are better and smarter then the next guy.

[RoverDude]

Inline modules done, this will be enough to get through alpha. Next models up will be the 3.75m and 5m versions of the Kerbitat and Greenhouse, since those will be the ones that people will end up needing lots of, to reduce part count.

[Garibaldi2257]

These look amazing so far man. How do you plan on having them attach to each other if I may ask?

[Garibaldi2257]

First off, These look amazing man.

I'm still having the trouble with the resource colours, only Kethane Green is showing up.

and a question. how do you plan on having them connect to each other if I may ask?

[RoverDude]

First off, These look amazing man.

I'm still having the trouble with the resource colours, only Kethane Green is showing up.

and a question. how do you plan on having them connect to each other if I may ask?

For the Kethane, did you switch through the different resources while in orbit view? there are little arrow buttons where it says 'Kethane'. Also make sure when you look at your Kethane parts in the VAB that they show the additional materials for detection (Ore, Minerals, Water). If those do not work le me know, I'll go check on a clean install myself just in case I broke something

For attaching modules, you can use docking ports, KAS, etc. - basically whatever floats your boat. Part attachment is a solved problem so I figure people will find new and creative ways of handling this.

[Garibaldi2257]

*smacks forehead* I'm an idiot, the arrow buttons actually do something!. thanks for that. and the docking ports/KAS actually answers my question quite well.

[RoverDude]

*smacks forehead* I'm an idiot, the arrow buttons actually do something!. thanks for that. and the docking ports/KAS actually answers my question quite well.

Awesome! Let me know how it goes - I'm working on the phase 2 components this week, and would love feedback.

[Koooooj]

Looks great! A couple of observations (I'm working off of a version I downloaded a day or two ago, so apologies if these have already been addressed):

1. I built a craft using the colony hub as the main source of control with no other probe bodies on it and it defaults to debris and doesn't display on the map. Feels like this ought to be a pretty quick fix.

2. I noticed that the colony hub does not operate if it has no punch cards, but its purpose is to generate punch cards. In one of my first tests I launched with no punchcards and found myself with an inoperable base. This may be how you intended it to work, but it seems to me that the punchcard generator should be able to work without punchcards.

3. I had a hard time selecting exactly 250 parts for the construction hub--I set up a very basic bootstrapping base with just a construction hub and a colony hub and wanted to have both operational with the construction parts on board. The slider snapped to increments of 100, though, so I could only either bring 200 (too few) or 300 (50 more than I wanted). I worked around it by taking 500 in the construction hub and 0 in the colony hub, but if you can set that tweakable to snap to counts of 50 or less then that would be ideal.

4. On my map of the Mun water is *extremely* scarce, which I think is fine--the search for water is a pretty big thing in space exploration (or, at least, it is what makes it into the media--NASA mush have found water on Mars a dozen times by now). The algae tank lets you work around a lack of water just fine, but it strikes me as being unrealistic--you can generate mass with this unit. It would be within the suspension of disbelief if this module required some mundane resource, like "dirt," that was found everywhere. This prevents an orbiting algae tank from violating conservation of mass. For now I'll be self-imposing the rule that algae tanks only work when hooked up to some sort of drill.

All in all, though, looks pretty fantastic. Can't wait to see a not-extremely-pre-alpha version of this mod.