[WIP] Universal Storage

[Sovek]

Bug with the safety decoupler, actually possibly two.

The decoupler doesnt work when you use the staging button, and it also allows for fuel crossfeed. Also in the wrong section of the VAB/SPH as well.

Unless of course this is all intentional.

[Daishi]

Bug with the safety decoupler, actually possibly two.

The decoupler doesnt work when you use the staging button, and it also allows for fuel crossfeed. Also in the wrong section of the VAB/SPH as well.

Unless of course this is all intentional.

The first bug is intentional, hence the "safeness" of it. You cant accidentally sever your command pod from your life support supplies with a staging mishap. I've done that a ton of times, and wished we had some kind of a tweakable setting so things don't appear in the staging list. So i made a few parts to do the job

Problem is their icons don't disappear at all, so they can be "staged" but nothing happens. The only way to decouple is with a right-click menu.

Not sure about category placement, I think they fit in utility because they're designed to complement crew safety and life support, but still in dev so things will change. Fuel crossfeed wasn't considered though, so if its a big deal we'll remove it. Presuming "fuel" doesn't mean resources in general and it stops the flow of oxygen >_>

[Sovek]

Well fuel crossfeed only seems to affect liquid and oxidizer and possibly xenon. Squad had to make it a feature in the program to use bottom monoprop tanks first instead draining from all at the same time.

[CaptainKipard]

Daishi, how come you're working on ECLSS models when ECLSS isn't even working correctly at the moment. TAC does work on the other hand.

[Daishi]

Daishi, how come you're working on ECLSS models when ECLSS isn't even working correctly at the moment. TAC does work on the other hand.

All the parts are made to be used for both life-support mods out of the box - so what i'm making is pretty much intended for TAC as well. Paul's already got ECLSS code written so we might as well release that on our way to the full TAC release.

Atm i've only got the C02 converter(s) to do, which are based on the Elektron and the Sabatier equipment. They've diverged a bit from the stock standard Co2 -> O2 converters (because it doesn't actually work like that, and Paul would rather keep things true to life), but with this at least you gain the ability to extract methane and water from your C02 and Hydrogen and use it for liquid fuel. And then split said water into 02 and hydrogen, if you're desperate for oxygen to breathe.

Paul will explain a bit more in a post on either one of these threads, when he's around

Edited April 9, 2014 by Daishi

[Paul Kingtiger]

Daishi, how come you're working on ECLSS models when ECLSS isn't even working correctly at the moment. TAC does work on the other hand.

TAC are also in the middle of making quite a large change to their mod, rather than do everything twice I want to wait for TAC to release their new version before I balance our mod to work with it.

[Paul Kingtiger]

CO2 reprocessors:

In ECLSS and TAC there is a single reprocessor part that turns CO2 into O2. I wanted to improve on that and use real world physics and chemistry without adding too much complexity. After looking at a number of options I decided to go with a 2 step solution, which does add a little complexity but also adds a lot of functionality.

The first step is a Sabatier reactor that turns CO2 + H2 + Electricity into CH4 + H2O. For the mod that means Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen and Electricity into Liquid fuel and Water. Running just this system gives you drinking water.

The second step is a Water electrolyzer that turns H2O and Electricity into H2 and O2, so that's Water and Electric charge into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Running just this reverses the process of the fuel cell, recycles water into Oxygen to breath and along with the Sabatier reactor gives you a closed loop life support system.

Both systems are used on the ISS and there is a fair amount of documentation for them, making it easy to balance. Having both systems also gives you some additional game play opportunities. For example you can use the fuel cell, resource tanks and electrolyzer to act like a large battery. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using solar panels during the day and then using it to run a fuel cell at night. Very useful for planets with long day/night cycles.

Separate processes also make compatability with real fuels and interstellar easier.

I'm currently researching both systems to make sure I get the power usage and throughput rates right, and also testing parts in game, while Daishi works on the models.

[Crater]

Loving the progress that you're making on this mod. The models and art are awesome, as is the general functionality.

However, from what I've read, it looks like you are using liters as your unit of capacity when working out the amounts of resources that fit into a tank.

In general, all the stock tanks are based around one unit of resource being 5 liters of volume.

For example, if we take the big orange Jumbo-64 tank, at 2.5m diameter, that gives a cross sectional area of about 4.9m2, so if we assume the 6,400 units are liters, that would require 6.4 m3 of volume, which gives the tank a height of 1.3m.... If we assume 5 liters per unit, that makes the tank more like 6.5m high.

It would be really nice, to ease conversions between mods, especially such as modular fuels / RF, if you could aim for units of 5l rather than 1l per unit. I'm off to make the same plea in the TAC thread now.

[Paul Kingtiger]

In general, all the stock tanks are based around one unit of resource being 5 liters of volume.

Yep, I came to the same conclusion. The sabatier reactor takes this into account when it outputs liquid fuel.

First up it produces methane based on molar equations:

1 CO2 + 4 H2 + 661kj energy --> 1 CH4 + 2 H2O

CH4 is a gas at STP and so (assuming ideal gas law) it takes up 22.4 liters. But we compress and liquify that* down to 621 times it's size so that 1 liter of CO2 and 4 liters of H2 make 0.036 liters of liquid fuel. Divide that by 5 and you get 0.007 units of fuel.

* If I can find good data I might increase the power requirements to model the compressor.

So short answer is that liquid fuel is created at the right amount, using 1 unit = 5 liters.

It's a tiny amount of fuel to make and I considered just ignoring it, but it's too eloquent a system to ignore and ensures that 100% of the resources are uses and reused.

[Daishi]

Progress on the Elektron, influenced from the Russian ones found on the ISS. Pays to model and assign basic colors amongst the parts you've already done - keeps things visually consistent

Fire hydrants in spaaaaaacceeee

[CoolBeer]

CH4 is a gas at STP and so (assuming ideal gas law) it takes up 22.4 liters. But we compress and liquify that* down to 621 times it's size so that 1 liter of CO2 and 4 liters of H2 make 0.036 liters of liquid fuel. Divide that by 5 and you get 0.007 units of fuel.

* If I can find good data I might increase the power requirements to model the compressor.

This is an interesting report about liquefying oxygen: *LINK*. It seems to be a somewhat complex and power hungry procedure, but it could work as a basis for actual power numbers.

-

Kolbjorn

[Daishi]

Personally, i wouldn't mind having a bit more equipment in the game that draws serious amounts of power. Power generation is in abundance right now, and having a real reason to have gigantor solar panels on your space station is kinda cool.

[Paul Kingtiger]

This is an interesting report about liquefying oxygen: *LINK*. It seems to be a somewhat complex and power hungry procedure, but it could work as a basis for actual power numbers.

Interesting, thanks!

I ran some tests yesterday with a fuel cell and water electrolyzer, both balanced to real world values. The electrolyser as it is currently is slightly less efficiency that the fuel cell, which means you can run both on a loop for quite a long time. That doesn't see realistic to me and the missing part of the puzzle is compressing the output of the electrolyzer. At the very least you need to compress it down as a gas to make storage feasible and really it needs to be a liquid unless we want to start tracking gas and liquid resources separately (we don't).

The obvious solution is a big power draw to run the equipment so that an electrolyzer is only useful with abundant power.

[BananaDealer]

I don't know if this is a planned feature, but can you maybe add a function to dump excess water once the tanks are full?

I mean, I get that eventually you'd want that water to be used with a Life Support mod of your choice, but still...

Plus, there's a lot of people that don't use life support mods...

In any case, this is awesome. Though when you stack a small core (the 4-piece version), there's some splits in the white/black lines that really hurt my OCD... It's like that one tile on the floor that's slightly offset. You can't really see it until you've noticed it, but when you notice it it's all you're looking at...

P.S: For intermediate Life Support compatibility, why not have an optional config that lets the fuel cell use TAC (or ECLSS) resources?

[Daishi]

In any case, this is awesome. Though when you stack a small core (the 4-piece version), there's some splits in the white/black lines that really hurt my OCD... It's like that one tile on the floor that's slightly offset. You can't really see it until you've noticed it, but when you notice it it's all you're looking at...

Could you post a few close up pics of it? As well as ones from a distance? There shoudlnt be gaps. Only on the quad core, and the octocore is fine?

[BananaDealer]

Could you post a few close up pics of it? As well as ones from a distance? There shoudlnt be gaps. Only on the quad core, and the octocore is fine?

It's not gaps between the stacks, it's the line between the white and black being zig-zaggy going downwards on just one side of the ring...

I haven't experimented with the larger stacks yet so I'll load up KSP in a few and get you more info.

Also is there a way to make proper symmetry with the parts? Like, when you have two different wedges on each side and try to attach something 2x onto them, the symmetry works only on whichever of the wedges you're mousing over...

[Starwaster]

Progress on the Elektron, influenced from the Russian ones found on the ISS. Pays to model and assign basic colors amongst the parts you've already done - keeps things visually consistent

http://i.imgur.com/mdylvLw.jpg

Fire hydrants in spaaaaaacceeee

Is that a bag of snacks in front of the unit on the left???

[Mecripp]

It's not gaps between the stacks, it's the line between the white and black being zig-zaggy going downwards on just one side of the ring...

I haven't experimented with the larger stacks yet so I'll load up KSP in a few and get you more info.

Also is there a way to make proper symmetry with the parts? Like, when you have two different wedges on each side and try to attach something 2x onto them, the symmetry works only on whichever of the wedges you're mousing over...

I think what you might be talk about on the lines did you try and flip 1 piece then they line up.

[Paul Kingtiger]

I don't know if this is a planned feature, but can you maybe add a function to dump excess water once the tanks are full?

That's how it works currently. If you run out of input resource it stops. But if you fill up the output resource tanks it keeps going and dumps the excess.

P.S: For intermediate Life Support compatibility, why not have an optional config that lets the fuel cell use TAC (or ECLSS) resources?

When we release the TAC and the ECLSS packs config files will be included to make the fuel cell 100% compatible with those mods. I'm not working on any temporary fixes for this because I'm focusing on researching, testing and balancing the Sabatier reactor and water electrolyzer.

[BananaDealer]

That's how it works currently. If you run out of input resource it stops. But if you fill up the output resource tanks it keeps going and dumps the excess.

When we release the TAC and the ECLSS packs config files will be included to make the fuel cell 100% compatible with those mods. I'm not working on any temporary fixes for this because I'm focusing on researching, testing and balancing the Sabatier reactor and water electrolyzer.

Ah... I might get into fiddling with the latest Module Manager this weekend (since I am interested in upgrading to 2.0.1 but a bunch of stuff gets broken right now).

Just a note for when TAC compatibility gets on focus, the Oxygen supplies in the wedges are immensely larger than what would be reasonable when comparing sizes with TAC parts...

Anyways... About the zig-zaggy weirdness...

The first block consists of a fuel cell (west, looking from above), a water wedge (north), a hydrogen wedge (east) and an oxygen wedge (south). The second one is of 2 water wedges (west and north), and then an oxygen wedge and a hydrogen wedge (east & south). It's the upper hydrogen and lower oxygen wedges that are offset. But whichever wedge I put there, it's the same thing.

The weirdness doesn't seem to show up on the larger cores...

[TerLoki]

Just a note for when TAC compatibility gets on focus, the Oxygen supplies in the wedges are immensely larger than what would be reasonable when comparing sizes with TAC parts...

Indeed, though for some reason TAC displays oxygen in negative numbers when using the wedges.

[CoolBeer]

Indeed, though for some reason TAC displays oxygen in negative numbers when using the wedges.

This is because TACLS is using "1 unit = one day consumption" instead of liters, I did do a writeup about how to convert TACLS over to liters: *LINK*.

-

Kolbjorn

[Raptor831]

P.S: For intermediate Life Support compatibility, why not have an optional config that lets the fuel cell use TAC (or ECLSS) resources?

I posted a Universal Storage -> TACLS ModuleManager config on the release thread (LINK). Can't guarantee 100% accuracy with resource usage, but it's close enough. It'll get you through until Daishi and Paul do a proper release for TALCS. Unless, of course, you set up TACLS for liters/kg, in which case no conversions are really needed for Universal Storage.

[Daishi]

The first block consists of a fuel cell (west, looking from above), a water wedge (north), a hydrogen wedge (east) and an oxygen wedge (south). The second one is of 2 water wedges (west and north), and then an oxygen wedge and a hydrogen wedge (east & south). It's the upper hydrogen and lower oxygen wedges that are offset. But whichever wedge I put there, it's the same thing.

The weirdness doesn't seem to show up on the larger cores...

Ahh. You seem to have one of your cores upside down Either that or an individual wedge. It doesn't line up if you do that because that hatch isn't exactly central on the corrugation.

OR we could have screwed up and put a node upside-down and didn't even realise ><

And no, I don't think symmetry is possible, just due to the way this wedge and hub system works. Its similar to the space station core and how you cant get symmetry working on that properly either. Something to do with node hierarchy.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Daishi

[Daishi]

Elektron almost done!