[WIP] Universal Storage

[Chris_Pi]

I may (By may I mean definitely) have been unclear - Solid wall pressure vessel for sure, with a flexible liner inside that for the liquid storage. Start with the liner folded up against one side when the tank is empty, and the entire interior volume can be filled with either the liner bag filled with liquid or solid stuff packed in the can but outside the liner (Through that hatch in the back), or some combination of the two. The idea is however many liters of cold storage with any proportion of solid/liquid possible up to the full volume of the container. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Products-Poly-Bagged-Fold-A-Carrier-Collapsible/dp/B001QBZI90/ref=sr_1_71?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1402797902&sr=1-71 collapsed inside the can with the fill line plumbed in through the wall. Enough to keep liquids under control, and solid garbage can just be stuffed through the hatch into the (dry) empty space inside the can. The liner shouldn't have to hold any significant pressure. If it ever did the rest of the storage space would be blocked by it. Slight negative pressure would keep it collapsed against it's contents.

[diomedea]

There are definitely different advantages with keeping a substance liquid and others with letting it get solid.

For normal water, believe there is no contest that it has to be liquid to allow its use. Bar that.

For waste water, having it liquid allows flowing. If we are just to store waste water to keep weight onboard, sure, we could let it solidify: but what is the advantage there? Should be better to just let it out of the ship.

Instead, waste water could still to be considered a useful thing, if the ship has some treatment plant (including those hydroponic greenhouses). Sure waste water should then be made liquid to let flow, pass through some filtering device, let some chemical reaction to occur. Not the whole amount stored, but at least the amount to be used. Of course, any piping should not allow ice to form, so heating around pipes/valves could also be considered.

However, keeping liquids heated requires energy, so it would be wise to limit heating to only what is strictly required. Separate vessels for solid/liquid phases could be a solution. Probably not so much a single vessel with a liner bag, cause the heat exchange would be very high and doesn't allow to keep separate phases: or heating is good enough and so the whole is kept liquid, or not and the whole becomes solid, blocking the system. Better to use different "bottles", each one with a separate heating, so only the one to be heated will consume energy and have liquid inside; all the rest can be let go to ice.

Another consideration, thermal insulation. Probably is best to have the whole compartment with those devices insulated and kept at a relatively high temperature, than to allow different vessels inside it with very marked temperature differences. The energy required to keep a high temperature differential would probably be more than any benefit in logistics. So, if a plant with different "bottles" is designed, the bottles to be kept warm should go together, while bottles to let cold in another area of the ship.

Other thing to consider, pressure. Liquid phase exists only within limited pressures; for water, from 612 Pa to 2.2 GPa in the range of temperatures suitable for life. So the vessel (and connecting pipes) has to be a pressure vessel for water to be liquid.

Those are real serious problems in aerospace engineering.

Edited June 15, 2014 by diomedea

[John FX]

There are definitely different advantages with keeping a substance liquid and others with letting it get solid.

For normal water, believe there is no contest that it has to be liquid to allow its use. Bar that.

For waste water, having it liquid allows flowing. If we are just to store waste water to keep weight onboard, sure, we could let it solidify: but what is the advantage there? Should be better to just let it out of the ship.

Instead, waste water could still to be considered a useful thing, if the ship has some treatment plant (including those hydroponic greenhouses). Sure waste water should then be made liquid to let flow, pass through some filtering device, let some chemical reaction to occur. Not the whole amount stored, but at least the amount to be used. Of course, any piping should not allow ice to form, so heating around pipes/valves could also be considered.

However, keeping liquids heated requires energy, so it would be wise to limit heating to only what is strictly required. Separate vessels for solid/liquid states could be a solution. Probably not so much a single vessel with a liner bag, cause the heat exchange would be very high and doesn't allow to keep separate states: or heating is good enough and so the whole is kept liquid, or not and the whole becomes solid, blocking the system. Better to use different "bottles", each one with a separate heating, so only the one to be heated will consume energy and have liquid inside; all the rest can be let go to ice.

Another consideration, thermal insulation. Probably is best to have the whole compartment with those devices insulated and kept at a relatively high temperature, than to allow different vessels inside it with very marked temperature differences. The energy required to keep a high temperature differential would probably be more than any benefit in logistics. So, if a plant with different "bottles" is designed, the bottles to be kept warm should go together, while bottles to let cold in another area of the ship.

Those are real serious problems in aerospace engineering.

I`d say the way to go would be to extract all the water from the waste and put it back in drinking while it is still warm so no need to heat it again, sterilize the rest and use it in the hydroponic setup you should have somewhere (this can freeze until needed as it is solid). Then there is no need to store waste liquids or use energy heating waste. Waste mass `just hanging around` is something you should not have on a spacecraft. Keeping the usable water within the area heated for the kerbals will keep it liquid and also provide some thermal buffering in case of `issues`. this will have the benefit that the area to be heated has a lower relative surface area (than many smaller parts) so efficiency is increased and energy requirements are minimised. Keeping the water in a jacket *around* the kerbals living area will reduce their exposure to radiation too. This should reduce the external piping which requires heating to a minimum. Also ice expands and can break stuff so letting liquids freeze and melt can kill you unless there is a lot of thought gone into the design.

Then the only water storage is built into the pod, no heating of waste, the benefits of recycling of nutrients and water, and some fresh food every now and then...

I would say you only really need the processing unit in the utility ring although I would build that into the pod also to reduce the distance for waste to travel, pipes heated and energy usage.

The best heated area you have is the one with the carbon units in it so as much `equipment that should stay warm` should be within the volume heated for them as possible. This reduces complexity which increases reliability and efficiency and minimises design and energy requirements.

[Paul Kingtiger]

On the ISS they expose the solid waste to vacuum to free dry it. They don't dump it over board though as high speed poo could cause a lot of damage. I believe it gets put in the Progress craft with all the other junk and burns up on reentry.

Dmagic, I didn't realise we're neighbours, I live in Queens!

[diomedea]

@ John FX: yes, I can see a number of advantages in the arrangement you depicted. Would say it is most useful for a spaceship or space station.

Can't say for sure that this could always be the best, have to think if e.g. a Mun base may require different solutions. Much depends if storage has to allow an uneven flow of a resource, so the excess has to be stored while it can't be used. And the cost of keeping that excess must be kept to a minimum. So, to allow such possibilities, I tend to accept the idea (from Chris_Pi) that water may be kept also in ice form, instead of being all liquid as I stated in my post #244.

[Daishi]

Soo, would you guys prefer the extra micromanagement involved with freezing and heating water, or is this just (very interesting) discussion? It would be possible to give the wedges a power requirement for upkeep, but not too sure if the majority of lifesupport users would appreciate that :/

Though im not too sure if it is possible to turn off the heating with a toggle, remove the subsequent electricity demands, and then block resource transfer to a specific wedge to simulate freezing. Off the top of my head I could link a glowing emissive texture on the heating coil to turn on and off if electricity is present (I think), but not too sure about the rest.

[XanderTek]

Personally, I think TAC involves enough micromanaging as-is. Of course every player is going to have a different threshold for that.

I'm very much looking forward to the new parts! TAC has been in need of pretty containers for a while now.

[Chris_Pi]

Just interesting discussion from my end. Thinking of how a dual-use storage space could really work, and a somewhat realistic idea of the storage space that it could have. Fiddling around with the details is more complexity than I would really like ingame. I make sure the motors are pointed at the ground, Latching the capsule door before takeoff is the little green guys' problem.

[John FX]

Please don`t put that much micromanagement in because of my comments. I`m just discussing waste management in space.

I`d still worry about the ice expansion. It can be over 750 megapascals... (114,000 pounds per square inch)

much care in the design for that bit I think...

[diomedea]

Just discussing the engineering of the plants so to have all needed parts modelled, if possible (heating, filters, valves, thermal insulation...). No need to also have the micromanagement, though if it could be possible to just put a value in a config file (e.g. electricity required = something) to have that and so allow users to change as they like, could be even better.

[Daishi]

I'm very much looking forward to the new parts! TAC has been in need of pretty containers for a while now.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to being able to work on them soon... should get a verdict on the PC today.

Just interesting discussion from my end. Thinking of how a dual-use storage space could really work, and a somewhat realistic idea of the storage space that it could have. Fiddling around with the details is more complexity than I would really like ingame. I make sure the motors are pointed at the ground, Latching the capsule door before takeoff is the little green guys' problem.

Fair enough

Please don`t put that much micromanagement in because of my comments. I`m just discussing waste management in space.

I`d still worry about the ice expansion. It can be over 750 megapascals... (114,000 pounds per square inch)

much care in the design for that bit I think...

No worries, this is interesting stuff (especially the force of ice, had no idea it was that strong). When this is all done ill be using TAC, DRE, a random failure mod, and probably FAR or RSS - so yeah, i think we have enough complexity options to go around for now

Just discussing the engineering of the plants so to have all needed parts modelled, if possible (heating, filters, valves, thermal insulation...). No need to also have the micromanagement, though if it could be possible to just put a value in a config file (e.g. electricity required = something) to have that and so allow users to change as they like, could be even better.

Of course, I definatly will be putting those heating coils in as visual elements - its the little details that draw you in. We might do mod tweaks\difficulty options at the end of development as optional .cfgs if Paul is up to it

[Queril]

Soo, would you guys prefer the extra micromanagement involved with freezing and heating water, or is this just (very interesting) discussion? It would be possible to give the wedges a power requirement for upkeep, but not too sure if the majority of lifesupport users would appreciate that :/

Though im not too sure if it is possible to turn off the heating with a toggle, remove the subsequent electricity demands, and then block resource transfer to a specific wedge to simulate freezing. Off the top of my head I could link a glowing emissive texture on the heating coil to turn on and off if electricity is present (I think), but not too sure about the rest.

Freezing/heating is not really bringing anything in terms of experience so I'm against that as well.

However, the electric requirements and turn on/off is a very good idea. Visual feedback for powering up the wedge is a nice touch as well.

[Paul Kingtiger]

With regard to heating, I was under the impression that heat buildup is more of a problem for space craft than keeping things warm. Apollo used an evaporation cooling system to keep the electronics cool and the ISS has large radiators. So presumably you could keep resources at the right temperature with insulation and waste heat from electronics with the challenge being getting the heat where it needs to go.

Interstellar does a better job of this but for US I think we can assume that the heat problem has been solved in the design.

Visual feedback for the processor parts would be cool, blinking lights and moving dials?

[DMagic]

Dmagic, I didn't realise we're neighbours, I live in Queens!

Yeah, but only if you count the G train.

I noticed two more issues today.

One is that the science bay doors collide when using an octocore. I'm thinking one relatively easy way to fix that is to make the left and right doors open slightly different amounts and at different speeds, so that one door slides behind the other.

The other thing is that using a lot of science bay wedges (and regular wedges to a lesser extent) causes a lot of slowdown when flying through the atmosphere at ludicrous speeds. This might only really be an issue when you strap a mainsail onto a command pod and cheat your way into orbit, but it's a pretty significant drop in framerate once the aerodynamic effects start to show. The same thing doesn't happen with empty octocores, so I'm thinking it must have something to do with the wedge colliders, though I don't really know how any of that works.

[Daishi]

Yeah, but only if you count the G train.

I noticed two more issues today.

One is that the science bay doors collide when using an octocore. I'm thinking one relatively easy way to fix that is to make the left and right doors open slightly different amounts and at different speeds, so that one door slides behind the other.

The other thing is that using a lot of science bay wedges (and regular wedges to a lesser extent) causes a lot of slowdown when flying through the atmosphere....

Will look into the door thing, should only be a small tweak.

If the slowdown happens with the aerodynamic effects - I'd say the cause is the (highish) geometry. Those effects seem to be calculated based on the visible mesh and not the collider (otherwise you'd see blocky 20 tri cubes on fire, rather than the 2000+ tri part). Don't think I can do much about that unfortunately, aside from making all my parts blocky and low res :|

Edited June 18, 2014 by Daishi

[DMagic]

If the slowdown happens with the aerodynamic effects - I'd say the cause is the (highish) geometry. Those effects seem to be calculated based on the visible mesh and not the collider

So the lesson here is to not launch an infinite fuel Mainsail with 16 telescopes, a command pod, and nothing else , I'll keep that in mind.

[Daishi]

So the lesson here is to not launch an infinite fuel Mainsail with 16 telescopes, a command pod, and nothing else , I'll keep that in mind.

You can melt your computer faster with a Kerbodyne engine

Jeb and I are back! PC is semi-alive and version 0.75 is due to be released soon! This is mainly an aesthetic update to give me a good platform to develop the TAC pack on, especially considering i've learnt so much since starting, and a lot of the parts needed to be remade. In particular, the new quadcore has gone down to 220 tris and a 128px texture map (an equal 1\4 of the old ones stats); and the octo has been halved in polycount, and quartered in texture resolution. Looks sharper too, and has less UV distortion. They actually look like stock parts now, which is a big plus!

Also scrubbed up everything else, added the new door mechanisms and structure, gave the EVA-X a flag toggle option, made the Science bay interior mesh optional, tightened up the collision meshes to prepare for better FAR support (may blow up crafts, be warned), added spawning "clamps" on the cores, and added new parts! Monopropellant and liquid fuel wedges

Upcoming Universal Storage Changelog 0.75 (Pre-TAC artpass)

* Overhaul of the Quadcore and the Octocore. The Quadcore now uses a 128px map, while the Octocore uses a 256px one. Both have been visually redesigned to be closer to stock, and have at least 50% less triangles.

* The Quadcore now spawns support clamps when a wedge is attached, using the stock fairings system. The Octocore will support this in future builds. They do detach and "stick" to the wedges, but quicksaving and reloading will make them vanish.

* The Quadcore no longer 'compresses' under the weight of the stacks above or below it, and will no longer stretch and wobble.

* Most wedges have been finalised with the new structures and door mechanisms. The wedges are now more visually solid, and stack seamlessly both above and below. Wedges no longer have "floating" equipment when the structure has been turned off.

* Collision mesh revisions to prepare for better FAR support (less space between the wedges when stacked) - this may cause your ships to explode if you've used part clipping, or have attached objects on the top or bottom of a wedge. Be warned! Although you should all be ready to restart your games with 0.24 anyway.

* The EVA-X now supports a toggleable flag of its current mission.

* New Core pack wedges for Liquid Fuel and Monopropellant.

* Texture tweaks on the Science Bay, with togglable interior mesh.

* Some more flags

* TextureReplacer config to disable texture compression on Universal Storage parts, as it is really not needed (and makes our stuff look muddy and disgusting).

Edited July 13, 2014 by Daishi
Spelling, upcoming changelog

[NoMrBond]

Will the TAC pack be based on the TAC v0.8 'day units' or the TAC v0.9 Kg/liters?

[Agathorn]

Is the new art vertically symmetrical? What I mean by that is with the current art, if you take a wedge and flip it upside down,or a stack of wedges, they visually will be offset from the rightside up ones. Its a few pixels off. Unfortunately due to the way SubAssembly borks my attach nodes, I often have to flip them upside down and it looks ugly when I do

[Daishi]

Will the TAC pack be based on the TAC v0.8 'day units' or the TAC v0.9 Kg/liters?

I'd say the 0.9 TAC release is what we were waiting for. Paul may do some further tweaks to Taranis's work when the pack is done, but working in volumes and metric units is what US is build around so it should fit in nicely.

Is the new art vertically symmetrical? What I mean by that is with the current art, if you take a wedge and flip it upside down,or a stack of wedges, they visually will be offset from the rightside up ones. Its a few pixels off. Unfortunately due to the way SubAssembly borks my attach nodes, I often have to flip them upside down and it looks ugly when I do

Argh it bugs me too, but it isn't an easy fix. Its because the corrugated panels aren't equally symmetrical - the left side needs to provide a frame for the hatch to slot into, while the right side needs to match up with the wedge sitting next to it so everything fits together seamlessly in a circle. If i wanted to fix it, i'd need to offset the doors, remake everything again, and reanimate. It is possible though, but it will take a lot of work to make everything interface correctly. I'll see what i can do in the "polishing" 1.0 build after everything else has been made.

What's happening with your subassemblies? I don't think i've seen them bork nodes before.

[Agathorn]

I'd say the 0.9 TAC release is what we were waiting for. Paul may do some further tweaks to Taranis's work when the pack is done, but working in volumes and metric units is what US is build around so it should fit in nicely.

Argh it bugs me too, but it isn't an easy fix. Its because the corrugated panels aren't equally symmetrical - the left side needs to provide a frame for the hatch to slot into, while the right side needs to match up with the wedge sitting next to it so everything fits together seamlessly in a circle. If i wanted to fix it, i'd need to offset the doors, remake everything again, and reanimate. It is possible though, but it will take a lot of work to make everything interface correctly. I'll see what i can do in the "polishing" 1.0 build after everything else has been made.

What's happening with your subassemblies? I don't think i've seen them bork nodes before.

Oh wow that sucks.

Well what happens is due to the way sub assembly loader works. I don't know the details but it has something to do with "root part". Anyway when I make a sub assembly of a full circle of wedges, or often several stacked, the top attach node vanishes. So when I drag it out to connect it say to the bottom of a pod, I can't because the top node is gone. So I have to flip the whole thing upside down to attach it, and then once I do the nodes fix themselves.

[Daishi]

Oh wow that sucks.

Well what happens is due to the way sub assembly loader works. I don't know the details but it has something to do with "root part". Anyway when I make a sub assembly of a full circle of wedges, or often several stacked, the top attach node vanishes. So when I drag it out to connect it say to the bottom of a pod, I can't because the top node is gone. So I have to flip the whole thing upside down to attach it, and then once I do the nodes fix themselves.

Ahh, I've had instances of nodes disappearing before, halfway through stocking up an Octo. Not fun. I hope its a KSP bug and gets stomped on in 0.24, otherwise Paul and I need to go hunting for a fix.

You could always cap the hubs with a probe core or something before saving them as subassemblies, that should help.

[Paul Kingtiger]

I think it's a limitation of sub assemblies. They can only have a single node. You can use the select root mod to change which part is the root, but for cores, that have 2 nodes, I don't think it'll help.

I would have to play around and see what I can see.

[SyberSmoke]

Q: Now that squad have basically demonstrated a 64 bit version, will you all offer a pack with some higher resolution textures when it is released? Since the 4gig memory limit would vanish for any one using the 64bit exe memory limits are less of an issue really unlike right now.

[Daishi]

Q: Now that squad have basically demonstrated a 64 bit version, will you all offer a pack with some higher resolution textures when it is released? Since the 4gig memory limit would vanish for any one using the 64bit exe memory limits are less of an issue really unlike right now.

Absolutely, my source files go up to 2k. We were planning on making one anyway at the end of development, but i guess if the 64bit build is stable enough, we might push for an HD edition sooner.