Universal Storage 1.4.0.0 (For KSP 1.4.x) 13th March 2018

[TurielD]

Fair enough, it's the 10x discrepancy that seems off more than the absolute weight. Note: the large and small safety decouplers both weight the same at 0.5 too.

[Yalin Hawk]

This may have been suggested already, but I'd love Universal Storage containers that could hold small amounts of monopropellant, or perhaps wedges that were batteries? Keep up the awesome work

[FennexFox]

Excuse me, I have a question. Your parts are pretty useful, but have some weird parameters.

Costs are incredibly high, maxtemp is unacceptably low. Are there any reasons? For say, some realistic feature?

I`m having some trouble with Mission Control Extension which make a budget thing serious, and with Deadly Re-Entry which make re-entry sequence make considerable amount of heat.

[Daishi]

Fair enough, it's the 10x discrepancy that seems off more than the absolute weight. Note: the large and small safety decouplers both weight the same at 0.5 too.

Consider those decouplers placeholders I was going to create a different model for the 1.25m version, but after all the issues we've had with mechjeb, flight engineer, staging, and their awkward attachment nodes, they need to be scrapped and redesigned. I've learnt a lot more since making those, so the revisions should be a big improvement.

This may have been suggested already, but I'd love Universal Storage containers that could hold small amounts of monopropellant, or perhaps wedges that were batteries? Keep up the awesome work

Will do! The science bay fits a Z-400 battery perfectly - there are a ton of battery options in the game already so a dedicated wedge isn't really on the cards at this stage. Monoprop and liquidfuel wedges are coming though, mainly to introduce smaller tanks and give a bit of ballast to wedge arrangements, and expand the usefulness of a standalone Core pack.

Excuse me, I have a question. Your parts are pretty useful, but have some weird parameters. Costs are incredibly high, maxtemp is unacceptably low. Are there any reasons? For say, some realistic feature? I`m having some trouble with Mission Control Extension which make a budget thing serious, and with Deadly Re-Entry which make re-entry sequence make considerable amount of heat.

We were planning to revise the cost figures after budgets are implemented, and judging by the dev blogs, that's coming very soon in 0.24. Never really thought about Mission Control integration though, so i'm sorry if our parts are a little unbalanced for that. You can always tweak the values yourself in the .cfg files, if you open them up in Notepad. In regards to re-entry heat - we felt that stock DRE was a little too forgiving and bumped our parts down to values that could actually cause trouble if you didn't aerobrake properly. Realistically, i'm not sure sensitive equipment or highly pressurized tanks of resources could handle more than a few hundred degrees anyway.

[NoMrBond]

Have you heard anything about your computer/files Daishi? Hopefully there was, or will be, good news on that front

[Daishi]

Have you heard anything about your computer/files Daishi? Hopefully there was, or will be, good news on that front

I've got all my hard drives with me so they're safe, but of course the rest is never straightforward. The motherboard is fine, the CPU is fine, and RAM is fine (with a service charge for testing it, after not taking my word that the sticks were ok); so it boils down to my GPU as the culprit. They should have called me a few days ago to let me know, but its been all quiet and the RMA process forms haven't been updated in weeks. Will probably ring them myself today or tomorrow.

If the GPU is dead, its not under warranty so i'll have to replace it with a low-end card at my own (limited) expense. It's a bugger that these wisdom teeth have leeched me of my only true reserves of cash :|

[NoMrBond]

Ah nuts, I just gave away my old gtx460 to

What'd you lose? I can have a look around and see if I have anything else floating about

[Daishi]

Ah nuts, I just gave away my old gtx460 to. What'd you lose? I can have a look around and see if I have anything else floating about

An asus GTX 580... was a grand roughly when I got it mid 2011, but its down to around $500 now. Doesn't sting too much, especially considering I can get something roughly equivalent for $150 (GTX 650). I think.

But... you'd seriously consider helping me out? They say the KSP community is outstanding, but this is something else. Thank you so much! Would have thought shipping to NZ would scare anyone off

[FennexFox]

Oh, thank you for kind reply. I understand the low maxtemp of wedges now, a blazing-hot-durable oxygen tank should be very funny. Anyway I think the science bays should have proper heat durability, because that`s why we`re storing something in bay of spaceship! I gonna modify .cfg files.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Excuse me, I have a question. Your parts are pretty useful, but have some weird parameters.

Costs are incredibly high, maxtemp is unacceptably low. Are there any reasons? For say, some realistic feature?

I`m having some trouble with Mission Control Extension which make a budget thing serious, and with Deadly Re-Entry which make re-entry sequence make considerable amount of heat.

Costs are hard to balance because it hasn't been finalized by Squad. With 0.24 being release I expect costs to be more quantifiable as to what they mean and how much different parts should cost. It'll then be much easier to balance the cost of US parts properly.

For the temps, they are set to 650 which is the melting point of aluminium alloy as used in Aircraft and spaceships. Even that temperature is high because complex parts are going to fail before they actually melt. What it means is that you have to use heat shields if you're going to use deadly reentry, which is the way it should be.

[SpacedInvader]

Just a heads up, I'm almost done with my TACLS integration mod which I'm calling RealTACLS. I decided to "wag the dog" by completely converting TACLS to work on liters with correct densities rather than to convert Universal Storage to work on TACLS's mystery units. This will be focused on Universal Storage parts, but I'm also making it essentially standalone so that all those legacy parts will have the correct numbers (i.e. your pods will still come with one day of resources), and it will be tag enabled so that anyone wanting to develop a tank for the new system before TACLS actually gets around to making these changes permanent will only have to include the proper tag in their part and it will be skipped in the conversion process so you don't end up with weird numbers. Anyway, I've just got some tank definition edits to work out, as well as input / output resource numbers to convert and I should be ready to post it up here before the end of the day.

[TurielD]

I just noticed that the US_Core.cfg that defines the resources includes a few lines about renaming overlapping Oxygen, Hydrogen and Water resources from other mods. However, they still seem to overlap with TACLS's water and oxygen at present - is there anything to be done about that before the compatibility mod is ready? I'd like to try out the generator, but don't wanna use up my crew's survival supplies doing it

EDIT: Timing! Nice going RoverDude - did you manage to get that conversion setup so that it works wiht TACLS integrated mods (like your own MKS) too?

Edited June 26, 2014 by TurielD

[SpacedInvader]

@Daishi: This is a little off topic, but I've been thinking about what to do with waste and I'm wondering if you have any interest in working on a model for an aeroponics bay once you get your computer up and running again. I don't think it would need to be part of the universal storage system, but I feel like you would probably be able to do something like that proper justice without making an fps killing monstrosity. Just curious...

@TurielD: How can you tell that the old and new resources are conflicting? Also, I'm not RoverDude

[Agathorn]

This is a really cool mod. Thanks for this! I love it. However I seem to have issues with snapping the wedges in. They are a real pain to get to click in. Am I doing something wrong? I seem to be having a lot more trouble than shown in your video.

[TurielD]

@TurielD: How can you tell that the old and new resources are conflicting? Also, I'm not RoverDude

I dunno how I got you guys mixed up, sorry about that

By conflicting I mean like when the EVA-X carries 250 oxygen, TACLS thinks that means its carrying 250 days worth of oxygen. Both resources are using the same name, while the file supposedly renames duplicate resources.

[CaelReader]

Things inside the storage bay are not marked as Shielded for use with FAR, will this be fixed in a future version?

[Agathorn]

Is there any way you can make it so that the outside frame is surface mountable on the Storage Bay wedge? Not where the door is of course, but along the rigid side where it connects to the next wedge?

[SpacedInvader]

I dunno how I got you guys mixed up, sorry about that

By conflicting I mean like when the EVA-X carries 250 oxygen, TACLS thinks that means its carrying 250 days worth of oxygen. Both resources are using the same name, while the file supposedly renames duplicate resources.

That's going to be part of my mod. I'll be shipping with a TACLS settings file to overwrite the old which will bring things more into line. The reason TACLS thinks you have so much is because it thinks you only need one unit per day (i.e. O2 block give you 46K days worth of O2), but the settings I'll be delivering will have a consumption of ~600L liters of O2/day, which will really bring that down. The way to really tell if the correct resource is in place is by mass and I can tell you that the method created by Paul and Daishi, and which will be expanded by me, works just fine.

[Agathorn]

Another thing I wanted to ask, is there any way to get symmetry to work with these parts?

1) You can't place multiple wedges using symmetry

2) You can't place items into multiple storage science bays using symmetry (For example 4 good cannisters). Instead they all try to place into the same wedge

3) You can't surface mount things to the outside of the wedges using symmetry. Again they all try to attach to the same wedge.

The end result of #2 and #3 is that it is very hard to get precise balance of mass.

EDIT: I want to say sorry for sounding so demanding. Its just that i've fallen in love with this mod and the realism it brings, and I just want it to be more perfect if at all possible

[SpacedInvader]

Ok, so here is the mod I've come to call RealTACLS:

ReaTACLS v0.1

This will convert the entire TACLS resource system to the new liters / CM-d (crew member day) as proposed by TaranisElsu. All life support resource densities have been reworked to match and all standard resource amounts have been corrected. This means that your pods will still have 1 day of resources for the max crew and also that all of the stock TACLS parts will still remain useful, including the resource recyclers so this *hopefully* should not break any games by suddenly depriving the crew of your long duration missions of their precious life support.

Anyway, please let me know if you find any bugs so I can start to iron them out.

EDIT: Also, I should mention that for full Universal Storage functionality for this mod, you will need all three US packs as certain parts from each pack are being reused as stand ins for TACLS parts until Daishi and Paul finish and release their proper TACLS pack.

Edited June 26, 2014 by SpacedInvader

[Daishi]

@Daishi: This is a little off topic, but I've been thinking about what to do with waste and I'm wondering if you have any interest in working on a model for an aeroponics bay once you get your computer up and running again. I don't think it would need to be part of the universal storage system, but I feel like you would probably be able to do something like that proper justice without making an fps killing monstrosity. Just curious...

Maybe. It wont be part of US, so it will have to slot in after my planned engine and fuel tank parts. Its low priority because there's a nice 2.5m greenhouse out there already. Not sure where it is after Spaceport exploded, but I presume a quick search should find it.

This is a really cool mod. Thanks for this! I love it. However I seem to have issues with snapping the wedges in. They are a real pain to get to click in. Am I doing something wrong? I seem to be having a lot more trouble than shown in your video.

Thanks! Try hovering your mouse around the outer rim of a tank stacked underneath a core, that should line up the attachment nodes and they'll snap in.

Things inside the storage bay are not marked as Shielded for use with FAR, will this be fixed in a future version?

Making the bays work with FAR would mean encasing them completely in a collision mesh, meaning you wouldn't be able to stack and use them for larger payloads. I might release a alternative version later on if the demand is high.

Is there any way you can make it so that the outside frame is surface mountable on the Storage Bay wedge? Not where the door is of course, but along the rigid side where it connects to the next wedge? Another thing I wanted to ask, is there any way to get symmetry to work with these parts?

1) You can't place multiple wedges using symmetry

2) You can't place items into multiple storage science bays using symmetry (For example 4 good cannisters). Instead they all try to place into the same wedge

3) You can't surface mount things to the outside of the wedges using symmetry. Again they all try to attach to the same wedge.

The end result of #2 and #3 is that it is very hard to get precise balance of mass.

EDIT: I want to say sorry for sounding so demanding. Its just that i've fallen in love with this mod and the realism it brings, and I just want it to be more perfect if at all possible

Not sure if the surface mountable stuff is possible, but i'll look into it. Symmetry is a bit tricky, Paul did some experiments with it but i don't think they were very successful, he might pop up and explain it a bit better. Don't worry about sounding demanding, fan feedback helps us improve

Edited June 27, 2014 by Daishi

[SpacedInvader]

Maybe. It wont be part of US, so it will have to slot in after my planned engine and fuel tank parts. Its low priority because there's a nice 2.5m greenhouse out there already. Not sure where it is after Spaceport exploded, but I presume a quick search should find it.

I'm aware of that one, I've just never really liked it as it seems cartoonish and also the visual model seems to waste huge amounts of space (the entire contents of that greenhouse could probably fit in 1/4 of the length of that unit), things which I think you'd probably not do let happen, hence the request...

[erendrake]

I'm aware of that one, I've just never really liked it as it seems cartoonish and also the visual model seems to waste huge amounts of space (the entire contents of that greenhouse could probably fit in 1/4 of the length of that unit), things which I think you'd probably not do let happen, hence the request...

Are you talking about the CELSS greenhouse? Because that greenhouse and most others are derided for being way to Small to be realistic, the model might be sparse but real greenhouses that do useful work of scrubbing CO2 let alone produce food would be much larger and very heavy.

@Diashi thank you for the work on this, its a really stunning set of parts.

[SpacedInvader]

Are you talking about the CELSS greenhouse? Because that greenhouse and most others are derided for being way to Small to be realistic, the model might be sparse but real greenhouses that do useful work of scrubbing CO2 let alone produce food would be much larger and very heavy.

@Diashi thank you for the work on this, its a really stunning set of parts.

This is indeed the one I'm referring to. I feel like it's not really designed as if it were something intended to operate in space. For example, there are plants only on one side, where in a zero G environment you'd use every available inch, probably fitting stacked rings of nutrient tubes which would allow the crops to grow in all directions equally. While we're at it, you'd probably not want to have a huge exposed area like that, as solar radiation is quite a bit more intense without the atmosphere to filter it, meaning at most you'd probably want a few small windows and if you were going to use proper sunlight you'd be much more likely to pipe it throughout the unit with fiber optic cables than you would to just throw open the shutters. In this way you could filter out harmful cosmic radiation while also ensuring even light distribution. Anyway, I know there was a lot of love poured into this model, I just think it could be done with a little more thought to the way a greenhouse would really be implemented in space.

Here are a couple of examples of layouts which would greatly improve use of space, even if they were applied to the current model:

The idea is that since gravity isn't required for proper plant growth, you should lay things out so you have the maximum number of plants with the maximum amount of space in which to grow. A central pillar with planters which is also surrounded by walls of planters would do just that. Such a greenhouse could also be fairly easily converted for surface use, especially if the planters are toroidal, as nutrient baths could still be administered while under the effects of gravity.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

If such a thing has dual support for ECLSS, I'd be happy. Right now, I prefer that mod for its simplicity in life support (O2 and CO2), but it has a slow-loss Oxygen regeneration cycle and I don't want to set up a high orbit mission control junction in Remote Tech 2 until I have a solution for absolute unlimited regen. Mainly because I've stated elsewhere, I'm a set-it-and-forget-it kind of guy. I don't want to be running maintenance courier missions beyond the first few setup runs. That would be like playing X3 Reunion and having to manually fly all your trading ships for your growing empire.

*Shudder*... Two hundred ships.