[dead] CELSS Greenhouse (TAC Life Support Add-On, Version 0.1, beta)

[Hotblack Desiato]

okay, that explains a lot.

so I'll convert it to the other unit-system, but I keep in mind that they are switching. because the idea behind it is good, it would just damage my spacestation, if I switch the units in my running game.

[DeepOdyssey]

When vessel is unactive, the greenhouse is not producing supplies. I thought you fixed that?

[Boomerang]

Right, so, I briefly added this to my save. Witnessed one of the strangest bugs I've ever seen. Upon moving my cursor over the green house parts icons in the VAB parts menu, the icons each started growing and expanding outward as if flying towards me, then disappearing, so that in the parts menu, there was just a grey square where the part had been.

When hovering over said empty square, the part info flickered too quickly for me to read any of it.

And honestly, I'm rather uneasy with the whole unit converting for TAC-LS. I'm aware of the balancing issues that stem from the original set up, but until someone comes up with a more realistic system that's also ergonomic for planning purposes, I'd rather stick with the 1-unit-a-day system.

So while I love the idea of this mod and I really want near-closed-loop functionality, I guess this is still a bit rough around the edges?

P.S. A clear, idiot's guide-esque instillation instruction list would be nice when you're talking about needing a mod for unit conversion and there are seemingly important files left outside of the 'Gamedata' folder in the download.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Boomerang

[Cerebrate]

When vessel is unactive, the greenhouse is not producing supplies. I thought you fixed that?

I did. Which is unfortunately to say that I can't reproduce the problem here, and my test greenhouse definitely does produce an immediate jump upward in O2 and downward in CO2, et. al., on going back to it after a chunk of elapsed time, whether spent at the space center or with another vessel beyond the 2.3 km mark. So I'm not sure what's going on with your setup if it isn't.

You're running 0.4, right? Deleted the previous version completely? Anything showing up in the log immediately after switching to the new craft?

-c

[Cerebrate]

Right, so, I briefly added this to my save. Witnessed one of the strangest bugs I've ever seen. Upon moving my cursor over the green house parts icons in the VAB parts menu, the icons each started growing and expanding outward as if flying towards me, then disappearing, so that in the parts menu, there was just a grey square where the part had been.

When hovering over said empty square, the part info flickered too quickly for me to read any of it.

Looks like it's my day for annoying no-reproduce bugs, 'cause I can't get that one to happen here, either. I don't suppose you're running any mods that alter the VAB in any way, are you?

And honestly, I'm rather uneasy with the whole unit converting for TAC-LS. I'm aware of the balancing issues that stem from the original set up, but until someone comes up with a more realistic system that's also ergonomic for planning purposes, I'd rather stick with the 1-unit-a-day system.

Well, it's my understanding that the TAC-LS author plans to recalibrate that mod in liters in upcoming versions anyway, so there didn't seem to me to be much point in going with what would already be a legacy setup, especially given that I'm also doing KSPI cross-compatibility, which has water troubles otherwise. (It's needed for ISRU mode to give you the ammonia.)

And also, it's much easier to hack the .cfg from liters to kerbal-days than vice versa. The numbers are much, much simpler.

So while I love the idea of this mod and I really want near-closed-loop functionality, I guess this is still a bit rough around the edges?

Hey, I said "beta" right there in the title, yeah?

P.S. A clear, idiot's guide-esque instillation instruction list would be nice when you're talking about needing a mod for unit conversion and there are seemingly important files left outside of the 'Gamedata' folder in the download.

Again, "beta". Which I certainly intended to be taken as "work in progress, documentation fuzzy, don't get it unless you're comfortable mucking about in the guts", etc. Proper documentation will follow just as soon as we hit 1.0 and I know what exactly it is that I'm documenting anyway.

Also - which files? If you mean the patch that I stuck in the gist, it's not included because it's not my patch (I was actually expecting people would get it from the TAC-LS thread, except I can't seem to find it there again) and depending on the speed of TAC-LS updates, may not even be needed by the time this ships non-beta anyway. (And also might break things if TAC-LS changes, so I'd like to play what's strictly included cautiously for now.) If it's anything else, I'd like to know 'cause there aren't supposed to be any.

-c

[smart013]

Again someone made the same error and used the wrong install zip. Check this out:

Hey, speedyb, check this out

Hey, bojangles. Had the same problem; you need to install from this file

https://github.com/cerebrate/celss-greenhouse/releases

not from the one you can "download as zip" from this page

https://github.com/cerebrate/celss-greenhouse

its a bit confusing for non-coders like me that like to get idiotproof downloadlinks :-)

Right, so, I briefly added this to my save. Witnessed one of the strangest bugs I've ever seen. Upon moving my cursor over the green house parts icons in the VAB parts menu, the icons each started growing and expanding outward as if flying towards me, then disappearing, so that in the parts menu, there was just a grey square where the part had been.

When hovering over said empty square, the part info flickered too quickly for me to read any of it.

And honestly, I'm rather uneasy with the whole unit converting for TAC-LS. I'm aware of the balancing issues that stem from the original set up, but until someone comes up with a more realistic system that's also ergonomic for planning purposes, I'd rather stick with the 1-unit-a-day system.

So while I love the idea of this mod and I really want near-closed-loop functionality, I guess this is still a bit rough around the edges?

P.S. A clear, idiot's guide-esque instillation instruction list would be nice when you're talking about needing a mod for unit conversion and there are seemingly important files left outside of the 'Gamedata' folder in the download.

[DeepOdyssey]

Cerebrate, my apologies. I made a quick test, and time warped 200 days with 3 days worth of life support with celss greenhouse and two kerbals. The TAC LS gui showed that the food, water and oxygen depleted longtime ago, but when i switched back to the ship, kerbals were alive, and food, water and oxygen was at the same levels. So it's working as intended, but is there any way to stop TAC LS from making warning about low supply levels, that stop the game from time warping? If you could fix that, that would be so great.

[Cerebrate]

Again someone made the same error and used the wrong install zip.

I just added a note to this effect to the first post; I guess GitHub's way of doing things isn't nearly as obvious to everyone as I thought it was. Sorry, y'all.

-c

[Cerebrate]

Cerebrate, my apologies. I made a quick test, and time warped 200 days with 3 days worth of life support with celss greenhouse and two kerbals. The TAC LS gui showed that the food, water and oxygen depleted longtime ago, but when i switched back to the ship, kerbals were alive, and food, water and oxygen was at the same levels. So it's working as intended, but is there any way to stop TAC LS from making warning about low supply levels, that stop the game from time warping? If you could fix that, that would be so great.

Unfortunately, so far as I know, there's not any way - or at least any easy way - to do this. (I presume so especially because TAC-LS's own recyclers, which I based my code on, don't do this either.) Here's the thing:

Being parts, the greenhouses (and the recyclers) are only executed when the ship they're attached to is unpacked and doing physics (which is to say, being flown or within 2.3 km of the ship that is being flown); that's the only time their code gets to run. They simulate running continuously by a catch-up mechanism: every time they run, the compute how much time it's been since they last ran, and do that much LS work, so the first tick after they load, they're basically catching up on all the work they couldn't do while the ship was unloaded.

The TAC-LS monitoring window, on the other hand, runs all the time, but it doesn't have access to any of the detailed vessel info since they're (mostly) not loaded. What TAC-LS does is save notes on how much electricity/oxygen/water/food and how many crew members non-unpacked ships have, and do estimated depletion calculations based on those notes to give you the numbers you see. But it doesn't know anything about how parts might be affecting any of that (whether they are things like greenhouses/recyclers making depletion slower, or things like fuel cells using up oxygen and making it happen faster), so...

All of which is to say: fixing this probably requires a deep rewrite of the internals of TAC-LS to let it figure out (or be told, which would also require all the parts touching LS resources to be edited) how the current ship's parts are affecting the depletion rate, so it can save that in its notes and work that into its estimates. I... well, for the moment, at least, working up a patch to do that is well above my pay grade in complexity terms. I don't know the guts of the thing well enough.

[NOTE: All of this is based on my interpretation of the TAC-LS source. Which is to say, if TaranisElsu turns up in this thread and tells you I'm wrong, believe him.]

You might - I emphasize might, since I haven't tried it and I suspect it'll kill my processor when I do - be able to work around this using this mod:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48720-TT-NeverUnload-Vessel-Unloading-Preventer

That prevents ships from unloading. Being a relatively new modder, I don't know offhand how this will interact with the way that TAC-LS does its calculations, but it might be worth a try.

Anyway, if I get any ideas or sudden insights on how to make this work, I'll certainly get right on 'em, because it is an irritating problem especially once you have a bunch of long-term stations up there, but for now, that's pretty much the status quo.

-c

[SpeedyB]

I've got the greenhouse finished. Unfortunately my internet is down till Monday (currently using my phone).

Do you have a preferred shape for the next one?

[Cerebrate]

Like I said upthread a bit, I'd love a stack-mount greenhouse torus, or a dome

-c

.

[Donziboy2]

Cerebrate, my apologies. I made a quick test, and time warped 200 days with 3 days worth of life support with celss greenhouse and two kerbals. The TAC LS gui showed that the food, water and oxygen depleted longtime ago, but when i switched back to the ship, kerbals were alive, and food, water and oxygen was at the same levels. So it's working as intended, but is there any way to stop TAC LS from making warning about low supply levels, that stop the game from time warping? If you could fix that, that would be so great.

That kind of kills immersion in that you only had 3 days worth of supply's on a ship to begin with... If it was a long voyage it would end pretty quickly if something broke down... Spare parts, secondary systems and emergency supplies should be part of any space exploration plans. Its the whole point of adding TACLS to begin with.

[DeepOdyssey]

Thank you for your deep explanation, so it's TAC LS problem. I hope they will somehow overcome this, and adapt their code for such things as greenhouses or recyclers.

Donziboy, that was just a test vessel. In my Jool interplanetary ship i have 1 years worth of supplies, and a greenhouse to keep them fed and dandy for the next 10+ years, it's a science vessel with interstellar station there, that will be there for collecting antimatter. Because i didn't want to resupply them,[travel to jool is such a long process] i searched for a fully closed life cycle parts, such as greenhouses, or hydroponic farm.

Edited June 28, 2014 by DeepOdyssey

[RoverDude]

Thank you for your deep explanation, so it's TAC LS problem. I hope they will somehow overcome this, and adapt their code for such things as greenhouses or recyclers.

They already have support for these things (I make extensive use of them in my mod, and subclass them). I'd hardly see it as a problem, more a design choice to keep us all from lagging to death. It's something you get used to with TAC, but also why their generators are rock solid, even with multiple steps in a generator chain.

[Hotblack Desiato]

apparently, the greenhouse doesn't work on the surface of kerbin

in TAC-LS, kerbals don't require oxygen when on kerbin (and maybe on laythe too). that also means, they don't produce carbon dioxide.

and since the greenhouses require carbon dioxide to work, the kerbals happily starve on kerbin.

is there a way to prevent that situation? (I know, they are supposed to be somewhere deep in space, not at home on kerbin).

[SpeedyB]

Internet is fixed. Here are the pictures of the finished greenhouse.

I'll Message you the download.

[Sigma88]

I was messing around with this mod the other day and I thought the different greenhouses could use a touch of color.

So I came up with this:

(click for bigger pic)

[Donziboy2]

Any plans for making them surface attachable? And being able to surface attach stuff to them?

[trash0551]

Hey guys!

My greenhouses cant make food.... They make only oxygen. I try switch ISRU\CELLS mode... but greenhouse make only oxygen. How I can make food?

P.S.

Sorry for my bad english =)

[Sigma88]

Hey guys!

My greenhouses cant make food.... They make only oxygen. I try switch ISRU\CELLS mode... but greenhouse make only oxygen. How I can make food?

P.S.

Sorry for my bad english =)

I had problems with the tacLS-KSPI plugin that switch resources to liters and stuff... I had to go back to 0.9s and 1s

you should give that a try

[legolegs]

For those who likes old TAC Life Support "Kerbal Daily Meal" measurements (as opposite for "liters") and does not uses interstellar or other liters-based mod I performed easy but tedious operation of converting CELSS Greenhouses from liters to Kerbal Daily Meals.

LacunaGreenhouse-0.4-TACLS-not-liters.zip

I appreciate modders efforts to provide me better game experience and do understand reasons of inventing "liters" but for now Kerbal days work fine for me.

[Cerebrate]

For those who likes old TAC Life Support "Kerbal Daily Meal" measurements (as opposite for "liters") and does not uses interstellar or other liters-based mod I performed easy but tedious operation of converting CELSS Greenhouses from liters to Kerbal Daily Meals.

LacunaGreenhouse-0.4-TACLS-not-liters.zip

I appreciate modders efforts to provide me better game experience and do understand reasons of inventing "liters" but for now Kerbal days work fine for me.

I haven't got time to look at this myself any time soon, but if you (or anyone) want to express that back-conversion in the form of a ModuleManager .cfg, I'll include it with the download.

-c

[Cerebrate]

Huh. Yeah, I've got to confess, I hadn't thought of that issue. Although, as I read the code, it should be at least only be a problem on Kerbin, not Laythe.

Hm.

I don't know of any way to work around it offhand with just stock+TAC-LS+this mod, unfortunately. If you're also running Interstellar, you could stick an atmospheric scoop on the outside to gather CO2 from the atmosphere, but apart from that, nothing occurs.

I'll add a fix for it in the next release.

-c

[Cerebrate]

Any plans for making them surface attachable? And being able to surface attach stuff to them?

In the longer run, yes; in the shorter run, well, I'm a code monkey and this probably requires learning more stuff on the modeling side than I expect to have time to do any time soon, at least if I want to avoid the silly case of letting them be side-attached by or to their doors. So, yes, but not very soon, in short.

Of course, I'll gladly take a patch from someone who already knows how to make this work.

-c

[RoverDude]

In the longer run, yes; in the shorter run, well, I'm a code monkey and this probably requires learning more stuff on the modeling side than I expect to have time to do any time soon, at least if I want to avoid the silly case of letting them be side-attached by or to their doors. So, yes, but not very soon, in short.

Of course, I'll gladly take a patch from someone who already knows how to make this work.

-c

FYI don't need modeling for this, it can be handled purely in the config file.