[24.2] Asteroid Recycling Technologies [0.4.2 - 2014.08.24]

[RoverDude]

Yep known issue

[RoverDude]

Poll is up Help us pick a final name for the mod!

[Neowulf]

I like asteroidal, seems more kerbal-ish.

But Asteroid Recycling Technologies and Asteroid Harvesting Tools abberviate better for the forums. Art and aht (which I choose to read as art with a new yorker's accent).

[RoverDude]

I like asteroidal, seems more kerbal-ish.

But Asteroid Recycling Technologies and Asteroid Harvesting Tools abberviate better for the forums. Art and aht (which I choose to read as art with a new yorker's accent).

vote vote vote!

[RoverDude]

0.4.0 is up. THIS IS STILL A PRE-RELEASE, ASSUME IT IS FILLED WITH BEES!!!

This one has some breaking stuff (less that your save will break, and more that your ships with legacy bits on them will act funky).

Some changes:

• Mass drivers in 1.25/2.5 form factors along with a high-thrust RCS version. Yes, you can fly asteroids around. No, they have no more gimbals. Oh.. and the fade of the emmissive is prettier.
  
• The probe now requires direct activation to perform it's analysis. IT also shows analysis results (so does the asteroid).
  
• Turns out asteroids are very fluffy... conversion rates and hollowed out volume adjusted accordingly.
  
• A new part - Intermediary Separation Module - handles the separation of rock into the specialized types. It will attempt to do this when it sees you have a lot of rock. It also handles Rock=>RockDust conversion.
  
• Fixed the whole 'probe zooming in the VAB' thing
  
• Mass should now remain constant (until conversions start expelling waste).
  

I'd say this fellow is about the closest we have to a release candidate, but would like to get some feedback before sticking a fork in it and doing a new video.

[Yargnit]

Ok, checking out 0.4.0.

You said in the Karbonite thread the there'd be a converter for Karbonite In this release, I still see no way to get LF/OX out of Karbonite in this release. Also prior the same converter that made the rockdust for the mass driver also could make Karbonite, Now Karbonite is made from enriched rock? (and at a horrible ratio - hell, almost all the converters make .001 units/second now)

I still see no use Substrate, Ore, enriched rock, common rock, frozen rock, except just as a reason to have 5 parts instead of 1. Either. The Fuel hatch is a single part that can be swapped, why do we have 5 converters as separate parts? Espesially when several of the thing aren't used at all, and others are nothing but a middle state. Going from Rock > enriched rock > karbonite > LF/ox (once i find the converter) seems like way to many steps when enriched rock's only purpose is to be a middle state to require an extra converter. rock > Karbonite > (LF/OX/XE/Mono) (as it was last release if u used the converter from karbonite ) removes a silly step and reduces the number of parts you need floating around.

So I now have 4 mass drivers? A probe size, a 1.25m size (both have the same stats except the probe has gimbal), a 2.5m size, and a RCS size. (which has 1/20th the ISP of the rest???)

All you really need to have the same effect is. Drill, Hatch, converter to make karbonite from the rock, & converter to make lf/ox/xe/mono from karbonite. (hell you could even combine those 2) The mass driver would be farr less cumbersome if it just used rock instead of needed a part tossed on to make it rock dust (shouldn't the driver smash it into dust when driving it?) This would also make it easy for people to remove the mass driver if they wanted to stick to stock engines and just convert the rock to lf/ox for feeding to attached engines.

Different converters make sense if you're gathering the stuff from different places, but since it all comes from the same place, separating the parts as you are just feels like part catalog spam. A less is more approach to mods adding parts is so much neater for the user. (Thats something a LOT of mod makers have trouble with, so that's not aimed directly at you in any way)

BTW I still don't see the crew part showing up.

I hope this didn't come off as harsh sounding, I really am in love with the idea. But you'll remember how a week and a half ago I complemented Karbonite when the entire thing was 3-4 parts. That's the ideal.

[RoverDude]

Ok, checking out 0.4.0.

You said in the Karbonite thread the there'd be a converter for Karbonite In this release, I still see no way to get LF/OX out of Karbonite in this release. Also prior the same converter that made the rockdust for the mass driver also could make Karbonite, Now Karbonite is made from enriched rock? (and at a horrible ratio - hell, almost all the converters make .001 units/second now)

There's a converter right there in Utilities (this is in the Karbonite mod, not this one) - been there for ages. The ratio changes because you have a LOT more rock, and it's a conservation of mass issue. So you will land in the same net place you were before, but if I did not change that you'd have one unit of rock at 0.00025 density making a unit of Karbonite at 0.0125. FYI Karbonite always came from enriched rock, just that it was hidden in the probe, now that function moved to this part.

I still see no use Substrate, Ore, enriched rock, common rock, frozen rock, except just as a reason to have 5 parts instead of 1. Either. The Fuel hatch is a single part that can be swapped, why do we have 5 converters as separate parts? Espesially when several of the thing aren't used at all, and others are nothing but a middle state. Going from Rock > enriched rock > karbonite > LF/ox (once i find the converter) seems like way to many steps when enriched rock's only purpose is to be a middle state to require an extra converter. rock > Karbonite > (LF/OX/XE/Mono) (as it was last release if u used the converter from karbonite ) removes a silly step and reduces the number of parts you need floating around.

First, coding and design reasons. Second, dynamically swapping out converters is kinda a pain and outside of the scope. Always appreciate constructive and polite input, but at the end of the day I have to weigh how much I feel like fighting with KSP.

So I now have 4 mass drivers? A probe size, a 1.25m size (both have the same stats except the probe has gimbal), a 2.5m size, and a RCS size. (which has 1/20th the ISP of the rest???)

Three actually. Sounds like you didn't wipe out your old folder before installing this - you may want to do that (such is the joy of pre-release software). The 1.25 and 2.5 are engines, the 0.625 is tied to the RCS system. You will need this if you want to maneuver asteroids around as their COM will be all ahoo. Side note, the config should be 750 vs 50 for the RCS (and even at that they will drain quickly).

All you really need to have the same effect is. Drill, Hatch, converter to make karbonite from the rock, & converter to make lf/ox/xe/mono from karbonite. (hell you could even combine those 2) The mass driver would be farr less cumbersome if it just used rock instead of needed a part tossed on to make it rock dust (shouldn't the driver smash it into dust when driving it?) This would also make it easy for people to remove the mass driver if they wanted to stick to stock engines and just convert the rock to lf/ox for feeding to attached engines.

Different converters make sense if you're gathering the stuff from different places, but since it all comes from the same place, separating the parts as you are just feels like part catalog spam. A less is more approach to mods adding parts is so much neater for the user. (Thats something a LOT of mod makers have trouble with, so that's not aimed directly at you in any way)

The rub is, those other resources you see are for other mods that are supported (Ore, Substrate, and Water are needed for MKS for example) and the converter set is meant to be an example. Side note - turning rock into Lf/Ox does not make a lot of sense So if you wanted to just mine for Karbonite, you need a handful of parts:

- A probe to determine makeup (all asteroids are different)

- A Jaw to drill stuff out

- A separation module to convert your rock into the aforementioned makeup ratio

- Your actual converter to change your rock into something.

You could drop that to two parts if you modified a config... just have the jaw, and a converter that makes rock become Karbonite. Or fluffy bunnies or whatever. The extra bits are in there for randomness of asteroid quality and to support other resources. The mass drivers are gravy.

At the end of the day, the bits you see, and the conversions that take place, are all in there for very specific game mechanic reasons (whether it is to prevent/discourage exploitation, deal with KSP limitations, or to handle some of the things we're doing in the mod). That being said, all of this stuff is CC so feel free to fork and have at it (and I mean that in a positive way - I make this stuff CC so that if someone wants to change something and do their own version they can do so).

BTW I still don't see the crew part showing up.

I hope this didn't come off as harsh sounding, I really am in love with the idea. But you'll remember how a week and a half ago I complemented Karbonite when the entire thing was 3-4 parts. That's the ideal.

You won't see the crew hatch for a while because Squad broke stuff. And I have to figure out a mechanic to unbreak stuff (see notes on having to do things to wrestle with KSP above). Part wise, you could shave this to that level if you only want to do one thing - but this does do a lot of different stuff. Storage, mining, etc. so this will lead to more parts. Overall I think we'll land at around a dozen or so for launch, but three of those are engines, and four are converters (which may have differing levels of applicability to folks - they are includes as examples).

You've probably figured out that I tend to put out larger mods with deeper gameplay - I think the airbags and my escape pod are probably the only ones that fit in that 3-4 part rule

- - - Updated - - -

Flying asteroids...

[Yargnit]

I was referring to this quote on the coverter:

FYI there's an asteroid update coming out, which includes the Karbonite converters and such

I just hate mucking up my part folder to where it's adding extra pages. Being able to eliminate all but 1 of the converters if you're not using those other mods would be a huge boon. You could always have DL links for 2 version, 1 for just straight Asteroid Resources/Karbonite support, and another that ads all those resources for MKS. (Side note, I thought the MKS base stuff looked awesome, then I downloaded it and saw two pages of base parts and got sad, a function toggle so you could have just a few models that u can swap function on with a button press (that eats a ton of electricity to transform maybe) would be a HUGE boon to that mod as well.

On that note, keeping a gimbal (though 10 degrees is a but much) on the mass driver in exchange for not having to have mass driver RCS parts seems like a easy cutting on a part also. Especially since we have Vernor's if we want once a Karbonite converter comes with this. The 2.5m version also is a bit of a wasted extra part since it's less than 3x as strong as the 1.25m version, and u could throw 4 of those on a quad adapter, if you're going to have a 2.5m version, it needs to be slightly more than 4x as strong as the 1.25m (Mainsail is like 7x as strong as an lv-t30 remember) Maybe 175 thrust on the 2.5m version? 5x that of the 1.25, and keeping within the normal ratio of 1.25 > 2.5m part strength Or ditch the 3.5m and go just with the 1.25m

I guess I thought I'd read farther yp the page that you'd said the crew capsule was back in, but that doesn't matter to me, was just pointing it out.

[RoverDude]

I was referring to this quote on the coverter:

I just hate mucking up my part folder to where it's adding extra pages. Being able to eliminate all but 1 of the converters if you're not using those other mods would be a huge boon. You could always have DL links for 2 version, 1 for just straight Asteroid Resources/Karbonite support, and another that ads all those resources for MKS. (Side note, I thought the MKS base stuff looked awesome, then I downloaded it and saw two pages of base parts and got sad, a function toggle so you could have just a few models that u can swap function on with a button press (that eats a ton of electricity to transform maybe) would be a HUGE boon to that mod as well.

On that note, keeping a gimbal (though 10 degrees is a but much) on the mass driver in exchange for not having to have mass driver RCS parts seems like a easy cutting on a part also. Especially since we have Vernor's if we want once a Karbonite converter comes with this. The 2.5m version also is a bit of a wasted extra part since it's less than 3x as strong as the 1.25m version, and u could throw 4 of those on a quad adapter, if you're going to have a 2.5m version, it needs to be slightly more than 4x as strong as the 1.25m (Mainsail is like 7x as strong as an lv-t30 remember) Maybe 175 thrust on the 2.5m version? 5x that of the 1.25, and keeping within the normal ratio of 1.25 > 2.5m part strength Or ditch the 3.5m and go just with the 1.25m

I guess I thought I'd read farther yp the page that you'd said the crew capsule was back in, but that doesn't matter to me, was just pointing it out.

Oh - that refers to conversion of asteroid resources to Karbonite, not Karbonite to anything else. And sure, feel free to remove any you are not using. The reason I am not going to do two versions is twofold. First, because there's a huge venn diagram overlap. Second, it's two parts - only one if you are also a TAC-LS user (or one of several mods) wanting water. And folks will mess that up. Sorry you're not a fan of packs with large sets of parts, but that's kinda how these roll. One thing I do make sure of is the names are prefixed so they all stick together.

The gimbal will not help with RCS... these things are absolutely a stupid pain to move and rotate, hence the RCS and being tied to the RCS system.

I totally get your deal with part count - really I do. Understand that from an opposite angle, some of the bits we include are designed to reduce ship part count, not catalog part count. We do this when possible (like the fuel hatches that use FireSpitter, or TweakScale for some of the MKS modules). But in other cases, this isn't practicle. In those cases, we reuse textures where possible and keep the bits together. But I think if you're looking at small part count mods, these aren't going to be those mods (at least not if you're looking for stuff that has 3-4 parts tops).

[pellinor]

Please bring back the gimbal! It is the most natural solution to apply thrust to an asymmetrical craft. Asteroids are the hardest 'craft' to balance, so this is the one engine in the game that benefits most of a good gimbal range. I don't see as much of a problem in turning between burns, so far I am fine using reaction wheels and patience(provided by mechjeb). It may take a couple of minutes to turn around a class E Asteroid, but in space there's usually no need for hurry.

I'm also not quite happy with the rock dust tank. 300kg of tank seems quite heavy for 88kg of dirt. It surely is one way to forbid ultralight SSTO lifters with mass drivers, however I'd prefer to balance this via engine efficiency. 'dirt' probably should be easy to store (think of an inflatable trash bag for example) and available everywhere. On the other hand, engines running on dirt schould be less efficient than those running on rocket fuel.

Edit: I overlooked that the electric requirements of the engines were raised considerably, that's probably enough to give liquid fuel engines some use again.

Edited August 11, 2014 by pellinor0

[RoverDude]

Please bring back the gimbal! It is the most natural solution to apply thrust to an asymmetrical craft. Asteroids are the hardest 'craft' to balance, so this is the one engine in the game that benefits most of a good gimbal range. I don't see as much of a problem in turning between burns, so far I am fine using reaction wheels and patience(provided by mechjeb). It may take a couple of minutes to turn around a class E Asteroid, but in space there's usually no need for hurry.

I'm also not quite happy with the rock dust tank. 300kg of tank seems quite heavy for 88kg of dirt. It surely is one way to forbid ultralight SSTO lifters with mass drivers, however I'd prefer to balance this via engine efficiency. 'dirt' probably should be easy to store (think of an inflatable trash bag for example) and available everywhere. On the other hand, engines running on dirt schould be less efficient than those running on rocket fuel.

Edit: I overlooked that the electric requirements of the engines were raised considerably, that's probably enough to give liquid fuel engines some use again.

I'll check the tank weight - bear in mind most of this has not gone through a balance pass Also figure the weight of that tank includes delivery mechanism, etc.

RE gimbals - I'll need to do some experiments and see what makes sense visually, etc. - although so far I've found having little thrusters tied to the RCS system to be incredibly effective at keeping large asteroids on track

[PDelta41]

Looks neat so far! I'm guessing from the description of the crew issues that they're not just "living" in the hatch itself? Would it require CLS to have them live inside the asteroid itself? Let me see if I can't attach some of this stuff to the asteroid I just caught, and I'll generate some feedback!

[RoverDude]

Looks neat so far! I'm guessing from the description of the crew issues that they're not just "living" in the hatch itself? Would it require CLS to have them live inside the asteroid itself? Let me see if I can't attach some of this stuff to the asteroid I just caught, and I'll generate some feedback!

CLS not required, but code changes are because Squad broke stuff.

[Donziboy2]

0.4.0 is up. THIS IS STILL A PRE-RELEASE, ASSUME IT IS FILLED WITH BEES!!!

This one has some breaking stuff (less that your save will break, and more that your ships with legacy bits on them will act funky).

Some changes:

• Mass drivers in 1.25/2.5 form factors along with a high-thrust RCS version. Yes, you can fly asteroids around. No, they have no more gimbals. Oh.. and the fade of the emmissive is prettier.
  
• The probe now requires direct activation to perform it's analysis. IT also shows analysis results (so does the asteroid).
  
• Turns out asteroids are very fluffy... conversion rates and hollowed out volume adjusted accordingly.
  
• A new part - Intermediary Separation Module - handles the separation of rock into the specialized types. It will attempt to do this when it sees you have a lot of rock. It also handles Rock=>RockDust conversion.
  
• Fixed the whole 'probe zooming in the VAB' thing
  
• Mass should now remain constant (until conversions start expelling waste).
  

I'd say this fellow is about the closest we have to a release candidate, but would like to get some feedback before sticking a fork in it and doing a new video.

Hmm I will break test this out when i get home

[RoverDude]

Hmm I will break test this out when i get home

Excellent - just bear in mind the RCS thrust is off right now - should be 750 v 50

[Donziboy2]

Looks like fun, definitely needs more documentation. Like how to get the resources needed to make Karbonite/water/mono etc...

Edit... Noticed a small increase in mass over time as I was converting rock over to dust, may just be rounding.

I dont think the rock trail is supposed to be in the bottom right corner?

Edited August 11, 2014 by Donziboy2

[RoverDude]

Did you see the video? It's pretty close

[Donziboy2]

Did you see the video? It's pretty close

Not sure what you mean.

After getting the asteroid into orbit the particle effect changes and it looks like your video, so for some reason if your not in orbit you get a funny particle trail.

I also ran into a fuel issue while trying to stop the rock from leaving the system, it was a 950T class E and I had 20 hours to periapsis, I managed to mine about 80ms of DV in that 20 hours. Which was way short I ended up having to ALT+F12 and turn on infinifuel.

[RoverDude]

Not sure what you mean.

After getting the asteroid into orbit the particle effect changes and it looks like your video, so for some reason if your not in orbit you get a funny particle trail.

I also ran into a fuel issue while trying to stop the rock from leaving the system, it was a 950T class E and I had 20 hours to periapsis, I managed to mine about 80ms of DV in that 20 hours. Which was way short I ended up having to ALT+F12 and turn on infinifuel.

Oh... I made a whole video on how to use the mod It's earlier up in the thread, ping me if you can't find it

hrm... I'll have to play with captures and such and see about balancing and all that jazz.

[Donziboy2]

Oh... I made a whole video on how to use the mod It's earlier up in the thread, ping me if you can't find it

hrm... I'll have to play with captures and such and see about balancing and all that jazz.

Ill take a look.

Would a 2.5m jaw work? Use small one's for little roids and big one for big roids.

[RoverDude]

Ill take a look.

Would a 2.5m jaw work? Use small one's for little roids and big one for big roids.

You can actually attach multiple jaws simultaneously.

[Donziboy2]

Played a little more with the roid mining. It defiantly has a niche for some fun and interesting things.

The mining atm is a chore....

With 1 karbonite extractor running I was getting 0.01 units per 10 seconds. So its definitely not my first choice for fuel mining. Some more storage options for dust would be awesome;)

[RoverDude]

Thanks!

Talking to WaRi about splitting this into a couple of pieces, details coming soon, but it will give us some options for filling out some of the pieces.

Feedback on gameplay, etc. is always helpful (gotcha on the conversion rates).

[PDelta41]

Is there any way to tell which asteroids have been spawned since I installed the mod? The one I managed to capture shows 0 rock. Alternately, would deleting asteroids in the save game force new ones to spawn? Or perhaps there's a way to retroactively add resources to them?

[Arron Rift]

First off, AWESOME MOD! I've never caught an asteroid cause I never saw much point, but this may well make me get around to it!

But how much of the stuff in the concept art is currently working at the moment? Can I at least store fuel yet? What all can I currently do?