[1.1.3] Surface Experiment Pack - EVA science for KIS/KAS (v1.4.2 6/30/2016) *Now with less explosions*

[VaPaL]

@Apollo13 Are you still having problems with explosions? I made a trip to Mun and set up the same experiments @Kadrush (I think, don't remenber now, will post a picture when I get home from work) and none of them exploded. I only have problems with explosions once, near the runway.

I'm having an issue with the "battery" (forget the name of the part, sorry), when I link something to it, it kind of floats but sets later.

Nevertheless awesome mod, love playing with it, added more joy to EVAs.

 

EDIT: 

Edited May 10, 2016 by VaPaL

[Apollo13]

Yes, I still have explosions on Mun and Minmus.  Using the Concrete Bases resolves the issue.

[VaPaL]

44 minutes ago, Apollo13 said:

Yes, I still have explosions on Mun and Minmus.

Well, I'll start packing some concrete bases as well, just in case. It may have been lucky.

[C.A.Sizemore]

On 5/9/2016 at 8:21 AM, Apollo13 said:

Yes, I still have explosions on Mun and Minmus.  Using the Concrete Bases resolves the issue.

Darn, well I will need to add to my supplies list. I just landed the boys on Mun and started placing experiments. Half of the ones I just set down exploded, then the Battery started dancing and the SEP ot flung sub-suborbital. I am so glad I quick save after every landing, wish I had a video of that.

[CobaltWolf]

5 hours ago, C.A.Sizemore said:

Darn, well I will need to add to my supplies list. I just landed the boys on Mun and started placing experiments. Half of the ones I just set down exploded, then the Battery started dancing and the SEP ot flung sub-suborbital. I am so glad I quick save after every landing, wish I had a video of that.

I just looked, there is some strangeness in the Power Station attachment rules. Like... there's more of them than there's supposed to be. That is likely the cause of at least part of your issue.

[blu3wolf]

When this is next updated, will it be compatible with Sounding Rockets?

[CobaltWolf]

10 minutes ago, blu3wolf said:

When this is next updated, will it be compatible with Sounding Rockets?

It's been compatible with Sounding Rockets for at least a week. It was a typo that was breaking our ScienceDefs which broke any that loaded afterwards. v1.4.1 fixed it.

[autumnalequinox]

I'm so glad I found this mod.  It really adds something to do in my long careers between the first landings and full on colonization.  I used to just build little science stations for no reason besides realism/RP and it's awesome to actually have some cool hardware to deploy.  Thanks for this!!

[Chippy the Space Dog]

 

Hi there SEP folks

For infos I have a clash when using this mod in conjunction with Tarsier Space Technology. The space telescope won't pick up science when this mod is installed.

With both mods present, I also get a constantly spamming error in my game log:  100's of instances of:-

(Filename:  Line: -1) TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'GeneratorResource'.

The error goes away and Tarsier works again when SEP is uninstalled.

[Sphinx2k]

Hi like what this mod does. It gets a little bit annoying to install everything run experiments and pick everything back up, in each biome i visit, but i want the science
Btw. is it possible to install the experiments on a rover? So i could drive the experiments around without disassembling and assembling every time?

I had some bugs i don't know if is because of mod interaction or something else. Sometimes experiments exploded when put down (Radio, Golf Club explode every time). Sometimes timewarp destroys some of the experiments. And the last one i found was after loading a quicksave some experiments felt through the ground and disappeared. All this happened on the Mun. It could just be the base game, i also got a rare case where a flag exploded.
I now do a lot of quicksaves when doing experiments to work around this.

 

[Chippy the Space Dog]

36 minutes ago, Sphinx2k said:

I had some bugs i don't know if is because of mod interaction or something else. Sometimes experiments exploded when put down (Radio, Golf Club explode every time). Sometimes timewarp destroys some of the experiments. And the last one i found was after loading a quicksave some experiments felt through the ground and disappeared. All this happened on the Mun. It could just be the base game, i also got a rare case where a flag exploded.
I now do a lot of quicksaves when doing experiments to work around this.

 

Hi Sphinx, while the SEP guys are sleeping I'll just chime because of the golf club comment to make sure you're 'attaching' things to the ground and not just placing them down. I often find things placed on the ground explode, or sink through. For the experiments they need to be attached (default 'H' key) to the ground, the same way as you'd attached things to a vehicle. Apologies if I'm stating the obvious and this is what you've been doing..

 I just equip the golf club and click it in my kerbals hand to run the experiment.  Though I admit I cant remove the data from it this way, but the experiment gets credited when returned.

 

[Chippy the Space Dog]

8 hours ago, Chippy the Space Dog said:

 

Hi there SEP folks

For infos I have a clash when using this mod in conjunction with Tarsier Space Technology. The space telescope won't pick up science when this mod is installed.

With both mods present, I also get a constantly spamming error in my game log:  100's of instances of:-

(Filename:  Line: -1) TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'GeneratorResource'.

The error goes away and Tarsier works again when SEP is uninstalled.

Ok, it looks like I downloaded SEP the day before a fix update. Downloaded the new version and I think it's okay now. So ignore this.  Though it might be cool if you put this Ckan or made it AVC friendly so folks know when a new version's out.

 

Keep up the fabby science stuff!

[p1t1o]

Is this going to do anything if used on an unsupported planet pack? (ie: Extrasolar: Planets beyond Kerbol)

Thanks!

PS: Also, GREAT mod, should be stock (along w/KISKAS obvs)

[CobaltWolf]

On 5/15/2016 at 4:57 AM, Sphinx2k said:

Hi like what this mod does. It gets a little bit annoying to install everything run experiments and pick everything back up, in each biome i visit, but i want the science
Btw. is it possible to install the experiments on a rover? So i could drive the experiments around without disassembling and assembling every time?

To be fair, I don't think we really intended for the experiments to be used that way haha. Not that you can't, but I believe we had sort of assumed that an experiment site would be built and left there, like the real one. 

I have no idea if you could install them on a rover. You'd need the Central Station to be attached - they won't run without it. Otherwise IDK. I'll just say that neither of these questions are 'endorsed' behavior and leave it at that.  

On 5/15/2016 at 4:57 AM, Sphinx2k said:

I had some bugs i don't know if is because of mod interaction or something else. Sometimes experiments exploded when put down (Radio, Golf Club explode every time). Sometimes timewarp destroys some of the experiments. And the last one i found was after loading a quicksave some experiments felt through the ground and disappeared. All this happened on the Mun. It could just be the base game, i also got a rare case where a flag exploded.
I now do a lot of quicksaves when doing experiments to work around this.

As far as I can tell, SEP is built on top of several layers of KSP-jankiness, so sometimes I'm amazed how much it actually works. Right now I have a lot of trouble with the KSP 1.1.2 instability, so I've been waiting before I try and make improvements in that area.

On 5/15/2016 at 5:42 AM, Chippy the Space Dog said:

Hi Sphinx, while the SEP guys are sleeping I'll just chime because of the golf club comment to make sure you're 'attaching' things to the ground and not just placing them down. I often find things placed on the ground explode, or sink through. For the experiments they need to be attached (default 'H' key) to the ground, the same way as you'd attached things to a vehicle. Apologies if I'm stating the obvious and this is what you've been doing..

 I just equip the golf club and click it in my kerbals hand to run the experiment.  Though I admit I cant remove the data from it this way, but the experiment gets credited when returned.

I actually had no idea the Golf Club still did anything - I always forget to test the damn thing. 

On 5/16/2016 at 6:23 AM, p1t1o said:

Is this going to do anything if used on an unsupported planet pack? (ie: Extrasolar: Planets beyond Kerbol)

Not sure, I actually don't know off the top of my head what we'd have to do to make sure that works. I think all the experiments have a flavortext for 'default', ie, any situation where there isn't a specific flavortext provided. Let us know I guess?

I had some ideas for new equipment. At the museum I'm interning at, we have several tools from real space missions in our collection.

I'd love to add the shovel (left) and rock hammer (top right) as equipable experiments similar to the Golf Club. They'd be like 'Enhanced Soil Sample' and 'Enhanced Geological Sample', respectively. Moreover, I'd hope they'd make good screenshot bait.  

[p1t1o]

20 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Not sure, I actually don't know off the top of my head what we'd have to do to make sure that works. I think all the experiments have a flavortext for 'default', ie, any situation where there isn't a specific flavortext provided. Let us know I guess?

Will do, fyi Valentine is over a trillion kilometres away so it may be sooooome time!

Cheers

[VaPaL]

39 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I actually had no idea the Golf Club still did anything - I always forget to test the damn thing.

Just dicovered that it's an experiment, thought it was just for the funs and the lols (like the KIS taco, guitar, etc) 

[blu3wolf]

Just hauled my first SEP assemblage out to the Mun... only to discover that Val cannot equip the tools necessary for assembly! Curses!

Guess Im just gonna be leaving the stuff strewn across the munar landscape... cant bring it back home, the ascent vehicle wasnt designed with that in mind!

[VaPaL]

@blu3wolf You probably know this by now, but you not only need an engineer to assemble the parts, but you also need a scientist to run them.

[blu3wolf]

Val feels so useful right now haha! Presently on the way back from the Mun... used every last bit of propellant on board to get a periapsis in atmosphere, too. Plenty of science gear already there for the next mission, saving mass! Of course that only works if I go back to the same spot, which would preclude getting science from other biomes. Guess that was just a waste of funds At least we got plenty of non SEP science on the mission!

[p1t1o]

@AlbertKermin I'm having trouble running the science experiments, the right click menu on each experiment has no entry for running anything, no buttons at all. This is with a scientist active. I was once able to run an experiment from the SEP central module, but nothing from the others. All fully plugged up, solar panel attached to the SEP and everything. Im able to deploy ("force open") the antenna. I can place all the equipment with an engineer and the special tool (not too many explosions). I checked and the DMagic module is present where it should be. I've tried on Mun and on Minmus but no joy

Are there any common errors people tend to make? Is there a minimum power requirement? Do I need a scientist of a certain level (think I only had a level 1)?

Thanks!

Pete

Edited May 25, 2016 by p1t1o

[CobaltWolf]

@p1t1o to be clear you have DMagic Science Animate, as included in the mod?

Are you running Remotetech? We've had that issue before, I'm not 100% clear if this is the fix but it apparently has worked in the past.

 

[p1t1o]

@CobaltWolf

Yup, "DMModuleScienceAnimateGeneric.dll" that came with the mod, in its proper folder.

I am running remotetech, I'll try what it says there, although I have tried setting the target as the nearest connected vessel (as in vessel is connected via a couple of sattelites to KSC, SEP is targetted at vessel).

Thanks cobalt

Wait/Out

[The Hawk]

FWIW, I'm also running RemoteTech and didn't have any problems with collecting data from the Central Station or experiments.  Transmitting might be an issue, but having my scientist run the experiments and then collect the data worked fine.  I did notice that the Central Station seemed to be somewhat particular about where you're standing to get access to the right-click menu option to run the Central Station test.

That said, I also had explosion issues.  (All of this was done on Minmus on the Lesser Flats.)  Attaching rather than placing the experiments prevented them from flying away, but didn't do anything to stop explosions.  After a couple quickloads it seemed to consistently be the surface gravimeter and surface magnetometer that would explode upon being attached.  The ion detector attached to the ground fine, but exploded when I tried to attach a plug; then the plug exploded when I moved it.  The other experiments worked fine.  If, as suggested above, these are collision mesh issues, I have to think the experiments could be tweaked somehow to avoid the problems, since some of them seem to be working normally.  (Wish I'd read about the concrete base workaround before I left Kerbin, though. ;))

One other problem I ran into that I didn't see anywhere else -- in the VAB and SPH, I wasn't able to drop the solar panel into any KIS container.  I don't know if that's a known problem or not.  I took along a couple of batteries and attached one to the area where the girder is supposed to go; none of the experiments failed to work, so I guess it was OK.  I didn't see any way to monitor the power setup so I'm not really sure if that's working as designed or not.  If the experiment package having adequate power (rather than just being plugged into the Central Station) is a current or intended feature, it also occurred to me that it might be nice to have some way to attach the entire setup to a rover or lander so that it could draw power from the main batteries.  Maybe just an outlet part that could be attached through KIS/KAS to a vehicle, like the connector ports, and into which the plugs could go.  Just a random thought.

Overall, an awesome mod and I really love having something for Bill to do on our Minmus explorations!  Thanks for all your work!

[DStaal]

While I love the little experiments and the science, I just wanted to say my absolute favorite parts from this mod at the moment are the lockers.    Tremendously useful to be able to add a bit of KIS storage wherever I need it, without having a big box sticking on the side of my ship.  The cardboard box is great to - again, being able to carry stuff around without having to stick the box on the side of the ship when I'm done is awesome.   Thanks. 

 

[kananesgi]

On 5/28/2016 at 10:10 AM, The Hawk said:

One other problem I ran into that I didn't see anywhere else -- in the VAB and SPH, I wasn't able to drop the solar panel into any KIS container.  I don't know if that's a known problem or not.  I took along a couple of batteries and attached one to the area where the girder is supposed to go; none of the experiments failed to work, so I guess it was OK.  I didn't see any way to monitor the power setup so I'm not really sure if that's working as designed or not.  If the experiment package having adequate power (rather than just being plugged into the Central Station) is a current or intended feature...

@The HawkI am also having this problem. So far, all of the other SEP equipment has gone into the containers without a hitch, but the solar panel will not drop into a container. And yes, the experiments do need EC to work. I tried running them and transmitting the data and ran out of power half-way through the second experiment. Of course, it wasn't a big deal, as I was running the experiments at the SPH. Until a solution to this can be found, I'm just going to attach a few SEP solar panels to my lander/rover, then use the engineer to detach and re-attach them to the SEP pylon. That should work.

 

On 5/28/2016 at 10:10 AM, The Hawk said:

it also occurred to me that it might be nice to have some way to attach the entire setup to a rover or lander so that it could draw power from the main batteries.  Maybe just an outlet part that could be attached through KIS/KAS to a vehicle, like the connector ports, and into which the plugs could go.  Just a random thought.

Couldn't you accomplish this using a concrete base (CB1) and a couple of CC-R2 connectors? I haven't tried this to see if the CC-R2 will attach to the SEP station, but if it will, this should work to create a power-tap from the rover/lander to the experiment station.

Edited May 31, 2016 by kananesgi
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