[24.2] Karbonite Ongoing Dev and Discussion

[sidfu]

probaly epl was what u where using with it its the biggest

[RoverDude]

Every time someone purges a mod with bad licensing, an angel gets it's wings.

[Ringkeeper]

hmm.. now no hotspots are shown on minmus Threashold still seems to be off.

[Targa]

@RoverDude [bUG] The KA-125 (Small Karbonite Engine) model is not done right. Check it out in the VAB and you'll see two things: When mounted it has a small space between the top of the model and the part it's connected to, and secondly, it has a 2nd attachment point floating in the air below itself about a meter or so. Also, in its .cfg file (Engine_125_01.cfg) the following line: title = KA-250 Karbonite Fueled Engine needs to be changed to title = KA-125 Karbonite Fueled Engine.

I'll see if I can talk to Fractal about the OSR resource spheres. As you can see in this video I made, when you toggle them on it creates a huge lag spike. Performance is severely reduced when viewing numerous resource nodes this way, as the Unity engine is forced to display the many thousands of polygons.

You can also see in this video what I meant by the drill design not lending itself to much design flexibility. I came up with a solution, but it's not elegant.

Would also love to see "radial size small" fuel tanks, generator, and drill. As for Action Groups, at a minimum "toggle drill" (extend/retract) and "toggle extraction" for the drill(s).

Edit: Lolz, you named the new version "Karbomite"

Edit 2: So if I'm understanding this correctly, DisplayThreshold in ORS is a cutoff point that scales from "show everything" to "only show the richest concentrations"? Like a sensitivity slider?

Edited July 27, 2014 by Targa

[RoverDude]

@RoverDude [bUG] The KA-125 (Small Karbonite Engine) model is not done right. Check it out in the VAB and you'll see two things: When mounted it has a small space between the top of the model and the part it's connected to, and secondly, it has a 2nd attachment point floating in the air below itself about a meter or so. Also, in its .cfg file (Engine_125_01.cfg) the following line: title = KA-250 Karbonite Fueled Engine needs to be changed to title = KA-125 Karbonite Fueled Engine.

I'll see if I can talk to Fractal about the OSR resource spheres. As you can see in this video I made, when you toggle them on it creates a huge lag spike. Performance is severely reduced when viewing numerous resource nodes this way, as the Unity engine is forced to display the many thousands of polygons.

You can also see in this video what I meant by the drill design not lending itself to much design flexibility. I came up with a solution, but it's not elegant.

Would also love to see "radial size small" fuel tanks, generator, and drill. As for Action Groups, at a minimum "toggle drill" (extend/retract) and "toggle extraction" for the drill(s).

Edit: Lolz, you named the new version "Karbomite"

The small engine's model is just fine, it's my config skills that were lacking Fixed in the current version.

Also - the OSR spheres in that vid are self-inflicted lag. You should not have that many visible. Updated configs in the current release.

Alternate drills and tanks are on the drawing board.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Quick question about the Karbonite converter's cfg, sorry if it's a silly one. Is adding a new resource (that Karbonite can be converted into) as simple as adding something like this via a MM patch or to the cfg directly:

MODULE

{

name = ModuleGenerator

isAlwaysActive = false

activateGUIName = Start ResourceName

shutdownGUIName = Stop ResourceName

INPUT_RESOURCE

{

name = Karbonite

rate = Whatever rate you want (I assume this is units per second)

}

INPUT_RESOURCE

{

name = Whatever input you want

rate = Whatever rate

}

OUTPUT_RESOURCE

{

name = The name of any mod's resource

rate = Whatever output rate makes sense WRT Karbonite's volume + efficiency of conversion

}

}

Meaning that this mod could already support things like RocketParts, or Metal, or even LiquidHydrogen or what have you? Do you have to work any dark magic to get it to fill a tank for that resource appropriately?

[RoverDude]

Quick question about the Karbonite converter's cfg, sorry if it's a silly one. Is adding a new resource (that Karbonite can be converted into) as simple as adding something like this via a MM patch or to the cfg directly:

Meaning that this mod could already support things like RocketParts, or Metal, or even LiquidHydrogen or what have you? Do you have to work any dark magic to get it to fill a tank for that resource appropriately?

That's about it. Just have a tank that can hold that resource... which is also just a cfg edit.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

That's about it. Just have a tank that can hold that resource... which is also just a cfg edit.

Awesome. Thanks for putting in the time to make this!

[Ghostshark27]

Wow, this sprouted up fast! Everything looks so good, can't wait for it to get polished and improved upon. A question though... I know it's a very early build, but is it complete enough that I could completely replace Kethane with it? As much as I like the idea of the Kethane mod, I've never been able to use it much, as I never seem to get a space program to last long enough to need renewable resources. But I'm looking at starting to use the MKS/OKS parts for colonization adventures, if Karbonite is stable enough to supply bases I'll ditch Kethane altogether. It'll be one less incompatability popup on startup, at the very least.

[Mutifex]

Wow, this sprouted up fast! Everything looks so good, can't wait for it to get polished and improved upon. A question though... I know it's a very early build, but is it complete enough that I could completely replace Kethane with it? As much as I like the idea of the Kethane mod, I've never been able to use it much, as I never seem to get a space program to last long enough to need renewable resources. But I'm looking at starting to use the MKS/OKS parts for colonization adventures, if Karbonite is stable enough to supply bases I'll ditch Kethane altogether. It'll be one less incompatability popup on startup, at the very least.

While this might be early on and still getting its parts together, it functions correctly. Unfortunately that is more than can be said of kethane currently which last I looked had all kinds of problems like broken converters, etc. and is not functional in 0.24.2 That being the case, I would personally say that yes it is viable to make the change now. In fact I did a few hours ago.

[sidfu]

hey roverdude what about making a small grappler type thing that works like the connection pipes from mks that can be say attached onto something to connect things. with no time fram when kas come back it would be a good alternative people could use to build a arm to refuel things with if they dont want toa dd docking

[RoverDude]

While this might be early on and still getting its parts together, it functions correctly. Unfortunately that is more than can be said of kethane currently which last I looked had all kinds of problems like broken converters, etc. and is not functional in 0.24.2 That being the case, I would personally say that yes it is viable to make the change now. In fact I did a few hours ago.

Concur. Why I ditched all Kethane support in MKS/OKS. It was broken, and Karbonite is already at a state where it can replace what it did. Plus any issues that have popped up have been nice easy fixes as everything is based on open license stuff. And having absolutely amazing modelers and artists chip in has not hurt either

hey roverdude what about making a small grappler type thing that works like the connection pipes from mks that can be say attached onto something to connect things. with no time fram when kas come back it would be a good alternative people could use to build a arm to refuel things with if they dont want toa dd docking

They are just ARM Klaws... not opposed at all to making an analogue in a small form factor, but that's going to be AFTER I get my other stuff sorted

[Targa]

Sent a message to Fractal regarding switching ORS to use pentagons rather than geodesic globes to represent resources. A simple 2-sided pentagonal shape only has 7 sides and 10 vertices. If you look closely at the shapes he's using now it looks like they're something like this:

Probably why the original author of Kethane used hexagons. This is the issue that kills framerates. Multiply the amount of polygons/vetices in the shape above by how many you see on a planet when scanning from space...

Also, the current use of circular shapes leaves gaps between each one, whereas pentagons can be tightly knit together like the ones used to make a soccer ball. Not 100% pertinent to this mod, but since it's dependent on ORS, it's obliquely pertinent. Plus, it would just plain look better than the current setup.

[Boamere]

On another note , extra-planetary launchpads requires Kethane to make the rocket parts, etc. so Roverdude you might want to look into that (love the models as well, kudos to whoever made them!)

Edited July 27, 2014 by Boamere

[protoz]

It appears the Karbonite converters operate at full speed regardless of how slow i harvest the resource. I got 2 drills and 2 converters, each drill powers a converter to full speed conversion.

[RoverDude]

Sent a message to Fractal regarding switching ORS to use pentagons rather than geodesic globes to represent resources. A simple 2-sided pentagonal shape only has 7 sides and 10 vertices. If you look closely at the shapes he's using now it looks like they're something like this:

http://cdn.instructables.com/FQG/0CZS/GCJ0ZXDD/FQG0CZSGCJ0ZXDD.MEDIUM.jpg

Probably why the original author of Kethane used hexagons. This is the issue that kills framerates. Multiply the amount of polygons/vetices in the shape above by how many you see on a planet when scanning from space...

Also, the current use of circular shapes leaves gaps between each one, whereas pentagons can be tightly knit together like the ones used to make a soccer ball. Not 100% pertinent to this mod, but since it's dependent on ORS, it's obliquely pertinent. Plus, it would just plain look better than the current setup.

Bear in mind you're chasing down a problem that only exists because people tried to hand-edit the resources config. You are, by design, only supposed to have 10-100 hotspots per planet. It's just not the same kind of mod as Kethane, and handles resources in a very different way.

Not that I would not be pleased if Fractal changed how ORS handled mapping, just that you're delving into a fairly challenging problem space. A more lilely solution would be a plugin that adds better surface mapping to ORS, then you just turn off the hotspots and use the alternate vizualization.

[erbmur]

Just a heads up, the texturereplacer file should read as follows:

TextureReplacer
{keepLoaded = ^UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS/ORS/ ^UmbraSpaceIndustries/Karbonite/ORS/}

The file in the download doesn't work. A quick read says that location files should be separated with a space and that they should all be on a single line rather then on individual lines with KeepLoaded at the beginning of each.

May be small, but my first real contribution to any mod!

[Ghostshark27]

Concur. Why I ditched all Kethane support in MKS/OKS. It was broken, and Karbonite is already at a state where it can replace what it did. Plus any issues that have popped up have been nice easy fixes as everything is based on open license stuff. And having absolutely amazing modelers and artists chip in has not hurt either

Agreed. Having a collection of talent available to help add to, fix, and tweak a mod of this scale definitely helps to improve its quality. Not that I'm totally against a closed liscence, but if your going to run a one man show you should be ready to keep your work running, or be willing to bring talent into the fold if you can't.

I'm sold, then. When I get home tonight, kethane out and karbonite in. If the above post is correct, however, and Extraplanetary requires kethane, would it be easy to add an MM config to point towards Karbonite instead?

[enneract]

What is the range on the detection array?

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Noticed something I'm not sure how to explain. I used this MM patch to see if converting Karbonite to metal works:

@PART[Karbonite_Converter_Lg]

{

MODULE

{

name = ModuleGenerator

isAlwaysActive = false

activateGUIName = Start Metal

shutdownGUIName = Stop Metal

INPUT_RESOURCE

{

name = Karbonite

rate = 0.1

}

INPUT_RESOURCE

{

name = ElectricCharge

rate = 7.5

}

OUTPUT_RESOURCE

{

name = Metal

rate = 0.06

}

}

}

It does work, but in a strange way. When extracting Karbonite from the launchpad WITHOUT the Karbonite metal converter turned on, Karbonite is extracted at a very slow rate (seems normal, I suppose). When I convert one unit of Karbonite into metal, it takes a moment and produces 0.6 units of metal.

However, when I leave the Karbonite drill running AND have the metal conversion working in the converter part, the rate at which metal fills my metal tank is far greater than the rate at which Karbonite is coming out of the ground - so it seems like if both are running at the same time, it gives you a much higher output of the converted resource.

This was also true for monopropellant when I tried - they're both produced at something on the order of 100x or 500x greater speed.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Agreed. Having a collection of talent available to help add to, fix, and tweak a mod of this scale definitely helps to improve its quality. Not that I'm totally against a closed liscence, but if your going to run a one man show you should be ready to keep your work running, or be willing to bring talent into the fold if you can't.

I'm sold, then. When I get home tonight, kethane out and karbonite in. If the above post is correct, however, and Extraplanetary requires kethane, would it be easy to add an MM config to point towards Karbonite instead?

I was looking through EPL's configs to figure out if I could ditch Kethane as well. I don't know exactly how the mod works, but it uses "KethaneConverter" and "KethaneExtractor" modules on its parts. Could these be replaced with KarboniteDrill or ORSModuleResourceExtraction or ModuleGenerator or whatever using an MM patch?

[RoverDude]

Noticed something I'm not sure how to explain. I used this MM patch to see if converting Karbonite to metal works:

It does work, but in a strange way. When extracting Karbonite from the launchpad WITHOUT the Karbonite metal converter turned on, Karbonite is extracted at a very slow rate (seems normal, I suppose). When I convert one unit of Karbonite into metal, it takes a moment and produces 0.6 units of metal.

However, when I leave the Karbonite drill running AND have the metal conversion working in the converter part, the rate at which metal fills my metal tank is far greater than the rate at which Karbonite is coming out of the ground - so it seems like if both are running at the same time, it gives you a much higher output of the converted resource.

This was also true for monopropellant when I tried - they're both produced at something on the order of 100x or 500x greater speed.

Your drill rate is probably faster than your conversion rate?

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Your drill rate is probably faster than your conversion rate?

No, I mean when both are running, it produces whatever I'm converting Karbonite into at a vastly increased rate - so there's always 0 Karbonite in the tank, but the empty MonoProp or Metal tank (or whatever) fills much much faster than the Karbonite seemed to be coming out of the ground when the converter was off, if that makes sense.

Example:

Only the drill going: Karbonite comes out of ground at X units per second. Wait 100 seconds: 100 units. Convert to metal: 60 units. Should mean that the Karbonite equivalent of 0.6X metal comes out of the ground per second, essentially.

With drill and converter both running, Karbonite is converted as fast as it comes out of the ground, but I am getting the equivalent of at least 60X metal - far more than should be coming out based on the rate at which Karbonite alone comes out.

It also happened with MonoProp...

EDIT: I should clarify that I have both Kethane and EPL installed to see if I can make either work with Karbonite, in case it's not Karbonite but the combination that's producing this phenomenon.

EDIT AGAIN: Also, here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59567837/ProceduralKarbonite.cfg) is a procedural Karbonite tank cfg I whipped up. It holds slightly less Karbonite per volume with 500kg more dry weight (at the equivalent size) than the included Karbonite tank - for anyone who might find it useful.

Edited July 27, 2014 by AccidentalDisassembly

[Revolution-420]

I had this idea which had probably been mentioned before but what of you made this a two resource system. Where you had karbonite and byproduct. This would solve some issues like the "philosophers stone" type mechanic where you can turn something into something else with a 1:1 ratio. This would also increase the scope of the mod without adding complexity. Meaning you could then use the byproduct to manufacture other resources like xenon. It might even make it better for other mods to integrate more easily, or believable.

It's prob to late in the development for this now but putting it out there. And prob could just do this with some mm configs.

[Mutifex]

Agreed. Having a collection of talent available to help add to, fix, and tweak a mod of this scale definitely helps to improve its quality. Not that I'm totally against a closed liscence, but if your going to run a one man show you should be ready to keep your work running, or be willing to bring talent into the fold if you can't.

I'm sold, then. When I get home tonight, kethane out and karbonite in. If the above post is correct, however, and Extraplanetary requires kethane, would it be easy to add an MM config to point towards Karbonite instead?

If I remember things correctly, EL kinda piggy-backed some of its functionality directly from Kethane rather than duplicate it since they have been operating on essentially the same resource system. I don't know how much that has changed but I think at one point it extended to the functionality of converters, they just made a modified kethane converter to process ore and a modified kethane drill to mine. Much of that may have changed but there are still at least a few traces of it out there.

That being said, there is no reason why it really has to stay that way. There really hasn't been a huge number of reasons for EL to consider other resource systems til now. ORS has been here for a while now, but wasn't really creating a demand for compatibility because only Interstellar was using it and that mod is all very self-contained. Personally I am working on the theory that EL will soon enough end up with a compatibility patch, or someone will just create a new version for ORS. I'm hoping for the first option, it is the quickest and easiest one. In the mean time, I can play around the lack of off-kerbin manufacture by leaning more in the direction of SSTO's so I'm willing to wait.