Umbra Space Industries - (Roadmap and WIPs)

[RoverDude]

So I have a few mods. And I have a plan. The purpose of this thread is to serve as the master thread for all things USI, especially since a lot of these bits interact, and also a place to discuss the WIP bits for all of the mods that I work on.

The current stable of USI mods can be found in my sig - here are the other ones I'm currently toying with...

Outpost Science

A stand-alone or complimentary piece for MKS that is a science outpost. Featuring new science experiments designed with rovers in mind, and including repeatable data-gathering experiments that can fuel ongoing science generation at a new Science Lab MKS module.

Advanced Mining Tech

A bunch of new mining goodness - there's a separate thread for this

Other musings:

Biofuel converters for MKS (more realistic ISRU for folks who think Karbonite is to sci-fi-ish).

MKS shipyards - a more formal integration of EL and MKS (Possibly a fork, possibly pull requests to modularize parts of EL). Basically rather than going from Ore->metal->RocketParts, change the equation to require more varied resources to get down that journey.

Karbonite/ORS enhancements specifically to encourage extractor and converter diversity

Edited November 8, 2014 by RoverDude

[marce]

RoverDude, I really appreciate your enthusiasm.

However, please don’t overdo yourself. I’d prefer 2 or 3 stable and complete mods over a dozen half-finished ones which are mostly unusable because you are running in circles to fight compatibility errors. Or even worse: you lose interest before completion.

Don’t get me wrong, it simply happened already, we have lots of abandoned mods. And I don’t think that you can work on KSP mods 24/7, right?

So again, thanks for all your effort but please don’t push yourself too hard.

[RoverDude]

RoverDude, I really appreciate your enthusiasm.

However, please don’t overdo yourself. I’d prefer 2 or 3 stable and complete mods over a dozen half-finished ones which are mostly unusable because you are running in circles to fight compatibility errors. Or even worse: you lose interest before completion.

Don’t get me wrong, it simply happened already, we have lots of abandoned mods. And I don’t think that you can work on KSP mods 24/7, right?

So again, thanks for all your effort but please don’t push yourself too hard.

Oh, the core ones are all useable There's a method to the madness (like resource consolidation) to make things work out.

And I'd say consider the stuff laid out here more like a one year plan (or bits I had lying around anyway).

MKS/OKS is pretty much stable other than the occasional optimization and the move to CRP.

Karbonite is stable (after it's move to CRP), just needs more parts.

Asteroidal Resources is about to launch.

My usual MO is to focus on one mod at a time and stabilize, then hit the next one (which is why I had to stabilize MKS before OKS, and OKS before Karbonite). 0.24.2 wrecked a bit of havoc, but that appears to be settling down.

On a personal note, I do all of this stuff for me first - plus it's my creative outlet. Just don't expect all of this in a week... again, one year plan Just figure folks probably wanted to know how all of the pieces fit together.

[marce]

Oh, the core ones are all useable There's a method to the madness (like resource consolidation) to make things work out.

And I'd say consider the stuff laid out here more like a one year plan (or bits I had lying around anyway).

MKS/OKS is pretty much stable other than the occasional optimization and the move to CRP.

Karbonite is stable (after it's move to CRP), just needs more parts.

Asteroidal Resources is about to launch.

My usual MO is to focus on one mod at a time and stabilize, then hit the next one (which is why I had to stabilize MKS before OKS, and OKS before Karbonite). 0.24.2 wrecked a bit of havoc, but that appears to be settling down.

On a personal note, I do all of this stuff for me first - plus it's my creative outlet. Just don't expect all of this in a week... again, one year plan Just figure folks probably wanted to know how all of the pieces fit together.

Yeah, MKS/OKS & Karbonite are quite stable now, but as you said yourself 0.24.2 caused some work on your side and that may happen anytime again.

And since I suppose you are working as a dev as well I'm sure you'll also experience weeks or even months with heavy overtime working to get something shipped which won't let you a lot of time fixing stuff SQUAD broke (for example).

I don't say "don't do it", just think about your pace and what you are not only able but also comfortable to achieve

Anyway, looking forward to your next releases!

[ndiver]

Clearly an interesting project, i fully support as you know

I really like your vision of KSP in general, the mods but also other aspects and decisions you made (especially the reason behind Karbonite).

Life Support plugins for MKS/OKS, etc. - I'll be breaking out the Life Support parts of MKS/OKS and re-bundling these as a plugin model, so folks can use TAC or any other Life Support mod (or none at all, but still have working generators). This piece is 100% reliant on having a Universal Converter that is compatible with the TAC generator.

Concerning this specific section, does it mean that i can put UKS Lite in standby (as the LS was the specific reason of this fork) ?

I'm willing to bring any help if you need

Edited August 11, 2014 by ndiver

[RoverDude]

Yeah, MKS/OKS & Karbonite are quite stable now, but as you said yourself 0.24.2 caused some work on your side and that may happen anytime again.

And since I suppose you are working as a dev as well I'm sure you'll also experience weeks or even months with heavy overtime working to get something shipped which won't let you a lot of time fixing stuff SQUAD broke (for example).

I don't say "don't do it", just think about your pace and what you are not only able but also comfortable to achieve

Anyway, looking forward to your next releases!

Oh, I run an engineering team for a day job... we don't do overtime (we work a 35 hour week). Bear in mind I do this for two reasons - first, it's good to keep my hands in code. And second, it's my creative outlet No worries - again, this is more of a one year lay my thoughts out all in one place thread. But if there are any unemployed modelers looking to join a project, that would actually make my job a billion times easier (PM we with a work sample and we'll talk!)

Clearly an interesting project, i fully support as you know

I really like your vision of KSP in general, the mods but also other aspects and decisions you made (especially the reason behind Karbonite).

Concerning this specific section, does it means that i can put UKS Lite in standby ?

I'm willing to bring any help if you need

Nope, keep on keeping on. Because the stuff on that list is super long term stuff, so it may be a VERY long time before I decouple life support. For all of this I'm not in a hurry, but do like to let folks see behind the curtain sometimes

[scottpaladin]

On the Outpost science pack: are you thinking of a steady return of science for the repeatable experiments or some sort of logarithmic return? You say that it's designed for the rover/MKS so I can assume this will be a surface only addon?

[RoverDude]

On the Outpost science pack: are you thinking of a steady return of science for the repeatable experiments or some sort of logarithmic return? You say that it's designed for the rover/MKS so I can assume this will be a surface only addon?

So my thought for this is to have some action required by the player (taking a core sample on EVA, exploring in a Rover, etc.) that generates a resource. This resource in turn fuels the science outpost which generates a steady flow of science based on how much stuff the player can return to it.

[Stage]

Does the USI-converter already work like the TacGenericConverter, or is this a planned feature?

I wanted to use the USIconverter for my Karbonite/ExPL addon, but for some reasons the conversion rates were quite wonky, with the TacGenericConverter however they were fine.

I would appreciate if the USIconverter would have similar capabilities like the TacGenericConverter and your KolonyKonverter (Surface only, requiredResources, RequiresOxygenAtmosphere, maybe some other additional possibilities)

Regards,

Stage

[CobaltWolf]

So my thought for this is to have some action required by the player (taking a core sample on EVA, exploring in a Rover, etc.) that generates a resource. This resource in turn fuels the science outpost which generates a steady flow of science based on how much stuff the player can return to it.

Can we also have the inverse? Small stations that periodically have to be serviced via rover/EVA and then brought back to get the science? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your post. It sounds like the science outpost is a large station full of kerbals. I immediately pictured some sort of small structure (visually similar to the moisture farmers in Star Wars) that had something brought back to a science station manned by kerbals, like periodic data or something. From your post it sounds like any sort of EVA/rover activity can generate the resource.

EDIT: After rereading this I am actually pretty sure this is what you described.

[RoverDude]

Does the USI-converter already work like the TacGenericConverter, or is this a planned feature?

I wanted to use the USIconverter for my Karbonite/ExPL addon, but for some reasons the conversion rates were quite wonky, with the TacGenericConverter however they were fine.

I would appreciate if the USIconverter would have similar capabilities like the TacGenericConverter and your KolonyKonverter (Surface only, requiredResources, RequiresOxygenAtmosphere, maybe some other additional possibilities)

Regards,

Stage

Define wonky? And KolonyConverter derives from TacGenericConverter, hence why they are in lockstep. But I want to eventually break that dependency.

Can we also have the inverse? Small stations that periodically have to be serviced via rover/EVA and then brought back to get the science? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your post. It sounds like the science outpost is a large station full of kerbals. I immediately pictured some sort of small structure (visually similar to the moisture farmers in Star Wars) that had something brought back to a science station manned by kerbals, like periodic data or something. From your post it sounds like any sort of EVA/rover activity can generate the resource.

EDIT: After rereading this I am actually pretty sure this is what you described.

Yep right ballpark Again, not set in stone yet just ideas.

[scottpaladin]

So my thought for this is to have some action required by the player (taking a core sample on EVA, exploring in a Rover, etc.) that generates a resource. This resource in turn fuels the science outpost which generates a steady flow of science based on how much stuff the player can return to it.

Sounds pretty neat. I'm all for science gathering that involves more than a point reading like the default instruments all do. ScanSat's progressively larger amount of science for more complete scans feels much better than just doing an experiment once or twice per biome.

[Stage]

Define wonky? And KolonyConverter derives from TacGenericConverter, hence why they are in lockstep. But I want to eventually break that dependency.

Singlie input - multiple outputs worked as usual. Mutliple inputs - single(multiple) output(s) did not work as intended, either the conversion ratios were way off, or inputs were ignored (I have 4 inputs, 1 output, no matter what I changed in the config, the output remained the same). Happened with multiple outputs aswell. Tried it several times with different configs, always had the same problems.

With the TacGenericConverter however, everything works fine (although I'm not glad using a LS converter for RocketParts )

[RoverDude]

Singlie input - multiple outputs worked as usual. Mutliple inputs - single(multiple) output(s) did not work as intended, either the conversion ratios were way off, or inputs were ignored (I have 4 inputs, 1 output, no matter what I changed in the config, the output remained the same). Happened with multiple outputs aswell. Tried it several times with different configs, always had the same problems.

With the TacGenericConverter however, everything works fine (although I'm not glad using a LS converter for RocketParts )

More concrete example please - i.e.e what you input, what you got, what you expected. Reason being multi-input single output is what I mostly use this for

[Stage]

I did some extensive testing. Updating my devKSP install to Karbonite 0.2.3 solved the problem (was away from my pc with the dev install for a couple of days, doh!). Now the USI_ResourceConverter works like it should.

FYI, this was my problem: I have 4 starting products with different densities (AerospaceAlloys 0.034, ElectricComponents 0.008, HeatShielding 0.045, ConstructionParts 0.02), and those produce RocketParts.

Planned output was 8.something RocketParts (every starting product has a different ratio), but somehow I got 22.75. Changing the ratios only increased/decreased the resource usage, but did not alter the output.

Same applied to the production lines of those four parts.

Again, no problem in Karbonite 0.2.3.

[RoverDude]

I did some extensive testing. Updating my devKSP install to Karbonite 0.2.3 solved the problem (was away from my pc with the dev install for a couple of days, doh!). Now the USI_ResourceConverter works like it should.

FYI, this was my problem: I have 4 starting products with different densities (AerospaceAlloys 0.034, ElectricComponents 0.008, HeatShielding 0.045, ConstructionParts 0.02), and those produce RocketParts.

Planned output was 8.something RocketParts (every starting product has a different ratio), but somehow I got 22.75. Changing the ratios only increased/decreased the resource usage, but did not alter the output.

Same applied to the production lines of those four parts.

Again, no problem in Karbonite 0.2.3.

No worries - side note, that converter hasn't changed in ages

[Tommygun]

Will any of the Freight Transport Technologies parts have KAS storage ability in them?

[Sutima]

Rover, you rock, really.... I lack words to express your rockness without sounding like a broken records, I might lack the knowledge to help coding and my skills in blender and or gimp is not close to what you and the community have done in Karbonite.

BUT if i can help in any way shape or form with you projects don't hesitate to ask =D.

The Karbonite Project made me want to learn Blender and gimp and i'm having a lot of fun with it.

[rabidninjawombat]

Rover, you rock, really.... I lack words to express your rockness without sounding like a broken records, I might lack the knowledge to help coding and my skills in blender and or gimp is not close to what you and the community have done in Karbonite.

BUT if i can help in any way shape or form with you projects don't hesitate to ask =D.

The Karbonite Project made me want to learn Blender and gimp and i'm having a lot of fun with it.

You and me both Sutima Ive actually picked up C# again (after putting it down years ago) and im trying to learn it again, so i can write my own plug-ins

And the community initiative behind these projects inspired me.

[RoverDude]

Awesome, glad you guys dig the stuff

And I see no issue with having a giant KAS module. FTT is pretty much just a parts pack. I just need to do the giant 5m cargo bays in a way that can accomodate both MKS and OKS modules.

[Wyseman76]

Your an animal RoverDude! I did my fare share of modding for the arma community and I know full well how time consuming all of this can be, so I just want to say what you bring to the table is top notch and well respected. You have my thanks for all of your efforts.

[RoverDude]

Your an animal RoverDude! I did my fare share of modding for the arma community and I know full well how time consuming all of this can be, so I just want to say what you bring to the table is top notch and well respected. You have my thanks for all of your efforts.

Thanks, I appreciate it

Prepping for a business trip, and have to make sure blender is on the laptop

[Shad0wCatcher]

Gotta make sure those priorities are set correctly of course!

[RoverDude]

So I've been playing in Blender..

Here's the first FTT ship (the smallest).

Introducing the 'Honeybadger' heavy mining lander.

Yes, those are 3.75m parts. No, that is not a clamp-o-tron junior.

VTOL engines, modular storage bays, and a three crew high visibility cockpit. Built in nuclear generator, and those little side indentations in the cargo pods are to hold various modules like drills and landing gear (as shown), or optional converters and resource extraction modules.

Usual deal, white cylinder version just to see how all of the pieces fit before moving onto texturing and final detailing.

[tygoo7]

Oooo I like the shape! Looking forward to seeing it textured. Are those cupola type things on the sides?