[1.0.4] ESLD Jump Beacons - [Dev 0.6a]

[TMarkos]

The Extra-Kerbin Space Technology Research Agency's Superluminal Logicstics Division (EKSTRA SLD) (ESLD) is proud to present their first-ever public release of technology. As colony-building becomes a more common project, Kerbals are spending too much idle time between the stars. This will not do! The ESLD Beacon network will get your Kerbals from point A to points B through Z in no time at all, presuming you've positioned and fueled them, read the warning manual and installed all necessary safeguards. The ESLD is not liable for any deaths or insurance claims that result from the use of our beacons.

Download

Kerbal Stuff (Version 0.6a - delete old (4.0 or earlier) versions of mod first!)

Github (Version 0.6a - delete old (4.0 or earlier) versions of mod first!)

Also available on CKAN.

Wiki

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These are not cheaty, easy jump beacons. They incorporate:

• Line of sight checking.
  
• Gravity restrictions (also checked under LoS).
  
• Incredibly costly fuel. More on that in a second.
  
• Scaling fuel costs with tonnage/distance.
  
• Tech advancements that allow increased capability.
  
• Proximity requirements for activation.
  
• Unique beacon models optimized for different transport scenarios.
  
• The general process to use this network is to place at least two beacons, then approach one with a hailer (currently just MM'd into the stock antennas). The hailer allows you to open a dialog window with the active beacon, where it will tell you what other active beacons it can see and if it has enough fuel to send you there. Assuming it does on both counts, press the button and off you go.
  

Fuel is an important consideration, because it's what keeps the beacon system balanced in career mode. True to the maxim that you can choose two from the list of fast, cheap and high-quality, the jump fuel that makes the system tick is incredibly costly, to the extent that most transfers the beacon system performs are more expensive than or comparable to traditional rocketry-based solutions. Time is the ONLY thing you save with beacons, and some players may even plow more into logistics than they would otherwise have cause to do if they feel like maintaining an accessible and fueled beacon network at all times. The mod includes a cfg to allow players to use stock extraction parts to obtain Karborundum.

I'll put this here for my own sanity: if you're playing career, at the start your beacons won't be able to safely transport Kerbals, Karborundum or a variety of other high-energy resources. There will be warnings in the pre-jump window if something bad is about to happen. READ THE WARNINGS.

This project is still in the early stages. I'll note that this is my very first time:

• Running a GitHub repository.
  
• Writing code in C#.
  
• Modeling in Blender.
  
• Modeling in Unity.
  

I had used Photoshop before, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

Changelog

2015-07-06 0.6a
- New CRP config, harvestable solar Karborundum is again accessible for K+ users.

2015-05-25 0.6
- Beacons now bend time and space appropriately.

2015-05-25 0.5g
- All in-system transfers now disregard far beacon velocity.
- IB-1 now has an integrated hailer, no need for another antenna.
- Relative velocity predictions fixed, was being displayed as absolute velocity.

2015-05-23 0.5b
- Fixed scientist discount not being shown/applied.

2015-05-23 0.5a
- Created UI button to trigger warp dialog rather than right clicking on antenna, both options still available.
- Updated SCU formula, now uses scientists on beacon to factor in discounts.
- Updated EC calculations to factor in engineers on board.
- Updated drift penalties to factor in pilots on board.
- Fixed an issue where orbital predictions failed to clear.

2015-05-22 0.5
- The GMU now uses the station's mass to increase the gravitational tolerance of the beacon.  By building your beacons into asteroids you can get them deeper into gravity wells, at the cost of incredible amounts of electric charge.
- Clarified wording in the Heisenkerb Compensator warnings (thanks Katalliaan!).
- Fixed a bug that would cause the animations to hang.

2015-05-18 0.4-b
- Provided optional difficulty configurations to support wider range of playstyles.
- Provided support for Community Tech Tree.

2015-05-18 0.4-a
- Converted all textures to .dds, mod size dropped from 86mb to 22mb.
- Fixed HCU rates for transporting hazardous material, they had lowered with the change to Karborundum density and are now where they should be.  

2015-05-17 0.4
- Placed all parts in Adv. Science Tech and Experimental Science nodes.
- Balanced part costs & part entry costs.
- Added MM config (Scan_Extract_MM.cfg) to add Karborundum scanning to stock resource extraction parts in the absence of K+.  Karborundum now appears as specified in CRP on Eve, Eeloo and in some asteroids.
- Added manufacturer to techboxes.
- Added nickname to IB-1.
- Updated list of resources that need Heisenkerb shielding to avoid exploding during beacon transit.

2015-05-17 0.3g
  -Updated part nodes/sizes/attach.
  -Recompiled against 1.0.2.
  -Updated ModuleManager version.
  -Updated Community Resource Pack files.  

2014-09-21 0.3b
  -Updated ModuleManager config for Karbonite Plus compatibility.
  -Updated ModuleManager version.
  -Updated Community Resource Pack files.  

2014-09-01 0.3a
  -Directional indicators for orbit projections.

2014-09-01 0.3
  -New models and textures for large beacons and IB-1 to match the LB-10.
    -Much lighter memory footprint, better inline fit.
    -Folder structure change.
    -Better utilization of shared assets.

2014-08-31 0.2d
  -Fixed AMU and HCU cost formulas.
  -Fixed origin beacons exploding dramatically on use.
  -Updated Community Resource Pack config.

2014-08-30 0.2c
  -Beacons now require ElectricCharge to turn on and to operate.
    -A large initial charge is required to activate the beacon.
    -A constant per-second charge is required to keep it operational.
    -Charge amounts are determined based on the current gravity vs the beacon's gravity limit and the amount of fuel in the beacon.
    -Using the Gravitational Mitigator now carries a penalty to required activation and operation charges.
  -Beacons will not start up without at least a small amount of Karborundum aboard.
  -New model for the LB10 beacon.
    -Better inline fit
    -Much lighter filesize - 25% of previous.  

2014-08-27 0.2b
  -Added handling for multiple active beacons in range.
    -There is a new GUI button that allows you to step through all active beacons the Hailer can see.
  -Fixed incorrect HCU costs & fuel exemption
    -The HCU doesn't charge for fuel used during a jump if the beacon is the IB1, but it was applying that to every beacon.
    -The toll rate was too low, it's meant to be 2% of cargo weight in Karborundum.
  -Made the Hailer GUI respond correctly to switching vessels with the GUI open.

2014-08-26 0.2a
  -Fixed ModuleManager Config for Distillers to produce an appropriate amount of Karborundum.

2014-08-26 0.2
  -Switched Karborundum to be Community Resource Pack compatible.  
    -All costs and counts of Karborundum are multiplied by 5.
    -Relative density is up slightly but down per unit.
    -Karborundum is now non-tweakable by default.
      -Karborundum becomes tweakable if Karbonite is not installed.  
      -With Karbonite (but not FTT), Karborundum must be produced at the distiller.
      -With FTT, Karborundum must be harvested.
  -Added exit orbit preview for non-AMU-assisted transfers.
  -Added HCU toll per ton of protected material (including crew).
    -HCU toll is equivalent to 2% of cargo weight in Karborundum.
  -Revised LB10 velocity transfer, no longer takes exit beacon velocity into account.
    -I found that this led to more intuitive local transfers.
    -Interplanetary beacons still use exit beacon velocity to allow players to use it to help shorten their exit vectors.
  -Fixed an issue where gravity barriers weren't being obeyed.  

2014-08-23 0.1c
  -Included revised ESLDHailer config so module now appears on all antennas.  Credit to 4nxs for teaching me how to ModuleManager.
  -Included new MM config to make tech boxes KAS-attachable.
  -Fixed bug that had the beacon checking if it had an SCU instead of a GMU when determining its own gravity limits.  

2014-08-23 0.1b
  -Included ModuleManager dll.  Oops.

2014-08-23 0.1a
  -Initial Dev Release.

Credit goes to ParameciumKid for inspiring me to work on my own version of a jumpdrive mod with his own excellent mod, and for being nice when I asked for pointers.

Part.cfg changes powered by sarbian & ialdabaoth's ModuleManager plugin; used with permission.

Released under the GPL2 license.

Edited July 6, 2015 by TMarkos
CRP Update

[4nxs]

Okay looks very well thought through just by reading your explanation. Seems very promising, looking forward to playing with it as soon as I got some time free. Will let you know if something comes up. Nice work!

[TMarkos]

Okay looks very well thought through just by reading your explanation. Seems very promising, looking forward to playing with it as soon as I got some time free. Will let you know if something comes up. Nice work!

Thank you! I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

[Gaalidas]

I like it, I don't know why at the moment, but I like it.

[Tangle]

So if I know this correctly, it would be best to have maybe 3 or four beacons that can transmit to a beacon that's a bit further out but can transmit very far in Synchronous orbit, and have a low orbit beacon. Arriving ships would use a similar track that could transmit with lower-powered beacons.

[TMarkos]

So if I know this correctly, it would be best to have maybe 3 or four beacons that can transmit to a beacon that's a bit further out but can transmit very far in Synchronous orbit, and have a low orbit beacon. Arriving ships would use a similar track that could transmit with lower-powered beacons.

Yeah, the gravity system is set up to encourage networks of beacons. You can't get very close to an object with a large beacon, and the small beacons can't transmit very effectively over a gigameter. The ideal scenario is to have a small low-orbit beacon that pops you out to an outgoing larger beacon in high orbit. That takes you to a receiving small beacon in high orbit, which transfers you to the destination small beacon in low orbit.

For smaller ships (<50t) you can cut out a lot of the middleman stuff by just using medium beacons for everything, since they can operate pretty darn close in while still transmitting over long distances.

[4nxs]

Thank you! I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

Okay this is pretty useful. I agree with what Tangle said, this setup kind of forces you to create a network of beacons. It is a nice and sensible way of balancing the mod. As for the warping/jumping itself, it worked like a charm. I expected some lag but it was click and go, the only way I noticed it was when my solar panels reoriented themselves. Have only made a few mistakes with the relative velocities! Oh and the UI has a good informative layout would not change it much.

If you use the following MM config than you can at the hailer module to every part that has the data transmitter module. Would allow for mod antenna to be used.

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ESLDHailer
	}
}

The only thing I thought was missing is energy usage by the reactor when it is active or as a start up cost.

[TMarkos]

Okay this is pretty useful. I agree with what Tangle said, this setup kind of forces you to create a network of beacons. It is a nice and sensible way of balancing the mod. As for the warping/jumping itself, it worked like a charm. I expected some lag but it was click and go, the only way I noticed it was when my solar panels reoriented themselves. Have only made a few mistakes with the relative velocities! Oh and the UI has a good informative layout would not change it much.

If you use the following MM config than you can at the hailer module to every part that has the data transmitter module. Would allow for mod antenna to be used.

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ESLDHailer
	}
}

The only thing I thought was missing is energy usage by the reactor when it is active or as a start up cost.

Thanks for the feedback! I've been playing with MM configs to extend the Hailer implementation and had actually tried that, but I'm not very familiar with MM syntax yet and was missing the @ before the Module I was searching for. I plan to release configs to extend the Hailer into all antennas as well as to make the tech upgrade boxes KAS-attachable. That last one is causing some issues, though, since it's not picking up the new part very well.

Electrical use by the beacon is on the roadmap and is logged as Issue 25. I was leaving it until after the dev release so I could get comments on balance and how people were using it.

[TMarkos]

Thanks for the feedback! I've been playing with MM configs to extend the Hailer implementation and had actually tried that, but I'm not very familiar with MM syntax yet and was missing the @ before the Module I was searching for. I plan to release configs to extend the Hailer into all antennas as well as to make the tech upgrade boxes KAS-attachable. That last one is causing some issues, though, since it's not picking up the new part very well.

Electrical use by the beacon is on the roadmap and is logged as Issue 25. I was leaving it until after the dev release so I could get comments on balance and how people were using it.

Updated to 0.1c, includes 4nxs's fix for the hailer config, a KAS config for the tech upgrade boxes and a fix for a bug where the beacons were checking the wrong box for gravity limit assessment.

[Drew Kerman]

my end game keeps pulling further and further away from me.... and I like it Look forward to playing with this when I'm able to

[Sufficient Anonymity]

I haven't had a chance to run this yet (will update with more comments when I have) but this looks excellent. Seems like you've managed to strike an excellent balance between Parameciumkid's Jump Drive (great mod, but a little OP for my taste) and Interstellar (again, great mod, but I'm an NFP fanboy) in terms of complexity.

[Stage]

Those mechanics look quite interesting. I've already dowloaded it, will test it in the next few days, quite excited about your mod

A suggestion regarding Karborundum: I like the idea to have a not-easy-to-get resource. RoverDude is working on a similar resource called Karbonium, which can only be mined at Eeloo and Eve or gathered via Asteroidal Resources (only small quantities). Maybe you could use this (once it is released) to produce Karborundum, or (even better) switch to it as jump fuel.

Lets do some testing

[RoverDude]

Those mechanics look quite interesting. I've already dowloaded it, will test it in the next few days, quite excited about your mod

A suggestion regarding Karborundum: I like the idea to have a not-easy-to-get resource. RoverDude is working on a similar resource called Karbonium, which can only be mined at Eeloo and Eve or gathered via Asteroidal Resources (only small quantities). Maybe you could use this (once it is released) to produce Karborundum, or (even better) switch to it as jump fuel.

Lets do some testing

We're chatting If anything, since FTT does not have Karbonium tied as a resource yet, I will just switch FTT to Karborundum once we agree on the details (and we're 99% there anyway). Sharing is good, playing nice is better

[sirklick]

Very neat implementation - great work!

Before release I definitely recommend making a texture and unwrap pass, as the install folder for this is 110mb -most of which is extremely large textures made necessary by the uniformly scaled UV maps. Those who use ATM or built in half-size texture quality settings will experience much sadness when they look at your otherwise very nice textures.

[TMarkos]

Very neat implementation - great work!

Before release I definitely recommend making a texture and unwrap pass, as the install folder for this is 110mb -most of which is extremely large textures made necessary by the uniformly scaled UV maps. Those who use ATM or built in half-size texture quality settings will experience much sadness when they look at your otherwise very nice textures.

Yes! I hadn't really worked with texturing before so I was making it easy on myself. I had logged an issue on Github (#22) to do a texture pass before I do a final release. I plan to redo models for almost everything as I work through functionality issues, so I'll try to adhere more to best practices then.

[TMarkos]

Released Dev 0.2! CRP Integration and Orbital Insertion Previews. This update will not break ships, but it will throw off a few calculations for ships using the old KBD counts. Older beacons will not have the proper amount of fuel storage. I don't anticipate changing that particular component again anytime soon.

Dropbox

Changelog

2014-08-26 0.2
  -Switched Karborundum to be Community Resource Pack compatible.  
    -All costs and counts of Karborundum are multiplied by 5.
    -Relative density is up slightly but down per unit.
    -Karborundum is now non-tweakable by default.
      -Karborundum becomes tweakable if Karbonite is not installed.  
      -With Karbonite (but not FTT), Karborundum must be produced at the distiller.
      -With FTT, Karborundum must be harvested.
  -Added exit orbit preview for non-AMU-assisted transfers.
  -Added HCU toll per ton of protected material (including crew).
    -HCU toll is equivalent to 2% of cargo weight in Karborundum.
  -Revised LB10 velocity transfer, no longer takes exit beacon velocity into account.
    -I found that this led to more intuitive local transfers.
    -Interplanetary beacons still use exit beacon velocity to allow players to use it to help shorten their exit vectors.
  -Fixed an issue where gravity barriers weren't being obeyed.  

Edited August 27, 2014 by TMarkos

[marce]

http://i.imgur.com/W262lVtl.png

Released Dev 0.2! CRP Integration and Orbital Insertion Previews. This update will not break ships, but it will throw off a few calculations for ships using the old KBD counts. Older beacons will not have the proper amount of fuel storage. I don't anticipate changing that particular component again anytime soon.

Dropbox

Changelog

2014-08-26 0.2
  -Switched Karborundum to be Community Resource Pack compatible.  
    -All costs and counts of Karborundum are multiplied by 5.
    -Relative density is up slightly but down per unit.
    -Karborundum is now non-tweakable by default.
      -Karborundum becomes tweakable if Karbonite is not installed.  
      -With Karbonite (but not FTT), Karborundum must be produced at the distiller.
      -With FTT, Karborundum must be harvested.
  -Added exit orbit preview for non-AMU-assisted transfers.
  -Added HCU toll per ton of protected material (including crew).
    -HCU toll is equivalent to 2% of cargo weight in Karborundum.
  -Revised LB10 velocity transfer, no longer takes exit beacon velocity into account.
    -I found that this led to more intuitive local transfers.
    -Interplanetary beacons still use exit beacon velocity to allow players to use it to help shorten their exit vectors.
  -Fixed an issue where gravity barriers weren't being obeyed.  

This is one of the most thorough thought-out mods I’ve ever seen. And this orbit predication is the icing on the cake for me. Thanks for your work!

The only little thing I’m not fully satisfied with is the name of the resource. I’ve seen that Rover will switch over to Karborundum so I seem to be alone with this feeling, though. Just wanted to state that I would have preferred the collaboration/resource harmonization the other way round because I prefer the sound of “Karboniumâ€Â. Sorry, I always have to complain about something, don’t know what’s wrong with me

On a side note: I like the detailed descriptions in your (GitHub) issues. Really interesting to follow your thoughts. And it also gives a nice outlook what you have planned in the near future.

[RoverDude]

This is one of the most thorough thought-out mods I’ve ever seen. And this orbit predication is the icing on the cake for me. Thanks for your work!

The only little thing I’m not fully satisfied with is the name of the resource. I’ve seen that Rover will switch over to Karborundum so I seem to be alone with this feeling, though. Just wanted to state that I would have preferred the collaboration/resource harmonization the other way round because I prefer the sound of “Karboniumâ€Â. Sorry, I always have to complain about something, don’t know what’s wrong with me

On a side note: I like the detailed descriptions in your (GitHub) issues. Really interesting to follow your thoughts. And it also gives a nice outlook what you have planned in the near future.

I went with the Karborundum purely because it's derivative off of a real-world thing fit almost exactly with it's properties and it's composition (being carbon based)

[4nxs]

Oh nice preview function. I wanted to say maybe add a direction indicator but I saw on Github that you already thought of that.

I take it you and Roverguy have decided on things?

[marce]

I went with the Karborundum purely because it's derivative off of a real-world thing fit almost exactly with it's properties and it's composition (being carbon based)

Sure. I also don't like all things in RL as you might have expected already

The name just doesn't "roll of my tongue" [or however English natives call that] as good. Hey, no problem, I'll use it anyway

[RoverDude]

Oh nice preview function. I wanted to say maybe add a direction indicator but I saw on Github that you already thought of that.

I take it you and Roverguy have decided on things?

Yep, Karborundum is already part of CRP 0.1.0

[TMarkos]

This is one of the most thorough thought-out mods I’ve ever seen. And this orbit predication is the icing on the cake for me. Thanks for your work!

The only little thing I’m not fully satisfied with is the name of the resource. I’ve seen that Rover will switch over to Karborundum so I seem to be alone with this feeling, though. Just wanted to state that I would have preferred the collaboration/resource harmonization the other way round because I prefer the sound of “Karboniumâ€Â. Sorry, I always have to complain about something, don’t know what’s wrong with me

On a side note: I like the detailed descriptions in your (GitHub) issues. Really interesting to follow your thoughts. And it also gives a nice outlook what you have planned in the near future.

Sure. I also don't like all things in RL as you might have expected already

The name just doesn't "roll of my tongue" [or however English natives call that] as good. Hey, no problem, I'll use it anyway

To elaborate on what RoverGuy said: Carborundum, or silicon carbide, is the real-life inspiration for the name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_carbide#Natural_occurrence

And thanks! I'm never sure if my github issue comments are more "color commentary" or "ramblings of a madman." I tend to think of them as a diary of my rocky relationship with C# and the KSP API.

Oh nice preview function. I wanted to say maybe add a direction indicator but I saw on Github that you already thought of that.

I take it you and Roverguy have decided on things?

The direction indicator is definitely needed, but it was hard enough just getting the damn thing to display and I didn't want to hold up feature release longer than necessary. I'll either see if I can get it to cut out nontraveled portions of the orbit by messing with the preview orbit's epoch parameter or I'll have to implement some sort of visual flair like the Fine Print orbital direction icons.

[marce]

To elaborate on what RoverGuy said: Carborundum, or silicon carbide, is the real-life inspiration for the name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_carbide#Natural_occurrence

/snip

Yeah I know (now), even did a bit of homework yesterday since I wasn't able to recall what the word reminded me of. At first I landed at Corundum but luckily figured out why it's missing Carbo(n)...

Anyway, as long as nobody hears me say it we should be fine

[TMarkos]

Updated to 0.2b! Redid the near beacon scanning function to allow for many beacons in range, plus realized I had left the HCU divisor value at a placeholder even after calculating out what it should be.

Download from Dropbox

2014-08-27 0.2b
  -Added handling for multiple active beacons in range.
    -There is a new GUI button that allows you to step through all active beacons the Hailer can see.
  -Fixed incorrect HCU costs & fuel exemption
    -The HCU doesn't charge for fuel used during a jump if the beacon is the IB1, but it was applying that to every beacon.
    -The toll rate was too low, it's meant to be 2% of cargo weight in Karborundum.
  -Made the Hailer GUI respond correctly to switching vessels with the GUI open.

[scottpaladin]

-Karborundum is now non-tweakable by default.

-Karborundum becomes tweakable if Karbonite is not installed.

-With Karbonite (but not FTT), Karborundum must be produced at the distiller.

-With FTT, Karborundum must be harvested.

Quick question: if you've got FTT, where/how are you harvesting the Karborundum?