[1.x+] Community Resource Pack

[Nertea]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well I think you should reconsider. Realistically if your go mining for Helium3 on the mun/moon or other object without an atmosphere , you are not going to discard any rare molecules like Hydrogen, Water, CO2, Methane, Nitrogen and even Helium you find in the process, they will be very valuable for your overall mining operation (both for propulsion and life support).

Splitting up all these resource into separate mine-able resources would create weird discrepancies, which specially becomes an issue when you start to have depletable mining.

Yeah... well I'm not 100% sure what you're arguing here. The "more stuff could be relevant" isn't really... relevant given the scope of what I intend to use only four specific CRP resources (Antimatter, LqdHe3, LqdTritium, LqdDeuterium) for. If you want to start providing additional distributions for other resources or even new resources, that's great, but I don't particularly care - I'm sure that you, with your particular scope of your mod, will do a great job.

I'm just interested in where we overlap, which is on those 4 resources :P. 

[DStaal]

8 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well I think you should reconsider. Realistically if your go mining for Helium3 on the mun/moon or other object without an atmosphere , you are not going to discard any rare molecules like Hydrogen, Water, CO2, Methane, Nitrogen and even Helium you find in the process, they will be very valuable for your overall mining operation (both for propulsion and life support).

More importantly, I'd argue that the CRP already has such a first-stage resource: Dirt.  That's exactly it's use case in UKS - to be a meta-resource that you refine into other resources, depending on what's locally available.  (I'm not sure off the top of my head if it'll refine into non-UKS resources - but if it doesn't, I think that's a good feature request for UKS.)

Note that the way it's defined in UKS, you still need to have the individual resources present on the planet, so rest of the discussion isn't really relevant.  And even with such a meta-resource, it's entirely logical to have dedicated drilling platforms for high-value resources.  (Which would then vent off the low-value resources they aren't looking for.)  And it's up to the player to decide what's a high-value resource in this situation. 

[riocrokite]

My 2cents regarding helium-3 since I'm finishing parts for he3 / oxygen mining platform from regolith (pictured below):

Considering helium-3 - it needs to be extracted with 2 separate processes from regolith (pic attached by FreeThinker two posts above).
Thus personally I would be against adding helium-3 directly into the distribution of surface planetary resources. You just can't mine / separate it directly.

Small amounts of he3 are in volatiles that are deposited in regolith by solar wind.

Thus not all regolith contains volatiles. The closer the planet is to the sun (+lack of atmosphere +weak or no magnetic field) the more volatiles it has.

Therefore we could say there are different kinds of regolith out there. And then you cannot scoop or 'mine' volatiles or other resources directly from regolith (maybe apart from reduced Fe0 on the moon) - you have to mine regolith and then reprocess it to obtain those substances.

Personally I plan to go with those kinds of regolith:

1) Regolith_rich = mostly on the Mun and Moho, maybe tiny amounts on Minmus and Gilly. Can be reprocessed to Regolith + volatiles (H2, H2O,N2, CO2, CH4, CO, He3, He4).

2) Regolith - mostly metal / non-metal oxides - stuff that is almost everywhere (except distant icy planets). Can be reprocessed to obtain oxygen and optionally metals and silicon stuff.

3) Regolith_depleted so some kind of regolith or slag that doesn't contain many oxides or metal oxides. Cannot melt it to obtain metals nor oxygen.

Just for the persepective - to obtain 1 kg of helium-3 one would need to mine about 150 000 tons of regolith.

Also @RoverDude, I know you're extremely busy and it would be great if you found a bit of time to check resource depleteability mechanic in stock

Edited September 18, 2016 by riocrokite

[RoverDude]

16 hours ago, DStaal said:

More importantly, I'd argue that the CRP already has such a first-stage resource: Dirt.  That's exactly it's use case in UKS - to be a meta-resource that you refine into other resources, depending on what's locally available.  (I'm not sure off the top of my head if it'll refine into non-UKS resources - but if it doesn't, I think that's a good feature request for UKS.)

Note that the way it's defined in UKS, you still need to have the individual resources present on the planet, so rest of the discussion isn't really relevant.  And even with such a meta-resource, it's entirely logical to have dedicated drilling platforms for high-value resources.  (Which would then vent off the low-value resources they aren't looking for.)  And it's up to the player to decide what's a high-value resource in this situation. 

It works on all CRP resources

[FreeThinker]

17 hours ago, DStaal said:

More importantly, I'd argue that the CRP already has such a first-stage resource: Dirt.  That's exactly it's use case in UKS - to be a meta-resource that you refine into other resources, depending on what's locally available.  (I'm not sure off the top of my head if it'll refine into non-UKS resources - but if it doesn't, I think that's a good feature request for UKS.)

Note that the way it's defined in UKS, you still need to have the individual resources present on the planet, so rest of the discussion isn't really relevant.  And even with such a meta-resource, it's entirely logical to have dedicated drilling platforms for high-value resources.  (Which would then vent off the low-value resources they aren't looking for.)  And it's up to the player to decide what's a high-value resource in this situation. 

No, Dirt is simply too generic, and in the context of Isotope mining it doesn't make sense to trow away everything except the isotope that is most valuable.

For KSPI I have defined a SolarWind resource, which fulfills pretty much the same role a  Riocrokite  Rich Rigolith. It needs to be separate from Dirt because it should only be available on specific planets or moon without an atmosphere and relatively close to the sun.

Edited September 18, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

19 hours ago, Nertea said:

Yeah... well I'm not 100% sure what you're arguing here. The "more stuff could be relevant" isn't really... relevant given the scope of what I intend to use only four specific CRP resources (Antimatter, LqdHe3, LqdTritium, LqdDeuterium) for. If you want to start providing additional distributions for other resources or even new resources, that's great, but I don't particularly care - I'm sure that you, with your particular scope of your mod, will do a great job.

I'm just interested in where we overlap, which is on those 4 resources :P. 

Actually it very important that we agree on the method of mining, because there can only be one CRP definition, and it would be a bad idea to have conflicting gathering methods

My reasoning is that only resources which constitute more than 0.1% of the environment, can logically be harvest directly (due to Stock limitations). Resource with lower concentration need to be gathered indirectly though intermediate raw resources.

Spoiler

Deuterium can simply be distilled from from the SaltWater from any sea,

Tritium is a waste product of nuclear reactors or bred in Deuterium Fusion reactors, it simply cannot be harvested from the atmosphere

Helium3 is converted from Tritium or extracted more atmosphere-less SolarWindRegolith or from Atmosphere of Gas planets or from very rare HeliumRichNaturalGas pockets on Kerbin/Earth.

Antimatter can be harvesting from the SolarWindChargedParticles in van Allen belt or create by specialized cyclotron /particle accelerators

My proposal would be to use

which would make  @riocrokite the authority and third party to define the method of Helium3 mining and KSPI , NF and any other CRP contributer use it for Helium3 surface mining

Edited September 18, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nertea]

This doesn't work for me. What you are asking is that you and others define gameplay for my mod. Which isn't great.

There's no reason why mods can't have separate gathering methods that do not conflict at all. In fact, this already exists (for example, I strongly suspect you aren't using my atmospheric separator parts to extract noble gases). If I have a part that extracts He3 from an atmosphere, you just don't need to have that part, then your player will not be able to extract it. All I need is the resource distribution defined. This doesn't stop you from having a complex, KSPI-specific system to do whatever you want :).

However on the contrary, if you don't want to define resource distributions to work together, that does stop me from getting what I want in terms of gameplay. Which results in me doing things that I'd rather not, like adding my own distributions inside my own mods, which makes the point of CRP moot. 

Edited September 19, 2016 by Nertea

[DStaal]

21 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

No, Dirt is simply too generic, and in the context of Isotope mining it doesn't make sense to trow away everything except the isotope that is most valuable.

For KSPI I have defined a SolarWind resource, which fulfills pretty much the same role a  Riocrokite  Rich Rigolith. It needs to be separate from Dirt because it should only be available on specific planets or moon without an atmosphere and relatively close to the sun.

It makes perfect sense to throw away everything that you don't have a use for in your game.

I'd argue that Dirt can cover that - if the resource you're trying to refine to isn't on the planet you're mining (eg: It's got an atmosphere or is to far from the sun) than you can't refine it out of Dirt.  None of this is to say you can't implement your own resource chain, in your own mod of course.  (And not to say that you can't have a more specific resource chain than Dirt is - just saying that Dirt does seem to cover most of this use case.)

I do get your point on KSP's poor handling of extremely low resource amounts.  But I'm not convinced mandating a resource chain is the best solution for all parties.

[FreeThinker]

4 hours ago, Nertea said:

This doesn't work for me. What you are asking is that you and others define gameplay for my mod. Which isn't great.

There's no reason why mods can't have separate gathering methods that do not conflict at all. In fact, this already exists (for example, I strongly suspect you aren't using my atmospheric separator parts to extract noble gases). If I have a part that extracts He3 from an atmosphere, you just don't need to have that part, then your player will not be able to extract it. All I need is the resource distribution defined. This doesn't stop you from having a complex, KSPI-specific system to do whatever you want :).

However on the contrary, if you don't want to define resource distributions to work together, that does stop me from getting what I want in terms of gameplay. Which results in me doing things that I'd rather not, like adding my own distributions inside my own mods, which makes the point of CRP moot. 

Actually, they do conflict (especially when dependable harvesting is active), but we can minimize the problem if we align them with each-other. I'm willing to compromise by allowing  all rare resources (Helium3, Deuterium)  to be harvested directly from the surface, on the condition they have densities similar to our own solar system. For instance on the mun the density for Helium3 would be at best 15 ppb.

The remaining question to agree on is whether to use the resource liquid form or gas form. personally I would prefer it's natural form, which is gas. It would looks realy weid if a resource map mentions the availability of LqdHelium3, Helium3 would sound much more relativistic. Gas also has the advantage that they are easier to represent in KSP resource system and store for long duration. Liquid Helium3 is simply one of the hardest storable resources (besides anti matter or free radial Hydrogen). but If you insist in harvesting it directly in it's liquid form, I will be fine to me as well.

If you agree, I will create make the create a pull request with the initial resource definition files for all resources.

Edited September 19, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

It makes perfect sense to throw away everything that you don't have a use for in your game.

I'd argue that Dirt can cover that - if the resource you're trying to refine to isn't on the planet you're mining (eg: It's got an atmosphere or is to far from the sun) than you can't refine it out of Dirt.  None of this is to say you can't implement your own resource chain, in your own mod of course.  (And not to say that you can't have a more specific resource chain than Dirt is - just saying that Dirt does seem to cover most of this use case.)

I do get your point on KSP's poor handling of extremely low resource amounts.  But I'm not convinced mandating a resource chain is the best solution for all parties.

There are several issues with this, for one, the distribution of Dirt does not at all align with solarwind regolith deposits, it would create illogical hotspots, second it would create an artificial requirement that you can only process the resource at site. Third it would be very confusing to any player, which would think any DIrt is convertible to the desired resource. Fourth Dirt is already used for very specific tasks in MKS, add additional uses would be very confusing to players.

Edited September 19, 2016 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

40 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

There are several issues with this, for one, the distribution of Dirt does not at all align with solarwind regolith deposits, it would create illogical hotspots, second it would create an artificial requirement that you can only process the resource at site. Third it would be very confusing to any player, which would think any DIrt is convertible to the desired resource. Fourth Dirt is already used for very specific tasks in MKS, add additional uses would be very confusing to players.

Incorrect.

Dirt is used by MKS for a variety of things, as well as other mods.  CRP dictates the resources (so we don't conflict and break mods).  It does not dictate what you do with them.

Stock harvesting works optimistically.  I assumed that if someone wanted something there, it was for a good reason (versus taking away things).  If someone wants a mod that makes HE3 100% abundant in Eve's oceans... all the more power to them.  CRP will not stop that, nor will it advocate one vs. the other, other than allowing the original curator to include some configs. 

Also, you might want to revisit small quantity conversions in 1.2 given the number of optimizations and rework of some of the resource code, as the original point may be moot.

Lastly... I don't necessarily agree with tying stuff to earth analogues as Kerbin != earth.  But that's up to whoever is using the resource.  Just noting it as I think it's generally a bad direction, and limits planet packs, etc. where there simply are no analogues (and why CRP tends to have global defaults for resources).

I also disagree with enforcing any kind of resource chain - that's simply not what CRP is for.  That's a mod interop discussion (which looks like it is underway).  Heck, if someone wants to make a harvester that makes EnrichedUranium drop out of the sky, go for it.  Whether that mod will work well with others is a whole different discussion.  Heck, I guarantee I am misusing a few KSPI and RF resources, because I needed stuff.  But also make sure my stuff is reasonably balanced with stock and Nertea's goodies.

I really have no dog in this fight, but wanted to make sure we keep clear of making CRP something it is not.  Ultimately, someone will give me a PR tho, and it does need to be the person who curates those resources.

[FreeThinker]

30 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Lastly... I don't necessarily agree with tying stuff to earth analogues as Kerbin != earth.  But that's up to whoever is using the resource.  Just noting it as I think it's generally a bad direction, and limits planet packs, etc. where there simply are no analogues (and why CRP tends to have global defaults for resources).

Well I think we should always try use reality as a starting point. Just like we use a resource real density and cost as starting point. From there we can normalize the cost/processing/storage requirements for the sake of game-play.

Similarly you can manipulate the rate at which you gather resources, You can simply increase resource  gathering  by any desired number to make the gathering of any significant amount of resource not take too much time. Fortunately for NF, it's in KSPI best interest to keep it on the optimistic side since the amount needed for KSPI engines (especially the Helium3 requirement  for the Daedalus) will be very high.Still I will always try to abide the laws of conservation of energy, meaning I cannot create more resource than is possible given available power.

Edited September 19, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nertea]

@FreeThinker: I'd rather you post the proposed PR's for these resources here so I can have a look first. It'll be easier to collaborate until a final decision is made.

[FreeThinker]

22 minutes ago, Nertea said:

@FreeThinker: I'd rather you post the proposed PR's for these resources here so I can have a look first. It'll be easier to collaborate until a final decision is made.

Suits with me, any expert feedback would be welcome. I'm by no means the final authority on this.

Irony is, I already created it half a year ago, but discarded it after play testing it, in favor of intermediate resource which gave much more satisfying results, but perhaps things aren't as bad anymore in KSP 1.2 as @RoverDude hinted us.

By the way, it would realy help if we could get access to better documentation on KSP resource system. I realy hate wasting time of discovering technical details by trial and error, it cost me (and sure a lot of of other) a lot of time, which would been spend better creating real content.

Edited September 19, 2016 by FreeThinker

[JadeOfMaar]

I'm sorry if this is a silly question (or series of questions) but is there a tutorial (even in the form of //comments) for how some of the distribution parameters work, or how to visualize them?

GLOBAL_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = Karbonite
	ResourceType = 2
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 80
		MinAbundance = .001
		MaxAbundance = 1
		Variance = 50	//Karbonite plumes venting
		Dispersal = 3	
	}
}
GLOBAL_RESOURCE
{
	ResourceName = Karbonite
	ResourceType = 3
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 20
		MinAbundance = .001
		MaxAbundance = .5
		MinAltitude = .2
		MaxAltitude = 2
		MinRange = .01
		MaxRange = .5	
	}
}

I'm assuming PresenceChance is how much of the surface area of a planet's sphere can ever occupied by a resource; Variance is the sharpness of the difference in abundance; but Dispersal I don't get. Does it blur the edge between where the resource is present and where it's not?

To a lesser extent I'm also interested in all the parameters under Exospheric distribution. I've yet to successfully use USI's Particle Collector part and I'm writing the resource configs for an upcoming planet pack so getting //hints on how to improve the situation there for myself and for whoever ends up using my configs. I'd like to rig a ship or station to harvest Karbonite with this part but I haven't the faintest on how to gauge exospheric distribution. Are the values relative to distance across and within a planet's SOI? ...And maybe, should I stop using MKS Lite? I fear it may be the cornerstone of some gameplay issues I have. Also, I have all the Near Future goodies.

Edited September 19, 2016 by JadeOfMaar

[RoverDude]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well I think we should always try use reality as a starting point. Just like we use a resource real density and cost as starting point. From there we can normalize the cost/processing/storage requirements for the sake of game-play.

Similarly you can manipulate the rate at which you gather resources, You can simply increase resource  gathering  by any desired number to make the gathering of any significant amount of resource not take too much time. Fortunately for NF, it's in KSPI best interest to keep it on the optimistic side since the amount needed for KSPI engines (especially the Helium3 requirement  for the Daedalus) will be very high.Still I will always try to abide the laws of conservation of energy, meaning I cannot create more resource than is possible given available power.

RE reality, I would say that that's not within the scope of CRP, that's up to whoever is curating the resource.  And there is a diff between the density of water (we can assume water is... well.. water?) and assuming Duna is Mars.

 

[FreeThinker]

14 hours ago, RoverDude said:

RE reality, I would say that that's not within the scope of CRP, that's up to whoever is curating the resource.  And there is a diff between the density of water (we can assume water is... well.. water?) and assuming Duna is Mars.

 

I agree, the Stock resources is too limited to achieve high level of realism, still we should apply logical sense when possible, and no make definitions that contradict with reality like your idea to make Helium3 100% available on EVE, which would make no sense at all and detrimental to game balance

 

Edited September 20, 2016 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

 

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I agree, the Stock resources is too limited to achieve high level of realism, still we should apply logical sense when possible, and no make definitions that contradict with reality like your idea to make Helium3 100% available on EVE, which would make no sense at all more detrimental to game balance

But that's your opinion.  For someone else, it may make perfect sense.  And that is my point.  CRP does not, nor should it, dictate how modders use the resources in it.  Full stop.  It is up to modders to decide what level of interop they want.  CRP just provides the list of spices on the rack, it does not dictate the recipe.

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, RoverDude said:

 

 CRP just provides the list of spices on the rack, it does not dictate the recipe.

I'm not concerned with how players use the resource, I'm concerned about economics because CRP defines both a resource cost and resource avialability and as a result can potentialy can wreck balance when mismatched. Therefore the more valuable a resource, the harder is should be to harvest it. For Helium3 there exists a perfect natrual balance, the highest concentration can be found in the atmospheres in gas giant, which in itself is a hard location to get in the first place, let alone, collect and retreive back to KTC for a profit.

Edited September 20, 2016 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

34 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I'm not concerned with how players use the resource, I'n concerned about economics because CRP defines both a resource cost and resource avialability, it potentialy can wreach balance when mismatched. Therefore the more valuable a resource, the harder is should be to harvest it. For Helium3 there exists a perfect natrual balance, the highest concentration can be found in the atmospheres in gas giant, which in itself is a hard location to get in the first place, let alone, collect and retreive back to KTC for a profit.

But again... that's not the scope of CRP.  That's a Mod Interop question.

For example.  KSPI completely unbalances power in USI.  That too is not a CRP concern, that's an interop concern.

What you are describing in your quote above is the rationalization for your mod.  And as a resource curator, feel free to set price, etc.  But also understand that CRP will not prevent someone else from adding a supplementary resource distribution config if it suits the needs of the mod (stock fully supports this), nor will it prevent people from creating whatever resource generation process, etc. they want.

I mean, I see your point, and it is good that @Nertea and you are hashing it out, my only dog in the fight is making sure we do not assume CRP's role is to mandate use vs. simply curate.

[FreeThinker]

27 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

For example.  KSPI completely unbalances power in USI@Nertea.  That too is not a CRP concern, that's an interop concern.

Possibly but there is a world of difference between high level interop part issues caused by power inbalance between multiple mods (especialy when min max) which is hard/impossible to avoid or a low level resource system that introduces a potential loophole in the econmy, which is easy to avoid. For most (cheap) resources, it doesn't realy matter how you define them, for expansive resource which can have a big effect on carreer mode, it potentialy matters a lot.

Edited September 20, 2016 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

Point stands tho.  It is not a CRP concern.  It is an interop concern.  

[Nertea]

Part balance between mods is irrelevant here. As RoverDude pointed out, KSPI-E patches either itself or other mods to suit its balance, because it is its own balance target. Therefore trying to enforce KSPI balance in resource collection is really strange, because you'll have to mess with it anyways if you want to have interop.

And please, answer my question - how does it hurt KSPI balance if I, in another mod that is not designed to work with KSPI (none of my mods are), have a resource collection system for a CRP resource that is used in both mods? Let's examine scenarios:

1) SomeMod

• He3 is mineable on the moon using a custom part
• The distribution of He3 is relevant.
• The distribution of ChargedParticleDust is irrelevant because there is no part to mine it.
• There is no interoperability problem

2) KSPI-E

• ChargedParticleDust is mineable on the moon using a custom part
• ChargedParticleDust is converted to He3
• The distribution of He3 is irrelevant because there is no part to mine it
• There is no interoperability problem

3) KSPI-E plus SomeMod

• ChargedParticleDust and He3 are mineable on the moon using two custom parts
• The distribution of He3 is relevant.
• The distribution of ChargedParticleDust is relevant.
• There is an interoperability problem

These 3 scenarios apply to any resource, not just He3. There is only a conflict in scenario 3 because both mods provide their own extraction parts and detection parts. The scenario 3 conflict is also irrelevant, because in that case, you already have to patch KSPI-E or SomeMod as their balance likely differs in other, more critical ways.

The only thing we need to agree on is resource distributions in the case that:

• Both mods have the resource
• Both mods mine the resource in an identical fashion

In all other cases it's not relevant what either person wants to do with the resource. You can have ChargedParticleDust and He3Gas all over the place if you like, it won't affect me unless I explicitly use that resource. Likewise, I can have LqdHe3 wherever I want, because unless you explicitly provide a part to mine LqdHe3, your players won't be able to mine LqdHe3!

Proposed Way Forward

@FreeThinker, List all the KSPI resource production chains that involve the following resources:

• XenonGas
• ArgonGas
• LqdHydrogen
• LqdHe3
• LqdTritium
• LqdDeuterium
• Antimatter

By production chain I mean something like ChargedParticleDust -> He3 -> LqdHe3.

Then we can see what "source" resources need actual distributions. For my purposes, all those listed resources above need distributions. Then we can see exactly where we overlap and focus our discussion productively on what to do.

 

Edited September 20, 2016 by Nertea
Added Way Forward bit.

[ShotgunNinja]

@JadeOfMaar This is a total eyeballed understanding of how the resource distribution is generated. If I'm wrong somebody will correct me I'm sure.

• a 'noise' map is generated, like the above one: it is a 'sum' of the same random image but with multiple scales (called octaves)

• the 'variance' value should regulate the weight and scale of the individual octaves: less variance will lead to more sharp features

• the 'dispersal' should be radius of the blur applied after the noise is generated: not in pixel, but in proportion of the width (or height) of the map

• the 'PresenceChance' value (in 0..1 range) is then used to 'clamp' the pixel values: those with values below '1 - PresenceChance' are set to zero

• all the non-zero pixel values are then mapped from [1 - PresenceChange, 1] range to [MinAbundance, MaxAbundance] range.

The fact that PresenceChance appear to map to the proportion of surface with resources is only an artefact of the uniform distribution of random values: for example if PresenceChange is 0.8 then 80% (more or less) of the pixels will pass the clamping without being set to zero, leading to 80% of the surface having a value other than zero.

 

[RoverDude]

@ShotgunNinja Sorry, that's actually incorrect.

PresenceChance is simply the odds of it being present in any given biome.  Yes, a noise map is generated, and used as a baseline.  Dispersal determines how much noise there is.  Low dispersal maps have more gradual transitions, high dispersal maps have lots of little pockets.  Variance affects the upper and lower bounds (expressed as a percentage) at any given point.  0% means no adjustments are made, 100% means that it can vary from 0%-200% of the original value.  This makes stuff more 'spikey'.

For exospheric and atmospheric, Altitude Min/Max determine the centerpoint of a resource band.  Range determines how wide it is.  In both cases the actual values are from the RNG, and based on your global seed.