[1.4.1] Kerbal Construction Time 1.4.0.69 (2018-03-24) - Unrapid Planned Assembly

[JeffreyCor]

I never saw that before! That would be really nice for seeing what parts are used when designing a ship, but that doesn't look like it would account for different sized parts with TweakScale that KCT takes into account for the parts in inventory. Not sure how to account for including that.

[magico13]

Just posted a message on that mod's thread saying we should make KCT and it compatible, so hopefully we can work something out.

If not then you'll all probably be stuck with the simple display that is in use now. Also, if it doesn't work out, I have been considering completely redoing how stock KSP handles funds. I have been considering making it so you pay once for a part and then never again as long as you reuse the part. Then you'd be able to sell things from your inventory (at a reduced rate) and it gives you even more reason to reuse parts. With an inventory of parts this makes WAY more sense, but I'm interested in your opinions on the idea. If things workout with the other mod then I'm not sure if I'll do it (since they already do), but if for some reason we can't make things compatible then I'd like to do this (especially now that I've seen someone else do it. It's less impossible to imagine now ). I'm not a huge fan of stepping into other people's territory, so I don't really want to if I can help it, but I've been mulling over this idea basically since 0.24 came out (I was just afraid it would be more work than it'd be worth).

TL;DR: Gonna try to do compatibility with that other mod, if it doesn't work out I'd like to redo how stock does funds so you only pay once to put a part in your inventory.

[OverloadUT]

Hey magico, I wanted to pop in here and thank you profusely for this mod. At first I didn't think the construction time would add much to the game, but after only a few weeks in to my career I can tell that I was wrong. It makes contract deadlines mean so much more, among other things.

I also wanted to share a story of your mod in action in the best way.

Last night on KSP-TV (Squad's official Twitch channel) I had what many viewers were saying was the most exciting mission I've ever done. I think I agree with them.

It was a situation resulted by the combination of TAC Life Support, Remote Tech, and Kerbal Construction Time: While orbiting around Mun, I hit spacebar by accident, separating my reentry pod from the rest of the craft. The pod only has 18 hours worth of food, water, and oxygen. No way to get the life support supplies from the separated section, even with KAS. No docking ports, so can’t re-attach in any way. Kerbal will die in 18 hours. Every craft I have built thus far in the career has taken far more than 18 hours to build. I'm early-on in my career with only around 20 unlock points in KCT.

I pulled out all the stops. Nearly bankrupted my space program by buying as many construction time upgrades as possible. Unlocked new science just for the construction time boosts. Spent ages iterating on how to build as simple a craft as possible such that it will be built in time. We’re talking trying to shave off 15-30 minutes here and there. Eventually got it to 12.5 hours construction time. It takes about 6 hours typically from launch to Mun orbit. It’s going to be close.

Next problem: I’m looking at a BARE minimum craft here. It is NOT manned and I do NOT have satellite signal at Mun. I desperately wanted to do a manned rescue, but it just plain couldn't be built in time. This means that I am going to have to do the transfer burn and then pre-plan a Mun circularization burn that perfectly rendezvouses with the stranded craft, ALL FROM KERBIN ORBIT. The margin or error on maneuver nodes that far away is typically too high to go without corrections, but I have no choice. Once this probe leaves satellite range, it’s going to do what I told the flight computer to do with no way to adjust.

I did it. Had to do an inefficient high-speed transfer in order to get there in time. Timed it for the rendezvous perfectly. EVA’d over to the emergency pod, and now the stranded kerbal has 30 days of supplies. Plenty enough to mount a proper rescue.

While RemoteTech is responsible for the white-knuckle no-room-for-error maneuver planning at the end, even that would not have happened without KCT. Without KCT I would have just tossed two pods on the craft and called it a day.

[magico13]

@OverloadUT

That's awesome! I always love hearing stories like that! I myself had a story like that when I first started developing KCT, which was one of the early motivators for me to keep developing this. I'm glad you're enjoying the mod (and I'm watching your first live stream with KCT right now. Noticing some bugs to fix, mainly with GUIs).

You know I have to do my obligatory "You should use StageRecovery, it's designed to work with KCT" spiel

I love watching videos of people using KCT since it gives me a better perspective of what I need to change/fix. Since I wrote everything I know exactly how its supposed to work, so I don't pick up on what's obvious and what's not so obvious. Meaning I'll probably be watching your Live Streams in the future (or at least the cached copies on Twitch).

Thanks for letting me know about your experience. If you don't mind, I'd like to post a link (and maybe a quote) to that post on the OP, since it does a great job of showing how construction time is more than just waiting for rockets to build.

[OverloadUT]

Please feel free to link or quote it all you'd like!

And yeah, I installed StageRecovery after some of my viewers pointed out how they work together. I actually have feedback for you on that one: I actually uninstalled SR when I first installed KCT, because the tidbit in the OP for KCT made it sound like it had SR features built in and so I was worried that they had duplicate functionality. Might want to adjust that bullet point to call out that it has lite recovery features built in but SR really makes it awesome.

[Nori]

I'd like to make a tiny feature request. I was using some upgrade points and accidentally clicked the reset points. Would you be able to make it so it prompts you just to confirm?

[magico13]

I'd like to make a tiny feature request. I was using some upgrade points and accidentally clicked the reset points. Would you be able to make it so it prompts you just to confirm?

That's a pretty specific issue that doesn't come up very often or have any serious ramifications, so I'm probably not going to implement that, no offense. Adding new GUIs is fairly easy, but really annoying and the GUI class is gigantic. I'll consider it for the future (especially if I can make it easier to implement basic GUIs like that).

[Nori]

That's a pretty specific issue that doesn't come up very often or have any serious ramifications, so I'm probably not going to implement that, no offense. Adding new GUIs is fairly easy, but really annoying and the GUI class is gigantic. I'll consider it for the future (especially if I can make it easier to implement basic GUIs like that).

You've crushed all my hopes and dreams! Nah, no big deal. Just was asking if it was going to be a easy change.

[Empiro]

Great mod! I'm having lots of fun in my no-revert career game, planning everything out carefully and running simulations before doing the real thing.

I've got a pair of suggestions that could make things a bit more interesting:

For things that have a large resource cost, like SRBs and Fuel Tanks, perhaps it makes sense to separate out the build times for the part itself versus the resource cost, and make resource "build" time very fast. This way, things like SRBs and Fuel Tanks are relatively quick to build, since they're just shells filled with stuff, while an engine is complex all the way through, and takes a lot longer to build.

Also, perhaps a "build quickly" option should be present. It would be useful to mount rescue missions if you're playing with TAC Life Support, and to avoid missing a tight launch window. I'm thinking that perhaps it should just be a simple multiplicative cost increase -- e.g. 2x the cost to build in 1/2 the time, 3x to build in 1/3 and so on.

[lordyod]

That would rapidly unbalance things as money becomes fairly meaningless in the late game.

[forsaken1111]

Great mod! I'm having lots of fun in my no-revert career game, planning everything out carefully and running simulations before doing the real thing.

I've got a pair of suggestions that could make things a bit more interesting:

For things that have a large resource cost, like SRBs and Fuel Tanks, perhaps it makes sense to separate out the build times for the part itself versus the resource cost, and make resource "build" time very fast. This way, things like SRBs and Fuel Tanks are relatively quick to build, since they're just shells filled with stuff, while an engine is complex all the way through, and takes a lot longer to build.

Also, perhaps a "build quickly" option should be present. It would be useful to mount rescue missions if you're playing with TAC Life Support, and to avoid missing a tight launch window. I'm thinking that perhaps it should just be a simple multiplicative cost increase -- e.g. 2x the cost to build in 1/2 the time, 3x to build in 1/3 and so on.

This is a good idea. Resource costs shouldn't really play into build time IMO as you don't need to 'build' the fuel.

[FiiZzioN]

This is a good idea. Resource costs shouldn't really play into build time IMO as you don't need to 'build' the fuel.

Echoing this statement. It doesn't make sense to account for the "building" of resources such as LFO, TAC LS, etc... Now, I don't know how difficult that would be to distinguish between the container and said resources, but I do feel that this would be a nice thing to look into for this type of mod. Anything that would add more realism to the game is something that should be looked into.

A few comments ago this was brought up:

So how do we add time to the process of moving the rocket from storage to the pad?

That would be something else I think most people that use this mod would love to have incorporated sometime down the line.

[magico13]

Echoing this statement. It doesn't make sense to account for the "building" of resources such as LFO, TAC LS, etc... Now, I don't know how difficult that would be to distinguish between the container and said resources, but I do feel that this would be a nice thing to look into for this type of mod. Anything that would add more realism to the game is something that should be looked into.

I'm just going to use your comment to respond to all of the ones about resources. So back before version 1.0 (aka the 7 months of pre-releases) KCT only took into account the price of a full tank (aka, the price in the part's config file). In order to support tweakscale, which changes prices of individual parts in the editor (but not in their configs) I had to start taking into account the cost of fuel, which means that times didn't change at all, but you can make them shorter by removing fuel (which wasn't something I liked). The cost of resources is pretty minuscule and you're already paying less time than you would be if I didn't include them, but I can see about reducing the build time of resources (mind you, they also work with the part inventory, so if a part is in the inventory its fuel has almost no effective cost) and seeing if that makes any noticeable change at all. I don't really want to base it on the empty cost, but I can see how well that would work too.

I would like to point out that it takes time to fuel up a vessel. The Saturn V's longest individual fuel type filling appears to be the LOX at over 45 minutes, but the whole filling process starts at T-13 hours and is pretty much continually doing something until T-72 seconds (usually just keeping things topped off).

As for "quickbuilding", I'll think about it. I personally would rather have part failure than increased cost, but that's not something I'm going to implement (though there is a part failure mod that reduces costs for less quality parts, which would work perfectly here I imagine). I like exponential cost changes, meaning 2x is 4x cost, 3x is 9x cost, etc. Maybe shutting down all other lines (VAB or SPH) while that craft is in the build list. Doing a quick build should be an absolute last resort. I'd rather see things like OverloadUT's story than people just doing a quickbuild to mount a rescue mission.

That would be something else I think most people that use this mod would love to have incorporated sometime down the line.

If people show enough interest I can add it. If it's something only a few people want then, to me, it doesn't really seem like a feature I want to add. It would make more sense to just remove reconditioning and replace it with this, so instead of waiting after a launch you wait before it. Which doesn't sound fun at all to me after waiting days for the ship to build.

Let me ask a question. How many people would do anything other than Warp to Complete if you had to wait after pressing the launch button?

[forsaken1111]

I wouldn't care one way or another if you added an hour for 'moving the craft to the launchpad'. I'd likely just warp past it. I don't see that it adds anything to the gameplay.

Realism for the sake of realism shouldn't be the goal. Realism for the sake of enriching gameplay should be. To quote someone on these forums, if absolute realism were the most fun we could have then everyone would be playing outside.

[Bothersome]

Me, I've got to go and check on my Hubble Space Telescope to see if there are any more occultation stars ready for observing. And if I had to wait for a rocket to roll out to the pad, I'd start work on my next project.

It just makes more sense to wait for roll-out than to wait for cleanup. Cleanup could be thought of as happening before roll-out but the window of time as one still works as one, even though separate windows of time would be better.

I for one use this mod to add realism to KSP. Not to fancy up game play. KSP already has plenty of game play, especially with all the other mods. But I use this one for added realism. If it could get more real, then so much the better.

[Bothersome]

To quote someone on these forums, if absolute realism were the most fun we could have then everyone would be playing outside.

Yea right. As if I could afford my own real life space program.

[forsaken1111]

Yea right. As if I could afford my own real life space program.

Elon Musk went and made his own space program.

[Bothersome]

Yea, but he's rich, I'm not, so I'm stuck with KSP.

[magico13]

OK, what if I add an option to move reconditioning to before launch and rename it to Launchpad Preparation. By default it would stay how it is now. You'd probably want to reduce the time a bunch, but that's easily done in the settings. Then those who want it before launch can have it, and those who want it after can have that. No reason to have both.

Prep before launch would use the new rocket's mass while after launch would use the launched rocket mass.

[JeffreyCor]

I love how you make nearly everything configurable so it can easily fit anyone's play style. You're an example to modders everywhere

[TranceaddicT]

magico,

I've run into a situation for which I have a workaround, but thought you may have addressed already. The situation I find myself in with KCT is reusable SPH builds ... planes. If I build a plane and land *safely* I should be able to reuse that same craft again. As it is, I have to wait for a new craft because KCT requires a complete rebuild.

My work around (only for craft completely and safely landed) is to disable KCT, build/use the craft, re-enable KCT. If I damage a part, say snap off a wing tip or blow out landing gear, I'll just build the affected parts and then perform the work around.

So the question here is: Could KCT store re-usable craft in their un/damaged state and effect a build from that? Maybe instead of deleting the craft from the SPH Storage it stores the craft state for editing?

[forsaken1111]

magico,

I've run into a situation for which I have a workaround, but thought you may have addressed already. The situation I find myself in with KCT is reusable SPH builds ... planes. If I build a plane and land *safely* I should be able to reuse that same craft again. As it is, I have to wait for a new craft because KCT requires a complete rebuild.

My work around (only for craft completely and safely landed) is to disable KCT, build/use the craft, re-enable KCT. If I damage a part, say snap off a wing tip or blow out landing gear, I'll just build the affected parts and then perform the work around.

So the question here is: Could KCT store re-usable craft in their un/damaged state and effect a build from that? Maybe instead of deleting the craft from the SPH Storage it stores the craft state for editing?

For craft with everything recovered you should be looking at something like 1/10th the 'build' time which is an approximation for how long it takes to refuel/recondition the craft and do safety checks/maintenance on all parts.

[Bothersome]

OK, what if I add an option to move reconditioning to before launch and rename it to Launchpad Preparation. By default it would stay how it is now. You'd probably want to reduce the time a bunch, but that's easily done in the settings. Then those who want it before launch can have it, and those who want it after can have that. No reason to have both.

Prep before launch would use the new rocket's mass while after launch would use the launched rocket mass.

Awe, that sounds like a GREAT idea. Now, gimme gimme gimme.

[colmo]

How does launchpad reconditioning work with multiple KerbTown launchpads?

I think you should make more of the simulation feature - I'd use that on it's own even if the rest wasn't to my taste. It makes a 'no revert' gamestyle feasible.

[TranceaddicT]

For craft with everything recovered you should be looking at something like 1/10th the 'build' time which is an approximation for how long it takes to refuel/recondition the craft and do safety checks/maintenance on all parts.

Noted. Thank you for addressing it.