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

[FiiZzioN]

I don't know if it's been talked about yet, or it it's even been considered. The idea being that when your vessel returns safely to Kerbin, there would be a required wait time before the capsule, crew, science, etc. got back to the KSC. This is my opinion of course, but I feel it may add a little more "realism" like this already does by adding building time and recovering parts.

It could even be somewhat dynamic where if you land on the complete opposite side of kerbin where the KSC is located it could take a while to get back to base; if you land close it could only take maybe an hour or two. You could also add in that if splashdown occurred the recovery times gets a hefty boost. The total time it takes to get the crew back along with everything else could vary widely: Distance from the KSC, the amount of crew, the amount of data, the capsule, and any remaining parts that landed safely and survived reentry. These are just a few ideas I've been tossing around in my head.

Another cool thing that also just popped up in my head as I was typing that last statement is there could also be an option for the player to return the the crew / parts / data / etc. themselves. The downside to this idea is that you'd need a decent sized cargo plane that includes a small lab for the science to be stored and analysed during transit, and you'd need enough seats to fit the crew. By now I think you can see that this would need to be a pretty decent sized ship to get everything back, or maybe it could be made to bring some objects for higher rewards... Maybe it could even be made to return the science in the lab that can boost the amount of science of each experiment it has on board by a small fraction meaning more people may physically recover parts because, YAY, MORE SCIENCE! Oohh... I almost forgot, we also have to have enough seats to bring the crew and pilots safely back to the KSC.

Anyways, those are my ideas. I have no idea if you'll implement them in the way I specified, but what this was mainly for was to just spark more ideas. This has to be one of my favorite mods and I'd love to see it expand even further!

Thanks for all the work, magico13!

Edited December 4, 2014 by FiiZzioN
Punctuation is hard, ok...

[magico13]

In the development version I have actually already added some basic time requirements for recovering vessels! It's mass and distance based, with the minimum time (so, if on the launchpad/runway) being the same as the vessel rollout time (for hopefully obvious reasons), up to twice that time if it's on the other side of the planet. I might change that to some fixed speed like 1 second per 150 meters to simulate an airplane flying there and back at 300 meters per second (plus the rollout time). Currently it's just for when you recover a ship directly to the inventory, but I might see about also having it for normal part recovery (so you don't get parts or funds until the time is up), but I'd have to try to do that without messing up other mods. Since recovering straight to inventory won't be included in the next version by default (but will be enabled if you've got debug mode active) there's a chance you won't see this.

[noahavrum]

Firstly, this is my FAVORITE mod.

Feature Request:

I understand this is a bit of a drastic change but one of the annoyances is the tiny little upgrades every tech I research. I was wondering if it would be possible to tie the upgrades to actual technologies similar to how other mods offer progressive upgrades as you unlock technologies.

E.g.:

The Science Research branch of the tech tree improves research speed.

The Heavy Lift branch improves Build Speed in the VAB in large increments (doubling?)

The Construction branch adds additional slots at 50% of the primary slot

The Survivability and Materials/Fuel Branch improves rollout/recovery VAB and SAB.

The Aerodynamic Branch improves build speeds in the SAB.

This way each upgrade feels more dramatic and ties in closer thematically.

[almagnus1]

How well does this mod play with Extra Planetary Launch Pads?

[FiiZzioN]

In the development version I have actually already added some basic time requirements for recovering vessels! {Trimmed for space} Since recovering straight to inventory won't be included in the next version by default (but will be enabled if you've got debug mode active) there's a chance you won't see this.

That's great to hear! I'm happy to see you're still evolving your mod and making it even more in-depth than it already is. I've had this mod installed along with your Stage Recovery mod since I first saw this thread right at the end of August. I've never removed them because of the unique aspect of time actually being a critical component with LS mods, plus it makes sense to get spent boosters back if rigged right. Another thing I heard was coming rgar would add more even more realism is the pad reconditioning / rollout (Can't recall if it's being changed. I'd personally want both. ) that's hopefully coming soon. Which, by the way, would be absolutely awesome to have the ability to have both play a factor for people that that little extra level of realism.

Something tells me its crossed your mind about having both as an option, or it's currently in the works. I say that because you're exactly like me when it comes to coding something that a wide variety of people will be using. Customizability - a lot of it. Say, little Billy likes having a slight challenge but he doesn't like to wait for things to build or research. You have options for that. Rebecca here likes to have everything as hard as it can be and wants the most realism you can get from "stock KSP". Once again, they have the options. So, after that tantalizing image I tried to paint in your mind, if you still don't get what I'm saying, having options for rollout time and the lifting of the rocket, plus pad reconditioning would be amazing!

Rollout and lifting speed could be determined by overall mass. One thing I'd love to see, but don't' know if it's possible, is to be able to determine pad reconditioning by multiple factors: The overall heat produced by all engines that fired, the amount of force that was exerted on the pad as the thrusters ignited, and the overall mass of the craft sitting on the pad. As said, I don't know if it's possible, all I know is it would be one hell of a script but one of the coolest features, not just myself, but others would probably have seen.

And now I'm here rambling again, I have a bad habit of doing that... Anyways, something that may make you smile: Installed KCT and Stage Recovery August 30th. They have only been removed for updates.

Keep up the awesome work, man! It's completely changed the game. Honestly, and this isn't me just going nuts over this mod. I feel this has made career mode actually feel like a proper career mode more-so than what Squad has done so far. And if we really are starting on a F***ing barn at the beginning then yeah, you have definitely done more for career and making it feel like a career than Squad, hands down.

Once again, more rambling! Anyways, final good luck and I wish you the best with this mod development and / or any other project you're working on!

[MisterFister]

One thing I'd love to see, but don't' know if it's possible, is to be able to determine pad reconditioning by multiple factors: The overall heat produced by all engines that fired, the amount of force that was exerted on the pad as the thrusters ignited, and the overall mass of the craft sitting on the pad.

My understanding is that vehicle launch weight is already the primary factor. Heat production I can imagine being essentially scaled with vehicle launch weight. As for force exerted on the pad at ignition -- could you be suggesting that a lower TWR (or initial throttle setting until the launch clamps are cleared) would be rewarded with a slightly reduced pad recondition time when compared against just full throttle blasting off with a TWR of >1.5? Intriguing.

My follow-up question would be -- does that mean that you can launch with radially mounted SRBs, angled slightly outward? Inefficient as most of your thrust vectoring would be angled outward instead of against gravity, but it reduces Launchpad stresses until the SRBs can be jettisoned by radial decouplers.

[severedsolo]

So... question on future 0.90 development. (Information is from here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102079-Squadcast-Summary-%282014-12-06%29 - apologies if it's wrong)

Upgrading buildings happen immediately (originally was going to take time, but given that you can control time..)

Will KCT have an option to make it take time to upgrade/repair?

It would be nice, I don't like the immediate magical repairs at the moment, but I gather from your earlier post your having issues hooking into that particular code?

[JeffreyCor]

So... question on future 0.90 development. (Information is from here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102079-Squadcast-Summary-%282014-12-06%29 - apologies if it's wrong)

Will KCT have an option to make it take time to upgrade/repair?

It would be nice, I don't like the immediate magical repairs at the moment, but I gather from your earlier post your having issues hooking into that particular code?

That question will be very impossible to answer until after 0.90 is released.

[magico13]

Firstly, this is my FAVORITE mod.

Feature Request:

I understand this is a bit of a drastic change but one of the annoyances is the tiny little upgrades every tech I research. I was wondering if it would be possible to tie the upgrades to actual technologies similar to how other mods offer progressive upgrades as you unlock technologies.

This way each upgrade feels more dramatic and ties in closer thematically.

I actually was planning on moving away from the tech tree entirely. The original plan (many many months ago) was to tie upgrades to specific nodes of the tree, but with modded trees and other recent changes to the community that is becoming less feasible. It also would have made it so KCT didn't work in Sandbox mode at all. The new plan is my own tech tree for upgrades that cost funds/science/reputation to unlock, or upgrade points (or something similar) for sandbox mode. I haven't started work on that yet because I want to see what 0.90's upgradeable buildings will cover (which may render some upgrades that I had planned useless).

How well does this mod play with Extra Planetary Launch Pads?

The times don't quite sync up, EPL typically has smaller build times despite the fact that the KSC has actual facilities for constructing rockets. Also, since EPL times are based on mass and not cost (like KCT is) you'll never quite get them to line up. Otherwise I don't know of any incompatibilities.

Another thing I heard was coming rgar would add more even more realism is the pad reconditioning / rollout (Can't recall if it's being changed. I'd personally want both. ) that's hopefully coming soon.

Something tells me its crossed your mind about having both as an option, or it's currently in the works. I say that because you're exactly like me when it comes to coding something that a wide variety of people will be using. Customizability - a lot of it.

I obviously snipped that quote down a bit, but don't worry, I have a habit of rambling too Rollout times are implemented already in the dev build (which is actually quite stable now and only really needs some tweaks for procedural parts). As for customizability, I tend to prefer to give people the tools to play however they want. With the rollout times (which are treated the same way as reconditioning in that it's mass based, they're actually two instances of the same internal object in the code) there's a slider to let you choose how much time for a rocket should be spent on rollout and how much should be spent on reconditioning. Set the slider to 0% rollout and it acts like it does now, 100% rollout and there's no reconditioning (you just pay that time prior to launch), the default is 25% if I recall correctly, meaning if the total "reconditioning" time is the sum of the rollout and post-launch reconditioning then 25% of that total is rollout and 75% is reconditioning. There's also a setting to set a maximum reconditioning value (which actually sets the "total reconditioning" and thus affects rollout and post-launch reconditioning).

Reconditioning was originally going to be based on total active rocket thrust at launch, but that scales with mass so I decided that just dealing with mass is simpler. With the recent changes I've made it would be very very difficult to move away from a purely mass based system (since I now need to calculate reconditioning times before the rocket is put on the pad).

Will KCT have an option to make it take time to upgrade/repair [buildings]?

It would be nice, I don't like the immediate magical repairs at the moment, but I gather from your earlier post your having issues hooking into that particular code?

Short answer is that I plan on doing this. I haven't spent a whole lot of time trying to figure it all out, but it is definitely my intention to have upgrades and repair take time. Additionally, due to Real Solar System discussions, individual part unlocks will take time. As always, most of these things will be optional toggles.

[Artophwar]

Everything sounds awesome. I probably wont start playing .90 until KCT is compatible. Want to start a new career with building upgrades taking time.

[djnattyd]

It's highly possible that I've simply missed a setting but, is it possible for KCT to NOT add build times to recovered aircraft, especially if it exists as a saved craft? It's one of those things that's been bugging me that after building a successful plane I have to wait for KCT to build it again for a second flight.

[Jovus]

I don't have a configured solution, but I have a way of thinking about it so that it doesn't bother me, if you want to try that on for size.

For spaceplanes particularly, the airframe takes a lot of refurbishing after each flight. The heat shielding needs to be checked over and renewed, the wings and loading members need to be tested (and sometimes replaced) to make sure they don't fail on the next flight due to microfractures or hidden tensions, the landing gear need almost complete replacement, and the electronics need to be tested and retested to make sure they don't fail. The rocket engines need to be tested to make sure that the stresses of firing and reentry didn't crack their bells or their ignition chambers, etc. etc.

Combining that with the fact that a spaceplane's 100% parts recovery drastically cuts build times for the next mission, I find it doesn't bother me so much.

That's all for spaceplanes, though. For aircraft, especially low-performance aircraft, sorry.

[magico13]

It's highly possible that I've simply missed a setting but, is it possible for KCT to NOT add build times to recovered aircraft, especially if it exists as a saved craft? It's one of those things that's been bugging me that after building a successful plane I have to wait for KCT to build it again for a second flight.

Nope, not a config setting. The EXTREMELY reduced build times are representative of refueling/repairing (default settings result in a build time of about 10% compared to a brand new ship). You can always increase the InventoryEffect (5% build times would be 400) if you feel it isn't reducing your times to something you would consider satisfactory. The development version (aka, the pretty much 100% stable except for some weirdness with Procedural Parts) has the ability to recover straight to the inventory without going through any build times first, but since KSP provides ZERO way to easily turn an existing vessel into a valid craft file (and straight copying it from the save doesn't work because suddenly everything is named differently or has a totally different meaning) it is currently pretty buggy (since I have to manually parse the ship and fix its rotation, remove science from containers, repack parachutes, turn off engines, etc). It works ok for rockets, but planes tend to get put tail down on the runway due to lost rotation information.

And then you get to play with vessel recovery time instead, with a really wacked out frankenplane that may or may not be missing modules Squad doesn't make anything easy for us it seems.

You also can do it manually by keeping the ship next to the runway and refuelling it with a tanker. I know of people who actually do that.

[djnattyd]

Nope, not a config setting... *snip*

Ahh... I thought it might have been a design decision rather than a restriction by KSP.

You also can do it manually by keeping the ship next to the runway and refuelling it with a tanker. I know of people who actually do that.

Never actually thought about that option.

[magico13]

Ahh... I thought it might have been a design decision rather than a restriction by KSP.

Well it was a little bit of both. The inventory system was one of the very first things I created (it's present in Pre-Release 1) and was designed such that you could reuse (space)planes or other reusable craft without having to take the full time to build a new ship. The original version of KCT (when EkkuZakku was still working on it) didn't have any systems to reduce build times, so you'd have to pay the full time every single launch (and you could only have one ship building at a time and couldn't switch to a different craft, it was a good time ).

It wasn't until recently when I was trying to add a way to recover craft directly into storage, thus bypassing the whole refurbishing and refueling stage and its associated time, that I discovered that there is virtually no simple way of turning an existing craft into a craft file. The conversion is definitely not as straightforward as it should be, but changing one or the other on Squad's side would likely break save games. I did find one way, and can get valid craft files, they're just pretty messed up. Which I might actually keep as-is (once I figure out the rotation issues) since it's a side effect of not going through the refurb phases that your wheels or solar panels are still broken and your tanks are empty. You can just use the edit function to fix those yourself, many of which won't require any extra game time other than what you take to manually fix things.

I personally don't care so much for the "recover to storage" thing since the part inventory was designed to satisfy that requirement, but it was requested enough that I've spent quite a bit of time on it despite the many issues.

The particular github issue for this is number 10 and you can view some of the progress I had on this by reading the posts on the dev forum (linked in the bottom of the first post). As I've mentioned before, it won't be a feature present in the "normal" 1.1 release since it's got a lot of issues (primarily with resetting things), but will be available if you have the "Debug" setting enabled in the KCT settings. If you (you being anyone reading this) wants to test it out now, the dev version is actually pretty stable otherwise (but we've only got one other person actually testing it out, so there's likely many bugs him and I can't anticipate that only more eyes will find). All the warnings on the dev thread about it breaking your save are there to ensure you know the risks before trying, especially because the next version uses a radically different save mechanism, but we're pretty sure old saves convert properly now. 1.1 required much, much save breaking to get to the current state (even between individual builds).

For comparison, the update branch is 31 commits ahead of the current release (plus or minus one or two since the master branch has some very minor stuff not actually in the release) while the master branch only has 116 commits TOTAL since PR4 which was 8 months ago. That's over 25% of the total current commits all in one update, mostly because we had to keep retrying things. I don't know the overall additions/deletions until I merge it into the master branch.

TL;DR: Rambling! I don't want to work on this paper about CuAAC click chemistry!

[John FX]

OK I think I may have found a bug.

Make a manned craft.

remove all kerbals

click launch (simulate)

click simulate again (which normally takes you to the flight screen)

when KSP says "This vessel will not be controllable as it contains no kerbals" cancel

the value of the craft is added to your funds.

rinse repeat for free funds.

Aplogies if this has already been found or fixed.

it seems that to enable simulation, the value of the craft is added to your funds but not removed at the right moment to avoid this `feature`

[magico13]

OK I think I may have found a bug.

I can see why this would occur. I'll have to add in some checks to avoid that. From my side, what's happening is that you are given the cost of the vessel when you simulate a craft (so that you can do it even with 0 funds) but KSP prevents the simulation from starting. Normally those funds are then taken back after you revert (I have to give you the funds before the persistence is saved, so KCT keeps track of the cost of the vessel and takes it back after revert), but since the simulation doesn't actually initiate it just keeps giving you funds.

I can't think of an appropriate fix off the top of my head just yet, so I'll have to mull over some ideas. My first thought is to keep track of the total funds given and take all of that back on scene change, but then you could still build a ship you can't normally afford. I can add some more checks when you go to build a ship, but it feels like there should be a better way.

I'll make a github issue to remind myself to fix this.

[John FX]

Is checking if a craft can be controlled and not letting you simulate it if it cannot a valid fix? (pretty pointless simulation IMHO but I can see that some people may want to do that)

Otherwise, as you say, put the funds available before simulation in a variable when launch/simulate is pressed and make sure it is the same value if the simulation is cancelled by KSC (Or there is no scene change and you remain in the VAB)

Maybe note funds when you enter the VAB and let the bug happen but make sure the funds are the same when you exit? (minus build costs of course but that is a given)

Then whenever you exit and for whatever reason it will make your funds correct at that point.

I`m not familiar with your code so I don`t know which approach makes more sense but sometimes, someone giving the wrong answer suggests the right one.

I often think "No, that idea is silly the right way is like this" and so I think of the right way.

Still loving your mod, it is firmly in my `cannot do without` mods list

[magico13]

There's plenty of solutions, so whichever one I'm feeling when I go to fix it is likely the one I'll use Not simulating an uncontrolled craft is probably the easiest, but there might be that random time where you might want to. Or, since you can change craft during simulations, you might "simulate" a structural pylon so you can run tests on your lander that's orbiting Duna without using quicksaves. I might make that a viable option in a later update, where you don't have to simulate a particular craft and can just pay a base cost for the simulation time. Switching craft will probably also be an upgrade you have to purchase now that I think of it.

I really want to get started on the new upgrades, but I need to sort out the last few remaining bugs with 1.1 and be done with finals (I have 2 on Monday, 3 hours each, and I'm pretty close to the border between passing and failing them. Grad school is hard compared to undergrad...)

[WuphonsReach]

Been playing with this tonight as a first time user and I feel that the time it takes to research / build during the early is much too high. Thirty Kerbin days for a 3rd level tech node (even after spending upgrade) points means a lot of "press warp and watch the clock spin".

- Time multiplier in early game feels to off by about 10x (I have dropped it to 0.1).

- Having parts on hand should probably have a bigger effect (250x or 500x).

- The increased cost of upgrade point per unit of science (i.e. 32 science, then 64 science) should probably only be a 50% increase over the previous step and not a full doubling.

Maybe it balances out at later levels, but the first few nodes in the Tech tree and the first few flights when you are only sub-orbital are rough.

[magico13]

Well, I'm going to be doing a revamp of the upgrade system somewhat soon (within the next couple months) so things will get shifted around a bit then, but for the most part I haven't felt the current settings to be that unbalanced, especially if you unlock the tech tree one "layer" at a time and purchase one tech upgrade each time you move up a level.

As for the times, the very first build tends to be a bit high, but it very rapidly drops down to only take a couple days for new ships as you use and reuse parts. I even turn up the overall multiplier a bit because it's too low

A suborbital flight should only be taking like 10-ish kerbin days to build. Even my Mun base only takes like 30. Also, being only suborbital with third level tech seems weird to me.

[leeham991]

So the thing with time stopping when you put your cursor over the thing is a bug?

I hope when you 'fix' it that you leave the option to have that in the settings somewhere. I've found that kind of useful playing over the last few versions.

[WuphonsReach]

Suggestions:

- On the Upgrades screen, swap the Research / Development lines. From reading the manual, the Development line is the one that you want to unlock faster if you are not happy with how fast tech nodes are unlocking. By putting it first, I would have chosen it initially for putting points into without completely understanding the system.

- On the VAB/SPH Upgrades tab, changing "Rate #" to "Slot # Rate" and "VAB Upgrades" to "VAB Production Upgrades" would make it a bit more apparent that the VAB can build multiple things at once.

Still on the fence about how long initial tech nodes unlock - my feeling is that the first 2-3 layers should be unlocked at about the same speed as building a 10k-25k cost launch vehicle. So if a 10k cost launch vehicle takes 1 day to build (with 5 points into VAB Slot #1), that first tech node should take 1-2 days to research (with 5 points into Development).

Keep in mind that I didn't understand the difference between Development and Research on the R&D upgrades tab, and I'm not sure how this plays out in mid-late game.

[NihilRex]

Suggestions:

Keep in mind that I didn't understand the difference between Development and Research on the R&D upgrades tab, and I'm not sure how this plays out in mid-late game.

The top line gives you science for building things, the bottom line is how fast you research.

[magico13]

KCT is currently INCOMPATIBLE with 0.90. I'm working on StageRecovery now, and will get to KCT soon. KCT looks like it'll need a lot of fixes unfortunately, so it may be a while, and the dev version has some things it needs sorted out before I feel comfortable with it anyway.

It may take a few days for a full release! The dev version will be updated first, and when that's been tested I'll make it the full release. I'll try to get a dev update out tonight.