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

[Revenant503]

So after a bit of experimentation, it seems like disabling Launchpad Reconditioning in the KCT settings menu fixes this bug

I noticed something similar recently, I was getting KCT Crash messages after every launch or two. I think what happened was my Launch crashed when I reverted it (completely unconnected to KCT) and KCT seemed to have trouble reconciling a Launchpad cleanup with an object on the pad in the KSC view (or its own accounting got hung during the crash leaving its data in an inconsistent state). I deleted contents of the recon_rollout key and everything seemed to work fine

[magico13]

Maybe integrate it so if there is a SOI change it warps you down to x0

I'd add support for Kerbal Alarm Clock, so as long as you make alarms for SOI changes then things would be fine, same as if you were to timewarp in the space center or tracking station. As for 0x in flight, there are mods that add that already. I've considered making a modlet that only does that, but at least one mod that alters timewarp has a 0x function.

So after a bit of experimentation, it seems like disabling Launchpad Reconditioning in the KCT settings menu fixes this bug

Ack, sorry, I even remember looking through this and was going to suggest you try that. Somehow the function that computes part costs is failing, which usually happens due to a mod being removed. That's being called by the reconditioning/rollout functions, so disabling those would avert that. There might still be issues that crop up later on if that function continues to fail when called from another location in the code.

I noticed something similar recently, I was getting KCT Crash messages after every launch or two. I think what happened was my Launch crashed when I reverted it (completely unconnected to KCT) and KCT seemed to have trouble reconciling a Launchpad cleanup with an object on the pad in the KSC view (or its own accounting got hung during the crash leaving its data in an inconsistent state). I deleted contents of the recon_rollout key and everything seemed to work fine

This sounds a little more serious than the previous error, but if clearing out the reconditioning and rollout data fixed it then that's good. If you do see it come up again, report it here with a log file and I'll take a look to see what's causing it.

[Cetera]

Any sort of scene change is all that's needed to fix it, so that includes going into the VAB, SPH, Tracking Station, or Space Center from another scene (or main menu works too). So yeah, you can timewarp in the space center and then switch to the tracking station, then go back. It might be easier to switch to the VAB/SPH after everything's been rolled out since you should be able to launch then. Just so long as there's a scene change you should be ok.

R&D, Astronaut Complex, Administration, and the Contracts building aren't scene changes, so those won't work. If the screen doesn't go black and you don't see the spinning planets, then it's probably not a scene change.

I check this thread every-so-often, just to see what is being done, and I've experienced this bug without warping in the KSC scene. When I have it occur, I'm usually playing with a vessel somewhere not on Kerbin, and get my KCT notification that a rollout is complete and a ship is ready to launch. Using the toolbar, I can go into KCT and launch directly from the flight scene I'm in, taking me to the launchpad with the vessel. Every time, my ships will bounce once loaded, but usually they will bounce over 100m up into the air. I've successfully launched from there before (hey, free delta-v, right) but usually they don't survive the initial bounce up.

I've noticed that the only way to prevent that is to not launch from another scene using KCT, and to go to the space center first, then launch using KCT.

[magico13]

I've noticed that the only way to prevent that is to not launch from another scene using KCT, and to go to the space center first, then launch using KCT.

Are you playing with New Horizons, Alternis Kerbol, or any other Kopernicus mods? If so, please let me know which one(s). If not, then that's a bigger problem. The tracking station used to do this without any other mods installed, so if Flight is doing it too then I might have to disable launching from flight as well.

My previous attempt at a fix was to quickly change to the space center and then quickly change to the launch. That might still be doable, but the way I was doing it before was too fast and thus broke a lot of other things (Persistence didn't load before the scene changed again. Mods were not happy with that).

[DavidDire]

The starting window for KCT won't open for me. Whenever I try to play a career game (resuming or creating a new one) it will just load up like normal and not even a tab is on the toolbar for me to use. I've installed it like any other mod, as said on the pdf file that comes with the download. No matter what I do, the starting menu will not show up.

I tried with mods installed, and then with no mods installed, but still to no avail.

Output log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5k0AZg6-qBlQWo5Y1F0RkFTWEU/view?usp=sharing

[DiamondExcavater]

when ever i time warp, and something like a construction is coming up, time warp slows down to a crawl, is this your mod doing this or KAC?

BTW check out this

Many thanks in your efforts

[baldamundo]

Ack, sorry, I even remember looking through this and was going to suggest you try that. Somehow the function that computes part costs is failing, which usually happens due to a mod being removed. That's being called by the reconditioning/rollout functions, so disabling those would avert that. There might still be issues that crop up later on if that function continues to fail when called from another location in the code.

Cheers. If I've e.g. deleted all existing craft that used uninstalled parts should it start working again? It's just I actually feel a bit like I'm cheating without the reconditioning timers

[magico13]

The starting window for KCT won't open for me. Whenever I try to play a career game (resuming or creating a new one) it will just load up like normal and not even a tab is on the toolbar for me to use. I've installed it like any other mod, as said on the pdf file that comes with the download. No matter what I do, the starting menu will not show up.

I tried with mods installed, and then with no mods installed, but still to no avail.

It appears as if you've managed to install it incorrectly. It looks like you've placed the GameData folder inside the already existing GameData folder. Instead you should merge the two folders, or alternatively open the GameData folder in the Kerbal Construction Time download, and place the KerbalConstructionTime folder inside the Kerbal Space Program\GameData folder.

The folder tree should look something like this

Kerbal Space Program ->GameData -> KerbalConstructionTime ->Icons/KCT_Presets/plugins

If you see a GameData folder in a download, it's usually safe to assume that they should be merged. If you don't see one (after looking through the first few levels of folders) then you should assume the highest level folder gets placed inside GameData. Unfortunately none of this is standardized, but thankfully tools like CKAN do a good job at handling it anyway.

Thank you immensely for including a log file!

when ever i time warp, and something like a construction is coming up, time warp slows down to a crawl, is this your mod doing this or KAC?

If you have KAC installed and have KCT making KAC alarms, then yeah, every construction or rollout or reconditioning or anything will create an alarm automatically. You can turn that off in the KCT settings.

- - - Updated - - -

Cheers. If I've e.g. deleted all existing craft that used uninstalled parts should it start working again? It's just I actually feel a bit like I'm cheating without the reconditioning timers

Correct, that should work. That's assuming the issue is due to a mod being uninstalled and not some other weird incident. I can probably write up either a fix or a temporary workaround pretty easily if need be, if you find it's still not working.

[baldamundo]

Correct, that should work. That's assuming the issue is due to a mod being uninstalled and not some other weird incident. I can probably write up either a fix or a temporary workaround pretty easily if need be, if you find it's still not working.

Yay. Seems to be working again. Although...still breaks when I click the VAB button while I'm in the VAB/SPH Hardly the end of the world, but seems odd.

[DavidDire]

It appears as if you've managed to install it incorrectly. It looks like you've placed the GameData folder inside the already existing GameData folder. Instead you should merge the two folders, or alternatively open the GameData folder in the Kerbal Construction Time download, and place the KerbalConstructionTime folder inside the Kerbal Space Program\GameData folder.

The folder tree should look something like this

Kerbal Space Program ->GameData -> KerbalConstructionTime ->Icons/KCT_Presets/plugins

If you see a GameData folder in a download, it's usually safe to assume that they should be merged. If you don't see one (after looking through the first few levels of folders) then you should assume the highest level folder gets placed inside GameData. Unfortunately none of this is standardized, but thankfully tools like CKAN do a good job at handling it anyway.

Thank you immensely for including a log file!

Strange, I installed it like that first. Oh well, it was probably just another mod conflicting. Thanks for helping me with that not-so problematic problem

[magico13]

Yay. Seems to be working again. Although...still breaks when I click the VAB button while I'm in the VAB/SPH Hardly the end of the world, but seems odd.

Hmm, that is strange. Mind sending me the log for that. Probably the same issue, but I'm not sure why it would be different in that scene. I'd imagine it'd actually work better in those scenes

Strange, I installed it like that first. Oh well, it was probably just another mod conflicting. Thanks for helping me with that not-so problematic problem

No problem! If you encounter any other weirdness, let me know. Usually the logs can point me toward what's wrong, so definitely include those again

[DiamondExcavater]

Magico13,

I found a slight bug and I definitely know this could be your mod...

When in simulation mode and the timer runs out (whilst in orbit) there is an option to purchase extra time, upon pressing it it gives you the initial time that was bought...

The problem here is that where ever the vessel is facing, upon pressing the button, it gets a speed boost, the orbit changes while pressing the button, I bought an hour of simulation but ended up time warping 8 hours, every time the button is pressed and vessel is facing prograde it speeds up and orbit get eccentric...

Hope you can replicate and change the physics reload problem..

[magico13]

Might be an issue with suddenly pausing the game to display the menu and then unpausing it right after clicking the button. It's only a simulation, so it's not that bad of a bug. If I drop warp down to 1x in the last few seconds before popping up the window, then pause, then it probably won't happen. It might even be fine if I set the warp to 1x while paused so that it doesn't jump back up again.

[DiamondExcavater]

It might even be fine if I set the warp to 1x while paused so that it doesn't jump back up again.

Sounds good, because you could essentially set the simulation to 1 second and continuously accelerate in a direction, but as you said, its only a sim..

[baldamundo]

Hmm, that is strange. Mind sending me the log for that. Probably the same issue, but I'm not sure why it would be different in that scene. I'd imagine it'd actually work better in those scenes

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a56jgmef7hk0eee/output_log%20SPH%20KCT%20gui%20error.txt?dl=0

Although, weirdly enough, immediately after saving that log, I exited the SPH, re-entered again, and then the KCT menu worked perfectly fine

[Prezombie]

I've found a rather major bug, and one smaller one.

The "reset points" button when in the default ruleset seems to be severely bugged, pushing it resets the points, and increases the reset cost, but doesn't actually take the price. It also lets you reset if you've spent no points, and if you switch save files, the reset button cost won't change unless you restart KSP. Honestly, I think a better way to respec would be to allow you to buy back spent points for 10-25% the cost of buying a new point. Minor respecs are cheaper, and it would make it more feasable to push points to where they're needed in an emergency without feeling like you're paying a permanent cost.

The R&D department's behavior is rather odd, in how it's able to use it's base science research rate on all currently researching projects at once. They really should be queued up rather than ran in parallel.

As for some suggestions:

An option to make recovery take time proportional to the "distance fee" would be nice, and encourage use of more than just Jeb in the early game.

When you get a "test module contract", It would make total sense for one of that module to be added to the KSC inventory, and removed if possible after the ship which performed it is recovered.

Instead of a simple "rush 10%" button, instead it would be cool to have the option to outsource the part construction phase, which would add around 50% of the part's cost. pick how much you're willing to spend on that, and the accountants buy as many parts as possible for the ship, starting with the cheapest and working their way up, because they're kerbals. Also because the knapsack problem is NP-hard

The development rate could also be applied to the science earned, taking a token amount of time to convert recovered and transmitted experiments into delicious science points.

A small token salary for each kerbal would be nice too. in the area of 5-30 credits a day based on their star level sounds about right, plus a bit of danger pay for each time they land.

Thanks for all the hard work, you help make KSP feel like a real program.

The above would work great with the option to give grounded kerbals some value. An Engineer on the ground would help build speed of either the VAB or SPH by 0.1 as a zero star, with 0.05 for each level they gain, A scientist on the ground would help speed up development by a point, and stars would act like points for the research feature. Pilots on the ground are sad sacks who want to go to space.

[magico13]

I've found a rather major bug, and one smaller one.

The "reset points" button when in the default ruleset seems to be severely bugged, pushing it resets the points, and increases the reset cost, but doesn't actually take the price. It also lets you reset if you've spent no points, and if you switch save files, the reset button cost won't change unless you restart KSP. Honestly, I think a better way to respec would be to allow you to buy back spent points for 10-25% the cost of buying a new point. Minor respecs are cheaper, and it would make it more feasable to push points to where they're needed in an emergency without feeling like you're paying a permanent cost.

Resetting points is a "soft" cost. You don't lose the points, it just requires that you have enough saved up at one time to be able to trigger it, which means you have to actively work toward resetting and can't instead assign those points to get faster build rates. The first one is cheap, it's basically free, but later ones require you to actively waste points in order to reset them, which is the only penalty I think is needed. Resetting shouldn't be used unless absolutely needed. It shouldn't be something you do regularly, so it should always be possible but only as a last resort.

Not resetting on save change is a bug though. I'll try to remember to fix that, but I'm away from home for a few days so I can't do it right now.

The R&D department's behavior is rather odd, in how it's able to use it's base science research rate on all currently researching projects at once. They really should be queued up rather than ran in parallel.

That's definitely a personal opinion, not a bug I personally feel that it should be able to research everything at once. It's a gigantic building made up of different teams of people all working on different projects, much like how research is done in real life at a university. I study polymer physics using computers, the people in the lab next to me study cancer cells in animals. I know nothing about their research and they can't really explain mine.

But here's the awesome thing, if you want them to be queued up like everything else, that feature is already built in. You just have to activate it by modifying the formula.

Change NodeFormula = "2^([N]+1) / 86400" to NodeFormula = "2^([N]+1) / 86400 * sign(-1*)" and now it will only do one node at a time. KCT will automatically make buttons that let you rearrange the list.

As for some suggestions:

An option to make recovery take time proportional to the "distance fee" would be nice, and encourage use of more than just Jeb in the early game.

You might like this. It doesn't work with KCT yet. I'm waiting to hear from the author to see what I need to do to make it work.

When you get a "test module contract", It would make total sense for one of that module to be added to the KSC inventory, and removed if possible after the ship which performed it is recovered.

That implies the part inventory holds actual parts. It doesn't, because you get the funds back on recovery. I've explored changing that, and I might still, in which case there's a good possibility you'll see that suggestion happen.

Instead of a simple "rush 10%" button, instead it would be cool to have the option to outsource the part construction phase, which would add around 50% of the part's cost. pick how much you're willing to spend on that, and the accountants buy as many parts as possible for the ship, starting with the cheapest and working their way up, because they're kerbals. Also because the knapsack problem is NP-hard

The development rate could also be applied to the science earned, taking a token amount of time to convert recovered and transmitted experiments into delicious science points.

I like that better than the rush button. I don't particularly care for the rush button. It's just sounds like it needs more GUIs, which I hate

Do you mean that you should earn additional science when you recover experiments based on the development rate? I could add that as a formula without too much trouble I think. Maybe not have it in the default Preset since it tweaks the balance of Science collection in a non-negligible way.

A small token salary for each kerbal would be nice too. in the area of 5-30 credits a day based on their star level sounds about right, plus a bit of danger pay for each time they land.

See B.R.O.K.E., the mod I and two other mod authors are currently working on. One of the features is salaries, which should be operational in the latest builds. That mod is still very WIP but we should be making an initial beta release soon. Maybe this weekend, but maybe not until after I get back home. It's designed to be very easy to write new modules for, with a majority of the work handled by the BROKE core.

Thanks for all the hard work, you help make KSP feel like a real program.

The above would work great with the option to give grounded kerbals some value. An Engineer on the ground would help build speed of either the VAB or SPH by 0.1 as a zero star, with 0.05 for each level they gain, A scientist on the ground would help speed up development by a point, and stars would act like points for the research feature. Pilots on the ground are sad sacks who want to go to space.

Thanks for playing with KCT! I sometimes might seem critical of suggestions, and I don't really mean to be, I just have a tendency to think out loud and like to explain why things might be difficult to implement. I do consider everything that's suggested when I'm adding new features and making tweaks to existing things.

When BROKE is released it will have some additional features to make grounded kerbals useful. I'll probably add some more things into KCT for grounded kerbals at that time too, when I'm in that mindset. I could easily add a variable for the total grounded engineer/scientist/pilot levels to several of the formulas to add those bonuses in a configurable manner. Assuming that's as easy as I think it will be, consider that to be in the next release. The Default Preset might not use them, and if it does they won't contribute a huge amount, but people can make other Presets that depend entirely on the ground crew for instance.

- - - Updated - - -

Although, weirdly enough, immediately after saving that log, I exited the SPH, re-entered again, and then the KCT menu worked perfectly fine

There's an error stating that the Toolbar mod can't save it's file (likely due to the location of the KSP folder preventing writing to it). Then other issues happen. I can't tell if that's what's causing the issues, or if they're unrelated. I'll try to take a closer look tomorrow when I'm not prepping for a job interview

[DiamondExcavater]

prepping for a job interview

oooh sounds scary, ahhaahahha

Do you mind me asking what kind of job?

LOL it would be cool if you were going to work for squad...

I'm guessing computer business?

I am in for recovery times and it going into storage, Apparently recovering a vessel and building the same craft again is faster due to only refuelling, I haven't seen this at all, I had a plane which I recovered, it only had 10% fuel drained, but it still took 3 days to build and rollout

[baldamundo]

There's an error stating that the Toolbar mod can't save it's file (likely due to the location of the KSP folder preventing writing to it). Then other issues happen. I can't tell if that's what's causing the issues, or if they're unrelated. I'll try to take a closer look tomorrow when I'm not prepping for a job interview

Oh no, that's because I set the toolbar settings to read-only to stop it resetting. Think the KCT glitch predated that, but I can make the toolbar settings writeable and test again.

EDIT: I don't want to waste your time looking into it. It does mostly seem to have fixed itself by now.

Edited October 16, 2015 by baldamundo

[Prezombie]

But here's the awesome thing, if you want them to be queued up like everything else, that feature is already built in. You just have to activate it by modifying the formula.

Change NodeFormula = "2^([N]+1) / 86400" to NodeFormula = "2^([N]+1) / 86400 * sign(-1*)" and now it will only do one node at a time. KCT will automatically make buttons that let you rearrange the list.

Very cool, thanks for the formula.

That implies the part inventory holds actual parts. It doesn't, because you get the funds back on recovery. I've explored changing that, and I might still, in which case there's a good possibility you'll see that suggestion happen.

Not exactly. As things are, to test a piece, you need to pay the funds, wait until the piece is built, then you can test it, and if you recover it, you get the money back, and keep the piece in the inventory list but you can't actually use it. If you do a lot of testing missions, that piece list will get to the point of silly.

If the item is added to the inventory list, you would still pay the funds to use the experimental piece, but not the build time. Think of it like paying a deposit. When the ship tests it successfully, and then recovers it, you get the deposit back, but you don't get to keep the part. I think the easiest way to do this would be to give each instance of experimental parts with a special tag, which exempt them from the inventory system

I like that better than the rush button. I don't particularly care for the rush button. It's just sounds like it needs more GUIs, which I hate

To minimize GUI, Have the button simply show "buy 1 part" With a tooltip showing the cost and the time saved.

Do you mean that you should earn additional science when you recover experiments based on the development rate? I could add that as a formula without too much trouble I think. Maybe not have it in the default Preset since it tweaks the balance of Science collection in a non-negligible way.

Not exactly. The idea is, currently science gets added directly to your science balance. Instead as an option, that science gets added to a completely different variable, the science buffer. When there's science in the buffer, it trickles into the vanilla science balance at a rate equal to the current development rate.

When BROKE is released it will have some additional features to make grounded kerbals useful. I'll probably add some more things into KCT for grounded kerbals at that time too, when I'm in that mindset. I could easily add a variable for the total grounded engineer/scientist/pilot levels to several of the formulas to add those bonuses in a configurable manner. Assuming that's as easy as I think it will be, consider that to be in the next release. The Default Preset might not use them, and if it does they won't contribute a huge amount, but people can make other Presets that depend entirely on the ground crew for instance.

That sounds awesome! I'd love if you added the variables soon, it would be fun to do a career where ground crew is the only source of KCT build speed, KSC acting something like a super-powered ExtraPlanetaryLaunchpads workshop, rather than having to fiddle with an honestly sub-par GUI. Not that I'm complaining about the current GUI, but switching to the GUI style you find in, say, Kerbal Engineer or BetterTimeWarp, would make the mod just that more enjoyable.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Prezombie

[fallout2077]

Hey Magico, I think I found a bug involving your mod and the x64 version of KSP. When I have KCT included in my mod list, the KSC is fully upgraded when starting a new Career game. However, when removing KCT from my GameData folder, and upon starting a new career game, the KSC is at its un-upgraded state. I thought about KCT being the culprit when I was playing my RO+RSS copy of KSP, and when starting a new career game with that, the KSC would be in its original, unaltered state (I don't have KCT in that install). So, I figured I would try removing it from my normal, mod-laden install of KSP, and lo-and-behold, the problem of a fully-upgraded KSC was fixed. So, I figured you might want to know this, just in case you didn't already. Have a good day!

[magico13]

@fallout2077 that's a fairly well known bug with the 64 bit version of KSP, not with KCT. There's a chance that KCT is somehow making it happen more frequently, but I know of other people who play with KCT and the 64 bit version of KSP using the community hack who don't see that problem occur. I'll keep that in mind though if someone else observes it too.

For now, the 64 bit version for Windows isn't officially supported by me, since it can have all sorts of crazy issues. When 1.1 comes out I'll make sure that the 64 bit version is equally as buggy as the 32 bit one

[HafCoJoe]

When 1.1 comes out I'll make sure that the 64 bit version is equally as buggy as the 32 bit one

- In fear of this getting marked as a reaction picture, that's good news! I just can't wait to have this setup run without the opengl hack in v1.1... As soon as 1.1 drops I'll be resuming my KCT career stream again .

Edited October 16, 2015 by Avera9eJoe

[BevoLJ]

Magico, was wondering if there would be any way to show the tech research being done in KCT & on deck/in queue and such from the R&D Screen?

[fallout2077]

For now, the 64 bit version for Windows isn't officially supported by me, since it can have all sorts of crazy issues. When 1.1 comes out I'll make sure that the 64 bit version is equally as buggy as the 32 bit one

I figured that you would have a similar stance as most of the other mod-makers on x64 KSP (can't say as I blame you), I just figured that I would throw it out there. Its good to know that the issue has already been brought to your attention, though. I didn't know about other users not having that issue with KCT when using the x64 hack; in every install I have played ever since I started using the x64 hack, I saw the issue, and I always had KCT installed, so I just figured that with the issue disappearing following KCT's removal from my GameData folder, KCT was to blame. Good to know, I suppose, that it is just yet another fault with the x64 version of KSP, and not with the mod.

EDIT--- Well, apparently I spoke too soon. The KSC starts at its most basic level when a new game is made, but upon exiting to main menu and re-loading the save, all of the buildings are upgraded to max. Bummer.

Edited October 16, 2015 by fallout2077