[WIP][.90][0.43]KSAEA Tech Tree and Game Rebalance

[NathanKell]

I'm enjoying this a good deal on 6.4x.

A note on your variable use in PF: unless you've fixed it by now, it's got a serious problem. You're using ../ syntax when you're already inside the nodes. it should be *just* foo = #$othernode$ not PROCWHATEVER/othernode.

[theonegalen]

Awesome, I appreciate the initiative and wouldn't mind using your final version (with credit of course) if you're ok with that. I haven't personally played with firespitter in the past, I just knew it fit into what I wanted to do with this so i'm super open and appreciative of help on that front. Also, .4 will move the manned pods up a bit further thus giving more room to spread the initial tier parts.

As for the jet engine, it was totally my plan already to have a new spot for that when Firespitter is installed. There's no IF[] conditional in MM (Unless it was added over the last couple weeks), but it is really easy to get the same functionality of an IF statement for something like this because there is dependency checking through NEEDS[]. Basically you just add NEEDS[!Firespitter] to the original jet engine patch, this will cause the patch not to occur if Firespitter is present.

Now as I'm typing this I think about how many people have just Firespitter.dll because it's a dependency for something else and this becomes not as easy a problem to solve. The patch would also no longer occur even if the person just has the .dll because of it's use in another mod so moving it might not actually possible, we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there. If Firespitter has some separate main folder or .dll that ONLY Firespitter has, then we can use that for the NEEDS[] check instead and problem solved.

Hmm, I'll mess about with it. I've been busy for the last week or two, so I didn't get much more done yet. I'm getting back to work (and playing KSP!) as of today, though!

[Sakai]

This is really something I always looked for! I know RO Tech Tree has it but since its all outdated and such I can't play with it. I for sure will look into this topic daily. I really want it to succeed, I might try it out soon as well but I would love to see more mods compatible with this. as someone wrote before as well probes should be way before manned flights, more probe sciences should be made! There really should be more use of probes and Realistic Progression LITE does that well.

I would love to see that in this mod. Give probes more means to the game!

EDIT: Just checked out the mod, I have a question. Shouldn't the plane parts be unlocked later beside be given in the start for the player?

Edited November 7, 2014 by Sakai

[theonegalen]

Did a lot of work on the Firespitter tree last night. Interestingly enough, Pirsig, starting the KSAEA tree with propeller planes means that most of the aircraft parts you moved are getting moved back to their original node.

Started planning for other mods as well, station science, Dmagic, KW, B9, AJE, etc. Not sure how KW will fit in with the current KSAEA progression, which I very much like. I wish there was one more tier of nodes after the Experimental ones. Perhaps high buy-in costs will balance everything out.

[Sakai]

So are there any plans for more use of probes/making probes be useful and actually do science and be way before manned missions? with that perhaps BoxSat mod would work nice too.

[NathanKell]

Have you considered moving the 0.625m parts to the start, and the 1.25ms to the early Rocketry nodes?

[Shania_L]

I'm enjoying this a good deal on 6.4x.

Did you have to adjust the solar panel powercurve provided in KSAEA for use with 6.4x? if so could you show me what you use as I have no idea how they function.

[theonegalen]

Have you considered moving the 0.625m parts to the start, and the 1.25ms to the early Rocketry nodes?

I think most of the .625m (basic) parts show up in Basic Rocketery, which feels natural to me.

[Pirsig]

First off, thanks again to everyone who's been downloading and enjoying this and thanks to those providing feedback, it is much appreciated. Sorry I haven't been around since dropping that last release, I'm going to be spending some time today working on adding a new mod config or two and a couple other new things to put out soon.

I'm enjoying this a good deal on 6.4x.

A note on your variable use in PF: unless you've fixed it by now, it's got a serious problem. You're using ../ syntax when you're already inside the nodes. it should be *just* foo = #$othernode$ not PROCWHATEVER/othernode.

Thank you, glad you enjoy it and also thanks for pointing that out to me. The newest version changed this to be hardcoded values that are different from stock PF in some cases, in retrospect I'm guessing this might not've been friendly to people using size overhauls. If that's the case I can put out a fixed version of the older config for PF. Though I might just roll this back entirely as it seems kind of in contrast with my original ideas looking back on the decision. Interested to hear what people think of this change and if it does indeed cause an issue or if the sizes used are still ok.

This is really something I always looked for! I know RO Tech Tree has it but since its all outdated and such I can't play with it. I for sure will look into this topic daily. I really want it to succeed, I might try it out soon as well but I would love to see more mods compatible with this. as someone wrote before as well probes should be way before manned flights, more probe sciences should be made! There really should be more use of probes and Realistic Progression LITE does that well.

I would love to see that in this mod. Give probes more means to the game!

So are there any plans for more use of probes/making probes be useful and actually do science and be way before manned missions? with that perhaps BoxSat mod would work nice too.

Things have already continued to grow outside the original scope of this and I don't have any immediate plans for more science experiments. There are lots of mods out there that do add more science experiments that you can put on probes, or whatever else, over time they'll be integrated. D magic orbital science would be at the top of the list probably in that regard. Also, manned atmospheric flight will always be basically first. Caveat here being I want to find a way to put some sort of really bad probe core at the start that you'd never want to use once getting another, but I haven't come up with a way I like to do that yet.

EDIT: Just checked out the mod, I have a question. Shouldn't the plane parts be unlocked later beside be given in the start for the player?

If you're referring to the smaller wing parts added by SPP being closer to the beginning, I thought this would help add some more variety without giving anything too overpowered. I'm curious to hear from people if I'm wrong on that.

Did a lot of work on the Firespitter tree last night. Interestingly enough, Pirsig, starting the KSAEA tree with propeller planes means that most of the aircraft parts you moved are getting moved back to their original node.

Started planning for other mods as well, station science, Dmagic, KW, B9, AJE, etc. Not sure how KW will fit in with the current KSAEA progression, which I very much like. I wish there was one more tier of nodes after the Experimental ones. Perhaps high buy-in costs will balance everything out.

That's awesome and thank you. I'm gonna be working on Dmagic today probably so don't worry about that one if that's something you're still thinking about doing. As for the large parts packs, I've been waiting on those until the progression of the tree feels pretty solid because it would really suck to make a major change to the progression of the stock tree and then have to do it for all the stuff in those major parts packs as well to make them fit. And yeah, I really wish there was another set of nodes as well. I also don't like nanolathing's lack of requirement in the immediately preceding tier, it makes it far less useful of a node in my opinion.

Have you considered moving the 0.625m parts to the start, and the 1.25ms to the early Rocketry nodes?

There's a couple of the .625m parts at the start now and as I was saying, I want to add a really junky probe core here to go with those. The rest coming at basic rocketry I think makes sense and helps keep the 1.25m parts further up the tree. You shouldn't get any 1.25 m parts until the fourth tier now and I think that's fitting and helps keep early rockets sub-orbital without getting really creative, I hope. Moving another tank or two back to start might not hurt though either.

[NathanKell]

That sounds good. One way you can make a probe core bad is to vastly increase its electricity consumption; in particular, you want to set it such that it'll only survive one orbit or so, plus a cushion for transmitting the data. You also can remove its reaction wheels.

This might be getting a bit far afield, but I would suggest:

.625m tank in Start

clone a probe core, give it high drain and no wheels.

Clone LV-1 (call it LV-0) and give it bad stats (or don't, and buff the LV-1 to sane Isps) but a slight amount of gimbal (since there's no other way to control the rocket).

That way you can launch small sounding rockets in start, and in Basic Rocketry (where you perhaps get the TR-2V and the 48-7S) you can make 0.625m orbital rockets.

[Pirsig]

EDIT: I totally forgot to actually change science values for the experiments in DMagic, just did the tech tree stuff, so I'm remedying that at the moment and will have a .41a up with that included shortly.

Hey folks, got some time in to add support for a few more mods as well as a preliminary run through rebalancing SAS. All stock parts with SAS have been reduced to 25% of their original values across the board to start and some command pods and SAS modules have had values individually tweaked from there. The base reduction is also controlled by a global variable in KSAEAVars.cfg for easy tweaking. Definitely curious for some feedback on this SAS stuff as this was just a pretty quick and dirty run through to get everything powered way down. No modifications have been made to electric charge consumption or anything like that at this time, just torque values. I've also removed SAS entirely from the initial plane cockpits and the cupola.

A quick note also about the DMagic config, if you're using Universal Storage I've not yet done compatibility for those parts. When Universal Storage is integrated those parts will be adjusted as well. Planning on getting all the mods compatible with US integrated first and then I'll do a config for US and those mod's US parts. This should be relatively easy since the only mods left after this update are other LS mods and I already have a framework for where to put that stuff that I expect to stay fairly stable.

v .41

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for DMagic Orbital Science

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Kerbal Attachment System

-SAS has been rebalanced

-Mk1 Cockpit, Mk1 Inline Cockpit, and PPD-12 Cupola Module have had SAS removed

Download v .41

As always, I recommend deleting the previous version of KSAEA before installing any update.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Pirsig
I'm an idiot

[Pirsig]

Well that was really dumb. Put out .41 without actually redoing any of the science stuff for DMagic Orbital Science, just the tech tree changes. So I've quickly worked up the science config and everything seems to be all good. Even though this doesn't move the DMagic US parts around yet, the config should target those for the science changes as well, including those using stock science experiments. DMagic uses a custom module for the science experiments so I've only targeted that, if any one runs into issues because they use a mod that uses the DMagic experiments with the stock module let me know. As far as I know this doesn't exist, but I can easily remedy the situation if I'm wrong and it's necessary.

v .41a

-Science Rebalance for DMagic Orbital Science

Download v .41a

If you already downloaded .41 you can just extract the DMagicOrbitalScienceScienceRebalance.cfg to Mod Configs if you want, or install like normal.

[CaptRobau]

Just noticed you based some of this mod on my concepts. Glad someone liked my ideas. Cool mod!

[Pirsig]

Good evening everyone, back in with another update and a quick look at where some things are headed. First off I've got .42 out for you here which includes the previously mentioned Universal storage integration as well as all the mods supported by it. I've also updated the DMagic configs for the new parts and experiments recently added to that mod and all of its US parts are now integrated as well. .42 also adds a life support rebalance, removing LS resources from atmospheric only cockpits for all supported LS mods.

The SKGU Probe Core has also been added, a new probe that is researched in the starting node with poor properties that hopefully make it obsolete quickly. It's expensive, has high energy drain, and no SAS of any kind. Nathan, you mentioned adding a new small gimbaled engine or reworking one of the existing ones to go along with this, I haven't ignored this advice I just haven't decided how to proceed yet.

I've also added patches to the end of all the KSAEA parts for DR. This is mostly copy/paste of the values used by DR for the normal version of the parts, but not in all cases. This was done with the new beta maxTemp values in mind, not the higher temps present in the current stable release.

You might notice I've also renamed the mod a "Tech Tree and Game Rebalance." I felt I was clearly outgrowing the original scope of only modifying the tech tree and science values and this should probably reflect that.

v .42

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for IFILS

-Life Support Rebalancing for IFILS

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for ECLSS

-Life Support Rebalancing for ECLSS

-Life Support Rebalancing for Snacks!

-Life Support Rebalancing for TACLS

-New part, SKGU Probe Core Added

-Science and Tech Tree Rebalancing for new DMagic Parts

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Universal Storage

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Universal Storage ECLSS Pack

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Universal Storage IFI Life Support Pack

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Universal Storage Kerbal Attachment System Pack

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Universal Storage Snacks! Life Support Pack

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Universal Storage TAC Life Support Pack

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for DMagic Orbital Science Universal Storage parts

-All KSAEA parts now have compatability patches for Deadly Reentry

Download v .42

As for what's coming, realchutes and maybe a couple other odds and ends, but the next major update in my sights now is redistributing many of the items currently in Meta-Materials so that the node actually reflects what it is. I don't like nanolathing, but that's going to become the new 'ultimate' construction node as it were, instead of Meta-materials being that and actual plausible meta-material parts like it is now. This'll mean moving several parts that already have established positions again, but I've never been happy with the way that part of the tree has shaken out so it needs to be done. At the moment that's kind of my last major area of unease with the tree, after which I might feel more comfortable in the permanence of things to start looking at a parts pack or two.

When the changes to Meta-Materials come about I'll also have a chance to make any other minor shifts I feel are necessary like moving another small tank or two towards the start of the tree.

I'm also looking at doing some sort of balancing run on the various intake parts if anyone has any input on the matter.

Just noticed you based some of this mod on my concepts. Glad someone liked my ideas. Cool mod!

Hey there, thanks for noticing and for Science revisited! Glad you like what I've built off it. I'd been running with a customized version of your configs for awhile that eventually evolved into the basis for what's here now.

[eddiew]

Nice, just last night I was grumbling over having invented jet engines but not wheels... Reckon this mod might be just what I need to solve that, and I like the other changes you've added in too - solar panels extend-once thing is pretty interesting, and it'll be nice to have a purpose for the science lab. Thanks for the hard work

One question though; what's the general plan for craft control, given the reduction in SAS strength?

Edited December 9, 2014 by eddiew
added question

[thorfinn]

You might be interested in this stuff: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102502-0-25-Sounding-Rockets%21-Start-small-Dream-big%21-0-0-1-2014-12-09

[Pirsig]

Nice, just last night I was grumbling over having invented jet engines but not wheels... Reckon this mod might be just what I need to solve that, and I like the other changes you've added in too - solar panels extend-once thing is pretty interesting, and it'll be nice to have a purpose for the science lab. Thanks for the hard work

One question though; what's the general plan for craft control, given the reduction in SAS strength?

Thanks, I hope you enjoy it. As for control, atmospheric flight should be controlled using control surfaces and gimbaled engines and space flight is RCS controlled.

You might be interested in this stuff: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102502-0-25-Sounding-Rockets%21-Start-small-Dream-big%21-0-0-1-2014-12-09

That is definitely cool and I've already downloaded it it to take a look at. Thanks for pointing this mod out to me.

[theonegalen]

I'm rethinking what I did for the Firespitter. Instead of starting with the biplane, I think I'm going to set it up to start with the basic prop fighter instead, which will give more room later in the tree for aircraft parts, and allow me to integrate the KAX - Kerbal Aircraft Expansion mod that just became alive again. Also, I'm going to see if the more recent updates give cause for reordering parts as well.

[Pixie Perfect]

I'm really wondering if this mod will work / update? I loved the tree!

[theonegalen]

Haven't tried it in 0.90 yet, but my playthrough of the stock career mode has me more convinced than ever that we need to start with aircraft. Aircraft are essential to getting to completing the early Kerbin survey contracts added with Fine Print stock integration, which are invaluable to getting through the grindy first levels of the tech tree. And with aircraft, the "Set a new altitude record" contracts really have more meaning, as you can have a sense of progression as you refine your initial aircraft design. So I'll design my firespitter integration to KSAEA with that in mind.

My two cents.

EDIT: Also, Ven's Stock Revamp is now modulemanager based and has it's own folder in gamedata (instead of replacing things in the stock Squad folder), which is going to change it's integration with Firespitter and Advanced Jet Engine too. Exciting.

Edited December 21, 2014 by theonegalen

[Pirsig]

I'm really wondering if this mod will work / update? I loved the tree!

Hey, yeah, I'm working on putting out a quick update with some of the minor stuff I've done the last couple weeks and making sure everything is all good in .90, which I've just gotten a chance to install today. Browsing the changelog the only thing I could see causing issues with stock stuff is if the MK3 rework changed names or added parts or anything that stuff will need to be fixed up, which I'll be looking at right after this post. Other than that I don't see anything which screams out that it would cause an issue.

Haven't tried it in 0.90 yet, but my playthrough of the stock career mode has me more convinced than ever that we need to start with aircraft. Aircraft are essential to getting to completing the early Kerbin survey contracts added with Fine Print stock integration, which are invaluable to getting through the grindy first levels of the tech tree. And with aircraft, the "Set a new altitude record" contracts really have more meaning, as you can have a sense of progression as you refine your initial aircraft design. So I'll design my firespitter integration to KSAEA with that in mind.

My two cents.

EDIT: Also, Ven's Stock Revamp is now modulemanager based and has it's own folder in gamedata (instead of replacing things in the stock Squad folder), which is going to change it's integration with Firespitter and Advanced Jet Engine too. Exciting.

How do you feel you're coming on the firespitter thing? If it's nearing a point where you think it's ready for folks to try it out I'd like to get a look. Also had not seen that stock revamp thing before. Assuming you're using it, are there any issues with compatibility for that I should take a look at? Glancing over it seems it just changes model stuff, is that right? If so I think the only thing would be the part rescales using old models which I can easily make a fix for.

[theonegalen]

How do you feel you're coming on the firespitter thing? If it's nearing a point where you think it's ready for folks to try it out I'd like to get a look. Also had not seen that stock revamp thing before. Assuming you're using it, are there any issues with compatibility for that I should take a look at? Glancing over it seems it just changes model stuff, is that right? If so I think the only thing would be the part rescales using old models which I can easily make a fix for.

It's coming along. I'll try to have a version up here that you can play with soon . It is the holiday week, so I don't have work, but I do have family in from out of town.

[Pirsig]

Alright, so just a quick and dirty update for .90 to cover all the new parts. I also added a small wing and control surface to start for controlling small rockets. I did not mess with any of the new SAS level stuff yet, I'll add that to the SAS rebalance for .5. I also did a couple of quick patches for small mods, MechJeb, RealChute, and SCANsat. I did not mess with science values for SCANsat at all since that has it's own thing based on % scanned and stuff that all makes perfect sense and I felt no need to mess with it. There's also a couple tweaks to existing reaction wheel values and the SKGU.

v .43

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for SCANsat

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Real Chute Parachute Systems

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for Mech Jeb

-SKGU Probe Core Electric Charge increased, consumption rate decreased

-MK2 Drone Core SAS torque has been decreased to .75

-Probodobodyne OKTO SAS torque is now equal to that of the Probodobodyne HECS

-The new MK3 Cockpit has had SAS rebalanced and is now governed by the global reduction

-New Aerodynamic parts for small rockets, includes FAR & DR support

-Tech Tree Rebalancing for new stock parts

Download v .43

So, next version should have the new approach to the upper tier construction nodes I was talking about as well as rebalancing for probes. This currently involves changing weight, power consumption, and adding decent amounts of onboard electric charge. I'll also add the new SAS level stuff to the rebalance, and probably break out the reaction wheel stuff to be its own config. The ridiculous capacity of the MK3 passenger section is also something I plan on remedying. I'm also going to add a .version file for KSP AVC and switch to that versioning scheme with 0.5.0.

[SchroedingersHat]

start of a config for realfuels:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8Z4f0VPlFhzYU1ndVRITGgySG8/view?usp=sharing

[theonegalen]

Playing 0.43 on 0.90.0 now to see how everything works together.