Project Plants

[Nazban]

I'm thinking of scenarios where there are colonies around the solar system and they consume resources at a certain rate and it's up to the player(s) to keep them resupplied. The end result of this factory project might be epic. Simple supply and demand can be taken quite far :3

It will be nice at the start, but who would travel all the way to say Titan from earth, just to get resources, wont that be tiring?
But maybe if this could be implemented in OMP, it would be cool!

 

[jedidia]

Plants are not supposed to be built by a player in a simulation. For now I propose to establish them in config files. For a given celestial body there will be a config file "Config\<cBody_name>\Plants.cfg" which will look like:

Ah, then I misunderstood the nature of the add-on a bit. I thought this was about the player building a mining operation. This way, it sounds more like a baseline for an econnomy add-on, which is just as fine, I guess, but could be done with a lot less effort, especially in the graphics departement... just give an add-on maker the possibility to define what his base produces, and let him take care of the graphics himself. Would also result in less repetitive environments.

Basically, letting the player build the stuff wouldn't be that much more effort than what you're doing now, you just have to work with the vessel class as a basis. If you don't want to make it scenario dependant, you can still use your own config file and have the add-on spawn the installations from that file after Orbiter start-up. Will result in a short loading time after orbiter is loaded, but with a whole lot more flexibility.

 

[Wishbone]

Logistics is a beast and cannot be tackled well in a 3D simulator.

 

[Grover]

still, having a simple "plant makes cargo-you fly cargo-factory makes cool new thing (possibly a vessel " is still quite good, one quick question about the functionality:

will it involve adding the "plants" to bases, then establishing a landing pad/parking spot next to them, from where you can control the plant and instruct it to give you so many cargoes or perform assembly/resource transformation? if so, the modular idea sounds good, imagine Wideawake international for example:
we add a fuel plant for getting fuel cargo, another for O2 and so on, so you move between each plant to get the resource you need

as for my work, ive had some nice ideas today, ill work on getting them into a model now

laters
-=-Grover-=-

---------- Post added at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 PM ----------

ok then, im a little happier with this, how does it look?

the back side is still a blank wall, do you think it needs some detail, or should i leave it to textures?

thanks
-=-Grover-=-

---------- Post added at 10:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 PM ----------

note: this is about 550 triangles, i suppose i could go further without impacting framerate too much, there wont be many of these in a simulation after all

 

[vchamp]

This 3D model is perfect for a hangar were you get products to your cargo ship. The factory itself should be much bigger, in my opinion, and look similar to:

for vessel/component-producers,

and

for resource producers.

still, having a simple "plant makes cargo-you fly cargo-factory makes cool new thing (possibly a vessel " is still quite good

:yes: and no more Scenario Editor "cheating"

will it involve adding the "plants" to bases, then establishing a landing pad/parking spot next to them, from where you can control the plant and instruct it to give you so many cargoes or perform assembly/resource transformation? if so, the modular idea sounds good, imagine Wideawake international for example:
we add a fuel plant for getting fuel cargo, another for O2 and so on, so you move between each plant to get the resource you need

No, if to make the add-on as I planned, it won't be possible to add several plants to a single base. Each base can produce exactly one product. It can be made for Wideawake as easy as for any other base, but I prefer new bases in a vicinity of major spaceports.

 

[Grover]

so if i leave that model as it is, then work on some more, with similar styling to those (more than one building per plant)?

also, some quick architecture options for you:

do you want me to remove the base floor for that model? since its a building you would never see the bottom anyway, or do you want to get complicated later on with elevations etc
for plants like those above, with multiple buildings, should i ADD a "ground" square so you can add a texture onto it (like a road) which would be far more detailed than L11-14 earth textures

ill work on s factory thing now, trying to keep the styling similar and suitable for both earth and lunar placement (airlocks for lunar, windows for earth etc)

wish me luck!

 

[Trainguy]

Having read this thread, it would seem that a rather important part of any infrastructure of this sort is missing - storage facilities for fuel, O2 and other finished products.

For example, I fly to the fuel plant and load up with fuel. This is a finished product, and I can't use it all, so where do I take it?

Just a thought, but otherwise, has great potential.

 

[Grover]

well, the fuel plant gives you fuel to fly around... to do your job

you use resources to make components to make craft, so you gradually go from an DGIV, to an XR2, to an XR5 [here, id like to add the arrow, but it actually has a lower UGCO capacity than the XR5]

after that, its purely your imagination that guides you

this gave me a question though, will there be much use for suborbital flights, EG load up on resources in africa, then zoom over to another plant to put the resources together, rather than going to the moon and back?

 

[Trainguy]

So you fuel directly from the plant as much as necessary, then go fly. Nice.

Some other, smaller craft, being built for the XR5 to launch, or even the abilility to (within limits) get the plant to build any vehicle in the installation would be awesome too. Then we really could build space stations!

Re your question, I think suborbital flights on a regular basis for this sort of thing are a no-go, as plants creating complementary stuff would probably be together. The combinations used often should really only be 20 mins away max, but larger craft, such as the XR5, may have to be built on the moon, due to lower gravity.

The placement of these things is key, depending on how often the run needs to be made. If it is only once or twice, then by all means put one on the Moon and one on Earth, but for runs made every day, try only a separation of KSC and Habana, say.

Does any of this make sense?

Edit: re plant designes, I agree with vchamp

 

[vchamp]

do you want to get complicated later on with elevations etc
for plants like those above, with multiple buildings, should i ADD a "ground" square so you can add a texture onto it (like a road) which would be far more detailed than L11-14 earth textures

It's not necessary to make a terrain mesh or ground textures now. Personally, I'll be fine without them.

ill work on s factory thing now, trying to keep the styling similar and suitable for both earth and lunar placement (airlocks for lunar, windows for earth etc)

wish me luck!

Thank you and good luck!

Having read this thread, it would seem that a rather important part of any infrastructure of this sort is missing - storage facilities for fuel, O2 and other finished products.

For example, I fly to the fuel plant and load up with fuel. This is a finished product, and I can't use it all, so where do I take it?

Each plant will have a defined storage capacity. If a plant is too far from a spaceport, cargo can be transported and stored in [ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4633"]warehouses[/ame]. Another option is to make storage facilities on spaceports the same way as plants with only distinction that they won't produce anything, only store.

 

[Trainguy]

Each plant will have a defined storage capacity. If a plant is too far from a spaceport, cargo can be transported and stored in warehouses. Another option is to make storage facilities on spaceports the same way as plants with only distinction that they won't produce anything, only store.

I hadn't thought of that, but it's a logical extension of the original idea.

you gradually go from an DGIV, to an XR2, to an XR5 [here, id like to add the arrow, but it actually has a lower UGCO capacity than the XR5]
QUOTE]

Long shot can carry more UCGO than XR5, and is built to be compatible with XR. Maybe progress from DGIV to XR5, then to Arrow, longshot etc (much larger deep space vehicles, perhaps needing orbital refineries and shipyards?) as your infrastructure expands.

wish me luck!

Good luck!

 

[Grover]

i would prefer a child vessel to carry the cargo down, rather than an orbital station (more realistic for lower budgets, and easier to make as an addon)

or you could just use other factories dotted around the solar system, so you dont have to do a re-entry to get to the factory you need (although getting to meptune might be a little difficult...)

 

[Trainguy]

No - I meant an orbital station to build them, though the Arrow could be built on the moon. We already have the XRs as child vessals.

Why are yoy going all the way to neptune? That's a pretty long haul, and you'd have to have orbital stations there, unless you land on one of the moons. Surely it would be possible to keep this within the Earth-moon(-mars?) system, and have the other planets as destinations.

 

[Grover]

i imagine that the different factories would be spread over the solar system, putting the rarer resources at the farthest sides of the system, harder to get to, or did i just make that up?

 

[Trainguy]

Makes sense - the rarer resources, those needed less often, are farthest out, whilst really common ones are on your doorstep.

You would, however, need a DSV of some sort to go beyond mars in any realistic fashion.

Could you post a flow chart, or PM me a document of come sort, so I can see exactly what you're planning, as at the moment, I am making this up as I go along based on what I read.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Grover]

well, im just making meshes, i dont know how the inner workings will function, leave that to vchamp

 

[Trainguy]

Grover: OK, I didn't realise you were just making meshes. Look great by the way!

vchamp: when you read my previous post, could you just let us (Grover and myself, by PM if necessary) how the workings will work. It's just nice to ensure we are all talking about the same thing.

 

[Grover]

thanks, actually, i found out a tool in sketchup that makes my job quicker as i made this, offset tool FTW!

 

[vchamp]

vchamp: when you read my previous post, could you just let us (Grover and myself, by PM if necessary) how the workings will work. It's just nice to ensure we are all talking about the same thing.

I'm not sure what you want to know. The primary principles are very simple and explained in my previous posts.

The add-on will be made as a generic module with dialog. There will be a set of config files for celestial bodies where parameters of plants located on its surface will be specified, such as a base name, a product, production rate, storage capacity, required resources, products exposure location, etc. When simulation starts, this config is read by the module and Plant class objects are created, the current state of them will be written to and read from a scenario file.

At each simulation step the production progress for each plant is calculated, and if it exceeds 100% the ready product is added to the storage. To start a new production enough resources should be available for consuming factories.

To get products from a plant, a user selects the Plants module in the Custom Functions dialog (Ctrl-F4). Then the plants dialog is opened. There we'll have two combo boxes to select a celestial body and a plant on this body. After a plant is selected the dialog will show all needed information on the production progress. Then we can specify the amount of products to purchase and after clicking a button this amount of vessels is added to the scenario. Optionally it can be automatically loaded to a vessel if it supports UCGO.

This was my basic idea. Now, thanks to your suggestions, I am thinking about storage facilities and orbital plants. The latter should be made as vessels and will be harder to implement therefore.

How the products will be distributed and used depends on a player.

I am also thinking to have 3 stages of vessel production: metal, plastics -> components -> vessel.

 

[Grover]

also, you should make it such as to create your next vessel (going from DGIV to XR2 for example) will require quite a few trips to a number of bodies. i should also add that its technically possible to get a DGIV or XR5 just about anywhere in the solar system if you use tugs and launchers, so encouraging this increases the variety of the gameplay of the addon.

personally, using the energia for an XR2, and the DG launchers doe the DG (duh...) might have to think a bit about the XR5 (maybe using the RATO and additional fuel tanks?)

and i think we should use raw resource types: Metals, Crystals, Rocks [if currency comes into play], plastics, liquids and gasses, then divide them into more individual resources, such as titanium, oxygen etc

also, i have had a thought: how about adding a "save game" functionality, it remembers the location of your vessel(s) (the one(s) that the module uses as handles) and puts them into any scenario, so if you dont want to use SCNeditor to save your progress, you could use a function built into the module
to explain:
after activating the module, you open a fresh scenario, containing only vessels such as space stations, then you begin a fresh "game" by choosing a starting craft, where the module spawns one at your chosen base (possibly adding a line to the vessels section of the running scenario to identify it as a [Addon name] craft
then, using the save feature of the module, it records the position of every craft that it is using. (it would be limited by logic to only those that are landed, so it couldnt be used partway through a flight)

what do you think?