Fuel Cell needlessly over complicated.

[Bazarnz]

Hi First up fantastic mod, really enjoying it. Its my #1 mod.

Just a minor issue i'd like to point out, is that the fuel cell was modified to use oxygen and hydrogen, rather than the stock liquid fuel and oxidizer.

The issues are that you don't get any containers for those two resources until a later technology, the same technology that unlocks solar power. This means its both usable when first unlocked, which is poor gameplay and confusing. It also makes it hard to use for a simple craft that just wants a small amount of additional power generation, even at the heavy cost of fuel.

While i can understand why the change was made, to make it fit into the resource economy. Its made basic power generation impossible to achieve.

My proposal would be to give the fuel cell at construction time, two options via a button toggle. A liquid fuel/oxidizer consuming engine, or the existing h/o burning engine. Or just revert the fuel cell to stock.

I feel that the currently implemented system is very complicated, making it unsuitable for simple spacecraft, as well as impossible to utilize when you originally unlock the device.

[lordcirth]

Perhaps it would be better to move the tanks one tier earlier, so you can use it before solar?

[Bazarnz]

Ok I've found a solution and a problem. I was looking in the tech tree, and i did find a small supply canister in basic science. The tier before the fuel cell.

The problem is its not showing up in the selectable parts. None of the parts seem to be showing up.

I'd also add, i'd much rather just a basic fuel cell. Seems silly to me when I have engines that can convert fuel into thrust and power that i have no way of just converting all that fuel into power.

[Bazarnz]

So i did a bit more digging.

Looks like its a bug between Kerbalism and KCT.

Upside is, i can find the parts if i search by advanced->tech level->tier 3 I'll see if i can work out a way to fix the bug and which mod is causing it. Although i'd only put myself at beginner level debugging.

[Bazarnz]

Ok. So after assuming its a bug and doing a clean install of KSP I'm left quite surprised to find that the reason it's not showing up in the editor, is because no category for the parts was set in the parts config file.

Was this intentional and why has no one raised the issue?

I still have issue with how complicated the fuel cell has become so i'm happy enough with this issue. I'll raise another about the missing category setting in the parts files and just edit them in myself for my install.

[gotmachine]

Seems you are using 1.3.1, latest Kerbalism version if for 1.3.0. The custom category code is broken in 1.3.1. Kerbalism use a custom category system that use the parts tags to identify them for its custom category, this is why you have no category defined.

As a temporary fix, you can add this in a *.cfg file and drop it anywhere in your gamedata folder :

@PART[kerbalism-activeshield]:NEEDS[FeatureRadiation]:FINAL { @category = Utility } @PART[kerbalism-gravityring]:NEEDS[FeatureComfort]:FINAL { @category = Utility } @PART[kerbalism-greenhouse]:HAS[@MODULE[*]]:FINAL { @category = Utility } @PART[kerbalism-chemicalplant]:HAS[@MODULE[*]]:FINAL { @category = Utility } @PART[kerbalism-container-*]:HAS[@RESOURCE[*]]:FINAL { @category = Utility } @PART[kerbalism-container-*]:HAS[@MODULE[*]]:FINAL { @category = Utility }

As for the fuel cells, they are available right at start, along with the resources they need. Kerbalism use a much more elaborated/complicated resource system than stock. If you don't like it, I suggest you give a try to the "classic" profile (change that in settings.cfg), it is a much simpler system using only the stock resources.