Time To Build

Time To Build is a mod for Kerbal Space Program which primarily simulates in-game time taken to develop, construct, refurbish, and rollout vessels.

This mod is designed to provide a lightweight, flexible framework to implement basically any construction-time system you can think of while seamlessly and intuitively integrating with stock game mechanics.

Features

Current features

Core functionality

When launching a vessel from the editor, you are prompted with a popup dialog:

• Lists a breakdown of time required to ready the vessel for launch.
• Current date, completion date, intermediate alarms and contract deadlines are also shown.
• "Warp to earliest launch" or "Warp to next morning" to immediately time warp and seamlessly launch as normal.

Reverting to the VAB or SPH reverts back to before the construction of the vessel.

The ability to launch from the launchpad and runway facilities, as well as the launch site selector in those facilities and the editor, are currently disabled. These are planned to take on new functionality in the future (see planned features below).

Configuration

The default configuration defines three periods of time to take a vessel from parts, assumed to have already been designed and fabricated elsewhere, to launch:

• Development: Represents time taken to test new parts and design vessels and processes, derived from the cost of individual parts. Development time decreases a bit as the VAB or SPH is upgraded, but is generally high for new and/or expensive parts and rapidly approaches zero as parts are repeatedly rebuilt, regardless of the design of the actual vessel itself. Recovered and reused parts have zero development time.
• Assembly: Represents time taken to assemble the final vessel once the development is completed, largely based on the dry mass of individual new parts combined with a small contribution from cost. Assembly time decreases significantly as the relevant assembly building is upgraded. Recovered and reused parts have zero assembly time.
• Refurbishment: Represents time taken to refurbish recovered and reused parts, currently set to one sixth of the assembly time.
• Rollout: Represents time taken to physically move the vessel to the launch facility and prepare it for launch. This is dependent on the wet mass of the vessel at launch.

Custom configurations can be described via a TimeToBuildConfig node with any number of BuildTime nodes as well as the following fields:

• MorningTime in seconds, for warp-to-launch-next-morning functionality.
• AlarmWarningBufferTime in seconds, for listing alarms in the in-game TimeToBuild dialog which are set after the completion time, but within the specified buffer period.

BuildTime nodes take the following fields:

• name, an arbitrary string which should ideally be unique.
• Title, displayed in the build-time dialog in game.
• Any number of Facilitys in which to operate, e.g. on construction of a vessel in the VAB/SPH and/or rollout of the vessel onto the launchpad/runway: Launchpad, Runway, VehicleAssemblyBuilding, SpaceplaneHangar.
• WholeVessel = true or PerNewPart = true and/or PerReusedPart = true, specifies whether the formula applies to the whole vessel or as a sum over new or recovered parts.
• WorkFormula, RateFormula and OverheadFormula:
  • Supports all the basic mathematical operations + - * / ^ ( ).
  • The following variables are currently recognised:
    • Time units: year, day (of the home planet), hour, minute, second.
    • Facility levels: facility_level (current assembly/launch facility), Administration_level, AstronautComplex_level, Launchpad_level, MissionControl_level, ResearchAndDevelopment_level, Runway_level, SpaceplaneHangar_level, TrackingStation_level, VehicleAssemblyBuilding_level.
    • Whole-vessel properties: dry_cost, dry_mass, wet_mass, wet_cost, num_parts.
    • Individual part properties: num_builds (tracked by ScrapYard), dry_cost, dry_mass, wet_mass, wet_cost.
  • Build time is computed as Work / Rate + Overhead.

Planned features

Vessel storage

The vessel construction popup additionally offers a "Start construction" button which does not time warp or rollout yet.

• An alarm is added at the completion date.
• When completed, the vessel is added to storage.
• Each of the VAB and SPH can store a limited number of completed vessels, subject to facility level.

The launchpad and runway now display stored vessels rather than all vessel designs.

• Vessels under construction are listed but cannot be launched yet.
• A completed vessel in storage can be rolled out and launched as normal with selected crew where applicable.
• A completed vessel can be moved back to assembly where it is converted into ScrapYard inventory parts.

Recovery and reuse

Recovered vessels are added to the vessel storage, bypassing the stock parts-for-cash system. After a refurbishment period and cost, they become available to rollout like a newly constructed vehicle.

Additional build rates

Facility upgrades unlock additional "team" slots. Multiple teams can be assigned to a task to speed it up, or used for parallel construction.

Dependencies

• ScrapYard (2.2.99.1)
• BackgroundResourceProcessing (0.3.0) (Not a hard dependency, but essentially required for expected simulation behaviour)

Compatibility

This mod is still in the pre-release phase and has not been thoroughly tested for compatibility with other mods. You can expect it to clash with other mods which similarly meddle with vessel construction/instantiation.

License

Distributed under the MIT license.