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Engine Pre-cooler cooling?


Errol

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So I'm wondering if the Engine Pre-cooler has any actual cooling functionality or not, and if not, since we have radiator modules in stock, would it be difficult to MM config a radiator module into the part's .cfg? My idea would be to set it up to use no EC and instead of being toggled on by a tweakable its state is instead dependent on airflow through the intake module. No airflow, no cooling. Perhaps it look at the max air flow and treat that as 100% cooling, and scale linearly from there.

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You could MM an active radiator module into it no problem. Even one that only cools parts directly attached to it (like engines). Unless you actually want to cool the spaceplane on reentry, not the engines, in which case you are probably better off with radiator panels on the top of the plane (perhaps clipped slightly into it), where they will be shielded from reentry heat and able to work.

As for intake air helping with cooling - that may be more tricky. A resource is supposed to take its heat energy along when it is pumped from part to part now, as a new feature in 1.1. The problem is, I don't know if that applies to "vessel-global" resources like IntakeAir. You basically have three cases.

Case 1: IntakeAir, in its function as a vessel-global resource, never actually flows anywhere. An engine consumes it directly from the (hidden) storage in an intake. As such, IntakeAir can take on heat energy from the intake it is stored in (i.e. the engine precooler), and that heat would be destroyed upon its consumption by the engine.

Case 2: KSP actually simulates the IntakeAir transfer from intake to engine. In that case, IntakeAir may actually cool the engine prior to its consumption.

Case 3: IntakeAir is such a transient thing that it never gets around to cooling anything.

If case 1 is true, then all you need to do is implement the radiator module to make the precooler really hot, so that the air it collects takes up the most heat energy possible in the very short time it has available for this. In both of the other cases, you would have to write a custom plugin to implement your cooling. In case 2 specifically, it may actually be pointless to do anything at all.

However, even if case 1 is true, I'm not sure how much cooling you could actually get out of IntakeAir. There's no guarantee Squad actually chose realistic volumes and masses for their air intake simulation. It's entirely possible that they just used a number that works, because it literally makes zero difference in anything whatsoever in the game... until you start wanting to determine the thermal mass per second going through the intake.

Edited by Streetwind
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