[1.12.x] Heat Control - More radiators! (August 22, 2021)

[Streetwind]

What are the predicted issues?

Expect all UI elements (incl. rightclick menu things) to require a complete redo - because Squad didn't just port their UI code, they took the opportunity to toss out the old ramshackle thing entirely and make a new one from scratch.

[Nori]

Expect all UI elements (incl. rightclick menu things) to require a complete redo - because Squad didn't just port their UI code, they took the opportunity to toss out the old ramshackle thing entirely and make a new one from scratch.

Duh, I totally forgot about that. I for one am really looking forward to that as I can't help but think it'll be better (as in faster, more options etc..).

But yeah any mod with GUI elements is probably going to take a bit...

[ArkaelDren]

Its not much, but after you wrote your module for the realistic half life of the RTG's, it got me thinking about cooling efficiency, and uses of a compressed gas.

The ideal refrigerant would have favorable thermodynamic properties, be noncorrosive to mechanical components, and be safe, including free from flammability. As that implies, you could create a few sub parts if you wanted to complicate it a bit more. You could create specialized tanks, that were relatively small, with a half life, or better, a complete decay over time. After it lost a specific percentage, it would destroy the tank and most likely the attached part.

Figuring out the plugin or module for this to work, with the heating/cooling addition, is something I know you can do. Maybe the guys at "Dangit" could whip up a lubricant to stop corrosive damage, like the WD-40 clone used to free stuck parts.

Your Mods are in the top 5 of "must have" for many of my friends and the community. This would add such a huge factor in long term power solutions, that it will soon become a quick must have addition. Nert please consider this man, I have tried to propose such a part or module a couple times and for some reason no one thought it a good idea. I'm sure you can think of the creative ways this could extend and increase the long term planning of most missions. Its exactly within the parameters of your most recent adaptation of squads heating cooling updates. The heat transfer Pipes are excellent supporting parts for your Heat Control pack, and this would add new depth for damn sure.

Please consider, but if your not interested, let me know either way.

Dren

[PickledTripod]

Nertea hasn't made a single post in two weeks... Panic?

[mikegarrison]

Nertea hasn't made a single post in two weeks... Panic?

He told us he was busy.

BTW, after playing KSP non-stop for months and months, I finally started playing the Far Cry 4 game that I got for free (ironically, as a bundle that came with the VGU I bought to make KSP look nicer). So now I'm taking a break from flying ships to Jool and instead I'm shooting army grunts with submachine guns from the backs of elephants.

[Nertea]

As mentioned, I've been very busy, and continue to be busy.

I have no intention of making 2 parallel development paths for 1.1, it's just not really a great idea based on my predicted available modding time.

[ArkaelDren]

Hmm... Feel a bit lame at this point after reading the entire thread. Sorry for even recommending an additional source of cooling. I had no idea to what length this team has been struggling with all the details and complications the new heating/cooling system created. Was a good read, very entertaining stuff.

Thanks for all your work gents, will be eagerly awaiting news.

[StahnAileron]

Hey Nertea! First, been a fan of your mods since I first got into KSP back in like March. High quality stuff that goes well with some of my other favorites (like OPT).

Now for what looks like a odd issue I've had with heat control.

I tried out this mod with an OPT-based spaceplane design. I was having heat problems and the stock radiators weren't well suited for my intended design (at least aesthetically). The static radiators you have in this mod seemed like the perfect fit (they look like lifting surfaces on a spaceplane).

However, I noticed an issue during testing that the radiator tended to spontaneously explode. Further testing indicated that your custom radiators (ones using your heat plugin and not the stock module) would for some reason start generating internal heat after reaching some sort of temperature threshold. I would have to deactivate them to get them to cool. The minute I turn them back on, they heat up again (despite the rest of the vessel being essential in equilibrium with the environment, be it space or atmosphere.) Given time, they would explode due to overheat. They would work fine for a while initially.

They seem to have issues with time warp as well: time warping cooled the rest of my vessel while your custom radiators would seem to loop back to cold and heat up again. I had the colored heat overlay on to test that.

Could this a plug-in bug or do you think it's a mod conflict? I wound up testing the stock and stock-based Atomic Age mod radiators and had no issues. Your heat exchangers work fine as well.

I understand if you don't/can't touch your mods until after 1.1 is released. This is just something I thought I should mention for the future.

[Streetwind]

Three things:

- You're playing a 1.0.2 mod on 1.0.4. It will not work correctly. I'm surprised your radiators did anything at all.

- These radiators are supposed to generate internal flux. That's how they work.

- Timewarping greater than x1000 disables the heat simulation. This is stock behavior.

[StahnAileron]

So it's basically a known issue with version incompatibility? (My apologies as I don't recall what exactly got changed from 1.0.2 to 1.0.4 anymore. I just remember changes to the atmo/aero behavior and some things about heat.) If so, guess I can remove this from my install for now. Pity since I like the models and all. Then again, I haven't done much involving heat other than high velocity SSTO launching/recovery.

Thanks for the reply!

[Nertea]

I added a large red statement to the front page and updated the thread description, something I should have done a long time ago I guess.

[sashan]

How am I supposed to use nuclear reactors without radiators... Will stock ones do the job?

[sashan]

Okay, thanks. I've found that I need 1.5x the amount specified to keep them cool long-time tho.

In which way exactly is this mod incompatible with 1.0.4? Maybe I can use just some of parts?

[sashan]

Note, that electric engines require almost same amount of cooling as a reactor sufficient to feed them. Just my observation.

That seems quite logical, but hmm, never had any problems. But maybe that's because I' always have no more than a couple of batteries between reactor and engine?

[Tal Biohazard]

Will this mod get support for 1.0.5 and 1.1?

I like the radiators very much

[Streetwind]

Note, that electric engines require almost same amount of cooling as a reactor sufficient to feed them. Just my observation.

Depends strongly on the engine, actually. Each engine has an "electric efficiency" - not as a stat ingame, but rather as a balance target. If an engine is set as 70% efficient, then 30% of its Ec/s usage is set as heat output (this has no effect on its performance, it's simply a useful method to have heat output scale with power consumption). Then the heat output is multiplied by five to produce heat values that actually have an noticable effect ingame. (Originally this multiplier was x10, but people felt the engines ran too hot, so it was reduced.)

Electric efficiency varies mostly between engine technologies: gridded ion thrusters have a very high efficiency, for instance, while the VASIMRs have the worst - partly to balance out just how good they are in other respects. So you'll find that a pair of VX-100's will affect the cooling design of your spacecraft more than a DS4G will, even though both setups consume about the same amount of Ec/s. Efficiency varying between individual engines of the same technology is rare.

(I've been thinking about ways to better advertise the heat output in the VAB, though since not even stock engines do that, it's a bit tricky.)

Will this mod get support for 1.0.5 and 1.1?

I like the radiators very much

It's possible, but we don't know yet. Many of the parts in this mod are no longer really relevant since stock KSP basically abandoned part-local heat management. Nertea planned at some point to make this mod convert the stock parts back to that model for people who liked it, but then Life Happened. And if I were to guess, such a rework is lower priority than converting the active packs to 1.0.5.

It's also possible though that the radiators might make it back into NF Electrical... note: possible, not guaranteed.

[Nertea]

A return from the dead - version 0.2.0

• Updated for KSP 1.05
• Deprecated Heat Exchangers, Heat Pipes and Insulators
• Deprecated plugin component in favor of stock modules
• Added conformal radiators from NF Electrical
• Re-specced radiators as high temp radiators - will perform better when removing core heat than stock radiators
• Adjusted many mass, cost and capability parameters to match

The removal of some parts may displease people, but frankly those parts are significantly less useful with 1.05's heat system. As a bonus, the NFE conformal radiators are included.

[Captain Sierra]

2 hours ago, Nertea said:

The removal of some parts may displease people, but frankly those parts are significantly less useful with 1.05's heat system. As a bonus, the NFE conformal radiators are included.

I'd still love to see the return of a part-local version, but simply having your radiators makes dealing with the stock heat system bearable again. Thank you and merry Christmas @Nertea.

[123nick]

5 hours ago, Nertea said:

A return from the dead - version 0.2.0

• Updated for KSP 1.05
• Deprecated Heat Exchangers, Heat Pipes and Insulators
• Deprecated plugin component in favor of stock modules
• Added conformal radiators from NF Electrical
• Re-specced radiators as high temp radiators - will perform better when removing core heat than stock radiators
• Adjusted many mass, cost and capability parameters to match

The removal of some parts may displease people, but frankly those parts are significantly less useful with 1.05's heat system. As a bonus, the NFE conformal radiators are included.

do you know why ksp decided to remove local heat? i liked having to pump heat away from my spaceplanes nosecones, i even had a supersonic airplane that flew really fast, and needed big radiator panels and heat pipes to pipe away the heat. 

[PanzerAlpaca]

thx for updating that @nertea 

i got an error when loading ksp. it's mentioned 1 error when loading HeatControlDRE.dfg

[Revenant503]

Me tooo

I think the line

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleActiveRadiator]:AFTER[DeadlyReentry]

should read @PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleActiveRadiator]]:AFTER[DeadlyReentry]

 

(unbalanced square brackets)

[starship]

i have this problem too 

[Nertea]

Is fixed in 0.2.1

• Fixed missing radiator parameter
• Fixed Typo in DRE patch

[Marcelvh]

Nertea, first of all, great work with the NFT parts. I really like em. I have been working with the solar mod for a long time. Recently I decided to expand with the rest of the mods. And now I am having some trouble with heat control. For some reason they don't seem to dissipate the heat of a reactor (Like literally nothing..)? Also reactors seem to just not generate electricity. What the hell am I doing wrong? The only 2 mods I have installed for this test were electricity and heat control.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[Nertea]

I'm working on debugging this problem, it's related to problem reported in the NFE thread. It turns out that there is a stock bug that means that a radiator always pulls *all* of its power radiation capacity out of a part, even if the part's rules say that it can't (the small reactor for example is supposed to only allow the extraction of 200 kW of heat). The giant radiators you are using are pulling thousands of kW while the reactor is generating 100 or 180 kW. What this means effectively is that if a reactor is overcooled, it will have trouble starting up. Either use somewhere around the recommended value of radiators or retract some radiators until the reactor gets started. The Garnet needs up to 1200 kW and the smaller needs 200 kW. 

Edited December 28, 2015 by Nertea