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

[linuxgurugamer]

Just a personal recommendation/best practice: never touch the Squad folder. There are plenty of tools available that make it unnecessary, and keep things nice and reversible.

For modifying Squad parts, use ModuleManager; for removing Squad parts from the game, use custom AutoPruner definitions. It looks complicated at first, but that's an illusion - it's literally as simple as making a list of filepaths. Then one single call will unload everything found in those paths, and another single call will restore everything again if you need it. Works for mods too!

I do use Autopruner, thanks.

I was more interested in if the code for the fairing was in a separate DLL, and could be deleted.

[mikegarrison]

I'm restarting development of this and am planning two primary branches.

Lightweight: the default installed branch. This focuses singularly on making the radiators play nicely with the 1.04 heat system (uses stock modules, balanced to stock costs) and is relatively trivial to implement. The only "difficult" thing is quantifying a performance metric to allow people to compare between radiators, particularly between stock HRS parts and HC radiators. This is essential to maintaining usefulness with NFE reactors. It's not really difficult, just time consuming.

The ancillary parts such as heat pipes and heat exchangers will still exist here. They function just fine, just aren't super useful.

Heavyweight: not installed by default, but essentially restores 1.02 heat system behaviour. This means that instead of moving HC radiators to stock, this MM plugin will move stock radiators to HC, making changes instead to them.

Balance should work out - because HC radiators can get really hot, moving your save to Light from Heavy will just mean you'll have too many radiators.

Great!

Would this mean that radiators directly pull heat from the part they are attached to, like they did in 1.02? That might be a save-breaker, but IMO that's just fine.

I quickly learned to like the idea in 1.02 that I could separately manage my engine heat and my reactor heat. In 1.04 I find that what happens is that the radiators pull heat from the reactor until you run the engines for a while. Once the engine temperature gets higher than the reactor temperature, the radiators switch to pulling the heat from the engines. Then the reactor temperatures climb, until eventually the reactors get too hot and start losing efficiency.

With a 1.02-type system, we could keep the reactors at their most efficient temperatures and let the engines get hotter than the reactors.

The reactor descriptions used to say how many KW of radiator heat rejection was necessary. It would be good if that came back, but also if your engine descriptions also gave some information on how many KW of heat is produced. This might be a little tricky, though, because they all work a little differently.

[Captain Sierra]

Great!

Would this mean that radiators directly pull heat from the part they are attached to, like they did in 1.02? That might be a save-breaker, but IMO that's just fine.

I quickly learned to like the idea in 1.02 that I could separately manage my engine heat and my reactor heat. In 1.04 I find that what happens is that the radiators pull heat from the reactor until you run the engines for a while. Once the engine temperature gets higher than the reactor temperature, the radiators switch to pulling the heat from the engines. Then the reactor temperatures climb, until eventually the reactors get too hot and start losing efficiency.

With a 1.02-type system, we could keep the reactors at their most efficient temperatures and let the engines get hotter than the reactors.

The reactor descriptions used to say how many KW of radiator heat rejection was necessary. It would be good if that came back, but also if your engine descriptions also gave some information on how many KW of heat is produced. This might be a little tricky, though, because they all work a little differently.

Funny, I'd taken to using it the opposite way. I consolidated all my vessel heat into the heat exchangers to centralize it, and then route it to my powerful radiator arrays. It kept the engine way cooler than it needed to be most of the time, but it did a damn good job of ensure I never once saw an overheat indicator.

[Nertea]

What are your thoughts on either a really large static or blanket-esque deployable (for those absurd 12-Colossus tugs) radiator?

More parts are always in the pipeline. It's a question of how far down they are.

Upscaling can easily be tested. Give it a go!

In fact, give us copies of the same parts in different sizes, all the way up to 200%. We'll find out then what looks good and what doesn't, and can decide on the best option.

I decided not to do it . It would really mess with those attach nodes on the reactors and stuff. Will wait until a remodel of reactors and radiators to do that.

Great!

Would this mean that radiators directly pull heat from the part they are attached to, like they did in 1.02? That might be a save-breaker, but IMO that's just fine.

I quickly learned to like the idea in 1.02 that I could separately manage my engine heat and my reactor heat. In 1.04 I find that what happens is that the radiators pull heat from the reactor until you run the engines for a while. Once the engine temperature gets higher than the reactor temperature, the radiators switch to pulling the heat from the engines. Then the reactor temperatures climb, until eventually the reactors get too hot and start losing efficiency.

With a 1.02-type system, we could keep the reactors at their most efficient temperatures and let the engines get hotter than the reactors.

The reactor descriptions used to say how many KW of radiator heat rejection was necessary. It would be good if that came back, but also if your engine descriptions also gave some information on how many KW of heat is produced. This might be a little tricky, though, because they all work a little differently.

The heavyweight system is basically 1.02 with some minor useabilty improvements. The lightweight version will also have some small DLL tweaks to make it easier to manange many radiators at once.

Dev version in the usual thread tomorrow night.

[Captain Sierra]

More parts are always in the pipeline. It's a question of how far down they are.

I decided not to do it . It would really mess with those attach nodes on the reactors and stuff. Will wait until a remodel of reactors and radiators to do that.

The heavyweight system is basically 1.02 with some minor useabilty improvements. The lightweight version will also have some small DLL tweaks to make it easier to manange many radiators at once.

Dev version in the usual thread tomorrow night.

IIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm squealing like a toddler right now and havent been this excited since ... well since the Mk4 dev releases game out and that wasnt too long ago.

Dammit Nertea, I'd just calmed myself down from the Mk4 hype!

[Streetwind]

The reactor descriptions used to say how many KW of radiator heat rejection was necessary. It would be good if that came back, but also if your engine descriptions also gave some information on how many KW of heat is produced. This might be a little tricky, though, because they all work a little differently.

I could swear the reactors show their heat production in the VAB info. Can't check right now though, I'm at work.

The engines, that's trickier. There's no field for this in the stock modules - yu'll notice that none of the stock engines show their heat output either, not even the LV-N which used to be absurdly hot. You'd have to manually add such a field.

[mikegarrison]

I could swear the reactors show their heat production in the VAB info. Can't check right now though, I'm at work.

The engines, that's trickier. There's no field for this in the stock modules - yu'll notice that none of the stock engines show their heat output either, not even the LV-N which used to be absurdly hot. You'd have to manually add such a field.

The reactors may still list the KW. I guess the problem is that it is not clear what it means in combination with the new stock radiators. I guess that's why you added to the text descriptions things like "with this reactor you should have at least six of the medium radiators".

The electric engines and reactors are so expensive that what I usually do with them in career games is launch a few ships that serve as basically interplanetary tugs, then keep them in space forever more, just refueling as needed. This means that unlike my chemical rockets, if I find that a design is deficient somewhere I end up being stuck dealing with it for a long, long time. So it would be good to have all the information necessary to design the ship correctly in advance.

However, I could just start a sandbox game, iterate on the design a few times until I get it working the way I like it, and then transfer that design to the career game.

[Captain Sierra]

The reactors may still list the KW. I guess the problem is that it is not clear what it means in combination with the new stock radiators. I guess that's why you added to the text descriptions things like "with this reactor you should have at least six of the medium radiators".

The electric engines and reactors are so expensive that what I usually do with them in career games is launch a few ships that serve as basically interplanetary tugs, then keep them in space forever more, just refueling as needed. This means that unlike my chemical rockets, if I find that a design is deficient somewhere I end up being stuck dealing with it for a long, long time. So it would be good to have all the information necessary to design the ship correctly in advance.

However, I could just start a sandbox game, iterate on the design a few times until I get it working the way I like it, and then transfer that design to the career game.

I spend about 70% of my game time in the VAB and hyperedit testing things. I know a thing or two about minmaxing.

Yes, that is the best way to design these things for a default career mode game. Now, if you're me, you have funds to burn. I choose to ignore most contracts so I usually adopt a 20% science-to-funds policy (means I need to collect more science to unlock everything) which I up to 100% after I finish the tech tree, and have my funds mult set to 500% (balanced out by a 600% funds penalty mult). Go big or go home.

[lajoswinkler]

Anxiously waiting for this mod to get to v1.0.4.

[Nori]

Yeah me too. The more I'm playing with stock heating the more I like the way Heat Control handled stuff. Stock is fine for most things, but with NFT Propulsion and Electric it is less than optimal. I do really like the expanding stock radiators. They are pretty nifty.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Nori

[Nertea]

Evidently I've not had time to get a development version out yet, I'm hoping this weekend but no promises. New job eats time like a hungry hungry hippo. On the plus side, we just deployed an ISS live feed!

[lajoswinkler]

Nertea, here's a suggestion. Active cooling using stuff like LiquidNitrogen resource that the user would use only in the worst conditions to remove the heat for a short amount of time.

Same resource could be packed into an EVA item for KIS, just like there's an EVA propellant bottle you can see here.

It would enable Kerbals to go on EVA closer to Kerbol (example: Ablate from Kragrathea's Planet Factory, where they die in less than 30 seconds) for a few minutes.

[lajoswinkler]

Any news?

[Streetwind]

The latest sign of life from Nertea can be found here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91814-1-04-Stockalike-Station-Parts-Expansion-%2804-06-2015-bugfixes%29?p=2131098&viewfull=1#post2131098

As you can see, things are looking grim - evil forces march the land unhindered, there is drought and famine, and ominous dark clouds cloak the skies. Will the hero be able to prevail?!

[mikegarrison]

Well, I guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

But to show how I'm missing this mod, let me describe a ship I have going right now. It's basically a Mondo 3.75m hydrogen tank in the middle with two FLAT reactors on the back and a command pod on front. Radially, I have two 2.5m hydrogen tanks, with struts and fuel pipes. There is a VASMIR 4-nozzle engine stuck onto the end of each of the side tanks. For heat control, I have 6 of the huge stock radiators. I'm making a 1.5 hour burn to go from Moho orbit to Dres.

So what's happening with the heat? Well the radiators are overkill for just the reactors. The reactors are running at full power and have heated up to 720K. But the engines are each putting out a flux of 3700, and most of that heat is going into the side fuel tanks. The heat is then flowing into the center fuel tank, and from there the pod. None of it is going to the radiators, because they are all pulling from the hottest parts (the reactors). So the whole ship is starting to heat to a nice glow, and it's clear that nothing will happen to fix this until the engines get to be as hot as the reactors. But since they have great heat sinks attached to them, that means all the tanks will get as hot as the reactors too.

What will eventually happen is that pretty much the whole ship will eventually get saturated in heat until it is 700K+ in temperature. Only then will the radiators start taking heat away from the engines instead of the reactors.

With the heat control mod, I could set up dedicated radiators for the reactors, dedicated radiators for the engines, and insulated protection for the rest of the ship. I wouldn't have to sit here worrying about whether I have any small, delicate parts that are going to blow up as they heat up to reactor-level temperatures.

But mostly it's not game-breaking or anything. My ship is surviving turning into a 700+ degree radiator. I just don't like it. It's not elegant.

Edited August 15, 2015 by mikegarrison

[Nertea]

Well I got the stats of the radiators relative to stock sorted today. Seems to look good. I am trying to write a small additional plugin to sum generation/dissipation numbers on a ship for the stock system. It's simple enough to compute but as usual with this game it takes longer than expected.

[MaverickSawyer]

Well, I guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

But to show how I'm missing this mod, let me describe a ship I have going right now. It's basically a Mondo 3.75m hydrogen tank in the middle with two FLAT reactors on the back and a command pod on front. Radially, I have two 2.5m hydrogen tanks, with struts and fuel pipes. There is a VASMIR 4-nozzle engine stuck onto the end of each of the side tanks. For heat control, I have 6 of the huge stock radiators. I'm making a 1.5 hour burn to go from Moho orbit to Dres.

So what's happening with the heat? Well the radiators are overkill for just the reactors. The reactors are running at full power and have heated up to 720K. But the engines are each putting out a flux of 3700, and most of that heat is going into the side fuel tanks. The heat is then flowing into the center fuel tank, and from there the pod. None of it is going to the radiators, because they are all pulling from the hottest parts (the reactors). So the whole ship is starting to heat to a nice glow, and it's clear that nothing will happen to fix this until the engines get to be as hot as the reactors. But since they have great heat sinks attached to them, that means all the tanks will get as hot as the reactors too.

What will eventually happen is that pretty much the whole ship will eventually get saturated in heat until it is 700K+ in temperature. Only then will the radiators start taking heat away from the engines instead of the reactors.

With the heat control mod, I could set up dedicated radiators for the reactors, dedicated radiators for the engines, and insulated protection for the rest of the ship. I wouldn't have to sit here worrying about whether I have any small, delicate parts that are going to blow up as they heat up to reactor-level temperatures.

But mostly it's not game-breaking or anything. My ship is surviving turning into a 700+ degree radiator. I just don't like it. It's not elegant.

Grab the Heat Management mod and use the thermal washers. It'll isolate the heat at low time warp (above 100x, they quit working.) and allow the radiators to do their job.

[SmashBrown]

My game is just missing this pack, look forward to your release Nertea, and thank you for the time and effort.

[crashy]

I know you're busy Nertea, but don't rush about this question: When are you going to add the Conformal Radiators that used to be with Near Future Electrical to this pack?

[Streetwind]

All classic Near Future radiators will be present in the next update (no ETA).

[PickledTripod]

All classic Near Future radiators will be present in the next update (no ETA).

I think at this point it's safe to assume that it won't be until after 1.1 which might be less than two weeks away.

And since Nertea is really busy at the moment and will likely have to make big updates to all of his mods it might take months...

Nert, can you first release a 1.0.4 version of Heat Control even if 1.1 is right around the corner? Many important mods will take very long to update thanks to Unity 5 so a lot of people will most likely keep playing 1.0.4 for a while, I'd be really grateful if you did!

[OldMold]

Nert, can you first release a 1.0.4 version of Heat Control even if 1.1 is right around the corner?

1.1 is pretty far out - development is not done yet, and besides the major game engine update (which will take 2-3 weeks to QA) there are a bunch of new features, which will take even more QA time. I'm guessing 1.1 will come sometime in october. I'm hoping Nertea can ship Heat Control for 1.0.4 because 1.1 will break a lot of mods. I plan on playing 1.0.4 for a long time while mods catch up to 1.1, and I'd really love to have Heat Control back

[ThatOneBritishGuy...]

I'll second the request to release a 1.04 version.

[lajoswinkler]

Are we sure KSP 1.1 will break a lot of mods? What are the predicted issues?

Yeah, I'd also like it to work in v1.0.4 because that's the last significant mod I use that still isn't updated.

[Nori]

Are we sure KSP 1.1 will break a lot of mods? What are the predicted issues?

Yeah, I'd also like it to work in v1.0.4 because that's the last significant mod I use that still isn't updated.

Well at the very least all the mods will need to be recompiled against the new version and it can take time for mods to do so as they like to make sure it doesn't introduce other issues.

Also any mod that has wheels will certainly be broke. Beyond that it is really tough to tell, but this will be a very significant backend change so I'm guessing it will be a bit more work than usual to get everything working.