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I have a wonder about the upcoming update.


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Although I don't know that anyone will be able to answer it yet.

In Tuesdays devnotes, there is mention of RTGs generating appropriate levels of heat now. As the system is currently, something that generates heat at a flux of say, 1 unit of whatever it's measured in within KSP, will be easily managed by the heat system. The parts around it would be able to absorb and radiate enough heat to easily survive such a low level of flux. However, enter timewarp exceeding 1000, and the heat simulation either ceases or changes function somehow, because the parts will still build up heat but will not radiate it away. That means if you enter high timewarp with a heat generating device, even at tiny levels of energy, your ship tends to explode suddenly.

This leaves two possibilities for this 1.0.5 release:

  • The overall heat system hasn't been changed, and there will be a river of tears in the forums soon after release
  • It has been changed, and a whole new realm of interesting possibilities opens up

I suppose there is a third option... "It has been changed, and there will be a river of tears in the forums soon after release".

At any rate, if the system will now support passively generating heat at warp, then it should (in theory) also support passively eliminating heat. That has potential for long term cryogenics, among other things. I'm not sure if I should be excited or worried.

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Although I don't know that anyone will be able to answer it yet.

In Tuesdays devnotes, there is mention of RTGs generating appropriate levels of heat now. As the system is currently, something that generates heat at a flux of say, 1 unit of whatever it's measured in within KSP, will be easily managed by the heat system. The parts around it would be able to absorb and radiate enough heat to easily survive such a low level of flux. However, enter timewarp exceeding 1000, and the heat simulation either ceases or changes function somehow, because the parts will still build up heat but will not radiate it away. That means if you enter high timewarp with a heat generating device, even at tiny levels of energy, your ship tends to explode suddenly.

This leaves two possibilities for this 1.0.5 release:

  • The overall heat system hasn't been changed, and there will be a river of tears in the forums soon after release
  • It has been changed, and a whole new realm of interesting possibilities opens up

I suppose there is a third option... "It has been changed, and there will be a river of tears in the forums soon after release".

At any rate, if the system will now support passively generating heat at warp, then it should (in theory) also support passively eliminating heat. That has potential for long term cryogenics, among other things. I'm not sure if I should be excited or worried.

With the Near Future nuclear reactors, the best workaround for this problem was to just turn off the heat generation of the reactors at high time warp. IMO, this would be the best solution for the RTGs, too.

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So, the analytic model (used at high warp) does model radiation; in fact it's based on radiation quite heavily.

At low warp, thermo uses a traditional Euler integrator. At high warp, that would break down badly, so we switch to analytically determining the resting temperature rather than integrating (hence the name). That means we sum up solar radiation, radiation incoming from a nearby planet/moon (reflected solar flux, i.e. via albedo, and then also blackbody radiation), and any internal heating or cooling. That gives us a number in watts that must, by definition, be balanced by outgoing radiation, and using the Stefan Boltzmann law we can then figure out the resting temperature that radiates at that flux.

It's absolutely not the case that "tiny levels" of generation cause you to explode--I'd love to see the example config, because it'll mean there's a bug in my code I can fix, unless I've already fixed it for 1.0.5. :)

It's only the case that when the sum total of flux in is greater than what you'd be radiating out at your max skin temperature...*then* things explode.

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I could put a new one together, but some time ages ago there was a fellow asking about adding heat generation to all parts to simulate they way a real station generates heat and needs radiators. I tried to put something together for him but the result was always an explosion at high warp due to overheating. The flux I was using was 100 though, not one. A bit of hyperbole on my part.

Give me a bit and I'll throw something together with a modified ISRU.

Edit: And giving it a seconds more thought, it's entirely possible the problem comes from whatever magic place the heat gets generated from when you turn it on with the resource converter module, since AFAIK, that's the only way to go about it with stock mechanics only.

Edited by Randazzo
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Well, now I'm more confused than before. Not that there was any doubt, but you are correct, at 1000x the vessel will heat up to as hot as it would get running at normal speed (or at least 100x) for the same amount of actual passed time and no hotter. But it also seems to cancel out any negative flux, such as from the radiator module, above 1000x. It's possible to have enough negative flux to freeze any heat increase, but it will not actively cool off above 1000x, or at least not that I'm seeing.

Of course that wouldn't actually matter once the radiator got overwhelmed and just got as hot as the rest of the ship anyway. But it still dashes my hopes of refrigeration. :(

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Fluxes except internal will go to zero in the display during analytic; that's not because they don't matter, but because they're applied differently (i.e. not via integration, and for the whole vessel not per part). Internal flux will still be displayed because the display is reused as the way to track it when modules add it.

As to refrigeration: as explained in the dev note about the thermo overhaul, I added an interface to allow people to make them :)

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Its good we have realistic heat system, but when we will have realistic heat insulating parts (e.g. Insulating bulkheads)?

We need to be able to control heat from spreading. And no, just high thermal mass is not solution for everything. There should be parts with low thermal mass (so they dont receive much heat from hot neighbor) but low thermal conductivity (so they wont pass as much heat onto cooler neighbor).

Edited by RidingTheFlow
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RidingTheFlow: When? Right now. You can change conductivity as much as you like per part.

Arugela: As of 1.0, solar radiative heating and convection with an atmosphere whose temperature is based on altitude, latitude, and time in the day/night cycle is modeled.

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Umm, you appear to be saying I should mod the game myself.

Will we ever have some heat insulating parts in stock? Or do we have some already (because I am not aware of any)?

Just going to point out... He said "Some have heatConductivity = (some number)" which implies that some do already have it.

After looking through all the part configs...

All solar panels except for the OX-STAT Photovoltaic Panels have a heatConductivity of 0.04, which is 33% the default.

Thermal Control System (Large, Medium, and Small) have a heatConductivity of 0.001, which is 0.83% the default.

Radiator Panel (Large and Small) have a heatConductivity of 0.75, which is 625% the default.

Service Bay (1.25m) and Service Bay (2.5m) have a heatConductivity of 0.04, which is 33% the default.

A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S, Big-S Delta Wing, Big-S Elevon 1, Big-S Elevon 2, Big-S Spaceplane Tail Fin, Big-S Wing Strake, and Mk3 Elevon have a heatConductivity of 0.06, which is 50% the default.

FAT-445 Aeroplane Control Surface, FAT-445 Aeroplane Main Wing, and FAT-455 Aeroplane Tail Fin have a heatConductivity of 0.12, which is 100% the default.


All LiquidFuel and Mono Propellant engines have a heatConductivity of 0.06, which is 50% the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

All SolidFuel boosters have a heatConductivity of 0.04, which is 33% the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

LT-1 Landing Struts, LT-2 Landing Strut, and LT-05 Micro Landing Strut have a heatConductivity of 0.06, which is 50% the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

Launch Escape System has a heatConductivity of 0.04, which is 33% the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

LY-10 Small Landing Gear, LY-01 Fixed Landing Gear, LY05 Steerable Landing Gear, LY-99 Large Landing Gear, and LY-50 Medium Landing Gear have a heatConductivity of 0.06, which is 50% of the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

XM-G50 Radial Air Intake, Circular Intake, Shock Cone Intake, Structural Intake, Ram Air Intake, Advanced Canard, Standard Canard, Swept Wings, Tail Fin, AE-FF1 Airstream Protective Shell (1.25m), AE-FF2 Airstream Protective Shell (2.5m), AE-FF3 Airstream Protective Shell (3.75m), AVB-R8 Winglet, AV-T1 Winglet, Delta-Deluxe Winglet, Wing Connector Type A, Wing Connector Type B, Wing Connector Type C, Wing Connector Type D, Wing Connector Type E, Delta Wing, Small Delta Wing, Elevon 1, Elevon 2, Elevon 3, Elevon 4, Elevon 5, Wing Strake, Structural Wing Type A, Structural Wing Type B, Structural Wing Type C, Structural Wing Type D, Swept Wing Type A, and Swept Wing Type B have a heatConductivity of 0.06, which is 50% the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

Basic Fin has a heatConductivity of 0.12, which is 100% the default. (HOWEVER the line is commented out, so it's not applied in-game)

Edited by CoriW
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Well, this explains why I wasn't aware of any useful heat-insulating parts. Most of them are not even structural parts allowing two side attach, and one which are (e.g. bay) still don't have much insulation to be useful.

Personally I think it would help if lattice girders (e.g. "strut XL") made greatly reduced conductivity (e.g. 10%?) - because they are very low total cross-section area. Which will actually make them a lot more useful in construction than they are now (and also, different from solid I-beams). This way you can reduce heat travelling from your engine block to crew block across the girder connection.

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