Using Electricity Instead of Ablator for actively cooled rentry

[captinjoehenry]

Ok so I am not much of a modder but I love fiddling with the mods I download to make them more of what I want.  So right now I have the great OPT space plane pack and I really enjoy it.  The only thing is that the space plane parts cannot really handle huge speeds in atmosphere like thrusting to orbit with a scramjet on a real scale kerbol system.  So instead of just messing around with the max skin temp of the space plane parts I thought I would attempt to make them actively cooled so all of the space plane parts would be able to use electric charge to stay cool like a heat shield but with electric charge instead of ablator as I would imagine a space plane would make much better use of an active cooling system.  Of course failing that I'll just go back and mess with the parts max skin temp instead

[Esquire42]

4 minutes ago, captinjoehenry said:

Ok so I am not much of a modder but I love fiddling with the mods I download to make them more of what I want.  So right now I have the great OPT space plane pack and I really enjoy it.  The only thing is that the space plane parts cannot really handle huge speeds in atmosphere like thrusting to orbit with a scramjet on a real scale kerbol system.  So instead of just messing around with the max skin temp of the space plane parts I thought I would attempt to make them actively cooled so all of the space plane parts would be able to use electric charge to stay cool like a heat shield but with electric charge instead of ablator as I would imagine a space plane would make much better use of an active cooling system.  Of course failing that I'll just go back and mess with the parts max skin temp instead

It's worth taking a look at the code for the heat shield and first seeing if you could change the .cfg so they consume electricity instead of ablator, and then applying that via MM patch to the OPT parts.

@K.Yeon might also want to consider making this an unlockable feature for the set.

[captinjoehenry]

Just now, Esquire42 said:

It's worth taking a look at the code for the heat shield and first seeing if you could change the .cfg so they consume electricity instead of ablator, and then applying that via MM patch to the OPT parts.

@K.Yeon might also want to consider making this an unlockable feature for the set.

Ok how do I make an MM patch that'll add it?

[Esquire42]

13 minutes ago, captinjoehenry said:

Ok how do I make an MM patch that'll add it?

Well, first you have to see if the tweak will work. 

From there, the patch would look something like the one I wrote to turn some of @DMagic's antenna parts into massive relays (DMagic, it'd be great if you threw this patch in with the install as an optional for OPM users.) Here's the patch:

@PART[dmSIGINT.End]:NEEDS[DMagic]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleDataTransmitter]
	{
		@antennaType = RELAY
		@antennaCombinable = True
	}
}

You'd change the @PART category to an OPT part and repeat the whole thing for each part you want, or perhaps to something from a @HAS call; maybe ModuleLiftingSurface. Then you'd plop in the electric ablator module.

From the looks of it the config would be pretty easy. This should work.

MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAblator
		ablativeResource =  ElectricCharge
		lossExp = -7500
		lossConst = 0.1
		pyrolysisLossFactor = 6000
		reentryConductivity = 0.01
		ablationTempThresh = 500
		
		useChar = True
		charModuleName = shieldChar
	}

Hell, since this was so easy I might publish it myself. Tell me if this works, and I'll acknowledge you as testing/inspiration

I'd first add the modified ablator code to a specific part and test it, then see if it works. 

Edited December 14, 2016 by Esquire42
Pedantry

[DMagic]

@Esquire42 The latest update of Orbital Science includes a part upgrade to convert the antennas to relays.

[Esquire42]

18 minutes ago, DMagic said:

@Esquire42 The latest update of Orbital Science includes a part upgrade to convert the antennas to relays.

I did not know this. Haven't gotten around to playing KSP after updating. Thank you so much! Orbital Science is a lifesaver