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KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread


FreeThinker

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Hi guys,

I've recently started a new career game (with a clean KSP install) using KSPI, and it's been awhile. I've encountered a strange phenomenon, and while I've browsed/searched this thread, I can't seem to resolve it as nothing is jumping out in the debug log:

8863CD7E4BD0983BCEF88C864F62501115DD07B5

At some point in the flight, ThermalPower and ChargedParticles fall to zero... 

Has anyone encountered this before? I have the KSP.log file, but it's rather lengthy and I'd hate to post a wall of text...

I'll keep debugging to see what causes it, or if there is a mod or two that is conflicting, but if anyone has encountered this before, I'd appreciate your thoughts...

 

Thanks!!

Edited by Threadsinger
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1 hour ago, Threadsinger said:

Hi guys,

I've recently started a new career game (with a clean KSP install) using KSPI, and it's been awhile. I've encountered a strange phenomenon, and while I've browsed/searched this thread, I can't seem to resolve it as nothing is jumping out in the debug log:

8863CD7E4BD0983BCEF88C864F62501115DD07B5

At some point in the flight, ThermalPower and ChargedParticles fall to zero... 

Has anyone encountered this before? I have the KSP.log file, but it's rather lengthy and I'd hate to post a wall of text...

I'll keep debugging to see what causes it, or if there is a mod or two that is conflicting, but if anyone has encountered this before, I'd appreciate your thoughts...

 

Thanks!!

I think you need a fission reactor to provide heating for the fusion reactor to keep running.  Fusion reactors are weird.  I have... some concerns about what I'm seeing here in your design th.. oh you're not using FAR.. that probably makes a big difference in what I was about to ask regarding the yaw authority and radiator placement :)  I do want to know however if those radiators (are those stock?) are capable of providing enough dissipation for these reactors?  I've noticed that the foldable radiators have been reduced in efficiency drastically in more recent versions of KSPIE, as well as the large flat radiators, to the point where an antimatter reactor, esp. at 3.75m or bigger, needs like 10 or 12 of the big ones at 100% scale to cool 'in the green' on the thermal helper, (or more), and the foldable ones are useless for antimatter reactors entirely.

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2 hours ago, Threadsinger said:

Hi guys,

I've recently started a new career game (with a clean KSP install) using KSPI, and it's been awhile. I've encountered a strange phenomenon, and while I've browsed/searched this thread, I can't seem to resolve it as nothing is jumping out in the debug log:

At some point in the flight, ThermalPower and ChargedParticles fall to zero... 

Has anyone encountered this before? I have the KSP.log file, but it's rather lengthy and I'd hate to post a wall of text...

I'll keep debugging to see what causes it, or if there is a mod or two that is conflicting, but if anyone has encountered this before, I'd appreciate your thoughts...

 

Thanks!!

I would add a capacitor in the mix somewhere so you can jumpstart it when it falls off.  I see 3 possibilites. 

#1 You are using too much energy thermal and some of the charged particles are being used to run the engine starving the reaction. 
#2 Wasteheat gets high and shuts down something.  (You would know because you would have to restart the reactor)
#3 Some form of time compression glitch.  Doubt that because of your limited flight time but possible.  

Try a D-Li6 reaction because that has more charged particles and see if it works better for you, or have a fission reactor as a pump to maintain the fusion in instances where it drops out, or have a super cap and turn it on when you need a jump.  

*EDIT*

I did some testing, option 1 certainly looks like is what is happening.   I have a video where you can see the reaction starve (I used D-D because I think my tech level is higher and D-T does not starve for me) 

https://youtu.be/zlcL41VNxRY

Edited by Profit-
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56 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

I think you need a fission reactor to provide heating for the fusion reactor to keep running.  Fusion reactors are weird.  I have... some concerns about what I'm seeing here in your design th.. oh you're not using FAR.. that probably makes a big difference in what I was about to ask regarding the yaw authority and radiator placement :)  I do want to know however if those radiators (are those stock?) are capable of providing enough dissipation for these reactors?  I've noticed that the foldable radiators have been reduced in efficiency drastically in more recent versions of KSPIE, as well as the large flat radiators, to the point where an antimatter reactor, esp. at 3.75m or bigger, needs like 10 or 12 of the big ones at 100% scale to cool 'in the green' on the thermal helper, (or more), and the foldable ones are useless for antimatter reactors entirely.

Ha, no I'm not using FAR. I'm sure it's a nightmarish design in some eyes, however I the CoL is just slightly aft of the CoM and actually lifts/lands quite well... Yaw authority needs work, I stopped refining it when the reactor starting bugging out. I think the radiators are stock, difficulty is I just started playing KSP since the most recent stock updates, so they are new parts to me...

I just find it odd that the fusion reactor works great until orbit, then the actual *numbers* bar for Thermal Power and Charged Particles reads full AND zero... AFAIK, at that point in flight I still have plenty of wasteheat capacity, power output etc. In fact, this happens as I'm coasting to apoapsis (i.e. not under thrust and consuming energy).  

38 minutes ago, Profit- said:

I would add a capacitor in the mix somewhere so you can jumpstart it when it falls off.  I see 3 possibilites. 

#1 You are using too much energy thermal and some of the charged particles are being used to run the engine starving the reaction. 
#2 Wasteheat gets high and shuts down something.  (You would know because you would have to restart the reactor)
#3 Some form of time compression glitch.  Doubt that because of your limited flight time but possible.  

Try a D-Li6 reaction because that has more charged particles and see if it works better for you, or have a fission reactor as a pump to maintain the fusion in instances where it drops out, or have a super cap and turn it on when you need a jump.  

Alright, I'll try and install a capacitor (or find a mod with one). I don't think I'm using too much ThermalPower as this happens under coast, but I'll keep a close eye on it. Same with WasteHeat. As for time compression glitches, welp, can't fix that....

I'll give it a shot and update later with what I find...

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Alrighty,

Jeb and the guys got together and slapped some additional glowing bits on the test plane, to no avail:

660A920EFAC5834998F9C0B603C0333B598C6629

96499466CC2E74DFDC5F5E52DE1B4AFA6835E432

In each case, the craft didn't even get to ignite the engines before getting that warning/everything not working. I've also determined that it happened in the previous post when I cut throttle and tried to restart. I'm going to copy over KSP into a second folder, blow away all the other mods but keeping the same save, and see what happens...

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48 minutes ago, Threadsinger said:

Ha, no I'm not using FAR. I'm sure it's a nightmarish design in some eyes, however I the CoL is just slightly aft of the CoM and actually lifts/lands quite well... Yaw authority needs work, I stopped refining it when the reactor starting bugging out. I think the radiators are stock, difficulty is I just started playing KSP since the most recent stock updates, so they are new parts to me...

I just find it odd that the fusion reactor works great until orbit, then the actual *numbers* bar for Thermal Power and Charged Particles reads full AND zero... AFAIK, at that point in flight I still have plenty of wasteheat capacity, power output etc. In fact, this happens as I'm coasting to apoapsis (i.e. not under thrust and consuming energy).  

Alright, I'll try and install a capacitor (or find a mod with one). I don't think I'm using too much ThermalPower as this happens under coast, but I'll keep a close eye on it. Same with WasteHeat. As for time compression glitches, welp, can't fix that....

I'll give it a shot and update later with what I find...

The capacitor comes as part of KSPI-extended. And I really think it is a starvation issue if you see the video it really looks like what happened. 

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Edited: Darn, starve out still happens, but for no (obvious) reason. 

One question: is it by design that the fusion reactor needs 1.5 GW of power (at 3.5 m), but the generator only produces 1.46 GW?

Too annoyed to continue tonight, but thanks for the help, all.

Edited by Threadsinger
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9 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Tank you :D

Hydrazine gives me 58k, HTP - 75k and helium - 88k of dv. So HTP is best fuel now - helium has 4x lower TWR for my spaceplane than HTP.

How to pressurize tanks, so these could hold noble gases? I wonder if any of them can beat HTP in DV.

 

There is the procedural xenon tank

EP8mMMD.png

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9 hours ago, Profit- said:

I would add a capacitor in the mix somewhere so you can jumpstart it when it falls off.  I see 3 possibilites. 

#1 You are using too much energy thermal and some of the charged particles are being used to run the engine starving the reaction. 
#2 Wasteheat gets high and shuts down something.  (You would know because you would have to restart the reactor)
#3 Some form of time compression glitch.  Doubt that because of your limited flight time but possible.  
 

Overheating is indeed the most likely reason the reactor shut down when using electrical propusion. players;often overlook the fact that in space, radiators (even folded) are much less effective due to the absence of convection. Although electric propulsion is more efficient in terms of ISP, the trait off is heat buildup. Their are basiicly 4 way to combat this, more ratiators, more heat sinks, auxilery power or super capacitators. The super capacitator big advantage is low mass. A Super Capacitator allong with a RTG /Solar Array is indeed the best sollution to resart the fusion reactor, of cource this requires time which might be a problem when you try to get into orbit ..

Edited by FreeThinker
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7 hours ago, Threadsinger said:

Alrighty,

Jeb and the guys got together and slapped some additional glowing bits on the test plane, to no avail:

660A920EFAC5834998F9C0B603C0333B598C6629

96499466CC2E74DFDC5F5E52DE1B4AFA6835E432

In each case, the craft didn't even get to ignite the engines before getting that warning/everything not working. I've also determined that it happened in the previous post when I cut throttle and tried to restart. I'm going to copy over KSP into a second folder, blow away all the other mods but keeping the same save, and see what happens...

The reason it cannot ignite is because It cannot generate enough charge to ignote fusion (1.5 GW). To achieve this either add more auxilery MW power, or an super capacitator.

Note that in the past, before Capacitators were implemented, the nuclear reactors had a build in cheat overcharge feature (which allowed it to to generate more power for a split second), But this cheat feature is now now removed allong with a significant amount of mass, making more usefull for propusion

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12 hours ago, Threadsinger said:

Edited: Darn, starve out still happens, but for no (obvious) reason. 

One question: is it by design that the fusion reactor needs 1.5 GW of power (at 3.5 m), but the generator only produces 1.46 GW?

Too annoyed to continue tonight, but thanks for the help, all.

Every single one of those vehicles had design issues.  Most glaring is two reactors cannot share a generator. 
No it is not by design however D-T fusion only produces 20% of the energy as charged particles and the conversion at tops is only 80% efficient. 

I cannot replicate your issue because my tech level is advanced on yours but a small reactor that is not sharing the same space as your fusion one, with the actual super capacitor (it is a glowy red thing) should help fix this.  
HOWEVER you really need to change to something with a higher charged particle percentage to use your setup or get more tech.   I really am not sure if it will be enough at low tech but try D-HE3 fusion  (the only other one available at the start) instead of D-T and see if that works.  It should produce far more as charged particles. 


To show you a proper reactor-generator connections, here are some of the same configurations and how they can be made valid. 

From left to right. 

1.  Put the two generators back to back.
2. This is a super cap. 
3. See how I separated the generator with a battery pack to keep the reactor from  touching it.

image.png


With an advanced tech, I can turn off every single one of the generators connected to the fusion reactors and they are still running. 

Edited by Profit-
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4 hours ago, Sagath said:

not delete warpPlugin folder to instal the ver. 1.6.2, the small radial radiator is lost... i lost all my comunication system of remote tech mod, ond other probes because this part is lost.

Weird, I haven't changed anything with the small radial radiator. Anyone else having issue with small radial radiator?

Edited by FreeThinker
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20 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Tank you :D

Hydrazine gives me 58k, HTP - 75k and helium - 88k of dv. So HTP is best fuel now - helium has 4x lower TWR for my spaceplane than HTP.

How to pressurize tanks, so these could hold noble gases? I wonder if any of them can beat HTP in DV.

 

My patch set (among all the other things) modifies all Liquid-Fuel-only tanks to be IFS cryo tanks - I included resources such as xenon, but as a cryo resource (so it takes power to not boil off, but you have a higher density of the resource(calculated via massive spreasheet), and you have the other advantages of an IFS tank).

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38 minutes ago, Profit- said:

Every single one of those vehicles had design issues.  Most glaring is two reactors cannot share a generator. 
No it is not by design however D-T fusion only produces 20% of the energy as charged particles and the conversion at tops is only 80% efficient. 

I cannot replicate your issue because my tech level is advanced on yours but a small reactor that is not sharing the same space as your fusion one, with the actual super capacitor (it is a glowy red thing) should help fix this.  
HOWEVER you really need to change to something with a higher charged particle percentage to use your setup or get more tech.   I really am not sure if it will be enough at low tech but try D-HE3 fusion  (the only other one available at the start) instead of D-T and see if that works.  It should produce far more as charged particles. 


To show you a proper reactor-generator connections, here are some of the same configurations and how they can be made valid. 

From left to right. 

1.  Put the two generators back to back.
2. This is a super cap. 
3. See how I separated the generator with a battery pack to keep the reactor from  touching it.

image.png
 

Hi Profit!

 

Thanks for the reply and for your helpful diagrams. Not that I want to monopolize the thread here, I just to make sure I'm being clear about my issue, it's not restarting the reactor, because I can use a couple of XL panels and a supercapacitor (or just use HyperEdit and force a Megajoule recharge.). This makes sense if I shut it off to save fuel or if it glitches on timewarp. 

My confusion stems around how the reactor starts up fine on load at the runway, runs at full output in airbreathing mode (then internal fuel), then with plenty of waste heat capacity left over, deployed OR undeployed radiators, and thrust OR no thrust (i.e. coasting to apoapsis burn point), the reactor just dies. It ran fine during ascent, then stops without a critical resource limit being hit. Using HYPEREDIT to recharge various resources does nothing. It doesn't make sense that the reactor runs just fine on the ground, in the air, and in space, with capacity to spare, in a variety of flight modes, then shuts down due to a power failiure. Beyond a fault in how the part handles all the resources, I don't understand how that works, or why I'd even use a part with those properties. It feels like there's either a phantom demand on it somewhere, or a math error (note the resource bar shows FULL green, with 0.0, instead of, say a grey bar with 0/100000000 thermal power.)

Those kitbash craft I put together was my attempt to figure out where the power limitations are coming from, since the base model reactor seems to sustain itself just fine (until it doesn't), so I tossed those in for extra electrical power (and to experiment with part positioning and where power fails). According to the Thermal Helper, I had plenty of spare thermal capacity, but tonight i'm going to build a craft with ludicrous cooling abilities and see what happens. 

tl;dr The problem isn't jumpstarting the dead battery, the problem is the battery dies after running just fine for minutes with no warning lights. 

I'm at work and can't try a fix until tonight. I'll try what you say, because I like this mod, but I'm still confused as to why this is a thing (and/or why a reactor can't sustain... itself.. in continuous mode.)

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3 hours ago, Threadsinger said:

Hi Profit!

 

Thanks for the reply and for your helpful diagrams. Not that I want to monopolize the thread here, I just to make sure I'm being clear about my issue, it's not restarting the reactor, because I can use a couple of XL panels and a supercapacitor (or just use HyperEdit and force a Megajoule recharge.). This makes sense if I shut it off to save fuel or if it glitches on timewarp. 

My confusion stems around how the reactor starts up fine on load at the runway, runs at full output in airbreathing mode (then internal fuel), then with plenty of waste heat capacity left over, deployed OR undeployed radiators, and thrust OR no thrust (i.e. coasting to apoapsis burn point), the reactor just dies. It ran fine during ascent, then stops without a critical resource limit being hit. Using HYPEREDIT to recharge various resources does nothing. It doesn't make sense that the reactor runs just fine on the ground, in the air, and in space, with capacity to spare, in a variety of flight modes, then shuts down due to a power failiure. Beyond a fault in how the part handles all the resources, I don't understand how that works, or why I'd even use a part with those properties. It feels like there's either a phantom demand on it somewhere, or a math error (note the resource bar shows FULL green, with 0.0, instead of, say a grey bar with 0/100000000 thermal power.)

Those kitbash craft I put together was my attempt to figure out where the power limitations are coming from, since the base model reactor seems to sustain itself just fine (until it doesn't), so I tossed those in for extra electrical power (and to experiment with part positioning and where power fails). According to the Thermal Helper, I had plenty of spare thermal capacity, but tonight i'm going to build a craft with ludicrous cooling abilities and see what happens. 

tl;dr The problem isn't jumpstarting the dead battery, the problem is the battery dies after running just fine for minutes with no warning lights. 

I'm at work and can't try a fix until tonight. I'll try what you say, because I like this mod, but I'm still confused as to why this is a thing (and/or why a reactor can't sustain... itself.. in continuous mode.)

I appreciate your issue, but unless you show a video showing the reactor failing X minutes with the charge levels of the Generator not dropping I have to assume that is what is happening because that is what it looks like.    I showed all of those because your reactors were not hooked up properly in the images you showed. 

There is one final possibility, It is extremely rare but sometimes the connection between the reactor and the generators can break due to stress and not float away if anchored by something else, I really do not think it is the case but maybe 1 in a 10,000 chance.   Check your flight log and see if it came up.   (It IS however common between microwave receivers and engines. )

I also believe you that it is not overheating because your reactors appear still active, just stalled. 

Also, what was your result trying D-HE3 fusion?

Also the reactor could sustain itself if you collected thermal as well as charged particle energy.  only 20% of the energy of a D-T fusion is charged particle and your generator only accepts those.  If you want to use the other 80% of the reaction you need a thermal generator. (and the massive heat dissipation it will require)
This is why I suggested  D-He3 because it releases about 90% of it's power as charged particles and may work better for you. 

the bar showing green 0.0 is because without the reactor the generator is not supposed to work as a battery.  It reduces its capacity to 0 and since it technically is full it turns the bar green.  I know it is weird but it is a KSP/unity quirk. 

Edited by Profit-
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3 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Weird, I haven't changed anything with the small radial radiator. Anyone else having issue with small radial radiator?

I have to be honest, I have never used that part.  I don't think most have as the others tweakscaled are far more useful. 

*Edit* Just checked it, it works as bad as ever. 

Edited by Profit-
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52 minutes ago, Profit- said:

I have to be honest, I have never used that part.  I don't think most have as the others tweakscaled are far more useful. 

*Edit* Just checked it, it works as bad as ever. 

Indeed. The main usage of the small radial, is atmospheric usage. It allows a nuclear powered airplane from reaching critical temperatures while landed. It's not very effective in space. The flat radial radiator is much lighter and effective for doing that job.

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3 hours ago, Threadsinger said:

My confusion stems around how the reactor starts up fine on load at the runway, runs at full output in airbreathing mode (then internal fuel), then with plenty of waste heat capacity left over, deployed OR undeployed radiators, and thrust OR no thrust (i.e. coasting to apoapsis burn point), the reactor just dies. It ran fine during ascent, then stops without a critical resource limit being hit. Using HYPEREDIT to recharge various resources does nothing. It doesn't make sense that the reactor runs just fine on the ground, in the air, and in space, with capacity to spare, in a variety of flight modes, then shuts down due to a power failiure. Beyond a fault in how the part handles all the resources, I don't understand how that works, or why I'd even use a part with those properties. It feels like there's either a phantom demand on it somewhere, or a math error (note the resource bar shows FULL green, with 0.0, instead of, say a grey bar with 0/100000000 thermal power.)

Have you checked the log? Technically if something goes wrong, it should show up in the log, the moment it develops. If you think KSPI parts are to blame, try to find out the minimum conditions under which the problem arises, preferably using Stock + KSPI parts only . Once you can reproduce the problem we can try to reproduce the problem as well. If we can't, the most likely explanation is that some external mod is causing parts to fail.

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