Core heat broken in 1.4.3?

[sh1pman]

I've noticed that I can't run more than one converter on a 2.5m convertotron without it overheating, no matter how many radiators and TCS I activate.

Also, the 1.25m convertotron overheats all the time, there's no way to cool it down with any amount of radiators.

KSP 1.4.3, stock. 

[Geonovast]

Not enough EC generation to run the TCS?  All I can think of.

[sh1pman]

Just now, Geonovast said:

Not enough EC generation to run the TCS?  All I can think of.

No, EC is fine, look at those solars.

[4x4cheesecake]

I can confirm this behaviour, pretty sure thats new to 1.4.3 because I had a working MK2 mining SSTO in 1.4.2, using the small converter.

[bewing]

That's the way the 1.25m converter has always worked. It's that way on purpose. You are not supposed to run it continuously.

I'll take a look at the 2.5m converter -- but that one's heating specs depend on the number of stars your engineer has, and the difficulty setting in your game.

 

[4x4cheesecake]

Had some time for a quick test and it looks like, an engineer on board solves this problem. The 1.25m converter can run up to 2 converting processes permanently and the 2.5m converter up to 3.

Tested in 1.4.2 and 1.4.3 (sandbox, normal difficulty), always the same result.

I also took a closer look at the converters itself:

	1.25m Converter	2.5m converter
required cooling	100KW	200KW
max cooling	75KW	200KW

So, it makes sense^^

The small converter produces more heat than is possible to transfer, the big converter can transfer all the heat. An engineer will increase the efficiency of a converter, so: less heat, more fuel. The engineer will only decrease the "required cooling" value, but does not increase the "max cooling" value, which is still limiting the amount of parallel processes. So, I guess, thats all intended, like @bewing said.

[sh1pman]

12 hours ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

Had some time for a quick test and it looks like, an engineer on board solves this problem. The 1.25m converter can run up to 2 converting processes permanently and the 2.5m converter up to 3.

Tested in 1.4.2 and 1.4.3 (sandbox, normal difficulty), always the same result.

I also took a closer look at the converters itself:

	1.25m Converter	2.5m converter
required cooling	100KW	200KW
max cooling	75KW	200KW

So, it makes sense^^

The small converter produces more heat than is possible to transfer, the big converter can transfer all the heat. An engineer will increase the efficiency of a converter, so: less heat, more fuel. The engineer will only decrease the "required cooling" value, but does not increase the "max cooling" value, which is still limiting the amount of parallel processes. So, I guess, thats all intended, like @bewing said.

Yeah, 5-star engineer makes it possible to run 3 converters with no overheating. Was it always like this? It’s a bit confusing because I thought that every converter has its own core heat, and in order to run several at the same time I’d need more radiators, not a better engineer. 

[4x4cheesecake]

31 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Yeah, 5-star engineer makes it possible to run 3 converters with no overheating. Was it always like this? It’s a bit confusing because I thought that every converter has its own core heat, and in order to run several at the same time I’d need more radiators, not a better engineer. 

Well, you can use multiple converter (parts) to run multiple converter processes and each part got his own core heat. But if you want to run multiple converter processes on the same part, you will get a heat problem. It doesn't matter how many radiators you add, the "max cooling" value will only allow to cool down 75KW respectively 200KW for each converter.

I don't know for how long the parts have this behaviour, I've started with KSP 1.4.1.