[1.12.x] SystemHeat - a replacement for the CoreHeat system (October 9)

[Nertea]

System Heat 0.6.0

•  Most UI fields now report in SI-prefixed units for flux (W, kW, MW, etc). This is not (yet) true for all modules though. 
•  Added new functionality to cool fuel tanks with radiators and the SH system
•  Added optional patch to apply this to CryoTanks
• Added some guardrails around the handling of Kopernicus planets that might have inconsistently configured atmospheres
•  Added ingame settings. The following things can be customized per game
  •  Boiloff: enabled and scale
  •  Nuclear fuel transfer: require engineers, what level
  •  Fission reactor damage: allowed, various tuning variables
•  Fixed engine heat for VASIMR argon modes
•  Support USI reactors
•  Fixes to universal harvester patch

[Socowez]

On 10/10/2022 at 1:12 AM, Nertea said:

System Heat 0.6.0

•  Most UI fields now report in SI-prefixed units for flux (W, kW, MW, etc). This is not (yet) true for all modules though. 
•  Added new functionality to cool fuel tanks with radiators and the SH system
•  Added optional patch to apply this to CryoTanks
• Added some guardrails around the handling of Kopernicus planets that might have inconsistently configured atmospheres
•  Added ingame settings. The following things can be customized per game
  •  Boiloff: enabled and scale
  •  Nuclear fuel transfer: require engineers, what level
  •  Fission reactor damage: allowed, various tuning variables
•  Fixed engine heat for VASIMR argon modes
•  Support USI reactors
•  Fixes to universal harvester patch

Well this was certainly unexpected! I thought you were done with modding KSP1 and on the KSP2 dev team? or have you too much time on your hands and decided to do some bugfixing?

[CoriW]

Just going to drop this here, my efforts at attempting to work out compatibility between System Heat and Rational Resources.

 

[beez1717]

I love this mod but the only issue I have with it is that it isn't compatible with the Interstellar Extended mod so I end up having to use kspi radiators for anything that uses waste heat and system heat for everything else. For example, I could use a kspi reactor but I then am forced to use the kspi radiators only, or I could use near future generators but then I'm forced to use system heat only. If I decide to use kspi's beamed power then I definitely can't use system heat for that. The issue is probably integrating waste heat with system heat, but I bet it can be done. Can someone make a compatibility patch perhaps? That would help a ton. 

[Nertea]

15 hours ago, beez1717 said:

I love this mod but the only issue I have with it is that it isn't compatible with the Interstellar Extended mod so I end up having to use kspi radiators for anything that uses waste heat and system heat for everything else. For example, I could use a kspi reactor but I then am forced to use the kspi radiators only, or I could use near future generators but then I'm forced to use system heat only. If I decide to use kspi's beamed power then I definitely can't use system heat for that. The issue is probably integrating waste heat with system heat, but I bet it can be done. Can someone make a compatibility patch perhaps? That would help a ton. 

The two mods are fundamentally different in how they handle everything. A compatibility patch is changing all of one mod to fit the other and that's not something I'll ever make 

On 10/12/2022 at 4:22 PM, Socowez said:

Well this was certainly unexpected! I thought you were done with modding KSP1 and on the KSP2 dev team? or have you too much time on your hands and decided to do some bugfixing?

BDB team asked for some features and I have a good relationship with the devs .

[JohnyCraft]

Hey sorry if i am being an idiot but just thought it would be best to ask so i am having a thing in my game where my fuel keeps boiling off and the only mods i have that might be causing it is SystemHeat and HeatControl so i was wondering is this caused by SystemHeat? and if so, how the hell do i stop it. since i can't seem to stop it, radiators seem to do nothing so again any help would be great thank you.

[Rakete]

BoilOff ? This mechanic belongs to the cryotanks mod by Nertea

[Wyzard]

On 10/10/2022 at 1:12 AM, Nertea said:

Added optional patch to apply this to CryoTanks

I like this!  Cryo tanks needing actual radiators is exactly how it ought to work, and it makes the low-temp radiator parts more broadly useful.  (That plus I've been making a point of using more NF ion engines in my current playthrough; I like that those need cooling too.)

[panarchist]

On 10/27/2022 at 12:52 AM, JohnyCraft said:

Hey sorry if i am being an idiot but just thought it would be best to ask so i am having a thing in my game where my fuel keeps boiling off and the only mods i have that might be causing it is SystemHeat and HeatControl so i was wondering is this caused by SystemHeat? and if so, how the hell do i stop it. since i can't seem to stop it, radiators seem to do nothing so again any help would be great thank you.

Check to see if you installed SystemHeatBoiloff from the Extras folder. (or if you used CKAN, check to see if IT installed that extra) Otherwise as mentioned above, Cryotanks Also has boiloff.

[Bizobinator]

I downloaded/installed both cryo tanks & system heat via CKAN, but I couldn't find the boil-off patch? What did I miss? I'm 100% sure this is me in derp mode 

[Bizobinator]

Oh! I had an idea: for another heat consumer (other than radiators), what about having a power reclamation thing? Something that converts some fraction of the input heat into a (reduced) amount of electrical power?

[beez1717]

On 10/22/2022 at 10:19 AM, Nertea said:

The two mods are fundamentally different in how they handle everything. A compatibility patch is changing all of one mod to fit the other and that's not something I'll ever make 

That makes sense to me. I like using the radiators that support both KSPIE and system heat. That makes it so I can use both mods and not have to worry about having radiators for system heat and then an entirely different set of radiators for KSPIE. Still, I can see why you wouldn't do it and I respect that.

Quote

I like this!  Cryo tanks needing actual radiators is exactly how it ought to work, and it makes the low-temp radiator parts more broadly useful.  (That plus I've been making a point of using more NF ion engines in my current playthrough; I like that those need cooling too.)

I think it would be really neat! What if the cryo tanks absorb heat as if they were a heat sink because they are so cold? To counter that you need to put them on a separate loop to prevent that situation!

Edited November 6, 2022 by beez1717
I forgot to add the second quote from Wyzard.

[Wyzard]

On 11/6/2022 at 12:03 AM, beez1717 said:

What if the cryo tanks absorb heat as if they were a heat sink because they are so cold? To counter that you need to put them on a separate loop to prevent that situation!

I think it's implied that the tank has a heat pump to actively push energy up the temperature gradient, from the cold side to the hot side.  But if you're using cryo tanks together with other things that need cooling, you'll probably want to use separate loops anyway, because different parts have different ideal loop temperatures.  (Cryo tanks want to be 300K; electrostatic engines want to be 350K; mining drills want to be 400K; the Convert-O-Tron and the plasma engines want to be 500K; nukes want to be upwards of 750K.)

Edited November 8, 2022 by Wyzard

[Wyzard]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:19 AM, panarchist said:

Check to see if you installed SystemHeatBoiloff from the Extras folder. (or if you used CKAN, check to see if IT installed that extra) Otherwise as mentioned above, Cryotanks Also has boiloff.

More specifically:

• CryoTanks has built-in boiloff support where, if cooling is enabled, the tank consumes EC to refrigerate itself and prevent boiloff.  Radiator parts aren't relevant for this; the tank has its own invisible implied radiators or something.
• The optional SystemHeatBoiloff patch replaces that with a different implementation, where the tank doesn't directly use EC, but it emits heat to SystemHeat, which routes it to actual radiator parts.  (And those radiators consume EC instead.)

In either case, tanks that hold cryo fuels have an "enable cooling" button in the tank's right-click menu.  (@JohnyCraft, it sounds like this is the part you'd overlooked.)  It's enabled by default for the special insulated tanks added by the CryoTanks mod, but disabled by default for "regular" tanks.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Wyzard

[EnderiumSmith]

Im not sure how the boiloff module is intended to work. for once the EC use is gone as the little amount the radiators use for the pumps is insignificant. And normal tanks get the module too so the special cryogenic tanks arent different at all. maybe it should instead put out heat at 20K and you use the heat exchanger to raise it to 300K, in which case the EC cost of the exchanger would need to be overhauled too. that way it would make sense for all tanks to have it and normal tanks would get higher boiloff rates. currently hydrogen has like a half year half life. maybe 5x or even 10x for the non-insulated tanks would work.  why is it a half life anyway? the surface area of the tank is the same even if half full.

also ive found some bugs. in the cryo tank tab the heat is listed in watts but its actually kilowatts as the system heat tab reports. also if you disable the radiator, the internal heat of the tank climbs to infinity and doesnt reset on reload, making the tank impossible to restart cooling after time warping a long period.

[Wyzard]

10 hours ago, EnderiumSmith said:

And normal tanks get the module too so the special cryogenic tanks arent different at all.

SystemHeat aside, the CryoTanks mod makes normal tanks support cooling, but the special cryogenic tanks are more efficient at it (less EC usage).  The SystemHeatBoiloff patch overrides that and makes them all the same, but I suspect that's a bug, and I just submitted a pull request to make the special tanks better again, in the same proportion as before.

[Artyom]

This is a very interesting mod that adds a unique challenge as in the mechanics of how rockets function, and not just how they're built. But what this mod really needs. 
Is a visual tutorial. I cannot for the life of me understand it, and it would be fine is some mods have directly implemented it (ie, bluedog) 
with Visual and (or) screenshot explanations not just covering in it's whole. Because I cannot wrap my head around how to actually use this mod
nor is it explained very well. 
hopefully something of some degree like this will eventually be implemented, but yah know what can I do. 

[Artyom]

On 6/5/2020 at 7:52 PM, Nertea said:

Yeah this will need to be the case. I will probably keep the stock balance similar in terms of radiators per ISRU or whatever, but the second you throw my other mods in I'll be doing more exotic things

Plus, in the near term this will be highly experimental.

Things are getting close to useable...

Hi, I cannot seem to get the engines both stock, or BDB to intergrate with the Loops system, and resulting in engines just exploding due to overheating. 
How do I get this to work, this mod seems to be broken / or just not working (whether that's on my end, or perhaps this mod) 

[panarchist]

On 12/10/2022 at 10:50 AM, Artyom said:

Hi, I cannot seem to get the engines both stock, or BDB to intergrate with the Loops system, and resulting in engines just exploding due to overheating. 
How do I get this to work, this mod seems to be broken / or just not working (whether that's on my end, or perhaps this mod) 

Based on your screenshot, it looks like the radiator is assigned to the correct loop, but it doesn't look like you enabled the radiator in flight. (since it looks "cold") Is the radiator "on"?

[Derb]

So Kerbal Atomics has an optional patch to integrate with Near Future electrical for reactor control. However, CKAN tells me this is incompatible with the System Heat patch for nuclear engines. What is the difference in the behavior of these two patches? Does the System Heat patch for nuclear engines still get you Near Future Electrical integration for those engines?

[panarchist]

On 12/12/2022 at 2:37 PM, Derb said:

So Kerbal Atomics has an optional patch to integrate with Near Future electrical for reactor control. However, CKAN tells me this is incompatible with the System Heat patch for nuclear engines. What is the difference in the behavior of these two patches? Does the System Heat patch for nuclear engines still get you Near Future Electrical integration for those engines?

System Heat has optional patches to integrate with NF Electrical for reactor control. Kerbal Atomics has no such patches - the optional patches in KA are "KerbalAtomicsNTRsUseLF" and "KerbalAtomicsLH2NTRModSupport". Sounds like the CKAN metadata is not current.

[kerbnub]

So I'm playing with the SystemHeat reactor patch for Kerbal Atomics and am a bit confused about heat production.  Are the trimodal engines  (Eel, Neptune, and Poseidon) supposed to require radiators to operate even while producing thrust? It seems like their heat production doesn't vary at all depending on  reactorpower/thrust level (even with 0 thrust), but I thought the propellant was supposed to cool the reactor while engines are firing, only requiring radiators if you leave the reactors on afterward for power generation.

I've also noticed that the atomic engines(and stock NERVA) reactors  seem to behave as one would inspect; they activate and get up to rated temp while thrusting,  and the core seems to be inactive while not thrusting, but they never show as generating any heat whatsoever. 

I see there was some discussion about this earlier in the thread, that propellants should cool the reactor. Was that idea abandoned, and the reactors with no EC generation just had their heat removed as a bandaid (since you get the same behavior anyway)?

[Clayel]

 

Having a very annoying reoccurring bug with this mod, my radiators don't seem to cool down the reactor past its melting point, and the reactor will just melt down and become unusable while the radiators are only at like 15%. This seems to happen particularly in timewarp, and I've made sure that all of the system loops are correct, and my radiators can consume much more heat than they need to. Can you help? This is preventing me from continuing my mission. (I have all of the system patches installed and I'm using kerbal atomics as my reactor)

Edited January 2, 2023 by Clayel

[Clayel]

3 hours ago, Clayel said:

 

Having a very annoying reoccurring bug with this mod, my radiators don't seem to cool down the reactor past its melting point, and the reactor will just melt down and become unusable while the radiators are only at like 15%. This seems to happen particularly in timewarp, and I've made sure that all of the system loops are correct, and my radiators can consume much more heat than they need to. Can you help? This is preventing me from continuing my mission. (I have all of the system patches installed and I'm using kerbal atomics as my reactor)

Update: Thanks to a very helpful comment from someone in the r/ksp discord, I figured out that the problem was because all of the heat producing sources were in the same loop, and they had different max temperatures. This is fixed now.

[mateusviccari]

Been a while off the game,  warming up for KSP 2. What am I doing wrong here? For some reason, the near future ion engines are not cooling off, no matter how many radiators I add.

It says "Engine system maximum temperature of 500 k was exceeded on FI-2154 'Jewel-4' gridded ion thruster! Engine shutdown!" even though I have more than 10 times heat rejection capacity.

Here's an image to illustrate:

Spoiler

------------------- EDIT ------------------

Turns out I just had to separate the engine in one loop and the fission reactor in another.  I swear I spent a long time fiddling around. Well, I'll just leave it here for posterity.

Edited February 4, 2023 by mateusviccari
Found the solution