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[0.25]KSP Interstellar (Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp) Version 0.13


Fractal_UK

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Some observations about the Double-C Seismic instrument. I'm playing the pre-ARM 0.23 with the 0.10.3 version of Interstellar, if things have changed since then consider this post redundant ;).

First of all let me say that I really enjoy the more difficult / complicated way to get science out of that instrument. Adds another layer to the game, which is always nice.

The amount of power the transmission needs is insane though. There is virtually no way to transmit the science on a "standard" solar powered probe. Of course one can always build huge contraptions to provide enough juice but I'm talking about a reasonable probe. The instrument virtually requires a reactor, or the probe to come home to Kerbin. Why I'm saying this is because I found that unlike other instruments, the transmission doesn't seem to continue after the batteries have sufficiently recharged. So once the batteries are drained, that's it, the WarpPlugin.cfg value switches to transmitted = true and its over. Searching this thread it seemed to have worked (people have mentioned using time warp to "cheat" a bit on energy consumption) earlier but at least for me, it doesn't. Not sure that is intended.

I also found out that the science from the instrument can't be picked up by a Kerbal on EVA. I had this happen to my Mun detector (insufficiently solar-equipped, see above) where I sent a pickup mission only to find out that I couldn't get the science out of the instruments thru Kerbal. That's definitely not fun. I saw a post somewhere concerning the magnetometer science not being allowed to be picked up thru EVA being a bug, so I'll assume the same is the case here, just letting you know.

Next, I have a nuclear powered rover with a Double C on board on the surface of Kerbin with antennas and everything. I thought to be incredible smart since I make a point of crashing the last ascend stage of virtually all rockets back on Kerbin to avoid debris. Free science, right? Doesn't seem to be the case. When I switch to the burned out fuel tank / engine / fin assembly (no power, no control) and watch it crash it doesn't get registered by the Double C. Again, not sure if that's intended behaviour.

Last, sometimes when I read the seismic reports on a probe and click the green "store experiment" button in the popup, it seems that the "transmitted" value in the WarpPlugin.cfg is incorrectly being set to "true". Not 100% sure how to reproduce it but I had several cases where the sequence of "impact -> switch to detector -> read -> store -> switch to next impactor" caused the first impact to be set to transmitted = true while that was not the case.

Again, great twist on the instrument but it could use some tweaking in my opinion.

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is there a warpconfig in your save file? Try deleting that. Otherwise, I would just reinstall the mod. The game should be fine if you used steam or the patcher.

I have a WarpPlugin.cfg, but the the entire file is only one line of text long


writtenat = 4/13/2014 10:30:04 PM

I will try re-installing the mod tonight.

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I appear to be missing my 23.5 tech.

I just started a new save up for 23.5. I am fairly sure I choose KSP Intersteller for my tech tree, however when I started the game it asked me to update the tech tree. I updated, closed KSP, then reopened the program and it asked me again 2 or 3 times. Eventually it stopped prompting me, I did notice some of the 23.5 changes, for example Orange tanks being unlocked in "Heavier rocketry", but none of the new tech appears to be showing up. I did not really notice it until I got to "Actuators" and it had no tech items in the folder

http://i.imgur.com/aP9UpgS.png

Did I choose the wrong tech tree when I started? I used to have a 0.9.2 of Interstellar installed when I was on 23.0 but I deleted all folders except the Squad folder in my GameData folder when I updated everything to 23.5. I currently have the following other mods installed:

Deadly Reentry 4.6

Toolbar 1.7.1

Enhanced Navball 1.2

Docking Port Alignment 3.01

TAC Fuel Balancer 2.3.0.2

Kerbal Alarm Clock 2.7.3.0

MechJeb 2.2.0.0 (MechJeb's tech does show up in the tree)

0.23.5 adds a second stock folder: GameData/NASAMission/. That's where all of the new parts live. If you mistook NASAMission/ for a mod and deleted it, that would cause exactly what you're seeing. Solution: Reinstall KSP if you don't have a backup.

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I have never had issues with the probes. My sensors in 0.23 had 2x1000 batteries and 4 Gigantor panels. Never had an issue transmitting, even on the first impact(~900 science).

Yeah, thats what I consider overpowered ;). Not saying "I'm right and you're not", this just shows different playstyles. The only thing I find Gigantors useful for is ion probes and Kethane miners but hey that's me.

If I feel generous I put 4 X-STAT solar panels on probes and maybe 4 of the small batteries - thats enough to last thru the night in orbit around any of the bodies in the Kerbin influence. Since I unlocked it I ditch the solar panels and only put 2 of the stock thermoelectric generators on.

The seismic detector probe in question (landing stage only) had three thermoelectric generators one Z-200 battery and weighed about 650kgs all inclusive. So yeah, in hindsight thats a WAY underpowered but that's exactly my point. Since science transmission usually restarts once the batteries have a bit of juice it wouldn't have mattered. I didn't even mind the manned "rescue" mission to pick the science up but that not working as well is a bit harsh :) - but like I wrote in my OP that is hopefully a bug.

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I have now waited 20 days, and I am still unable to start the reactor. My probe core says "Not enough Electric Charge" when the craft is standing still, however its got full power, and I can move the craft just fine and when I do, it says the probe says "Operational". The reactor is full of fuel, so that isn't the issue either. In fact I can't do anything with the reactor. I can't do any of the usual options. Am I a victim of some bug here?

What reactor? Certain reactors need a significant amount of power to start.

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I have now waited 20 days, and I am still unable to start the reactor. My probe core says "Not enough Electric Charge" when the craft is standing still, however its got full power, and I can move the craft just fine and when I do, it says the probe says "Operational". The reactor is full of fuel, so that isn't the issue either. In fact I can't do anything with the reactor. I can't do any of the usual options. Am I a victim of some bug here?

Just to be clear, you have actually EVA'd to restart it? You can't just click to reactivate from inside the craft.

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What reactor? Certain reactors need a significant amount of power to start.

2.5m "Aegletes" Fission Reactor, and as of right now my test vessel has 4750 Electric Charge, 3000 Thermal Power, and 20000 Megajoules... Which makes no sense to me, considering the reactor is suppose to be off.

Under status is reads Decay Heating (0.00%)

Under Core Temp: 1674k

Just to be clear, you have actually EVA'd to restart it? You can't just click to reactivate from inside the craft.

Yes, I have tried both. The button for tritium breeding is completely gone aswell. I have tried making a new vessel with a manned pod, instead of a science lab (With kerbals to EVA) and a probe core, but I get the same. I turn off the reactor, and it will never turn on again. Further when its online I see the weirdest things. The megajoules will be full all the time, until suddenly it will completely drop, with no change in apparent activity, and no change in the electric generator.

I'm hoping I'm just a moron who can't figure this **** out, but it seems more like I'm experiencing some sort of bug

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2.5m "Aegletes" Fission Reactor, and as of right now my test vessel has 4750 Electric Charge, 3000 Thermal Power, and 20000 Megajoules... Which makes no sense to me, considering the reactor is suppose to be off.

Under status is reads Decay Heating (0.00%)

Under Core Temp: 1674k

Yes, I have tried both. The button for tritium breeding is completely gone aswell. I have tried making a new vessel with a manned pod, instead of a science lab (With kerbals to EVA) and a probe core, but I get the same. I turn off the reactor, and it will never turn on again. Further when its online I see the weirdest things. The megajoules will be full all the time, until suddenly it will completely drop, with no change in apparent activity, and no change in the electric generator.

I'm hoping I'm just a moron who can't figure this **** out, but it seems more like I'm experiencing some sort of bug

That does sound pretty weird, can you just try deleting all the Interstellar folders, then redownload reinstall a fresh copy from the first page. It's always possible that your version has become corrupted somehow, it wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

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That does sound pretty weird, can you just try deleting all the Interstellar folders, then redownload reinstall a fresh copy from the first page. It's always possible that your version has become corrupted somehow, it wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

All 3 folders has been deleted, and replaced by a newly downloaded version. I'll check it it changed anything now, though I just noticed that KSP Interstellar uses ModuleManager_1_5_6.dll, where as some of the other mods I use, uses the 1.5.7, and therefore I don't have 1.5.6 present in the folder. Could this be an issue?

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All 3 folders has been deleted, and replaced by a newly downloaded version. I'll check it it changed anything now, though I just noticed that KSP Interstellar uses ModuleManager_1_5_6.dll, where as some of the other mods I use, uses the 1.5.7, and therefore I don't have 1.5.6 present in the folder. Could this be an issue?

Nope, I'll update the ModuleManager version in the next release of Interstellar but it doesn't matter. You should just use the latest version.

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Alright, so whats happening now is that when the Decay Heating has been on 0.00% for a while (presumably getting completely down to 0), it will say "EVA Maintaince required", and after that I can restart the reactor.

I also, despite my expectations, figured that one of the things that confused me (why Thermalpower didn't seem to drop when the reactor was off), was ofc because it wasn't being used, and this being KSP and not real life, the resource ofc stays.

It would see it was a bad install of something. I'll check my science satellite and see if that thing still has problems

EDIT: Oh and to be clear. Science in Interstellar, is the same vanilla science, and if so, how do you update parts?

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Mr Manley asked me to "fix" this issue. I'm kind of limited by the stock resource system when dealing with ElectricCharge but I've managed to come up with a fairly successful fudge - it means that when the ElectricCharge bar is full, all the excess power is converted into Megajoules.

The result is that you can now use solar panels to power engines and stuff directly, albeit, of course, with poxy levels of power.

QpYm0Am.png

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Fractal_UK: How could I go about getting permission to redistribute some of your part files (but with modified cfg's) for another mod? I'd really like to use those articulated thermal fins.

Many of the KSPI parts where created by zzz, his parts and licence are available http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43840-Hab-Hub-%28and-other-strange-things%29?p=561059#post561059

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Mr Manley asked me to "fix" this issue. I'm kind of limited by the stock resource system when dealing with ElectricCharge but I've managed to come up with a fairly successful fudge - it means that when the ElectricCharge bar is full, all the excess power is converted into Megajoules.

The result is that you can now use solar panels to power engines and stuff directly, albeit, of course, with poxy levels of power.

http://i.imgur.com/QpYm0Am.png

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Oh that will be nice for deploying the first large solar array in low orbit around kerbol. Normaly ones after the first could get a prety good charge off the first one if you timed things right but the first one usualy had either LOS issues or just weak signal if you had enough relays deployed already.

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Mr Manley asked me to "fix" this issue. I'm kind of limited by the stock resource system when dealing with ElectricCharge but I've managed to come up with a fairly successful fudge - it means that when the ElectricCharge bar is full, all the excess power is converted into Megajoules.

The result is that you can now use solar panels to power engines and stuff directly, albeit, of course, with poxy levels of power.

http://i.imgur.com/QpYm0Am.png

Ok, so how many people actually build anything small? :P

Just cause it has a TWR of like 0.00001, means nothing to us ;)

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