pasty2k2

Hi guys, finally I've unlocked enough tech to try out these fancy fusion reactors - and think I understand the heat dissipation mechanics correctly - but I can't seem to get "max power" out of it. Am I doing something wrong? I've got the large 3.75m Tokamak and 2x 3.75m generators, one KTEC and one Direct, which I set manually - that correct? If I use just one the Charged Particles power is used only, and while the wiki says D/T fuel should give 80% CP power and 20% Thermal power, I'm seeing pretty much the opposite. Problem is the Thermal-based generator doesn't reach it's theoretical max. Hope my pic explains what I mean - is there a way to get that up to 42GW, or higher? Finally, it states "unable to sustain fusion reaction" etc, do I need more non-fusion power sources to get rid of that risk? Would receiving microwave MW/J power from another sat suffice for that or must it be MW/Th? Thanks for the help guys, loving the complexity of the mod, just a little stumped here Can't seem to post images for some reason, here is link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/86axur3h5h5hhkg/35%20vs%2042.png

That looks ace - go for it! Looks better than stock, I'm pretty sure it doesn't group fuels together in one window like your example above does, and the lines to show you which tank is which window is awesome. Very un-confusing!

Personally I have found that for Kethane mining rigs, if that's the only power draw on the ship, a 0.625m reactor and generator set is enough to power about 4 small drills, probably a couple big ones. If you want a KSPI science lab as well, go for a 1.25m set. Those are about the only things I've found you can do with the un-upgraded stuff. I've read and seen that you can get a working spaceplane with the thermal turbojets but it has to be pretty minimal until you get the upgrades, personally I haven't had much luck with that but I'm useless at planes anyway! The bigger 2.5m and 3.75m stuff, I've found it's only worth putting up a 2.5m set for a large space station (2 ISRU refineries, KSPI science lab, large and small Kethane converters, stock science lab & loads of comms), as that provides around 90MW, which allows for everything going full whack and a bit to spare. 3.75m I've only used a lot of em for beaming power out of Kerbin via the microwave transceivers, but by that point you are pretty close to getting the upgrades anyway. Those are my experiences, though I am sure others have found much more use for them - a lot to play with, experiment! Further experiences: The big reactors are mondo heavy (rightly so), I tend to launch them and the rads separately (disabling reactor before launch, love tweakables!) then dock together and switch on with an EVA Kerbal. That way you can have just 2 of the massive foldout rads and that should cover you for WasteHeat, lowering part count and making launches easier. Also, Microwave Transceivers skyrocket your WasteHeat, so if you plan to add that later, make provisions for about 4/5 massive rads per 3.75m reactor/generator/transceiver combo, in my experience. That may have changed since WasteHeat now finds it's own balance while dissipating, but I think Fractal has sorted it so its about the same amount of rads you used to need. I haven't changed designs and nothing has overheated yet. Also if you plan to deliver UF4/THF4 resupplies to the reactor for really long-term use, don't bother sticking the tanks to the side of your ship: you can't transfer UF4/THF4 fuel between tanks with right click, only between a reactor and tank using an EVA Kerbal, after manually shutting down the reactor and waiting for it's DecayHeat to drop to 0%. I use a separate UF4 tank with it's own probe core and docking port to swap fuel, then de-orbit that when empty/filled with DepletedFuel from a Refinery. For Tritium production, make sure to put a Deuterium/Tritium tank on the ship with the reactor, it doesn't seem to be able to generate Tritium without it on the same vessel (docking doesn't count), same thing that happens with Kethane converters I believe and the way it has to handle Resources. Took me a few attempts to get all that right but my SpaceStation and mining monstrosity work excellently with these methods! Final ProTip: If you have RemoteTech2, put batteries on nuke ships you plan to use high time-warp with, whether you bother with solar panels or not. I've found that at high warps (10,000x +) my ElectricCharge goes crazy if I don't have extra battery buffers to allow for the large but brief drops, and RT2 (I think its RT2 that does it?) will kill warp due to low power. I think this would occur in stock as well, but there isn't anything that uses loads of power in stock, so unless you build something with like 20 probe cores/loads of comms you wouldn't see it. This mod is tons of fun, it adds some slightly-more-serious-but-still-Kerbal contraptions based off real science, and gives you a lot more to do in the mid-end game. Thanks again Fractal I am loving Interstellar more and more every time I use it!

I didn't think I'd find someone else with this issue but I'm getting the exact same and believe I've boiled it down to RemoteTech2 sadly - going back to using 1.2.7 and the quickfix is fine, 1.3.3 seems to break the camera for me in the same way when either loading in, switching to, or docking with (Sometimes. Quicksave before docking, reload and dock again and it might work, might need a restart, no consistency I could determine). With docking, when first occurring the camera seems to just list off to one side of the ship, losing focus, with no response from any controls. If I switch to a ship, before the docking error or after (if the controls/haystack lets me), it might display that blue screen with sounds of travelling insane speeds through atmo or switch successfully. Speed shows 0.0m/s, All the markers are lined up on 90deg together on the navball. It's as if the "ship" I am controlling is landed on a point sized object that is fixed in space... If that makes sense! Occasionally if I return to space center when this has occurred, all of that too is gone and the surface-less blue screen shows up (eerie with the bird sounds still...) I tried to get some logs of what is going on but I'm not sure where to look - is there an output log file to be found if there is no "crash", or would anything else help identify the issue? I can upload/supply more info for tracking this one down if it helps. Loads of mods here too, I have tried latest and latest-1 versions of most to narrow this down and nothing from them seemed to affect the frequency of it happening: Thanks again for an awesome plugin Cilph!

Autostage? As in, Mechjeb-style, I don't have to worry about timing it or even doing anything? OK if people want that, I wouldn't use it personally myself but fair enough, seeing as it does staging in map view may as well go all the way I suppose, if Trigger deems it done! On staging, if I lock it (Alt-L), does the "Activate stage" button still work on ARP? If so then is it possible to lock staging at all times/by default, so I have to use that button for every ship? The amount of times I've accidentally the spacebar when I mean't to press X to kill engines, only to realise the quicksave was hours ago... This would stop that for me! Or if you can't lock it by default, can we change the default key to stage from spacebar, does anyone know?

Indeed, I know this, as I said "only thing I can think of that the stock panel does", that ARP doesn't - would be nice for the ARP to do it too, then I can ignore the vanilla resource panel entirely. I'm looking at ARP as a complete replacement for the stock panel, with all standard features plus loads more, and it looks nicely polished to boot. Someone correct me if that isn't the intended direction of the mod, but it's sooo close to be able to claim that I'd say go for it - with ALL the config options!

W00t! Nice one! The only final thing I can think of that the stock panel does is when you hover over a resource, it highlights which parts contain that resource on your ship, with the tickbox to keep them showing. Useful for timing stage separations perfectly, and a few other things. Pretty minor though, and I'm not sure how feasible that would be to implement - I'd suggest a config option to turn it off for those that don't want the extra screen clutter if they don't use it, a-la what its like now, if it is doable. No worries though if its a PITA, cheers again pal!

Hey man - love this mod! One small request and this would be perfect for me - I find myself having to use the stock display occasionally, when consumption rates are very low (< 0.01). The stock panel doesn't display anything in braces when there is no consumption, so if I see 0.00, I know at least some is being used (in the case of nuclear reactors from KSPI, and waste heat buildup). With your panel, the display is always 0.00 so I can't tell... Is there any way to make the numbers disappear entirely if rate consumption is 0, rather than display zero? Or perhaps display -.-- instead? Thanks for the huge effort put into this, it makes the game feel so much nicer when playing with mods!

Reaver, Joshman: I've done that, turns out I didn't read the instructions properly - unpack just the batch file to /gamedata, run the batch file, THEN unpack the SQUAD folder on top of it afterwards

Awesome! Thanks Ferram!

Thanks for the update Fractal!

Loving all these speedy updates - thanks Majiir!!!

I'm aware of how to do it with a reactor, that works fine as you describe, but tank to tank - no options appear when I put a Kerbal near a tank. Unless I need TAC Fuel Balancer to move UF4/THF4 between tanks? Is that intended or just a current todo thing?

Hey guys, I checked but couldn't find any info on this, but how do you transfer uranium/thorium from tank to tank? I tried the usual right click on each tank method, but the option isn't there. I also got a Kerbal near one of the tanks (touching, centre of it) and no EVA option presented itself to move the fuel. Is it possible to transfer fuel out of uranium tanks, so I can mine some, deliver to a station and land again without all that mass?

Thanks for clarifying that - it does indeed work. I am therefore a noob, how it got it so backwards! But this leads me to one final query: Is there a cutoff to the amount of reactors you can put on a gen does anyone know? I've tried the following - all reactors can provide their MW/th to the generator (tested), but it can only seem to make ~913 MW/e, for the 3.75m variant even. I reckon it should be about 1.5GW/e? I thought that thing could do up to 4.5GW/e with a nuke? 1 fusion 8 fusion 15 fusion I can detach the fission reactor, and I lose about 75MW/th as expected, but my reported Maximum on the generator stays the same. By the way this is with 0.8.1, so if it is known/sorted in 0.8.2, then no worries - I am about to re-upgrade to it. Currently on the older one because of the FAR issue and the transceivers, but will try previous suggestions of putting it in a fairing or deploy/undeploy before launch - thanks all for the tips! I'll help contribute to the guide if I can!

OK, makes sense, but how then do you get more than two fusion reactors onto one generator (top and bottom)? They can't be radially attached far as I could work out, without something to hold it...

Hi guys, Just curious, I'm trying to work out the requirements for fusion power, what works and what doesn't. What didn't work was putting a fission reactor on a decoupler and letting it go before takeoff, just giving me a "starter". It runs but the generator, elsewhere on the ship doesn't detect it and won't start. I tried fuel lines, they didn't seem to do anything... So, I put a fission reactor with its own gen, that runs fine, but the generator I want to start on my ship is still giving me the "no reactor found" message... Even when I start the fusion reactor with the acquired megajoules from the fission set, the ship gen still doesn't see the fusion reactor as a valid "reactor", and won't start, even if it is right next to it. How does one do this? Next, If I want to attach say 8 fusion reactors to a 2.5m generator, if I attach them using the "fake docking port" part (which has fuel crossfeed enabled) to the SIDE of the generator, they don't pass their MW/th energy to it. Attach on the top, works fine for the FIRST layer, but if I put another lot on top of them (without the fake d-port), they aren't seen by the generator. Is that the fake d-port acting weirdly, or is there some sort of rule, "how far the reactors can be from the generator"? To save me hours of testing, I thought I'd just ask! Thanks again for all the updates Fractal!

Hi guys, Just curious, I'm trying to work out the requirements for fusion power, what works and what doesn't. What didn't work was putting a fission reactor on a decoupler and letting it go before takeoff, just giving me a "starter". It runs but the generator, elsewhere on the ship doesn't detect it and won't start. I tried fuel lines, they didn't seem to do anything... So, I put a fission reactor with its own gen, that runs fine, but the generator I want to start on my ship is still giving me the "no reactor found" message... Even when I start the fusion reactor with the acquired megajoules from the fission set, the ship gen still doesn't see the fusion reactor as a valid "reactor", and won't start, even if it is right next to it. How does one do this? Next, If I want to attach say 8 fusion reactors to a 2.5m generator, if I attach them using the "fake docking port" part (which has fuel crossfeed enabled) to the SIDE of the generator, they don't pass their MW/th energy to it. Attach on the top, works fine for the FIRST layer, but if I put another lot on top of them (without the fake d-port), they aren't seen by the generator. Is that the fake d-port acting weirdly, or is there some sort of rule, "how far the reactors can be from the generator"? To save me hours of testing, I thought I'd just ask! Thanks again for all the updates Fractal!

Hey ferram, thanks for the reply - I thought fairings did nothing to the aerodynamics of the parts within, it's all calculated as if no fairing were there? Unless specific ones do, or all do with FAR installed, or it changed, or I'm wrong ha... Thanks - will try it out!

Way around it I found was... go to another ship, warp until you get to where you need to go, then switch back. Ultimately this kills any "Revert" option though on your ship. I use haystack so its a lot easier to flip between vessels quickly, otherwise its a nightmare getting map mode to focus on what you want to see. Not really fixing it, but it lets you continue at least?

Hey guys, New version of KSP Interstellar pack (0.8.2) with FAR installed and it seems that FAR is treating one of the deployable parts in KSPI (Foldable Microwave Transceiver) as always deployed, and calculating drag based off that figure. Which is 94m^2! I can't go faster than 12m/s in atmosphere... Would this be something FAR isn't taking into account for KSPI, or something KSPI isn't taking into account for FAR, would anyone know? Agree with recent sentiments that using FAR, while different at first, definitely makes sense and feels more "real" once played with for a bit. You can learn where the goalposts are, and they don't move! I can't play KSP without it now - love it, thanks for all the hard work to all involved!

I had this too, has the way parts are upgraded changed, or was it borked before? *edit* or is it just us?!

Hi Fractal - found a little bug I think with the receiver and possibly transmitter. I can't get any faster than 12m/s in atmo with 4 receivers attached (on satellites). Possibly it has something to do with its reported area, and the fact I'm using FAR maybe? Examples: no rec rec McLovin the fixed Jool bug, thanks for the update dude!

Ah bummer, oh well! Would definitely be nice to have that, I don't think there are any other fuel line parts than the stock one at the moment? Haven't seen any others in mods... suppose the stock one is good enough, though it looks ugly on some ships.

Hi guys, Just curious, I tried but it didn't seem to work - can EVA place-able pipes act as a replacement FTX-2 External Fuel Duct? I launched a multi-part ship, connected it all up and d'oh through sub-assembly mis-management a duct has decided to not link, leaving me stranded. Rather than Revert, I tried a genuine rescue probe mission, sending up some pipes, and while I have placed it correctly with a Kerbal it doesn't help. Not sure if this is a pipe's intended use but is there anything else that can recover my ship? Absolutely wowed by the EVA stuff otherwise, I had used this mod before with winches etc, but strutting together a multi-part ship is now a joy, and those part containers - to quote someone else, "you can't not send them up on every mission now, they are bound to come in handy." Should be vanilla! Tip of the hat to all devs involved!