ss8913

@FreeThinker I'm noticing some very odd thermal behavior... non-CKAN-installed 1.9.4 I believe at the moment.. anyway, my craft builds and dissipates waste heat at drastically different rates depending on if this is the initial launch or if I have loaded from a save. Wasteheat production is minimal at launch, but if I save and reload, it builds a ton of heat and it dissipates very slowly. Thermal helper in SPH has numbers just a bit under the 'green' threshhold. Perhaps more interesting is this: if I look at the WasteHeat resource in TAC fuel balancer, I can see it dissipating at a certain rate. If I accelerate time to 100x, it doesn't really change. Shouldn't heat disspiate 100x faster at 100x time warp?

@allista let me know when you think you have a version available that might work better with the KSPIE stuff, I'm happy to do a full set of tests. Until then I'm using the Davon throttle control mod since it acts.. kind of like TCA used to before all the fancy RCS/autopilot stuff got added I still am fairly confident that if you just put in a toggle in TCA to turn off the RCS handling code, it would solve my entire issue that I'm having with it, but of course that too would need to be tested, and I of course will help with that.

The build resources window in SPH/VAB isn't showing up in 1.1.3.. haven't tried building anything with 1.1.3 yet, since until just a few hours ago I had issues with MJ2 and a few other mods not working at all, which have since been resolved.

I'm willing to help test, I use CC-R2 connector ports fairly extensively. I just did a test, while the ports appear to work, they do not actually link craft together, making resource transfer obviously nonfunctional. Happy to test this or other parts with 1.1.3.

it's been happening to me in all versions I've used since 1.1.x came out. Others' mileage may vary. It worked OK back in 1.0.5. Sorry I can't be more specific about it -- Oh - one mod I'm using now that I wasn't in 1.0.5 is Deadly ReEntry. That does weird things sometimes, let me see if temporarily disabling that, fixes it...

it shouldn't change between the first load and a revert to launch, should it? I'm not changing the craft in between those points, just a simple revert and suddenly it radiates heat far better? Also following up to our previous thread on the warp drives - under *any* circumstances that gravity causes *any* slowdown of warp, instant craft destruction. Any body, any craft, any attempt. As soon as you get close enough to a gravity well to necessitate a reduction in speed, *boom*. Doesn't matter if it's 2.5c to 1.0c or 0.100c to 0.063c .. just the mere act of slowing down through gravity is fatal. Slowing down manually is fine however, and all other aspects of the warp drive function as expected. You need a new class of Kerbal for that. Chimney Sweep. 5 star chimney sweep can clean damn near anything

If I write a patch for it, will you package it as an optional feature, or would you mind if I make my own mod on CKAN that patches the functionality in? I don't want to step on anyone but I think it's an important feature for anyone with a heavily modded install.. and I'm assuming that most people using this mod are also using quite a few others, although I coudl be wrong there.

any chance there could be an official update that removes the restrictive IFS configs and lets modular fuel tanks do its thing? Anyone using non-stock fuels could benefit from this greatly, and it does not break functionality for those that are still using "liquidfuel" and "oxidizer". Would require a dependency on MFT I think but .. that's not onerous, is it?

@FreeThinker - I'm having a bizarre problem that started 2 updates ago. I've got some heavy (500 - 1300t) cargo SSTOs that have thermal ramjets, thermal turbojets, and ATILLA VTOL thrusters. Lots of radiators of course. SPH thermal helper says my radiators are at the upper range of the "yellow" which is usually sufficient. I launch from SPH. Especially if I'm using the ATILLA for vertical takeoff, wasteheat builds VERY fast and it overheats within 15 seconds or less. If, at this point, I revert to launch, and do exactly the same thing... I get very little wasteheat and I could sit there and hover on the ATILLA thrusters all day with no overheating. I'm not sure which behavior is correct, but this happens every time I launch and.. well, one of those behaviors has to be wrong, doesn't it?

I tried installing this and Other Worlds last night... loaded my save.. KSC scene failed to appear... just hung there, had to task-kill KSP. Removing both of these mods solved it. BUT. I also have Outer Planets and the Dres update mod installed. Do those conflict?

One other thing - I see IFS is being used, but as with the mk4 spaceplane parts, it's.. locking the parts to stock fuels, and not the interstellar fuels which IFS was designed for It might make more sense to recommend Modular Fuel Tanks, and just pull the IFS configs entirely, that will allow people using non-stock fuels to use those fuels with these parts, and is less maintenance for the OPT maintainers.

regarding our earlier conversation on propellants: I just built a craft with an antimatter reactor and a thermal ramjet/rocket engine (3.75m). single tank, some radiators, AI core and a nose cone. Basic stuff. Did a launch with methane and a launch with hydrazine. Results: Hydrazine rocket launched by MJ2 to 100km circular orbit had 31,900m/s^2 dV remaining upon achieving orbit. Launch mass with full fuel = 144t Methane rocket was definitely more powerful but on the same launch to 100km, 13,300m/s^2 dV remaining upon achieving orbit. Launch mass with full fuel = 110t Shouldn't methane have had better ISP? Despite the lower launch mass, it has less than half the dV of the same craft with the heavier hydrazine propellant. Are the thrust/ISP multipliers currently inaccurate? Also, [SEPARATE ISSUE]: if you scale the thermal ramjet to 1.25m, the performance is.. unusable. 2.5m will produce sufficient thrust, but on a smaller, lighter craft with the 1.25m, it produces like 300mm/sec^2 (yes, millimeters) on closed-cycle hydrazine. Less than 1/10th the thrust of the 2.5m version.

Just got this installed in 1.1.2 ... looks great! Only problem so far; the 8m cargo tail cannot be opened, either in SPH or in flight. There's no hotkey or function to open it.

I think the "VTOL helper" toggle in the advanced window will turn off the auto-gear and such as well(?)

fair enough, @SpannerMonkey(smce) - seems Squad changed .. something, then, for 1.1.x (or likely the old vanguard mod would still work as well). I know they've got wheel fixing to do as well, so hopefully they can address this interaction in 1.1.3(?) whenever that is.

It definitely has a learning curve For the new people out there, when I built the stock craft which doesn't hit the bug I mentioned, it works like this: 1. Add the TCA button to your blizzy toolbar 2. Build something with VTOL capability but not necessarily with the engines balanced around CoM. Make sure it has a > 1.00 TWR at Kerbin sea level of course 3. Launch it 4. Open TCA window 5. Push Advanced 6. Turn OFF the VTOL assist (really, this is one of the more confusing pieces) 7. Put T-SAS into Hold or Level mode 8. Activate VTOL engines 9. Activate TCA (push Y by default) 10. Turn on RCS 11. Throttle up. Craft should lift off smoothly and vertically without tipping, despite offset CoM from overall CoT.

I have done this. TCA consistently throws exceptions every time I turn on the KSPIE RCS system, and refuses to do any thrust balancing at all when this occurs, which is what I've been posting about. The old version of TCA, and the Davon Throttle Systems mod, work with these engines and RCS as intended (by ignoring RCS and just focusing on holding attitude with the engines, which is what TCA used to do and what I want it to still do, and which I could do, if TCA would allow me to disable the RCS integration, which it does not, hence my ask). With the old TCA or currently with Davon, I can take a 700t cargo plane with a shifting CoM and therefore unbalanced-in-a-different-way-depending-on-payload VTOL engine system, take off with it and smoothly hover taxi around KSC with confidence and authority. With the new TCA, it just flips over and crashes or provides no fine control, since I have to turn off RCS to make the engines do any balancing at all. New TCA works fine with stock engines and stock RCS. The problem is *specifically* with the propulsion systems in KSPIE, and possibly from some other mods, from what I'm seeing others posting here. Pre-new-GUI-version-of-TCA, it worked just fine with KSPIE propulsion systems.

well the old kerbal chute mod that I was using in 1.0.x worked with FAR... it hadn't been updated in a really long time either. No idea how they did it but perhaps the source is on github or something? Ah, no it's not.. but they were using the Vanguard plugin, so it seems that they wrote some custom stuff to make it work. Also the stock chutes work, so i'm not exactly sure how those are tying into the FAR drag model, but they do.

So I encountered what I thought was a problem with MKS, and posted on that mod's thread... but the reply I got was: This has got to be something to do with another mod you have installed. Are you running KSPI-E? That is the only mod I know which uses UF4 and maybe it bundles a reactor compatibility pack which changes the USI reactors. I've run both of these mods together for a very long time, never seen this before; any chance KSPIE is in fact doing something to remap the resource? Is there a way I can remap the Kontainer to use UF4 as well? Or... I really don't know what to do here. I can't remember how it worked in 1.0.5... So it seems this is definitely coming from a MM patch in a recent KSPIE. I suppose it makes sense, and I can get even more profit using the ISRU to convert UF4 plus ammonia into UN, which is the single most valuable resource defined by CRP. I've tried this, and it works... and it's kind of a money cheat, although not really; build a refinery on Kerbin with an ISRU, feed it with liquid ammonia and UF4, and convert to UN... 4 200% tweakscaled UN tanks, full, and counting the "launch" loss and cost of materials, nets you millions of kerbal dollars in a matter of seconds. Which might be a problem - the ISRU does this conversion *instantaneously*. Turn on the .. uranium ammonalysis or whatever it's called now, and boom instant convert. Maybe because the unit size is so small? But it's mega-profitable either way. There seems to be no bonus for carrying things back from offworld, save I suppose you could get uraninite and mine it into UF4 offworld and save on parts cost, but in terms of dollars/time it's far faster to just buy materials and refine on Kerbin

I'm reproducing it by flying and landing a plane. Happens every time... EAS is nonzero stopped on the runway after flying a plane. If it's a mod conflict though, that'd be.. harder to debug since you'd need my entire mod list.

The rcs issue is with certain non stock rcs systems such as those in ksp interstellar. It won't interact with them. It seems that some people like tca's current incarnation and use it the way it is, but certain combinations of mods cripple it. Having a way to toggle the various components on and off will make it usable for everyone however.

repeatedly. There also seems to be a new stock bug(?) i think, where... well, I built that base on the Mun and it wasn't on fully level ground. After building, part of it ended up embedded in terrain. After KJR stabilized the physics load, the thing went flipping end over end up into space... held together... and miraculously landed right side up after 2 full flips, with no damage... but that was the fourth try, it landed and exploded the previous 3 attempts Maybe landing legs or something would have helped? Not sure. But saving/reloading definitely didn't fix it. I sent an engineer up with a cargo plane to load supplies, materialkits, machinery into the base, and got the Thorium fission reactor started by jumpstarting it from EVA, so the station has power now... but the PB-NUKs still don't appear to be doing anything, although it's kind of hard to tell. This game really needs a mod to display in a window (and also in an IVA screen), an electrical schematic showing parts producing and consuming power.. basically a bus diagram. But that doesn't seem to exist.

Might it be a good idea to release just the repulsors/other non-wheel parts as a separate mod so that we can start using those before the wheel issues are resolved? I've been told on the ALG thread that the wheel issues will require another Squad patch to address, so.. perhaps the repulsors and other non-wheel stuff could be separated out?

I agree. I want a version of this mod that goes back to the "old UI" version ... back when I first used it. Don't touch RCS, don't touch gear.. just balance thrust. It worked brilliantly back right before the last update pre-1.1, and then when it started trying to do everything, it ... completely broke for me. Suggestion - I know you don't have access to Interstellar right now due to Linux/other issues... could you perhaps just publish an update to this mod that lets me toggle the RCS integration off? ie, have this mod completely ignore RCS and just balance thrust on the engines like I think it's trying to do with RCS off that might solve 70-80% of the problem.

The problem is that with a 15km/sec dV burn you'll be out of the SOI before the burn finishes KSP doesn't handle that so well. Also is Methane better than Hydrazine for thrust/ISP? so far hydrazine has been giving me the best results... Not sure if thermal nozzles work as well with the QSR, I was told that it wasn't as high temp as the antimatter reactor?