ss8913

Starwaster - the explosion happened at 100x time compression in a stable 150km circular polar orbit around Kerbin while I was doing a SCANsat pass with the low-altitude scanner. Which I've done hundreds of times before... this time just... *boom* out of nowhere, pod and all 3 kerbals gone.

K. Yeon - will you be adding the FAR wing configuration that someone posted here a while back, in the next official update? I was wondering why the wings seem to be almost nonfunctional with FAR, that seems to be the reason why... fortunately the (scaled) stock Big-S wings not only work well with OPT but even match the look, so not a HUGE issue, but I do like your wings as well and would like to be able to use them

Starwaster, the main problem I have with the current stock system is the random thermal detonation of parts on my craft DRE never did that. I'm hoping an updated DRE will make that behavior stop. It was introduced sometime between 1.0.0 and 1.0.4 by Squad.

The heating issue that I overcame with DRE is now present with the stock heat model (it's similar to DRE apparently, so not a big surprise). Very hard to keep the TTJ and TR from exploding now. My fix for changing maxheat from 2750 to 8000 in the part config does NOT work with stock heating (DRE is currently not working in 1.0.4). It still says 2750 (why?) and you have to be very careful to not overheat esp. once you switch from Atmospheric to an internally-carried fuel.

I just got bitten by a serious bug in the stock heating system... in a stable orbit, no acceleration.. just doing a SCANsat scan at 100x time compression like I usually do at a 150km circular polar orbit. suddenly my command pod *explodes*. "due to overheating" according to the F3 log. Never seen KSP do *that* before. So a new DRE could likely fix this if it's replacing the stock heating system - I'm certainly willing to try. I've heard reports of other random explosions like this with stock heating as well. Not sure what's going on with Squad, every 1.0.x is more problematic than the last, at least for me (and some other people on the KSP facebook group)...

I still have to edit the TTJ and TR engines and set the max temp to 8000 to make them perform properly with DRE. It still shows 2750 in the right click in game, but setting it to 8000 in the part config makes it overheat about like it does without DRE installed. Waiting for the CKAN updates for this and about 25 other mods... I have too many mods to deal with them all by hand lol. But I can wait, I know there are other priorities.

I was going to post about "huh, lots of mods I see have updated, but not yet on CKAN" and then I thought, "I'm gonna wait. For all I know there could be a 1.0.5 tomorrow..." Can't wait to get back in though, I have some ideas for my Cow interplanetary transfer vehicle to improve it. Basically it's 2 huge interstellar tanks full of liquid CO2 (that seems to be my fuel of choice lately since it doesn't build up soot and isn't too heavy.. anyone recommend a better one?) ... a 3.75m alcubierre drive in between, a 3.75m charged particle generator, 3.75m antimatter reactor, a 3.5m thermal turbojet.. then 4 radially attached 2.5m tanks with air intakes, antimatter tanks, a 2.5m antimatter reactor (each pod) and a 2.5m thermal turbojet (each pod). Docking port and an AGI core at the very top.. I use it for launching things and dropping them off in orbit around other planets. It has parachutes and airbrakes too, so I can land it back on Kerbin (actually I could just do a powered landing).. Thanks for the quick update on the mod though, Freethinker; as you can tell this is one of my most important mods

1.0.4 was released by squad earlier today.

The magnetic nozzles when coupled with an antimatter reactor and charged particle generator were giving me multiple G worth of acceleration and fairly high dV numbers. In vacuum. I used Extraplanetary Launchpads to build the ship in orbit. Surface TWR in Kerbin's atmosphere was way too low to lift off unassisted, however. But that's how they're supposed to work, at least the right click menu says "not suitable for atmospheres" or something like that.

doesn't appear to be. I went straight from the start screen into VAB, loaded this ship that I had working in 1.0.2, went to the launchpad and noticed terrible framerates, rightclicked the AGI core and saw the "Rad Hardness" msg repeated so many times it filled the entire vertical of the screen. Definitely a new bug introduced in 1.0.3, I'm *assuming* it's a KSP-I-E thing since it was a KSP-I-E part that was exhibiting that behavior.

well then... 1.0.3 is out, and KSP-I-E is.. pretty broken I think. I loaded up a craft I made with 1.0.2 and noticed immediately that the framerate was at about 5, which I thought weird until I right clicked a part and saw that it says "Rad Hardness: X.XX" about 80 times (too many to fit on the screen), which I think is the issue.. it was an AGI Computer Core that I right clicked on, which makes me believe that it's an incompatibility with Interstellar. Also they seem to have added MORE memory leaks >< .. Start KSP, memory usage is at X. Get sidetracked and walk away leaving it at the main menu for about 20 min, come back, mem usage is at X+100. Didn't do that in 1.0.2. I get distracted a lot >< - that's obviously not relevant to Interstellar, but it's nonetheless noteworthy. Also - @nobodyhasthis - the magnetic nozzles are useless in atmosphere. Try them in vacuum, they work pretty well. I usually build my engines as fuel tank -> charged particle generator -> antimatter reactor -> engine (where engine is magnetic nozzle, thermal rocket, or thermal turbojet). They work that way. Unless you want to use them in an atmosphere, in which case they do not

Update on the chargedparticle RCS thrusters - good news is they work, and they're powerful. Bad news is, they're a little TOO powerful for either the stock SAS or Mechjeb2 to deal with accurately. Will have to tone them down; the vernor thrusters which have a thrusterpower of 10 or so seem to also have this problem, so I may be SOL here.

quick question, when this is updated, it'll be tested and validated against the new FAR as well, right? FAR and B9 have always gone together like peanut butter and chocolate, so I'm hoping that will remain the case?

A single 2.5m thermal turbojet powered by a similarly sized antimatter reactor can push over 3000 MN of thrust - that's enough for a total payload capacity of 3000t Using water as fuel. Might do better on other fuels. Speaking of fuels, is there any downside to hydrazine other than the EPA warning? I like to yell at the kerbals on the ground and say, "I've got a giant antimatter reactor running here inside the atmosphere and *hydrazine* is what you object to??" - - - Updated - - - and yeah, the thermal turbojet (upgraded) is probably THE most useful engine in KSP. That's why I was so frustrated with that overheat thing - literally every craft I have built is powered by these engines and Jeb was getting tired of parachuting home

Found a somewhat strange workaround to the heat problem... edit the thermal rocket and thermal turbojet configs, change max heat to 12750K from 2750K. Net result, when using DRE, the engines still report 2750K in the right click menu, but they build heat about half as fast (or less) and don't overheat. I'm not sure if should therefore pick a new number somewhere between 2750 and 12750 to balance it, as right now I don't think it's possible to overheat them at all (with the 12750 value), and it's impossible to use them due to violent thermal detonation with the stock value. Again this bug only shows up if you combine this mod with DRE.

Freethinker - is there anything else I can provide for you in the way of data, testing, experimentation, etc, to help fix the TTJ+DRE heating issues? I'm happy to run whatever tests you'd like.

tweakscale has been known to be .. interesting.. in the past. For the heat thing, it's easy to replicate. Install this mod and the latest DRE. Go into SPH and make a dummy craft suspended by launch clamps. pod, antimatter tank 1.25m (full), interstellar-24 tank full of .. whatever really, water, H2, methalox, any of them. charged particle gen, antimatter reactor, thermal turbojet. All in that order and all 1.25m. Add a heat radiator. Make sure those launch clamps are there. Go to the runway, activate the engine and make sure fuel mode is on water or LH2 or whatever you have. Look at the engine heat. Watch it climb and watch the engine explode even if you throttle down to 1%.

So the heat problem with DRE is kind of.. half-fixed. It's showing a 2750K max temp on the thermal turbojet, but now it overheats even faster and never stabilizes at 2200K like it used to.. just keeps blasting up through 2750K and no amount of throttling down (except to 0) can save it. Not sure what else to try but I'm game for anything. If I take DRE out it's fine.

I found the heat problem! It's coming from DRE. For whatever reason with DRE installed, the max temp of the 1.25m thermal turbojet is 1375K, whereas you take out DRE and the max temp is *double that*. The TTJ's internal temp stabilizes at around 2200K on non-atmospheric fuels, so... that explains it all. FreeThinker - is this something DRE needs to fix or is it something for this mod?

something is seriously wrong.. this heat thing, I can't solve it no matter what I do - going back to stock and redoing all the mods, will let you know if the problem persists after doing so. However the ModuleRCSFX suggestion did work for the RCS thrusters I was putting together

On the other topic.. still having heat issues. Set up a test bed which is basically cockpit -> small antimatter tank -> 1.25m interstellar-48 tank with Liquid H2 -> 2 1.25m interstellar-4 tanks with liquid N2 -> inline radiator -> 1.25m charged particle generator -> 1.25m antimatter reactor -> 1.25m thermal turbojet. Also tacked 4 foldable heat radiators on the fuselage. I can run it all day in atmospheric mode. Soon as I switch the TTJ to liquid H2 I get about 20 seconds at less than 1/3 throttle before the engine overheats and explodes. At no point is any of the liquid N2 getting used.. what behavior should I be seeing? Is there a heat-radiated thing on the radiators I should be looking for? I made sure this is an all new craft made after installing the KSPI-stockheat mod, but... seems to have no effect on anything and I swear this worked before? The bigger ones seem to build up heat slightly less fast - ie, if I scale everything to 2.5m.. but still a lot faster than it did before the last KSPIE update - going to go check the logs for the status of the heat module, maybe it's not loading...? although I do see the liquidnitrogen component on the inline radiator so I'm not sure. Am I doing something wrong?

giving it a try. I'm hoping this will solve the problem of "KSP Interstellar lets me make giant starships but I can't turn them worth a damn because there's no RCS thrusters powerful enough to provide the proper control authority". Also useful for VTOL on smaller craft. Turns out I already have that RCSFX module installed, so I've updated my part.cfg and am testing it now. Any interest in incorporating it with the main mod, if I can get it to work and we can agree on tuning values?

Will that solve the "only produces requested thrust in one direction" issue? Still not sure what I screwed up to CAUSE that in the first place...

I'm using antimatter reactors, 1.25m thermal turbojets. I've tried liquidfuel, liquid hydrogen, liquid ammonia, hydrazine, and water, with approximately the same heating issue across the board. You're suggesting I rip the TTJs off and add the part again from the SPH/VAB? I can do that. - - - Updated - - - So .. one other thing; I thought it might be fun to have some upgraded RCS to link in with this mod - I created new RCS thrusters based on the stock RCS blocks (I just copied the part into a new GameData subfolder and modified the config file). I have them using a thruster power of 10-25 (haven't finalized all the numbers yet), and they consume charged particles as well as monopropellant.. 1.0 rate for MP, 100.0 rate for chargedparticles. The weird thing is that while this does work, it only pushes the power in the forward direction. I don't even get an animation for the other directions. It does *something* but it is certainly not capable of providing full thruster power in all directions, and I have no idea why that'd be. Here's the .cfg, if anyone has any ideas. @Freethinker if you like this idea in any way feel free to take it for inclusion in the Interstellar mod, with whatever changes you wish to make (BSD license-alike ). config: PART { name = CPRCSBlock module = Part author = sstone mesh = model.mu scale = 0.1 node_attach = 0.45212, -0.0105571, -0.0059382, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0 TechRequired = improvedNuclearPropulsion entryCost = 3400 cost = 620 category = Control subcategory = 0 title = RV-905 CP-RCS Thruster Block manufacturer = STEADLER Engineering Corps description = The recent discovery of a third law of physics made it possible for STEADLER Corps engineers to produce these small monopropellant thrusters, to help with attitude control and linear motion. Even though many Kerbal physicists still dispute the validity of this new law, studies show that the thrusters seem to work as advertised. These use charged particles as well as monopropellant and are far more powerful. attachRules = 0,1,0,0,0 mass = 0.15 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.001 minimum_drag = 0.001 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 15 maxTemp = 3000 // = 3600 PhysicsSignificance = 1 bulkheadProfiles = srf MODULE { name = ModuleRCS thrusterTransformName = RCSthruster thrusterPower = 25 PROPELLANT { name = MonoPropellant ratio = 1.0 resourceFlowMode = STAGE_PRIORITY_FLOW } PROPELLANT { name = ChargedParticles ratio = 100.0 resourceFlowMode = STAGE_PRIORITY_FLOW } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 3000 key = 1 1280 } } }

@ABZB - I've installed your mod.. it almost seems like the problem is *worse*? I've got thermal turbojet powered spaceplanes that used to get into orbit.. now as soon as I kick them over to anything other than Atmospheric mode, they overheat in a matter of seconds and explode.. not sure what's going on here? I have two large heat radiators (folded, but still there).. they're not getting anywhere close to hot. Tried the inline round radiator too.. never uses any of the liquid nitrogen, just... engine overheats and explodes.