Cooling NV-Rs

[worir4]

The best part is that even if you reduce the LV-N's heat production to 100 (from the 240 it has now) you still end up needing to radiate some heat away.

:D

This update is literally the best thing to happen to KSP in a very long time.

Regex using smiley face kerbals????

This has never been seen before, you are a changed person!

[Moss]

Squad finally released an update worthy of KSP.

Awful and overpowered parachutes, terrible career and tech tree design, heat-shields with CoM oversights and cargo bay glitches are not worthy of KSP.

[Wintersdark]

Awful and overpowered parachutes, terrible career and tech tree design, heat-shields with CoM oversights and cargo bay glitches are not worthy of KSP.

Major update has a couple bugs. News at 11!

I probably shouldnt ask, but how is the tech tree/career terrible?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Hell, why not just include an integral fuel tank too. Nobody uses an engine without fuel after all -- it is just a complete waste of everybody's time.

We have many fuel tanks that the player might want to choose depending on the situation. Heat sinks, OTOH, we would want to use only one: the best one at cooling an engine 100% of the time. No other considerations apply, no thought process involved, hence you don't really add anything to the game, just a slight burden and part count.

[Wintersdark]

We have many fuel tanks that the player might want to choose depending on the situation. Heat sinks, OTOH, we would want to use only one: the best one at cooling an engine 100% of the time. No other considerations apply, no thought process involved, hence you don't really add anything to the game, just a slight burden and part count.

It's not that simple. Perhaps one that doesn't cool 100%, but instead only 80% - It'd cap your burn time, but if you never need to make really long burns, the weight savings may be worthwhile.

Or, perhaps you want larger sinks, to handle additional heat load.

I dunno. Honestly, I think it's a problem that there's no way to sufficiently cool them as it stands, but I'd rather there be multiple potential solutions that I can experiment with. Solving these problems is a major part of the fun of KSP.

[csiler2]

We have many fuel tanks that the player might want to choose depending on the situation. Heat sinks, OTOH, we would want to use only one: the best one at cooling an engine 100% of the time. No other considerations apply, no thought process involved, hence you don't really add anything to the game, just a slight burden and part count.

Assuming we only get one kind of heat sink. The Interstellar mod had several sizes of radiators to use depending on the heat-load you were expecting. Perhaps Squad may consider a similar system where bigger radiator panels are more efficient but heavier, enticing players to use smaller radiators when appropriate.

[Geschosskopf]

the Near Future Eletrical mod pack has an absolutely berserk level of radiators.

Yup, every mod that has modeled heat has included radiators to deal with it, and even explained the whole heating system and had in-game helper apps so you'd know when you had enough radiators. KSP offers none of these things except the heat. Poor design decision there.

I imagine it will take a while for NFT, KSPI, and anything else that had its own flavor of heat to get worked into KSP 1.0. IIRC, there being no stock mechanism for heating, these mods handled it as a resource (even showing up on the resources tab) being created by reactors and such and consumed by radiators.

[StainX]

I would love to see radiators and/or heatpipes too!

It would also be a great way to tranfer heat off certain parts on spaceplanes

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

I think Squad wanted to find a way to nerf the nuclear engines, since the chemical rockets got their isp reduced. So by overheating, it means they can't be used at 100%, which means they have a disadvantage against chemical rockets.

But it still sounds like a poor choice.

Also, on the matter of radiators, what kind of parts are you guys thinking? I think Interstellar using heatsink type of parts. But while I guess they are effective, wouldn't a circulating fluid work better in space?

To save on fuel of course. But it's an honest question. So far, most of my transfer stages had radially mounted nuclear engines and, should I use a 3.5m tank, there isn't a heat shield large enough to cover them, so I'm thinking in either using tweakscale on the heatshield (once it's updated) or, even funnier, push them inside or outside with infernal robotics.

But I'll cross that bridge when I have to. At this point, I'm pretty much relearning the game.

Since the isps for liquid engines are now comparable to kerolox IIRC, why not just reduce the LV-N's specific impulse to around 600 s, to simulate a nuclear-thermal rocket using hydrocarbons as fuel?

[Dooz]

I just put structural wings on the fuel tank that the NV-R is attached to I can run the NV-R at full thrust without overheating.

[Geschosskopf]

Here is a mod o tone the heat down

[StainX]

I just put structural wings on the fuel tank that the NV-R is attached to I can run the NV-R at full thrust without overheating.

Did some testing yesterday.... and i must say that nothing prevented the NV-R from overheating, at least i could radiate enough heat away from the LF-tank above the engine, so the tank didn't explode.

Four of those great solar panels attached to the tank did the radiation job, eight small wings attached didn't.

[THX1138]

I think solar panels make more sense than wings. The wings presumably add more drag to take off and don't double as a source of power. Be sure to use the really large panels or the panels that fold into white casing. The small panels which don't come in casing can no longer be retracted once they've been extended and don't have the radiators on the back. I can maintain 70% thrust indefinitely or 100% for about 15 minutes (and then 70%). I need some solar panels anyway.

Edited April 30, 2015 by THX1138

[Dooz]

Did some testing yesterday.... and i must say that nothing prevented the NV-R from overheating, at least i could radiate enough heat away from the LF-tank above the engine, so the tank didn't explode.

Four of those great solar panels attached to the tank did the radiation job, eight small wings attached didn't.

I used the medium sized structural fins structural wing type A. not the smaller ones.