[1.12.x] Cryogenic Engines: Liquid Hydrogen and Methane Rockets! (August 13, 2024)

[Zorg]

8 minutes ago, Wyzard said:

After updating, I get a bunch of MM errors in CryoEngines/Patches/RealPlume/CryoEngines1875Lower.cfg, CryoEngines375LowerRed_Prefab.cfg, and CryoEnginesUpperBlue.cfg.  They all generally look like this one:

[LOG 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] :AFTER[ZREALPLUME] pass
[LOG 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Looping on CryoEngines/Patches/RealPlume/CryoEngines1875Lower/@PART[*]:HAS[@PLUME[CryoEngines1875Lower]:HAS[~processed[*]]]:AFTER[zRealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen] to CryoEngines/Parts/Engine/0625/cryoengine-stromboli-1.cfg/PART
[LOG 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Applying update CryoEngines/Patches/RealPlume/CryoEngines1875Lower/@PART[*]:HAS[@PLUME[CryoEngines1875Lower]:HAS[~processed[*]]]:AFTER[zRealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen] to CryoEngines/Parts/Engine/0625/cryoengine-stromboli-1.cfg/PART
[WRN 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Cannot find key plumeIdentifier in PLUME
[ERR 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Error - Cannot parse variable search when inserting new key plumeIdentifier = #$/PLUME[CryoEngines1875Lower]:HAS[~processed[*]]/plumeIdentifier$
[WRN 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Cannot find key plumeIdentifier in PLUME
[ERR 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Error - Cannot parse variable search when inserting new key name = #$/PLUME[CryoEngines1875Lower]:HAS[~processed[*]]/plumeIdentifier$-plume
[WRN 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Cannot find key plumeIdentifier in PLUME
[ERR 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Error - Cannot parse variable search when inserting new key name = #$/PLUME[CryoEngines1875Lower]:HAS[~processed[*]]/plumeIdentifier$-plume2
[WRN 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Cannot find key plumeIdentifier in PLUME
[ERR 2019-07-27 02:11:37.162] Error - Cannot parse variable search when inserting new key name = #$/PLUME[CryoEngines1875Lower]:HAS[~processed[*]]/plumeIdentifier$-audio

The PLUME nodes are added by EngineConfigs.cfg in the same directory, and indeed, they don't have plumeIdentifier keys.

No mods installed except CryoEngines and RealPlume-Stock (and the dependencies bundled with each).

This should be solved, if you install the latest version (v11.2.0) of RealPlume core: https://github.com/KSP-RO/RealPlume/releases

The new cryoengines realplumes are custom ones I made just for this mod (using the new FX Nertea made for stock plumes) but it uses some syntax from the new version of RealPlume. Unfortunately RealPlume stock configs hasnt updated its bundled version of the core realplume (although CKAN installs will grab the updated one).

I will be submitting a backwards compatibility fix but just grabbing the new release from the link above will actually fix the problem.

Edited July 27, 2019 by Zorg

[jmannNG]

14 hours ago, Nertea said:

 

•  Soft-deprecated entire old set of CryoEngines parts; they are replaced but invisible so people have time to adapt

First time poster, long time fan!

I was a bit confused by this invisibility and worried all of my spacecraft on missions using old CryoEngines would break. In case anybody else was confused too, I decided to give it a shot and update. All my old engines in space still work and the new ones in the VAB look great! 

Thanks Nertea for another great update 

[Brigadier]

8 hours ago, jmannNG said:

First time poster, long time fan!

I was a bit confused by this invisibility and worried all of my spacecraft on missions using old CryoEngines would break. In case anybody else was confused too, I decided to give it a shot and update. All my old engines in space still work and the new ones in the VAB look great! 

Thanks Nertea for another great update 

Welcome to the forums.

That's what soft-deprecating means.  Just a word of advice, though: The sooner you remove the old parts from your craft (by replacing the parts in-game or recovering/destroying the craft that use them), the less surprised you'll be if/when the parts get hard-deprecated, i.e. removed, in the future.

[jmannNG]

16 hours ago, Brigadier said:

Welcome to the forums.

That's what soft-deprecating means.  Just a word of advice, though: The sooner you remove the old parts from your craft (by replacing the parts in-game or recovering/destroying the craft that use them), the less surprised you'll be if/when the parts get hard-deprecated, i.e. removed, in the future.

Thanks for the heads up. Currently the engines are just being used to set up my comsat network in my new save. Maybe I'll give them a viking funeral and use them for seismic science! 

[Spagoose]

How exactly does boil-off work? I have a ship that has standard tanks with no cooling and there is absolutely no boil-off for the first 90 days or so of a journey. After that point boil-off starts. What is triggering the boil-off and why doesn't it start as soon as a ship launches?

 

Edit: It seems like it has something to do with the temperature of the LH2 in the fuel tanks, but I can't figure out what affects the temperature. It takes roughly 115 days in Kerbin for the LH2 temp in a Rockomax X200-32 tank to drop to about 248 degrees, at which point boiloff will then start.

What affects the temperature of the LH2? 115 days seems a long time to store LH2 without any boiloff.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Spagoose

[Tabris]

6 hours ago, Spagoose said:

How exactly does boil-off work? I have a ship that has standard tanks with no cooling and there is absolutely no boil-off for the first 90 days or so of a journey. After that point boil-off starts. What is triggering the boil-off and why doesn't it start as soon as a ship launches?

 

Edit: It seems like it has something to do with the temperature of the LH2 in the fuel tanks, but I can't figure out what affects the temperature. It takes roughly 115 days in Kerbin for the LH2 temp in a Rockomax X200-32 tank to drop to about 248 degrees, at which point boiloff will then start.

What affects the temperature of the LH2? 115 days seems a long time to store LH2 without any boiloff.

it might be that what your seeing is that up to that point the cooling is enough to stall boiloff. after that point the tank temp is greater than what cooling can cool.

[Nertea]

11 hours ago, Spagoose said:

How exactly does boil-off work? I have a ship that has standard tanks with no cooling and there is absolutely no boil-off for the first 90 days or so of a journey. After that point boil-off starts. What is triggering the boil-off and why doesn't it start as soon as a ship launches?

 

Edit: It seems like it has something to do with the temperature of the LH2 in the fuel tanks, but I can't figure out what affects the temperature. It takes roughly 115 days in Kerbin for the LH2 temp in a Rockomax X200-32 tank to drop to about 248 degrees, at which point boiloff will then start.

What affects the temperature of the LH2? 115 days seems a long time to store LH2 without any boiloff.

If you're seeing this, you might be looking at a different mods boiloff implementation somehow. To check, put a tank on the launch pad and timewarp. You should immediately see resources removed - just did a test and this works fine.

[Spagoose]

2 hours ago, Nertea said:

If you're seeing this, you might be looking at a different mods boiloff implementation somehow. To check, put a tank on the launch pad and timewarp. You should immediately see resources removed - just did a test and this works fine.

Thats how I was testing it after I realised something was up, ~115 days on the launchpad then suddenly boiloff begins. The curious thing is that none of the other mods I use have their own boiloff implementation, at most they rely on your CryoTanks like USI mods, and I'm not using anything like realism overhaul, kerbalism, real fuels etc.

Narrowing down what mod is causing this is likely going to be a nightmare, but I guess the fact that boiloff does happen after fuel reaches a certain temperature is probably a clue that something else is playing with boiloff or there is some weird incompatibility.

I'm guessing SimpleBoiloff.dll does not display the temperature of the LH2 in the right click context menu on the tanks if that is irrelevant in your mods, so if I can figure out what mod is adding that, then I may find what is causing it.

 

Heres my modlist excluding graphical mods incase anyone happens to know what could be the cause:

Real Chutes
USI mods
Near Future Mods
Cryo Engines
Kerbal Atomics
KIS
KAS
SCANSAT
Universal storage
Global Construction
Restock
Restock+
Remotetech
Deadly Reentry
Joint Reinforcement
Bon Voyage
Real Plumes
EVA fuel
KER
Dmagic orbital science

 

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Spagoose

[Nertea]

1 hour ago, Spagoose said:

I'm guessing SimpleBoiloff.dll does not display the temperature of the LH2 in the right click context menu on the tanks if that is irrelevant in your mods, so if I can figure out what mod is adding that, then I may find what is causing it.

 

That's correct, it does not. You could toss a log of your loading sequence up here, that's probably pretty comprehensive in terms of what is installed or not. 

[Spagoose]

2 minutes ago, Nertea said:

That's correct, it does not. You could toss a log of your loading sequence up here, that's probably pretty comprehensive in terms of what is installed or not. 

 

I will do that when I finish work, in the meantime after looking through some of the mods I have found that Global Construction contains Configurable Containers as a dependency, which happens to have its own cryogenics.cfg:

 

CRYOGENICS
{
    // used when no VaporizationHeat is provided for a resource
    SpecificHeat2VaporizationHeat = 100
    // limits energy transfer between the resource volume and the rest of the part
    InsulationConductivity = 3.2e-9 // kW/m/K; this looks like Dewar bottle, as normal insulators are five orders of magnitude less efficient
    // the fraction of the tank's volume that is used for insulation 
    InsulationVolumeFraction = 0.06
    
    // how much kJs does 1 electric charge contain?
    ElectricCharge2kJ = 10
    // maximum total power consumption of any cooler (Ec/s)
    MaxAbsoluteCoolerPower = 500
    // maximum power consumption of a cooler (Ec/s) per unit thermal mass
    MaxSpecificCoolerPower = 1
    // if the power supply drops below this fraction, the cooler is automatically disabled
    ShutdownThreshold = 0.99
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdHydrogen
        BoiloffTemperature = 25   // ~boiling point + 5
        VaporizationHeat = 447000 // kJ/t http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/hydrogen-d_1419.html
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.1   // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdDeuterium
        BoiloffTemperature = 27    // ~boiling point + 5
        VaporizationHeat =  322215 // kJ/t http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/Encyclopedia.asp?GasID=20
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.1    // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdTritium
        BoiloffTemperature = 27    // ~boiling point + 5
        VaporizationHeat =  322215 // kJ/t stub; same as deuterium
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.1    // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdMethane
        BoiloffTemperature = 120  // ~boiling point + 10
        VaporizationHeat = 510000 // kJ/t http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/methane-d_1420.html
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.3   // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdCO2
        BoiloffTemperature = 220  // ~boiling point + 3, at 5atm
        VaporizationHeat = 574000 // kJ/t http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fluids-evaporation-latent-heat-d_147.html
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.6   // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdCO
        BoiloffTemperature = 90   // ~boiling point + 10
        VaporizationHeat = 214680 // kJ/t http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/Encyclopedia.asp?GasID=45#LiquidGasConversion
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.3   // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdHe3
        BoiloffTemperature = 5   // ~boiling point + 1
        VaporizationHeat = 20754 // kJ/t stub; same as He4
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.07 // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdHelium
        BoiloffTemperature = 5   // ~boiling point + 1
        VaporizationHeat = 20754 // kJ/t http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/methane-d_1420.html
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.07 // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdNitrogen
        BoiloffTemperature = 80   // ~boiling point + 10
        VaporizationHeat = 199180 // kJ/t http://encyclopedia.airliquide.com/Encyclopedia.asp?LanguageID=11&CountryID=19&Formula=&GasID=5&UNNumber=&EquivGasID=32&VolLiquideBox=&MasseLiquideBox=&VolGasBox=&MasseGasBox=&RD20=29&RD9=8&RD6=64&RD4=2&RD3=22&RD8=27&RD2=20&RD18=41&RD7=18&RD13=71&RD16=35&RD12=31&RD19=34&RD24=62&RD25=77&RD26=78&RD28=81&RD29=82
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.2   // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdOxygen
        BoiloffTemperature = 100  // ~boiling point + 10
        VaporizationHeat = 213050 // kJ/t http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/methane-d_1420.html
        CoolingEfficiency = 0.3   // how far the cooler is from the Carnot cycle
    }
}

//:mode=c#:

 

 

Needless to say I wasn't expecting a fuel switcher type mod to have it's own cryogenics, so currently I suspect this could be what is causing the issue, I'll run a clean instance of ksp with just cryo engines with and without this mod later this evening to see if it is the culprit.

[Nertea]

9 hours ago, Spagoose said:

I will do that when I finish work, in the meantime after looking through some of the mods I have found that Global Construction contains Configurable Containers as a dependency, which happens to have its own cryogenics.cfg:

Needless to say I wasn't expecting a fuel switcher type mod to have it's own cryogenics, so currently I suspect this could be what is causing the issue, I'll run a clean instance of ksp with just cryo engines with and without this mod later this evening to see if it is the culprit.

Yeah that would be unexpected! Looking at that mod's source yeah, it's the culprit. 

[Spagoose]

1 hour ago, Nertea said:

Yeah that would be unexpected! Looking at that mod's source yeah, it's the culprit. 

Yeah I just tested, removing it has given me the cooling toggle and normal boiloff.

The annoying thing is that this is a dependency of global construction which itself is a dependency of USI MKS. So if you want MKS, it will install this without letting you know.

Just deleting the cryo config alone stops any boiloff at all which is obviously not ideal, while deleting the whole mod could potentially break MKS. Again I need to play around with it and find a way to disable the boiloff without disabling the whole mod.

Configurable containers also disables b9 part switch, so this mod definitely has its fingers in a lot of honey jars.

But here is the cause for anybody trying to figure out this issue in the future.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Spagoose

[Nertea]

1 hour ago, Spagoose said:

Yeah I just tested, removing it has given me the cooling toggle and normal boiloff.

The annoying thing is that this is a dependency of global construction which itself is a dependency of USI MKS. So if you want MKS, it will install this without letting you know.

Just deleting the cryo config alone stops any boiloff at all which is obviously not ideal, while deleting the whole mod could potentially break MKS. Again I need to play around with it and find a way to disable the boiloff without disabling the whole mod.

Configurable containers also disables b9 part switch, so this mod definitely has its fingers in a lot of honey jars.

But here is the cause for anybody trying to figure out this issue in the future.

That is pretty confusing, thanks for the detective work. I would rather it not be like that... but it's other people's mods, what can ya do. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Nertea

[Nertea]

Updated to 1.0.1

• Updated DynamicBatteryStorage to 2.0.3
• Updated CryoTanks to 1.2.1
• Changed RealPlume compatibility patch to use old syntax (Zorg)
• Changed method used to render inner engine glows to be less visible in the editor

[Wyzard]

7 hours ago, Spagoose said:

The annoying thing is that this is a dependency of global construction which itself is a dependency of USI MKS. So if you want MKS, it will install this without letting you know.

That shouldn't be the case.  MKS only depends on "GC-Core", which doesn't include Configurable Containers.  The copy of GC that's bundled in the MKS download does not include CC (but it's also an old version of GC).  There doesn't seem to be a standalone download of GC-Core, but you can download the latest version of GC and then delete the ConfigurableContainers folder and the 000_AT_Utils/ConfigurableContainers.dll file.  The rest of GC should still work.

(That's assuming you're installing mods manually.  I don't know about CKAN, since I don't use it.  But I was under the impression that GC-Core had been split out from the GC+CC combination in CKAN too, specifically so that MKS could avoid depending on CC.)

It'd be nice if the GC download didn't have CC bundled with it, though, since it's not actually needed and people often don't want to use it.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

On 7/26/2019 at 6:16 PM, Nertea said:

Holy enormous update batman!

*snip*

Well, I guess this is the signal for me to start a new career save. This all looks beautiful.

[Cochies]

I spend weeks of week, writing configs for all my stock, RE and other  engines to advertise them to cryo fuel, and then Chris comes with models 100 times better, convenient configs and makes all my work meaningless ...
Very, very, very bad man!
(Just a joke, bro. Good Job!)

[Nertea]

More bugs fixed, and minor new features thanks to B9PS 2.9!

CryoEngines 1.0.2

• Updated B9PartSwitch to 2.9.0
• Updated DynamicBatteryStorage to 2.0.4
• Updated CryoTanks to 1.2.2
  • Made use of B9PartSwitch 2.9.0 features in several parts (UI colours, tooltips)
• Fixed an issue where the 1.875m engines were not correctly scaled (~12.5% too small)
• Made use of B9PartSwitch 2.9.0 features in several parts (UI colours, tooltips)
• Fixed smokePoint transform rotation in sustainer type engines
• Fixed plume offset in Etna RealPlume config (Zorg)

[Wyzard]

10 hours ago, Nertea said:

CryoEngines 1.0.2

SpaceDock still only has 1.0.1, btw.  (But CurseForge and GitHub both have 1.0.2.)

[Frostiken]

It think it would be interesting to have the community tech tree have a fork between chemical rockets and cryogenic rockets.

Edited August 3, 2019 by Frostiken

[Wyzard]

1 hour ago, Frostiken said:

It think it would be interesting to have the community tech tree have a fork between chemical rockets and cryogenic rockets.

Cryogenic rockets are chemical rockets.  It's just that the fuel has to be kept cold in the tank, so it doesn't evaporate and leak out before the engine gets a chance to burn it.

Separate tech nodes for cryo tanks would make more sense IMO.  But it'd be a little at odds with the current setup where any tank (even stock ones) can be cooled for cryo fuel, and the special tanks in this mod just do it more efficiently.  Maybe there could be a mod which removes the cooling feature from generic tanks, and moves the special cryo tanks into a separate branch of the tech tree.

On a related note: the latest release of CryoTanks includes a balance change that I recently submitted.  It used to be that the placement of the special cryo tanks in the tech tree was a little haphazard, with nearly half of them in "nuclear propulsion" though they're not nuke-specific, and the others starting at a similarly high tech level and grouped together in just a few nodes.  With the change, each cryo tank is one tech tier above the corresponding generic tank, which makes the small ones available earlier and pushes a few of the big ones up to higher tiers.  So now they have the same size progression as the stock tanks, but shifted upward one tier to represent the engineering challenge of putting cryo insulation on a tank of a given size.

[TBenz]

3 hours ago, Wyzard said:

Separate tech nodes for cryo tanks would make more sense IMO.  But it'd be a little at odds with the current setup where any tank (even stock ones) can be cooled for cryo fuel, and the special tanks in this mod just do it more efficiently. 

I wonder if it would be possible to make the cryo cooling for the stock tanks a part upgrade that has to be unlocked with a cryo tech node? I haven't really taken a good look at how the part upgrade system works, so I don't know if that is feasible or not.

Edited August 3, 2019 by TBenz

[Vados462]

Hi Nertea, can i need to delete realplume config from realplume? 

[Zorg]

1 hour ago, Vados462 said:

Hi Nertea, can i need to delete realplume config from realplume? 

There is no need to do this. The updated engines are all new parts with new names. The old configs in the "realplume stock configs" mod do not apply to the new engines. The new configs for the new engines are inside of the CryoEngines folder itself.

[chateaudav]

On 8/1/2019 at 7:44 AM, Wyzard said:

SpaceDock still only has 1.0.1, btw.  (But CurseForge and GitHub both have 1.0.2.)

Maybe that's because it is not possible to update it with ckan yet  ?