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[1.0.5] Heat Management (No longer supported)


Randazzo

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Regarding the color of radiators, people mentioned the KSPI radiators but no one mentioned the nuances of those parts. I think they're really cool (har har) and seem to make a lot of sense.

They do the perpendicular-sun-tracking thing, to utilize both sides of each panel. When you see the panels while in an umbra, you also see the glowing heat pipes. I'm guessing the heat pipes are made of oxidized copper or anodized aluminum because of they're good at both radiating and conducting. For the purposes of texturing, the rest of the color of the radiator may not actually matter much, since we're mostly concerned with non-visible radiation.

The ISS, though, uses ammonia as coolant throughout the station modules as well as the radiators. You can't really see the ammonia channels, though, maybe the radiator panels are aluminum or something? I'm not sure if the coloring is deliberate or coincidental.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:STS-134_EVA4_view_to_the_Russian_Orbital_Segment.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EATCS.png

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This discussion also makes me think of the effectiveness of inline, stack-mounted radiators. It would be neat if their effectiveness changed when they're in an umbra, or even when they're tilted closer to perpendicular to the sun. When they're in sunlight, obviously one side wouldn't be able to radiate anything, but since the game is tracking heat on a per-part basis, the end result would be, ok radiation in the sun, better radiation in the shade.

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Still quite useful in 1.0.2:

2015-05-03_00002.jpg

EDIT: Note that this screenshot is using v0.20, as V0.21 hasn't shown up on CKAN yet.

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One question, in KSP 1.0+, many deployable parts are unable to be un-deployed. Should these panels land in that group, or should they be foldable?

Edited by politas
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Still quite useful in 1.0.2:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10499401/2015-05-03_00002.jpg

EDIT: Note that this screenshot is using v0.20, as V0.21 hasn't shown up on CKAN yet.

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One question, in KSP 1.0+, many deployable parts are unable to be un-deployed. Should these panels land in that group, or should they be foldable?

They are intended to be re-foldable.

As for CKAN, I thought I opted out of it. I'll have to double check. (not for any ill sentiment towards CKAN)

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hey bro, can you make different models for radiators? maybe more realistic ones, in addition to the ones already in? great job btw

Define "realistic". I could paint them white, I guess.

lU4F6ti.png

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Yes something like that. But instead of just white texture add a little dtail(aka. radiator tubing very light color, etc.)

Well, I had typed a long involved response, but here's the short of it: I don't know how to do that. Sorry bud.

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Is it intended for the radiators to show their greatest surface area at the star? That seems counter-productive to me for radiators.

The radiator panels should not be tracking the sun, and are stationary. Are yours still tracking? What version do you have?

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@Randazzo , can you tell a little more about the new active heat sinks?

They make use of stock mechanics to essentially dump heat, and are probably quite OP (I tested the first one by aiming engine exhaust at it). They will suck your batteries dry though if you're not careful with the pump.

The idea is that they used a closed NH3 (ammonia) coolant system to absorb and dissipate heat, gradually becoming less effective over time as it absorbs heat. To counter this, it must be pumped through the unit to cool off and restore it's effectiveness. That's the idea.

What's really happening is that I've butchered the Heatshield ablation system and created a new resource for it. The initial idea had coolant tanks from which you had to pump coolant into the units, but it didn't make sense to have vanishing coolant (even though that's technically still happening), so I went with electric powered pumps operating on the above mentioned premise. In reality, once the units reach their ablation threshold, they are in fact consuming the NH3 resource which the "pump" generates. The ablation module itself basically raises the thermal mass of the units the more resource it has available, and creates a huge internal flux that dumps the heat from the radiator. It does not directly affect the engine in this manner, only the unit itself, but it will ultimately hit a balance (still at pretty high temperatures) where the engine will lose more heat to the unit than it generates and stop heating (and possibly cool off a tiny bit), if you can maintain the proper level of NH3.

There, all the dirty secrets.

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Hey, I just started to enjoy this mod. Have just unlock it in the tech tree, but it has lead me to some questions....

Tweakscale? would you be able to make us some MM for Tweakscale support?

Would this work to cool most of the craft too? like in one of my plane, the engine heats up what ever is beside it, could this fix it?

Have a cooling system throughout the whole craft would be kind of cool.... have you thought of something like that?

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Hey, I just started to enjoy this mod. Have just unlock it in the tech tree, but it has lead me to some questions....

Tweakscale? would you be able to make us some MM for Tweakscale support?

Would this work to cool most of the craft too? like in one of my plane, the engine heats up what ever is beside it, could this fix it?

Have a cooling system throughout the whole craft would be kind of cool.... have you thought of something like that?

I don't think these would work very well on aircraft for several reasons. They're pretty heavy, If you're using the AHMS units you need a lot of power to run them, and none of them really do much until whatever they are attached to gets to about 1200 degrees.

As far as tweakscale support, I could do that, but what would you need it for? Are you looking for a 3.75m part?

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I don't think these would work very well on aircraft for several reasons. They're pretty heavy, If you're using the AHMS units you need a lot of power to run them, and none of them really do much until whatever they are attached to gets to about 1200 degrees.

As far as tweakscale support, I could do that, but what would you need it for? Are you looking for a 3.75m part?

3.75 sounds nice. I was hoping for smaller parts too. Like probe size. I have a habit for my scanning satellites to be a small as tweakscale can get them, I found I can easily get over 7k dv with a LV-N engine but they have a fun time overheating.

OH and thanks... this mod is so fun

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Did you change the parts names? Because I loaded up a save game after installing the newest version and every ship with the 1.25m heatsink broke.

I did not. I tested it on a save I had with several testing ships, and it did not break any of them. Is something wrong with the ships themselves or did it give you the "Ship was not loaded because...." window?

If you were using the legacy parts, those will break for certain, since they are no longer supported.

Great work! I'll try them out tonight on an existing save and report any weirdness I encounter. Looking forward to see the glowing effects.

Did you have any problems?

Edited by Randazzo
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I did not. I tested it on a save I had with several testing ships, and it did not break any of them. Is something wrong with the ships themselves or did it give you the "Ship was not loaded because...." window?

If you were using the legacy parts, those will break for certain, since they are no longer supported.

That's exactly what happened.

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