Overheating

[Voyager275]

What is this? Any fixes?

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Some parts are orange and have temp bars. I'm also past Dunas orbit. Any fixes?

Edited May 12, 2015 by Voyager275

[nigelvn]

we cannot help without the picture or aditional information, try providing one of them ;P

[MarvinKitFox]

based on that picture, you giraffe is wearing cat-size eyeballs.

Try fixing your picture link ;-)

[Voyager275]

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[JTpopcorn]

Oh nervas make heat and that heat is conducted throughout the spacecraft, if the bar fills that part goes boom.

One of the things I dislike about 1.0

[Geschosskopf]

Oh nervas make heat and that heat is conducted throughout the spacecraft, if the bar fills that part goes boom.

One of the things I dislike about 1.0

For which, thank the Dark Gods, there is an easy solution. If you use mods at all these days, you almost certainly have ModuleManager in your Gamedata folder. If you've got that, then you can make a cfg file to remove this intensely unrealistic and thoroughly aggravating "feature" of 1.x. Just copy the code below, name it something like "LVN_Heat_Fix.cfg", and stick it somewhere in a folder off Gamedata called "zzz-(Your Name Here)", so it will be the last folder on the list.

// LV-N HEAT TWEAKS
@PART[nuclearEngine]:FINAL
{
	@emissiveConstant = 0.99 // was 0.83, other engines 0.80
	@maxTemp = 4000 // restores old value, up from new stock value of 2500
	@MODULE[ModuleEngines]
	{
		@heatProduction = 196 // same as Mainsail, down from stock 432
	}
}

This still produces a lot of heat but you can at least run the LV-N at full power for long burns and, equally important, mount it radially so you can have more than 1 of them on your tug and your tug can have docking ports on both ends. The radial mount has to be the slanted 1.25m nosecone---I-beams and box girders still won't work. And anything small attached to the big central tank will still get very hot and might explode if you're not careful. But at least the engine functions as intended.

I have no shame at all in resorting to this self-help "mod". The real Nerva had solved its heat problems and was ready to fly when the plug got pulled. And because the real NERVA was designed for high Isp, low-thrust, LONG burns were exactly what it was designed for. It's thus totally ridiculous and unrealistic to make it overheat so fast in stock.

[Voyager275]

Will my vehicle explode if I leave it floating in space

[n0xiety]

Why are people always going for modding the game... Nervas can work for atleast 20 minutes with a single orange tank without overheating... They can literally work till you run out of fuel if you connect them to a Mk3 liquid fuel fusselage... Heat is all about size and big parts take the heat away like no tomorrow..

[Gaarst]

Will my vehicle explode if I leave it floating in space

No, it won't if you cut thurst.

If you keep controlling your ship, it will gradually cool down.

If you go back to the KSC or to another ship, it won't explode and probably won't cool down either as ships are not simulated if you do not control them (and if you are far enough from them, a few km I think)

Although, parts that have lower heat tolerance may explode even without thrust due to the heat being conducted inside the ship.

[Voyager275]

I changed the temp of parts in the persistent file. Now it is better

[freerunnering]

I've been having overheating problems too, I gave up looking for a solution and just edited a load of the parts config files too. It works, but will be a pain to do again when I have to update KSP to the next version.

[RidingTheFlow]

You supposed to use solar panels as radiators to dissipate this heat (note new solar panel description mentions that it has radiators on reverse side).

Also to do this correctly you need to attach nuclear engines *directly* to parts with good thermal capacity & conductivity (e.g. fuel tanks).

[Randazzo]

Why are people always going for modding the game... Nervas can work for atleast 20 minutes with a single orange tank without overheating... They can literally work till you run out of fuel if you connect them to a Mk3 liquid fuel fusselage... Heat is all about size and big parts take the heat away like no tomorrow..

Big parts are not always feasible, such as the OP's example. Launching a satellite with a ginormous tank would be unnecessarily costly.

[RidingTheFlow]

To make cost of tank approach cost of actual LV-N you need lot bigger tank. OP example is hardly the proper design, because to get optimal efficiency (both in dV and in cost) 1 LV-N needs amount of fuel/weight of about 1 small Mk3 tank. Its not suited for medium TWR/low-mass scenarios.

For small probes tiny chemical or ion engines are more appropriate.

[n0xiety]

Big parts are not always feasible, such as the OP's example. Launching a satellite with a ginormous tank would be unnecessarily costly.

Honestly if we are to talk about cost and efficiency he could have used a terrier instead of a nuke and gotten 5500 dv instead he got 3000 dv since the nuke weights more then the fuel he is taking making it really inefficient... On top of that the cost of nuke + overheating problems... So i wonder why he even uses the nuke... Go figure right...

[radonek]

I just made my first shoot at NERVAl pusher. After 4minutes burn it was this -><- close to explosive meltdown. And you know what? I LOVE IT. It adds a nice bit of challenge to design. Yet even a bad ship can be flown with some care and patience. LV-N was in dire need of nerfing and adding thermal management is way better then just lowering stats… Way to go Squad.

[Voyager275]

Honestly if we are to talk about cost and efficiency he could have used a terrier instead of a nuke and gotten 5500 dv instead he got 3000 dv since the nuke weights more then the fuel he is taking making it really inefficient... On top of that the cost of nuke + overheating problems... So i wonder why he even uses the nuke... Go figure right...

I use the nuke for long burns. That is what they are used for mostly.