[1.12.x] Heat Control - More radiators! (August 18, 2024)

[rottielover]

Captain, written guide would be just as good. I thinking basic comparisons (why you would want to use a certain part and where it should be placed), basic design concepts from basic to expert would be wonderful (showing a basic radiator and moving on in a progression to using heat pipes etc.

Doesn't have to be super complicated, and basic screenshots would work for that kind of thing... Some of us are visual learners

[Captain Sierra]

Captain, written guide would be just as good. I thinking basic comparisons (why you would want to use a certain part and where it should be placed), basic design concepts from basic to expert would be wonderful (showing a basic radiator and moving on in a progression to using heat pipes etc.

Doesn't have to be super complicated, and basic screenshots would work for that kind of thing... Some of us are visual learners

Will work on something. Nertea you need a wiki, somewhere public I can post this.

[MaverickSawyer]

You can get damn close (about 275 million meters) before the large deployables go bang. If you're that close to the sun, you may want to rethink what you're doing.

Naaaaahhhh, I know EXACTLY what I'm doing... Herr Oberth is a powerful ally.

[Captain Sierra]

Naaaaahhhh, I know EXACTLY what I'm doing... Herr Oberth is a powerful ally.

*stares concerningly* What exactly are you trying to do and how close are you going?

[Delta_V]

Has anyone had any issues with crashes caused by the radiators? I've tried two different designs (both with the stock LV-N) and the largest deployable radiators and I get crashes at the same point with both designs. I know its something to do with the radiators because if I don't deploy them or if I deploy them but deactivate them I don't have any issues. Its only if I activate them and then they heat up for about 30 seconds or so and then KSP crashes. KSP doesn't appear to be generating an error log either...a couple of times its crashed straight to the desktop with no warning. I've got other mods installed but both my spacecraft that I've attempted this were totally stock except for the radiators and Nerta's solar panels. I've checked my RAM as well and I'm clocking in at about 2.6 gigs so I'm not running out of RAM.

[Streetwind]

No crash reports so far, no.

Try looking up a guide on how to mitigate the stock glow effect memory leak and try again? There's a toggle in the game options somewhere you ened to turn off, but I forgot what it's called.

[Captain Sierra]

No crash reports so far, no.

Try looking up a guide on how to mitigate the stock glow effect memory leak and try again? There's a toggle in the game options somewhere you ened to turn off, but I forgot what it's called.

PFXX highlighting, and its available in the main menu settings.

- - - Updated - - -

Has anyone had any issues with crashes caused by the radiators? I've tried two different designs (both with the stock LV-N) and the largest deployable radiators and I get crashes at the same point with both designs. I know its something to do with the radiators because if I don't deploy them or if I deploy them but deactivate them I don't have any issues. Its only if I activate them and then they heat up for about 30 seconds or so and then KSP crashes. KSP doesn't appear to be generating an error log either...a couple of times its crashed straight to the desktop with no warning. I've got other mods installed but both my spacecraft that I've attempted this were totally stock except for the radiators and Nerta's solar panels. I've checked my RAM as well and I'm clocking in at about 2.6 gigs so I'm not running out of RAM.

You are very much running out of RAM. That fancy flashing highlight on overheating parts when temp gauges are enabled has a nasty memory leak. Fills your RAM up before you know it and of course, we're all familiar with how Unity handles out-of-memory exceptions, not gracefully.

[maltesh]

radiator-fixed-1 has the following attribute:

TechRequired = highPowerElectrics

While there is a node called "High-Power Electrics" in the stock tech tree, the tech-required node for it, judging by the other parts in that node, the attribute should be

TechRequired = largeElectrics

It appears that there is no node that responds to the "highPowerElectrics" value, as in my current Career Mode 1.0.2 game where I have cleared the stock Tech tree, soacecraft that I have saved in the VAB with that radiator on them are now reporting as having the part locked in the VAB.

I'm using Heat Control 0.1.2, according to CKAN.

[MaverickSawyer]

No crash reports so far, no.

Try looking up a guide on how to mitigate the stock glow effect memory leak and try again? There's a toggle in the game options somewhere you ened to turn off, but I forgot what it's called.

F10, on PC installs. Or, get one of the Temperature Gauge Killer mods. There's at least two out there.

[Streetwind]

So, Nertea, I gave the new 1.0.3 stock radiators a whirl... they're decent enough for the average player, but not really competition for your premium devices Not in terms of looks, and not in terms of functionality.

How the stock radiators work:

- They also steal heat via internal flux, just like yours

- They only do so to equalize temperature, so in a way, it's used as a means for accelerating conduction... not like yours, which can actually grow hotter than the parent part

- The heat transfer doesn't scale with relative temperature differential, so it constantly flickers on-off like your first implementations did, before you made them scale

- They don't have fancy emissives (is that the term?), just the usual heat highlighting glow... now mercifully no longer leaking memory

- They're huge. Like, holy crap, the large extendable one... I bet some stock players will now ask why there aren't any solar panels that size!

- I'm going to assume RoverDude made them, since he was teasing about "something cool"...

I'm gonna have to assess their performance in space another time, unfortunately; bedtime now. Launchpad comparisons are useless, convection is now a *huge* factor, as per the patchnotes. They do seem to have utterly insane heat transfer values (12.5 megawatt for just the medium panel), though since they can't grow hotter than the parent part, it remains to be seen if they can actually get rid of that much heat. From what I saw on the pad, proooobably not anywhere near, but it's space that matters most. It just means that you pretty much cannot out-heat them in any way, they'll always instantly match the parent.

P.S.: The heat system is now even more arcane and does even more without showing the player what's going on. Several new figures tracked, different types of flux linked to different temperatures *sigh* This remains my one big disappointment of 1.0, but I'll at least admit that it's probably damn hard to involve the player more. Ah well... can't have it all, I guess.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Streetwind

[mikegarrison]

So, Nertea, I gave the new 1.0.3 stock radiators a whirl... they're decent enough for the average player, but not really competition for your premium devices Not in terms of looks, and not in terms of functionality.

How the stock radiators work:

- They also steal heat via internal flux, just like yours

- They only do so to equalize temperature, so in a way, it's used as a means for accelerating conduction... not like yours, which can actually grow hotter than the parent part

- The heat transfer doesn't scale with relative temperature differential, so it constantly flickers on-off like your first implementations did, before you made them scale

- They don't have fancy emissives (is that the term?), just the usual heat highlighting glow... now mercifully no longer leaking memory

- They're huge. Like, holy crap, the large extendable one... I bet some stock players will now ask why there aren't any solar panels that size!

- I'm going to assume RoverDude made them, since he was teasing about "something cool"...

I'm gonna have to assess their performance in space another time, unfortunately; bedtime now. Launchpad comparisons are useless, convection is now a *huge* factor, as per the patchnotes. They do seem to have utterly insane heat transfer values (12.5 megawatt for just the medium panel), though since they can't grow hotter than the parent part, it remains to be seen if they can actually get rid of that much heat. From what I saw on the pad, proooobably not anywhere near, but it's space that matters most. It just means that you pretty much cannot out-heat them in any way, they'll always instantly match the parent.

P.S.: The heat system is now even more arcane and does even more without showing the player what's going on. Several new figures tracked, different types of flux linked to different temperatures *sigh* This remains my one big disappointment of 1.0, but I'll at least admit that it's probably damn hard to involve the player more. Ah well... can't have it all, I guess.

That was a great description of what the new stock heat control system does. How much does this update break Nertea's mod?

[Captain Sierra]

That was a great description of what the new stock heat control system does. How much does this update break Nertea's mod?

Sounds like Stock is basically copying Nertea's mod in terms of how its working, minus some refinements. I honestly don't see Nert moving his radiators over to the stock module any time soon since the stock module is basically the same as his rough draft.

EDIT: wait a minute . . . .

Anyone remember this post by Roverdude? And Streetwind just confirmed that the stock radiator module is basically the same as Nertea's early drafts. I see dots, but that doesn't mean they connect.

EDIT 2: anyone tested this mod in 1.0.3? Does the new heating system mess with how this works or does it function just fine?

Edited June 22, 2015 by Captain Sierra

[mikegarrison]

I just played around with the stock 1.03, and as far as I can tell, on the default settings, heat shields are still useless for typical craft.

I built a simple Mk1 spaceship with no special re-entry features (Mk1 capsule, small tank, LV-909, external battery, external antenna, mk16 chute), launched it into orbit, and then deorbited it at a very steep angle. I entered engine first and tried to stay that way. No problem at all. Nothing exploded.

Then I built a 2.5m ship (Mk1-2, 2.5m service bay with some batteries and monoprop tanks inside, a fuel tank, a poodle, some landing legs, a couple of solar panels and a couple of stock fixed radiators, antenna, rcs, and a large retractable ladder). I flew the ship out to Munar-type distance (11Mkm) and then set my periapsis to 20km. I entered engine first and tried to stay that way. I flew in a ball of plasma for a long time -- I think they cut back on the drag again. Some parts got really hot, and the ladder exploded. The radiators seemed pretty useless, both in space and on re-entry. But the ship survived, even though it was under-chuted. The Poodle has basically no thrust now at sea level (probably a good idea) and it mostly just served as a way to burn off my fuel load. I blew a bunch of struts on the landing gear hitting at about 11.5 m/s, but everything except the ladder survived.

It seems to me that for most purposes, the heat control in stock can be ignored, at least for a typical Mun return mission.

According to the notes they cooled off the Nerva engine some more, too.

[Starbuckminsterfullerton]

So, Nertea, I gave the new 1.0.3 stock radiators a whirl... they're decent enough for the average player, but not really competition for your premium devices Not in terms of looks, and not in terms of functionality.

Wait... Since when are we in 1.0.3? Just checked this morning and it was still .2! Thanks for the evaluation, and I agree I still like these parts better.

[MaverickSawyer]

Wait... Since when are we in 1.0.3?

As of this afternoon.

[Bomoo]

So, Nertea, I gave the new 1.0.3 stock radiators a whirl... they're decent enough for the average player, but not really competition for your premium devices Not in terms of looks, and not in terms of functionality.

Agreed. Gonna be deleting them myself. No reason to keep them with HeatControl installed.

[Fraz86]

As mentioned by Streetwind and Captain Sierra, the new radiators were presumably created by RoverDude. He was obviously inspired by Nertea's radiators, as demonstrated by RoverDude's recent announcement that he plans to take NFE and HeatControl as dependencies for USI, and the similar internal flux transferring behavior of the new stock radiators. As such, it seems odd that RoverDude apparently didn't take note of the issues that were already discovered and addressed several weeks ago during early testing of Nertea's radiators. Anyway, I guess it won't be too difficult for Nertea to write a patch that replaces the stock radiator module with his own, similar to his RTG patch. Or I suppose we could rebalance Nertea's radiators around the new stock behavior, if Nertea prefers not to deviate from stock.

[Darth Lazarus]

intersting behavior of the stock radiators. as explaned in a KSPTV stream this night with roverdude in the chat, the stock radiators pull heat from the ENTIRE craft, not only the part they are attached too. and they have a kick in treshold and don't work from the beginning. when parts are starting to get too hot, the radiators start to suck the heat out of the entire craft to provide cooling-

oh and they don't glow

edit:

-deployabale radiators suck heat from the entire ship

-radiator panels work more like a heat sink and only pull heat from the part they are attched to.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Darth Lazarus

[mikegarrison]

intersting behavior of the stock radiators. as explaned in a KSPTV stream this night with roverdude in the chat, the stock radiators pull heat from the ENTIRE craft, not only the part they are attached too. and they have a kick in treshold and don't work from the beginning. when parts are starting to get too hot, the radiators start to suck the heat out of the entire craft to provide cooling-

oh and they don't glow

edit:

-deployabale radiators suck heat from the entire ship

-radiator panels work more like a heat sink and only pull heat from the part they are attched to.

Seems lame. I like the design precision from Nertea's system.

[Captain Sierra]

Or I suppose we could rebalance Nertea's radiators around the new stock behavior, if Nertea prefers not to deviate from stock.

Let me be the first to put the hammer down on this. NO. Stock radiators have their uses, but in most cases, Nertea's system is superior due to a) better radiator performance, and precision heat management. Not to mention they look 10 times better (no offense Roverdude, but if there's one thing Nertea is the undisputed king of, its beautiful parts).

[Streetwind]

EDIT 2: anyone tested this mod in 1.0.3? Does the new heating system mess with how this works or does it function just fine?

It depends on what default values the game sets for the skin, but if I were you? I'd expect things to be broken. Even if it works, it won't be optimized to run this way, and performance will suffer.

This patch changed the way parts get rid of heat. Expect every single modded part in all of KSP that deals with heat in any way (including engines etc.) to require an update. Even if that update turns out to be simple, it probably needs to be done. At minimum, every part needs a critical looking-at to see if the default values work out for it.

intersting behavior of the stock radiators. as explaned in a KSPTV stream this night with roverdude in the chat, the stock radiators pull heat from the ENTIRE craft, not only the part they are attached too. and they have a kick in treshold and don't work from the beginning. when parts are starting to get too hot, the radiators start to suck the heat out of the entire craft to provide cooling-

Interesting indeed... I didn't notice that. But then again my "test craft" was nothing but a probe core and a twin boar, so

Edited June 23, 2015 by Streetwind

[Psycho_zs]

Stock radiators have "emissiveConstant = 0.90", while wings still have 0.95. hm...

I wonder what "radiatorHeadroom" parameter does.

Folding radiators also have "skinInternalConductionMult = 2000", while static do not. It seems to be practical infinity since engines have 4.0.

Throwing in some ideas:

Radiator switchable to suck heat either from skin or from inside of parent part (yeah, I already posted that).

It can be used in conjunction with reactors if Nertea decides to implement core as stock internal portion of the reactor. But I can't seem find the stock parameter that sets ratio of skin mass.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Psycho_zs

[Red Iron Crown]

intersting behavior of the stock radiators. as explaned in a KSPTV stream this night with roverdude in the chat, the stock radiators pull heat from the ENTIRE craft, not only the part they are attached too. and they have a kick in treshold and don't work from the beginning. when parts are starting to get too hot, the radiators start to suck the heat out of the entire craft to provide cooling-

I did some thermal testing with a multi-nuke tug, it seems to me that the radiators don't cool the entire craft at once, just the hottest part. If you have multiple equally hot parts the radiators cycle through them. The number to watch in the action menu is "Internal Flux", that's where the heat flow into the rads (and out of parts being drawn from by rads) is shown. It also looks like the rads quickly reach the temperature of the hottest part on the vessel, which is OK as they have a high heat tolerance.

This strikes me as a good setup. I was thinking if rads were added they'd just take in heat by conduction and thus should be placed on the hottest parts that can take them (and some of the hottest parts don't allow surface attachment), making nuclear clusters trickier. This implementation means I hardly have to worry about where the rads are placed, they will always be pulling heat from the hotspots. Much more flexibility in design, both for aesthetics and making things fit into fairings.

[Nertea]

Balance is going to be problematic. Medium radiator pulls 12500, costs 2250 and has a mass of 0.25. That's twice the heat dissipation for 1/10 the cost and 1/4 the mass of my largest radiator. Grr....

[Nori]

Balance is going to be problematic. Medium radiator pulls 12500, costs 2250 and has a mass of 0.25. That's twice the heat dissipation for 1/10 the cost and 1/4 the mass of my largest radiator. Grr....

I say balance them to yours. I've always thought your parts are well balanced, so personally I think you should use your stats as a baseline.