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

[Terrestris]

Maybe bigger procedural static microchannel radiator. 

[danfarnsy]

I've had a few designs using the large static radiator modeled after the ship in Avatar that looked pretty cool, though I frequently end up replacing it with microchannel for weight and performance.

I also would love to see emissives integrated with SH, if possible.

[coyotesfrontier]

18 hours ago, danfarnsy said:

I also would love to see emissives integrated with SH, if possible.

They are, the radiators just have to be near maximum temp to glow, which is pretty uncommon to see as most people place more radiators than necessary.

[Rakete]

11 minutes ago, coyotesfrontier said:

 most people place more radiators than necessary.

Typical engineer's disease: slight overengineering due to safety margins. 

[danfarnsy]

3 hours ago, coyotesfrontier said:

They are, the radiators just have to be near maximum temp to glow, which is pretty uncommon to see as most people place more radiators than necessary.

Thank you. My ignorance didn't come from over-engineering but under-playing.  I've been on other games for a bit, but I still follow the forums and look at change logs, which have had little mention of emissives. Sure enough, they work now! They didn't when I had last tested months ago.

Edited July 8, 2021 by danfarnsy

[HoskJa]

Some parts capable of handling the heat from the big KA lifter engines but with the right profile for aerodynamic flight would be very nice

[Rakete]

I agree to @HoskJa.

Now, that I installed also Far Future as well and have access to the fusion aerospike I came to the little wish for some high performing (graphene) radiators in an nice aerodynamic shape. So if you are about to add some further shapes in the future, aerodynamic radiators for atmospheric ascent e.g. on Eve on nuclear power would be great. Yeah, we got the triangular ones but they are not very aerodynamic if you need some surface. And if you choose a small angle for aerodynamics, you have to spam those, to get away the massive heat. 

Just a proposal to think about.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Rakete

[Nertea]

Graphene rads are generally too fragile to work in atmosphere well, for aerodynamic fins I think you will have to content yourself with the more robust high temp models 

[Rakete]

28 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Graphene rads are generally too fragile to work in atmosphere well, for aerodynamic fins I think you will have to content yourself with the more robust high temp models 

Alright, but then a aerodynamic version if the grey ones with more cooling performance might be useful to get away the heat of a fission or fusion lifter-engine like the great fusion aerospike Ouroboros (iirc its more than 1,5 MW to radiate away). Haven't got KSP right in front of me right now, but if i remember correctly there is a gap in aerodynamicly applicable high powered radiators that might be considered to be filled. At the moment, the available aerodynamically viable options for grey (non-graphene) high temperature rads might be a little weak to carry away the Megawatt (+x) heat of a Ouroboros without unrealisticly spamming medium performing grey rads all over a cryogenic fueltank above the fusion aerospike.

 

Just a proposal for the roadmap to feature complete... feel free to handle these thoughts to your liking

Edited July 18, 2021 by Rakete

[Nertea]

Indeed, just don't anticipate graphene atmospheric radiators. Also consider alternative approaches to using that aerospike, including heat sink parts and higher loop volumes.

[Rakete]

41 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Indeed, just don't anticipate graphene atmospheric radiators. Also consider alternative approaches to using that aerospike, including heat sink parts and higher loop volumes.

Okay. But currently the coolant tanks are maybe a bit buggy (see bug report SH-thread, july 6th), so i hesitated to use them. 

What other heatsinks than radiators do you have in mind?  Any good advice? :-) if i remember correctly the biggest aerodynamically viable grey (non-graphene) radiator carries away approx. 50 (?) kW... compared to 1,5 MW.... sounds like a whole lot of coolant tanks to lower the temperature gradient over time for a viable Eve/Kerbin-Ascent

Edited July 18, 2021 by Rakete

[Nertea]

I would hazard that the SH problem will be fixed long before any improvements to heat control are even started...

In original FFT testing, it was quite possible to do a lofted trajectory launch with 4-8 coolant tanks and deploy larger radiators when you got out of the thick atmosphere. I never really got around to testing it, but the actual heat sink part would probably do even better, it lets you store more heat than the loop coolant tanks in a more controlled fashion. It might currently suffer from the same issue as the coolant tank though.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

So theoretically one could make coolant drop tanks?

[Nertea]

I'll have to look into what the simulation does when that happens.

[Rakete]

Alright, I'll try this approach. Thanks... there is a dedicated part called heat sink? Must have overlooked it. I only have radiators, coolant tanks and the heat exchanger between loops in mind.

Coolant drop tanks sounds funny... some kerbals on the beach get a hot shower of coolant...  

Edited July 19, 2021 by Rakete

[Rakete]

@Spaceman.Spiff@Nertea

Think this is nice to know for you: I did a test with droptanks filled with coolant:

As soon as I drop them, the temperature shoots up to 1300 K with the Ouroboros and get stuck there, ignoring further extended burn.

Edit: Stopping the engine keeps the engine get stuck at 1300K, but reignitions lets then the temperature rise above 1300K. Stopping the engine lets it go back to 1300K (no further cooldown) and stay there (at least for a while).

 

So yeah.... SH/HC is currently not made for such extravaganza as coolant drop tanks :-) But this is really an edge usecase, I think. :-)

Edited July 23, 2021 by Rakete

[SciMan]

New (major) version of KSP came out, so I decided to come back to playing KSP again. I see that most of the rest of the NF suite of mods are already updated to 1.12.x compatibility, which is great, but a lot of those mods have parts that generate heat, and to get rid of heat you need radiators, but all the radiators are in this mod and this mod isn't updated yet.

Seeing that the plugins themselves all seem like they're up-to-date and bundled with the other mods, I could probably make this mod compatible with 1.12.x on my own, or maybe it doesn't even need any work. I'm going to try that, but if it doesn't work I know that's what I get for using incompatible mods, and then I'll try to make it compatible on my own. Even if I do manage to get it working on my end, I'll still come back to check on this thread every day waiting for an update. Not saying I'll be posting every day, that would be rude. But I want to try these new mods (FFT, the new way NF Electrical uses SystemHeat to handle the radiators, etc). especially because of that lifter-grade LOX-augmented nuclear thermal aerospike engine, which I can't wait to use on a reusable VTVL SSTO heavy lifter.

I mean that lifter engine already works well enough (doesn't overheat) without any radiators, so that's great all on its own, but I don't want to have the thing stuck glowing red-hot forever and thinking about using the stock radiator system to deal with that much heat... ugh it just reminds me of the stock heat bug that's just waiting for the slightest opportunity to strike. Much rather use these radiators, which are designed to cope with megawatt-scale heat loads.

[Rakete]

 

56 minutes ago, SciMan said:

New (major) version of KSP came out, so I decided to come back to playing KSP again. I see that most of the rest of the NF suite of mods are already updated to 1.12.x compatibility, which is great, but a lot of those mods have parts that generate heat, and to get rid of heat you need radiators, but all the radiators are in this mod and this mod isn't updated yet.

Seeing that the plugins themselves all seem like they're up-to-date and bundled with the other mods, I could probably make this mod compatible with 1.12.x on my own, or maybe it doesn't even need any work. I'm going to try that, but if it doesn't work I know that's what I get for using incompatible mods, and then I'll try to make it compatible on my own. Even if I do manage to get it working on my end, I'll still come back to check on this thread every day waiting for an update. Not saying I'll be posting every day, that would be rude. But I want to try these new mods (FFT, the new way NF Electrical uses SystemHeat to handle the radiators, etc). especially because of that lifter-grade LOX-augmented nuclear thermal aerospike engine, which I can't wait to use on a reusable VTVL SSTO heavy lifter.

I mean that lifter engine already works well enough (doesn't overheat) without any radiators, so that's great all on its own, but I don't want to have the thing stuck glowing red-hot forever and thinking about using the stock radiator system to deal with that much heat... ugh it just reminds me of the stock heat bug that's just waiting for the slightest opportunity to strike. Much rather use these radiators, which are designed to cope with megawatt-scale heat loads.

Somehow I don't get, what's your point. Nertea is still busy updating all the mods to 1.12 but as far as I read, most of them just work fine in 1.12 and also in 1.11.2. (Except the mods, that have docking port, as KSP 1.12 changes a lot concerning this topic). 

Please don't put pressure on the the creator of this mod. He has almost a dozen mods to update. Just give him the time he needs. I can confirm, that HeatControll works fine with 1.11.2. 

Nertea updates them already in lightspeed. That's more than we could ask for.

Also: If you do edit parts of the mod by yourself, please don't redistribute it, unless Nertea gives his okay.

But feel free to report bugs, since giving the creator the chance for fixing them makes the mods even better for all.

 

Pro-Tip: Just subscribe to the mod threads you like and you don't have to check on a daily basis, since you are notified, if someone posts in those threads.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Rakete

[SciMan]

I was just thinking of the possibilities of what I could do with all the mods once I had the radiators. I just spent a ~5hr play session with the "outdated" version of the mod installed in 1.12.1, and they don't seem to be behaving any differently than they were on previous versions of KSP, which is great.

I didn't mean to sound like I was trying to put any pressure on Nertea to get things done faster, I'm well aware that things generally take as long as they're going to take and trying to hurry just makes mistakes happen (more mistakes the faster you try to hurry).
If you still don't know what I mean by that, I'll put it bluntly: I'd rather wait for something done right, than have to deal with bugs. I'd also rather wait than have the creator of so many excellent (and for me, must-have) mods get burnt-out due to community backlash for just doing what was "expected" of them (for the record, I don't "expect" anything, except that these mods will find a maintainer if Nertea does get burnt-out or decides to stop modding for some reason).

I never distribute any of the mods that I manage to "sort of update" by myself. I limit myself to not doing anything besides messing with the configs and MM patches, and that's almost always enough to get things working the way they used to work.

Besides, I also tinker with the configs to get a more enjoyable game experience for myself, because IMO a lot of these advanced propulsion concepts are implemented in a way that the downsides outweigh the advantages almost always (you could use all these fancy and "fun" mechanics, to get what, 5% more performance? Nah, I'll stick to using the Poodle or Rhino, because I suck at keeping things lightweight (gotta have all the science experiments on the lander, and that means a fairly large lander, especially when you're sending that lander all the way out to Jool).
I think that comes from balancing based on the LV-N, which is in a very sad state relative to the performance of its real-world counterpart, IIRC the KSP devs specifically said "we made it pretty bad so it doesn't just render the regular rocket engines obsolete", when in reality that's exactly what it would do... if humans were immune to radiation damage like Kerbals are anyways. So I remove about 2 tons of mass from the LV-N, and double the thrust, and half the amount of stock heat it generates, and hey presto the LV-N is looking like a pretty good alternative to the Poodle now, even if it is still pretty heavy and low thrust in comparison. I mean stock the LV-N is only putting out 60kn of thrust in a vacuum for almost 4t of engine mass, which is quite frankly awful unless you have the patience of a saint, which I do not. Then you have to factor in the amount of radiators, which just makes the TWR (and therefore burn times) worse, and then you need even MORE radiators to handle that longer burn time.
Point being, I can make a LFO based interplanetary transfer stage for a rocket fairly easily. Yes, nuclear rocket engines are more complex, but they're supposed to reduce trip times, not increase them, and since you can time warp past the slower transfer speeds of "LFO rocket"-friendly transfer trajectories, it ends up being MORE of a headache to use the stock nuclear engine than it is to just use the dang old boring LFO rockets, which is exactly the opposite of the result I think they wanted. It's really a study in "perverse consequences" aka "I tried to fix the problem but my fix only made things worse".

But that whole rant isn't anything against Nertea. It's against the balance decisions that made the LV-N the "paperweight" that it is in my VAB. I literally use the Thud more often than the LV-N, and people always meme on how they can just never find a use for the Thud.

[Nertea]

There's a popular misconception that NTRs are actually any good!

Anyways this will be updated along with FFT hopefully within the next week or so.

 

[coyotesfrontier]

4 hours ago, SciMan said:

Yes, nuclear rocket engines are more complex, but they're supposed to reduce trip times, not increase them

Thrust =/= trip times. It doesn't matter how low an engine's thrust is, trip times almost solely depend on how much ΔV you have. Hence why VASIMR-type engines are talked about as making a trip to Mars much shorter, despite having less that a thousandth the thrust of chemical rockets.

Take a transfer to Duna. You can do a year-long transfer to it for 1000m/s, or you can do a transfer that takes 3 months for 4000m/s. The latter choice requires NTRs to do, as chemical rockets don't have enough ISP for it. Despite the NTRs having a quarter the thrust of chemical rockets, it doesn't matter, because the burn time itself is only an extremely small percentage of the trip time. The only time high thrust actually matters is for landers and launch stages.

Edited August 13, 2021 by coyotesfrontier

[SciMan]

Yes, but the problem I run into is that I have a finite amount of game-play time available per day, and I don't want to spend that time watching a single burn for a single maneuver (or for escaping the gravity well of a massive planet like Kerbin or Jool, multiple periapsis kick burns).

Barring any specific mods for it, I can only run the game while doing a burn at 4x real-time speed, while I can run the same game while NOT doing any thrusting at up to 100,000x real-time speed.

See the issue here? The longer the burn itself takes (not the transfer), the longer the whole transfer takes from MY perspective, not the perspective of the Kerbals that may or may not be crewing the vessel, because I'm an outside observer that has time-control powers. Lower thrust but higher ISP actually makes things worse, because while you spend less (real out of game) time at 100,000x, you spend a lot more (real out of game) time at 1-4x.

The issue becomes "make the burn as short as possible to maximize time spent at 100,000x real-time speed", not "make the transfer itself take as short of a real-time period as possible".

And for that, chemical rockets are simply the best for it, because they have the THRUST, and the vacuum rated versions of the chemical engines (Terrier, Poodle, Rhino, Cheetah, even the Wolfhound) still put out a great deal of thrust while having a specific impulse that can get the job done provided you can build a big enough launch vehicle to get the transfer stage into orbit.

But I want to use the high technology drives, and so I guess my problem is better stated as "I don't like how time works in this game."

Can someone suggest an up-to-date mod that either allows thrusting while in on-rails time warp, while not even focused on the vessel, or at the very least allows higher levels of time warp while thrusting (ie. make the sim run at faster than 4x while thrusting)?
I know KSPI-E has a part of itself that lets you thrust while in on-rails warp, so hopefully that is available as a standalone mod.
I think we'll have to wait for KSP2 to get the "thrusting while not focused" working.
I remember there being one or two mods that let you have different levels of time warp available, but I have no idea if those are updated for the current version of KSP (or current enough to work right).

Any help with that would be appreciated, because if there's one thing I hate while gaming, it's "grinding" or tedium masquerading as "difficulty". Over in the KSP2 discussion forum, I've made my position known that I hope the colonization part of the game doesn't become "milk run simulator" because that's just more tedium. If I wanted to do something tedious, I'd be working overtime, not playing video games.

[modus]

Have you tried BetterTimeWarpContinued?

One of it's features reads: 1 hour burn completed in 3 minutes at 20x physical warp.

[SciMan]

That sounds like a great addition to my mods, I'll look it up!

The one KSPI uses to allow on-rails warp while applying thrust is called PersistantThrust, I think.

[Nertea]

Heat Control 0.6.1

• Marked for KSP 1.12
• Updated ModuleManager to 4.2.1
• Updated B9PartSwitch to 2.18.0