Why are my solar panels not working on the Jool system?

[The Kromblers]

This is the first time I am doing a crewed mission to Jool. I needed to build a ship with enough fuel and enough resources for a return mission. As the result, I built a simple ship in order to get there, as shown on this monitor:

This is probably one of the most complicated spacecraft I ever made. So many stages were required and larger rocket designs had to be used in order for this thing to successfully get to space. After a very long time warp, the spaceship got there successfully. No electricity was lost.

I am going to admit, yes I am using mods. You can see the interior of the cockpit here.

This spacecraft is not designed to land on Laythe – that would be suicidal. The mission was to simply launch to Jool, grab some science with EVA reports on one of Jool’s moons and return back to Kerbin with the smaller spacecraft attached. I chose the closest moon – Laythe, as shown here:

However, there is a problem…

I can get science, but the power isn’t working properly!

The problem is that – even with those 4 solar panels deployed, not enough electricity is being produced anymore (see bottom image). Yes, they are facing directly at the sun. In fact, it is stuck on 0.05 energy. When I time warp, it goes up to 1.90 electricity but that's about it. On the night side of the moon, the energy just drops to 0.00. In other words, I went from having 8000+ electricity to nothing.

As you can see on the top image, no electricity is producing.

I’m not sure what happened because the solar panels were just working a few minutes ago on the Kerbin system, and suddenly they have stopped producing electricity once I got to Jool.

Let me know if this is a small bug in the game due to the fact that I am using mods, or if there is something else I am not understanding here. Even with all my instruments and lights switched off, power is still not being produced.

Edited June 6, 2015 by The Kromblers

[FancyMouse]

Did you calculate how far Jool is from the Sun, and how inverse square law would impact the amount of power projected on your panel?

[cybersol]

Here is a thread where you can learn more about the recent inverse square changes. The basic gist is that this is not a bug, and fully working as intended.

[Voidryder]

What the FancyMouse said. Farther from the Sun (Kebals call their sun the Sun, so don't correct me), less solar radiation (light), less effective solar panels. RTG's are the answer...or really long extension cords.

P.S. No shame in playing with mods. It's a single player game. Play in a way that is fun for you. All that matters.

[The Kromblers]

It looks like the effects of the solar panels have been changed. I've been placing probes with solar panels on the Jool system without any problems. It seems to be only with this one that has a problem. Looks like I just need to get back to Kerbin and add more power to it. Another very long time warp it is. Thanks for that info, cybersol.

[FancyMouse]

Did you have something going on in the research lab? That drains lots of power (even for just doing research, and processing takes even more).

[The Kromblers]

Hiya. I checked back on the spacecraft, no I left it off. I wanted to use the instruments and goo containers first before proceeding with the lab. Unfortunately, because I actually don't have enough power, I will have to abort the mission and return back to Kerbin to fix the power issue. I'll have to see what I can do from there.

- - - Updated - - -

Aaah for !@#$ sake, I am SO BLOODY STUPID! After making a backup-save and reloading my old one, I saw that it turned out - YES, the lab was actually on. The power started to come back normally. I now have found the issue, it was the lab all along. I didn't know why I didn't see that "stop" button.

Thanks y'all for the help.

[cybersol]

Yeah, you need 5 EC per second for just the lab to be fully on. You can use that thread to know how much power you will need at Jool. I found it myself when I had to launch a rescue mission with a couple of power modules for a distant lab.

[Captain Sierra]

I think part of the problem with the new solar curve is that the physical lighting does not change. Its not the most intuitive thing in the world because of that. If the light from the sun actually got visibly dimmer with each planet, people would realize it easier.

[The Kromblers]

Yes, I've been reading through that thread and I am going to save it for later reference. It is very useful information to know for future voyages.

[Captain Sierra]

Yes, I've been reading through that thread and I am going to save it for later reference. It is very useful information to know for future voyages.

ANother useful bit of information is, as I can see you use the Near Future suite of mods (which was updated today finally), you have access to some really powerful solar panels (the Near Future panels are almost better than the stock RTG in terms of power/mass out by Jool).

[The Kromblers]

I only have the Near Future Spacecraft installed at the moment. It is really amazing by far. The Near Future Solar is a separate download, so I know they are available. I didn’t add them in my game data yet, but I might give them a try later on. Thanks for the tip, and thanks for letting me know about the latest update. Sorry for the late reply.

[Windspren]

What mod is that pod from?

[The Kromblers]

You can go on google and type in "KSP Near Future Spacecraft". Curse will be the first one that pops up on the search engine. You can download the mod from there.

Very sorry about that, busy schedules mean that I don't always have the time to view the forums.