1.0.3/4 - Radiators don't pull heat from engines?

[Sidereus]

Update: See post below.

Not sure if this is a bug or something about the new heat system I'm not getting, so I'm putting it here for now.

The trouble started when I began the first mission to the Mun in my new career save. It's early career, so I have limited parts. I threw together a craft that used two X200-32 Fuel Tanks, a single X200-16 fuel tank, and a Skipper engine as a liquid fuel booster stage, with a couple of Thumpers to help it out in the lower atmosphere. Everything went fine until I was about 30-40km up, at which point the Skipper started overheating. And it'd keep overheating until it exploded, even at reduced throttle.

This is weird, because I've never had a Skipper overheat before. Not in any of the other previous versions.

I slapped some radiators onto it to see if that helped. It didn't. Radiators didn't seem to change anything, no matter how many I put on.

So I ran a test in my sandbox save, to see what was going on. Created a similar setup as the liquid booster, clamped it to the launch pad, and ran it until it overheated, both with four of the large radiator panels and without any.

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The radiators didn't seem to help out at all.

What's going on here?

ETA: The only mod I have at the moment is KER.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Sidereus
New problems

[Crzyrndm]

The passive radiators only pull heat via conduction AFAIK, so the part they are attached to has to get hot. That means the radiator needs to be on the fuel tank next to the engine to have any hope at all of having an effect (better yet, a lightweight part between the engine and tanks that can heat up quickly)

EDIT

In saying that, I can't get the Skipper to explode on the pad (or anywhere close). Sounds like something is bug'd

Edited June 27, 2015 by Crzyrndm

[Claw]

If you upgraded your KSP install (rather than a clean, new install), then I recommend getting rid of your physics.cfg and downloading (or if you're using steam, verifying your game cache) to get a fresh Physics.cfg. Old values can cause issues with the new system, and I know a few people have been suffering from this problem.

If that doesn't work, let us know and keep experimenting so we can help you figure it out.

Cheers,

~Claw

[LordCorwin]

Strange... I think I've made your same test, and nothing got overtheated, even at maximum power and without radiators.

[Sidereus]

If you upgraded your KSP install (rather than a clean, new install), then I recommend getting rid of your physics.cfg and downloading (or if you're using steam, verifying your game cache) to get a fresh Physics.cfg. Old values can cause issues with the new system, and I know a few people have been suffering from this problem.

If that doesn't work, let us know and keep experimenting so we can help you figure it out.

Cheers,

~Claw

Thanks, this seemed to work. I moved the Physics.cfg file out of the KSP directory and verified the game cache through steam. Two files failed to verify (not sure what the other file was). I ran the test again with no radiators and the engine never got above 650K or so.

[Finndibaenn]

Well I'm facing a similar issue (engins overheating) but with Jet engines, flying in the atmosphere on long distance flights (trying to reach a contract site, kind of opposite of KSC).

I tried attaching radiators, but the fixed one don't seem to prevent overheating, and the extendables arent usable because they break as soon as you extend them

[Sidereus]

Well I'm facing a similar issue (engins overheating) but with Jet engines, flying in the atmosphere on long distance flights (trying to reach a contract site, kind of opposite of KSC).

I tried attaching radiators, but the fixed one don't seem to prevent overheating, and the extendables arent usable because they break as soon as you extend them

One of my jets was overheating too, just not to the point of exploding. I haven't played with it yet, but I suspect Claw's fix worked on that as well.

[Sidereus]

Ok, so I played a bit more today and the problem came back. I think I've tracked down the issue, and it's weird.

This only happens if I don't launch from Steam. If I launch the game using the .exe -- which I usually do in order to save memory -- the issue comes back.

[LordCorwin]

32 vs 64 bits may be?

[Sidereus]

32 vs 64 bits may be?

I'm running a 32 bit operating system (Windows Vista ), and they killed the Win64 build, so I can't see how that would be it.

[Finndibaenn]

on my side, I bought the game from GOG, so no laucnhing from Steam.

My Windows is 64bits though

[LordCorwin]

Honestly, no idea :-(

[cjones]

I think I am experiencing the same issue as you. It's not so much overheating, it's that the engines do not cool down at all.

I used the thermometer mod to see number values of the parts (https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/719/Thermometer) and I can see heat build up in the engines as they are run, but when shutting them down, they do not cool down. Not sure what's up, but it looks like the temperature reduction portion of the thermal model is not working, so parts only heat, not cool down (so they can't reach an equilibrium).

I'm running the classic version (non-steam, directly from the ksp store download). 32 bit.

- - - Updated - - -

Update: I have discovered that on a stock install, parts do properly cool down when engines are off, so now to discover which mod is breaking the thermal stuff...

mods:

ActiveTextureManagement

AdjustableLandingGear

BahaSP

BDArmory

CollisionFX

DistantObject

Firespitter

IntakeBuildAid

JSI

Kerbaltek

MechJeb2

NavyFish

OPT

Pilot Assistant

PlanetShine

SmartStage

Squad

Thermometer

WaypointManager

WheelSounds

[Chaos_Klaus]

Do you run KSP via a short cut? This shortcut would need the approroiate folder set correctly. KSP won't read the config files correctly if it's not.

[cjones]

Great catch! Yes, that was the problem! I keep a shortcut on my task bar and when I unzip a new version, i like to keep the version number on the folder. I updated the exe path to 1.0.4, but forgot to update the 'start in' folder, so KSP was unable to read the config. When I tested with a fresh copy of 1.0.4, I had just double clicked the exe in the folder directly.

Thank you, good sir!

[Chaos_Klaus]

I just found that out recently in another thread. I always wondered why shortcuts had that option ... I still do, but now I know that it actually has consequences.