[1.12.x] Kerbal Atomics: fancy nuclear engines! (August 18, 2024)

[Kerbital]

I don't know if this is by design or a mod conflict.

1) I use Interstellar Fuel Switch. With the Cryogenic Tanks mod installed I lose the ability to switch stock tanks, as well tanks added by other mods, to monoprop and ore. I only have the LF, LF/Ox, Ox and various gases options. Is this something that can be adjusted in cfg files?

2) The stock liquid fuel Nerv atomic engine and the quad atomic from Modular Rocket Systems mod become Hydrogen engines now, no option for liquid fuel.

Thanks!

[BigJammy]

1 hour ago, Kerbital said:

1) I use Interstellar Fuel Switch. With the Cryogenic Tanks mod installed I lose the ability to switch stock tanks, as well tanks added by other mods, to monoprop and ore. I only have the LF, LF/Ox, Ox and various gases options. Is this something that can be adjusted in cfg files?

Same thing is happening to me. It's not gamebreaking but it's limiting my options when I want to use monoprop engines form Near Future Spacecraft.

[GrzesiekB]

On 11.02.2017 at 3:34 PM, Temeter said:

Technically all nuclear reactors, including those in the engines, run on limited enriched uranium. You can get that with the near future electrics patch.

As to why the core engine has limited uranium even at stock, no clue. Maybe it does actually shoot out a bunch of uranium?

Yes, I haven't noticed - in description it says that it throws uranium out of an engine Thanks for help!!

[Kerbital]

28 minutes ago, BigJammy said:

Same thing is happening to me. It's not gamebreaking but it's limiting my options when I want to use monoprop engines form Near Future Spacecraft.

Exactly. It's not a big deal but somewhat limiting.

[Guest]

@Nertea

First of all thanks a lot for this mod! However, I found a problem in the texture of  the 2.5m Liquid Hydrogen tank in the "cryotank" folder that some markers on the tank don't line up very well. Please see the marked area in the images linked below.

http://imgur.com/ccFdcRf

http://imgur.com/XKFaIZ9

I wonder if you could fix this small error in the next version? Really love the tank's design...Thanks!

[SmashBrown]

Right @Nertea I have been trying to figure out how you built the back end of that craft in the OP.... i am lost. It looks so cool!

[Nertea]

On 2/17/2017 at 10:24 AM, whwraul7 said:

@Nertea

First of all thanks a lot for this mod! However, I found a problem in the texture of  the 2.5m Liquid Hydrogen tank in the "cryotank" folder that some markers on the tank don't line up very well. Please see the marked area in the images linked below.

http://imgur.com/ccFdcRf

http://imgur.com/XKFaIZ9

I wonder if you could fix this small error in the next version? Really love the tank's design...Thanks!

Eh, not hugely on my critical to-fix list... I'll think about fixing it sometime though.

9 hours ago, SmashBrown said:

Right @Nertea I have been trying to figure out how you built the back end of that craft in the OP.... i am lost. It looks so cool!

It looks like a NFConstruction adapter plus surface radiators, radial batteries and tiny hydrogen tanks. 

[klugeh01]

@Nertea, I noticed something odd last night, and just spent a little while looking into it. It appears as though the rate of consumption of Enriched Uranium and output rate of Depleted Fuel for the LV-N 'Nerv' don't match. The config shows:

...
INPUT_RESOURCE
  {
  ResourceName = EnrichedUranium
  Ratio = 0.0027
  FlowMode = NO_FLOW
  }
OUTPUT_RESOURCE
  {
  ResourceName = DepletedFuel
  Ratio = 0.00027
  DumpExcess = false
  FlowMode = NO_FLOW
  }
...

Is this a typo? If so, which rate is correct?

Edited February 21, 2017 by klugeh01

[Nertea]

On 2/20/2017 at 5:29 PM, klugeh01 said:

@Nertea, I noticed something odd last night, and just spent a little while looking into it. It appears as though the rate of consumption of Enriched Uranium and output rate of Depleted Fuel for the LV-N 'Nerv' don't match. The config shows:

...
INPUT_RESOURCE
  {
  ResourceName = EnrichedUranium
  Ratio = 0.0027
  FlowMode = NO_FLOW
  }
OUTPUT_RESOURCE
  {
  ResourceName = DepletedFuel
  Ratio = 0.00027
  DumpExcess = false
  FlowMode = NO_FLOW
  }
...

Is this a typo? If so, which rate is correct?

No idea, I'll look into it. Helpful to toss such issues on the git issue tracker, they're more likely to be looked at. 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Nertea

[klugeh01]

Just now, Nertea said:

No idea, I'll look into it. 

Thanks, for right now I've added another zero to the input ratio, giving the engine a core life similar to the other NTRs

[Nertea]

That's probably the right one then!

[klugeh01]

I couldn't be sure you didn't mean for it to have a shorter life, being available so much earlier in the tech tree than the engines from your mod 

Note: I enjoy the added challenge with the Kerbal Atomics + NFE, having to give more lead time before maneuvers to heat up the reactors.

Edited February 23, 2017 by klugeh01

[EmilOrbiter96]

Hi, Im not so experienced with modding. I just wondered if i only need to remove the boiloff.dll to stop boiloff? Thanks in advance for any answer

Edited February 25, 2017 by EmilOrbiter96

[SchrottBot]

Hello everyone,

 

I've noticed a strage thing and I'm not sure if it is intended or not. It is about the behaviour of the LV-N which "feels" somehow wrong to me.

Currently I#m working on a rover to Duna an decided to use the LV-N as transfer stage, but it gives me rathe inefficient dV, so I tried a direct comparison. I took a Rockomax X200-32 and attached it to the same payload in all cases, configured the used fuel according to the engines used.

Engine                  Fuel                      Total Stage Weight    dV (Vac.)

LV-N                      100% LH2             18,4t                         1349 m/s

LV-96-6                  100% MonoProp.  43,4t                         3676 m/s

Ct 10 Chelyabinsk Mix LH2 / LOX        18,3t                         1171 m/s

 

Well that make the LV-N somewhat useless and I wonder if this is only the case i my game. Or maybe it's a wanted behaviour and I just dindn't get it? (Which is also quite possible =)

Thanks for any hints! 

[klugeh01]

@SchrottBot, look at the Stage Weight. Engines that use cyogenic fuels (Atomics and Cryo engines) are far more efficient in terms of mass, but your stages will be much larger in terms of volume in order to achieve the same mass. Try adding fuel tanks to your LV-N and Chelyabinsk versions until they're the same 43 tons as your LV-96-6 stage, and then look at the dV you get  Yeah, it can be a PITA to launch that 'big' of a stage, but you get much better fuel economy, and if you launch the stage in one piece, it will be cheaper (in terms of booster stage cost/dV) than launching a more dense stage with lower specific impulse.

[Nergal8617]

On 2/12/2017 at 8:41 AM, Kerbital said:

2) The stock liquid fuel Nerv atomic engine and the quad atomic from Modular Rocket Systems mod become Hydrogen engines now, no option for liquid fuel.

  There should be an Extras folder included with the Kerbal Atomics zip that has a cfg file to switch atomic engines back to liquid fuel use.

[Streetwind]

10 hours ago, SchrottBot said:

Well that make the LV-N somewhat useless and I wonder if this is only the case i my game. Or maybe it's a wanted behaviour and I just dindn't get it? (Which is also quite possible =)

The LV-N is heavy. The Chelyabinsk weighs almost nothing by comparison. Additionally, LH2 is very hard to store. CryoTanks isn't quite as harsh about it as real life would be, but there's still a difference. So the pure LH2 tank in your LV-N stage is less mass efficient than the mixed LH2/OX tank in the Chelyabinsk stage. Despite both of these things, your LV-N stage weighs the same as the Chelyabinsk stage. Therefore the former has less actual fuel onboard than the latter. That means that the LV-N is successfully extracting more dV out of less reaction mass.

------> Everything working as intended.

 

@klugeh01 already explained why the monoprop stage is getting more total dV: it simply has more reaction mass (actual fuel).

 

In case you're interested to learn more about how all of this works under the hood, look here.

[Nertea]

Kerbal Atomics 0.3.5

•  Updated B9PartSwitch to 1.7.1
•  Updated CRP to 0.6.6
•  Updated AVC link
•  Fixed uranium consumption of LV-N in NFE mode
•  Fixed a boiloff issue that could occur when switching ships that were close to each other

[brygun]

Hello Again, 

Recent new user of the mod again. This time using Cyro Engines, Cyro Tanks and IFS. Also using Real Solar System

I did a test flight and my vessel with LqdH tanks got out of Earth's SOI and happily in the sun's field. No real shadows anymore. Under time warp my electrical charge was staying full but I got massive boil-off losses. Like 75% of the fuel. This was under a time warp so by the time I hit pause I couldn't see much else. During the time warp the solar panels (in a 4 panel X formation) were well aimed and at no point did the electrical energy drop below even 1 point below maximum. This was in the Sun's SOI so tank temperatures appeared constant.

Note: Fuel tank mounted is the "Interstellar Liquid Fuel Tank x24"

1) Is there something about "boil off" Im missing? Is it always going to happen? I had thought that with electrical charge we would stop that from happening.

2) I did see mention of a tweak for turning off "boil off" (which is a less preferred option). Im using CKAN to manage a long list of mods and I don't see that when I search under "Nertea" as mod author. Can you release that tweak for CKAN for us?

3) With RSS on an initial orbit around 200 km it takes 90 min for one orbit. That gives somewhere under 45 minutes in the Earth's shadow with no electrical input from solar panels. Somewhere around 2,700 seconds. The tank I chose as 4.5 kw needs so needing around 12,000 kw in batteries (if Ive got this down right). That's mighty huge for the mid tech tree with 400 unit batteries (30 batteries per tank)

4) Should I be using a different fuel tank? (Perhaps Im not using one from your mod)

Still love the mod idea. Playing around with even the possibility was interesting. A ~10kdV mid tech probe+transit could become 13kdV making Mercury possible. That is until the sudden boil off happened in solar orbit under very high time warp. Hopefully I/we can figure a way around that. Either way, happy to have tested the technology.

Edited March 3, 2017 by brygun

[brygun]

BTW, if there is a "how to use" thread by all means please direct me there. Im not so much reporting bugs as trying to figure out how to build effective craft.

 

Today's new idea is a paradigm shift to make use of the Umbra Space Industries mod for a small nuclear reactor to provide electrical power to keep the cyrogenic tanks cold.

 

Still like to understand the sudden in time warp loss. Which Im not sure is a random shadow (extremely unlikely given the solar orbit) or a bug (unlikely given the mod is running for a while) or something I'm missing (most likely)

[Nertea]

I do not do anything to the IFS tanks that are added. The only tanks that get boiloff code added to them are basic fuel tanks (anything that has only LFO) and the set of hydrogen tanks added by the mod. I can only conclude that the IFS tank is doing its own boiloff somehow. 

[SchrottBot]

Oh I see the "crossover point" of efficiency just moved. That makes sense. Haven't used the LV-N for a long time, so the change in behaviour just didn't catch my attention so far. =) 

 

Thanks for the hint!

[bdlarkin]

I searched through this thread but I didn't see anything, so If this has been covered before my apologies.

Should the Kerbal Atomics engines provide a electrical generation component when the reactor is active?    I've got a Liberator engine on an interplanetary ship and even with the reactor active (and at optimum temp) but with no throttle.  Basically is there any way to get electrical power out of the reactor?    It seems like I should be able to get something....  I'd hate to take a separate reactor along just to generate power.

 

[Nertea]

14 minutes ago, bdlarkin said:

I searched through this thread but I didn't see anything, so If this has been covered before my apologies.

Should the Kerbal Atomics engines provide a electrical generation component when the reactor is active?    I've got a Liberator engine on an interplanetary ship and even with the reactor active (and at optimum temp) but with no throttle.  Basically is there any way to get electrical power out of the reactor?    It seems like I should be able to get something....  I'd hate to take a separate reactor along just to generate power.

 

Part descriptions indicate which engines should generate power:

the Neptune uses excess heat generated by the reactor to run a compact generator system, producing 2 kW of electric power while the engine is running or idle.

Using a secondary cooling loop, a portion of the reactor's heat runs a small generator that produces around 10 kW of electricity, even when the engine is idle.

If you're very keen there's art indications of this too, modeled generator and radiator components. The Liberator does not include this, unfortunately.

[Stikkychaos]

I seem to have encountered an issue. I have both Atomics and NFE Patch for NFE. And the engine reactors read nothing, making engines useless
http://imgur.com/fsMSoc0

What to do with that?

Scratch that, it works in vacuum.

EDIT: Nevermind that, I still have the same problem, it simply occurs only on SSTOs for some reason. As seen on a screenshot below, I am in vacuum, with power, radiator, fuel (one tank on the engine for test) and yet still the reactor and the engine are not working. 

http://imgur.com/ecan47t

Edited March 17, 2017 by Stikkychaos