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

[Nertea]

I know, it's a pretty terrible thing I did, giving a hideously OP engine a downside.

I'm not sure how you'll cope, but I'm sure we can find you a support group.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Nertea

[Starwaster]

Hey, space is a tough place, where wimps eat flaming plasma death.

Sorry... couldn't resist throwing in some Star Control humor...

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by Starwaster

[AmpCat]

12 hours ago, Nathanson said:

Bad decision, so I won't be able to use it at all.

Actually, if you get her nuclear reactor add-in, where the nuclear engines are all simulated as reactors + engines, then you can refuel the engine. It's the benefit of the added complexity that the nuclear reactor integration gives.

Or... hack the mod and remove the non-refuelable flag, like I did once. But I've moved on to other engines, mostly.

Edited February 10, 2018 by AmpCat

[RedParadize]

12 hours ago, Nathanson said:

Bad decision, so I won't be able to use it at all.

"Real life" atomic engine are extremely dangerous, you just can't get close to them. It is even more true for that model as it inner surface get covered by melted radioactive material... Even if brought back to earth it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get it cleaned and its nuclear fuel replaced.

As Nertea did it, its good for quite a long and powerful trust... I do not recall exactly but with a couple of hydrogen refueling (remass... not fuel), that meant like 5 trip to mars and back for me. Quite worth it.

[AmpCat]

Yeah, honestly I did a lot of long trips, used it as an SSTO engine for my rockets to Duna and even Jool. Never ran out of uranium.

Granted, despite being SSTOs I never re-used the ships for a second trip. Each time I came back to Kerbin I'd land the rocket back on Kerbin. The reason I used that particular engine was because it had enough ISP and thrust/weight ratio to take off and land from Kerbin. If I wasn't going to do that, I'd probably use a different engine.

 

Edited February 11, 2018 by AmpCat

[MaximumThrust]

How exactly the patch to add nuclear reactors from Near Future to the engines work?

I will have a small nuclear reactor, that I can use with radiators, or without any radiator while the engine is on?

Thanks!

[Nertea]

17 minutes ago, MaximumThrust said:

How exactly the patch to add nuclear reactors from Near Future to the engines work?

I will have a small nuclear reactor, that I can use with radiators, or without any radiator while the engine is on?

Engines have reactors, which act like the NFE reactors, they need to start up and reach operating temperature. They will overheat if not cooled. There are two ways to cool them, add radiators or run the engine. Some reactors generate power when active, turn the reactor power down low so you don't need to many radiators.

 

[MaximumThrust]

14 hours ago, Nertea said:

Engines have reactors, which act like the NFE reactors, they need to start up and reach operating temperature. They will overheat if not cooled. There are two ways to cool them, add radiators or run the engine. Some reactors generate power when active, turn the reactor power down low so you don't need to many radiators.

 

Haven't though about this possibility. The engines seems to have a very high need for cooling. Are there any specific uses for the Ec while the engines are on, or simply  recharge the batteries?  The dose of realism this adds, about how a nuclear engine works, is really cool.

Also a question about nuclear reactors in general. I usually don't leave they on while in the background, only start them when I'll use something, for short periods of time. Always put some small solar panel or RTG to not lose control of the vessel. Because of this I always put the minimum allowed quantity of uranium, which is 1/10, to greatly reduce cost and weight, and it can still run for 200+ days. This possibility was taken into consideration when making the mod? It feels like a small cheat.

 

[domassimo]

2 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

Also a question about nuclear reactors in general. I usually don't leave they on while in the background, only start them when I'll use something, for short periods of time. Always put some small solar panel or RTG to not lose control of the vessel. Because of this I always put the minimum allowed quantity of uranium, which is 1/10, to greatly reduce cost and weight, and it can still run for 200+ days. This possibility was taken into consideration when making the mod? It feels like a small cheat.

 

1

It really depends on what kind of energy your vessel requires to maintain steady operation. I find that cooling for cryotanks may already exceed the ability of solar panels to generate power, at least some of the time when in orbit around a planet (no sunlight all the time). A life support mod would add another need for power, such that leaving a reactor to run at a low steady state is necessary. Even then, reducing the amount of uranium is likely to work out fine.

[Nertea]

4 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

Haven't though about this possibility. The engines seems to have a very high need for cooling. Are there any specific uses for the Ec while the engines are on, or simply  recharge the batteries?  The dose of realism this adds, about how a nuclear engine works, is really cool.

Cryo cooling, taking the burden off other energy sources... few things maybe.

4 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

Also a question about nuclear reactors in general. I usually don't leave they on while in the background, only start them when I'll use something, for short periods of time. Always put some small solar panel or RTG to not lose control of the vessel. Because of this I always put the minimum allowed quantity of uranium, which is 1/10, to greatly reduce cost and weight, and it can still run for 200+ days. This possibility was taken into consideration when making the mod? It feels like a small cheat.

It was taken into consideration. You're free to turn stuff on or off as you want, in fact it's even encouraged. 

[MaximumThrust]

On 2/4/2018 at 7:25 AM, Uncia said:

I'm having trouble with the LF patch, it seems some of the engines (specifically: Eel, Liberator, Deliverence, Emancipator) dont switch to liquid fuel but do receive the nerfed stats for mass and LSP that are included with the patch, I have tested this clearing my game data and installing only the latest kerbal atomics and placing the LF config file in the gamedata folder, and making a testbed in sandbox to be sure its not just the tooltips. Thanks, Uncia

 

On 2/5/2018 at 7:00 PM, Nertea said:

I'll check it out. 

I noted the same thing.

EDIT: I removed the file GameData\KerbalAtomics\Patches\NTR\LH2NTRsDynamic.cfg and it worked. I'm no expert, but seems it was converting the engines back to LH2, or causing some incompatibility. 
 

Spoiler

// MM Configs for changing various NTRs to use LqdHydrogen
// Dynamic patch by TheToric

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]:HAS[@PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel],!PROPELLANT[Oxidizer],!PROPELLANT[IntakeAir]],!MODULE[MultiModeEngine]]:NEEDS[!NTRsUseLF]:FOR[zzLH2NTR]
{
    @mass *= 0.75
       @MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]
    {
        @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel]
        {
            @name = LqdHydrogen
            @ratio = 1.0
        }
        @atmosphereCurve
        {
            @key,*[1, ] *= 1.1
        }
    }
}
@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleEngines]:HAS[@PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel],!PROPELLANT[Oxidizer],!PROPELLANT[IntakeAir]],!MODULE[MultiModeEngine]]:NEEDS[!NTRsUseLF]:FOR[zzLH2NTR]
{
    @mass *= 0.75
       @MODULE[ModuleEngines]
    {
        @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel]
        {
            @name = LqdHydrogen
            @ratio = 1.0
        }
        @atmosphereCurve
        {
            @key,*[1, ] *= 1.1
        }
    }
}
 

 

Edited February 22, 2018 by MaximumThrust

[Wyzard]

3 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

I removed the file GameData\KerbalAtomics\Patches\NTR\LH2NTRsDynamic.cfg and it worked. I'm no expert, but seems it was converting the engines back to LH2, or causing some incompatibility.

The :NEEDS[!NTRsUseLF] in that patch should prevent it from taking effect if the LF conversion patch is installed.  Was that not working?  It should trigger on the presence of a GameData\NTRsUseLF folder.

[MaximumThrust]

1 minute ago, Wyzard said:

The :NEEDS[!NTRsUseLF] in that patch should prevent it from taking effect if the LF conversion patch is installed.  Was that not working?  It should trigger on the presence of a GameData\NTRsUseLF folder.

I don't know, with that archive the patch "NTRsUseLF" applied the effect to some engines/modes, but for the majority don't. Without it everything worked fine, all the engines runs in LF or LF/Ox.

[Wyzard]

6 minutes ago, MaximumThrust said:

I don't know, with that archive the patch "NTRsUseLF" applied the effect to some engines/modes, but for the majority don't.

Did you install it the same way Uncia did?

On 2/4/2018 at 4:25 AM, Uncia said:

placing the LF config file in the gamedata folder

Putting the KerbalAtomicsLF.cfg file directly in GameData will cause the problem, because that won't block out the :NEEDS[!NTRsUseLF] condition in LH2NTRsDynamic.cfg.  Instead, put the NTRsUseLF folder in GameData (so you have GameData\NTRsUseLF\KerbalAtomicsLF.cfg).

[3ngin33r]

So if I'm understanding some of the recent posts right, the Emancipator can't be refueled by design but if I install the NearFutureElectricalNTR patch, it *can* be refueled. Could someone confirm this? Also, if it is the case it really should be in the readme because it's not obvious at all and I really wish I knew that earlier. 

[MechBFP]

Is the Scylla engine intended to overheat unless ran at 100% throttle while at 100% power setting?

Considering the heat it generates, that does make sense. 

[Nertea]

On 3/1/2018 at 5:10 AM, MechBFP said:

Is the Scylla engine intended to overheat unless ran at 100% throttle while at 100% power setting?

Considering the heat it generates, that does make sense. 

Any of the reactor-added engines need throttle setting == reactor setting to not overheat.

On 2/28/2018 at 4:06 PM, 3ngin33r said:

So if I'm understanding some of the recent posts right, the Emancipator can't be refueled by design but if I install the NearFutureElectricalNTR patch, it *can* be refueled. Could someone confirm this? Also, if it is the case it really should be in the readme because it's not obvious at all and I really wish I knew that earlier. 

That might actually encourage people to install the patch, which I don't want to do. 

[MechBFP]

9 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Any of the reactor-added engines need throttle setting == reactor setting to not overheat.

I just realized yesterday that even if I have the power setting at 1%, as soon as a throttle up it increases the power setting as well in line with the throttle.

Before I knew this I kept on having to shut off the reactor after every burn to prevent it from overheating, and I was either burning at 0 or 100% throttle lol. 

Now I can generate electricity to keep my LH2 from boiling off without the reactor melting down, and be able to control the ship properly as well!  

[Nertea]

As a PSA:

1.4.1 Update Status

• Update paired with CryoEngines
• Fixes to NFE patch will improve QoL for all (needs NFE update first though...)
• Fairly major set of fixes/revisions for ZBO tankage, about halfway through, need at least 3 weeks (considering other mods) to finish
• Need to recompile/test DBS component

[MaximumThrust]

On 7/16/2017 at 2:26 PM, AmpCat said:

@Nertea, don't want to be a bother about something purely cosmetic.. buuuuut...

On your Octo-Girder the LH2 tanks have a nice gold color. However, on your Cryo tanks, the color for the gold foil is a much duller yellow. The texture also seems lower resolution or maybe just scaled larger. The Octo-Girder ones looks real nice when you put them side by side. Don't suppose the Cryo tanks could be made to be textured and colored similar to the Octo-Girder?

You can say no. I like the white models a lot.

 

On 7/11/2017 at 6:11 PM, AmpCat said:

I love the isohedral look by the way. The foil....... well, that yellow color makes me think it's full of pee. Doesn't seem gold enough.  

Totally agree. The foil tanks where the only thing in all of Nertea's mods that I disliked (and I use all of them ). After some testing and reading a little about textures, I edited the color to and the normal maps, I think they look much better now. With photoshop is easy to choose the color and the size of the crumpled effect.

The upper one is a original tank, the bottom a edited one:



What do you guys think? Depending of what Nerteas think and the license of the mod, I can share the archives.

[Starwaster]

12 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

What do you guys think? Depending of what Nerteas think and the license of the mod, I can share the archives.

Oh I don't think so. That top tank would have me WAY too worried that I would get a visit from The Eyehole Man....

Edited March 22, 2018 by Starwaster

[MaximumThrust]

1 hour ago, Starwaster said:

Oh I don't think so. That top tank would have me WAY too worried that I would get a visit from The Eyehole Man....

I didn't understand if you liked or not  The top tank is using the original textures included the mod (which I and other users didn't like). The one in the bottom is the one I edited.

[Starwaster]

1 hour ago, MaximumThrust said:

I didn't understand if you liked or not  The top tank is using the original textures included the mod (which I and other users didn't like). The one in the bottom is the one I edited.

Don't worry about it, I was just trying to be humorous about the rounder one reminding me of the eyehole commercial from Rick and Morty. (if you haven't seen it, look it up on youtube)

[Nertea]

15 hours ago, MaximumThrust said:

 

Totally agree. The foil tanks where the only thing in all of Nertea's mods that I disliked (and I use all of them ). After some testing and reading a little about textures, I edited the color to and the normal maps, I think they look much better now. With photoshop is easy to choose the color and the size of the crumpled effect.

The upper one is a original tank, the bottom a edited one:



What do you guys think? Depending of what Nerteas think and the license of the mod, I can share the archives.

I don't like either tbh.

[AmpCat]

On 3/22/2018 at 1:22 PM, Nertea said:

I don't like either tbh.

 

 Like Your white tanks better.