[1.12.x] Near Future Technologies (September 6)

[Admiral Yu]

I've noticed quite a few things in the parts list are missing. They are in the game, because I have older craft that have these parts and they work just fine, (one being my favorite "Kite" engine...) they just can't be found in the list.  Am I correct in assuming that these parts were removed in favor of other things, but kept in the files so old craft don't break? If that's the case, I'm not sure I see the point. Just, put them in their own tab of depreciated parts.

[lemon cup]

1 hour ago, Admiral Yu said:

I've noticed quite a few things in the parts list are missing. They are in the game, because I have older craft that have these parts and they work just fine, (one being my favorite "Kite" engine...) they just can't be found in the list.  Am I correct in assuming that these parts were removed in favor of other things, but kept in the files so old craft don't break? If that's the case, I'm not sure I see the point. Just, put them in their own tab of depreciated parts.

You are correct. That is called "Soft Deprecated." You shouldn't use them because at some point, in the next update perhaps, they will be permanently removed ("Hard Deprecated").

Old NFLV parts were soft deprecated almost exactly 1 year ago, so you must have just recently updated the mod.

You have a couple options if you would still like to use those parts:
(1) Go into the folder titled "Legacy" inside the NearFutureLaunchVehicles folder, and delete the file "LegacyPartHider.cfg" This will unhide all of the old parts, but that is kind of sub-optimal because now you will have duplicates of basically everything.

(If it's just the engines you want, you could delete all of the folders inside Legacy besides "Engine" BUT BE VERY CAREFUL - manually deleting parts will break craft that use them.)

(2) Try CryoEngines! Nertea basically removed the old engines from NFLV, totally revamped them, and added them to CryoEngines where they comprise a very comprehensive lineup of engines that burn Liquid Methane and Liquid Hydrogen. (The Eaglet, Kite, Osprey, and Buzzard now go by the names Hawk, Deinonychus, Eagle, and Iguanodon respectively)

[Sahadara]

What kind of maximum range can be achieved with the antennae available in NFE? Would it, say, work for interstellar distances the likes of which I'd use FFT to travel?

[Jcking]

7 minutes ago, Sahadara said:

What kind of maximum range can be achieved with the antennae available in NFE? Would it, say, work for interstellar distances the likes of which I'd use FFT to travel?

The best antenna are incapable of reaching interstellar destinations directly, same for the engines in FFT which are impractical for travel to interstellar destinations in a reasonable time (less than 100 years).

[king of nowhere]

A question on near future electrics: there are two nuclear reactors that produce 2000 E/s: the MX-2S Prometheus and the MX-3S FLAT. Of those, the FLAT is listed with the lower weight, but once you remove the fuel, the Prometheus is actually a bit lighter.

They produce the same amount of energy, consuming the same amount of uranium, generating the same amount of xenon as byproduct. Is there any specific reason to not pick always the lighter prometheus, except perhaps shape?

also, the FLAT is described in very enthusiastic tones, even though it looks objectively worse than the prometheus

Edited May 3, 2021 by king of nowhere

[modus]

For me it's just a matter of shape, sometimes the flat fits better, sometimes the promotheus.

[Nertea]

18 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

A question on near future electrics: there are two nuclear reactors that produce 2000 E/s: the MX-2S Prometheus and the MX-3S FLAT. Of those, the FLAT is listed with the lower weight, but once you remove the fuel, the Prometheus is actually a bit lighter.

They produce the same amount of energy, consuming the same amount of uranium, generating the same amount of xenon as byproduct. Is there any specific reason to not pick always the lighter prometheus, except perhaps shape?

also, the FLAT is described in very enthusiastic tones, even though it looks objectively worse than the prometheus

I see you are saying 'generates xenon byproduct' which is not a feature of my reactors. I have to assume that you are using something that affects the reactors, which means all bets are off. Might be KSPI or Kerbalism.

In terms of actual NFE balance, here are the relevant comparisons:

• Thermal Efficiency: 36% vs 40% -> FLAT needs less radiators
• Normalized Fuel Life: 7.61 vs 8.52  -> FLAT lasts longer, even considering higher starting fuel
• Fuel Efficiency: 330 kj/micro unit U vs 370 kj/micro unit U -> FLAT generate more power per unit of fuel
• Unfuelled mass: identical (note that this does not account for fuel dry mass, and the FLAT has slightly more fuel so will weigh ~0.2t more). 
• Unfuelled cost: identical, but same note for dry mass applies

 

[king of nowhere]

28 minutes ago, Nertea said:

I see you are saying 'generates xenon byproduct' which is not a feature of my reactors. I have to assume that you are using something that affects the reactors, which means all bets are off. Might be KSPI or Kerbalism.

In terms of actual NFE balance, here are the relevant comparisons:

• Thermal Efficiency: 36% vs 40% -> FLAT needs less radiators
• Normalized Fuel Life: 7.61 vs 8.52  -> FLAT lasts longer, even considering higher starting fuel
• Fuel Efficiency: 330 kj/micro unit U vs 370 kj/micro unit U -> FLAT generate more power per unit of fuel
• Unfuelled mass: identical (note that this does not account for fuel dry mass, and the FLAT has slightly more fuel so will weigh ~0.2t more). 
• Unfuelled cost: identical, but same note for dry mass applies

 

yes, i have kerbalism. Wasn't aware that modified the reactor so profundly. adding radiation spread around and adding a chance for malfunction adapts the part to kerbalism. I had no idea why all the other stats were modified too.

at this point the question becomes irrelevant. i just accept that under this tampering. with my specific mod combination prometheus is better, and i will use it

Edited May 4, 2021 by king of nowhere

[dlrk]

The NFE probes don't seem to show up, at least not under pods, unless I search for them specifically or search for "probes". Are these deprecated or is something else going on?

[michael7000]

I had a question about the "Near Future Launch Vehicles" mod. The huge NR and EA rockets don't seem to have any engines designed for them.  For example, the Kerbodyne rockets have the Rhino engine. I do see the engine mounts that allow for a lot of smaller engines, but these give very little thrust and are useless when trying to escape an atmosphere. How am I supposed to use these rocket sizes?

[Nertea]

On 5/9/2021 at 3:04 PM, dlrk said:

The NFE probes don't seem to show up, at least not under pods, unless I search for them specifically or search for "probes". Are these deprecated or is something else going on?

They seem fine to me (I assume you're meaning NF Exploration by NFE). Do you have a recategorization mod or something? 

8 minutes ago, michael7000 said:

I had a question about the "Near Future Launch Vehicles" mod. The huge NR and EA rockets don't seem to have any engines designed for them.  For example, the Kerbodyne rockets have the Rhino engine. I do see the engine mounts that allow for a lot of smaller engines, but these give very little thrust and are useless when trying to escape an atmosphere. How am I supposed to use these rocket sizes?

Use clustered smaller engines. Stock engines work  just fine (use multiple rhinos, vectors, mainsails, etc). NFLV comes with many engines that do  the job very well. So does Cryo Engines. 

[michael7000]

9 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Use clustered smaller engines. Stock engines work  just fine (use multiple rhinos, vectors, mainsails, etc). NFLV comes with many engines that do  the job very well. So does Cryo Engines.

The bigger engines  clip, is that an issue or can I just ignore it? Also thanks for making these mods, having a lot of fun with them.

[lemon cup]

9 hours ago, michael7000 said:

The bigger engines  clip, is that an issue or can I just ignore it? Also thanks for making these mods, having a lot of fun with them.

Nah engine clipping doesn't matter. If it's the engine bases that are clipping, most engines have selectable variants that have options for "compact" or "low profile" bases, though it's just a visual thing. If it's the engine nozzles that clip, well that is just visual too, but if you choose the right engines you should have plenty of thrust without having to clip them like that...

Like Nertea mentioned CryoEngines also works really well with this mod too. For instance this "NR" series 5m rocket uses huge Liquid Hydrogen tanks, 4 modified "Vectors" on the bottom, and two big boosters to get off the ground.

 

[SiCaRiO31]

On 5/4/2021 at 7:28 PM, king of nowhere said:

yes, i have kerbalism. Wasn't aware that modified the reactor so profundly. adding radiation spread around and adding a chance for malfunction adapts the part to kerbalism. I had no idea why all the other stats were modified too.

at this point the question becomes irrelevant. i just accept that under this tampering. with my specific mod combination prometheus is better, and i will use it

I believe kerbalism doesnt change the rest of the parameters, this is what I could find in GameData\KerbalismConfig\Support\NFElectric

@PART[reactor-25]:NEEDS[NearFutureElectrical,ProfileDefault]:AFTER[NearFutureElectrical]
{
	@MODULE[ProcessController]:HAS[#title[Fission?reactor]]{@capacity *= 200.0}  // 2000 EC

@PART[reactor-375]:NEEDS[NearFutureElectrical,ProfileDefault]:AFTER[NearFutureElectrical]
{
	@MODULE[ProcessController]:HAS[#title[Fission?reactor]]{@capacity *= 200.0}  // 2000 EC

However, there is also code to remove some modules from the reactors? now sure if this may cause the similarities between the 2 reactors.

// ============================================================================
// Add Nuclear reactor process's to all NearFutureElectrical Nuclear reactors and remove modules
// ============================================================================

@PART[reactor-*]:NEEDS[NearFutureElectrical,ProfileDefault]:AFTER[NearFutureElectrical]
{
	!MODULE[FissionGenerator],* {}
	!MODULE[FissionReactor],* {}
	!MODULE[ModuleCoreHeatNoCatchup],* {}
	!MODULE[ModuleUpdateOverride],* {}

EDIT: ah! found the answer in the Kerbalism Mod support page:

Near Future Electrical 1.0.0 Limited support Nuclear reactors are replaced with very OP Kerbalism processes : no heat management / no fuel transfer restrictions.

Edited May 11, 2021 by SiCaRiO31

[KawaiiLucy]

I don't know if this has already been proposed or ruled out before, but since there has been the addition of liquid methane to cryoengines, would it be possible to make the fuel tanks provided by Near Future Exploration also contain croygenic fuels?

[Spaceman.Spiff]

5 hours ago, KawaiiLucy said:

I don't know if this has already been proposed or ruled out before, but since there has been the addition of liquid methane to cryoengines, would it be possible to make the fuel tanks provided by Near Future Exploration also contain croygenic fuels?

CH4 is already in CryoEngines. 
A methalox expansion came out a few months ago. 

[leopardenthusiast]

Hi, I think something's wrong with the Waterfall configs for three of the engines in Near Future Propulsion - they don't even show an FX module in the Waterfall editor for me.  I tried looking in the patches, but nothing obvious stuck out.  Looks basically the same to me as the working configs.

The affected engines are the GW7201 'Gyro-2' Lensed Hall Thruster, the GW3 'Triplet' Nested-Channel Hall Thruster, and the LF-9 'Colossus' Magnetoplasmadynamic Engine.  Every other engine appears to be fine, including RCS.

I was able to reproduce this on a fresh install with Near Future Propulsion 1.3.3, ModuleManager 4.1.4, Community Resource Pack 1.4.2, B9 Part Switch 2.18.0, and Waterfall Core 0.6.3 installed from CKAN, so I do not believe this to be a conflict with another mod.

[KawaiiLucy]

6 hours ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

CH4 is already in CryoEngines. 
A methalox expansion came out a few months ago. 

Yes I know, but I meant to add CH4 to the small radial tanks of NFEx.

[Nertea]

10 hours ago, leopardenthusiast said:

Hi, I think something's wrong with the Waterfall configs for three of the engines in Near Future Propulsion - they don't even show an FX module in the Waterfall editor for me.  I tried looking in the patches, but nothing obvious stuck out.  Looks basically the same to me as the working configs.

The affected engines are the GW7201 'Gyro-2' Lensed Hall Thruster, the GW3 'Triplet' Nested-Channel Hall Thruster, and the LF-9 'Colossus' Magnetoplasmadynamic Engine.  Every other engine appears to be fine, including RCS.

I was able to reproduce this on a fresh install with Near Future Propulsion 1.3.3, ModuleManager 4.1.4, Community Resource Pack 1.4.2, B9 Part Switch 2.18.0, and Waterfall Core 0.6.3 installed from CKAN, so I do not believe this to be a conflict with another mod.

Please raise an issue on Github, I am working on other things and not sure when I will get a chance to look at it. 

20 hours ago, KawaiiLucy said:

I don't know if this has already been proposed or ruled out before, but since there has been the addition of liquid methane to cryoengines, would it be possible to make the fuel tanks provided by Near Future Exploration also contain croygenic fuels?

Please raise an issue on Github, this is a good idea, I am working on other things and not sure when I will get a chance to look at it. 

[Apollo235]

Is there a bundled download? or will it still work if I put them all into a sub-folder in game data?
i.e.

Game Data > Near Future Technologies > Near Future Propulsion
                                                                                             Near Future Structural
                                                                                             NF Electric 
                                                                                             Etc.

[B-STRK]

7 hours ago, Apollo235 said:

Is there a bundled download? or will it still work if I put them all into a sub-folder in game data?
i.e.

Game Data > Near Future Technologies > Near Future Propulsion
                                                                                             Near Future Structural
                                                                                             NF Electric 
                                                                                             Etc.

Best not to edit the file structure you find in the download. It’s gonna mess things up. The mod needs to know where things are, and that means keeping the structure you find in the download. 

exception: any ModuleManager patches you make or download can be placed anywhere in GameData, unless instructed otherwise.

Edited May 15, 2021 by B-STRK

[flart]

Discharging capacitors, when there is no EC and no probe control is a bug or a feature? 

[somnambulist]

13 hours ago, B-STRK said:

Best not to edit the file structure you find in the download. It’s gonna mess things up. The mod needs to know where things are, and that means keeping the structure you find in the download.

To expand on this a bit, most KSP mods specify the path to their model and textures in the part's cfg file. If you moved the Near Future mods into a single subfolder, or even just rename the mod folder, the game will not be be able to find the model and textures and will not load the part.

[StardustFR]

I'm in career mode with all NFT mods installed (plus cryo engines, etc and Interstellar Extended), for some reason the stock tanks don't have a Hydrolox or any options with LH2 for that matter. When I checked sandbox it's fine, the issue is only for career mode. 

[Nertea]

8 hours ago, StardustFR said:

I'm in career mode with all NFT mods installed (plus cryo engines, etc and Interstellar Extended), for some reason the stock tanks don't have a Hydrolox or any options with LH2 for that matter. When I checked sandbox it's fine, the issue is only for career mode. 

KSPI will control all your switches at the point, best ask there.