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

[Gordon Dry]

On 8/27/2021 at 5:22 PM, limelier said:

that the hitbox of the pod might stretch out slightly further than that of the appropriately-sized heatshield

This is even worse with the Mk1-25B 'Pandora' Advanced Command Pod as its diameter is a huge lot more than the "fitting" heatshield.
See https://github.com/post-kerbin-mining-corporation/NearFutureSpacecraft/issues/163

 

Edit:

Just give it a try - replace
GameData\NearFutureSpacecraft\Patches\NFSpacecraftJNSQ.cfg with blank place holder (or delete it)

// well, just use NFSpacecraftKopernicus.cfg

and add GameData\NearFutureSpacecraft\Patches\NFSpacecraftKopernicus.cfg

@PART[command-375-biconic-1,command-mk4-1]:NEEDS[Kopernicus]:FOR[NearFutureSpacecraft]
{
	@description ^= :^:<color=green>Recommended for reentry, got ablator.</color> :

	@MODULE[ModuleAblator]
	{
		@pyrolysisLossFactor = 10000
	}

	@RESOURCE[Ablator]
	{
		@amount = 250
		@maxAmount = 500
	} 
}

@PART[command-125-1,command-25-1]:NEEDS[Kopernicus]:FOR[NearFutureSpacecraft]
{
	@description ^= :^:<color=yellow>Not recommended for long or harsh reentry, but got ablator.</color> :
	
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAblator
		ablativeResource = Ablator
		lossExp = -7500
		lossConst = 0.2
		pyrolysisLossFactor = 6000
		reentryConductivity = 0.01
		ablationTempThresh = 500
		useChar = False
	}

	RESOURCE
	{
		name = Ablator
		amount = 125
		maxAmount = 250
	}
}

@PART[command-125-orbit-1,command-mk3-9,command-ppd-1,utility-pod-25]:NEEDS[Kopernicus]:FOR[NearFutureSpacecraft]
{
	@description ^= :^:<color=orange>Not recommended for reentry at all.</color> :
}

@PART[command-125-landing-1,command-25-landing-1]:NEEDS[Kopernicus]:FOR[NearFutureSpacecraft]
{
	@description ^= :^:<color=green>Recommended for reentry, got ablator.</color> :

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAblator
		ablativeResource = Ablator
		lossExp = -7500
		lossConst = 0.2
		pyrolysisLossFactor = 10000
		reentryConductivity = 0.01
		ablationTempThresh = 500
		useChar = False
	}

	RESOURCE
	{
		name = Ablator
		amount = 250
		maxAmount = 500
	}
}

@PART[command-125-1,command-25-1,command-125-landing-1,command-25-landing-1,command-375-biconic-1,command-mk4-1]:NEEDS[Kopernicus]:FOR[NearFutureSpacecraft]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleAblator]
	{
		@pyrolysisLossFactor *= #$/mass$
		@pyrolysisLossFactor ^= :\.\d+::
	}

	@RESOURCE[Ablator]
	{
		@amount *= #$/mass$
		@amount ^= :\.\d+::
		@maxAmount *= #$/mass$
		@maxAmount ^= :\.\d+::
	}
}

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by Gordon Dry
updated the patch ('cyan' does not exist)

[Thatguywholikesionengines]

How do I enable the extras in the latest release, to make the RD-701/704 engines run on triprop? That or, cryogenic fuels in general, I can't seem to find an appropriate patch for the engines. Is it automatic now? I love my cryogenics, so having more awesome engines to boost em with would be great.

[Calvin Kerman]

1 hour ago, Thatguywholikesionengines said:

How do I enable the extras in the latest release, to make the RD-701/704 engines run on triprop? That or, cryogenic fuels in general, I can't seem to find an appropriate patch for the engines. Is it automatic now? I love my cryogenics, so having more awesome engines to boost em with would be great.

Do you have Nertea's Cryo Engines mod? I think the NFLV engines are patched when that is detected. Don't think there are any triprop engines though.

[Davi SDF]

On 12/14/2021 at 11:36 PM, Calvin Kerman said:

Do you have Nertea's Cryo Engines mod? I think the NFLV engines are patched when that is detected. Don't think there are any triprop engines though.

There are two engines in NFLV that are based on real triprop engines, and they actually become triprop with the Cryo Engines patch.

[Gr@y]

@Nertea, I've found a bug in Near Future Aeronautics Eeloo nuke engine. Its' center of mass is outside

Also, we can see 4 inline air intakes on the mesh, but there are no intakes in the part properties. I've tried to fix it, but only has broken the part.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Gr@y

[rockettime03]

The TR-107 engine in NFLV has no audio.

[eeemil]

When my base attached to a Stamp-o-Tron ground anchor loads (either by timewarping, or loading a quicksave, or approaching from a distance), my Excalibur fission reactor momentarily reaches insane core temperatures and overheats. The temperature is a big number for approximately one frame (took me many atempts of timewarping and pausing when exiting the timewarp in order to get a screenshot) and instantly returns to whatever the temperature was before the time warp.

This happens even if the reactor is turned off and cool (apprx. 400 kelvin). If I detach my docking port from the Stamp-o-tron, the reactor works as fine.

I've temporarily "fixed" the issue by adjusting reactor-25-2.cfg to allow insane temperatures, essentially making it impossible to overheat.

[SciMan]

@eeemil This issue should also be fixed by installing SystemHeat along with all the MM patches (in SystemHeat's "extras" folder) that convert all of the things in the game that use the stock heat system (well, stock things and Nertea's things anyways) to use the SystemHeat system instead.

I did that because I really hate the bugs in the stock heat system (sometimes your radiators get stuck at like 2000k for no good reason if in high time warp), and this fixes that quite nicely. Plus it gives you a bunch more radiator parts to use, which is always a good thing.

[JadeOfMaar]

On 12/19/2021 at 4:19 PM, Gr@y said:

Also, we can see 4 inline air intakes on the mesh, but there are no intakes in the part properties. I've tried to fix it, but only has broken the part.

The implied intake there may have no business with combustion (those inlets have no distance ahead of the core that they can lead into the core and be useful for combustion), or the intake value may be too low to be useful by itself. If anything, the intake feature there is concerned with either exhaust compression (which helps with thrust) or passive cooling.

[Axelord FTW]

@eeemil, I second @SciMan's motion.

Stock heat system is not outright borked, but it might as well be marked as on the insurance papers. Nertea's mods are oft considered a 'suite' because they work best when paired altogether. SystemHeat will take care of all stock issues with the heat system, including wanton spikes and runaway heat creep (a whole ship turning white-hot is kinda pretty, but  kind of a bummer). I've had whole careers scrapped by the stock heat system, and I absolutely recommend you find alternatives, and by alternatives I mean SystemHeat. Takes a little while to learn, as you're now effectively required to keep some heat loops separate, but it's by no mean hard to get down.

[field_of_gazorpa]

Complete noob here. I am trying to add an additional curved solar panel to the NFS solar parts pack, namely one with 5m radius (there are only 2.5 and 3.75 m parts). This should not be that hard, even for somebody not knowing what they do (like me).

I have added a new config file that I have edited to fit my desired part but I'm still missing the matching .mu file and probably some other stuff that is not so trivial. 

Can anybody maybe give me some hints?

[SciMan]

@field_of_gazorpa

I've been tinkering with configs to make my own parts (that I don't publish) for a very long time now. I think I started when KSP was at version 0.15 or something, so back before it was even on Steam.

You shouldn't really need a new model or textures or anything of that sort for something so simple as "I want this or that part, but bigger or smaller".
There's a line in the config file specifically for doing this, actually ( "RescaleFactor = [some number]" without quotes, where for Nertea's parts the number is just "1").

Since I don't know which curved solar panel you based your part config on, I'll give you numbers for re-scaling both the 2.5m and 3.75m curved solar panels to fit a 5m diameter cylinder.

If you based your new 5m curved solar panel part's config on the 2.5m diameter curved solar panel's config, you should leave the model and texture definition stuff alone, and simply set "RescaleFactor" equal to 2 to get the part to be the size you want it. That's it, the part should show up the right size in-game. Of course, you'll need to adjust the other stats of the part to suit its new larger size, but you said you already took care of that.

If you instead based your new solar panel's config on the 3.75m diameter curved solar panel, you should set "RescaleFactor" equal to  1.33333333 because 3.75m times 1.33333333 is 5 (or close enough to not worry about it).

When setting RescaleFactor, the important thing to figure out is how much bigger (or smaller!) the new part is compared to the original model. If the original part's "RescaleFactor" is not set to exactly 1, you will need to do a bit of proportional algebra to figure out what to set the new part's RescaleFactor to. However, if you have a calculator this should not be a problem.

[field_of_gazorpa]

@SciMan

Thanks mate! That worked out for me and is also totally useful for tinkering with other parts where tweakscale doesn't work.

I will now try to edit the curved solar panel to function as a radial heatshield for reentry with larger rockets starship/shuttle style.

[eeemil]

Thank you both @SciMan @Axelord FTW! I thought I was already using System Heat and just didn't know how to use it properly, but adding the patches indeed fixed the issue with crazy heat spikes. I wonder why the heat spike appeared when using the ground attachment though, but I like the system heat mechanics much more so I'm not going to investigate that  Now I have new issues with crafts in my save file using System Heat-engines but KSPI-E radiators though, but I've managed to circumvent them for now with savefile-modifying and adding reasonable SystemHeat parameters manually.

Edited December 31, 2021 by eeemil
Added @mentions

[Nertea]

On 12/31/2021 at 12:25 PM, eeemil said:

Thank you both @SciMan @Axelord FTW! I thought I was already using System Heat and just didn't know how to use it properly, but adding the patches indeed fixed the issue with crazy heat spikes. I wonder why the heat spike appeared when using the ground attachment though, but I like the system heat mechanics much more so I'm not going to investigate that  Now I have new issues with crafts in my save file using System Heat-engines but KSPI-E radiators though, but I've managed to circumvent them for now with savefile-modifying and adding reasonable SystemHeat parameters manually.

It may be some general weird issue with the ground anchors. Every time squad added a new mechanism I had to spend ages retuning the thermal system so it wouldn't go screw itself, I haven't done that with those parts (and I don't intend to which is why I wrote SH)

[eeemil]

20 hours ago, Nertea said:

It may be some general weird issue with the ground anchors. Every time squad added a new mechanism I had to spend ages retuning the thermal system so it wouldn't go screw itself, I haven't done that with those parts (and I don't intend to which is why I wrote SH)

Yeah I can imagine. Anyway, I appreciate your mods very much, thank you!

[Starseeker]

On 12/19/2021 at 12:19 PM, Gr@y said:

@Nertea, I've found a bug in Near Future Aeronautics Eeloo nuke engine. Its' center of mass is outside

Also, we can see 4 inline air intakes on the mesh, but there are no intakes in the part properties. I've tried to fix it, but only has broken the part.

I think the CoM's location might be intentional; the stock jet engines' CoMs are forward of their visual volume IIRC, to simulate the "buried" engine they are only a nozzle of, and I suspect Nertea is doing the same (for consistency's sake, if nothing else).

[baldamundo]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I can't find a thread for Kerbal Actuators by @Angel-125. I've had it auto-installed by CKAN as a dependency for Near Future Aeronautics, and it adds a button to the toolbar which looks like some kind of VTOL controls/auto-pilot, but I'm not clear on what it does. Is there any documentation for it? I've googled a bit but can't find anything.

[darthgently]

49 minutes ago, baldamundo said:

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I can't find a thread for Kerbal Actuators by @Angel-125. I've had it auto-installed by CKAN as a dependency for Near Future Aeronautics, and it adds a button to the toolbar which looks like some kind of VTOL controls/auto-pilot, but I'm not clear on what it does. Is there any documentation for it? I've googled a bit but can't find anything.

Try this link, topics in the sidebar on the right.

https://github.com/Angel-125/KerbalActuators/wiki
bug reports:

https://github.com/Angel-125/KerbalActuators/issues

Edited January 6, 2022 by darthgently

[rockettime03]

Saturn C-3 made with NFLV tanks and BDB engines (3rd stage and Apollo are also from BDB)

[Yark-aki]

Hallo I'm Yark-aki. I tried translate "Near Future Spacecraft" mod into Japanese and most of it is finished. But, there's a text which is too difficult for me to translate.

This is it: Place several of them, well, and the world is your unidentified mollusk.

It's in RX-1 Linear RCS Thruster's description. I asked some Japanese players to help me but they also couldn't. What does it mean? Please it explain to me.

[Space_Coyote]

I'm curious on why NF Construction hasn't been updated for 1.12.3. I was thinking the issue here is the fact that they had that bug dealing with Docking ports and the "Drift" they had in 1.12.1 and 1.12.2. But I'm just curious as to why this one has not been updated. Just asking.

 

Space_Coyote

Edited January 9, 2022 by Space_Coyote

[Wyzard]

11 hours ago, Yark-aki said:

Hallo I'm Yark-aki. I tried translate "Near Future Spacecraft" mod into Japanese and most of it is finished. But, there's a text which is too difficult for me to translate.

This is it: Place several of them, well, and the world is your unidentified mollusk.

It's in RX-1 Linear RCS Thruster's description. I asked some Japanese players to help me but they also couldn't. What does it mean? Please it explain to me.

It's a reference to the phrase "the world is your oyster", which is an idiom that means "you can do anything you want".

In this context, the sentence is saying that by placing the thrusters carefully in different locations on different axes, your spacecraft can have freedom of movement and rotation in all directions.  (This sounds to me like a hint that you shouldn't just place them in symmetry around a cylinder like you'd do with many other RCS thruster parts.)

Edited January 9, 2022 by Wyzard

[Yark-aki]

1 hour ago, Wyzard said:

It's a reference to the phrase "the world is your oyster", which is an idiom that means "you can do anything you want".

In this context, the sentence is saying that by placing the thrusters carefully in different locations on different axes, your spacecraft can have freedom of movement and rotation in all directions.  (This sounds to me like a hint that you shouldn't just place them in symmetry around a cylinder like you'd do with many other RCS thruster parts.)

Thanks so much! I understad that's an "Kerbalized" phrase,so I'll try to transrate it not to lose "Kerbalized" atmosphere.

[shimmy00]

I'm curious about something, though I'm not sure if this has been already asked before but I did run some searches and note others have had other problems regarding heat, just not necessarily these particular ones. I just installed the full set with what I call the "full Nertea pack" - both NFT and FFT together with ReStock on a new KSP install, for version 1.12.3, as I wanted to try something different from what I'd been using previously for interstellar craft which was KSP Interstellar Extended and because this one's artwork was more thematically congruent, and I've right away run into some problems involving reactors and heat of which some I think may be bugs but others I'm also not sure if there's just something I don't understand about how to use these mods.

First off, simply installing NFT, FFT, and ReStock together at their latest versions, onto my fresh install, I tried to build a craft with a reactor. Given my experience using KSP IE, I understood that you have to attach radiators and, I noted that this mod provides radiators, sensibly, and thought ok, I'll slap a pair of the big ones on and hope it works. Then when I launched the craft, I was surprised to discover that upon activating the reactor, even with both sets of radiator panels fully extended (fwiw these are the "Thermal Control System (Large)" panels, and it's a "MX-25 'Prometheus' Fission Reactor"), it overheated! Clicking on the radiator panels showed they were only extracting like "-2 kW" even though they were big panels, and temperature of the radiator loop was stuck at "3 K" all the while while the core was burning up. Clearly that sounded like a bug, so I started searching and digging and heard earlier here in this thread some mentions regarding something called "SystemHeat" and "patches" and wasn't sure what those were referring to, though I noticed that this mod seemed to use something called "System Heat" with a selection of "heat loops". Had tried cycling through them all, to no avail, and I put it away for the day.

Today, I came back to it, and fired it up again, and this time I google searched (apparently, the search feature here wasn't sensitive enough to that "System Heat" was spelled "SystemHeat" in the mod title) and found that there was actually a mod called exactly this that then seems like it needed installing. I put it on just now, and I note the reactor also gained a loop assignment, and at last the radiators seem to absorb heat. However, then I noticed a few things:

1. Even with two of the gigantic "Thermal Control System (Large)" panels, the reactor still eventually overheats, just much more slowly (it slowly gets up to 1300 K, then emergency shutdowns). Does it really require more than that when it comes to cooling capacity? Not knocking this if this is intentional behavior, but I've come off KSP IE, where seeing glowing blazing hot radiator panels was pretty common and yet here it seems that this one is much more demanding. Not that that is necessarily bad; maybe this is more realistic. The "Prometheus" reactor is claimed to generate 3500 kW of waste heat, though on startup with little power draw it is asserted in-flight to be generating ~541 kW. Given this latter number, the radiator panels are said to have a "Max Cooling" of "85 077 kW" each, so two of them seems like it should be more than sufficient ... HOWEVER, they also have a number now "Core Heat xFer: 1000 kW", which suggests that while they have a max radiating power they also cannot absorb heat at that rate. Am I right in interpreting this that way? That would seem to partially explain what's up with the reactors, but still at 541 kW registered as being generated by the core, two of those radiator panels should still be more than sufficient to fully dissipate that. Is the behavior I'm seeing here 100% how this is supposed to work or is something still glitchy somewhere? As I said, I just don't "have a feel".
2. This may not be a big problem but visuals I note are kind of off here, at least for with now that the "System Heat" package has been installed and that's that the thermal glow seems either absent or too dim. When the radiator hit that 1300 K or higher mark, I'd expect a visible bright orange-yellow glow, as I know that hot metal at that temperature (that's like molten copper) gives off. Yet here there's like hardly much glow at all. Even in earlier tests where I had smaller radiators that got even hotter as I was trying to figure out the best size to use, they got to 1700 K and there still was little glow, even though that's almost the melting point of iron (1811 K).
3. Finally, there is what I'm quite sure is definitely a bug: after having run a test flight with a reactor and returning to the VAB by reverting, I discover that right clicking on the panels while in the VAB shows the "Loop Temperature" to be rising stupendously fast and seemingly without limit - yes in the VAB - I've had it idling in the background right now and now it's passed 13 000 000 K! what?!

That said, one thing I note here is that it seems a lot of the various sub-mods in these different packages - remember I installed all three (which became four after SystemHeat was installed), and at the latest versions, are or may be of different versions given their modified dates. Does this mean there are incompatibilities when combining all three/four mods? How do you combine them "safely", if that is the case?