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

[Bit Fiddler]

does the near future reactor plugin auto throttle reactors to only produce what the craft needs?  I mean if I set my reactor to 100% but I have solar panels producing enough power to power the craft in the sunlight will it throttle them back to 0% to conserve on fuel and heat?   then when the craft enters the dark side,will it throttle up the reactor to what ever level is necessary to keep the ship at full power?

[Kerbital]

Few things I'd ask for in future (near future?) updates:

- resizable trusses and associated adapters
- battery-only octo-truss instead of, or in addition to, mission support truss
- patch file for cryo engines to tweak their thrust and ISP the way you did it for Near Future Propulsion

Thanks! Love your mods:)

 

[Streetwind]

On 20.5.2017 at 9:31 PM, DStaal said:

A quick check to see if anyone else is seeing this behavior

I can't comment on this because I haven't used newer versions of NF Construction yet, sorry.

 

23 hours ago, Bit Fiddler said:

does the near future reactor plugin auto throttle reactors to only produce what the craft needs?  I mean if I set my reactor to 100% but I have solar panels producing enough power to power the craft in the sunlight will it throttle them back to 0% to conserve on fuel and heat?   then when the craft enters the dark side,will it throttle up the reactor to what ever level is necessary to keep the ship at full power?

No, they do not auto-throttle. They require manual control, which is why the Reactor Control Panel exists.

However, said control panel does offer a setting for an auto-shutdown under time warp.

 

11 hours ago, Kerbital said:

- patch file for cryo engines to tweak their thrust and ISP the way you did it for Near Future Propulsion

That's more a request to be made in the CryoEngines thread, no?

I wrote that patch mainly because it's tricky to get right with electric engines, due to the way you need to modify propellant ratios, and the two custom engine behavior plugins in NF Propulsion that override some config values. But tweaking the values on standard chemical engines is much easier. You could probably pull it off yourself without too much difficulty. Maybe if there's a lull in my workday, I could whip something up, but no guarantees on that happening.

 

Edited May 22, 2017 by Streetwind

[Rayder]

22 hours ago, Bit Fiddler said:

does the near future reactor plugin auto throttle reactors to only produce what the craft needs?  I mean if I set my reactor to 100% but I have solar panels producing enough power to power the craft in the sunlight will it throttle them back to 0% to conserve on fuel and heat?   then when the craft enters the dark side,will it throttle up the reactor to what ever level is necessary to keep the ship at full power?

As far as I know there is no auto-throttle feature built in. Your best bet is to fiddle with the power settings to give you just enough power, so that as you're just about to run out the sun will rise and you will recharge.

[Bit Fiddler]

5 hours ago, Streetwind said:

No, they do not auto-throttle. They require manual control, which is why the Reactor Control Panel exists.

However, said control panel does offer a setting for an auto-shutdown under time warp.

 

is this intentional or is there a possibility of getting this added in?  as it is I am constantly fiddling with my reactors as I orbit to ensure that I am not burning any more fuel than is needed.  even if this was another part or an "upgrade" bit to the reactors to give them a "reactor control computer"  that would be great.  maybe have several levels of upgrade to give more or better types of reactor automation.  but really just the ability to get them to throttle up and down to maintain stable power would be great.

[DStaal]

16 minutes ago, Bit Fiddler said:

is this intentional or is there a possibility of getting this added in?  as it is I am constantly fiddling with my reactors as I orbit to ensure that I am not burning any more fuel than is needed.  even if this was another part or an "upgrade" bit to the reactors to give them a "reactor control computer"  that would be great.  maybe have several levels of upgrade to give more or better types of reactor automation.  but really just the ability to get them to throttle up and down to maintain stable power would be great.

You might want to take a look at USI's reactors - they behave the way you want, providing only as much power as needed.  (If you have both them and NFE, you may want to remove the NFE compatibility patch to let them use their own mechanics.)

[Streetwind]

It's intentional in the sense that this is how they have always worked, ever since Nertea first created them. At no point were they ever automated, nor was it a topic of discussion. It's pretty much only since Squad released fuel cells with their semi-automatic throttling that people started asking "hey, why are the reactors not working like that?" The answer would probably be: because they're at least two years older

If you want auto-throttling reactors, though, have you considered USI Core? I don't think it's available as a standalone download, but you can probably extract it from a MKS download easily enough. They use the same stock module as the fuel cells IIRC, or at least one that acts the same way.

EDIT: Wow, sniped! *fistshakes at DStaal*

Edited May 22, 2017 by Streetwind

[Bit Fiddler]

I have USI installed, as well as Near future.  is this problematic?  do they not play well?   the reactor in question on this craft I am currently using is one from Near Future, however I have not tried the USI reactor like this to see if it will auto throttle.

[DStaal]

16 minutes ago, Bit Fiddler said:

I have USI installed, as well as Near future.  is this problematic?  do they not play well?   the reactor in question on this craft I am currently using is one from Near Future, however I have not tried the USI reactor like this to see if it will auto throttle.

They play perfectly fine together.  Near Future Electrical does contain a patch to switch USI reactors from their normal operation mode to working like NFE's reactors - but it can be removed without issue.  With the patch in place, the two sets of reactors operate the same.  Without it, they operate differently - which might be what you want.

[Bit Fiddler]

ah I see..  so maybe I am using a USI reactor it just has the NFE pach on it.   any way I am not too worried about which plugin it is using.   I will look into this more and see what I want to do?  maybe  use as is and do something like Kos to automate it if possible.  or maybe switch all NFE reactors over to USI plugin or what ever.  I will just have to look at it all and weigh the pros and cons for the 2 systems and see where I want to go.  thanks for all the info.

[Nertea]

Back from vacation!

On 5/17/2017 at 5:07 PM, ruiluth said:

I'd like to chime in about the balance of the MPDT. I really love them, both the concept of a high-thrust electric engine and the beautiful engine FX, but I just can't bring myself to use them. I built two test ships with something like a 17t payload to test them:

• My MPDT-powered ship, which used two of the largest MPD...Es and 3 FLAT reactors, had 10.7 km/s of dV, a TWR from 0.53-0.71, and costed 1.7M funds.
• My Kerbal Atomics ship, which used a Liberator and one of the 0.625m Stirling reactors to cool the LH2, had 10.5 km/s of dV, a TWR from 0.89-1.71, and costed 130K funds.

I realize that an CCGC NTR is a lot more futuristic than a big MPDT, but the difference here is extreme, especially considering that they occupy similar levels in the Community Tech Tree. I'm not sure what to suggest, but something seems wrong here so I thought I'd at least throw it out for consideration.

BTW, thanks so much @Nertea for making these mods, especially Station Parts Expansion. They're high on my list of mods I can't play without

Yeah, those cost numbers aren't very good. I'll make sure to look at them more correctly next version

On 5/17/2017 at 11:43 PM, captinjoehenry said:

One thing that would be nice would be an option to remove the scaffolding around the Hermes reactor.  I only ask as the reactor itself appears to be 2.5 meter diameter with just the scaffolding around it pushing its width to 3.75 meters.  It would make sense to be to have a compact version of that reactor without a top node option but only 2.5 meter diameter.

Nah, doesn't make sense. It's a 3.75m part for a reason. 

On 5/19/2017 at 2:47 PM, HereComesTheBoom said:

@Streetwind One more question, where does the .cfg file for the LFO conversion go? in the GameData Folder, Near Future SpaceCraft folder, The Parts Folder?

Update: I went in and changed the deprecated engines' .cfg files to be usable again. They show up in the VAB and in the R&D Center again. 

Be warned that the next version will not ship the files for these engines. If you un-deprecate them, you risk losing ships upon upgrading. 

On 5/20/2017 at 0:31 PM, DStaal said:

A quick check to see if anyone else is seeing this behavior - it's quite possible it's some mod interaction:

When I launch a ship with octo-girders in 'mission support' mode, the batteries start uncharged.  This normally isn't to noticeable to me - the launch clamps will charge your ship, as will the alternator on most engines, so they'll be moderately charged by the time you reach orbit (not to mention if you have solar panels or some other generation in place you'll be charging them that way) - but I recently l was building an extension on an LKO space station, and shipped up a *big* truss without much in the way of power generation (figuring the battery - intended to help the station last through the dark cycle -  would last the time needed to get to it without a recharge), and had to abandon it when my orbital manuvers took longer than anticipated.

(Related: The octo-core can't go into hibernation mode like most probe cores.  That could be a deliberate choice, or just not updating them for the latest mechanics.)

I do not recall seeing anything like this, seems weird because they are very standard subtypes. If they don't work I don't see how lfo/lh2o or any other dual 'fuel' things work

2 hours ago, Bit Fiddler said:

is this intentional or is there a possibility of getting this added in?  as it is I am constantly fiddling with my reactors as I orbit to ensure that I am not burning any more fuel than is needed.  even if this was another part or an "upgrade" bit to the reactors to give them a "reactor control computer"  that would be great.  maybe have several levels of upgrade to give more or better types of reactor automation.  but really just the ability to get them to throttle up and down to maintain stable power would be great.

It's been discussed before and really, if you fully automate the reactors, they become fairly boring. It's then just a large RTG that eventually runs out of fuel and happens to need some radiators. Adding a little bit of manual fiddling required if you want to perfectly optimize their power cycles helps with that. This is especially important considering that electric engine burns in KSP are compressed to minutes from months and therefore running the reactor is technically barely required for any time. Perfect automation would make it too easy to get 00-year life out of an 8 year core.

[DStaal]

3 minutes ago, Nertea said:

I do not recall seeing anything like this, seems weird because they are very standard subtypes. If they don't work I don't see how lfo/lh2o or any other dual 'fuel' things work

It's definitely something that's handling EC differently - it handles fuels just fine (that I've noticed...), even in the Mission Support mode it handles Monoprop.  It's just the EC it's missing.

Anyway - if no one else is seeing it I'll chalk it up to some mod interaction - and put on my 'track this down when I get some spare time' pile.    It's only really a problem for a very specific use-case, and even then I can work around it without much trouble.  (Just sit on the pad a while...)

[danfarnsy]

4 hours ago, DStaal said:

Anyway - if no one else is seeing it I'll chalk it up to some mod interaction

FWIW, I just checked my own mission-support octogirders (standard size rather than XL), and they were fully charged upon launch. I'm running too many mods, so it would be hard to check a "diff" in our lists.

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, danfarnsy said:

FWIW, I just checked my own mission-support octogirders (standard size rather than XL), and they were fully charged upon launch. I'm running too many mods, so it would be hard to check a "diff" in our lists.

Well, if you want to put up a list I'd be willing to take a look.  It'd at least give a starting point.  I will admit my testing so far has been with the XLs, mostly because that's what I was working with.

[Nertea]

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
I am currently working on the updates for KSP 1.3. They will include rebalances and possibly some craft-breaking changes. If you use any of the mods in KSP 1.3 in their current state, you will have a Bad Time when the updates release.

[Technetium Aerospace]

I am working on a Kerbal Operating System scrip to monitor the reactors temperature (mainly for Kerbal Atomics reactors, but since the functionality if NFE I thought I'd ask here).

So I was wondering how to access reactors core temperature, power level (like the percentage slider in control panel) and also the auto-shutdown temperature.

Any help would be appreciated!

[JadeOfMaar]

Added Reactor Control UI to my tutorial. Capacitor Control UI will come soon. @Nertea @Streetwind

There's even a prime example of a situation to not end up in with (only) a reactor onboard!

[Bit Fiddler]

14 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Added Reactor Control UI to my tutorial. Capacitor Control UI will come soon. @Nertea @Streetwind

There's even a prime example of a situation to not end up in with (only) a reactor onboard!

LOL yes I found this the hard way...  built a shiny new SCANSAT to send to Minmus, the only power source was a reactor.  well I get my transfer orbit set and time warp kicks in.  Reactor Shuts down. SCANSAT become Voyager.

[Streetwind]

14 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

There's even a prime example of a situation to not end up in with (only) a reactor onboard!

That looks like the perfect moment for a sales pitch like "Did you know Near Future also offers a whole pack of solar panels perfect for use near hot, close-to-the-sun worlds? Order now and receive a free OKEB-100 blanket array**!"  

(** blanket arrays not suitable for use as blankets. Terms and conditions apply.)

[JadeOfMaar]

2 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

"Did you know Near Future also offers a whole pack of solar panels perfect for use near hot, close-to-the-sun worlds?

It's a struggle to not let my opening line also sound like a sales pitch, lol.  

In seriousness, it would've been quite a lifesaver if I could play and was playing an Ironman game and if I had some Near Future capacitors onboard too. Once I figured out what needed to turn off I could then discharge some and have a hope to remedy the situation without using a single F9.

[scottadges]

Hey all, I've got a question (hopefully not already answered elsewhere?) regarding the SD-01 Radial Engine pods from NF Spacecraft.

How do you get these engines to activate? I don't see them in staging and I can't click on them to activate in flight. 

I'm running 1.2.2 and just loaded in the whole NFT suite. It's pretty amazing overall except for this one issue I seem to have.

Perhaps I'm missing something?

[PocketBrotector]

2 hours ago, scottadges said:

Perhaps I'm missing something?

Do you have actual engines in the pods? The radial pods themselves are just mounting points.

[scottadges]

3 hours ago, PocketBrotector said:

Do you have actual engines in the pods? The radial pods themselves are just mounting points.

Omg... I laughed out loud when I read this. So obvious!

Thank you for pointing that out. You must have thought, "Now HERE'S a dumb question I just have to answer". LOL

[Nergal8617]

2 minutes ago, scottadges said:

Omg... I laughed out loud when I read this. So obvious!

Thank you for pointing that out. You must have thought, "Now HERE'S a dumb question I just have to answer". LOL

Don't feel bad, it happens to the best of us.  I cannot count the number of times I have designed a new spacecraft and forgotten something simple but not realized it until after I launched, or worse got to orbit.

[The-Doctor]

@Nertea Hey, so I'm trying to build a big ship but the structural components don't allow tweakscale to increase their size, can you help me out with that? Any patches?