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

[Nertea]

7 hours ago, b0ss said:

God dammit

For real though. Wouldn't extending them make them less efficient? If they are no longer touching the rest of the spacecraft then they can't transfer nearly as much heat to the rest of the vehicle and they'd become terribly hot

Well, most solar panels barely touch the rest of the vehicle...  usually a panel is designed as a simple self-contained system. They don't often (actually can't think of a single example) need active cooling or an interface with the rest of the spacecraft to affect their thermal loading.

 

[b0ss]

17 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Haha, not anger just poking the bear

reee

3 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Well, most solar panels barely touch the rest of the vehicle...  usually a panel is designed as a simple self-contained system. They don't often (actually can't think of a single example) need active cooling or an interface with the rest of the spacecraft to affect their thermal loading.

 

Ah seriously?

Wait now I'm getting confused. Are the extendable curved solar panels just for show or is there really any difference IRL for using those instead of surface-mounted or regular extended solar panels?

[DStaal]

34 minutes ago, b0ss said:

Wait now I'm getting confused. Are the extendable curved solar panels just for show or is there really any difference IRL for using those instead of surface-mounted or regular extended solar panels?

More surface area than surface-mounted for the same surface area used, less complexity than normal (tracking) extended.  Middle ground.

(And BTW: I love the curved panels on Karibou rovers.)

[Antstar]

On 2/15/2018 at 6:57 AM, Nertea said:

If you want a real reason, a lot of these highly fragile structures IRL are not designed to retract in order to save mass on hardware that would be required to re-fold or store the folded array.

In this mod, non-retractable arrays have a mass bonus as well. 

This is kind of a question/comment. I can't use ksp at the moment, but when I was last running the NF solar (maybe a few months ago) I calculated the ec/mass of the panels and it was pretty close to the same for all. Has this changed?

If not, shouldn't there be mass savings from more advanced solar panels? It seemed like there were surface area savings but this was less important to me as I was trying to make solar powered very low mass ion engined probes for the inner system...

PS. If I'm wrong or this has been updated then yay.

PPS. This is a great suite of mods and thanks for making them.

[Streetwind]

On 24.2.2018 at 6:27 PM, Antstar said:

This is kind of a question/comment. I can't use ksp at the moment, but when I was last running the NF solar (maybe a few months ago) I calculated the ec/mass of the panels and it was pretty close to the same for all. Has this changed?

There are target numbers for different families of panels. Retracting ones are set around 80 Ec/s/ton, non-retracting around 100, blanket arrays around 120, and fixed panels around 140.

There is indeed no improvement with tech level. This was a conscious design decision, and mirrors other Near Future items - although it might be a bit less obvious in the other packs. For example, reactors don't strictly speaking get any better with technology levels either. They all follow the same math for specific power (Ec/s/ton). It just so happens that that math says that larger reactors have better specific power, and the reactors just happen to be sorted into the tech nodes mostly by size. Similarly, all electric engines follow the same math for determining how much Isp and thrust you get for a given investment in power. It just so happens that the engines are roughly sorted into the tech tree in order of power consumption. But they put out more thrust and have more Isp because they consume more power, not because later tech engines pull more thrust and Isp out of the same power.

KSP in general has always been more of a "tech levels unlock options and sidegrades and reduce part count" thing. A few exceptions exist in the stock tree (the probe cores, for instance), but they're in the vast minority. Even things like batteries are technically all sidegrades to one another - the most basic stock battery stores exactly the same amount of Ec per unit mass as the most advanced one does. As a closely stock-aligned mod series, Near Future aims to mirror this.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Streetwind

[Antstar]

3 hours ago, Streetwind said:

There are target numbers for different families of panels. Retracting ones are set around 80 Ec/s/ton, non-retracting around 100, blanket arrays around 120, and fixed panels around 140.

There is indeed no improvement with tech level. This was a conscious design decision, and mirrors other Near Future items - although it might be a bit less obvious in the other packs. For example, reactors don't strictly speaking get any better with technology levels either. They all follow the same math for specific power (Ec/s/ton). It just so happens that that math says that larger reactors have better specific power, and the reactors just happen to be sorted into the tech nodes mostly by size. Similarly, all electric engines follow the same math for determining how much Isp and thrust you get for a given investment in power. It just so happens that the engines are roughly sorted into the tech tree in order of power consumption. But they put out more thrust and have more Isp because they consume more power, not because later tech engines pull more thrust and Isp out of the same power.

KSP in general has always been more of a "tech levels unlock options and sidegrades and reduce part count" thing. A few exceptions exist in the stock tree (the probe cores, for instance), but they're in the vast minority. Even things like batteries are technically all sidegrades to one another - the most basic stock battery stores exactly the same amount of Ec per unit mass as the most advanced one does. As a closely stock-aligned mod series, Near Future aims to mirror this.

Ok, no problem. Thanks for the clarification

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Small and possibly meaningless discovery: in these files, the number of { and } are mismatched - dunno if that causes problems or not, just thought I'd throw it out there:

NearFutureElectrical\Localization\en-us.cfg
NearFutureElectrical\Localization\es-es.cfg
NearFutureElectrical\Localization\ru.cfg

Other packs:

NearFutureLaunchVehicles\Parts\FuelTank\fueltank-5\fueltank-adapter-5-375-2.cfg
NearFutureProps\Patches\RPM\NFProps_RPM_Mug.cfg

[Warzouz]

Hi @Nertea, everyone

I don't understand how Near Future Electrical works, regarding nuke and waste transfer.

I've a long range tug ship with level 5 engineers and 0.6m nuke reactor pluged and a half full small nuke barrel. I stop the reactor, I can't transfer fuel because of >400K limitation. Ok, I wait a looonnng time and finally get the core temp to get below 400 (around 380). I still can't transfer fuel.

Finally, some years later (I've 2 reactors on board), I finally succeed transfering fuel from the reserve to the reactor. But I still can't transfer waste due to the 400k limit.

On the small reactor, I only have a default 150k cooler directly stuck on it. It's stable even at full capacity.

While trying to hack into the part files, I discovered that depleted UR produce heat. Maybe the issue us about the reserve container and not the reactor, but there is no clear display of that. I tried to set limit temp to 4000K on the reactor and the container, but that didn't work either.

What is my mistake ?

I'm at work so I can't provide any screenshot, but I'll try this evening.

 

Also, I've a more general cooling issue : I also have a emancipator reactor on board, which I only use full power because I don't have enough radiators (I've a secondary reactor system for small maneuvers). I tried to use bigger radiators, those which cools the whole ship. But As I start the emancipator, they saturate the radiators and my small nuke aren't cooled down and shutdown, event with emancipator at full power. My solution is to only use "nearby cooling" radiators, but that's quite lame.

What would be your solution ?

Thx

 

[Streetwind]

Waste transfer is something I cannot help you with. I rarely ever run my reactors all the way empty, since I tend to only use them for engines and not for (for example) colonies with constant high power drain.

But if you suspect that waste heat from depleted uranium somehow keeps the temperature too high, that could be true. See, radiators only cool parts that are as hot as or hotter than 400 K. So maybe one of the involved parts is being kept at exactly 400 K by the radiators, and fuel transfer fails because that only works below 400 K. I'm on mobile right now so I can't really check if you can reconfigure either of those two values in part configs, but you could look into that.

 

2 hours ago, Warzouz said:

Also, I've a more general cooling issue : I also have a emancipator reactor on board, which I only use full power because I don't have enough radiators (I've a secondary reactor system for small maneuvers). I tried to use bigger radiators, those which cools the whole ship. But As I start the emancipator, they saturate the radiators and my small nuke aren't cooled down and shutdown, event with emancipator at full power. My solution is to only use "nearby cooling" radiators, but that's quite lame.

Let me rephrase this in my own words to make sure I understand you correctly, since the above reads a bit confusing:
- Your vessel contains both a large reactor and a small reactor.
- The small reactor is always on, the large reactor only gets activated for full engine power moments.
- You are aware that did not bring enough radiators to cool both reactors at once.
- When you turn on the large reactor, the small reactor overheats.

Is the above correct?

If so: have you considered bringing enough radiators?

If not, please describe it to me again.

[Warzouz]

42 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Waste transfer is something I cannot help you with. I rarely ever run my reactors all the way empty, since I tend to only use them for engines and not for (for example) colonies with constant high power drain.

But if you suspect that waste heat from depleted uranium somehow keeps the temperature too high, that could be true. See, radiators only cool parts that are as hot as or hotter than 400 K. So maybe one of the involved parts is being kept at exactly 400 K by the radiators, and fuel transfer fails because that only works below 400 K. I'm on mobile right now so I can't really check if you can reconfigure either of those two values in part configs, but you could look into that.

I need fuel transfer because I use a hydrogen big tank to power my nuclear engine. They consume quite a lot of power and as I play OPM, travel time is big. Around 12 years just to go to Sarnus and back. For balance, I use 2 small nuke reactors at half power, but I need to refuel them with a uranium container, which I fill depending on the mission duration. At full capacity, the vehicle can be powered 40 years, maybe more.

But I'm stuck with the refueling/waste transfert which is not well described

I tried to reconfigure the part files, but it didn't work well. I must have messed up the MM script. I'll post it this evening.

43 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Let me rephrase this in my own words to make sure I understand you correctly, since the above reads a bit confusing:

- Your vessel contains both a large reactor and a small reactor.
- The small reactor is always on, the large reactor only gets activated for full engine power moments.
- You are aware that did not bring enough radiators to cool both reactors at once.
- When you turn on the large reactor, the small reactor overheats.

Is the above correct?

If so: have you considered bringing enough radiators?

If not, please describe it to me again.

Well, the emancipator is so powerful, I would need 115 large stock radiators just to keep it cool. That's not realistic, even using those nice large graphene.

Nuclear reactors don't need cooling when they are fully throttled. They just need cooling when reactor is activated and throttle is less than 100%. when active, the hydrogen cools all the heat.

It seems a bug that when you use ship wide cooling panels, the reactor is heating them instead of ejecting heat with hydrogen flow. so the other heat sources that rely on those panels can't be cooled down any more.

I found a workaround : using small range cooling panels, they don't cool the engine fission core, but only the small reactors.

[Streetwind]

Oh, the Emancipator is an engine from Kerbal Atomics? Should've mentioned that I seriously thought you were talking about reactors still, and I must simply have forgotten that one had that name.

I've never actually used that (I prefer electric engines), so I can't offer advice, I'm afraid.

[Magnavox]

@Nertea I noticed while flying an OTV yesterday that the Mk 3-9 orbital command pod seems to behave like a probe core with passenger seats, rather than a capsule. My OTV has a huge LH2 tank that draws more power to cool than I had anticipated and so when the OTV flies into the shadow of a planet I run out of charge. When this happens, I loose control of the vehicle completely despite having Jeb  and another pilot sitting in the pilot seats in the cockpit. 

Is this intentional? a bug in the design? or a restriction on the way capsules and probe cores work in the game?

[Nertea]

30 minutes ago, Magnavox said:

@Nertea I noticed while flying an OTV yesterday that the Mk 3-9 orbital command pod seems to behave like a probe core with passenger seats, rather than a capsule. My OTV has a huge LH2 tank that draws more power to cool than I had anticipated and so when the OTV flies into the shadow of a planet I run out of charge. When this happens, I loose control of the vehicle completely despite having Jeb  and another pilot sitting in the pilot seats in the cockpit. 

Is this intentional? a bug in the design? or a restriction on the way capsules and probe cores work in the game?

Limitation. Can't do anything except disable that feature. 

11 hours ago, Warzouz said:

I've a long range tug ship with level 5 engineers and 0.6m nuke reactor pluged and a half full small nuke barrel. I stop the reactor, I can't transfer fuel because of >400K limitation. Ok, I wait a looonnng time and finally get the core temp to get below 400 (around 380). I still can't transfer fuel.

More info? Can't transfer? What does the message say at that point?

7 hours ago, Warzouz said:

Nuclear reactors don't need cooling when they are fully throttled. They just need cooling when reactor is activated and throttle is less than 100%. when active, the hydrogen cools all the heat.

It seems a bug that when you use ship wide cooling panels, the reactor is heating them instead of ejecting heat with hydrogen flow. so the other heat sources that rely on those panels can't be cooled down any more.

Not my fault. I'm not even going to try fixing any thermal problems until 1.4 because of the thermal allocation bug. It renders everything completely pointless. Just use proximity radiators for everything, it's the only way to be sure. 

[Warzouz]

15 hours ago, Nertea said:

More info? Can't transfer? What does the message say at that point?

Well the message says I can't transfer fuel because of temperature over 400. The reactor is lower, but the nuke tank have no temp display. Si I don't know it's temps

 

Here is you script @Nertea

// Near Future Electrical 0.6.0
// Nuclear Fuel - 0.625m
PART
{
	name = nuclearfuel-0625
	module = Part
	author = Chris Adderley

	mesh = nuclearfuel-0625.mu
	scale = 1
	rescaleFactor = 1

... (cut)

	MODULE
	{
		name = RadioactiveStorageContainer
		DangerousFuel = DepletedFuel
		SafeFuel = EnrichedUranium
		// What enginer level is needed to transfer the safe fuel
		EngineerLevelForSafe = 1
		// What enginer level is needed to transfer the dangerous fuel
		EngineerLevelForDangerous = 3
		// Max temp for transferring fuel into or out of the part
		MaxTempForTransfer = 400
		// kW of heat per unit of waste
		HeatFluxPerWasteUnit = 5
	}

... (cut)

and I did this script to modify it. but it does work. Can someone help ?

NB : I want to modify all Radioactive Storage modules

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[RadioactiveStorageContainer]]:Final
{
    @MODULE[RadioactiveStorageContainer]
    {
        @MaxTempForTransfer = 1000
    }
}

 

[Jimbodiah]

You need moar radiators.

[Streetwind]

23 minutes ago, Warzouz said:

and I did this script to modify it. but it does work. Can someone help ?

I think you mean it does not work?

MM patch looks okay at first glance, but I'll give it a try when I get home. In the meantime, try @PART[reactor-*,nuclearfuel-*]:NEEDS[NearFutureElectrical]:FINAL instead. See if it works if you're addressing the parts directly instead of relying on a search term.

[Jimbodiah]

Or just change the value in the actual cfg file as it will be temporary anyway? Or just add a few extra radiators near the fuel drum. I've never had an issue with this to be honest unless you just came out of warp and don't have enough radiators or didn't wait long enough for the heat to dissipate. Yeah, heat has always been a pita, as are most systems during time warp like boil-off and lifesupport.

[Nertea]

I will introduce a change that ties that to core heat because it was intended to be core temperature. You're right that you could get into a feedback loop where spent fuel heating would cause indefinite inability to transfer. That wasn't intended, reactor was just needing to cool down. 

[Warzouz]

20 hours ago, Streetwind said:

I think you mean it does not work?

MM patch looks okay at first glance, but I'll give it a try when I get home. In the meantime, try @PART[reactor-*,nuclearfuel-*]:NEEDS[NearFutureElectrical]:FINAL instead. See if it works if you're addressing the parts directly instead of relying on a search term.

I tried your syntax, that didn't work either. Maybe it's in the data I change not the selection.

But either way, I can edit part files themselves (that worked).

Those @Nertea's mods are fantastic but quite hard to master at first glance.

[maja]

20 minutes ago, Warzouz said:

Those @Nertea's mods are fantastic but quite hard to master at first glance.

Per aspera ad astra

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Here's a fun patch I've been working on - I wanted the NF Spacecraft engines to be both LFO and MP engines, so I made a config that makes that happen. It's used INSTEAD of the LFO patch included with the NFSpacecraft download. For anyone's use who likes that idea:

EDIT: requires RealPlume + RealPlume Stock, just to be clear.

// Add the PLUMEs at the right time so that RealPlume adds appropriate EFFECTS
@PART[orbital-engine-0625|orbital-engine-25]:FOR[RealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen]
{
	PLUME
    {
        name = Hydrolox-Lower
        transformName = thrustTransform
        localRotation = 0,0,0
        localPosition = 0,0,0.75
		
        flarePosition = 0,0,0.72
		flareScale = 0.45
        
		plumePosition = 0,0,1.2
		plumeScale = 0.45
        
		fixedScale = 0.5
        energy = 0.2
        speed = 0.75
    }
}
@PART[orbital-engine-125|orbital-engine-375]:FOR[RealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen]
{
	PLUME
    {
        name = Hydrolox-Lower
        transformName = thrustTransform
        localRotation = 0,0,0
        localPosition = 0,0,1.0
		
		plumePosition = 0,0,1.3
        plumeScale = 1.5
		
		flarePosition = 0,0,0.75
		flareScale = 1.3
        		
        fixedScale = 1.7
        energy = 0.25
        speed = 0.8
    }	
}

// Remove the shock cone flare because it doesn't look quite right IMO
@PART[orbital-engine-*]:HAS[@PLUME[Hydrolox-Lower]]:FINAL
{
    @EFFECTS
    {
        @Hydrolox-Lower
        {
            !MODEL_MULTI_SHURIKEN_PERSIST[shockcone] {}
        }
    }
}

// After RealPlume has added its stuff, come back and add MultiMode stuff, the LFO engine, and fix the heat animation
@PART[orbital-engine-0625]:FOR[zzRealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = MultiModeEngine
		primaryEngineID = LiquidFuel
		secondaryEngineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]
	{
		%engineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleEnginesFX
		thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform
		powerEffectName = Hydrolox-Lower
		exhaustDamage = true
		ignitionThreshold = 0.1
		minThrust = 0
		maxThrust = 14
		heatProduction = 160.011766
		engineID = LiquidFuel
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = LiquidFuel
			ratio = 0.9
			DrawGauge = True
		}
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = Oxidizer
			ratio = 1.1	
		}
		atmosphereCurve
		{
			key = 0 315
			key = 1 190
			key = 4 70
		}
	}
	@MODULE[FXModuleAnimateThrottle]
	{
		@responseSpeed = 0.01
		%preferMultiMode = True
	}
}

@PART[orbital-engine-125]:FOR[zzRealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = MultiModeEngine
		primaryEngineID = LiquidFuel
		secondaryEngineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]
	{
		%engineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleEnginesFX
		thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform
		powerEffectName = Hydrolox-Lower
		exhaustDamage = true
		ignitionThreshold = 0.1
		minThrust = 0
		maxThrust = 140
		heatProduction = 201.4078447
		engineID = LiquidFuel
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = LiquidFuel
			ratio = 0.9
			DrawGauge = True
		}
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = Oxidizer
			ratio = 1.1	
		}
		atmosphereCurve
		{
			key = 0 325
			key = 1 210
			key = 4 90
		}
	}
	@MODULE[FXModuleAnimateThrottle]
	{
		@responseSpeed = 0.01
		%preferMultiMode = True
	}
}
@PART[orbital-engine-25]:FOR[zzRealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = MultiModeEngine
		primaryEngineID = LiquidFuel
		secondaryEngineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]
	{
		%engineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleEnginesFX
		thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform
		powerEffectName = Hydrolox-Lower
		exhaustDamage = true
		ignitionThreshold = 0.1
		minThrust = 0
		maxThrust = 110
		heatProduction = 139.534354
		engineID = LiquidFuel
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = LiquidFuel
			ratio = 0.9
			DrawGauge = True
		}
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = Oxidizer
			ratio = 1.1	
		}
		atmosphereCurve
		{
			key = 0 328
			key = 1 195
			key = 4 90
		}
	}
	@MODULE[FXModuleAnimateThrottle]
	{
		@responseSpeed = 0.01
		%preferMultiMode = True
	}
}
@PART[orbital-engine-375]:FOR[zzRealPlume]:NEEDS[SmokeScreen]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = MultiModeEngine
		primaryEngineID = LiquidFuel
		secondaryEngineID = MonoPropellant
	}
	@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX]
	{
		%engineID = MonoPropellant
	}	
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleEnginesFX
		thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform
		powerEffectName = Hydrolox-Lower
		exhaustDamage = true
		ignitionThreshold = 0.1
		minThrust = 0
		maxThrust = 560
		heatProduction = 202.5754264
		engineID = LiquidFuel
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = LiquidFuel
			ratio = 0.9
			DrawGauge = True
		}
		PROPELLANT
		{
			name = Oxidizer
			ratio = 1.1	
		}
		atmosphereCurve
		{
			key = 0 337
			key = 1 213
			key = 4 105
		}
	}
	@MODULE[FXModuleAnimateThrottle]
	{
		@responseSpeed = 0.01
		%preferMultiMode = True
	}
}

 

Edited March 2, 2018 by AccidentalDisassembly

[cpx]

Does anyone know if this mod disables planetary logistics of MKS for enriched uranium (EnrU) and depleted fuel?

[Streetwind]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Source: directory of MM patches shipped by NF Electrical, here. All it does is patch its own uranium production methods to use MKS resources instead of stock ore.

Mind you, that doesn't mean that some other mod isn't shipping a patch that modifies logistics behavior when it detects NF Electrical being installed...

[cpx]

Well now I need someone who managed to put enriched uranium into planetary logistics warehouse.

[DStaal]

3 hours ago, cpy said:

Does anyone know if this mod disables planetary logistics of MKS for enriched uranium (EnrU) and depleted fuel?

I'm pretty sure MKS does that on it's own...