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

[LatiMacciato]

22 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Nullrefs are never just harmless status messages

Can you reproduce this in a fresh install with only NF Electrical (+dependencies) present? Or does MKS need to be added? And if it happens with one container, does it happen with all of them, or just specific ones?

latest version of NFe --> yes
having a Miner at the Launchpad .. MKS parts mostly (Karibou parts) which includes MechJeb, the small radial snacks container and each of the nuclear storages 1x

#UranMiner

Edited February 14, 2017 by LatiMacciato

[Streetwind]

That does not sound like a fresh install with only NFE present...

[LatiMacciato]

1 minute ago, Streetwind said:

That does not sound like a fresh install with only NFE present...

its my current game, kinda had to restart career cuz some of the mods had updates and it was easier for me to handle the new features etc (e.g. removed ART, added GC etc) .. so yes .. but if you wish I try a stock-test with MKS + NF package (I'm pretty sure it will occour there aswell)

[Streetwind]

It's important to narrow this down by removing as many other mods as possible, as well as whatever ballast may be on the KSP installation itself. That's why you take a fresh install, add only NFE (+dependencies), then test with that. If that's inconclusive, then you add only MKS (+dependencies), and test with that. And so on.

I would help testing, but I won't have the time to sit down at home until tomorrow evening.

[LatiMacciato]

3 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

It's important to narrow this down by removing as many other mods as possible, as well as whatever ballast may be on the KSP installation itself. That's why you take a fresh install, add only NFE (+dependencies), then test with that. If that's inconclusive, then you add only MKS (+dependencies), and test with that. And so on.

I would help testing, but I won't have the time to sit down at home until tomorrow evening.

totally understandable, I've uploaded a logfile .. hope that's helpful tho.

[linuxgurugamer]

There used to be a patch (back in 1.0.5) which would provide a user-editable config file that could thante the thrust output of all the electric engines.  Did it go away?

 

Edit:  Found it, looks like the name changed: NFPropulsionTweakPatch.cfg

Edited February 14, 2017 by linuxgurugamer

[Streetwind]

Yep, still there. I haven't touched it in a while, but it should still work as intended, since I'm not aware of much in the way of plugin changes in NFP.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Streetwind

[Nertea]

On 2/11/2017 at 10:28 AM, WildLynx said:

Monoprops are supposed to have ISP of about 190s.

New MP engines have ISP in about 335s-345s range. Is it supposed to be like that? They run on unicorn tears?

Oh yes it is supposed to be like that. 

9 hours ago, Virtualgenius said:

@Streetwind So sorry I didnt see the post but in my defence its a little hard to read on a mobile at work at times, I find the new engines the nozzle is too long to use as a lander engine which is what I used the older style for, would you consider a smaller nozzled engine or lower profile to be potentially used as lander engines I really like this pack its one of my favorites. Thankyou for taking the time to reply to my oversight

Nope, you get what's there. 

[DerekL1963]

A mining system designed using NF Construction parts...  A full description of the system can be found here.

[Baladain]

14 hours ago, LatiMacciato said:

unsure if this one should already been fixed but once I focus a vessel with radioactive containers on it (MKS little radial ones) log gives me this errors and spams:

[EXC 09:59:55.162] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
	NearFutureElectrical.RadioactiveStorageContainer.GetResourceAmount (System.String nm)
	NearFutureElectrical.RadioactiveStorageContainer.FixedUpdate ()

This might just be harmless put-through/status message. Thank you for your work on NF!

I have experienced this same issue, also since the MKS/GC update.

 

And a question:

NFE + USI reactors

How would I go about configuring NFE nuclear functions to work like USI?

Is that doable? would it break the NFE reactors?

Edited February 14, 2017 by Baladain
forum merged two separate posts.

[Omnipius]

That is an interesting idea. I like the NFE reactor management, but I would really like to bring back byproducts like Xenon. I may futz with my config files a bit to see if I can make that happen.

Speaking of NFE+USI, I think I found a bug in the integration patch. Namely, the Duna and Tundra PDU reactors burn through fuel at insane speeds (0.96/day on the Tundra) such that they only last about 65 days. I did some digging, comparing the config parameters applied to the different reactors, and it looks like these two parts are missing one (or more?) zeros in their fuel consumption ratios. So, a typo.

I would also think that the fuel capacity should be 70 on the Duna and 200 on the Tundra given the capacity of the comparable-output stand-alone reactors.

[Streetwind]

8 hours ago, Baladain said:

And a question:

NFE + USI reactors

How would I go about configuring NFE nuclear functions to work like USI?

Is that doable? would it break the NFE reactors?

USI reactors just use a stock ModuleResourceConverter, like an ISRU with a different name. If you boot out NFE's custom reactor modules wth MM and add some of these instead, you'll get what you want. Heck, just copypaste the modules from USI's own reactor configs and tweak the values.

 

37 minutes ago, Omnipius said:

Speaking of NFE+USI, I think I found a bug in the integration patch. Namely, the Duna and Tundra PDU reactors burn through fuel at insane speeds (0.96/day on the Tundra) such that they only last about 65 days. I did some digging, comparing the config parameters applied to the different reactors, and it looks like these two parts are missing one (or more?) zeros in their fuel consumption ratios. So, a typo.

Will look into that.

[Omnipius]

1 hour ago, Omnipius said:

That is an interesting idea. I like the NFE reactor management, but I would really like to bring back byproducts like Xenon. I may futz with my config files a bit to see if I can make that happen.

OK....so adding Xenon as an output resource (and balancing the mass in and out) seems to prevent the reactor from operating registering as being online (thus not producing heat and subsequently no power). This is despite the desired conversion change actually working. I'm confused as to why this is. Ummm...halp?

[Streetwind]

13 hours ago, Omnipius said:

...looks like these two parts are missing one (or more?) zeros in their fuel consumption ratios.

Confirmed this and made a pull request to fix it.

I won't be adding extra fuel capacity though. These are not full-scale reactors, they're a backup system - or an initial, temporary supplier while you construct a proper power plant. Even so, they last for over a year at full power output (which is pretty high). But well, you know where the patch is for your own editing needs...

 

On 14.2.2017 at 10:06 AM, LatiMacciato said:

unsure if this one should already been fixed but once I focus a vessel with radioactive containers on it (MKS little radial ones) log gives me this errors and spams:

[EXC 09:59:55.162] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
	NearFutureElectrical.RadioactiveStorageContainer.GetResourceAmount (System.String nm)
	NearFutureElectrical.RadioactiveStorageContainer.FixedUpdate ()

This might just be harmless put-through/status message. Thank you for your work on NF!

Went and tested this while checking the PDUs. Cannot reproduce this behavior. Will need a savegame (NFE only please!) and proper instructions on what exactly to do to provoke it.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Streetwind

[Wyzard]

19 hours ago, Omnipius said:

I would also think that the fuel capacity should be 70 on the Duna and 200 on the Tundra given the capacity of the comparable-output stand-alone reactors.

6 hours ago, Streetwind said:

I won't be adding extra fuel capacity though. These are not full-scale reactors, they're a backup system - or an initial, temporary supplier while you construct a proper power plant.

Some background on the Duna/Tundra fuel capacity: I made those integration patches based on the earlier patch for the legacy MKS PDU part, and I set the fuel capacity to 3 times its unpatched value simply because that's what the old MKS PDU patch did.  That seemed appropriate since I think the Duna PDU is basically the successor to the old MKS PDU.  However, the Duna PDU's fuel capacity is only 20% of its predecessor (even before being patched by NFE), and the Tundra PDU only holds twice as much as that.  This makes the patched capacity rather small too.

Bottom line is that I didn't choose the numbers based on a careful balancing decision; I just took the 3x multiplier that was already established by NFE for the old PDU part, and applied it to the new PDU parts instead.  There's probably some room for improvement there.

[Wyzard]

(This post used to be a suggestion that turned out to be not-applicable.)

Edited February 16, 2017 by Wyzard
Shouldn't have posted in the first place

[mikegarrison]

Real world hydrazine engines have ISPs around 220-230 seconds, but I suppose there is no reason to necessarily assume that these Orbital engines are powered by hydrazine.

[Nertea]

On 2/15/2017 at 0:10 PM, Streetwind said:

Confirmed this and made a pull request to fix it.

I won't be adding extra fuel capacity though. These are not full-scale reactors, they're a backup system - or an initial, temporary supplier while you construct a proper power plant. Even so, they last for over a year at full power output (which is pretty high). But well, you know where the patch is for your own editing needs...

 

Went and tested this while checking the PDUs. Cannot reproduce this behavior. Will need a savegame (NFE only please!) and proper instructions on what exactly to do to provoke it.

I'll add this in the next build, whenever that is. Probably after the latest CRP argument is over and changes get finalized. 

On 2/14/2017 at 2:29 AM, LatiMacciato said:

totally understandable, I've uploaded a logfile .. hope that's helpful tho.

I examined this. You have a bunch of NFE-unrelated NREs in there... seems like there may be some problems with your install. 

[TDplay]

Oh! Wow! Seriously excellent mods. I love your mods, and I'd love to see more! Keep going!

[QF5690]

Awesome mods! Last change on engines is awesome too, but very sad it is monopropellant fuel now. That means it can be used on very upper stage only (because monoprop flows freely across the ship, and disabling tanks one by one is pain)  may be there is a way to make those engines switch fuels?

Edited February 18, 2017 by QF5690

[Streetwind]

7 minutes ago, QF5690 said:

Awesome mods! Last change on engines is awesome too, but very sad it is monopropellant fuel now. That means it can be used on very upper stage only (because monoprop flows freely across the ship, and disabling tanks one by one is pain)  may be there is a way to make those engines switch fuels?

Monopropellant actually uses a sort of priority flow system. My understanding of it (which could be wrong in some aspects) is that it starts draining tanks on lower stages first before it starts draining tanks on upper stages. The goal is to use up the stuff that's closest to being staged away first.

But yes, there is a simple way to make the new engines use LFO instead. When you download NF Spacecraft, there is an "Extras" folder packaged with it that contains a config file with the necessary changes. Move that into your GameData directory and enjoy bipropellant orbital engines

Edited February 18, 2017 by Streetwind

[Nertea]

9 hours ago, QF5690 said:

Awesome mods! Last change on engines is awesome too, but very sad it is monopropellant fuel now. That means it can be used on very upper stage only (because monoprop flows freely across the ship, and disabling tanks one by one is pain)  may be there is a way to make those engines switch fuels?

Thanks for pointing this out. Engines can individually be set to consume fuel via any flow method, I can make sure that these engines are set to obey similar staging rules as LFO engines. 

[TDplay]

On 2/18/2017 at 11:57 AM, QF5690 said:

Awesome mods! Last change on engines is awesome too, but very sad it is monopropellant fuel now. That means it can be used on very upper stage only (because monoprop flows freely across the ship, and disabling tanks one by one is pain)  may be there is a way to make those engines switch fuels?

Does it really matter whether or not it uses all the rocket's fuel? After all, they are OMS engines, intended for the transfer stage which will have the most monoprop.

[Shawarmakriger]

Quick question, I can't stick anything on the side of the Whirlijig Nuclear Reprocessor. Is this on purpose, to make radiating heat more difficult than just taping radiators on the side?

Thanks in advance.

[Wyzard]

1 hour ago, Shawarmakriger said:

Is this on purpose, to make radiating heat more difficult than just taping radiators on the side?

Note that most radiators don't have to be directly attached to the thing they're cooling.  The small non-extendable stock radiator panels only cool their parent part and (I think) other parts connected directly to that, but the larger extendable ones provide cooling throughout the entire vessel — there are implied refrigerant pipes or something.  IIRC, most (all?) of the radiators in Nertea's "Heat Control" pack can also cool the whole vessel.  The part description in the VAB shows a warning message on radiators that can only cool the parts they're attached to.