KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[dannyo862]

Hi guys,
I'm having some problems with the mod I'm trying to get my head around and can't figure out if I am doing something wrong or if it is a bug.

So far I've figured out a fair amount on my own but now I'm starting to play around with Nuclear Power generation. The first thing I am trying is the Molten Salt Reactor. This turns your U or Th fuel into Actinides as part of the process. If I follow the charts correctly, from the ISRU control you are supposed to be able to use the 'reprocess nuclear fuel' option to turn some of those Actinides back into U or Th and the rest into Depleted Fuel (which can then in turn be put in the Whirlijig reprocessor but I can't get that far).

I set up a scenario on the launchpad in sandbox (but I want to use this in a career game I have running) to see how this worked but whenever I turn on the process, the actinides go down, I get a little depleted fuel (but no where near the amount I am expecting), a tonne of energy is used, but I get ZERO usable UF4 or Th (yes I have empty tanks outside the reactor but connected to the same structure, but they do not start to fill up). The reactor is shut down for this process. I figured out how to refuel it but can't remove the actinides from the reactor without this process and it seems a waste to simply let it all disappear without getting anything back from it. I can't figure out if I am missing something or if it is broken?

Any help is appreciated :-)

edit: 2nd question from a problem I've just discovered: the ISRU does not auto fill up tanks with Lqd H, O or N but seems to for everything else.  I have 3 tanks on my base, each individually specific for Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen (liquid forms) but the ISRU fills itself up then says no storage.  There's no way I'm moving those resources manually 10 units at a time - am I doing something wrong?  I originally thought it was because I was using a Hydrolox tank but even specific tanks do not work but my Lqd CO2 is filling up in the tank and the ISRU equally like I'd expect.  Anyone else seen this?

Edit: deleted above question as realised I was using the wrong ISRU refinery (was using IRSU, maybe from another mod (EL maybe) - whilst it is useful for other things I will use the proper I-E one for what I need in this case.

Edit: Turns out that was not the problem either - it seems your spare tanks HAVE to be DIRECTLY connected to the refinery - base connections do not count.  My Minmus base is connected together using KAS/KIS connector ports so I have a separate storage area for all my fuels etc but I'm going to have to re-do it to make it work like I want to

Edited December 27, 2016 by dannyo862
clarification of solution

[Jumberlack]

I'm having a bit of a problem, so I was using the thermal turbojet and the inline thermal reciever to cruise around in a test plane, powered by a microwave transmitter/fusion reactor (1000MW reactor, 481 recieved) I had set up near the space center. Anyways, it was generally going well until my radiators (4x rectangular curved mk4 graphite) sometimes quickly made their way up from 40ish % cooling to like 95, at that point, the temperature on my thermal turbojet climbed quickly from 690-700k all the way up to 2750 and the engine blows up unless I disable it. I don't really understand what induces the maxing out of radiator cooling, when it is normally not close to that. I also don't understand why extra energy needs to be radiated; shouldn't a hotter engine just go faster? I don't know if it helps but the plane wasn't going much over 350m/s and that was in/ right after a dive. 

Edited December 26, 2016 by Jumberlack
Better description of radiator

[The Destroyer]

@FreeThinker

I'm having an issue with waste heat, and I'm not sure what's causing it. First, reactor reached embrittlement in 70 days (which is pretty damn fast) and secondly, during timewarp 10000x-100000x the reactor is on maximum usage, and the radiators fail to dissapate wasteheat, only doing it slowly at 1000x will dissapate wasteheat. The rads also report 1% cooling, despite being hot. The reactor, being so damaged so quickly, also means it generates 1/3rd its usual power :-/

Edited December 26, 2016 by The Destroyer

[Nansuchao]

Just now, The Destroyer said:

@FreeThinker

I'm having an issue with waste heat, and I'm not sure what's causing it. First, reactor reached embrittlement in 70 days (which is pretty damn fast) and secondly, during timewarp 10000x-100000x the reactor is on maximum usage, and the radiators fail to dissapate wasteheat, only doing it slowly at 1000x will dissapate wasteheat. The rads also report 1% cooling, despite being hot. 

It seems similar to the issue I had with the VASMIR thruster. Can you please try to Quicksave/quickload or launch the same craft again from the beginning just for testing purpose? I suspect that a copy of the same craft will no have the same issue.

[The Destroyer]

1 hour ago, Nansuchao said:

It seems similar to the issue I had with the VASMIR thruster. Can you please try to Quicksave/quickload or launch the same craft again from the beginning just for testing purpose? I suspect that a copy of the same craft will no have the same issue.

I've literally been doing this for days, this has been the 6th launch or so (as I was having problems with comm networks) and appeared to only start after I started boosting my transmission power.... not sure what the extra tweakscaled communtrons would have to do with the issue though

EDIT: Oops. I updated KSPI, and I think freethinker fixed the radiators with NFE, so they're not incredibly OP now. So I actually don't have enough radiators...

 

EDIT 2: Embrittlement is still a huge problem. I guess D-T fusion is simply useless unless your vessel uses minimml power- I can't use the daedalus in timewarp after a mere 80 days, only way to do it is real time, which would take days.

 

EDIT 3: So, I first got 500 science from the IR telescope, cool. But it diminshed rapidly and can't be processed in lab. With maybe 900 science available, it seems pretty damn useless

Edited December 26, 2016 by The Destroyer

[Nansuchao]

2 minutes ago, The Destroyer said:

I've literally been doing this for days, this has been the 6th launch or so (as I was having problems with comm networks) and appeared to only start after I started boosting my transmission power.... not sure what the extra tweakscaled communtrons would have to do with the issue though

No idea, sorry. But I agree that sometimes reactors and engines seems to go mad without apparent reason. Two tests on the same plane, with AIM reactor and a TTJ showed different results in a few days. In first test I wasn't able to reach orbit with a SSTO, in the second test of the same craft, the cockpit was almost melted due to the high acceleration in low atmosphere.

Misteries of KSP...

[gajbooks]

Could you please for the love of everything fix the non-folding radiators that explode or disintegrate, some even when inside a fairing. The automation also tries to deploy radiators inside fairings, causing them to enter a permanently extended glitch state, resulting in their rapid unplanned disassembly upon takeoff. The thermal helper also shows up when you're typing in other text boxes. It's slightly annoying but an insignificant bug at most. It's also my personal opinion that it takes an excessive amount of radiators to cool things, and the power limits on thermal generators is a little silly.

Edited December 27, 2016 by gajbooks

[FreeThinker]

@gajbooks The Automation can be turned of at any time. This might not be obvious but you still receive a huge bonus (4x) on radiator cooling. If you lookup up any real design with high power reactors you will notice they require a lot more radiators. The problem with the thermal helper poping up in the VAB can be configure in the settings file. 

What do you mean by power limits on thermal generator?

[gajbooks]

I know it can be turned off, but turning it off right before launch results in the perma-extend bug and then explosions. Yes, real designs require more radiators, but this is KSP and needing 200 tons of radiators is excessive (and not to mention laggy). I know I can configure the button, but unless it's literally unfixable I'd rather not have to. I like the hotkey but it just pops in when naming things. By "limits" I mean that a single generator has a maximum possible energy output from a reactor. For example, when connected to an Open Cycle Gas Core reactor, a single thermal generator has a hard maximum of 1 GW thermal power. I'm aware that in reality you might not be able to cram everything in, but with the directly-connected-to-reactor requirement it gets sort of awkward to have to increase the diameter using tweak-scale.

[The Destroyer]

@FreeThinker (sorry to bother you again) I can't find much about the laser particle accelerator, but one thing it does do is generate lag. On the surface, it's fine, but as soon as it's off the ground, a HUGE amount of lag (<1 FPS) occurs with the log spamming error: Cooking::cookConvexMesh: user provided hull must be less than 256 vertices!

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

@FreeThinker (sorry to bother you again) I can't find much about the laser particle accelerator, but one thing it does do is generate lag. On the surface, it's fine, but as soon as it's off the ground, a HUGE amount of lag (<1 FPS) occurs with the log spamming error: Cooking::cookConvexMesh: user provided hull must be less than 256 vertices!

 

 

 

Unfortunately this is caused by something introduced by Stock KSP 1.2. The model used to work for a time, but they reverted it back to the artificial 256 vertices.  I guess I have to disable it for now, until I get a replacement or get an Interstellar Variant, allowing the construction of a solar system sized particle accelerator, with enough power to create a stable black hole...

6 hours ago, gajbooks said:

Yes, real designs require more radiators, but this is KSP and needing 200 tons of radiators is excessive (and not to mention laggy).

 

I understand this isn't obvious but the radiators unlocked later it the tech tree get significantly lighter (for the same amount of radiator performance) than the version you start with and much better than stock radiators. The laggy ness can mainly be compensated by minimising the number of radiator and tweak scale them.

6 hours ago, gajbooks said:

I know it can be turned off, but turning it off right before launch results in the perma-extend bug and then explosions.

 

mm, this sound like a serious issue, how to reproduce?

Edited December 27, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

15 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

EDIT 2: Embrittlement is still a huge problem. I guess D-T fusion is simply useless unless your vessel uses minimml power-

1

Please make sure you take along some additional lithium to prevent increased embrittlement due to insufficient radiation shielding

D-T is the most powerful but also the dirtiest fusion mode, you are advised to use aneutronic fusion fuels  (like D-He3 or p-B) when idle or even better turn it off and reactivate when needed

 

15 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

I can't use the daedalus in timewarp after a mere 80 days, only way to do it is real time, which would take days.

2

Why only 80 days? note that if you run into the KSP warp acceleration limitation, you can compensate by simply lower throttle to a minimum and time accelerate, it will always use maximum acceleration.

15 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

EDIT 3: So, I first got 500 science from the IR telescope, cool. But it diminshed rapidly and can't be processed in lab. With maybe 900 science available, it seems pretty damn useless

2

Good point, this science experiment was originally made before the CTT existed and the max science a node could cost was 1000. I will increase the amount of research

Edited December 27, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

17 hours ago, Jumberlack said:

I'm having a bit of a problem, so I was using the thermal turbojet and the inline thermal reciever to cruise around in a test plane, powered by a microwave transmitter/fusion reactor (1000MW reactor, 481 recieved) I had set up near the space center. Anyways, it was generally going well until my radiators (4x rectangular curved mk4 graphite) sometimes quickly made their way up from 40ish % cooling to like 95, at that point, the temperature on my thermal turbojet climbed quickly from 690-700k all the way up to 2750 and the engine blows up unless I disable it. I don't really understand what induces the maxing out of radiator cooling, when it is normally not close to that. I also don't understand why extra energy needs to be radiated; shouldn't a hotter engine just go faster? I don't know if it helps but the plane wasn't going much over 350m/s and that was in/ right after a dive. 

 

Most likely it is air friction, but it should help to use preecooler

[dexter_]

Hello,

I encountered a problem concerning cooling a Molten Salt reactor(ThF4 fuel)+ Thermal electric generator. A DT-MW-TD-32x Microwave Transducer is also used and all components are at 2.5m scale.

• it seems the heat can not be transfered directly with radiators from this components(reactor or generator). It works if a Tank is connected to the assembly but I think this might not be a good idea because it drives the part count up.
• the radiation power is not what I expected. With a 30 m² Graphite radiator(folding medium) and Rad Temp at 1015 K, cooling 15.5% => Radiated Power is at 0.003MW=3kW. This can not be because a calculation with Stefan-Boltzmann shows the Radiated Power should be ~ 253 kW. This is a almost 100 fold difference.
• 2HOT Thermometer stuck on the surface of the reactor-generator-tank shows only the environment temperature which is strange....
• The initial value for Efficiency of the Thermal electric generator is shown for Power Control=0 not for 100% as displayed in the interface.(initialization probably wrong)

 

[The Destroyer]

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Please make sure you take along some additional lithium to prevent increased embrittlement due to insufficient radiation shielding

D-T is the most powerful but also the dirtiest fusion mode, you are advised to use aneutronic fusion fuels  (like D-He3 or p-B) when idle or even better turn it off and reactivate when needed

 

Why only 80 days? note that if you run into the KSP warp acceleration limitation, you can compensate by simply lower throttle to a minimum and time accelerate, it will always use maximum acceleration.

Good point, this science experiment was originally made before the CTT existed and the max science a node could cost was 1000. I will increase the amount of research

 

1: I had 2000 lithium in the reactor, and 8000 in additional pods. My Jool V mission lasted for 4 years as it toured Gilly and Jools moons, before reaching 50% embrittlement. I'm guessing that the reactor being under load from Daedalus makes it embrittle fast.

 

2: Well, after the reactor became embritteled it could only run the Daedalus at around 20% throttle. I mean, it could be done, was just annoying for an already slow engine.

3: Thanks

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

 I'm guessing that the reactor being under load from Daedalus makes it embrittle fast.

Yes it does, when using the Daedalus engine you should run in D-He3 mode, as it uses the same fuel for both reactor and engine and creates more electric power and last longer for the same amount of mass.

Edited December 27, 2016 by FreeThinker

[The Destroyer]

Yeah, I ended up doing that. He3 is just very expensive (and can't be mined). Now, to figure out how microwave power works

[Charon Moloch]

9 minutes ago, The Destroyer said:

Yeah, I ended up doing that. He3 is just very expensive (and can't be mined). Now, to figure out how microwave power works

To mine H3 you just have to swim in Jool for a bit

Or you can go the boring way and mine solar wind off Mun or Moho...

[FreeThinker]

21 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

Yeah, I ended up doing that. He3 is just very expensive (and can't be mined). Now, to figure out how microwave power works

There are  many ways of gathering Helium3 in KSPI, you can even mine it, but not directly, You can mine it indirectly by first harvesting SolarWind (Stick with stock drill) on any atmosphere-less planet or satellite (like our moon) and process (with KSPI ISRU refinery) it into useful resources, including helium3.

Alternative methods are breeding it from Lithium (By neutron capture and decay) or from Fusion Ash (Cold D-D fusion)

Soon you will also be able to harvest SolarWind  directly from space, which is great way to extend the usefulness of your Solar stations ...

Edited December 28, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Einarr]

@FreeThinker: Any chance the thermal turbojet and ramjets (the all-in-ones and the modular) could be updated to use the thrust as a function of speed calculations that modern stock jets use (x thrust at mach y)? I suspect such a change would have to be done via the module, as the module probably overrides anything the basic config files say anyway.

[Siama]

16 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

D-T is the most powerful but also the dirtiest fusion mode, you are advised to use aneutronic fusion fuels  (like D-He3 or p-B) when idle or even better turn it off and reactivate when needed

Nice joke. I put two reactors (molten salt as standby power source + antimatter for FTL jumping) on the same unmanned vessel and turned off antimatter reactor to ensure it will not consume precious fuel... 2 seconds later I lost control due to lack of ElectricCharge. Repeated it again with empty antimatter containers (running stable on UF4 only) and got the same results: if I deactivate main AM reactor (no matter if there an antimatter) I get second reactor deactivated too.
 

[Aaron Also]

IDK if this has been brought up before. I cant be bothered to read through the entire thread. If so Im sorry.

Ive noticed a large desparity with the thermal helper window in the VAB. What appears to be happening is the radiators are being calculated as per their default values. This happens even in sandbox mode. Such is the desparity that when I have "300MW" of heat to disipate but only give it 35MW of radiators in the VAB then launch it I get 250MW theoretical power production on the launch pad. 

I realize that changes to the rads have made them more upgradable with vast improvements coming from those upgrades. But in the VAB there is no way to tell if they will be sufficient for your design; or if there is I havent found it. 

Im also having one heck of a time with the new beamed power options, but what else is new. I always had a hard time wrapping my head around it. Now its a whole other beast. If there is a good tutorial for the new beamed power systems I could sure use it. 

[gajbooks]

I should clarify that I'm playing sandbox so the fact that radiators will be unlocked later is irrelevant and I'm only considering the most efficient ones. (As someone who posted before me realized, I might be relying on the incorrect VAB thermal helper?)

To get the radiators to rip themselves off, put some automated radiators inside a fairing. Upon launch, they should be continually trying to deploy and immediately undeploying because they are stowed. Toggling their automation will make them extend. After they extend, clicking the "extend" button again will make them instantly jump to being undeployed and then deploy them again instead of retracting. I think I remembered wrong and they don't rip themselves off in atmosphere, but any time the fairing is deployed they immediately disintegrate.

Edited December 29, 2016 by gajbooks

[zanie420]

@FreeThinker, can you not submit your experience in the science lab, as you can with the stock MPL, so you can level up as you go interplanetary? Seem so redundant to take both.....

[ss8913]

17 hours ago, Aaron Also said:

IDK if this has been brought up before. I cant be bothered to read through the entire thread. If so Im sorry.

Ive noticed a large desparity with the thermal helper window in the VAB. What appears to be happening is the radiators are being calculated as per their default values. This happens even in sandbox mode. Such is the desparity that when I have "300MW" of heat to disipate but only give it 35MW of radiators in the VAB then launch it I get 250MW theoretical power production on the launch pad. 

I realize that changes to the rads have made them more upgradable with vast improvements coming from those upgrades. But in the VAB there is no way to tell if they will be sufficient for your design; or if there is I havent found it. 

Im also having one heck of a time with the new beamed power options, but what else is new. I always had a hard time wrapping my head around it. Now its a whole other beast. If there is a good tutorial for the new beamed power systems I could sure use it. 

I'd like to add to this... the amount of wasteheat capacity per radiator often changes between launches; ie, launch, it overheats because the radiators only hold, say, 10k wasteheat.. revert to launch and the same part now holds 40k and it's fine... seems to happen most noticably with the large folding radiators but I've seen it with all of them at one time or another.  Also, yeah, 'automation' mode should keep them shut if they're inside a fairing or if there's too much aero pressure.  The umbrella radiator seems like it'd be more aerodynamic if it's extended vs closed as well, so it's almost like... opposite, really, from how you'd kind of expect that to work, in many cases...  Oh and the intakes are still not caring if they're open or closed for the air breathing engines... side note.. lol