KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Uberns]

3 minutes ago, Charon Moloch said:

ok, new information on this forum helped me fix the problem with my hybrid radiator/microwave reciever/aero wings, have a look at them now 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p11di7s4qea6ve9/hybridwings.7z?dl=0

those look like b9 procedural wings to me.  Your using them as a microwave receiver? o.O how

[Nansuchao]

43 minutes ago, slontone said:

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I can't seem to find an answer (after spending the last hour looking through this thread)

I know thsi mod allows engine use during time warp. I was just testing it. With the throttle at 0, I have a "warp thrust" of 0.0000000. I have a positive warp ISP, but no thrust. When I advance the throttle, the "warp thrust" increases, but I cannot enter time warp while the throttle is above 0. I also cannot change the position of the throttle during time warp.

From what I've read, you're supposed to leave the throttle at 0 and then use time warp. I've tried that, the engines never provide any thrust.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

In theory, you should set your throttle to a low-level thrust (~-30%) and enter TimeWarp. What engine are you trying to use?

[slontone]

1 minute ago, Nansuchao said:

In theory, you should set your throttle to a low-level thrust (~-30%) and enter TimeWarp. What engine are you trying to use?

I was testing it with the vasimr. At even the lowest thrust (like 5%) when I try to enter time warp it says "your ship cannot enter time warp while under acceleration" (not the exact wording, but whatever the default KSP warning is when trying to enter time warp with the thrust above 0)

[Nansuchao]

1 hour ago, slontone said:

I was testing it with the vasimr. At even the lowest thrust (like 5%) when I try to enter time warp it says "your ship cannot enter time warp while under acceleration" (not the exact wording, but whatever the default KSP warning is when trying to enter time warp with the thrust above 0)

I'm not sure VASMIR has actually this ability. Can you make the same test with the magnetic nozzle?

[Nansuchao]

@FreeThinker, I made a short video about the Crew Ferry. As you can see, it flies really well, I just need to improve the TORY position, it is difficult to land safely, it's too hard for the Runway

 

[slontone]

1 hour ago, Nansuchao said:

I'm not sure VASMIR has actually this ability. Can you make the same test with the magnetic nozzle?

Thanks for your reply.

I think it has the ability since it shows a "warp isp" and "warp thrust" in the context menu. (Other engines that don't have the ability don't show that)

But the result is the same with the magnetic nozzle. I can't enter time warp at all with the throttle greater than 0.

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, slontone said:

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I can't seem to find an answer (after spending the last hour looking through this thread)

I know thsi mod allows engine use during time warp. I was just testing it. With the throttle at 0, I have a "warp thrust" of 0.0000000. I have a positive warp ISP, but no thrust. When I advance the throttle, the "warp thrust" increases, but I cannot enter time warp while the throttle is above 0. I also cannot change the position of the throttle during time warp.

From what I've read, you're supposed to leave the throttle at 0 and then use time warp. I've tried that, the engines never provide any thrust.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Specifically what engine to you attempt to trust at time warp

[slontone]

3 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Specifically what engine to you attempt to trust at time warp

As mentioned in the post above this one, I originally tried it with the VASMIR, and then tried again with the magnetic nozzle as suggested by Nansuchao. The result was the same, I am unable to enter time warp with the thrust above 0 or enable it while time warp is active.

And neither engine provides any thrust for me while at time warp.

[FreeThinker]

43 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

@FreeThinker, I made a short video about the Crew Ferry. As you can see, it flies really well, I just need to improve the TORY position, it is difficult to land safely, it's too hard for the Runway

 

Damn,  it was flawless until you landed. I guess you need to increase the size/strength of your landing gear

[Nansuchao]

2 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Damn,  it was flawless until you landed. I guess you need to increase the size/strength of your landing gear

It's the TORY. A great engine, but it's shape it's difficult to place. I flew this SSTO 5-6 times, and I was never able to save it. I tried to carry the landing gears a little back, the TORY a little forward, but I still have to work on it.

[Noel32]

What combination of mods would you recommend for a 1.2.2 install and would mods such as extra planetary launchpads and TAC life support work with this?

[falcoon]

@Nansuchao What is the name of this mod for plane controls below resources ? Looks really handy.

[Charon Moloch]

10 hours ago, Uberns said:

those look like b9 procedural wings to me.  Your using them as a microwave receiver? o.O how

They work as receivers, but I use them as aerodynamic radiators for first stages and space planes, the drag is easier to take into account if they are wings, I also made a fin version.

[falcoon]

After hours of testing I finally start to understand how my power network should be designed to work as expected. I even figured out how to look for info in .cfg files  
As a result, I found two broken parts - Duel Mode Thermal Sphere Receiver and Folded Radial Rectenna Receiver. Both of them dosen't receive any power no matter what wavelength I try.

Probably there is sth wrong with config. Lines responsible for the bandwidth starts with //
 

		atmosphereToleranceModifier = 10
	}

//	MODULE
//	{
//   		name = MicrowavePowerTransmitter
//   		animName = deploy
//		apertureDiameter = 12
//		maximumPower = 3000
//		canTransmit = true
//		canRelay = true
//		canRelayOnSurface = false
//
//		nativeWaveLength = 0.003189281
//		nativeAtmosphericAbsorptionPercentage = 44
//	}

	RESOURCE
	{

 

Second one is mysterious for me. VAB info says "max Wavelenght = 0" which I assume is wrong, but .cfg seems to be ok.

 

		facingThreshold = 0.25
	}

	MODULE
	{
		name = BandwidthConverter
		bandwidthName = full electronic spectrum
		minimumWavelength = 0.00000001  // 1.0e-8		
		maximumWavelength = 0
.1  	// 1.0e-1	
		electricEfficiencyPercentage0 = 33
		thermalEfficiencyPercentage0 = 99
		techRequirement0 = start
	}

	MODULE

 

Could someone explain to me step by step (my programming skills are lvl 0) how I can fix it? I would really like to ude both parts

Ps. I'm still playing on version 1.2.1. Can't upgrade untill Near Future will be updated.

 

EDIT:

Now i see something. After ctrl+c ctrl+v from notepad, there is additional line here, but in notepat everyhing looks fine.

Edited January 14, 2017 by falcoon
update

[Aaron Also]

@falcoon

I've had my suspicions about the radial rectena myself, but never tested it. As for the thermal sphere it must be connected to a thermal electric converter to function. Essentially beamed power in KSPIE works by transferring heat energy over distance and them converting that heat to electricity. Many of the receivers now require TEGs to function is my understanding.

[falcoon]

@Aaron Also By thermal electric converter you mean generator? It could make sense, I'll check it, but if so....
what does this button Power Mode - Electric/Thermal do? Description says it can operate in thermal or electric mode, but if iI need a generator to use it, I don't know what it could mean.

[Nansuchao]

2 hours ago, falcoon said:

@Nansuchao What is the name of this mod for plane controls below resources ? Looks really handy.

Pilot Assistant, it's really useful for atmospheric flight. You can set the values manually or tweak them slowly with QWEASD.

[Aaron Also]

24 minutes ago, falcoon said:

@Aaron Also By thermal electric converter you mean generator? It could make sense, I'll check it, but if so....
what does this button Power Mode - Electric/Thermal do? Description says it can operate in thermal or electric mode, but if iI need a generator to use it, I don't know what it could mean.

Yes, the thermal mode is for passing heat energy to engines that require it, instead of a heavy reactor. In electric mode, the TEG is required.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Aaron Also

[Uberns]

2 hours ago, falcoon said:

Could someone explain to me step by step (my programming skills are lvl 0) how I can fix it? I would really like to ude both parts

I'm going to give you some feed back on what you said because it sounds like you have a couple of holes in your understanding of how computers read lines of code (and i totally get this.  Im mostly self taught too).

		minimumWavelength = 0.00000001  // 1.0e-8		
		maximumWavelength = 0
.1  	// 1.0e-1	
		electricEfficiencyPercentage0 = 33

There is an invisible character called a Carriage Return that is inserted into text everywhere the enter key is pressed.  It is used to "delimit" lines of code which means it tells the computer that you are finished with that line.  That may sound like common sense but it is a nuanced part of how the computer reads text.  If you were to keep typing without ever pressing enter then the text editor would eventually "word wrap" your text to the next line all by itself.  But in this case there is NO Carriage Return character so the computer will read both lines as one (if you look around in that .cfg file you will see a good example of this under Drag_Cube.  All those numbers are read as one line even though it is probably displayed to you as 2 lines).  Some programming languages use other characters for delimiting lines (such as ";") which avoids this confusion.  

In your sample code there is a carriage return between the "maximumWavelength = 0" and ".1     // 1.0e-1".  So the computer reads the first line and sets the maximumWavelength property of the BandwidthConverter module to 0.  Then it reads the next line and goes ".1 is not a property or a module or anything else that i recognize.  So im going to ignore it and move on to the next line".  Try selecting the 0.1 and deleting it, then put it back in so that it is all on one line.  The "// 1.0e-1" will make sense in a minute.

2 hours ago, falcoon said:

Probably there is sth wrong with config. Lines responsible for the bandwidth starts with //

// is used to comment out sections of code.  Anything between // and the next carriage return will be ignored by the computer.  This is used by programmers to make their code easier to read for humans without confusing the computer.  Look at the line above our previous problem that reads "minimumWavelength = 0.00000001  // 1.0e-8".  The // 1.0e-8 is ignored by the computer and its purpose is to make the number 0.00000001 easier to read (you dont have to count the zeros to know where the decimal place is.  1.0e-8 tells you to move the decimal in 1.0 by 8 places to the left).

Comments are also used by programmers during trouble shooting as a way to block off sections of code without having to remove them (so it is easy to turn those lines of code back "on" once you are finished).  As a matter of fact, many programs used for developing code have a convenient button for adding/removing // to blocks of code.

Removing the //'s may make that part functional again.  HOWEVER, I do not know why it was commented out in the first place and it is entirely possible that the //'s were left there intentionally to avoid a more serious issue until troubleshooting can be completed.  If you want to try removing those // then I recommend backing up your saves first just to be safe.

Edit:

Also I would recommend using WordPad instead of Notepad if your going to look at the .cfg's with a text editor.  Notepad is very basic and I have noticed that it does not recognize all of the possible Carriage return characters (yea.. there are several and i do not know why).  So I think the carriage return between the =0 and the .1 is one that Notepad does not recognize.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Uberns

[falcoon]

@Uberns Thank you for taking time and giving me such a comprehensive explanation. That's much more than I expected.
Thermal Sphere Receiver started to receive power. Not exacly how I expected, but that's something I can work with
I will also follow your advice and leave  Radial Rectenna as it is. One receiver is not worth risking loss of saves.

One more minor question regarding network.
Usually spot size is described by one number, but sometimes there are two, like here:

What does the second number mean?

[EvilGeorge]

5 hours ago, Uberns said:

Removing the //'s may make that part functional again.  HOWEVER, I do not know why it was commented out in the first place and it is entirely possible that the //'s were left there intentionally to avoid a more serious issue until troubleshooting can be completed.  If you want to try removing those // then I recommend backing up your saves first just to be safe.
 

Hey, if we're talking about this bit from the config here:

maximumWavelength = 0
.1  	// 1.0e-1	

There's clearly just been a typo (or button mistakenly-pressed, to be precise) - there should not be the carriage return / Enter / newline between the zero and the point one. (Maybe that's what you were actually talking about and in that case, my bad, I should have read your answer more carefully.)

But the solution here should be to just erase that carriage return / Enter / newline thing to put the zero and the point one (and the comment) on the same line (put your text cursor behind the zero and press delete until they're next to each other). The way it is now means that the maximumWaveLength is set to zero and the bit below this is ignored. If you put them on the same line, the maximumWavelength for this part will be set to (zero) point one. Thanks for catching this.

Do not remove the commenting lines in this case - the bit behind them is a comment and it's there just for the dev's benefit (so that he doesn't have to do calculations in his head when going through this cfg - it would be elementary in this case, but not with the other wavelengths, so I guess this comment is there just for the sake of consistency).

Edited January 14, 2017 by EvilGeorge
Now that I have re-read Uberns' post, I noticed he did post the solution in the first part of his post. So... Yeah. Too quick to type.

[Uberns]

@EvilGeorge the // bit was refering to a block of code in falcoon's original post that i did not quote (but should have)

[Charon Moloch]

4 hours ago, falcoon said:

@Uberns Thank you for taking time and giving me such a comprehensive explanation. That's much more than I expected.
Thermal Sphere Receiver started to receive power. Not exacly how I expected, but that's something I can work with
I will also follow your advice and leave  Radial Rectenna as it is. One receiver is not worth risking loss of saves.

One more minor question regarding network.
Usually spot size is described by one number, but sometimes there are two, like here:

What does the second number mean?

You see there, the receiver is connected to 2/2 of your transmitting satellites, so you have 2 spot sizes, one for each, too bad you can't pick between what transmitter to see the info on, so right now, if you want to see how effective the transmittion is you have to turn off all but one of your transmitters, and check the numbers.

[gary85]

So , any news on mine issue with reactors?

[Charon Moloch]

17 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

@FreeThinker, I made a short video about the Crew Ferry. As you can see, it flies really well, I just need to improve the TORY position, it is difficult to land safely, it's too hard for the Runway

 

That was cool, you made your game look beautiful even tho it takes a toll on the frame rate, hydrazene is nice and dense as a fuel, but it's expensive!, on the landing I'm not a pro, but from what I see your craft is very heavy, and for such a tonnage 7 m/s was a bit rough, you could increase the lift, that's what I'd do, to make smoother landings easier, or just land next to the runway like a noob and taxi on it for 100% recovery, the ground can't be crushed by 100t.