KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Nansuchao]

7 hours ago, ss8913 said:

Noticed something last night - all the ISRU parts will only work when focused.  I have a hydrazine refinery on Duna, near the poles (where there's water to dig up).  I set up the 4 processes needed to turn water and atmospheric nitrogen into hydrazine.  Then I go to the space center, do something else for a few days, come back to my refinery.. it's sitting idle.  hasn't done jack and all the ISRU processes have stopped like they were never turned on... everything's just off.

Is this a bug?  Am I doing something wrong?

It's not a bug, it is the way it works from the beginning.

[FreeThinker]

39 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

It's not a bug, it is the way it works from the beginning.

True, but people still expect it to work. On the other hand they also think it is ok to exploit it whwn it is in their favor.

[ss8913]

43 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

True, but people still expect it to work. On the other hand they also think it is ok to exploit it whwn it is in their favor.

Is this behavior going to change to work while the craft is not focused?  Is it even possible to do so?  Could there maybe be a switch to turn this behavior on/off in the right click menu of the ISRU parts?

Also, @FreeThinker I believe you've got the alcubierre drives *spot-on* in the latest release.  Everything seems to work, at least in my opinion, the way it should, with regards to these parts.  You can still crash into low-gravity bodies like Minmus since it doesn't haul you out of warp fast enough, but.. with their small gravity wells, that's actually kind of a risk you'd expect from this technology, so I think it's pretty good this way.  Kerbin will stop you though - jump in-system, set MJ2 to surface mode, heading 90 pitch -90 roll 0, warp in towards the planet at 0.1c and depending on your reactor power, it'll haul you out of warp at a fairly ideal orbital altitude, then circularize and you're good.

Edited March 1, 2016 by ss8913

[FreeThinker]

23 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

Also, @FreeThinker I believe you've got the alcubierre drives *spot-on* in the latest release.  Everything seems to work, at least in my opinion, the way it should, with regards to these parts.  You can still crash into low-gravity bodies like Minmus since it doesn't haul you out of warp fast enough, but.. with their small gravity wells, that's actually kind of a risk you'd expect from this technology, so I think it's pretty good this way.  Kerbin will stop you though - jump in-system, set MJ2 to surface mode, heading 90 pitch -90 roll 0, warp in towards the planet at 0.1c and depending on your reactor power, it'll haul you out of warp at a fairly ideal orbital altitude, then circularize and you're good.

Glad you liked it. Yes in core concept is right I think, it could only need a few conveniant features (like auto accelerating when possible) and improved safetly feature with quicker respone (currenly it can only decreases 1 gear per frame, where it should go down faster). The main goal was to create a satifying chalange, it now takes a bit of efford to go faster than light, and you need to plan ahead a bit more

23 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

@FreeThinkerIs this behavior going to change to work while the craft is not focused?  Is it even possible to do so?  Could there maybe be a switch to turn this behavior on/off in the right click menu of the ISRU parts?

In the short term I plan to implement a simple delta time step correction, similar to atmospheric scoop. This should at least allow you to do things paralel. In the long run I want to implement true paralel processing, but this is still just a dream.

Edited March 1, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nansuchao]

It will be possible to use the same way TAC-LS calculate supplies during time?

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Nansuchao said:

It will be possible to use the same way TAC-LS calculate supplies during time?

And what way would that be?

[Nansuchao]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

And what way would that be?

TAC-LF use a system (and it share it at will) that when you load your refinery it will calculate the amount of time passed from the last check and add/subtract the correct amount of supplies consumed. I seem to remember that the stock ISRU system used a similar method.

[FreeThinker]

39 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

TAC-LF use a system (and it share it at will) that when you load your refinery it will calculate the amount of time passed from the last check and add/subtract the correct amount of supplies consumed. I seem to remember that the stock ISRU system used a similar method.

Well that's what I call a delta time correction. At startup, it simply calculates the difference between the current time and last save time as a delta, and uses it for the the existing method to process resource production/mining and consumption

Edited March 1, 2016 by FreeThinker

[RzTen1]

I've been looking at how other mods handle power draw under high time compression and it looks like both DMagic's Orbital Science and SCANSat drop power processing entirely when TimeWarp.CurrentRate is >= 15000.  In any case, looking at FNModuleCryostat.cs' OnFixedUpdate function I see that time compression isn't considered when drawing from ElectricCharge so that unless the craft has giant battery banks the amount drawn will quickly exceed the maximum sortable power even if there's plenty of power under normal time.  I created a craft that was mostly batteries with an ElectricCharge of 143800 to test with and the tank didn't boil even under maximum time compression.  I think kicking out under high compression would fix this, but I'm not sure if there's a better way to do it.

Spoiler

I have noticed some other weirdness that I haven't tracked down yet... the tank claims to be drawing 2.92KW and I see an ElectricCharge drain rate of 2.96, which is around what I'd expect.  That's not an insane drain rate so I threw a bunch of full cells on there that combined should be able to produce 216 EC/sec and the discharge rate remained at 2.96 until the battery banks hit 143269/143800 at which point the (dis)charge rate rapidly fluctuated between 1.82 and --9.05.  The actual stored amount remained static.  Starting/stopping more fuel cells will cause the total stored number of fluctuate by 1, but the battery banks will never return to 100% full even with the tank fully boiled off and/or disabled.

Please disregard the above section in regards to fuel cell's... I forgot they only recharge the batteries to 95%.  Throwing a solar panel on there completed the charge.

Edited March 3, 2016 by RzTen1
additional testing

[badwolf88]

Can somebody help me figure out what i'm doing with the warp drives? I've finally gotten my power grid strong enough to charge an alcubierre drive up and start it. however, it only stores enough exotic matter to start the engine, not to sustain it! It seems to have plenty of storage while I have my lower stage attached, but once I jettison the heavy lower stage it drops off to the minimum again. Is there a way to store extra exotic matter, or am I doing something else wrong? BTW, all of my power is being relayed to the craft by several power plants, none is being produced on board.

[EnigmaG]

The minimum power to charge the alcubierre drive is enough to fly with 1c for more or less you need more power. In gravitational field your maximal speed is limited so you can not start  with  minimum power.

Also when you charged you can fly but need the above mentioned power, i don´t know if you can receive it at warp speed.

Edited March 3, 2016 by EnigmaG

[Chasewithlasers]

I've had an idea for a temporary fix for the ISRU refineries not having working uranium reprocessing options and I wanted to know if it could work. I mean, I assume they aren't working properly now since only the molten salt reactor uses and holds the UF4 needed for reprocessing and uranium nitride production, as far as I know, and I read that you can't just change the ISRU modules to use EnrichedUranium because that would make NearFuture integration all wonky. It also limits options of fueling spacecraft with molten salt reactors to sending another molten salt reactor after it, which isn't exactly the best plan in career mode

As a temporary workaround to both of these, could I copy the models and cfg files of one of the radial tanks and edit it so it hold UF4 instead of EnrichedUranium (or make a Fuel Switch option so that the same tank hold... well, the same thing with different names, but it should do the trick), or would that probably break the cycle somewhere? And I suppose the DepletedFuels depicted in the ISRU flowchart in page 1 (which I assume is up to date) aren't the same resource as NearFuture's DepletedFuel, but I also see nothing that can hold DepletedFuels. If the uranium reprocessing option is being used, are DepletedFuels just ejected and deleted or are they kept somewhere? 

Also: What's up with Kerosene? I can see it's an option on both the thermal nozzles, but I see no fuel tanks that are able to hold it? Sorry for so many questions, and thanks for the incredible work with the mod

Edited March 4, 2016 by Chasewithlasers

[Wisniowka]

Radiators can cause different results in career and sandbox mode. Here is the same ship in 2 mode. What's the problem with it ?  Sandbox & Career

Thanks..

Edited March 4, 2016 by Wisniowka
Links

[EnigmaG]

Have you Meta Materials in CareerMod  researched?

[Wisniowka]

1 hour ago, EnigmaG said:

Have you Meta Materials in CareerMod  researched?

"Meta Materials"  Thnx a lot bro..

[FreeThinker]

On 4-3-2016 at 4:08 AM, Chasewithlasers said:

I've had an idea for a temporary fix for the ISRU refineries not having working uranium reprocessing options and I wanted to know if it could work. I mean, I assume they aren't working properly now since only the molten salt reactor uses and holds the UF4 needed for reprocessing and uranium nitride production, as far as I know, and I read that you can't just change the ISRU modules to use EnrichedUranium because that would make NearFuture integration all wonky. It also limits options of fueling spacecraft with molten salt reactors to sending another molten salt reactor after it, which isn't exactly the best plan in career mode

As a temporary workaround to both of these, could I copy the models and cfg files of one of the radial tanks and edit it so it hold UF4 instead of EnrichedUranium (or make a Fuel Switch option so that the same tank hold... well, the same thing with different names, but it should do the trick), or would that probably break the cycle somewhere? And I suppose the DepletedFuels depicted in the ISRU flowchart in page 1 (which I assume is up to date) aren't the same resource as NearFuture's DepletedFuel, but I also see nothing that can hold DepletedFuels. If the uranium reprocessing option is being used, are DepletedFuels just ejected and deleted or are they kept somewhere? 

Also: What's up with Kerosene? I can see it's an option on both the thermal nozzles, but I see no fuel tanks that are able to hold it? Sorry for so many questions, and thanks for the incredible work with the mod

Good suggestion, after re-visioning the Fusion Power rectors (which are implemented in 1.16.10, I want to focus on ISRU again, which has not have been given the attention it needs. But before that, I probably first have put everything at work to convert to KSP 1.1 whiich I suspect will be released next month

Edited March 5, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Francois424]

I want to use these "Heat Radiators" to replace stock radiators, but they do not appear to be tracking the sun as the stock radiator do.

1- Is it normal ?

2- If yes, how do I make them follow the sun ?  Any way of modifying files to make them ?

3- If no can edit .cfg files; would the author consider making a quick tweak to make them so ? 

 

I really dig the look, but hate the fact they don't pivot (probably because the part itself does not have a Pivot to begin with).

Edited March 5, 2016 by Francois424

[Thorbane]

1 hour ago, Francois424 said:

I want to use these "Heat Radiators" to replace stock radiators, but they do not appear to be tracking the sun as the stock radiator do.

Which heat radiators?  There are something like 5 different types in this mod.  The folding ones should pivot, if they don't then something is wrong with your install.

[Francois424]

8 minutes ago, Thorbane said:

Which heat radiators?  There are something like 5 different types in this mod.  The folding ones should pivot, if they don't then something is wrong with your install.

Speaking of this one.  I don't see how it can pivot as there is nothing in the .cfg file that allows it to

a) follow the sun
b) pivot.

 

EDIT: If I am wrong, please provide the good link to Download it from... having hard time finding this radiator nowadays.

 

Edited March 5, 2016 by Francois424

[Thorbane]

@Francois424

I think it's part of the FNRadiator module.

[ss8913]

2 hours ago, Francois424 said:

Speaking of this one.  I don't see how it can pivot as there is nothing in the .cfg file that allows it to

a) follow the sun
b) pivot.

 

EDIT: If I am wrong, please provide the good link to Download it from... having hard time finding this radiator nowadays.

 

these radiators definitely can (and do) pivot.

[Francois424]

Just now, ss8913 said:

these radiators definitely can (and do) pivot.

Yes, but not this one.  The other ones from the latest version of interstellar are black.  Other than that they are identical, and do work very well.
I found out, after making my post here, that I had the ones with the darkish red texture (as displayed on the image) from an older version somehow, that's why they do not rotate.

Unfortunately (for me), I preferred the reddish one (basic hue, not overheating on above picture). I do not know how to transfer texture from one to the other... But I managed to use black radiators in the meantime.
I very much doubt I shall find anyone to put out radiator like those in picture that works like stock 1.0.x ones, but if someone where to do it, that would be sweet.

Nothing wrong with Interstellar Mod; you both are quite right... 

[Hunter0000]

DISCLAIMER: While I am a programmer by profession, I know almost nothing about KSP modding so it's possible this post makes some silly assumptions.

I was a bit bored and did some digging about the cost of the Molten Salt reactor to try and figure out the high cost. The current cost seems to have been set by the 1.6.8 commit (https://github.com/sswelm/KSPInterstellar/commit/c255889321ff64995ae14dd6e8e7e496aeff3448)

+	entryCost = 74250
+	cost = 742500

That commit looks like it split the Molten Salt reactor configs from it's old location (https://github.com/sswelm/KSPInterstellar/blob/master/GameData/WarpPlugin/Parts/Electrical/NuclearReactor3Spheres/LargeSaltReactor.cfg) which lists the cost as

entryCost = 50000
cost = 71900 // 50000 + 300 * 73

While that old cost is not the 50,000 listed on the first post - the comment there seems to pretty clearly indicate it's derived by adding some factor. Looks like it might be the cost of 300 UF4?

I've only looked at the Molten salt reactor here, but perhaps there were similar changes for other reactors that have off prices compared to the first post. Or perhaps they are simply off due to fuel prices - I'm not sure.

Either way, is this cost intended? Is this just a misplaced zero or something?

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, Hunter0000 said:

DISCLAIMER: While I am a programmer by profession, I know almost nothing about KSP modding so it's possible this post makes some silly assumptions.

I was a bit bored and did some digging about the cost of the Molten Salt reactor to try and figure out the high cost. The current cost seems to have been set by the 1.6.8 commit (https://github.com/sswelm/KSPInterstellar/commit/c255889321ff64995ae14dd6e8e7e496aeff3448)

+	entryCost = 74250
+	cost = 742500

That commit looks like it split the Molten Salt reactor configs from it's old location (https://github.com/sswelm/KSPInterstellar/blob/master/GameData/WarpPlugin/Parts/Electrical/NuclearReactor3Spheres/LargeSaltReactor.cfg) which lists the cost as

entryCost = 50000
cost = 71900 // 50000 + 300 * 73

While that old cost is not the 50,000 listed on the first post - the comment there seems to pretty clearly indicate it's derived by adding some factor. Looks like it might be the cost of 300 UF4?

I've only looked at the Molten salt reactor here, but perhaps there were similar changes for other reactors that have off prices compared to the first post. Or perhaps they are simply off due to fuel prices - I'm not sure.

Either way, is this cost intended? Is this just a misplaced zero or something?

No, it is not intended. The intended cost are listed on the OP in the reactor table.  The cost should be 50000 + 21900 = 71900, not  742500 which is more than ten times the intended cost. I might have slipped up with a zerro too much

Edited March 5, 2016 by FreeThinker

[yafeshan]

I was a devout KSPI-E follower when I was playing the game. I was waiting for 1.1 to start again. I will of course want to have KSPI-E but this time I want to try it with RSS, Is there anyone out there playing this great mod with RSS, if yes how compatible are they. I know it is counted as supported mod in first page but I want to learn about your experience my friends.