KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[dannyo862]

@FreeThinker I can see the branch and I'm actively using it - does the whole Mk1 to Mk5 in the radiator description not mean anything now then?  There are no upgrades in there but after scouring the tree I found a radiator upgrade in Nanolathing oddly enough...

[Charon Moloch]

Hi, so I combined a stock wing and a radiator and made something, I wanted to know your opinions on it:

there are 2 variants, a light and heavy variant for each, the light ones have the same weight but can only go to 2600 temp max, as they are made from titanium

the heavy variant uses different materials, so I made them a bit heaver, and can radiate heat to max temperature, also made them more expensive.

here's a link, none of them are my assets -_-: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qsgceo4gq0asuiq/hybridwings.7z?dl=0

Edit: I don't know how to make them glow, that would be cool.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Charon Moloch

[ss8913]

6 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

Not exactly a characteristic but more a goal. The old (pre 1.0) VISTA allowed the building of wonderful motherships for interplanetary mission, and some of the best SSTOs. It was the Ultimate engine, high thrust and high ISP for every important mission. 

The actual version of this engine instead, while it's much more realistic, it's not the best choice in most cases.

My opinion is that many "old school" Interstellar players miss that milestone, that for many was more rewarding than the WarpDrive itself.

so far I can find no better sublight engine than the plasma nozzle attached to an antimatter reactor and using hydrazine as a propellant.  Almost my entire space program is based upon that combination, and also the thermal ramjets and launch nozzles.  a 5m antimatter reactor with a 5m launch nozzle and hydrazine can get over 1500 tons to orbit without staging, pretty easily, and at ~1.5-2.0g.

[ss8913]

so, @FreeThinker - my problems are deeper than I thought.. having the spaceplane docked or undocked makes no difference.  use high timewarp + alcubierre drive = rapid unplanned disassembly, reliably and repeatably.  Some other odd graphics issues like... interstellar X48 and interstellar cone tanks suddenly being offset by a meter or two during timewarp, then they snap back when you go back to 1x... very very strange.  It's fixable by going into the cheat menu and saying "unbreakable joints" and "no crash damage" however.  It's almost like when you made the mod honor the cheats, you either enabled this workaround or caused the need for it; I did go to this same planet with a ship a few KSPIE versions ago and had none of these problems however... so I am not sure exactly.  The logs show nothing out of the ordinary going on, unfortunately.

OK, I was slightly wrong.  the unbreakable cheat wasn't really helping; when I trigger this bug, with unbreakable ON, it will just start.. spinning everything wildly out of control since it can't rip it apart.  unrecoverable.  However the good news is that this simply seems to be an issue of "don't use the alcubierre drives at more than 100x timewarp".  If I limit myself to 100x, everything is fine.  above that... no.

Edited January 5, 2017 by ss8913

[singlet]

Bug report: CANDLE Traveling Wave Reactor Engine explosion with USI_NF_Mode.cfg

The internal radiators of the CANDLE engine have been weakened too far with the patch and cannot dissipate enough heat. The engine explodes after achieving orbit.

Deletion of the said patch file solves this problem.

[The Destroyer]

Well, the Z-6 is almost in operation. However, my FPS continues to tank. Liftoff it was fine, but coming back to kerbin I was getting 10-3 FPS. It might be USI LS, might not, maybe KSPI, I honestly have no idea what's causing this awful lag.

 

Reloading a quciksave magically fixed FPS. So, no idea.

Edited January 5, 2017 by The Destroyer

[ss8913]

30 minutes ago, singlet said:

Bug report: CANDLE Traveling Wave Reactor Engine explosion with USI_NF_Mode.cfg

The internal radiators of the CANDLE engine have been weakened too far with the patch and cannot dissipate enough heat. The engine explodes after achieving orbit.

Deletion of the said patch file solves this problem.

looks like the reactor itself is making 2x the heat in addition to the radiator being 1/2 as effective.

[singlet]

41 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

looks like the reactor itself is making 2x the heat in addition to the radiator being 1/2 as effective.

No. The units in the former screenshot are kilowatts and those in the latter are megawatts.

[Nansuchao]

4 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

Well, the Z-6 is almost in operation. However, my FPS continues to tank. Liftoff it was fine, but coming back to kerbin I was getting 10-3 FPS. It might be USI LS, might not, maybe KSPI, I honestly have no idea what's causing this awful lag.

 

Reloading a quciksave magically fixed FPS. So, no idea.

I had the same issue a couple of times, usually when I lost a radiator, with the debug console cluttered with Exception. Reloading saves the situation most of the times.

[FreeThinker]

6 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

Well, the Z-6 is almost in operation. However, my FPS continues to tank. Liftoff it was fine, but coming back to kerbin I was getting 10-3 FPS. It might be USI LS, might not, maybe KSPI, I honestly have no idea what's causing this awful lag.

 

Reloading a quciksave magically fixed FPS. So, no idea.

Please open the cheat menu log, is anything spamming exceptions or any other warnings?

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, ss8913 said:

OK, I was slightly wrong.  the unbreakable cheat wasn't really helping; when I trigger this bug, with unbreakable ON, it will just start.. spinning everything wildly out of control since it can't rip it apart.  unrecoverable.  However the good news is that this simply seems to be an issue of "don't use the alcubierre drives at more than 100x timewarp".  If I limit myself to 100x, everything is fine.  above that... no.

mmm,  when it occurs, exactly where are you?  Also have you installed Persistant rotation and Kerbal Joint Reenforcement? I If you do, try uninstall them an see if the problem persists.

[singlet]

@FreeThinker, it seems that the Direct Cycle Nuclear Turbojet has no air intake although the description says that "It includes a built-in precooler and air intakes." I am not sure whether this means a 'missing intake' bug or a simple 'misleading description'. Could you please clarify?

[zanie420]

9 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

Well, the Z-6 is almost in operation. However, my FPS continues to tank. Liftoff it was fine, but coming back to kerbin I was getting 10-3 FPS. It might be USI LS, might not, maybe KSPI, I honestly have no idea what's causing this awful lag.

 

Reloading a quciksave magically fixed FPS. So, no idea.

Quit teasing me!

[The Destroyer]

@FreeThinker Nope, log seemed normal. I'll check the other logs though

@zanie420 Now that Grand tour line is almost finished, I've been working on the cargo line. 750 tons at the runway, carrying a 500 ton payload!

After unloading the payload, front wings detach to allow a safe glide back to the KSC- But it doesn't need a runway

Edited January 5, 2017 by The Destroyer
Z-7

[ss8913]

4 hours ago, singlet said:

@FreeThinker, it seems that the Direct Cycle Nuclear Turbojet has no air intake although the description says that "It includes a built-in precooler and air intakes." I am not sure whether this means a 'missing intake' bug or a simple 'misleading description'. Could you please clarify?

Hm. It has an intake when it's first.unlocked in career... but the updated version seems to remove.the intake  that's what I'm seeing in my career game with it, anyway.

[EnriqueBNew]

The Updates are added by the KSPI-E Plugin, or they are Stock?

[FreeThinker]

On 4-1-2017 at 8:27 PM, Charon Moloch said:

Hi, so I combined a stock wing and a radiator and made something, I wanted to know your opinions on it:

there are 2 variants, a light and heavy variant for each, the light ones have the same weight but can only go to 2600 temp max, as they are made from titanium

the heavy variant uses different materials, so I made them a bit heaver, and can radiate heat to max temperature, also made them more expensive.

here's a link, none of them are my assets -_-: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qsgceo4gq0asuiq/hybridwings.7z?dl=0

Edit: I don't know how to make them glow, that would be cool.

 

 

Well, not bad for a start, but I think we can do better. I think it would be best if you stretch it making it square. Square size is an ideal side to make it a thermal receiver, combined with it large surface area, this should make it effective as either a thermal radiator or thermal receiver.

Edited January 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Charon Moloch]

12 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well, not bad for a start, but I think we can do better. I think it would be best if you stretch it making it square. Square size is an ideal side to make it a thermal receiver, combined with it large surface area, this should make it effective as either a thermal radiator or thermal receiver.

I could never make microwave thermal receivers work as radiators, and blender seems complicated(impossible), I will put some more work into it when I can.

[FreeThinker]

11 minutes ago, Charon Moloch said:

I could never make microwave thermal receivers work as radiators, and blender seems complicated(impossible), I will put some more work into it when I can.

Actual, it is a part config, just look at the wrapped thermal receiver which operate either as a thermal receiver or radiator

[HumanEnigma]

Go big or go home!

Okay, I might be a little crazy... but it actually makes it to orbit!

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, HumanEnigma said:

Go big or go home!

Okay, I might be a little crazy... but it actually makes it to orbit!

 

It's difficult to see what it is made of, but I guess you scaled it up to 20m diameter

[HumanEnigma]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

It's difficult to see what it is made of, but I guess you scaled it up to 20m diameter

Yes, 20m for most of it. It is a solar satellite based on the large solar array scaled up to 20m. It also has a folding warp drive and 6 EM drives around the center of mass after losing the boosters. It has 8 of the wrapped microwave arrays being used as radiators. They are not scaled up. I can get it close to 100,000km altitude to the sun with the solar array being the critical component for temp.

[FreeThinker]

13 minutes ago, HumanEnigma said:

Yes, 20m for most of it. It is a solar satellite based on the large solar array scaled up to 20m. It also has a folding warp drive and 6 EM drives around the center of mass after losing the boosters. It has 8 of the wrapped microwave arrays being used as radiators. They are not scaled up. I can get it close to 100,000km altitude to the sun with the solar array being the critical component for temp.

 

 

 

Do note there is a stock bug / persistent rotation bug that causes parts of your ship to explode at startup when too close to the sun for a 1/50 of a second they are subjected to intense solar radiation (because shadows take at least a second go get into effect), so I suggest not to get closer than 200.000 km

Edited January 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[HumanEnigma]

11 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Do note there is a stock bug / persistent rotation bug that causes parts of your ship to explode at startup when too close to the sun for a 1/50 of a second they are subjected to intense solar radiation (because shadows take at least a second go get into effect), so I suggest not to get closer than 200.000 km

I've not had any problems with anything overheating when i switch to the vessel. I tested it extensively with a lot of saves further out just in case. I think I have sufficient cooling for everything else to handle a moment under direct sunlight. I also was careful to choose parts with high temperature tolerances for as much as I could. I believe the FELA is the worst at 1800K. I have had random problems with warp causing the FELA to explode, but I only needed to use warp while adjusting the orbit.

On a side note, there is a bug with the FELA forcing you to "deploy" it before it can be used as a data transmitter. You "deploy" it by doing the test rotation animation. I assume changing the order of the modules in the configuration would resolve the issue as there is no issue with the medium rectenna transceiver.

[FreeThinker]

On 6-1-2017 at 4:55 PM, HumanEnigma said:

I've not had any problems with anything overheating when i switch to the vessel. I tested it extensively with a lot of saves further out just in case. I think I have sufficient cooling for everything else to handle a moment under direct sunlight. I also was careful to choose parts with high temperature tolerances for as much as I could. I believe the FELA is the worst at 1800K. I have had random problems with warp causing the FELA to explode, but I only needed to use warp while adjusting the orbit.

 

 

Well scaling up has both advantages, and disadvantage. A disadvantage is the mass increases proportionally faster than the surface area, the advantage is that the mass make it more robust against temperature peaks

Edited January 7, 2017 by FreeThinker