KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[LMC]

Getting "Fusion Reactor plasma heating cannot be guaranteed, reducing power requirement is recommended." error with Fusion Reactors. I have the reactor, D/T fuel, a thermal electric generator, heat radiators, and a battery for jump starting. Am I missing something or are Fusion reactors bugged at the moment?

(P/S. Wonderful mod! Thank you for your efforts!)

Edited May 21, 2015 by LMC

[MatterBeam]

Getting "Fusion Reactor plasma heating cannot be guaranteed, reducing power requirement is recommended." error with Fusion Reactors. I have the reactor, D/T fuel, a thermal electric generator, heat radiators, and a battery for jump starting. Am I missing something or are Fusion reactors bugged at the moment?

(P/S. Wonderful mod! Thank you for your efforts!)

A battery won't work. You need another reactor with enough power output.

[FreeThinker]

I've also been experiencing this bug on my game. Any time I load a new ship with molten salt or gas core reactors on board, they load fine the first time, but if I revert to launch or switch controls to the ship, the reactor flies off. The bug is expressing itself in a weirder way. I'm in the process of building a station above Duna using the USI Kolonization mod, and when I switch to it, the reactor/generator fly off, but oddly enough remain part of the ship, providing power and moving my camera view as they fly away. Happens %100 of the time in my current game, so can't get much done.

Cuold you please if the problems also exist with older versions

[outlawolf]

Cuold you please if the problems also exist with older versions

Problem started with version 1.1.7, everything worked perfectly prior to that.

[outlawolf]

I should mention I went from 1.1.2 to 1.1.7 in the upgrade, did not try the versions between.

[ABZB]

Cuold you please if the problems also exist with older versions

The same thing happened to me with a plane landed by the north pole... It happened only to that vessel, which was the only vessel landed on a planet at the time. I am not sure what I installed/updated before that happened... in any case, that plane was early-game - it had NO KSPI parts (the part that remained in place was the cockpit (the root part) and the stuff directly (radially?) attached to it (science stuff and landing gear). the rest of the plane flew upwards steadily. I recovered it from the tracking station, where it insisted it was landed normally (when actually loaded on vessel, it was 'moving over surface')

[Khalkion]

Problem started with version 1.1.7, everything worked perfectly prior to that.

Yep, checked 1.1.6 - reactors are ok. 1.1.7 and higher - bug is present.

[NeoAcario]

Ok.. I'm getting a new BUG that I'm having a little trouble pinning down... but I think it's tied to the low tech nuclear reactors. Whenever I revert to the VAB all items vanish from the bar, and none of the sorting tabs work. Exit and re-enter fixes the issue.

Someone else want to confirm this?

~Steve

EDIT:

Example:

Edited May 22, 2015 by NeoAcario

[FreeThinker]

please check any exceptions or error messages in log and remove Extension and repeat.

[MonkeysInSpace]

Heads up, I had a strange bug involving contracts that was resolved by the deletion of the old Regolith ore.cfg in CRP (which isn't included in the current CRP release)

[Khalkion]

Ok.. I'm getting a new BUG that I'm having a little trouble pinning down... but I think it's tied to the low tech nuclear reactors. Whenever I revert to the VAB all items vanish from the bar, and none of the sorting tabs work. Exit and re-enter fixes the issue.

Someone else want to confirm this?

Rarely I see this too, but I wasn't sure, that it is connected with KSPI-E.

[FreeThinker]

question, Besides a salt core reactor, did it also include air coolers? I did make some changes to the way aircoolers are connected to air intakes in 1.1.7

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, KSPI-E is finally listed on CKAN, could someone verify if it works?

Edited May 22, 2015 by FreeThinker

[ABZB]

question, Besided a salt core rreactor, did it also include air coolers? I did make some changes to the way aircoolers are connected to air intakes in 1.1.7

- - - Updated - - -

Btw, KSPI-E is finally listed on CKAN, could someone verify if it works?

I just installed it using CKAN. let me check that all is working.

EDIT:

Bugging out. when I try to switch to a ship in the tracking station, they fly apart into several rapidly spinning pieces, and the center of mass (based on where my camera focuses) is far away from the chunk of the ship that I am focused on

EDIT: EDIT: There are no errors being thrown in the log from KSPI...

I will post my log and link to it.

This is the thing happening in v 1.16 (i think(

https://www.dropbox.com/s/huxwm0ia4bbpog0/output_log.txt?dl=0

Edited May 22, 2015 by ABZB

[FreeThinker]

Ok.. I'm getting a new BUG that I'm having a little trouble pinning down... but I think it's tied to the low tech nuclear reactors. Whenever I revert to the VAB all items vanish from the bar, and none of the sorting tabs work. Exit and re-enter fixes the issue.

Someone else want to confirm this?

~Steve

EDIT:

Example:

http://i.imgur.com/TnsNzHc.png

I can't seem to be able to reproduce the bug in the VAB

Edit: I fixed the Molten Salt / Gas Core reload bug

Edited May 22, 2015 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

[h=2]Version 1.1.10 for Kerbal Space Program 1.0.2[/h] Released on 2015-05-22

• Fixed Molten Salt / Gas Core loading bug
  
• Fixed Microwave power transmission problem
  
• Added animation to receive mode of phased array
  

[MatterBeam]

Version 1.1.10 for Kerbal Space Program 1.0.2

Released on 2015-05-22

• Fixed Molten Salt / Gas Core loading bug
  
• Fixed Microwave power transmission problem
  
• Added animation to receive mode of phased array
  

Very interesting. Before I go ahead and test it, does it detect Near Future reactors as viable power sources, just like Solar Panels?

[FreeThinker]

Very interesting. Before I go ahead and test it, does it detect Near Future reactors as viable power sources, just like Solar Panels?

It's not that easy, solar panels are stock partmodules which can be accessed directly , NF partmodules cannot be accessed unless you reference the NF dll into plugin.dll. I'm going to investigate if this is a possible.

Edited May 22, 2015 by FreeThinker

[MatterBeam]

It's not that easy, solar panels are stock partmodules which can be accessed directly , NF partmodules cannot be accessed unless you reference the NF dll into plugin.dll. I'm going to investigate if this is a possible.

Thank you. I'll come back with results.

On the subject of Microwave transmitter power sources, can't you just make it blind to the power source and have it drain directly from the ship's global energy resources at a rate fixed by a slider the player controls?

[ss8913]

So I have a few problems that maybe someone can point me in the right direction on - longtime Interstellar user, btw, have used it since 0.22 in one form or another so I *think* I'm at least using the parts correctly..

1. Using the thermal *rocket* engine causes my framerates to tank *majorly*. Only this one engine. Replace with a thermal turbojet, problem solved - and the thermal rocket only seems to exhibit this problem when I'm using Mechjeb's ascent guidance, which is also very very weird.

2. DT Vista likes to overheat a lot - is there any way to cool it? ie, is there a heatpipe system that will run the engine's heat to my radiators or do you just have to only use the engine for short bursts?

3. Thermal turbojets seem to overheat a LOT when they're in the outer planets area... near Kerbin it's not an issue, but if I get out towards Jool, or Tekto (outer planets mod), they ramp up heat a lot quicker (using upgraded TTJ with Liquidfuel/Oxidizer as the fuel source) - it's attached to a 3.75m antimatter reactor and the TTJ itself is scaled to 3.75m.

[Lubo]

cant seem to find it on Ckan. whats the exact same of the mod in there?

[Drake1500]

cant seem to find it on Ckan. whats the exact same of the mod in there?

KSP Interstellar Extended

Make sure you "Refresh" the repository before you go looking, I always forget.

[cipherpunks]

(reposted from here)

Just found out that InterstellarFuelSwitch kills ElectricCharge from service module-like parts. I mean MM sees it, and it is written on icon tooltip in VAB that the part has EC, but when I place the part, it doesn't have ElectricCharge anymore :-(

Can it be fixed somehow? Who maintains IFS and where?

- - - Updated - - -

2. DT Vista likes to overheat a lot - is there any way to cool it? ie, is there a heatpipe system that will run the engine's heat to my radiators or do you just have to only use the engine for short bursts?

You can try pre-release of HeatControl that is bundled with NF Electrical now-a-days - look in dev thread

[Northstar1989]

1. Using the thermal *rocket* engine causes my framerates to tank *majorly*. Only this one engine. Replace with a thermal turbojet, problem solved - and the thermal rocket only seems to exhibit this problem when I'm using Mechjeb's ascent guidance, which is also very very weird.

I'm surprised MechJeb's ascent guidance doesn't tank your framerates with the Thermal Turbojet as well (are you using it in internal propellant mode?) Under-the-hood, the way atmospheric ISP is calculated is now quite different than most rockets...

Because a thermal rocket nozzle can be used with a variety of heat exchanger temperatures and power-levels (even different power-levels at the same HX temperature- as with Microwave Thermal rockets receiving different amounts of beamed power) it was necessary to make use of a more realistic calculation for atmospheric vs vacuum ISP to not get ridiculous results- especially in certain edge cases (you can blame me- this was my idea- and one I'm still rather proud of...)

Instead of an engine losing a certain percentage of its ISP at sea-level based purely on the part and/or fuel-mode, thermal rockets and turbojets (when in internal propellant mode- the code is quite different for atmospheric propulsion), it loses ISP due to the relation between its thrust and the physical size of the rocket nozzle. Thus, a 10 GW Hydrogen-propelled Microwave Thermal Rocket is going to lose a much smaller percentage of its thrust at sea-level than a 1 MW Nitrogen-propelled Microwave Thermal Rocket of the same size nozzle, despite the Nitrogen having a much higher molecular weight (14x to be precise), due to the much higher volumetric flow and thus mass flow rate and exhaust-pressure through the 10 GW Microwave Thermal Rocket. If we had fixed ISP-loss to fuel-mode instead, then the Hydrogen-propelled rocket would have lost a much higher percentage of its thrust at sea level than the Nitrogen-propelled rocket, despite having an insanely higher exhaust-pressure.

If none of that makes sense to you, don't worry. Here's a really simple explanation of how ISP-loss due to atmosphere ACTUALLY works, though:

Imagine the atmosphere pushing against an invisible wall around the bottom of your exhaust nozzle. The exhaust stream in turn pushes back. Whichever has the higher pressure tends to win...

If the atmosphere has higher pressure than your exhaust, then it compresses your exhaust stream (and pushes its way into the exhaust nozzle itself if the difference is great enough) and causes your rocket to lose a lot of thrust. This is known as an "over-expanded" exhaust stream (see the part on expansion-ration below).

On the other hand, if the exhaust stream pushes back with a higher pressure, then it tends to continue to expand past the end of the nozzle, and prevents the atmosphere from sapping nearly as much thrust from the rocket (the stronger the inequality the lower the thrust-loss). However, since the exhaust pressure was stronger than it needed to be to stop the atmosphere from compressing the exhaust stream inwards, you would have been better off with an even larger expansion-ratio exhaust nozzle. Such a case is known as an "under-expanded" exhaust stream.

(Exhaust nozzles act to expand the exhaust- reducing pressure but producing additional thrust from the expansion by increasing the exhaust-velocity... The ratio of initial exhaust size at the nozzle "throat" to final size at the end of the nozzle is called "expansion ratio" and determines how much pressure is reduced and the velocity increased...)

By the way, in practice, most real-world rockets over-expand their exhaust-stream: even launch-engines that are used off the ground. This is because as you ascend, atmospheric pressure goes down, and the ideal expansion-ratio goes up as you need less exhaust pressure to counteract the ambient atmospheric pressure. Since rockets tend to go UP, it only makes sense to design them to optimize for the highest *average* ISP over their ascent, rather than the highest ISP right on the launchpad...

(Put another way, as you expand an exhaust stream more and more, the atmospheric ISP at a given altitude goes up until you reach the point where exhaust pressure equals ambient pressure, after which point the stream becomes over-expanded and the atmospheric ISP at that altitude declines. However, vacuum ISP *always* increases as you increase your expansion-ratio: which is one reason rocket engines heavily specialized for extra-atmospheric use tend to have very large engine nozzles and very high vacuum ISP's, but very poor sea-level ISP's...)

All this has led to the creation of variable-area rocket nozzles in real life: that is rocket nozzles that become LARGER as you ascend (usually by mechanically deploying a telescoping sheet of metal from the initial engine bell as the rocket climbs). Which would be a pretty cool thing to include in KSP-Interstellar for the thermal rockets, but something I don't necessarily forsee us working on anytime soon... (it would ideally require some sophisticated animations- which is something neither myself nor FreeThinker are particularly good at...)

So, to the main point- MechJeb is probably tanking your framerate because it's going absolutely bonkers with the changing ISP (and thus Thrust) as you ascend being governed by a *very* different set of equations under-the-hood than anything it's used to (or code for) from stock or even RealFuels (*although*, RealFuels is about to undergo a MAJOR change to the way they calculate their atmospheric ISP in the next release- it's possible they were inspired by our code to release something even more sophisticated/realistic, or something basically on the same level as our math/code...) You could have the MechJeb creator take a look at our atmospheric Thrust/ISP code- despite the increased complexity of explanation, the actual math is actually no more complex than what goes into stock of RealFuels- it's just very different (and better), and thus it should be easy enough to release an update coding around it...

2. DT Vista likes to overheat a lot - is there any way to cool it? ie, is there a heatpipe system that will run the engine's heat to my radiators or do you just have to only use the engine for short bursts?

Is this an issue specifically with the 1.0 heat system and overheating of the entire rocket? (which I couldn't tell you much about as I haven't updated to 1.0 yet- whereas the atmospheric code has been around for a long time...) Or is it an issue with just the engine part itself overheating like in the earlier system? Couldn't tell you much about heat-management with the new system, but the VISTA has generated a lot of heat for a long time now. You are correct that this is meant to be one of the limiting factors preventing its use at full-throttle for long periods of time...

3. Thermal turbojets seem to overheat a LOT when they're in the outer planets area... near Kerbin it's not an issue, but if I get out towards Jool, or Tekto (outer planets mod), they ramp up heat a lot quicker (using upgraded TTJ with Liquidfuel/Oxidizer as the fuel source) - it's attached to a 3.75m antimatter reactor and the TTJ itself is scaled to 3.75m.

Thermal Turbojets- so it atmospheric mode on the planets, in space around them, or during aerobraking/re-entry? The situation matters a LOT here! If you're talking about during atmospheric use, the atmosphere of Jool has a *very* different composition than that of Kerbin. At some point we were meaning to make TTJ performance reflect that- so maybe FreeThinker already threw in some code along those lines (you'd have to ask him). If you mean during re-entry, well, it's Jool (or a planet modeled on Jool). Re-entry speeds are *MUCH* higher, so of course it's going to overheat much more readily...

I'm not aware of anything that should make the engines overheat more readily in space/orbit out that way... So you might also have stumbled across a previously-unidentified bug we need to fix...

Regards,

Northar

- - - Updated - - -

@FreeThinker

Anyways, I came here to report a couple bugs/issues I've come across (in one of the last version for 0.90- so quite outdated- but I just wanted to make sure you fixed all of these...) There are resource-naming issues, so they originated with the swap to CRP resource-names (LQD instead of LIQUID), and they should still be around unless you explicitly fixed them (which I couldn't find mention of in the changelogs- but you did say you "Removed Obsolete Resources", so maybe it fit under that...)

(1) Some of the code in the RelaFuelsFix file still references "LiquidCO2" instead of "LqdCO2", wrecking havoc on the ability to store the correct CO2 resource at certain times when RealFuels is installed...

(2) The Nitrogen Radiator part still references "LiquidNitrogen" instead of "LqdNitrogen" it its compressor and active-cooling code: preventing either of these from actually working with the renamed nitrogen resource- unless a player manually fixes this in their config (as I did in mine).

(3) The plasma thruster still uses "LiquidNitrogen" instead of "LqdNitrogen" for its "LqdNitrogen" fuel-mode (the GUI name is "LqdNitrogen", but the resource-name is "LiquidNitrogen"). You mentioned something about fixing the plasma thruster, but I'm not sure if you caught this bug or if that was just a fix for other more general malfunctions...

(4) Not exactly a bug- but the ElectricPRopellants file still needs to include a Hydrazine fuel-mode (much like the Thermal Rockets include a Hydrazine fuel-mode). It should have *exactly* the same performance characteristics as Monopropellant (which Fractal_UK clearly decided represented Hydrazine back when he added the plasma thrusters and an ISRU reaction to produce Monopropellant from Hydrogen Peroxide and Ammonia... Speaking of which- is that reaction included in the latest release and updated to use the new resource-names of "HTP" and "LqdAmmonia"?)

By the way, a thought- if you still intend on supporting stock "Monopropellant" in the long run (and not partially or fully phasing it out like with LFO), then you should probably allow Monopropellant to be used in Thermal Rockets with exactly the same performance-characteristics as Hydrazine, since that's clearly what it's meant to represent...

Regards,

Northstar

[FreeThinker]

It's not that easy, solar panels are stock partmodules which can be accessed directly , NF partmodules cannot be accessed unless you reference the NF dll into plugin.dll. I'm going to investigate if this is a possible.

I tried linking with the Dll, but it created a dependance which I don't want. I tried to use the Reactors 4.0 but they don't seem to work at all, so unless their is an update, I cannot add any support for NF reactors.

- - - Updated - - -

(1) Some of the code in the RelaFuelsFix file still references "LiquidCO2" instead of "LqdCO2", wrecking havoc on the ability to store the correct CO2 resource at certain times when RealFuels is installed...

Good find, fixed it

[FreeThinker]

(4) Not exactly a bug- but the ElectricPRopellants file still needs to include a Hydrazine fuel-mode (much like the Thermal Rockets include a Hydrazine fuel-mode). It should have *exactly* the same performance characteristics as Monopropellant (which Fractal_UK clearly decided represented Hydrazine back when he added the plasma thrusters and an ISRU reaction to produce Monopropellant from Hydrogen Peroxide and Ammonia... Speaking of which- is that reaction included in the latest release and updated to use the new resource-names of "HTP" and "LqdAmmonia"?)

I already added Hydrazine and gave it the same thrust multiply bonus which is applied in Arcjet which now have variable ISP (1/3 isp - max isp)