Can't see the arrows on the fuel lines

[Chik Sneadlov]

KSP lagged so much I turned everything way down. Now I can't see the arrows on the fuel lines and my tanks aren't draining the way I thought they would. First off, I thought I didn't need fuel lines for tanks mounted on decouplers that are mounted on big fuel tanks but now it seems like I do need those fuel lines. Also, my monopropellant lines are grayed out. I thought I was getting mono to everything before just by putting mono tanks on top of fuel tanks and making sure that crossfeed was enabled. 

I look at the fuel overlay and I see arrows going to the center of the rocket and arrows going up and arrows going down. This is supposed to clarify things?

Why, after 5 years have they not learned to consolidate all SRBs to one SRB in the staging stack? Such an obvious thing. I really don't need to see every single SRB 99% of the time. The mouse wheeling is awful and you can't tell what's going to happen next during launch because its just SRB after SRB. Awful lag with big rockets and you can't see what's going on, but you forever running out of fuel which makes you add more SRBs. Endless cycle. 

 

[Geonovast]

3 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

Now I can't see the arrows on the fuel lines and my tanks aren't draining the way I thought they would

Fuel lines will drain from the 1st placement to the 2nd placement.  So when you have the fuel line selected, place it on the tank you want to drain from and the attach to the tank you want to drain to.

5 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

I thought I didn't need fuel lines for tanks mounted on decouplers that are mounted on big fuel tanks but now it seems like I do need those fuel lines

Strictly speaking you don't, if you have crossfeed enabled.  But with crossfeed enabled, the tanks will all drain evenly which will make the use of decouplers pointless.  To get the fuel lines to work correctly, crossfeed must be off, otherwise the even draining will override the fuel lines.

6 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

I thought I was getting mono to everything before just by putting mono tanks on top of fuel tanks and making sure that crossfeed was enabled. 

Monopropellant doesn't follow any set drain rules or crossfeed that I'm aware of.  Any MP thruster on the craft will be able to pull from any tank.  I have noticed that sometimes the game is smart enough to not pull MP from upper stages if there are tanks lower, but not always.  The only sure way I've found to prevent MP from pulling from a tank is to shut off the tank.

12 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

I look at the fuel overlay and I see arrows going to the center of the rocket and arrows going up and arrows going down. This is supposed to clarify things?

I feel you here.  I don't understand the fuel overlay at all.

8 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

Why, after 5 years have they not learned to consolidate all SRBs to one SRB in the staging stack? Such an obvious thing. I really don't need to see every single SRB 99% of the time

Just like the engines, the SRBs will group if placed in symmetry mode.  So if you place 4 at once in 4x symmetry, they'll be grouped.  They're not going to force all SRBs into one control.  There are times when SRBs won't all be fired on initial launch.. namely at the beginning of the career mode when you're stacking fleas.

9 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

Awful lag with big rockets and you can't see what's going on, but you forever running out of fuel which makes you add more SRBs. Endless cycle. 

The answer to running out of fuel, despite what some consensus would say, is not always "MOAR BOOSTERS."  Frequently less is more.  More efficient, lighter engines.  Less draggy rocket design, better ascent profile and usually better than just strapping on more rockets.  There is a point of diminishing returns.

[Superfluous J]

59 minutes ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

I look at the fuel overlay and I see arrows going to the center of the rocket and arrows going up and arrows going down. This is supposed to clarify things?

A picture of your rocket in this situation would help. I use the fuel overlay quite frequently and for the most part it's been a very helpful tool. If your rocket is behaving badly, the fact that it's not showing fuel flow the way you expect could actually be pointing at the problem.

[Chik Sneadlov]

I am getting MP to my MP thrusters. In the overlay they used gray for MP. I don't know if they know this but in gaming when something like that is gray, it usually means that it isn't working, isn't getting fuel, but of all the colors they chose gray anyway. I had a problem earlier where MP  was being drained from my rover while in flight. I thought I fixed that by turning off crossfeed at the appropriate docking port, which I'm using now as a connector. My tanks drained right this time and they even ejected like they were supposed to. I landed on my feet intact like I'd intended for the first time (while staying up). This impressed the heck out of me because I was on a steep slope and my entire rocket started sliding down the slope with the rover mounted on top. Devilishly clever, I used Cubic Octagonal Struts in the VAB to create a rocket stand which I attached to the bottom of my huge landing ship. Sure, I could land with a little thing but I want to prepared for when it comes time to impress aliens. If they creators had any sense of humor they'd have given us a horn that sounds like the tripods in War of the Worlds. 

My Cubic Octagonal Struts got me thinking about drag. Do they create drag when on the exterior of a rocket? Inside a payload fairing? I've assumed the payload fairing is to prevent drag from exposed parts to the smoother drag of a shell. How about the SRBs under the huge fairing. Are they protected from drag or should I put a nosecone on each one?

I ran into the rocket jumping off the ground on reload glitch. That's messed up. I managed to re-land once, but I get tired of having to re-land every time my rocket jumps because of a save. 

I tried to turn the graphics up once on the surface, but that caused the game to crash. Crashing seems worse than ever. Earlier I had crashes when staging and then spontaneous explosions while staging. Too many parts. Gotta get more efficient. Gotta pop the payload before separating the boosters because somehow the boosters are jumping up and wrecking the fairing and rocket. One big problem solved was all the bizarre changes in course I was taking as the rocket accelerated. stiffening the payload by putting struts from the fairing to the boosters and the core rocket improved this situation about 95%. I think the payload was swinging from side to side and getting into a harmonic situation. I actually saw this happening when I built a smaller rocket that didn't lag as bad. 

Not much to see once you're on the moon with your intact rover (for all of the 30 seconds they last before flipping on an invisible rock), but what a thrill to finally be getting things together. Great game and great folks on the forum and YT helping me out. I'd never make it without them. 

Yesterday I launched my first payload of a big rocomax fuel tank. I was surprised to find I was draining fuel from it as I flew. I ejected it once successfully with seperatrons but the next time I had rotated the module or something and the separatrons were pointed the wrong way. I left the doors open while in a vacuum and undocked the tank and it slid out easily on its own when I accelerated. Maybe next time use a landing gear to eject it or a solar panel. 

The rover detached and slid off easily too, landing on it's wheels. Next time I'll try out my sky crane. 

Even with graphics turned way down, I still get lag when I hit a certain part count. Explosions seem to cause problems. Be nice if there was a way to turn down that effect and keep the arrows on my fuel lines although I guess I don't really need those anymore. 

[Snark]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

But with crossfeed enabled, the tanks will all drain evenly which will make the use of decouplers pointless.  To get the fuel lines to work correctly, crossfeed must be off, otherwise the even draining will override the fuel lines.

What do you mean? The exact opposite is true: the tanks attached to the decouplers will drain first, due to their higher fuel flow priority (which is, in turn, because they're in a higher-numbered stage). They do that because they were carefully and deliberately designed to do exactly the Right Thing. 

That's why you don't have to use fuel ducts anymore, in a lot of cases where they used to be absolutely required (such as when building an asparagus craft).

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Monopropellant doesn't follow any set drain rules or crossfeed that I'm aware of.  Any MP thruster on the craft will be able to pull from any tank.  I have noticed that sometimes the game is smart enough to not pull MP from upper stages if there are tanks lower, but not always.  The only sure way I've found to prevent MP from pulling from a tank is to shut off the tank.

Yes and no. Monopropellant, like electricity, isn't limited by crossfeed rules. But (also like electricity) it *does* obey fuel flow priority.

Unless you've manually tinkered with the priority settings, a monoprop thank in a higher numbered stage will completely drain before a monoprop tank in a lower numbered stage. (I believe. Am not at a KSP computer to confirm. But even if I'm wrong and it doesn't do that by default, you can easily make it do so by manually adjusting the flow priority.)

However, once that higher-priority tank finishes draining, then yes, the next tank will start to drain. Crossfeed-disabled parts won't obstruct it. The only way to keep it from ever draining is, as you say, to shut off the tank. (Again, same as with electricity.)

[Geonovast]

8 hours ago, Snark said:

What do you mean? The exact opposite is true: the tanks attached to the decouplers will drain first, due to their higher fuel flow priority (which is, in turn, because they're in a higher-numbered stage). They do that because they were carefully and deliberately designed to do exactly the Right Thing. 

This has not once happened for me.  Just last night I threw together a rocket that had LF boosters attached to decouplers.  3m in the center and 2.5m tanks on the outside.  I forgot the ducts, and a few seconds after launch, I noticed the bars didn't look right.  Right clicked on one of the 3m tanks, and sure enough, it was draining.

As for the MP, it's hit or miss.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I've just gotten into the habit of shutting off the tanks I need to make sure don't drain, and using the ducts.

[Snark]

5 hours ago, Geonovast said:

This has not once happened for me.  Just last night I threw together a rocket that had LF boosters attached to decouplers.  3m in the center and 2.5m tanks on the outside.  I forgot the ducts, and a few seconds after launch, I noticed the bars didn't look right.  Right clicked on one of the 3m tanks, and sure enough, it was draining.

What was the fuel flow priority on the tanks?

What you just described is not how the stock game works, normally.  Something unusual is going on.

Are you running any mods that might affect fuel flow? Or have staging disabled on the decouplers? Or you're running an old version of KSP?

Seriously, this is a major feature of the game, it works for everyone I've ever heard of.  If it's not working for you, something atypical is going on.

[Geonovast]

2 minutes ago, Snark said:

What was the fuel flow priority on the tanks?

What you just described is not how the stock game works, normally.  Something unusual is going on.

Are you running any mods that might affect fuel flow? Or have staging disabled on the decouplers? Or you're running an old version of KSP?

Seriously, this is a major feature of the game, it works for everyone I've ever heard of.  If it's not working for you, something atypical is going on.

I'm running 1.3.1.  I'm not running any mods that would affect it I'm aware of.  I haven't disabled any staging.  It's entirely possible I'm just somehow doing something horribly wrong.  I wouldn't be me otherwise.

I'll play with it tonight and see if I can't figure it out.  If it's still doing it incorrectly, I'll jump into stock and see how it behaves.

[Superfluous J]

10 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I'm running 1.3.1.  I'm not running any mods that would affect it I'm aware of.  I haven't disabled any staging.  It's entirely possible I'm just somehow doing something horribly wrong.  I wouldn't be me otherwise.

I'll play with it tonight and see if I can't figure it out.  If it's still doing it incorrectly, I'll jump into stock and see how it behaves.

It should be as simple as attaching the decoupler and fuel tanks, and then turning on cross fed on the decoupler. Fuel priority in the outer tanks should be 10 higher automatically.