KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[falcoon]

@danielboro

Go to 

\GameData\WarpPlugin\Parts\Radiators

Pick the radiator you want to boost (some names may be misguiding), open cfg file and add some zeros (3 should be more than enough, but you can add even more) to both lines:

"maxEnergyTransfer"
and
"radiatorArea"

and you will never need to install more than 1 radiator per ship.

[Mine_Turtle]

19 hours ago, Iso-Polaris said:

Missing from where?

@FreeThinker

Missing is not the correct term here. If you zoom in it looks that plume particle effects do not have alpha channel set. So the entire sprite including the black background is visible.

I have tried to  fix the problem by adjusting part config file without any success. Even when I copy line for line particle configuration from stock solid booster the black background is still there. The only solution I have found is to replace mesh model with another one. For example, with thermal turbojet that has similar FX configuration(it uses the old ModuleEngines module without advanced FX configuration) and does not have such problem. So the problem is not inside dlls or cfg file. I have no idea how mesh files in KSP work and it is weird that a mesh file affects FX system. If someone with blender and appropriate plugin for mu files could unpack timberwind model and compare it to turbojet model it might share some light on the problem.

The easiest solution I can think of is replace model with NERV engine and pretend that both engines share the same heat exchanger so they look the same.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Mine_Turtle

[ss8913]

@FreeThinker any update on the lqdWater issue, or did you already look at it and determine that the cryo tanks aren't supposed to be fast?  I did try the other parts that are capable of 'hydrates processing' to turn hydrates into lqdwater (all in one refinery and that.. other part, the extractor i think?  weird that only the small extractor and not the large extractor have the function at all...?)

Anyway, they're all slow.    It doesn't seem to matter how much power I use, or really even how many *converters* I use.. something still seems very 'off' here as to these conversion rates and which parts are even capable of doing it...

[falcoon]

What is the difference between intake liquid and water? oceanic extraction requires intake liquid, drill has a storage for intake liquid, why not water?

[Jestertrek]

First, @FreeThinker, thanks for your help with my use of the Aluminum Hybrid Rocket. After much mucking about, I was able to get a version working using a combination of the rocket, the ISRU Electrolyzer, and the ISRU Refrigerator.

I now have another question. I've finally unlocked fusion reactors and the Vista engine so I decided to play around with them with a quick and dirty Mun lander. I got them to work...

...but as you can see, the Tokamak reactor has burned through virtually all of its fuel in seven hours(!) and I can't figure out why. (In the screenshot, I had just shut down the reactor and generator to let things cool down which is why MJ shows zero.) I've been playing around with different variations of this setup and it always works the same. In many cases, the Tokamak burns through all of its D-T before I even reach the Mun! Having the Vista active/inactive doesn't seem to make any difference. Even if I have the Vista deactivated and only use the reactor to keep MJ and electricity topped off, it burns through its fuel at 0.01/s or so.

If it's not clear, the stack from bottom to top is Vista -> Tokamak -> Charged Particle Generator (and medium radiators) -> Remote Guidance Unit -> Lander cabin mk2 -> capacitor -> batteries -> docking port. Both the Vista and Tokamak are in default D-T mode.

Sorry to ask these basic questions but all of the tutorials I've been able to find seem to be from a time when this mod worked very differently. Are there any more modern tutorials I should be looking at?

[FreeThinker]

@Jestertrek

First of all despite the description, the MHD is not a pure charged particle converter, but something in between a thermal and direct converter. So you would benefit if you added a seperate charged particle power generator at the bottom.

Secondly, any connected generators should be about the same diameter as the reactor. Don't worry about the mass, it will be the same as it directly related to the power output of the reactor. When too small powerer will not me converted at best efficiency, causing you to waste more fuel

Thirdly, despite running out of Deuterium (gas) fast, I see you still have plenty of Lithiumdeuteride, which combined with Lithium6 allows running in D-T fusion mode

Edited November 4, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Mine_Turtle]

12 hours ago, Jestertrek said:

First, @FreeThinker, thanks for your help with my use of the Aluminum Hybrid Rocket. After much mucking about, I was able to get a version working using a combination of the rocket, the ISRU Electrolyzer, and the ISRU Refrigerator.

I now have another question. I've finally unlocked fusion reactors and the Vista engine so I decided to play around with them with a quick and dirty Mun lander. I got them to work...

...but as you can see, the Tokamak reactor has burned through virtually all of its fuel in seven hours(!) and I can't figure out why. (In the screenshot, I had just shut down the reactor and generator to let things cool down which is why MJ shows zero.) I've been playing around with different variations of this setup and it always works the same. In many cases, the Tokamak burns through all of its D-T before I even reach the Mun! Having the Vista active/inactive doesn't seem to make any difference. Even if I have the Vista deactivated and only use the reactor to keep MJ and electricity topped off, it burns through its fuel at 0.01/s or so.

If it's not clear, the stack from bottom to top is Vista -> Tokamak -> Charged Particle Generator (and medium radiators) -> Remote Guidance Unit -> Lander cabin mk2 -> capacitor -> batteries -> docking port. Both the Vista and Tokamak are in default D-T mode.

 

Sorry to ask these basic questions but all of the tutorials I've been able to find seem to be from a time when this mod worked very differently. Are there any more modern tutorials I should be looking at?

I have done some quick tests with your vessel and I have a couple of suggestions for you. First of all, fusion reactors generally require more fuel than fission ones, but they produce much more energy and have higher reactor core temp. So, ideally they are used in burst mode: get to orbit or perform burn and then turn them off. So you might want to carry small nuclear reactor with some capacitors with you to restart them. Also, reactor fuel supplies are very small: 100 units translate to just a few grams, so dont expect reactor to run for years. Bring extra tanks with fuel.

Second, reactor produces power even without consumers(at least tokamak does). So, even if your vista is turned off your reactor is still pumping 10GW of power, which is just wasteful. If turning it off is not an option, you can always throttle it down to 10% of power via power control(RMB menu).

And, finally, in D-T mode you get 80% thermal and 20% charged energy. So you want to use both generators or at least a thermal generator instead of charged one. Or you are going to waste a lot of energy.

 

@FreeThinker, on a related note I have noticed something strange with generators. Take a look(menus are opened in the same order as parts attached to each other):

1) https://imgur.com/RtylIvl

In MJ producers you can see two generators each attached to its own reactor: tokamak and molten salt. All is looking good and working properly.

2) https://imgur.com/srvpUv3

Here I have deactivated tokamak and 2nd generator, attached to molten salt. You can see that nothing is producing power in MJ window. 

Is it intentional that generator does not reattach itself to a power source, when it loses one?

Edited November 4, 2017 by Mine_Turtle

[Mine_Turtle]

On 11/3/2017 at 3:35 AM, ss8913 said:

@FreeThinker any update on the lqdWater issue, or did you already look at it and determine that the cryo tanks aren't supposed to be fast?  I did try the other parts that are capable of 'hydrates processing' to turn hydrates into lqdwater (all in one refinery and that.. other part, the extractor i think?  weird that only the small extractor and not the large extractor have the function at all...?)

Anyway, they're all slow.    It doesn't seem to matter how much power I use, or really even how many *converters* I use.. something still seems very 'off' here as to these conversion rates and which parts are even capable of doing it...

I have looked into this problem and I believe that everything is working as designed(probably). I have not thoroughly looked at the code but it looks like that cryo tank/refrigerator conversion rate is determined by resource density and power. Cryo tanks use only 10kW of power, while refrigerator uses 1MW. So if you want to increase the rate you need to increase maximum power in part cfg.

To fix your issue replace WarpPlugin\Parts\Utility\ISRURefrigerator\part.cfg with this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gLBgFevtPj-jblt6Lz9I1V649JHwsJz7

 

This should add the ability to convert water to lqdwater to ISRU refrigerator. If you still find conversion rate too slow, increase maxPowerPrimary and maxPowerSecondary, but it will also increase energy consumed by the refrigerator.

 

Regarding hydrates slow rate: add experienced engineer to the craft. By default conversion is only 5% efficient.

 

@FreeThinker, I want to create some patches for KSPI but I need your help:

1) ISRU refrigerator's does not have a cryostat. The storage is small so it not game breaking, but you should know.

2) I want to add radiators to the rest B9 parts, but I do not know how to calculate radiator stats like area. Any suggestions on how to do that?

3) Is it fine if I add Lithium Hydride converter(stock module) to ISRU refineries? Or do you have plans to implement Li+H process using InterstellarRefineryController? This resource is used in Kerbstein engine and currently can not produced by any refinery.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Mine_Turtle

[Jestertrek]

@FreeThinker, @Mine_Turtle, thanks very much for all the suggestions! I'll give them a try.

EDIT: Aheh. Never mind the question below. I just looked a little further in the tech tree and found the Specialized Fuel Storage node. Apparently, I'm supposed to mate a Tokamak reactor with one of the Pressurized Gas Tanks.

One follow-up question: is it normal for the Tokamak to run through all of its base fuel so fast? As I said, it goes through 100 units of Deuterium in seven or eight hours and it doesn't seem to matter what is plugged into the reactor (or indeed, if anything is). Even if I dial it down to 10% power, isn't that going to mean only 80 hours of power?

Are Tokamaks completely useless for beamed power networks for this reason or is there something else that I'm missing?

Edited November 4, 2017 by Jestertrek

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, Mine_Turtle said:

 

Is it intentional that generator does not reattach itself to a power source, when it loses one?

Yes, it does not magically create connection with other reactors outside the VAB. The exception is after docking combined with a reload

Edited November 4, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Pixel of Life]

Has anyone had issues with their ship not holding its heading when using an Alcubierre drive? I'm getting this weird lag-like behavior where the ship keeps "snapping" to another heading every 1 to 2 seconds or so:

Any idea what might be causing it? The warp drive is pretty much unusable because of this.

[FreeThinker]

3 minutes ago, CaptainKorhonen said:

Has anyone had issues with their ship not holding its heading when using an Alcubierre drive? I'm getting this weird lag-like behavior where the ship keeps "snapping" to another heading every 1 to 2 seconds or so:

Any idea what might be causing it? The warp drive is pretty much unusable because of this.

You need to  activate the SAS and at stay focused at your destination

[Jestertrek]

My final, 100% working, near-100% sustainable Mun explorer:

Has enough consumables to keep a Scientist busy on the Mun for up to a year, all the Mun-useful science instruments, and enough delta-v to land anywhere on the Mun, refuel, take off and go anywhere else on the Mun.

Requires an orbital Mun beamed power station to run the ISRU Electrolyzer and an orbital Mun communications relay or two to control it remotely.

[Pixel of Life]

10 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

You need to  activate the SAS and at stay focused at your destination

I did. I tried it with both MechJeb's SAS and the stock one, and it still does that. It even happens (to a certain degree) on a stock installation with no other mods apart from KSPI and its dependencies:

https://gfycat.com/FormalDistantAztecant

I'm talking about the ship jumping around, as if the ship itself is somehow lagging even though the game isn't. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's supposed to do that.

 

I'm using KSP 1.3.0, but that shouldn't make a difference, right?

Edited November 5, 2017 by CaptainKorhonen

[Nansuchao]

3 hours ago, CaptainKorhonen said:

I did. I tried it with both MechJeb's SAS and the stock one, and it still does that. It even happens (to a certain degree) on a stock installation with no other mods apart from KSPI and its dependencies:

https://gfycat.com/FormalDistantAztecant

I'm talking about the ship jumping around, as if the ship itself is somehow lagging even though the game isn't. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's supposed to do that.

 

I'm using KSP 1.3.0, but that shouldn't make a difference, right?

I have a similar issue without Alcubierre Drive but with VISTA, during long burns. Maybe there’s something wrong with some colliders, or KSPI triggers some stock bugs.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Nansuchao

[falcoon]

I've been flying a lot with warp drive lately and I noticed the same issue as @CaptainKorhonen and @Nansuchao. There is simple workaround for it - time warp kills all rotation, so before activating warp drive, change game speed to x5.

Also there are 2 more issues. Both happen when ship changes SOI during warp travel.
1. Inclination likes to flip by 180 deg. To say it straight, if i'm are going form west to east before the jump, on exit im flying from east to west. It happens very often.
2. Speed relative to the sun is copied as the speed relative to the planet when exting warp. It puts a vessel on excape trajectory from Kerbol SOI. Not so often as nr 1, but still common.

[Jestertrek]

Could someone post a picture of a working phased array/microwave-based beamed power relay satellite?

Does such a satellite require both a receiving phased array antenna and a relay phased array antenna? The information I've seen (particularly here) implies the answer is "no", one phased array should be able to do both at the same time but I'm not sure (mechanically) how it works.

What I've tried is launching my satellites, deploying the phased array antenna, and selecting "Link Receiver for Relay". The implication is that these should work just like communications relay satellites and don't need their own reactors/generators, right? In practice, they don't seem to work. Even when a relay has a clear line of sight to a beamed power station with reactors/generators and another deployable phased array transceiver, it doesn't seem to relay anything and it's never visible to a receiving phased array transceiver.

My basic transmitter station is two Pebble Bed Reactors, a Thermal Electric Generator, a bunch of radiators, and a Phased Array Transceiver (Deployable) where I have selected "Activate Transmitter". My (attempted) relay satellites (there are two) are a battery bank, a capacitor bank, a couple of small radiators, a couple of solar arrays, and a Phased Array Transceiver (Deployable) for which I have selected "Link Receiver for Relay". Once I do this, when I go back to my transmitter station, it reports "Satellites Connected: 0/2, Relays Connected 0/0". For the record, the station works fine when it is in line of sight to a receiver wanting beamed power. It just doesn't work when the station itself is out of line of sight but the relays *are* in line of sight.

What am I doing wrong?

Again, I apologize for all of these basic questions. If there's a tutorial I should be looking at, please let me know. Most tutorials I've found are from previous versions of the mod and no longer seem accurate. Thanks!

[yafeshan]

Hello,

I recently decided to return and reinstall all mods I used to have. I was playing Kspi-e and RO together because kspi needs some challenge. My first test vessel with antimatter reactor and atmospheric thermal rocket got crazy amount of twr. I saw three digits on twr scale. 

Well, did anyone have similar issue before? If yes, any solutions?

[Maelstrom Vortex]

On 11/5/2017 at 5:34 PM, Jestertrek said:

Could someone post a picture of a working phased array/microwave-based beamed power relay satellite?

Does such a satellite require both a receiving phased array antenna and a relay phased array antenna? The information I've seen (particularly here) implies the answer is "no", one phased array should be able to do both at the same time but I'm not sure (mechanically) how it works.

What I've tried is launching my satellites, deploying the phased array antenna, and selecting "Link Receiver for Relay". The implication is that these should work just like communications relay satellites and don't need their own reactors/generators, right? In practice, they don't seem to work. Even when a relay has a clear line of sight to a beamed power station with reactors/generators and another deployable phased array transceiver, it doesn't seem to relay anything and it's never visible to a receiving phased array transceiver.

My basic transmitter station is two Pebble Bed Reactors, a Thermal Electric Generator, a bunch of radiators, and a Phased Array Transceiver (Deployable) where I have selected "Activate Transmitter". My (attempted) relay satellites (there are two) are a battery bank, a capacitor bank, a couple of small radiators, a couple of solar arrays, and a Phased Array Transceiver (Deployable) for which I have selected "Link Receiver for Relay". Once I do this, when I go back to my transmitter station, it reports "Satellites Connected: 0/2, Relays Connected 0/0". For the record, the station works fine when it is in line of sight to a receiver wanting beamed power. It just doesn't work when the station itself is out of line of sight but the relays *are* in line of sight.

What am I doing wrong?

Again, I apologize for all of these basic questions. If there's a tutorial I should be looking at, please let me know. Most tutorials I've found are from previous versions of the mod and no longer seem accurate. Thanks!

 

Here's an explanation and example config of an orbital beamed power array with full planetary coverage: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/175835316

Things that are necessary for proper integration:

In the VAB all wavelengths must be set identical for receipt and broadcast. For example, I use Long Range infrared. Once set you only have to hit transmit on the deploy-able antennae and then link for relay on any satellite in range of site to relay. They will not show they are part of a linked network until you turn on your eceiver. When you turn on a thermal receiver that has specific LR IR band or is a multi source such as the mk1 and mk1x2 thermal receivers.. they will show they are in a network as long as that receiver is in site of either the original transmission source or the satellite. Remember the satellite must be facing the broadcast antennae so make sure facing is 1 and unobstructed by craft parts.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Phelan]

Well, first attempt to use a thermal turbojet failed miserably. I went somewhat with AddMeGamer's totorial vid on YT about them, just built a very basic test thingy on the ground (probe core, engine pre-cooler with attached radial intakes, inline radiator, molten salt reactor with some more attached radiators, then the thermal turbojet. All supported on stability enhancers.

Result: The reactor won't even begin to build up heat ("ThermalPower" as well as Core temp.) unless I throttle up the engine (radiators deactivated or not). But then the engine itself starts to heat up VERY quickly an is soon in danger of blowing up, while the reactor just very slowly warms up. Even when I carefully keep the throttle at a level where the engine doesn't blow up while the reactor heats up (which takes ages), even at a reactor core temp.of 1600K and an engine core temp of ~2400, I only get 0.1-0.2kN thrust.

So contrary to the basic idea of the turbojet using the reactor's heat to build up thrust, it doesn't 'use' any heat whatsoever and instead overheats on it's own very quickly. Since it's impossible to attach any radiators to the turbojet part itself (doesn't allow surface attachment), I can't even try 'overloading' it with radiators to keep it cool while the reactor provides the 'main' heat (no matter what I try, the engine is always hotter than the reactor).

Any ideas or comments? Right now, I'm close to deinstalling KSPI again after basically a third attempt and forgetting about it since it never seems to work "as advertised"... at all :'(

[FreeThinker]

On 5-11-2017 at 11:34 PM, Jestertrek said:

Could someone post a picture of a working phased array/microwave-based beamed power relay satellite?

Does such a satellite require both a receiving phased array antenna and a relay phased array antenna? The information I've seen (particularly here) implies the answer is "no", one phased array should be able to do both at the same time but I'm not sure (mechanically) how it works.

What I've tried is launching my satellites, deploying the phased array antenna, and selecting "Link Receiver for Relay". The implication is that these should work just like communications relay satellites and don't need their own reactors/generators, right? In practice, they don't seem to work. Even when a relay has a clear line of sight to a beamed power station with reactors/generators and another deployable phased array transceiver, it doesn't seem to relay anything and it's never visible to a receiving phased array transceiver.

My basic transmitter station is two Pebble Bed Reactors, a Thermal Electric Generator, a bunch of radiators, and a Phased Array Transceiver (Deployable) where I have selected "Activate Transmitter". My (attempted) relay satellites (there are two) are a battery bank, a capacitor bank, a couple of small radiators, a couple of solar arrays, and a Phased Array Transceiver (Deployable) for which I have selected "Link Receiver for Relay". Once I do this, when I go back to my transmitter station, it reports "Satellites Connected: 0/2, Relays Connected 0/0". For the record, the station works fine when it is in line of sight to a receiver wanting beamed power. It just doesn't work when the station itself is out of line of sight but the relays *are* in line of sight.

What am I doing wrong?

Again, I apologize for all of these basic questions. If there's a tutorial I should be looking at, please let me know. Most tutorials I've found are from previous versions of the mod and no longer seem accurate. Thanks!

The short answer is Its not your falt but mine. I have some half baked ideas but didn't fully implement them .

First, let give you a quick solution which I think should work

Quote

Open deployablePhasedArray.cfg, find "MicrowavePowerTransmitter" and change "buildInRelay = false" into "buildInRelay = true"

The long answer is that the above solution is missing a relay cost and doesn't take into account the corner between incoming beam and outgoing beam. As a result, relaying it too efficient,

[Jestertrek]

@FreeThinker, thanks for helping me with my questions! I'm really enjoying the mod despite all of them. 90% of the stuff I'm doing works just fine; it's just figuring out that last 10% that's giving me the shakes.

EDIT: The file I edited was /Kerbal Space Program/Game Data/WarpPlugin/Parts/Microwave/phasedArray1/deployablePhasedArray.cfg

The fix doesn't seem to have worked, though. It gave me an "Activate Relay" blue button on my relay satellites. I pushed them and it updated the dialogs to "Satellites Connected: 0/2, Relays Connected 0/2" but nothing seems to be working. Here's the current situation:

The receiving station (the lander I posted the picture of a few posts ago) is on the north pole of the Mun. It's being relayed communications from a pair of communications relays in highly inclined orbits. My power station (circled in red) is in a ~600km equatorial Munar orbit. I moved one relay into a ~500km polar Munar orbit (circled in yellow). As you can see, it's right over the lander. But the lander isn't seeing the relay. When I select "Power Receiver Interface" on both the relay and the lander, there are no entries.

And here are the dialog boxes for each transceiver, station on the left, relay in the middle, receiver on the right.

I know 380 MW is kind of piddly but I only need a little over 20 MW at the lander (to run an ISRU Electrolyzer and a Universal Drill). Again, this whole setup works fine when the station is in direct line of sight. I've selected "Activate Transmitter" on the station and "Activate Receiver" on the lander. The relay satellite has two options: "Link Receiver for Relay" and "Activate Relay". I've tried them separately, then both together (three combinations: one, the other, then both). No joy.

Is there another part I should use instead? I was just using this setup to hit all the Mun biomes before moving on to something more advanced.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Jestertrek

[tomf]

I'm in the VAB trying to build a ship using the plasma beam antimatter reactor, the charged particle electricity converter, and a magnetic nozzle.

When thrusting at full power I expect that the reactor has a maximum output of 500GW, of which 95% is charged particles leaving 25GW of heat to be radiated. However in the VAB in helper window suggests that I am producing 1000GW of heat, over twice the max power of the reactor and in orbit, powering the nozzle the reactor does shut down due to overheating almost immediately.

Am I misunderstanding something?

EDIT:

Ok, so my reactor is upgraded to 1000Gw total power so at least the total heat isn't greater than the reactor power. However I still don't understand why most of that power isn't in the form of charged particles being fired out the nozzle.

Edited November 8, 2017 by tomf
noticed the upgraded power

[marc40k]

Your mod is currently causing the solar panels (the single ones) to lag the game(the more you add the more lag they cause).

Haven't tested multi solar panels

[Mine_Turtle]

19 hours ago, tomf said:

I'm in the VAB trying to build a ship using the plasma beam antimatter reactor, the charged particle electricity converter, and a magnetic nozzle.

When thrusting at full power I expect that the reactor has a maximum output of 500GW, of which 95% is charged particles leaving 25GW of heat to be radiated. However in the VAB in helper window suggests that I am producing 1000GW of heat, over twice the max power of the reactor and in orbit, powering the nozzle the reactor does shut down due to overheating almost immediately.

Am I misunderstanding something?

EDIT:

Ok, so my reactor is upgraded to 1000Gw total power so at least the total heat isn't greater than the reactor power. However I still don't understand why most of that power isn't in the form of charged particles being fired out the nozzle.

Could you provide screenshots with readout from KSPI thermal helper, when your vessel in orbit is still and when it is accelerating at max throttle?