KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[samooo2]

1 hour ago, aaronsta1 said:

i guess im going to have to put a transmitter in orbit of the mun and minmus for this to work.. i was hoping i could do with just one huge transmitter in orbit of kerbin and relay the power..

Try using shorter wavelengths. Microwaves are good for launches and low-orbit , but they lose way too much power with distance.

[aaronsta1]

1 minute ago, samooo2 said:

Try using shorter wavelengths. Microwaves are good for launches and low-orbit , but they lose way too much power with distance.

i really have no idea how this works.. what band is good for microwave? i have ka set.. i think i asked before and never got much of an explanation of what each band does.. 

[Heckspress]

oi, the mod link for Precise Node is outdated, change it to this: 

 

[samooo2]

49 minutes ago, aaronsta1 said:

i really have no idea how this works.. what band is good for microwave? i have ka set.. i think i asked before and never got much of an explanation of what each band does.. 

Well if you do want to understand it's on the wiki... and also on actual Wikipedia, since it's based on science.

 

But basically shorter wavelengths lose more power right at the transmitter, but don't lose as much power over large distances. They're also differently affected by atmosphere, if you're transmitting from the ground.

More importantly, it's not just the 4 microwave bands that can do beamed power. You can use the full spectrum from microwave through infra/visible/ultra light all the way to x-rays. They need different parts though.

[MechBFP]

Is there any know mod incompatibilities that cause thermal engines in this mod to basically explode instantly?

I am trying to make a plane with a molten salt reactor and thermal turbojet, and no matter how many radiators I put on the thing, after about 10 seconds of full throttle the heat goes from 0% to 100% in about 0.5 seconds and causes the engine to explode and all my radiators are at 99% cooling as well. 

The “waste heat” is basically at zero but the part temperatures sky rocket for no discernible reason.

I also have weird problems with positive power showing up as - - (double negative) and radiators impossible to turn on unless done through an action group or if already turned on from the start. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by MechBFP

[aaronsta1]

so i was playing around with the IRSUs to see if i can make hydrazine and the electrolyzer isnt working right.

its saying its out of water, but the water is full.. i think it wants liquid water? but it holds regular water (i have no idea what the difference is lol).. its kind of annoying because you have to stop the process make the water liquid and start it over again.

 

EDIT, seems i was right, i put a giant liquid water tank on and it didnt stop and start.. so the electrolyzer holds water, but it uses liquidwater to make hydrogen and oxygen. but im afraid this process is not worth it. lol it took over 100 days to fill the hydrazine tanks.. one more thing, the electrolyzer seems to stop when the hydrogen gets full even tho i enabled the overflow.. 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2018 by aaronsta1

[Arivald Ha'gel]

6 hours ago, MechBFP said:

Is there any know mod incompatibilities that cause thermal engines in this mod to basically explode instantly?

I am trying to make a plane with a molten salt reactor and thermal turbojet, and no matter how many radiators I put on the thing, after about 10 seconds of full throttle the heat goes from 0% to 100% in about 0.5 seconds and causes the engine to explode and all my radiators are at 99% cooling as well. 

The “waste heat” is basically at zero but the part temperatures sky rocket for no discernible reason.

I also have weird problems with positive power showing up as - - (double negative) and radiators impossible to turn on unless done through an action group or if already turned on from the start. 

There shouldn't be any problem. Could you make a screenshot? Craft file would also be nice...

3 hours ago, aaronsta1 said:

so i was playing around with the IRSUs to see if i can make hydrazine and the electrolyzer isnt working right.

its saying its out of water, but the water is full.. i think it wants liquid water? but it holds regular water (i have no idea what the difference is lol).. its kind of annoying because you have to stop the process make the water liquid and start it over again.

 

EDIT, seems i was right, i put a giant liquid water tank on and it didnt stop and start.. so the electrolyzer holds water, but it uses liquidwater to make hydrogen and oxygen. but im afraid this process is not worth it. lol it took over 100 days to fill the hydrazine tanks.. one more thing, the electrolyzer seems to stop when the hydrogen gets full even tho i enabled the overflow.. 

 

 

ISRU is meant to be slow. LiquidWater is meant to be clean water, while Water is just plain water from the ocean.

Electrolyzer storing Water seems to be a mistake - I'll correct it.

No idea why overflow isn't working...

Edited February 9, 2018 by Arivald Ha'gel

[MechBFP]

6 hours ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

There shouldn't be any problem. Could you make a screenshot? Craft file would also be nice...

Hey there,

So I narrowed the problem down to TweakScale being the issue.

If the molten salt reactor and thermal turbojet are at the 1.25 size, then things explode almost instantly as soon as the reactor gets to 8% utilization. At the regular 2.5 size, things are just fine and work as expected. Unfortunately I have to run and won't be able to post crafts/screenshots for a few days.

Figured I would just let you know. I'll just avoid re-scaling things from now on.

 

[Arivald Ha'gel]

7 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

Hey there,

So I narrowed the problem down to TweakScale being the issue.

If the molten salt reactor and thermal turbojet are at the 1.25 size, then things explode almost instantly as soon as the reactor gets to 8% utilization. At the regular 2.5 size, things are just fine and work as expected. Unfortunately I have to run and won't be able to post crafts/screenshots for a few days.

Figured I would just let you know. I'll just avoid re-scaling things from now on.

 

I'll add it to my backlog

[JCLgaming]

Just how do I make the Alcubierre Drive Work? I have strapped a Fusion Engine + charged particle converter to a light drive plus a command pod, and it still fails due to not having enough power to generate a stable warpfield. I've even turned on infinite prop and electricity, and still it won't power up.  What am I doing wrong?

[lickgreenfrogs]

1 hour ago, JCLgaming said:

Just how do I make the Alcubierre Drive Work? I have strapped a Fusion Engine + charged particle converter to a light drive plus a command pod, and it still fails due to not having enough power to generate a stable warpfield. I've even turned on infinite prop and electricity, and still it won't power up.  What am I doing wrong?

Do you have radiators? How much power are your fusion engines generating? What size Alcubierre drive are you using? What is the mass of your ship,and where are you initiating warp? All of these things are a factor. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by lickgreenfrogs

[samooo2]

5 hours ago, MechBFP said:

Hey there,

So I narrowed the problem down to TweakScale being the issue.

If the molten salt reactor and thermal turbojet are at the 1.25 size, then things explode almost instantly as soon as the reactor gets to 8% utilization. At the regular 2.5 size, things are just fine and work as expected. Unfortunately I have to run and won't be able to post crafts/screenshots for a few days.

Figured I would just let you know. I'll just avoid re-scaling things from now on.

 

 

5 hours ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

I'll add it to my backlog

That's probably a bug with TweakScale and the stock heat mechanic, I've seen the same thing happen with stock drills and ISRU. If you scale the drill down to 50% it actually generates several times more heat than it would at 100% scale.

[JCLgaming]

 

4 hours ago, lickgreenfrogs said:

Do you have radiators? How much power are your fusion engines generating? What size Alcubierre drive are you using? What is the mass of your ship,and where are you initiating warp? All of these things are a factor. 

Maximum dissipation of the radiators are 10.27 GW. Im using the Muon Catalised Fusion Reactor, which generates 2.5 GW of thermal power. Im using the small alcubierre drive, 2.5 mrs. The craft weights 27.9 tons. Im initiating warp 686 thousand km above minmus.

Edited February 9, 2018 by JCLgaming

[lickgreenfrogs]

34 minutes ago, JCLgaming said:

 

Maximum dissipation of the radiators are 10.27 GW. Im using the Muon Catalised Fusion Reactor, which generates 2.5 GW of thermal power. Im using the small alcubierre drive, 2.5 mrs. The craft weights 27.9 tons. Im initiating warp 686 thousand km above minmus.

It’s much more satisfying to figure these things out yourself. I can tell you there is something wrong with your ship but I won’t ruin the game for you by telling you what it is. Use the questions I asked earlier to trouble shoot your ship. If you’ve made it this far I’m sure you’re pretty good at it by now. Good luck! 

[JCLgaming]

Font

2 minutes ago, lickgreenfrogs said:

It’s much more satisfying to figure these things out yourself. I can tell you there is something wrong with your ship but I won’t ruin the game for you by telling you what it is. Use the questions I asked earlier to trouble shoot your ship. If you’ve made it this far I’m sure you’re pretty good at it by now. Good luck! 

Very well. Let's see what can be changed.

[aaronsta1]

On 2/8/2018 at 4:30 PM, samooo2 said:

Well if you do want to understand it's on the wiki... and also on actual Wikipedia, since it's based on science.

 

But basically shorter wavelengths lose more power right at the transmitter, but don't lose as much power over large distances. They're also differently affected by atmosphere, if you're transmitting from the ground.

More importantly, it's not just the 4 microwave bands that can do beamed power. You can use the full spectrum from microwave through infra/visible/ultra light all the way to x-rays. They need different parts though.

ok so i kind of figured out the microwave power system. 

what i ended up with is 1 transmitter and 2 relays in a triangle formation around kerbin, mun, and minmus.. using the near infrared band.

this arrangement lets me connect to all 3 transmitters pretty much anywhere in the kerbin SOI and i have max thermal power of the thermal receivers for the rocket at all times.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by aaronsta1

[JCLgaming]

13 hours ago, lickgreenfrogs said:

It’s much more satisfying to figure these things out yourself. I can tell you there is something wrong with your ship but I won’t ruin the game for you by telling you what it is. Use the questions I asked earlier to trouble shoot your ship. If you’ve made it this far I’m sure you’re pretty good at it by now. Good luck! 

Alright, I yield. I just can't figure out what im doing wrong. I've changed the Radiators, Reactor and alcubierre drive itself and even turned on infinite prop and electricity. It will still fizzle out after an instant either saying im too close to the surface ( when im orbiting 80 km above minmus) or that i have not enough energy to initiate a stable warp drive. Please just tell me how to use the alcubierre drive.

[celestis]

Hi! I'm struggling at making solar power satellite with microwave transmitter. For some reason all generated power (~9MW) goes to "DC electrical system" and after initial supply is depleted transmitter stops consuming energy. What may be the reason? See screenshot please: https://imgur.com/a/KCtGi

[AngrybobH]

Is there a reason the gas to liquid conversion is so slow? Is this intended? It takes months of game time to turn H2 to LH2(for instance. others like CH4 similar) in meaningful quantities. My experience with gas to liquid conversion (automotive) tells me you can convert a couple of kg of gas per minute with only a couple of kilowatts of engine power(not including the thermal work done by the condenser). If this is intended, is there something I can change in the config file to alter the behavior? Also, does this process generate heat and, if not, can I change a config to make it?

[samooo2]

6 hours ago, AngrybobH said:

Is there a reason the gas to liquid conversion is so slow? Is this intended? It takes months of game time to turn H2 to LH2(for instance. others like CH4 similar) in meaningful quantities. My experience with gas to liquid conversion (automotive) tells me you can convert a couple of kg of gas per minute with only a couple of kilowatts of engine power(not including the thermal work done by the condenser). If this is intended, is there something I can change in the config file to alter the behavior? Also, does this process generate heat and, if not, can I change a config to make it?

What are you using for the conversion? Fuel tanks are very slow at it, so for large quantities you should use the ISRU Refrigerator. This does require more power, about 1MW i think.

If it does generate (waste)heat then it's a negligible amount.

[Arivald Ha'gel]

16 hours ago, celestis said:

Hi! I'm struggling at making solar power satellite with microwave transmitter. For some reason all generated power (~9MW) goes to "DC electrical system" and after initial supply is depleted transmitter stops consuming energy. What may be the reason? See screenshot please: https://imgur.com/a/KCtGi

Perhaps too little Radiators? Those I can see are almost burning up...

[celestis]

1 hour ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

18 hours ago, celestis said:

Hi! I'm struggling at making solar power satellite with microwave transmitter. For some reason all generated power (~9MW) goes to "DC electrical system" and after initial supply is depleted transmitter stops consuming energy. What may be the reason? See screenshot please: https://imgur.com/a/KCtGi

Perhaps too little Radiators? Those I can see are almost burning up...

I tried adding more radiators and moving away from Kerbol, but the situation is the same. I have very little waste heat, and it basically is equal to 10% the amount of power the transceiver consumes (which gradually drops to zero). Supply to DC electrical system is always the same as my total energy production, consumption just increases when I turn on transmission and it drains the storage eventually.

[AngrybobH]

5 hours ago, samooo2 said:

What are you using for the conversion? Fuel tanks are very slow at it, so for large quantities you should use the ISRU Refrigerator. This does require more power, about 1MW i think.

If it does generate (waste)heat then it's a negligible amount.

ISRU refrigerator is also very slow and if it uses 1 MW it is awfully slow. Power generation isn't a problem though. I generate, usually, way more than I need but, I would expect refrigeration to be faster than that and even faster still when landed. Heat management (and heat exchange processes like gas to liquid) when landed should be much easier because you can exchange heat with the ground but thats a whole other thing.

[linuxgurugamer]

2 minutes ago, AngrybobH said:

ISRU refrigerator is also very slow and if it uses 1 MW it is awfully slow. Power generation isn't a problem though. I generate, usually, way more than I need but, I would expect refrigeration to be faster than that and even faster still when landed. Heat management (and heat exchange processes like gas to liquid) when landed should be much easier because you can exchange heat with the ground but thats a whole other thing.

If in a rocket, you can't just "exchange heat with the ground".  You will need some sort of heat exchanger.

For buildings, etc. which are permanently on the ground, it would be more feasable.  But, the ground can't transfer heat that fast, so it really would not be that significant after a certain period of time

[AngrybobH]

3 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

If in a rocket, you can't just "exchange heat with the ground".  You will need some sort of heat exchanger.

For buildings, etc. which are permanently on the ground, it would be more feasable.  But, the ground can't transfer heat that fast, so it really would not be that significant after a certain period of time

sure, a rocket couldn't benefit without specialized equipment but, a base that is actively drilling holes in the ground could use the holes for a heat field type of system which works very well. But, for my specific problem, I think a base that is landed on minmus and was designed specifically to extract hydrates, process them to water, split water to H2 and O2, then refrigerate those gases to liquid products shouldn't be bottlenecked by the refrigeration cycle so bad that all the hydrate, water, and gaseous H2 and O2 tanks stay full while waiting months for the liquid process to complete. That's why I would like to just change a setting or something to make the process faster.

 

Edit: I added 3 more ISRU refrigerators(total 4) to get near the desired speed. Just trying to keep parts count down still makes me want to change the speed of the conversion.

Edited February 11, 2018 by AngrybobH