KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[Jojomo]

Hi folks! Long-time user, first-time poster here. I’m keeping a log of my latest foray into KSPIE and various other mods in a career game here on the forums, and am putting together an update detailing the maths underlying microwave beamed power (will do the shorter wavelength stuff later once I’ve got the tech/need). I’ve been going through the source code on GitHub to try and understand everything, but I’m not especially familiar with C#, so would be grateful for any corrections folks would be inclined to provide.

Pseudo-code + maths follow in spoiler.

Spoiler

 

As I understand it, losses from reactor to a beamed power vessel come at several places: reactor power to generator, generator to outgoing beam, and beam transmitter to beam receiver. The first two seem pretty straightforwards, and the spot-size dependency of the last is simple enough, but I was curious about the effects of atmosphere on transmission efficiency so I went and did some digging.

I believe the atmospheric efficiency (from MicrowavePowerReceiver.cs) is given by e^(-absorptionRatio), where absorptionRatio is given by the more complex expression:

absortionRatio = Math.Pow(atmosphericDistance, Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(transmitterPresure, 2) + Math.Pow(recieverPressure, 2))) / atmosphereDepthInMeter * waveLengthAbsorbtion

That is: the distance between the transmitter and receiver (occasionally modified, but I think usually not?) to the power of the square root of the sum of the squares of the pressure at the transmitting and receiving vessels, divided by the depth of the atmosphere on the planet, multiplied by a factor affected by the atmospheric absorption of the transmitted wavelength (not precisely sure how, I think the listed absorption is subtracted from 1 before multiplication, but I’m not sure about that).

Then there’s a moisture effect (from MicrowavePowerTransmitter.cs) as well, which I’m not quite as sure about. It looks like it’s given by:

moistureModifier = 2 * moistureModifier * latitude_variance * cloud_variance

where an existing value (dependent on biome) is multiplied by a term relating to the transmitter’s latitude and a cloud_variance, which appears to be time-dependent. I’m not sure about the latitude term though, because it is defined as:

latitude_variance = ((180d - lat) / 180d)

where lat is

lat = vessel.latitude * Math.PI / 180d

which looks like it retrieves the latitude in radians while latitude_variance looks like it expects it in degrees. Like I said I don’t know much about C# or how it handles degrees/radians, so if I’ve missed something I’d love to know what, but it appears like the latitude variance is a much smaller effect currently than it was intended to be.

 

 

[Arivald Ha'gel]

3 hours ago, AngrybobH said:

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.

That's still very strange. I used ISRU refrigerator few days ago and I haven't had such a problem. Perhaps a conflict with other mod?

[celestis]

5 hours ago, celestis said:

7 hours ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

On 10.02.2018 at 11:17 PM, 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.

I found the cause of the issue, but still don't know what to do. It is the radiators: if I add even one (no matter if stock or interstellar), "DC electrical system" starts consuming every bit of produced power. Working ok if there are no radiators on ship. And radiators are a must for a solar satellite, so I have no workaround. Funny thing is that it happens even if I turn radiator off after initial activation, so it looks like a bug. Any ideas?

[AngrybobH]

9 hours ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

That's still very strange. I used ISRU refrigerator few days ago and I haven't had such a problem. Perhaps a conflict with other mod?

If our ISRU behavior is different, that is a definite possibility. But, I have complained to myself for quite some time about how slow refrigeration is in KSPI-E. Come to think of it, I have never used KSPI-E without a bunch of other mods installed so maybe I'll troubleshoot it. Even though I troubleshoot things(electrical gremlins) for a living and I don't really enjoy doing it in my free time.

[Arivald Ha'gel]

12 hours ago, celestis said:

I found the cause of the issue, but still don't know what to do. It is the radiators: if I add even one (no matter if stock or interstellar), "DC electrical system" starts consuming every bit of produced power. Working ok if there are no radiators on ship. And radiators are a must for a solar satellite, so I have no workaround. Funny thing is that it happens even if I turn radiator off after initial activation, so it looks like a bug. Any ideas?

No other idea that a bug. I'll try to reproduce the issue, and debug it.

[zanjiin]

1 hour ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

No other idea that a bug. I'll try to reproduce the issue, and debug it.

Haven't you posted a picture earlier with solar panels and abnormaly high DC consuption? May be it is the same.

[Arivald Ha'gel]

21 hours ago, zanjiin said:

Haven't you posted a picture earlier with solar panels and abnormaly high DC consuption? May be it is the same.

My problems with Solar Panels not generating power, or generating negative power were related to Kerbalism, and are already fixed for upcoming version.

However Extremely High DC consumption wasn't investigated by me - yet - although it is present in my GIT project as a backlog item.

Although I already noticed that High DC consumption may be phantom, it dissipates once stock EC is full - it might just visualize EC needed to refill EC storage - at least it is in my case. This one is a little different.

Edited February 13, 2018 by Arivald Ha'gel

[Wedgenet]

How should we go about cooling Kerbstein engines?
The engines themselves overheat during long burns, and given what kind of engine the Kerbstein is, that's pretty much all of them.
No amount of radiators, no matter where they're placed seem to make a difference. Is this expected behavior, or should I start looking to see if I may have a mod conflict?

I can work around it by time-warping during the burn, which "works" only because the engine isn't actually considered to be running by the heating mechanics at that time. It's not a game-killer, but it is a bit sad to see those big beautiful engines explode 8 minutes into a burn if I choose not to timewarp.

[samooo2]

2 hours ago, Wedgenet said:

How should we go about cooling Kerbstein engines?
The engines themselves overheat during long burns, and given what kind of engine the Kerbstein is, that's pretty much all of them.
No amount of radiators, no matter where they're placed seem to make a difference. Is this expected behavior, or should I start looking to see if I may have a mod conflict?

I can work around it by time-warping during the burn, which "works" only because the engine isn't actually considered to be running by the heating mechanics at that time. It's not a game-killer, but it is a bit sad to see those big beautiful engines explode 8 minutes into a burn if I choose not to timewarp.

I haven't got that far in research yet, but I assume you're talking about then engine's temperature, not wasteheat. If so, you can use the new "heat exchanger" parts as a buffer, they drain temperature from other parts and should have far more heat capacity than the engine...

[Wedgenet]

4 hours ago, samooo2 said:

I haven't got that far in research yet, but I assume you're talking about then engine's temperature, not wasteheat. If so, you can use the new "heat exchanger" parts as a buffer, they drain temperature from other parts and should have far more heat capacity than the engine...

Yes, I do mean engine temperate and not wasteheat. I have tried the heat exchanger too.  However, it seems that the heat exchanger isn't tweakscale-configured?  At least in my game, I have two different exchangers.  A 1.25m and a 2.5m version.  It doesn't seem very effective on the massive Kerbstein.  I tested it by running two Kerbsteins, one with a heat exchanger and one radiators and one alone.  There was a very very small difference in temperature, but only enough to give me another couple seconds of engine time.

Maybe the exchanger would be more effective if I let it scale up by modifying the part config.

Thanks.

[FreeThinker]

On 13-2-2018 at 4:20 PM, Wedgenet said:

How should we go about cooling Kerbstein engines?
The engines themselves overheat during long burns, and given what kind of engine the Kerbstein is, that's pretty much all of them.
No amount of radiators, no matter where they're placed seem to make a difference. Is this expected behavior, or should I start looking to see if I may have a mod conflict?

2

What type of and how many radiators did you try to use to keep it cool. Also what heat technology technodes have you unlocked?

Edited February 14, 2018 by FreeThinker

[Wedgenet]

5 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

What type of and how many radiators did you try to use to keep it cool. Also what heat technology technodes have you unlocked?

TLDR: This is a PEBCAK issue.

I ran some tests, and it seems that I just need a lot more radiator area than I thought I would.
I didn't notice any perceptible difference between zero radiators and when I added a single stock edge radiator, but clearly it was just not enough to notice.

This is in a sandbox game.

Test 1:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, Two Graphite Radiator Edge Long attached to the heat exchanger
exploded from overheating at 6:37

Test 2:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, 4 graphite radiator edge long attached to the heat exchanger
engine exploded from overheating at 8:17

Test 3:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, 8 graphite radiator edge long attached to the heat exchanger
engine exploded from overheating at 20:33

Test 4:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, 24 graphite radiator edge long attached to the heat exchanger
engine temperature stable.

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Wedgenet said:

TLDR: This is a PEBCAK issue.

I ran some tests, and it seems that I just need a lot more radiator area than I thought I would.
I didn't notice any perceptible difference between zero radiators and when I added a single stock edge radiator, but clearly it was just not enough to notice.

This is in a sandbox game.

Test 1:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, Two Graphite Radiator Edge Long attached to the heat exchanger
exploded from overheating at 6:37

Test 2:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, 4 graphite radiator edge long attached to the heat exchanger
engine exploded from overheating at 8:17

Test 3:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, 8 graphite radiator edge long attached to the heat exchanger
engine exploded from overheating at 20:33

Test 4:
EBR-100 heat Exchanger, 24 graphite radiator edge long attached to the heat exchanger
engine temperature stable.

That indeed sounds a bit excessive. But do you use any mods which alter the maximum temperature of parts, like Deadly Reentry?

If not I will have significantly reduce heat production next release

Edited February 15, 2018 by FreeThinker

[LucasHazelwood]

On 12/02/2018 at 11:12 AM, Arivald Ha'gel said:

My problems with Solar Panels not generating power, or generating negative power were related to Kerbalism, and are already fixed for upcoming version.

Hi. Is there any way I can address this now, before the new version comes out?  It is currently ruining my gameplay .

[Arivald Ha'gel]

6 hours ago, LucasHazelwood said:

Hi. Is there any way I can address this now, before the new version comes out?  It is currently ruining my gameplay .

Give me few hours and I'll upload dll and I'll drop a link in this post.

https://uploadfiles.io/e199t

MD5 checksum: 635022804AE7FB17FCC34F8454EB2E53  Interstellar.dll

Will be available for 4 weeks. This is 1.16.7 with Kerbalism fix. Just replace dll and it should work (but keep the old dll just to be safe).

Edited February 15, 2018 by Arivald Ha'gel

[LucasHazelwood]

3 hours ago, Arivald Ha'gel said:

Give me few hours and I'll upload dll and I'll drop a link in this post.

https://uploadfiles.io/e199t

MD5 checksum: 635022804AE7FB17FCC34F8454EB2E53  Interstellar.dll

Will be available for 4 weeks. This is 1.16.7 with Kerbalism fix. Just replace dll and it should work (but keep the old dll just to be safe).

Awesome. That fixed it. Thanks!

[Magmas]

Love this Mod, but I'm running into some problems now that I'm at the point I want to start collecting resources.  I haven't been able to actually collect anything yet.  Drill interface shows no spare room.  Refinery interfaces are blank.  Refineries always show offline.  I have Hex cores with Hex Cargo attached and the other various attachments options.  The Hex Cargo doesn't even store ore in it (as described).  I have 2 reactors with generators supplying plenty of power.  

Am I missing something to collect the resources correctly and store them?  Just wondering if I have some mod conflict or if I am missing some trick to store resources & process them.

[Arivald Ha'gel]

5 hours ago, Magmas said:

Love this Mod, but I'm running into some problems now that I'm at the point I want to start collecting resources.  I haven't been able to actually collect anything yet.  Drill interface shows no spare room.  Refinery interfaces are blank.  Refineries always show offline.  I have Hex cores with Hex Cargo attached and the other various attachments options.  The Hex Cargo doesn't even store ore in it (as described).  I have 2 reactors with generators supplying plenty of power.  

Am I missing something to collect the resources correctly and store them?  Just wondering if I have some mod conflict or if I am missing some trick to store resources & process them.

Community Resource Pack probably. It's a dependency.

[Wedgenet]

On 2/14/2018 at 6:55 PM, FreeThinker said:

That indeed sounds a bit excessive. But do you use any mods which alter the maximum temperature of parts, like Deadly Reentry?

If not I will have significantly reduce heat production next release

No Deadly Re-entry.  I don't think that any of the mods installed alter heat, but like many players, I've gone a little hog-wild with the mods.
Here is a list of the mods from ckan:
In addition I have one mod manually installed: B9 Procedural Wings
"Heat Control" I believe is just a parts pack, installed as a Dependency/Recommendation of KSPI-E.

Spoiler

        {
            "name": "GPP"
        },
        {
            "name": "Strategia"
        },
        {
            "name": "FinalFrontier"
        },
        {
            "name": "OPM-Galileo"
        },
        {
            "name": "KerbalKonstructs"
        },
        {
            "name": "SigmaReplacements-Descriptions"
        },
        {
            "name": "SigmaReplacements-Heads"
        },
        {
            "name": "SigmaReplacements-Suits"
        },
        {
            "name": "SigmaReplacements-Navigation"
        },
        {
            "name": "GPPCloudsHighRes"
        },
        {
            "name": "ModuleManager"
        },
        {
            "name": "Kopernicus"
        },
        {
            "name": "ModularFlightIntegrator"
        },
        {
            "name": "Scatterer"
        },
        {
            "name": "Scatterer-config"
        },
        {
            "name": "GPPTextures"
        },
        {
            "name": "CustomBarnKit"
        },
        {
            "name": "ContractConfigurator"
        },
        {
            "name": "CommunityTerrainTexturePack"
        },
        {
            "name": "EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements"
        },
        {
            "name": "KerbalEngineerRedux"
        },
        {
            "name": "MechJeb2"
        },
        {
            "name": "MechJebForAll"
        },
        {
            "name": "EditorExtensionsRedux"
        },
        {
            "name": "HazardTanksTextures"
        },
        {
            "name": "KAS"
        },
        {
            "name": "KerbalAlarmClock"
        },
        {
            "name": "KerbalJointReinforcement"
        },
        {
            "name": "KIS"
        },
        {
            "name": "TweakScale"
        },
        {
            "name": "VensStylePPTextures"
        },
        {
            "name": "JanitorsCloset"
        },
        {
            "name": "CommunityCategoryKit"
        },
        {
            "name": "EasyVesselSwitch"
        },
        {
            "name": "InterstellarFuelSwitch"
        },
        {
            "name": "KSPInterstellarExtended"
        },
        {
            "name": "PatchManager"
        },
        {
            "name": "UniversalStorage"
        },
        {
            "name": "FilterExtensions"
        },
        {
            "name": "HideEmptyTechNodes"
        },
        {
            "name": "CommunityResourcePack"
        },
        {
            "name": "InterstellarFuelSwitch-Core"
        },
        {
            "name": "CommunityTechTree"
        },
        {
            "name": "HeatControl"
        },
        {
            "name": "OPTSpacePlaneMain"
        },
        {
            "name": "RasterPropMonitor"
        },
        {
            "name": "ASETAvionics"
        },
        {
            "name": "ASETProps"
        },
        {
            "name": "FirespitterCore"
        },
        {
            "name": "RasterPropMonitor-Core"
        },
        {
            "name": "ASETAgency"
        },
        {
            "name": "B9"
        },
        {
            "name": "B9AerospaceHX"
        },
        {
            "name": "KerbalFoundriesContinued"
        },
        {
            "name": "B9-props"
        },
        {
            "name": "SmokeScreen"
        },
        {
            "name": "B9AnimationModules"
        },
        {
            "name": "B9PartSwitch"
        },
        {
            "name": "KSPWheel"
        },
        {
            "name": "DockingPortAlignmentIndicator"
        },
        {
            "name": "RCSBuildAidCont"
        },
        {
            "name": "InfernalRobotics"
        },
        {
            "name": "QuantumStrutsContinued"
        },
        {
            "name": "InfernalRobotics-LegacyParts"
        },
        {
            "name": "UKS"
        },
        {
            "name": "USI-LS"
        },
        {
            "name": "USITools"
        },
        {
            "name": "USI-Core"
        },
        {
            "name": "Konstruction"
        },
        {
            "name": "GroundConstruction-Core"
        },
        {
            "name": "AT-Utils"
        },
        {
            "name": "ConfigurableContainers-Core"
        },
        {
            "name": "MalemuteRover"
        },
        {
            "name": "ReentryParticleEffect"
        },
        {
            "name": "MemGraph"
        },
        {
            "name": "NEBULADecalsContinued"
        },
        {
            "name": "HangerExtenderExtended"
        }

 

 

[Heckspress]

hey, can someone tell me how to produce/gather positrons? trying to create an "infinite" ranged spaceplane using positron reactors and kethane gathering

[SpaceMouse]

@FreeThinker I've been meaning to ask this, the VASIMR used to be switchable to run on virtually anything, now in game there's only 4 or 5 things you can switch between. Is this intentional or a bug?

[Arivald Ha'gel]

10 hours ago, Heckspress said:

hey, can someone tell me how to produce/gather positrons? trying to create an "infinite" ranged spaceplane using positron reactors and kethane gathering

Use Free Electron Laser (the big one). It can produce Positrons. But Antimatter can also be used in positron reactor, and it can be collected without gigantic energy spending.

@celestis I have found an a root cause of your issue with Solar Power Generation (Microwave Power Receivers) - when all generated power is consumed by "DC Electrical System".

To work around the issue please:

- make EC storage LARGE (like at least 10 times the amount of energy generated. 1 MW = 1000 EC. So at least 10k EC for the craft you presented, but possibly like 100k+.

- use capacitor to convert EC to MJ (set to -100).

It should work (perhaps not for 100% capacity, but it should). Overall, one should always make EC storage quite large, with low EC storage, certain things will not work correctly - that's why currently MJ/EC storage is scaled during TimeWarp.

 

I'll need to contact @FreeThinker to discuss the issue with him, and find appropriate fix (well... it's not trivial...).

 

[FreeThinker]

12 hours ago, SpaceMouse said:

@FreeThinker I've been meaning to ask this, the VASIMR used to be switchable to run on virtually anything, now in game there's only 4 or 5 things you can switch between. Is this intentional or a bug?

nope you should still be able to switch between almost all cryogenic stored resource, but they are now  unlocked with resource storage technology (for quite some time).

[SpaceMouse]

9 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

nope you should still be able to switch between almost all cryogenic stored resource, but they are now  unlocked with resource storage technology (for quite some time).

I haven't tested it in career but in creative in only appears to have the option of about 5 fuels.

[MechBFP]

I've honestly tried to get into this mod probably 25 times, and every single time I simply get frustrated and give up. Even after watching tutorials, even after reading everything online, I always just give up because nothing in this mod seems to be worth the effort due to the high costs/high weight of everything.

Sure the ISP values on the engines are high, but when your ship (in orbit) weights 10 times more than stock due to the massive weight of the reactors/generators, what is the point? I can usually get the same DV at 1/5 to 1/10 the cost in stock.

Am I missing something or what?