KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[FreeThinker]

On 9/17/2018 at 4:49 PM, secretly_asian said:

@FreeThinker

I'm sorry for my ignorance, i've looked around on the forums and can't quite seem to find my asnwer. My problem involves beamed power networks, and i've used to use them all the time a year or two ago and have since forgotten how to use them.

Right now, I have a station in geostat orbit with two stellarator reactors and a single scaled-up phased array transceiver pushing out ~21GW long infrared beam. About 90 degrees from that is a probe with the infrared mirror, and 180 degrees to the reactor is a test ship with the double pivoting phased array transceiver. With the relay active on the mirror, my test ship receives no power, even moving it close to the reactor transmitter has no effect and i am without power. I know the spectral range of the infrared mirror is 9um and longer, and long infrared is 11um. Idk whats going on.

Are the parts broken or am i missing something here?

Not sure, but if a vessel that is relaying, the will not itself get any feedback apart from the state being in relay mode. It should, however, show up in the receiver info screen when used.

I will investigate after my next release.

Edited September 21, 2018 by FreeThinker

[secretly_asian]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

NOt sure, but if a vessel that is relaying, will not itself get any feedback apart from the state being in relay mode. I will investigate after my next release.

As far as i can tell, the only way i can use beamed power is with the original parts (phased array) and with line of site to the transmitter. all else doesn't work for me.

[samooo2]

1 hour ago, secretly_asian said:

As far as i can tell, the only way i can use beamed power is with the original parts (phased array) and with line of site to the transmitter. all else doesn't work for me.

I have a network setup with "Diode Laser Array" set to "long infrared", transmitted with "Multi Bandwidth Dish Transceiver", relayed with "Double Pivoted Infrared Mirror" and received with "Inline Thermal Receiver Mk1". Running on the newest version 1.19.11. Everything works as expected.

Maybe one of the parts you picked is broken, or you didn't enable relay mode? Just guessing here...

 

 

[secretly_asian]

4 hours ago, samooo2 said:

I have a network setup with "Diode Laser Array" set to "long infrared", transmitted with "Multi Bandwidth Dish Transceiver", relayed with "Double Pivoted Infrared Mirror" and received with "Inline Thermal Receiver Mk1". Running on the newest version 1.19.11. Everything works as expected.

Maybe one of the parts you picked is broken, or you didn't enable relay mode? Just guessing here...

 

 

The set up i used had a phased array transmitter set to long infrared, and a relay using the double pivoted infrared mirror and a receiver with another phased array receiver. Are the two parts incompatible? does it need a dish/diode laser?

[secretly_asian]

17 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

NOt sure, but if a vessel that is relaying, the will not itself get any feedback apart from the state being in relay mode. It should, however, show up in the receiver info screen when used.

I will investigate after my next release.

So i played around with the beamed power mechanics some more, and found out that the mirrors work only with diode laser type beams, and that phased array transmitters only works with other phased array transmitters and thermal receivers. Now my next question is, what are the mechanics behind the radial thermal receiver dishes? In the description of the "Radial gold thermal receiver dish" this part needs to be connected to an inline thermal receiver which needs to be connected to a thermal generator to produce power, however i see no increase in energy production when the dish is attached to the inline receiver or the thermal generator. Even as a standalone part, the receiver produces about 5MW of power, as seen by my MJ (megajoules) resource increasing by 5.00 every second. I've also tested this with a thermal turbojet, and a 2.5m 2x length thermal receiver will produce ~3600KN of force at 906s ISP using LqdMethane, but regardless of any dish I add to the vessel the thrust never changes. I am aware that the thermal receiver has a cap at 8,000 MW of thermal energy, but wouldn't adding dishes to it increase that cap? 

Please note that the transmitting vessel pushes out 20GW of beam power and the receiving vessel has a <1cm spotsize. 

Also, i apologize for my ignorance on this topic, I'm just trying to make an epic solar-system wide colonization and i don't know how to make beamed power work fully. 

 

***EDIT***

what is the "isThermalReceiverSlave = true" parameter in the part.cfg for the receiver dishes? this could very well answer my question.

Edited September 18, 2018 by secretly_asian

[FreeThinker]

56 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

Now my next question is, what are the mechanics behind the radial thermal receiver dishes? In the description of the "Radial gold thermal receiver dish" this part needs to be connected to an inline thermal receiver which needs to be connected to a thermal generator to produce power, however i see no increase in energy production when the dish is attached to the inline receiver or the thermal generator.

2

radial thermal receiver dishes when connected with a thermal receiver allow you to effectively increase the diameter of the thermal receiver. For example, a standard 2.5 thermal receiver has receiver diameter of only 2.5m, but when you radial attach a thermal receiver dish on it, which has a diameter of 10m, you increase the thermal receiver by 400%, allowing you to receive beamed power 4 times as far (with a minimum loss). The dish can be further scaled up with tweakscale to much larger sizes to extend range even further. Some parts have the dishes integrated, like the Inline Thermal Receiver Mirror Dish, but it is less flexible. Notice you don't have to connect the thermal receiver dish directly to a thermal receiver, you could, for instance, put an infernal robotic pivot between it, allowing you to aim the dish to the transmitter.

Edited September 18, 2018 by FreeThinker

[secretly_asian]

3 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

radial thermal receiver dishes when connected with a thermal receiver allow you to effectively increase the diameter of the thermal receiver. For example, a standard 2.5 thermal receiver has receiver diameter of only 2.5m, but when you radial attack a thermal receiver on it, which has a diameter of 10m, you increase the thermal receiver by 400%, allowing you to receive beamed power 4 times a far at maximum capacity. The dish can be further scaled up with tweakscale to much larger sizes to extend range even further. Some parts have the dishes integrated, like the Inline Thermal Receiver Mirror Dish, but it is less flexible. Notice you don't have to connect the thermal receiver dish directly to a thermal receiver, you could, for instance, put an infernal robotic pivot between it, allowing you to aim the dish to the transmitter.

So would that mean the inline receiver with a power capacity of 8,000 MW and a dish with a capacity of 10,000 MW on the same craft push 18,000 MW of power through a generator/thermal engine, assuming there is a source that can provide that much power?

Edited September 18, 2018 by secretly_asian

[FreeThinker]

13 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

So would that mean the inline receiver with a power capacity of 8,000 MW and a dish with a capacity of 10,000 MW on the same craft push 18,000 MW of power through a generator/thermal engine?

No, it means that a dish of diameter 10m is able to receive 10 GW, but the connected thermal receiver will cap it to maximum capacity, which in this case would be 8 GW. So to conclude, dishes should be used when you want to extend the beam distance, otherwise you can do without the additional mass.

Edit: Notice that thermal receivers are not the most efficient method for short to medium range electric power transfer, for that your advice to use either photon voltaic receivers (aka solar sells), phased arrays or rectennas. Each method has it advantages and disadvantages. For instance, The thermal receiver allows the largest power densities and broadest spectrum range but is generally heavy and less efficient.

Edit2: Also note the thermal receiver dish, in contrast to the inline thermal receiver, has a limited effective spectrum range: it will be able all spectrum except x-rays, which cannot be focused by mirrors.

Edited September 18, 2018 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, secretly_asian said:

what is the "isThermalReceiverSlave = true" parameter in the part.cfg for the receiver dishes? this could very well answer my question.

 

Yes, isThermalReceiverSlave means it needs a master where han, can provide the energy he has collected from space. 

Edited September 18, 2018 by FreeThinker

[secretly_asian]

2 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

No, it means that a dish of diameter 10m is able to receive 10 GW, but the connected thermal receiver will cap it to maximum capacity, which in this case would be 8 GW

A few more things, since I've been toying with the beamed power mechanic i'm learning more and more. please correct me if any of the following statements I've made are incorrect:

- The double-pivoted photovoltaic receivers will produce power without the need of a generator if exposed to a beam, respective to their designed wavelengths

- The phased array transceiver can transmit or relay beamed power, but only the large fold-able one can relay beams

- The double-pivoted infrared and light mirrors only work with diode laser beams of their respective wavelengths

-Thermal mode receivers need to be attached to thermal generators, whereas electric mode receivers will produce energy just by being hit with a beam

-Thermal engines will operate only when connected to a compatible reactor or an inline thermal receiver, they cannot be connected to a thermal dish

-The large and medium transceiver dishes are electric receivers and do not need to be connected to a generator. 

Thanks again @FreeThinker this is absolutely a core mod in any KSP game I've ever played and I love it very much for its intricacies.

 

p.s. if you want, whenever i have spare time I can help you clean up some of your parts descriptions, some are either outdated or have grammatical errors in them.  cheers!

[FreeThinker]

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

- The double-pivoted photovoltaic receivers will produce power without the need of a generator if exposed to a beam, respective to their designed wavelengths

 

Correct, just like solar cells, except at higher power densities thanks to better active cooling.

 

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

- The phased array transceiver can transmit or relay beamed power, but only the large fold-able one can relay beams@FreeThinker
 

 

 

All transmitter can relay when chain connected (with a chain compatible receiver) but some parts like the Pivoted and Inline Phased Array can relay directly.

 

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

- The double-pivoted infrared and light mirrors only work with diode laser beams of their respective wavelengths@FreeThinker this is absolutely a core mod in any KSP game I've ever played and I love it very much for its intricacies.

 

What important is that all involved parts , both receivers, transmitter and relay  are compatible in the wavelength  you wish to transfer. It does not matter if the infrared signal is generated by either internal/external diodes, FreeElectronLaser/Gyrotron or Phased Array

 

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

-Thermal mode receivers need to be attached to thermal generators, whereas electric mode receivers will produce energy just by being hit with a beam@FreeThinker

 

 

Correct, but notice that there are some part, (like the inline thermal receiver panel) have an integrated thermal power generator. Also note there is something called thermal photovoltaic receivers, which a solar receiver which first receives the energy as the thermal power before it is converted directly into electrical power.

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

-Thermal engines will operate only when connected to a compatible reactor or an inline thermal receiver, they cannot be connected to a thermal dish

@FreeThinker

 

Correct, but note the thermal dish can power a thermal nozzle indirectly through an (inline) thermal receiver

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

-Thermal engines will operate only when connected to a compatible reactor or an inline thermal receiver, they cannot be connected to a thermal dish

-The large and medium transceiver dishes are electric receivers and do not need to be connected to a generator. 

@FreeThinker

 

Correct, they internally use rectennas to convert beamed power directly into electric power. They can also relay when linked. One dish has to receive signal while the other sends to signal back into the network.

33 minutes ago, secretly_asian said:

@FreeThinker

p.s. if you want, whenever i have spare time I can help you clean up some of your parts descriptions, some are either outdated or have grammatical errors in them.  cheers!

1

Thanks, any help would be helpful. Notice we also have a wiki which could use more maintenance.

Edited September 18, 2018 by FreeThinker

[Gildarrious]

Thank you both so much for having this conversation, it answered many of the beamed power questions I had. I just wanted to double check if there was a difference in relying with mirrors versus relays. Naively I would assume that relays absorb and send the signal again which would "reduce" the distance between the source and ultimate destination. This would be opposed to the mirrors that would change the angles but keep the same distance between the source and ultimate receiver?

Do i have this right, or is there another intended scenario for mirrors versus relays?

 

Also I totally biffed it and upvoted the conversation, without realizing that this forum format is not used in that way. Now they have disappeared from the timeline. Sorry about that.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Gildarrious

[FreeThinker]

14 hours ago, Gildarrious said:

I just wanted to double check if there was a difference in relying with mirrors versus relays. Naively I would assume that relays absorb and send the signal again which would "reduce" the distance between the source and ultimate destination.

1

Yes in the future I have some plans to take these details into account, but right now it is not.  Whether or not mirrors are the best way to make a relay network is questionable. Notice that the signal loss does play a very import role when converting a wavelength, where a beamed wave signal is converted to electric power before it is resent. A common strategy is that beamed power from the surface of Kerbin transmitted in a microwave wavelength received at a geostationary orbit and resend in a shorter wavelength

Edited September 20, 2018 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

14 hours ago, Gildarrious said:

Do i have this right, or is there another intended scenario for mirrors versus relays?

1

Well the original intended plan was  to use them to focus solarlight. The Idea is to put them in low solar orbit and then focus their light to a photovoltaic receiver or for solar sails. The problem is that due to the wide range of wavelength, they are kind of hard to focus, so it would only work at short range.

Another idea is to use them is the construction of a solar laser where the mirrors had to be put in extreme low solar orbit, where the light would partially grace the surface of the sun, create a petawatt laser, aka Deathray. The problem is that KSP solar heat model is calculated all wrong and doesn't like big scales.

Edited September 20, 2018 by FreeThinker

[Gildarrious]

Thank you for the response @FreeThinker I am now wondering what I am doing wrong with the thermal turbojet. It seems impossible to get this thing off the ground without an irresponsible number of radiators. The wiki references that as long as it is active, it should be expelling waste heat. Instead of that, however, it seems that this part will explode in atmosphere, with radiators, while at partial throttle. I have it hooked to a thermal receiver and just throttling up at the runway will generate a ton of heat. This part explodes well before the radiator give out. Strangely, with more power input into the receiver, the cooler the thermal turbojet operates? Could you explain this mechanic?

Is there something that I am missing, perhaps, or some mechanism that is generating heat from the thermal turbojet activating?

Picture of craft here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdr1shirbpyh0yb/Screenshot 2018-09-20 20.18.03.png?dl=0

 

[mbaryu]

1 hour ago, Gildarrious said:

Thank you for the response @FreeThinker I am now wondering what I am doing wrong with the thermal turbojet. It seems impossible to get this thing off the ground without an irresponsible number of radiators. The wiki references that as long as it is active, it should be expelling waste heat. Instead of that, however, it seems that this part will explode in atmosphere, with radiators, while at partial throttle. I have it hooked to a thermal receiver and just throttling up at the runway will generate a ton of heat. This part explodes well before the radiator give out. Strangely, with more power input into the receiver, the cooler the thermal turbojet operates? Could you explain this mechanic?

Is there something that I am missing, perhaps, or some mechanism that is generating heat from the thermal turbojet activating?

Picture of craft here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdr1shirbpyh0yb/Screenshot 2018-09-20 20.18.03.png?dl=0

I haven't tried thermal receivers with the thermal turbojet, but here's a couple of ideas to try: 1) Try adding precoolers after the intakes.  2) try an alternate fuel and see if it still overheats.  3) check if the amount of thermal energy can be reduced to produce your desired result.

[Gildarrious]

25 minutes ago, mbaryu said:

I haven't tried thermal receivers with the thermal turbojet, but here's a couple of ideas to try: 1) Try adding precoolers after the intakes.  2) try an alternate fuel and see if it still overheats.  3) check if the amount of thermal energy can be reduced to produce your desired result.

See that's the strange thing, more power is more cold. The air is already cool at sea level, although compressed air is cooler to start with, it still overheats rapidly. Cooler --> Hotter: Compressed air --> Intake air --> Methane. Mostly I'm just curious to see the mechanics, ie math, behind the engine heating to overheating depending on energy.

[FreeThinker]

11 hours ago, Gildarrious said:

Is there something that I am missing, perhaps, or some mechanism that is generating heat from the thermal turbojet activating?

Picture of craft here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sdr1shirbpyh0yb/Screenshot 2018-09-20 20.18.03.png?dl=0

 

 

There are several solutions you can apply to solve overheating:

A: attach all air intakes to a precooler, they become more effective the faster you go

B: add non-graphene radiators, which do not suffer for heat restriction in oxidated atmospheres

C: add convection radiators which are specialized in operating in atmospheres

Edited September 21, 2018 by FreeThinker

[Gildarrious]

11 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

There are several solutions you can apply to solve overheating:

A: attach all air intakes to a precooler, they become more effective the faster you go

B: add non-graphene radiators, which do not suffer for heat restriction in oxidated atmospheres

C: add convection radiators which are specialized in operating in atmospheres

So I can definitely branch into different kinds of radiators in order to solve this, but I really don't understand the underlying mechanics. To illustrate my understanding: A heat source, be it thermal receiver or reactor is receiving/producing heat for this system. This heat is then piped into the thermal nozzle, where it meets the cooler propellant. This propellant is colder than the hot cycle, and is thus heated to the point of expansion. This expansion is vectored out of the nozzle and produces thrust for the ship. This seems to me, that the propellant would function as removing heat from the system, as a heat sink. I would then presume that an active thermal nozzle would be cooling the ship, while the receiver is adding heat to the system.

This understanding does not seem to be what is happening in actuality, as the active thermal nozzle is producing heat and explodes rapidly unless radiators are used. I believe my understanding is supported by the wiki: "If you are running thermal rockets, your reactor's waste heat will be dumped out the back along with the propellant, so you never need to worry about it as long as your engine is on.".

 am really just asking why the thermal ramjet is so keen to produce heat and explode? My understanding is that an "off" thermal engine would be heating up rapidly, while one producing thrust would be removing heat from the system. I get that the receiver only receives as much thermal power as it is using, so this system wouldn't be entirely realistic to model.

[raxo2222]

22 minutes ago, Gildarrious said:

So I can definitely branch into different kinds of radiators in order to solve this, but I really don't understand the underlying mechanics. To illustrate my understanding: A heat source, be it thermal receiver or reactor is receiving/producing heat for this system. This heat is then piped into the thermal nozzle, where it meets the cooler propellant. This propellant is colder than the hot cycle, and is thus heated to the point of expansion. This expansion is vectored out of the nozzle and produces thrust for the ship. This seems to me, that the propellant would function as removing heat from the system, as a heat sink. I would then presume that an active thermal nozzle would be cooling the ship, while the receiver is adding heat to the system.

This understanding does not seem to be what is happening in actuality, as the active thermal nozzle is producing heat and explodes rapidly unless radiators are used. I believe my understanding is supported by the wiki: "If you are running thermal rockets, your reactor's waste heat will be dumped out the back along with the propellant, so you never need to worry about it as long as your engine is on.".

 am really just asking why the thermal ramjet is so keen to produce heat and explode? My understanding is that an "off" thermal engine would be heating up rapidly, while one producing thrust would be removing heat from the system. I get that the receiver only receives as much thermal power as it is using, so this system wouldn't be entirely realistic to model.

I reported multiple times, that smallest thermal engine with weakest reactor overheats easily and normal sized thermal nozzle with stronger reactor doesn't overheat, when engine is without precooler and slowly moving.

Edited September 21, 2018 by raxo2222

[samooo2]

41 minutes ago, Gildarrious said:

So I can definitely branch into different kinds of radiators in order to solve this, but I really don't understand the underlying mechanics. To illustrate my understanding: A heat source, be it thermal receiver or reactor is receiving/producing heat for this system. This heat is then piped into the thermal nozzle, where it meets the cooler propellant. This propellant is colder than the hot cycle, and is thus heated to the point of expansion. This expansion is vectored out of the nozzle and produces thrust for the ship. This seems to me, that the propellant would function as removing heat from the system, as a heat sink. I would then presume that an active thermal nozzle would be cooling the ship, while the receiver is adding heat to the system.

This understanding does not seem to be what is happening in actuality, as the active thermal nozzle is producing heat and explodes rapidly unless radiators are used. I believe my understanding is supported by the wiki: "If you are running thermal rockets, your reactor's waste heat will be dumped out the back along with the propellant, so you never need to worry about it as long as your engine is on.".

 am really just asking why the thermal ramjet is so keen to produce heat and explode? My understanding is that an "off" thermal engine would be heating up rapidly, while one producing thrust would be removing heat from the system. I get that the receiver only receives as much thermal power as it is using, so this system wouldn't be entirely realistic to model.

The wiki is talking about WasteHeat, that is this mod's version of heat. If it gets too high it shuts down generators and beam receivers, that's all.

There's also the stock heat mechanic generated by drills, ISRU and some engines. If it gets too high it blows things up. This is the one giving you trouble.

 

First off it works really strange with TweakScale. For example if you scale the stock asteroid drill down to half size it actually produces over 4x more heat than the regular sized one. So as a general rule don't scale down stuff that uses stock heat.

Secondly one of the more recent KSP updates changed the heat mechanic and some parts are weird now. Like the pulsed fission drive blows up after about 30sec of running full thrust, unless you have it's own weight in radiators. Even though it requires barely any WasteHeat dissipation.

[Gildarrious]

32 minutes ago, samooo2 said:

The wiki is talking about WasteHeat, that is this mod's version of heat. If it gets too high it shuts down generators and beam receivers, that's all.

There's also the stock heat mechanic generated by drills, ISRU and some engines. If it gets too high it blows things up. This is the one giving you trouble.

I mean that's fine and all, but it should likely treat in game heat the same way as it treats waste heat, no? If it's a limitation of the game engine, that would suck, but I presume (ignorantly) that it could just generate negative heat, right?

EDIT** I went digging into code for this part, and found this: 

// --- standard part parameters ---
mass = 2
dragModelType = default
maximum_drag = 0.2
minimum_drag = 0.2
angularDrag = 2
crashTolerance = 12
breakingForce = 800
breakingTorque = 800
maxTemp = 2750
emissiveConstant = 0.85
heatConductivity = 0.01
 

which looks great and completely normal. The conductivity is really low, but hey, whatever it's an acceptable value. That explains why the heat isn't moving to the radiators very quickly. Furthermore: 

MODULE
{
    name = ModuleEngines
    thrustVectorTransformName = TT
    exhaustDamage = True
    ignitionThreshold = 0.1
    minThrust = 0
    maxThrust = 500
    heatProduction = 100
    fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.5
 

So I bolded this component. I haven't made a mod or anything, but I would expect it is acting like any other engine. Heating up as it is active. Turning this down or off would likely yield expected behavior, but I would love to hear what you think @FreeThinker.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Gildarrious
Addendum

[Gildarrious]

The more I dig into this, the more I realize that the code is way more complex than I am familiar with. Sorry for my ignorant attempt to parse it. I still think that heatProduction = 100 likely has something to do with it, but reading through ThermalNozzleController.cs, it is clear that there are many equations leading to temperature outcomes. Something involving "soot" seems to make a ton of difference? EIther way, I'll wait for reply before I go too crazy.

Relevant code here: 

if (controlHeatProduction)
	{
	engineHeatProduction = (currentEngineFuelFlow >= engineHeatFuelThreshold && _maxISP > 100 && part.mass > 0.0001 && myAttachedEngine.currentThrottle > 0)
	? 0.5 * myAttachedEngine.currentThrottle * Math.Pow(radius, heatProductionExponent) * heatProductionMult * PluginHelper.EngineHeatProduction / currentEngineFuelFlow / _maxISP / part.mass
	: 1;
	engineHeatProduction = Math.Min(engineHeatProduction * (1 + airflowHeatModifier * PluginHelper.AirflowHeatMult), 9999);
	myAttachedEngine.heatProduction = (float)engineHeatProduction;
	}

Edited September 21, 2018 by Gildarrious
Clarity

[Jenkins9]

Hello all. I'm having a config problem with the hybrid rocketry. The rocket and tanks are all storing the resource "Aluminium", but the IHR MOR7 ISRU electrolyzer is outputting "Aluminium Fuel" and hence not working. As I understand it, all the part files used the resource "Aluminium Fuel" by default but are being patched over by another config. For some reason the ISRU isn't being patched. How and where exactly do I fix this issue?

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, Gildarrious said:

The more I dig into this, the more I realize that the code is way more complex than I am familiar with. Sorry for my ignorant attempt to parse it. I still think that heatProduction = 100 likely has something to do with it, but reading through ThermalNozzleController.cs, it is clear that there are many equations leading to temperature outcomes. Something involving "soot" seems to make a ton of difference? EIther way, I'll wait for reply before I go too crazy.

Relevant code here: 

if (controlHeatProduction)
	{
	engineHeatProduction = (currentEngineFuelFlow >= engineHeatFuelThreshold && _maxISP > 100 && part.mass > 0.0001 && myAttachedEngine.currentThrottle > 0)
	? 0.5 * myAttachedEngine.currentThrottle * Math.Pow(radius, heatProductionExponent) * heatProductionMult * PluginHelper.EngineHeatProduction / currentEngineFuelFlow / _maxISP / part.mass
	: 1;
	engineHeatProduction = Math.Min(engineHeatProduction * (1 + airflowHeatModifier * PluginHelper.AirflowHeatMult), 9999);
	myAttachedEngine.heatProduction = (float)engineHeatProduction;
	}

You are close, in contrast to regular configurations for a fixed engine, the thermal engine need to operate in a wide variety of conditions.

Well the trouble is that is has to be balanced for in multiple sizes, masses, dimentions and isp ranges.

What I need to know is the exact formula how is heat is generated, which I currently don't. I know that at least, isp, mass and thust are involved because if any of them changes, effective heat production changes as well.

Edited September 22, 2018 by FreeThinker