KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

I am not sure if i correctly setup the Liquid metal cooled reactor. it supposed to be a backup power supply when the ship is either a) in a planet's shadow, or b) not facing directly at or away from the sun. as the solar panels block eachother, and there isnt quite enough electric charge for the insulation of the LH2 tanks

In testing, it worked on a rutherford engine, and this is the exact module here, but it seems that the uranium isnt able to go to the reactor. the only enriched uranium on the ship is in the three NERVs (one is hidden, its the main engine), and in that small uranium tank on the side of the ship, in front of one of the solar panels.

does the tank have to be directly attached for the reactor to work? there is ample cooling

also, the craft was built using EL, the reactor module was placed after the ship was built

i cant seem to get it to produce more than 20ec/s (20kw), and its peak output is indicated as around 3MW of power... and the power efficiency is around 30%? is that waaaaaay too low?)

Edited June 1, 2020 by JcoolTheShipbuilder

[HippieGold]

On 5/7/2020 at 7:01 PM, shifty303 said:

Hi @FreeThinker, I wanted to say I noticed KSPIE removes water (and Uranite) from the ScanSat resource overlay list. Is this intentional (I know there are hydrates) and can it be reversed?

I tested on a fresh install of 1.9.1 KSP with Community resource pack, KSPIE, ScanSat and USI/MKS. Without KSPIE water is in the scansat overlay list. With KSPIE water is not in the overlay list. 

I only noticed this recently when I went to plan a Duna mining outpost. It's been a year or more since I last set up mining outposts.

Is there still no resolution for this mod conflict?

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

sorry if this would be spamming, but is there somewhere on the wiki that tells about how nuclear fuel transfer works?

[OOM]

7 hours ago, JcoolTheShipbuilder said:

I am not sure if i correctly setup the Liquid metal cooled reactor. it supposed to be a backup power supply when the ship is either a) in a planet's shadow, or b) not facing directly at or away from the sun. as the solar panels block eachother, and there isnt quite enough electric charge for the insulation of the LH2 tanks

In testing, it worked on a rutherford engine, and this is the exact module here, but it seems that the uranium isnt able to go to the reactor. the only enriched uranium on the ship is in the three NERVs (one is hidden, its the main engine), and in that small uranium tank on the side of the ship, in front of one of the solar panels.

does the tank have to be directly attached for the reactor to work? there is ample cooling

also, the craft was built using EL, the reactor module was placed after the ship was built

i cant seem to get it to produce more than 20ec/s (20kw), and its peak output is indicated as around 3MW of power... and the power efficiency is around 30%? is that waaaaaay too low?)

1. Just grab the Liquid Metal Reactor with Uranium already charged. Make sure that the built-in generator is working and not off.
2. Just add radiators.
I think this will solve the problem.

NERVA, as I recall, it is impossible to refuel. It is a disposable engine. Uranium must be in the reactor itself and not come from other sources. You should have enough base stock for many years.
Your ship ... wild))) The liquid metal coolant reactor itself does not need to be installed. An electric generator is already built into it. It remains only to attach enough radiators to remove heat. I also remind you - the interstellar is not compatible with Near Future Propulsion and Electrical. Maybe you have something in conflict with something. 
30% efficiency should be enough for 3 MW. Modern reactors operate with such efficiency. I could be wrong, but your ship should not consume more than 300-400 kW of electricity to cool the fuel tanks. So this is not the problem.
I think you have critically few radiators.

Edited June 2, 2020 by OOM

[AntaresMC]

On 6/1/2020 at 12:16 PM, OOM said:

And today, the exhaust of the Open Cycle Gas Core Engine has been fixed. Now it is no longer like a rotten sausage littered with green bacteria, but a beautiful red-hot hydrogen plasma with radiation from the reactor 

 

Ok, got new favourite nuke (was the NSW, but its new design...)

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

7 hours ago, OOM said:

1. Just grab the Liquid Metal Reactor with Uranium already charged. Make sure that the built-in generator is working and not off.
2. Just add radiators.
I think this will solve the problem.

NERVA, as I recall, it is impossible to refuel. It is a disposable engine. Uranium must be in the reactor itself and not come from other sources. You should have enough base stock for many years.
Your ship ... wild))) The liquid metal coolant reactor itself does not need to be installed. An electric generator is already built into it. It remains only to attach enough radiators to remove heat. I also remind you - the interstellar is not compatible with Near Future Propulsion and Electrical. Maybe you have something in conflict with something. 
30% efficiency should be enough for 3 MW. Modern reactors operate with such efficiency. I could be wrong, but your ship should not consume more than 300-400 kW of electricity to cool the fuel tanks. So this is not the problem.
I think you have critically few radiators.

wait.... so the NERVA cannot be refuled? then how did the KSPIE nuclear processor fuel those? after building one with EL, is the refueling a one-off event? i understand putting the nuclear fuel into the NERVA before releasing from the orbital construction docks, you cannot redock with it. soo, i need to grab an already fueled one and launch it from kerbin?

 

also, im going to add more radiators. the engine that will power this beast is a 3.75m NERVA, soo.. ok

[OldSedan]

Im new to the mod and having a little trouble understanding waste heat. I’ve built a couple craft using the first two nuclear engines, with enough radiators to cover the heat output according to the heat management window in the VAB. My vessel still generates waste heat after the engine is activated, even if the engine and generator are later shut down. Am I missing something?

[OOM]

1 hour ago, JcoolTheShipbuilder said:

wait.... so the NERVA cannot be refuled? then how did the KSPIE nuclear processor fuel those? after building one with EL, is the refueling a one-off event? i understand putting the nuclear fuel into the NERVA before releasing from the orbital construction docks, you cannot redock with it. soo, i need to grab an already fueled one and launch it from kerbin?

 

also, im going to add more radiators. the engine that will power this beast is a 3.75m NERVA, soo.. ok

I think using the mod for pumping resources "TAC Fuel Support" it is possible to fill up absolutely everything with fresh fuel. But for, first of all, a nuclear reactor with a liquid metal coolant should be fed from the built-in stock of enriched uranium and not take fuel from anywhere except a special container with radioactive fuel.

Edited June 2, 2020 by OOM

[OOM]

1 hour ago, OldSedan said:

Im new to the mod and having a little trouble understanding waste heat. I’ve built a couple craft using the first two nuclear engines, with enough radiators to cover the heat output according to the heat management window in the VAB. My vessel still generates waste heat after the engine is activated, even if the engine and generator are later shut down. Am I missing something?

Heat will still be. The question is, did your nuclear plane explode from waste heat?

For so much I know a nuclear ramjet as well as NERVA (unlike nuclear reactors for the production of electricity and thermonuclear engines) do not need a "green" 100% cooling. They mainly use regenerative cooling with fuel (hydrogen as NERVA and air as nuclear ramjet) in combination with a small number of radiators. If you use conventional radiators to cool a nuclear ramjet, this is a mistake, they are not effective in the atmosphere and should be replaced with special air heat exchangers. Use a small number of radiators only in the upper atmosphere to remove heat. For the rest, rely on regenerative cooling and heat exchangers.

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

Turns out that the fuel tanks use about 1000 ec/s for cooling, i have 13 million LH2 (15 million capacity) onboard the ship

 

also, launching the reactor with the fuel works

Edited June 2, 2020 by JcoolTheShipbuilder

[OldSedan]

3 hours ago, OOM said:

Heat will still be. The question is, did your nuclear plane explode from waste heat?

For so much I know a nuclear ramjet as well as NERVA (unlike nuclear reactors for the production of electricity and thermonuclear engines) do not need a "green" 100% cooling. They mainly use regenerative cooling with fuel (hydrogen as NERVA and air as nuclear ramjet) in combination with a small number of radiators. If you use conventional radiators to cool a nuclear ramjet, this is a mistake, they are not effective in the atmosphere and should be replaced with special air heat exchangers. Use a small number of radiators only in the upper atmosphere to remove heat. For the rest, rely on regenerative cooling and heat exchangers.

Thanks! Sounds like some waste heat isn’t necessarily a problem? What prevents it from continuing to accumulate? I haven’t had an issue so far but I worry that over an interplanetary mission waste heat would continue to build up and explode my craft. Do radiators become more effective at higher levels of waste heat?

[OOM]

11 hours ago, OldSedan said:

Thanks! Sounds like some waste heat isn’t necessarily a problem? What prevents it from continuing to accumulate? I haven’t had an issue so far but I worry that over an interplanetary mission waste heat would continue to build up and explode my craft. Do radiators become more effective at higher levels of waste heat?

As a rule, radiators reach a certain critical point when the temperature stops rising.
Nuclear reactors themselves (as well as radiators) never explode, they simply stop generating electricity, and the radiator glows at maximum temperature.
The exception is the -fusion engine like Deadalus or VISTA, for safe operation they really need a lot of radiators when they are working, otherwise they just explode (but the explosion only happens during operation, and not at rest)

You can also easily check all this. Just teleport your ship into orbit (via the cheat menu) - and check all these mechanisms for personal experience.

As an example, I take a space power station with a nuclear reactor (and also something like a load like an ion engine or a microwave transmitter) - with good cooling, your radiators will stop accumulating temperature at ~ 1100K

Edited June 3, 2020 by OOM

[Northstar1989]

On 6/2/2020 at 3:29 PM, OldSedan said:

Do radiators become more effective at higher levels of waste heat?

In essence, yes.  They emit more kW/MW of heat the hotter they get.

Which is realistic, and as-intended: deployable radiators (one of the parts I helped theory craft and balance for this mod based on real-life data back in the day: the radiators inherited by Extended from the original KSP Interstellar were a bit underpowered and unrealistic...) in the mod and in real life rely MOSTLY on Black Body Radiation to emit heat: which increases with the *4th power* of temperature- 2x the temp gets you 16x the radiation of heat as photons (mostly Infrared, but can enter visible wavelengths when white-hot).

This is a big part of the reason radiators with higher maximum temperature have higher maximum cooling (we even added upgrade-nodes in the tech tree to increase their maximum temoeratures back in the day: as well as emissivity coefficients- with some modern materials actually already SURPASSING a coefficient of 1 in real-life due to clever use of materials science and nanotechnology...  I had a big part in bringing this science into the basis for the mod, as I felt it important to get radiators right...  Didn't hurt that my slightly-younger brother had an interest in becoming an engineer working on materials science/nanotech for defense+aerospace tech at the time, either...)

Radiators actively pump coolant fluids into themselves, to suck heat into themselves from the rest of the craft and cool it back off before recirculating it- coolant systems are one of the many abstractions we decided to not elaborate on in Interstellar Extended, back in the day: which is a shame, as open-cycle coolant systems that vaporize and emit water as superheated steam would be very useful for certain applications, such as hypersonic jets, cooling reactors near water supplies like in real life, dealing with heat during peak re-entry heating, and cooling of aeroshells used for Mass Drivers... (shoutout: some awesome modders have taken over my Netherdyne Mass Driver mod for me, and are releasing an updated version for 1.9.x with some bugfixes and code-cleanup, although sone players say the OLDER version actually still works on 1.9.x even though my thread doesn't say so: due to lack of thorough testing before a "release" in my part, and some overdue code-cleanup and recompiling I didn't have the time/skills for, that probably makes the old version run a bit slower/worse with heavier computer load on newer versions of KSP...)

The deployable radiators *DO* engage in a certain non-trivial amount of Convection, though, due to their massive surface area, even they aren't optimized for ir- as would be true in real life... (unless this was stripped from more recent versions of Interstellar, for some odd reason)  The flat radiator panels, if they're still in the mod, used to do a respectable job of cooling spaceplanes in-flight or in re-entry (just like the Stock flat panels still do: I use them to help prevent wing overheats in re-entry, actually...)

Edited June 4, 2020 by Northstar1989

[OldSedan]

OK, next dumb question. Can I shutdown a reactor (pebble bed in this case)? There's a 'deactivate' button visible in the reactor control window in-flight but pushing it seems to have no effect.

[AntaresMC]

7 hours ago, OldSedan said:

OK, next dumb question. Can I shutdown a reactor (pebble bed in this case)? There's a 'deactivate' button visible in the reactor control window in-flight but pushing it seems to have no effect.

Have to deactivate, take an engineer out, turn off in EVA, wait until stops heating up and you get it, totally inert.

Deactivate cuts heat output by 3/4, but dont stop using fuel. Stops giving power.

If you are interested, use the thermal mechaincs hepler.

Also, Radiation=AT⁴ while inefficiency, so heat goes moreless with T², so there is a break even point. 

Red=will shut down

Yellow=no power gen

Green=power gen

Edited June 5, 2020 by AntaresMC

[Plutron]

I have a question about the z-pinch aerospike engine. I've been trying to make a reusable ssto rocket with it, but many times in flight the engine poofs for a split second and starts up again. When it poofs it displays 'insufficient electricity'. The weird thing is, I've not had this problem earlier. Does the engine have a power requirement I didn't notice? The Megajoule resource doesn't drain while firing, it even seems to generate it. Am I doing something wrong? (To clarify it only seems to happen in atmospheric mode, however intake air does not seem to be the cause)

 

Edited June 5, 2020 by Plutron

[Plutron]

3 hours ago, Plutron said:

I have a question about the z-pinch aerospike engine. I've been trying to make a reusable ssto rocket with it, but many times in flight the engine poofs for a split second and starts up again. When it poofs it displays 'insufficient electricity'. The weird thing is, I've not had this problem earlier. Does the engine have a power requirement I didn't notice? The Megajoule resource doesn't drain while firing, it even seems to generate it. Am I doing something wrong? (To clarify it only seems to happen in atmospheric mode, however intake air does not seem to be the cause)

 

Nevermind, after some experiments I found out it was definitely the intake air, the 'insufficient electricity threw me off'

[Sweetie bot]

On 6/3/2020 at 2:26 PM, OOM said:

As an example, I take a space power station with a nuclear reactor (and also something like a load like an ion engine or a microwave transmitter) - with good cooling, your radiators will stop accumulating temperature at ~ 1100K

I more likely to put that temperature higher, and just use enough radiators Area to make a good Power/Mass Ratio.

[AntaresMC]

8 hours ago, Sweetie bot said:

I more likely to put that temperature higher, and just use enough radiators Area to make a good Power/Mass Ratio.

Graphene FTW, and try not to depend too much of heat if you wanna good PMR

[Bej Kerman]

Is there any way to disable KSPIE's Near Future Electrical compatibility mode? I want to have bigger batteries, but I also don't want my reactors and generators to be nerfed.

Secondly, what's the purpose of the compatibility mode?

[AntaresMC]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Is there any way to disable KSPIE's Near Future Electrical compatibility mode? I want to have bigger batteries, but I also don't want my reactors and generators to be nerfed.

Secondly, what's the purpose of the compatibility mode?

Balance. And KSPIE gives really good batts

[Bej Kerman]

23 minutes ago, AntaresMC said:

4 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Is there any way to disable KSPIE's Near Future Electrical compatibility mode? I want to have bigger batteries, but I also don't want my reactors and generators to be nerfed.

Secondly, what's the purpose of the compatibility mode?

Balance. And KSPIE gives really good batts

Nvm, fixed it. In GameData\WarpPlugin\patches, I renamed USI_NF_Mode.cfg to USI_NF_Mode.cfg.off. Now reactors perform how they should (Antimatter reactors don't burn through dozens of grams of antimatter over the course of a few days) and the warp drive charges properly, and I can use the NF battery parts.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Bej Kerman

[AntaresMC]

39 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Nvm, fixed it. In GameData\WarpPlugin\patches, I renamed USI_NF_Mode.cfg to USI_NF_Mode.cfg.off. Now reactors perform how they should (Antimatter reactors don't burn through dozens of grams of antimatter over the course of a few days) and the warp drive charges properly, and I can use the NF battery parts.

Several grams!?

Lol, thats quite absurd... Why does it that?

Thats like exploding a nuke a day...

Edited June 8, 2020 by AntaresMC

[RaketNaarDeMün]

I'm new here so let me know if this isn't the right place to post this.

I've got something weird going on. I started playing again a couple of days ago. I'm on KSP version 1.9.1 and only added Interstellar Extended for 1.8.1 - 1.9.1. Could not find any dependencies for Interstellar so did not install any. The game is installed on an SSD, which helps with load times.

The game starts from desktop and loads to the main menu within a minute. But when I build a large craft (200ish parts) and go to the launch pad, that loading screen freezes (not responding though it keeps loading in the background) and it takes 4-5 minutes before the launch pad loads. If I then close the game and check the KSP.log file, it is a little bigger than 1GB and Notepad can't open it.

Tried with a smaller rocket which created an 800mb log. For the entire load time (VAB=> launch pad) it spammed 5 million lines like this:

[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3763 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3763 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3756 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3756 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3755 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3755 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3754 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3754 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.

The craft was mostly built of FL-T200 fuel tanks. Tried with different rockets. All fuel tanks, but no other components, get their own logspam. How many blocks of logspam of each depends on how many of those tanks I used.

The same size rocket after removing Interstellar loads in 10 seconds and doesn't create logspam (200kb Log).

I also tried installing KSP and IE for older versions (1.9, 1.8.1, 1.7.3). On 1.7.3, the load time from vab to launchpad go back to 20 seconds for 200 part rockets, but the logspam is still there.

Are these 4 minute load times from VAB to Launchpad normal? If not, does anyone have a solution? I could post a log created with a smaller rocket (to keep file size down) if that would be useful.

Edit: Deleting InterstellarFuelSwitch brought VAB=>pad load times back down to 5 seconds and doesn't create logspam, so the problem is probably there.

Edited June 9, 2020 by RaketNaarDeMün
More testing

[AntaresMC]

15 hours ago, RaketNaarDeMün said:

I'm new here so let me know if this isn't the right place to post this.

I've got something weird going on. I started playing again a couple of days ago. I'm on KSP version 1.9.1 and only added Interstellar Extended for 1.8.1 - 1.9.1. Could not find any dependencies for Interstellar so did not install any. The game is installed on an SSD, which helps with load times.

The game starts from desktop and loads to the main menu within a minute. But when I build a large craft (200ish parts) and go to the launch pad, that loading screen freezes (not responding though it keeps loading in the background) and it takes 4-5 minutes before the launch pad loads. If I then close the game and check the KSP.log file, it is a little bigger than 1GB and Notepad can't open it.

Tried with a smaller rocket which created an 800mb log. For the entire load time (VAB=> launch pad) it spammed 5 million lines like this:

[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3763 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3763 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3756 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3756 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3755 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3755 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3754 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.
[LOG 20:05:18.542] [PartSet]: Failed to add Resource 1566956177 to Simulation PartSet:3754 as corresponding Part FL-T200 Fuel Tank-1759637295 SimulationResource was not found.

The craft was mostly built of FL-T200 fuel tanks. Tried with different rockets. All fuel tanks, but no other components, get their own logspam. How many blocks of logspam of each depends on how many of those tanks I used.

The same size rocket after removing Interstellar loads in 10 seconds and doesn't create logspam (200kb Log).

I also tried installing KSP and IE for older versions (1.9, 1.8.1, 1.7.3). On 1.7.3, the load time from vab to launchpad go back to 20 seconds for 200 part rockets, but the logspam is still there.

Are these 4 minute load times from VAB to Launchpad normal? If not, does anyone have a solution? I could post a log created with a smaller rocket (to keep file size down) if that would be useful.

Edit: Deleting InterstellarFuelSwitch brought VAB=>pad load times back down to 5 seconds and doesn't create logspam, so the problem is probably there.

IFS is quite heavy, but it shouldnt be so much...

What PC do you have?