KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[Turbo Ben]

Hi, I've just started unlocking nuclear engines in the tech tree but I'm having some trouble with the Rotating Fluidized Bed Reactor Engine. Not sure if it's a bug or if I'm doing something wrong. The problem happens when switching back to the ship with the nuclear engines from another ship. It doesn't happen every time, but often. I have 3 engines and all are unresponsive to throttle, though they do glow as if they are partially working. There is no exhaust plume and no thrust generated, though occasionally I get a momentary puff from the exhaust. I've tried shutting down and reactivating the engines which does not work. I did find however that if I open the reactor control window (after right click on the engine) and click shutdown, all engines begin to work as normal (except electrically in the case of the engine I just shutdown the reactor on). This is not ideal because I don't see a way to reactivate the reactor, so I can only do this once for each engine. I'm running 1.5.1 with IE version 1.20.16.

Edit: also noticed it happen after a long period in time warp without switching ships.

 

Thanks

Edited January 2, 2019 by Turbo Ben

[samooo2]

22 hours ago, Turbo Ben said:

Hi, I've just started unlocking nuclear engines in the tech tree but I'm having some trouble with the Rotating Fluidized Bed Reactor Engine. Not sure if it's a bug or if I'm doing something wrong. The problem happens when switching back to the ship with the nuclear engines from another ship. It doesn't happen every time, but often. I have 3 engines and all are unresponsive to throttle, though they do glow as if they are partially working. There is no exhaust plume and no thrust generated, though occasionally I get a momentary puff from the exhaust. I've tried shutting down and reactivating the engines which does not work. I did find however that if I open the reactor control window (after right click on the engine) and click shutdown, all engines begin to work as normal (except electrically in the case of the engine I just shutdown the reactor on). This is not ideal because I don't see a way to reactivate the reactor, so I can only do this once for each engine. I'm running 1.5.1 with IE version 1.20.16.

Edit: also noticed it happen after a long period in time warp without switching ships.

 

Thanks

See if it helps if you save and load the game when this happens. A similar problem used to occur when you docked or undocked a ship with a nuclear reactor, and this was a workaround. Might be worth a try.

 

As for reactivating nuclear reactors, you need to wait for a few days (so it's status in reactor control goes from "decay heating" to "offline") and then reactivate it from EVA. There's no way to reactivate without live crew.

[Turbo Ben]

2 hours ago, samooo2 said:

See if it helps if you save and load the game when this happens. A similar problem used to occur when you docked or undocked a ship with a nuclear reactor, and this was a workaround. Might be worth a try.

 

As for reactivating nuclear reactors, you need to wait for a few days (so it's status in reactor control goes from "decay heating" to "offline") and then reactivate it from EVA. There's no way to reactivate without live crew.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I've tried saving/loading a couple of times without success. I even tried closing ksp down and restarting which didn't work.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier, I rescaled the engine down to 2.5m, don't know if this could be the cause of my problem.

I did notice the "decay heating" status and wondered what it was. I have 6 kerbals along for the ride, so hopefully be able to get the reactors going again with an EVA. It's not ideal, but an adequate work around for now.

I might also have a go at modifying the solid core engine config to match the liquid core. I didn't have any issues with  the solid core engines in earlier missions.

Edited January 3, 2019 by Turbo Ben

[gary85]

Hi i didn't play kspie for more than a year. I want to go back. I used to build SSTOs.

It used to go like this thermal turbojet + beam core antimatter rector + charged particle generator + antimatter container and some heat exchangers and it used to work and generate tons of power.

Now it didn't work, something changed??? or my game is bugged?

 

Edited January 3, 2019 by gary85

[FreeThinker]

11 hours ago, gary85 said:

Hi i didn't play kspie for more than a year. I want to go back. I used to build SSTOs.

It used to go like this thermal turbojet + beam core antimatter rector + charged particle generator + antimatter container and some heat exchangers and it used to work and generate tons of power.

Now it didn't work, something changed??? or my game is bugged?

 

replace the beam core antimatter reactor by positron antimater reactor, replace charged particle generator by  MHD generator and the replace antiproton container by an positron container and you should be good to go

[ssd21345]

hmmm what is the criteria when selecting right fuel for open and liquid core reactor engine for different situation?

Edited January 4, 2019 by ssd21345

[ss8913]

2 hours ago, ssd21345 said:

hmmm what is the criteria when selecting right fuel for open and liquid core reactor engine for different situation?

In my experience, hydrazine > HTP > LiquidFuel > (everything else)

depending on what's available based on which engines you're using and what tech levels you've unlocked.

[gary85]

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

replace the beam core antimatter reactor by positron antimater reactor, replace charged particle generator by  MHD generator and the replace antiproton container by an positron container and you should be good to go

Thanks. Great to see that You still working on it and expanding it

 

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, gary85 said:

Thanks. Great to see that You still working on it and expanding it

 

Notice there is now is a nuclear alternative to Antimatter engines which is the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket Engine. Its even more powerful, but can only be used at full power and you need to be in high space or off-world to be allowed to use it due to the highly radioactive exhaust. It's ideal for heavy interplanetary multi-mission  motherships

Edited January 4, 2019 by FreeThinker

[gary85]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Notice there is now is a nuclear alternative to Antimatter engines which is the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket Engine. Its even more powerful, but can only be used at full power and you need to be in high space or off-world to be allowed to use it due to the highly radioactive exhaust. It's ideal for heavy interplanetary multi-mission  motherships

I'm still testing things. I see it is more advanced as it used to be but as far as my old ftl vtol ssto it wont fly but i will do something else.

new reactor i 2xheaveir so it is even more tail heavy. Vista is nerfed so my favorite combo of thermal turbojet and vista is off too.

Lot of new stuff

[ss8913]

7 hours ago, gary85 said:

I'm still testing things. I see it is more advanced as it used to be but as far as my old ftl vtol ssto it wont fly but i will do something else.

new reactor i 2xheaveir so it is even more tail heavy. Vista is nerfed so my favorite combo of thermal turbojet and vista is off too.

Lot of new stuff

positron reactor with HTP ejection mass and the thermal ramjet works pretty well for spaceplanes.. use the thermal turbojets for your VTOL engines however.  If you  have room and want better dV in space, use the plasma engines also, but that requires a lot of electrical power.  To save weight I usually build an orbital jumpship with an FTL drive,  which has docking ports and acts as an FTL carrier craft.

Note that hydrazine is no longer possible as a propellant for non-plasma thermal engines.  HTP is almost as good, and it's also easier to refine with ISRU units offworld.

[Friznit]

On 1/2/2019 at 5:19 PM, Turbo Ben said:

Hi, I've just started unlocking nuclear engines in the tech tree but I'm having some trouble with the Rotating Fluidized Bed Reactor Engine. Not sure if it's a bug or if I'm doing something wrong. The problem happens when switching back to the ship with the nuclear engines from another ship. It doesn't happen every time, but often. I have 3 engines and all are unresponsive to throttle, though they do glow as if they are partially working. There is no exhaust plume and no thrust generated, though occasionally I get a momentary puff from the exhaust. I've tried shutting down and reactivating the engines which does not work. I did find however that if I open the reactor control window (after right click on the engine) and click shutdown, all engines begin to work as normal (except electrically in the case of the engine I just shutdown the reactor on). This is not ideal because I don't see a way to reactivate the reactor, so I can only do this once for each engine. I'm running 1.5.1 with IE version 1.20.16.

Edit: also noticed it happen after a long period in time warp without switching ships.

 

Thanks

I just ran into this problem as well (KSP 1.5.1) .  In some cases the RFBR (aka Timberwind) reactor stops generating Thermal Power - Reactor Status in the Reactor Control Window shows Active (0.00%), whereas a normal working Timberwind usually shows (0.020%) when idle, producing a steady 12KW of TP.  If you shut the reactor down, the decay heating kicks in and starts generating thermal power for a few days until it cools off.  Unfortunately I can't reliably reproduce the issue after various tests of reloading, warping, switching vessels etc .  If I can figure out a way to do so and catch it in the logs I'll update the post.

[Bishop149]

22 hours ago, Friznit said:

I just ran into this problem as well (KSP 1.5.1) .  In some cases the RFBR (aka Timberwind) reactor stops generating Thermal Power - Reactor Status in the Reactor Control Window shows Active (0.00%), whereas a normal working Timberwind usually shows (0.020%) when idle, producing a steady 12KW of TP.  If you shut the reactor down, the decay heating kicks in and starts generating thermal power for a few days until it cools off.  Unfortunately I can't reliably reproduce the issue after various tests of reloading, warping, switching vessels etc .  If I can figure out a way to do so and catch it in the logs I'll update the post.

I'll add +1 to this one, I'm running the KSP 1.4.5 version. Experienced the issue on a ship which had 3x open cycle gas core rockets.

I also had a pebblebed that seems to do this, just stopped producing power.

I haven't undergone a rigorous testing of the issue either but I did wonder if it had something to do with changing the number of nuclear rockets on the craft in flight via docking an decoupling. When assembling large space craft in orbit I (used to) make a habit of using CANDLE's to moving the bits around pre-docking, which were then decoupled.

I have noticed this often seems to mess KSP-IE up, so much so that I stopped doing it and started using conventional rockets instead. 

On a similar note the KSP-I dialogue in the VAB which displays thermal infomation starts displaying gibberish as soons you start mixing up different nuclear components on the craft. You can apparently go from a 9GW excess of waste heat capacity to a deficit by adding one CANDLE.

This issue has been around as long as I've been using KSP-IE and I wonder if it might be related.

[Sweetie bot]

On ‎1‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 12:44 AM, Friznit said:

I just ran into this problem as well (KSP 1.5.1) .  In some cases the RFBR (aka Timberwind) reactor stops generating Thermal Power - Reactor Status in the Reactor Control Window shows Active (0.00%), whereas a normal working Timberwind usually shows (0.020%) when idle, producing a steady 12KW of TP.  If you shut the reactor down, the decay heating kicks in and starts generating thermal power for a few days until it cools off.  Unfortunately I can't reliably reproduce the issue after various tests of reloading, warping, switching vessels etc .  If I can figure out a way to do so and catch it in the logs I'll update the post.

Same Problems， when you open debug— you will see " [KSPI]-managed ProvidedPowerSupplyPer SecondMiniMumRatio illegal Values." that flash very fast and push over other messages.

Is that kind of Bug?

Edit:

I running on KSP 1.4.5, Have RSS and RF，That ship have  pebblebed  in 1.25m, MIF Fusion Engine 2.5m，2 CANDLE as payload use（Tiny airless lander）. one TEFR 0.625m on payload. Pebblebed and TEFR Have no power and lock in Active (0.00%). No fuel consume on Power Generator . However that MIF still can use and work normal.

other Solid core NTR are normal too.

Edited January 8, 2019 by Sweetie bot

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Sweetie bot said:

Same Problems， when you open debug— you will see " [KSPI]-managed ProvidedPowerSupplyPer SecondMiniMumRatio illegal Values." that flash very fast and push over other messages.

 

 

Alright, this is the kind of information I need. What would be nice if there was a way to reproduce it. I have some vague ideas about how it was caused and I have already added some potential fixes but I'm not sure that fixes the problem. I guess we have to see.

[Brimarx]

I just unlocked the 1st antimatter node and 3 things seem weird to me.

First, an Mk2 anti-matter reactor combined with an ATTILA engine can single handedly SSTO a 40t spaceplane. It can even VTOL that spaceplane! I'm surprised this is even possible for an electric engine (I can't do the same with any other electric engine). Is that intentional?

Second, I bough positrons in the VAB/SPH for essentially the same price as regular fuel. Is that normal? Isn't antimatter supposed to be the most expensive stuff ever?

Third, at 4k science, antimatter looks very OP. How is that low cost justified? Except for the extra-heat (that was still very manageable; note: I've unlocked all heat-management nodes except the last one) it did not have any significant drawback when compared to fission or fusion. For SSTO spaceplanes anyway.

[Turbo Ben]

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Alright, this is the kind of information I need. What would be nice if there was a way to reproduce it. I have some vague ideas about how it was caused and I have already added some potential fixes but I'm not sure that fixes the problem. I guess we have to see.

I seem to be able to reproduce this problem very easily, so if there's anything I can do to help, let me know. I'll need some guiding through what you need in the way of debug information though, it's all new to me. Is there a guide I can read on how to provide debug info?

 

Thanks

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Turbo Ben said:

I seem to be able to reproduce this problem very easily, so if there's anything I can do to help, let me know. I'll need some guiding through what you need in the way of debug information though, it's all new to me. Is there a guide I can read on how to provide debug info?

 

Thanks

What I need a detailed description on how to reproduce the problem

[Turbo Ben]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

What I need a detailed description on how to reproduce the problem

For me it's very simple to reproduce the problem. Easiest way is to switch vessels, time warp 10000x for a few seconds and then switch back. I've done a trip to Duna with a mission to put a satellite in orbit. Nearly every time I switch between the satellite and the nuclear engine powered ship, neither of the 2 engines work. If I shut down one of the reactors, both engines will work again. I've managed to keep the ship going by doing a few EVA's to restart the reactor each time.

[FreeThinker]

Based on this document, I recently got a an idea for a new type of fission fusion hybrid which uses Fission Sail to boost the thrust and isp of a Deuterium Fusion engine.

The Engine would basically convert a large part of its fusion neutrons into useful thrust by using a sail (or parabolic mirror) coated with a thin layer of uranium 235/plutonium. It would be a good predecessor to the D-He3  Discovery Fusion Engine which is harder to achieve

Edited January 9, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Nicky21]

I installed Interstellar for my fisrt time.

 

I went into the sandbox mode and tried out different engines in teh VAB. I noticed, however that some engines don't generate Delta V at all (kerba engeeneer readout). For some other engines there is a button to switch propellant but no propellant es ever selected. AND for some other engines there is no available storage of theri required fuel.

 

Is tehre anythign i'm missing? Some other mods? maybe i botched my install, but i highly doubt that as all i did was clcik download in ckan...

[Sweetie bot]

11 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

What I need a detailed description on how to reproduce the problem

Try use Pebblebed  and other reactor like MIF in Same ship, both have link on TEG . And save/load or Warp time. that may happen again

Edited January 9, 2019 by Sweetie bot

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, Sweetie bot said:

 both have link on TEG . And save/load or Warp time.

TEG?

[Sweetie bot]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

TEG?

Opps，mybad，That is Thermal Electronic Generator

[Tig]

I know that Tweakscale is a dependency for Interstellar.  But, are any of the patches in the Tweakscale directory necessary/strongly recommended for Interstellar?  Put another way, does Interstellar rely on the patches in the Tweakscale directory in order to function and/or balance with other mods?

To be clear I'm talking about the MM patches in GameData\TweakScale\patches, not GameData\WarpPlugin\Patches, the latter I'm keeping of course.

Thank you for all your work on the mod.