KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[FreeThinker]

On 5/13/2019 at 2:10 AM, CGADragon said:

Glad it isn't just me then!  I also noticed the Magneto Plasma Dynamic Thruster a.k.a InterstellarPlasmaThruster vanished from my tech tree with one of the recent updates as well...looking in the part config there is a line 'TechHidden = True', not sure if either of these things were intentional for balance or not.  I'll wait and see I guess!

 

@FreeThinker - Complex, but fantastic, mod!  Thanks for all your work on keeping this up!

2

The Magneto Plasma Dynamic Thruster is replaced by the ELF (Electrodeless Lorentz Force ) engines which is technical Plasma engine. It has a better model and fairing, something the old MPD engine didn't have.  Its behaviour and performance are the same

[flyguybc]

So I found out something interesting about the burn time issue.  I think it has to do with something like fuel amount or radial tanks maybe.  The burn indicator wasn't there, but after I got to orbit I noticed it started working again.  I only had fuel left in two center line tanks.  I tried moving that fuel to the outer tanks, but the burn time indicator still worked.  That's why I wonder if it has to do with the amount of fuel.

 

I also jumped over to another ship that had the same issue, and it was working too, but it still have fuel in some radial tanks. 

 

Sounds like the good news is that it CAN work.  Just haven't figured out what the specific cause is.                

[Omeran]

I came across something very odd with the thermal engine -

I have a craft with inline thermal receiver connected to a thermal ramjet nozzle, radial air intakes, some graphite radiator skin wrapper, and two folding graphene radiators.
This one launches fine when I use beamed power from orbit.

Now - I take the folding radiators and attach them again, and when I try to launch - I get the message "Engine shutdown: fuel missing".

I made two craft files - one that works and one that doesn't and compared them.
There were several types of differences -

1. The "part" property of one of the radiators changed from KspiFoldingRadMed_4291198794 to KspiFoldingRadMed_4289281322
2. The persistentId of several parts has changed
3. The radiators were moved to be the last parts of the craft
4. The size of the craft was very slightly changed from 4.50155163,9.53781891,4.50155163 to 4.50154972,9.53781891,4.50154877
5. TweakScale DryCost of several modules has been truncated at 0.001 (e.g. 1999.99524 -> 1999.995)
6. (perhaps the most significant change -) WasteHeat maxAmount of the thermal nozzle has changed from 2370.3705822980028 to 8000

Any idea what's going on?
 

Edit: After removing the thermal receiver, nozzle, air intakes and radiators and replacing them from the inventory things were working again.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Omeran

[Omeran]

So here's another curious thing I encountered -

The stock fuel tanks and the cryogenic dual tank can hold "High-test peroxide" whose resource is marked "HTP" and is incompatible with the Resistojet RCS thrusters.
The IFS cryogenic tanks can hold "Hydrogen peroxide" whose resource is also marked "HTP" but is compatible with the resistojet RCS thrusters.

The thermal ramjet seems to have no problem to consume both.

Edited May 15, 2019 by Omeran

[FreeThinker]

@flyguybc

Most likely it is some initialization issue. Stock thrust calculation is based on stock engine which have fixed fuel configurations. KSPIE has universal switchable fuel configuration which might confuse KSP after switching. Logically if you would switch to another vessel and back, it would be reinitialized and is should work again as it should.

Edited May 15, 2019 by FreeThinker

[TanoPrime]

Hiya, been playing around with KSPIE, loving it so far.
Having a few questions: 

1. are there other star systems to explore by default, or do I have to install a mod especially for it, and to create a new save?
2. where is that bloody Helium Cryostat? I searched and looked through all parts, there's none named Helium Cryostat anywhere. There are Cryo containers that can be set to carry Liquid Helium3, but the Telescope still complains about not having any Helium cooling despite it being attached.
3. random structural linkages break during most Jumps, especially at high c - I have KJR installed, and using autostruts, could either of these affect the breaks?

[CGADragon]

13 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

The Magneto Plasma Dynamic Thruster is replaced by the ELF (Electrodeless Lorentz Force ) engines which is technical Plasma engine. It has a better model and fairing, something the old MPD engine didn't have.  Its behaviour and performance are the same

Awesome, thanks for replying to both my questions...I did manage to reactivate the seismic experiments as well.

[flyguybc]

5 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

@flyguybc

Most likely it is some initialization issue. Stock thrust calculation is based on stock engine which have fixed fuel configurations. KSPIE has universal switchable fuel configuration which might confuse KSP after switching. Logically if you would switch to another vessel and back, it would be reinitialized and is should work again as it should.

Huh that makes sense now.  Didn't know that.  Thank you!

3 hours ago, TanoPrime said:

Hiya, been playing around with KSPIE, loving it so far.
Having a few questions: 

1. are there other star systems to explore by default, or do I have to install a mod especially for it, and to create a new save?
2. where is that bloody Helium Cryostat? I searched and looked through all parts, there's none named Helium Cryostat anywhere. There are Cryo containers that can be set to carry Liquid Helium3, but the Telescope still complains about not having any Helium cooling despite it being attached.
3. random structural linkages break during most Jumps, especially at high c - I have KJR installed, and using autostruts, could either of these affect the breaks?

@TanoPrime

1.  There aren't any by default (unless i missed something) but there are the outer planets mod, and a system called Dawn, and a few others.  You would have to add them in.

2.  No idea all you FreeThinker

3.  Kerbal Joint Reinfocement Continued - A mod you can get from ckan or elsewhere that enhances the integrity of joints so less SPLOSIONS!

[flyguybc]

So I looked through the thread and couldn't find an answer.  My ion engines aren't working right.  When I'm setting them up it says a TWR of .31 however when I get in space and turn it on I get something like .00001 thrust.

 

Is this some sort of bug?

[pp3d]

@FreeThinker

t=3 min + 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by pp3d

[FreeThinker]

On 5/16/2019 at 6:32 AM, flyguybc said:

So I looked through the thread and couldn't find an answer.  My ion engines aren't working right.  When I'm setting them up it says a TWR of .31 however when I get in space and turn it on I get something like .00001 thrust.

 

Is this some sort of bug?

no it's not a bug, it a realism feature. Real Ion engines are really that weak. However, the casual player would not understand how to use an engine with such low thrust using persistent thrust at high timewarp. Its more appropriate for RealsimOverhoal players but it also affects non-realism players in the same way. For next release, I will make the adjustment more moderately

Edited May 17, 2019 by FreeThinker

[flyguybc]

Aaaah ok.  I noticed the burn time said 4 days, but I guess I can't time warp for without a mod for that long.  Went back to Nukes as I'm sending probes to Moho and Dres to get some science.

 

Also, I don't think anyone that takes on your mod can be classified as a "casual" player   just saying lol.

 

I just want to say again how much I'm enjoying your mod, and how much life it has given to this game for me.  Once you hit the 1500 level of the tech tree you really have to start thinking about going to farther planets to get the science you need to progress.  I'd never been beyond Duna in the normal game!

[FreeThinker]

13 minutes ago, flyguybc said:

Aaaah ok.  I noticed the burn time said 4 days, but I guess I can't time warp for without a mod for that long.  Went back to Nukes as I'm sending probes to Moho and Dres to get some science.

1

You can't in stock but in KSPIE you can by spiralling out of Kerbin SOI. Simply put the vessel prograde, fire the ion engine and set timewarp to 1000000 for a few seconds and several days will be passed with your vessel outside of Kerbin SOI.

14 minutes ago, flyguybc said:

I just want to say again how much I'm enjoying your mod, and how much life it has given to this game for me.  Once you hit the 1500 level of the tech tree you really have to start thinking about going to farther planets to get the science you need to progress.  I'd never been beyond Duna in the normal game!

 

Great to hear. You can thank me by giving me useful feedback as I have very little time to play with KSP myself.

Edited May 16, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Omeran]

On 5/15/2019 at 8:44 PM, Omeran said:

I came across something very odd with the thermal engine -

I have a craft with inline thermal receiver connected to a thermal ramjet nozzle, radial air intakes, some graphite radiator skin wrapper, and two folding graphene radiators.
This one launches fine when I use beamed power from orbit.

Now - I take the folding radiators and attach them again, and when I try to launch - I get the message "Engine shutdown: fuel missing".

I made two craft files - one that works and one that doesn't and compared them.
There were several types of differences -

1. The "part" property of one of the radiators changed from KspiFoldingRadMed_4291198794 to KspiFoldingRadMed_4289281322
2. The persistentId of several parts has changed
3. The radiators were moved to be the last parts of the craft
4. The size of the craft was very slightly changed from 4.50155163,9.53781891,4.50155163 to 4.50154972,9.53781891,4.50154877
5. TweakScale DryCost of several modules has been truncated at 0.001 (e.g. 1999.99524 -> 1999.995)
6. (perhaps the most significant change -) WasteHeat maxAmount of the thermal nozzle has changed from 2370.3705822980028 to 8000

Any idea what's going on?
 

Edit: After removing the thermal receiver, nozzle, air intakes and radiators and replacing them from the inventory things were working again.

Well, something really annoying happened - I got the "Engine shutdown: fuel missing" problem in mid-flight (even though I had plenty of fuel).
The message was received in Mun orbit on a rescue mission when I was approaching the vessel on EVA with my newly recruited Kerbal at about 10m.
Switching ships / saving and reloading didn't help, but after quitting KSP and restarting it was able to start the engine again.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Omeran

[FreeThinker]

14 hours ago, Omeran said:

Well, something really annoying happened - I got the "Engine shutdown: fuel missing" problem in mid-flight (even though I had plenty of fuel).
The message was received in Mun orbit on a rescue mission when I was approaching the vessel on EVA with my newly recruited Kerbal at about 10m.
Switching ships / saving and reloading didn't help, but after quitting KSP and restarting it was able to start the engine again.

Are you sure you didn't accidentally switch to atmosphere mode? If the engine chokes up when its trying to feed a propellant, the engine will shut down to prevent a catastropic blowup.

[Omeran]

59 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Are you sure you didn't accidentally switch to atmosphere mode? If the engine chokes up when its trying to feed a propellant, the engine will shut down to prevent a catastropic blowup.

Yes, I'm sure.
It was in atmosphere mode from launch until it left the atmosphere, and then I switched it to HTP (even when leaving the atmosphere it didn't give me the message).
Then it stayed on HTP the whole trip to Mun (and back) and only then I switched back to atmosphere.

[FreeThinker]

40 minutes ago, Omeran said:

Yes, I'm sure.
It was in atmosphere mode from launch until it left the atmosphere, and then I switched it to HTP (even when leaving the atmosphere it didn't give me the message).
Then it stayed on HTP the whole trip to Mun (and back) and only then I switched back to atmosphere.

What about wasteheat? Did you have any onboard radiators to get rid of wasteheat that would slowly increase if you are in space (and the engines isn't cooled by open cycle). 

[wkwied]

17 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

What about wasteheat? Did you have any onboard radiators to get rid of wasteheat that would slowly increase if you are in space (and the engines isn't cooled by open cycle). 

I think this is a similar problem as this?

On 5/3/2019 at 3:20 AM, FreeThinker said:

It appears the propellant switcher doesn't take into account reentry.  I will look into it

 

[Omeran]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

What about wasteheat? Did you have any onboard radiators to get rid of wasteheat that would slowly increase if you are in space (and the engines isn't cooled by open cycle). 

Wasteheat wasn't a problem.
At the time of the incident the throttle was closed, and it seems to be triggered as Ginand Kerman there was approaching it in EVA (And I don't think she jinxed it).

Edited May 17, 2019 by Omeran

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, wkwied said:

I think this is a similar problem as this?

 

I did. I added additional open-cycle cooling  which would be active when entering an atmosphere with the propellant mode switched to atmosphere

[flyguybc]

What kind of feedback are you asking for?  Bugs or improvements?

 

1.)  Improvement - Can we add a window like on fuel tanks "the switch window" for the engines as well.  Its very tedious to click through propellants.

2.)  Improvement - Maybe create a tutorial mission to build some very basic craft setups?  With the new mission system it ought to be possible I think.

3.)  Bug - the only bug I've found is the burn indicator.

 

So question about the Attila thruster.  I stuck it on a tokamak with a Thermal generator and I can't get it to do anything.  I see numbers going like its on, but their is 0 actual thrust coming out.  I think I read it needs charged particles?  I.E. the Charged particle generator?  If this is the case why is the engine unlocked 2 levels below the CP Generator?  Maybe something in the description explaining what it needs?

 

Question about fuel.  Everything seems to operate best on "Liquid Fuel".  So why would I want to use something else?  Also if its one of the best fuels, why isn't it available in the other liquid tanks.  Maybe I'm missing something.

 

I'm working on an updated guide for this mod.   I've taken all the links and things I've learned thus far and created a reddit post.  I'll post it tomorrow and link it for you

 

THank you for a GREAT mod!!

[flyguybc]

 

[FreeThinker]

9 hours ago, flyguybc said:

So question about the Attila thruster.  I stuck it on a tokamak with a Thermal generator and I can't get it to do anything.  I see numbers going like its on, but their is 0 actual thrust coming out.  I think I read it needs charged particles?  I.E. the Charged particle generator?  If this is the case why is the engine unlocked 2 levels below the CP Generator?  Maybe something in the description explaining what it needs?

No, the Attila thrust is an electric engine, which only requirements are electric power (from onboard reactors, solar or beamed power), sufficient amount of radiators and a compatible propellant.

As you can see it can be powered by a Tokamak. Because the Attila thrust is a thermal electric engine, idealy you use it in combination with a thermal expansive propellant like Hydrazine which provide a thrust and isp bonus.

9 hours ago, flyguybc said:

1.)  Improvement - Can we add a window like on fuel tanks "the switch window" for the engines as well.  Its very tedious to click through propellants.

Good suggestion!

Edited May 18, 2019 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

9 hours ago, flyguybc said:

Question about fuel.  Everything seems to operate best on "Liquid Fuel".  So why would I want to use something else?  Also if its one of the best fuels, why isn't it available in the other liquid tanks.  Maybe I'm missing something.

Actually Liquid Fuel have several subtle disadvantages which might not be obvious. For examply the thrust of Liquid Fuel is the same as Liquid Hydrogen, but it has 20% lower isp. Of cource Liquid Fuel is much denser, but the tank mass ratios are the same resulting in vessel that have 20% deltaV at the expanse for bulkier storage. Every propellant has different  advantages ranging thrust/isp , easy acces from the environment, higher density, better engine cooling to higher ionization efficiency.

Edited May 18, 2019 by FreeThinker

[samooo2]

On 5/16/2019 at 1:03 AM, TanoPrime said:

2. where is that bloody Helium Cryostat? I searched and looked through all parts, there's none named Helium Cryostat anywhere. There are Cryo containers that can be set to carry Liquid Helium3, but the Telescope still complains about not having any Helium cooling despite it being attached.
 

You're looking for LiquidHelium, the regular one. Helium3 is super rare fusion fuel, would be kind of a waste to use it for cooling telescopes...