KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[ssd21345]

btw you need ksp-recall for 1.9.1 as a dependency for 1.9.1 tweakscale. Maybe make a notice at the top of the thread

[ssd21345]

On 6/27/2020 at 5:36 AM, GDorn said:

I'm having this issue with the Liquid Core Reactor Engine.  It starts activated on the launchpad, so I have to shut it off to activate the first stage, and then when I get to space it emits a puff and then nothing.  I've tested it by cheating it into orbit around the sun, so it's not the restriction about using it in atmosphere or pointed at Kerbin (I do get that warning when I am in atmosphere or pointed at Kerbin).

I also tested whether it was a cooling problem; my first craft had insufficient radiators, so I added quite a few more (until the VAB KSPIE window showed all green) and still no luck.

It puffs when I shutdown the engine, shutdown the reactor, turn the reactor back on and then start the engine.  It also puffs _sometimes_ if I warp for a while (I'm uncertain why it does sometimes and not others).  The reactor state is never at any state other than Nominal or Shutdown.

Log File

Craft File

Mod List

I'm on KSP 1.8.1 because Kopernicus.

you sure you activate the reactor too at first? check reactor control window status tab of the engine...

Edited June 28, 2020 by ssd21345

[Codraroll]

Are there any good let's plays of the career mode in Interstellar out there? I've watched (the entirety of!) Scott Manley's Interstellar series, of course, but it's from 2015 and a tad outdated compared to how the mod works nowadays.

Because, well, KSP Interstellar is a little overwhelming to try to get into. You unlock your first reactor and a thermal nozzle, and wonder "what can I do with this?" Have you just revolutionized launches into orbit, can you now send a probe to Eeloo with ease, or wouldn't it be efficient to use it from anything smaller than an interplanetary mothership? Or do you need to unlock half a dozen nodes on the thermal management end of the tech tree to use it without blowing up your ship?

Most resources I've found about the Interstellar pack delves deep into the nitty-gritty of the physics of the various reactors and nozzles, but do little to explain how you can use them in KSP. I'd really like to see a resource that shows, with practical examples, how one can use the various parts to assemble a functional spaceship and what you can expect from them. I find myself returning to standard LF+O chemical rockets from Stock, KW Rocketry or SpaceY, because I know how those work. With Interstellar, it's a little more difficult to find out what nodes to try to unlock, which parts you need for other parts to work well, or what the practical use (and limitations) of the various parts are. A resource that isn't overly technical in explaining the inner workings of the parts, but rather puts them into context of the KSP career mode, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance!

[FreeThinker]

@Codraroll  Welll the problem is that KSPIE isn't played  in a standalone environment but rather with a lot of other mods. A recent example is the Interstellar Dreams Series from @TheBeardyPenguin

He used a large amount of KSPIE parts and mechanics, and put into a intresting format

 

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by FreeThinker

[Shogun Gunshow]

Appear to be having a strange bug in game related to Insterstellar and Tweakscale. Specifically, the scaling for the LANTR engine seems borked. 

* It can't be shrunk smaller than its default, 1.25m

* When upscaling, it upscales to 1.875 normally. Trying to upscale again, however, results in 2.5m dimensions and stats, but the actual Scale number will continue to display 1.875m. Clicking upscale again doesn't change the stats, but does fix the erroneous scale indicator, setting it to 2.5.

* The part cannot be scaled higher than 2.5m

* Once upscaled to 1.875m, the part can no longer be downscaled back to 1.25m, requiring a deletion of the engine in order to reset to default size.

[Confusius]

Hello,

 

I encountered a strange problem with fusion reactors.

I wanted to build a beamed power station with a stellarator but it's producing even less power than the molten salt reactor.

The fission reactors produce power just fine.

1GW of power is vanishing in thin air.

https://ibb.co/Px9wMwg

[FreeThinker]

18 minutes ago, Confusius said:

Hello,

 

I encountered a strange problem with fusion reactors.

I wanted to build a beamed power station with a stellarator but it's producing even less power than the molten salt reactor.

The fission reactors produce power just fine.

1GW of power is vanishing in thin air.

https://ibb.co/Px9wMwg

At low tech levels the Fusion Reactors can produce less power than nuclear engine because of maintenance cost.  Make sure you are providing sufficiently cooling or it can consume even more power than it produces.

[Confusius]

Please just look at the picture.

It says the reactor is producing 1066MW of thermal power, but the electric generator ist only producing 165MW at 61,7% efficiency.

The total output of this system minus the upkeep should be somewhere around 590MW.

It's just a 3,75m stellarator with a 3,75m electric generator on top.

[FreeThinker]

3 minutes ago, Confusius said:

Please just look at the picture.

The picture is unreadable, please upload  a picture where I can read at the letters. Preferbly it should also contain the power management overview screens

[Confusius]

There is a button in the middle "Volle Auflösung laden". It loads the whole picture then.

I forgot, here is my modlist and i'm running ksp 1.10.

[x] Science! Continued (xScienceContinued 5.26)
Background Resources (BackgroundResources 1:V0.15.0.0)
BetterBurnTime (BetterBurnTime 1.10)
ClickThrough Blocker (ClickThroughBlocker 1:0.1.10.6)
Community Category Kit (CommunityCategoryKit 5.1.0.0)
Community Resource Pack (CommunityResourcePack 1.3.0.0)
Community Tech Tree (CommunityTechTree 1:3.4.1)
Contract Configurator (ContractConfigurator 1.28.0)
Easy Vessel Switch (EVS) (EasyVesselSwitch 2.1)
Feline Utility Rovers (FelineUtilityRovers 1.2.11)
Filter Extensions - Plugin (FilterExtensions 3.2.5)
Heat Control (HeatControl 0.5.1)
Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes (HideEmptyTechNodes 1.1.2)
Interstellar Fuel Switch (InterstellarFuelSwitch 3.16.0.5)
Interstellar Fuel Switch Core (InterstellarFuelSwitch-Core 3.16.0.5)
Kerbal Attachment System (KAS 1.6)
Kerbal Inventory System (KIS 1.25)
Kerbal Inventory System - No Fun (KerbalInventorySystemNoFun v1.4.2)
Kerbal Planetary Base Systems (KerbalPlanetaryBaseSystems v1.6.11)
KSP Interstellar Extended (KSPInterstellarExtended 1.25.22.5)
MechJeb 2 (MechJeb2 2.9.2.0)
Module Manager (ModuleManager 4.1.3)
Patch Manager (PatchManager 0.0.17.1)
PersistentRotation (PersistentRotation 1.8.7)
SCANsat (SCANsat v20.1)
TAC Life Support (TACLS) (TACLS 1:V0.15.0.0)
Toolbar Controller (ToolbarController 1:0.1.9.4)
TweakScale - Rescale Everything! (TweakScale v2.4.3.15)
Zero MiniAVC (ZeroMiniAVC 1:1.1.0.1)

[Confusius]

I tried with more and different kinds of radiators, no change.

 

[FreeThinker]

@Confusius The problem is that the reactor has insufficient access to Lithium6 (notice lithium modifier is 0.001), which means 99.9% of the neutron energy flies out of the reactor, only the charged particles (20%) get converted into Thermal Energy.  Besides wasting a lot of energy, this will rapidly embrittle the reactor turning it into nuclear waste, which will lower it resale value.

Edited July 4, 2020 by FreeThinker

[Confusius]

Damn it, that was it.

I shaved off the "not needed fuel" to save cost and weight.

Thanks for your help. The MKI stellarator doesn't seem to be too good tho.

 

Is there somewhere a formula to convert received MW to thrust for e.g. the krusader?

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, Confusius said:

I shaved off the "not needed fuel" to save cost and weight.

You wouldn't be the first one who made that mistake. Iithium-6 is the true life blood of neutron rich fusion reactors and in the case D-T fusion it servers both as a neutron conversion and tritium source. ITo prevent future confusion I should probably add some warming telling the using the lithium amounts are too low to propelry operate.

Edited July 4, 2020 by FreeThinker

[GDorn]

On 6/28/2020 at 7:30 AM, ssd21345 said:

you sure you activate the reactor too at first? check reactor control window status tab of the engine...

As I wrote, "turn the reactor back on and then start the engine".  So unless the "Start Reactor" button does something different than bringing up the reactor control window, I'm sure I activated the reactor.

[AntaresMC]

On 7/4/2020 at 10:29 PM, FreeThinker said:

You wouldn't be the first one who made that mistake. Iithium-6 is the true life blood of neutron rich fusion reactors and in the case D-T fusion it servers both as a neutron conversion and tritium source. ITo prevent future confusion I should probably add some warming telling the using the lithium amounts are too low to propelry operate.

Will there be option for other moderators/absorbers in the future? Li6 is kinda difficult to get, and things like Li, B10(N or not Nitride), Be(O or not Oxide, better Oxide), SP He3(dunno y, but... it is possible I guess?) or even graphite would work well. Li6 is the best, but graphite, that doesnt fisse, its super durable (like, centuries), and not always you have something to separate isotopes

[ssd21345]

On 7/5/2020 at 3:44 PM, GDorn said:

As I wrote, "turn the reactor back on and then start the engine".  So unless the "Start Reactor" button does something different than bringing up the reactor control window, I'm sure I activated the reactor.

Just try to check it, may be the button is broken.

Remember starting fission reactor is manned operation, you need a Kerbal Eva to start it. If you do it unmanned it won’t work unless the mechanics changed.

You can test if your engine work by turn on reactor at vab rather than after launch then cheat to orbit

Edited July 8, 2020 by ssd21345

[fizy45]

I know its gonna sound weird but whenever I put a reactor on the ship and then I use my RCS it creates waste heat (a lot of it) I mean RCS can make ship blow up in space so whats going on is that a bug ?

How to Replicate: Use dedalus engine with particle reactor and electric generator after that just do some turning with RCS (while your engine is off) and see what happens use strong RCS trusters and witness your small RCS can create X100 heat compared to your massive engine...

Edited July 8, 2020 by fizy45

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, fizy45 said:

particle reactor

what reactor?

[fizy45]

Just now, FreeThinker said:

what reactor?

Mine has Pebble Bed Reactor

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, fizy45 said:

Mine has Pebble Bed Reactor

I see. Well what happens is that the Pebble Bed Reactor creates washeat when it produces wasteheat because it conversion efficiency depends on the amount of radiators. When using the  Pebble Bed reactor, I recommend using a MHD or Charged Particle Power Converter which will produce significatly less wasteheat.

[fizy45]

4 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I see. Well what happens is that the Pebble Bed Reactor creates washeat when it produces wasteheat because it conversion efficiency depends on the amount of radiators. When using the  Pebble Bed reactor, I recommend using a MHD or Charged Particle Power Converter which will produce significatly less wasteheat.

No no no I am not complaning about my reactor waste heat I can handle that the strange thing is whenever I begin to use RCS it creates insane amount of waste heat I know it sounds insane but thats actually whats happening right now. Thats why I am forced to put tiny Rcs on my huge mothership and 5 umbrella radiator to stop it beign overherated. The problem is so insane that using RCS trusters can actually produce like x5 more heat compared to my dadelus engine.

Think it like this a mothership with good engine and reactor the heat management is good too even with engines are on and maximum. Then you press R and make a small RCS move (monopropellent) and your waste heat just skyrocket !

Edited July 9, 2020 by fizy45

[FreeThinker]

2 minutes ago, fizy45 said:

No no no I am not complaning about my reactor waste heat I can handle that the strange thing is whenever I begin to use RCS it creates insane amount of waste heat I know it sounds insane but thats actually whats happening right now. Thats why I am forced to put tink Rcs on my huge mothership to stop it beign overherated. The problem is so insane that using RCS trusters can actually produce like x5 more heat compared to my dadelus engine.

Well I beleive you usualy only use RCS for very short burst and it needed you can also disable powering the RCS  beleive. Btw, what propelant are you using, it matters

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by FreeThinker

[fizy45]

Just now, FreeThinker said:

Well I beleive you usualy only use RCS for very short burst and it needed you can also disable powering the RCS  beleive. Btw, what propelant are you using, it matters

 

I am only using monopropellent. I just dont understand the same rcs blocks and same rcs fuel on normal ship and there is no waste heat caused by rcs but whenever I stick reactors my ship begins to act like a sun its not the engines its not the reactor RCS can actually blow my ship into pieces I mean wow

By the way I am using dusty plasma reactor (sorry for saying it otherwise) and what I notice whenever I use RCS my particle count gets lower for short amount of time.

[fizy45]

Here is how you can replicate the situation just put a command pod put monotank 5 way rcs block electric generator dusty plasma reactor and dadalus engine after that use try using the rcs (engine is off) and see how much heat your ship will get from just rcs trusters.

TEST SHIP FOR YOU TO SEE WHATS HAPPENING JUST ENGAGE RCS AND TURN AROUND YOU SEE !