KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[YourLocalMadScientist]

Firstly, @FreeThinker thank you for continuing to work on this most excellent mod. I know it's a pain when updates break everything, but I hope you are able to continue working on it.

However, I feel compelled to bump the "waste heat" issue that people have been reporting since 1.15.1.8 (I think). At the moment, any craft I have that relies on thermal propulsion powered by an on-board reactor will overheat in a matter of seconds.

Screenshots:

This is a very clear bug, as the craft has 3.8GW generating capacity, and is running a thermal engine consuming 3GW (537.2E3N*(9.8*797.2s)/2=2098GW propulsive power), but is increasing it's waste heat amount by 2.78GW, which is a clear violation of conservation of energy. It looks like this is some kind of double counting error where the energy from the reactor is both powering the engine AND contributing to waste-heat, which should not be the case as the engine will act as an open-cycle cooler.

(ignore the screwiness with the negative heat production on the engine - I was messing with the config files to see if I could fix it for now).

To reproduce this, simply construct any craft with a reactor and a thermal engine (turbojet, ramjet or launch nozzle), and start up the engine. Propellant choice doesn't matter. I've tried it with most combinations and no matter what I do, they all overheat super quickly. Here is another image using a timberwind. Same basic problem:

(This one went a little weird as mechjeb decided to cut throttle to avoid max-Q being too high, hence the waste heat shot up and down while I took the screenshot. Either way, at full throttle, the timberwind still overheated in a matter of seconds)

 

By contrast, a thermal receiver can eat a whole GW from a nearby microwaver broadcaster, and show only the most minuscule increase in waste-heat:

I would hazard a guess that the bug was introduced in commit ba617fd70f96dba67c2d8eac39d5238f5c998634 when the waste heat processing for thermal receivers was improved, but I have no idea where. I'm currently running 1.16.0 on KSP 1.3.1, but this bug appeared before the update to 1.3.1. As far as my save-game is concerned, this is a bit of a game-breaker. I hope that it's possible to patch this, as  otherwise most of my vessels are stranded with no propulsion.

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by YourLocalMadScientist

[Skuolfi]

I can't for the life of me figure out how this mod works. I've been trying to build a craft with the Kerbstein Fusion Engine for hours now but no matter what I do I just can't power the thing. I know I need a reactor for it but I can't figure out how to get the reactor working either.

If someone could just provide a simple chart that shows how the parts connect and what each part does.

[enewmen]

I'm 50 years old and Kerbal is the best game I ever played.

Love this mod !   I was up all night (not even tired) making a X-Ray network from a single X-Ray laser & power reactor to power the whole solar system with relays and re-broadcasts in visible red and microwaves.

I'm even reading physics to know things like why Uranium can last longer than Thorium , how a fusion integrated charged particle direct energy converter work , how beam power works, etc.  This is not just game, I'm learning useful stuff.

 

The point:  Are all the KSPI-E dependencies updated (or permanently removed) to 1.31 so I can use the CKAN to install KSPI-E ?  I can just try myself, but I don't want to break something without knowing it.

Thanks!

@ Skuokfi,  there are lots of tutorials and simple charts that show how this works - it may involve lots of reading to know what the author is talking about.  Just look at the first page of this forum to start.

Edited October 18, 2017 by enewmen

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, enewmen said:

The point:  Are all the KSPI-E dependencies updated (or permanently removed) to 1.31 so I can use the CKAN to install KSPI-E ?  I can just try myself, but I don't want to break something without knowing it.

1

From what I can tell it is, but I would advise always to make a copy of your old 1.3.0 install

[FreeThinker]

14 hours ago, YourLocalMadScientist said:

Firstly, @FreeThinker thank you for continuing to work on this most excellent mod. I know it's a pain when updates break everything, but I hope you are able to continue working on it.

However, I feel compelled to bump the "waste heat" issue that people have been reporting since 1.15.1.8 (I think). At the moment, any craft I have that relies on thermal propulsion powered by an on-board reactor will overheat in a matter of seconds.

Screenshots:

This is a very clear bug, as the craft has 3.8GW generating capacity, and is running a thermal engine consuming 3GW (537.2E3N*(9.8*797.2s)/2=2098GW propulsive power), but is increasing it's waste heat amount by 2.78GW, which is a clear violation of conservation of energy. It looks like this is some kind of double counting error where the energy from the reactor is both powering the engine AND contributing to waste-heat, which should not be the case as the engine will act as an open-cycle cooler.

 

2

What appears to be happening here is that the Tri Alpha receives a request to produce charged power while it cannot deliver any charged power to the engines. Of cource this should not happen but you can partially fix this problem by limiting power output of the tri alpha only to 100 MW, which is the power needed to produce 100 MW to power itself and the Plasma Jet Magneto Fusion Rector.

By the way, the PLasma Jet Magneto Fusion Reactor should not be able to run directly on atmosphere due to it function

[enewmen]

31 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

From what I can tell it is, but I would advise always to make a copy of your old 1.3.0 install

Thanks for the post!

Steam automatically updated my 1.3 before I made a copy.  Not making that mistake again..

[FreeThinker]

6 minutes ago, enewmen said:

Thanks for the post!

Steam automatically updated my 1.3 before I made a copy.  Not making that mistake again..

You can always go back to 1.3.0 you know, it just a setting in the steam KSP settings

[chukovskiy]

KSPI-E 1.15.3, KSP 1.3. I'm having a slight problem with entering a planet's SOI while in Warp Travel. Exit speed increases drastically at the moment I cross the border. In case of Kerbin, if I deactivate Warp just before Kerbin SOI, exit speed is about 9200 m/s (it's good since I start my warp travel from near Kerbin). Inside SOI it changes to 15000 m/s or so, pulling me out of the star.

What exactly do I do: charge Warp drive on Kerbin escape trajectory -> activate the drive and reach like Moho orbit line -> set Kerbin as a target, charge the drive and face the target -> activate the drive and see what happens.

Note that if I don't exit Warp when flying out of Kerbin and back, everything seems to work as it should.

Edited October 18, 2017 by chukovskiy

[Arivald Ha'gel]

@FreeThinker any insight into https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/155255-131-ksp-interstellar-extended-kspie-1160-10-10-2017-support-release-thread/&do=findComment&comment=3196595 ?

I have experimented a bit and I see that Thermal Power and Status is way off from the values experienced/calculated through connected generators. It seems they're just reported incorrectly in reactor control window, however it seems that thermal power for my Stellerator is also incorrect.

In D-D mode it gets 2.5GW Thermal power + 0.5GW charged power while in fact it should get 2.5GW total (according to earlier versions and Max Power parameter).

In D-T mode it gets 5GW Thermal power + 1GW charged power, so once again Thermal power is too large.

I'm in a process of installing VS2013 Express and I'll try to look into the code, but if you could use your experience it will be much faster

[YourLocalMadScientist]

Just now, FreeThinker said:

What appears to be happening here is that the Tri Alpha receives a request to produce charged power while it cannot deliver any charged power to the engines. Of cource this should not happen but you can partially fix this problem by limiting power output of the tri alpha only to 100 MW, which is the power needed to produce 100 MW to power itself and the Plasma Jet Magneto Fusion Rector.

Right diagnosis, wrong treatment I'm afraid. The Tri-alpha still outputs at full power, all going into waste heat. I did a few more tests, and i found the problem never exists when there is only one reactor. It tends to occur when there are multiple reactors, as it will add up values weirdly. 

The craft is meant to have 2*3.65GW PJMIFR Reactors + 1*0.340GW TAFR, + 1*0.6GW MTFR + 1*0.006GW MSR. Somehow, it is adding that all up and getting 26GW of waste heat. It is clearly doing something weired in terms of how the waste heat is being added up when there are multiple reactors.

Quote

By the way, the PLasma Jet Magneto Fusion Reactor should not be able to run directly on atmosphere due to it function

I noticed that you changed the PJMFT to not permit various propellant types to be used in an attached thermal nozzle. I changed it back as it would mean most of the flights in my save-game are now useless. Furthermore,  as it's burning a D-T fuel, most of the energy from the fusion reaction will still be in the form of neutrons. If the reactor is to be used as a thermal source, then it should be possible to allow those neutrons to pass through some low-capture-cross section pipework, and directly heat the propellant (the engineering details are left as an exercise for the reader). There isn't really much reason to suggest such a reactor couldn't be used to heat a working fluid, and if that's the case, it could run on any of the fluids that the other engines could run on (although the effective temperature would be somewhat lower than the optimistic 50000K).

Now, if the primary consideration of this change is purely game-play based, physics be damned, then that is a different matter. If this reactor is meant to be a dedicated charged particle producer, then i would suggest updating it's description, or possibly giving it access to aneutronic fuels at an earlier stage in the tech tree, otherwise it wouldn't have much use. This all really depends on what you see as the niche that this reactor is meant to fill.

Edited October 18, 2017 by YourLocalMadScientist

[giddonah]

Sorry if this has been answered before.  I've been trying to find a solution to this for a few days.

I'm still playing 1.3.0 with Interstellar Fuel Switch (via KSPI Extended 1.15.2) and Near Future Electrical 0.9.5. I can mine for EnrU using IFS parts, but how do you then transfer that fuel into a reactor? There's a Level1 engineer on board, which brings up another question. I can click transfer fuel and then click on the reactor to transfer, but is there no way to control how much fuel gets transferred? I was planning on splitting that one tank between the two reactors for example:

At first I was just going to use the IFS container, but couldn't transfer fuel into the reactors, so I slapped that MF-2 tank on there to test.

 

I'm guessing there's some code I can copy into the ISF cfg files to make them "handle radioactive storage" but I can't figure out where in the KSPIE files the code lives to copy from.

EnrU is EnrU, no?  Would love to be able to transfer what I have mined on minmus since that's like $1M in Enriched Uranium I'd rather not put in the reactors in the VAB.

[Jumberlack]

Ok I'm using the most recent 1.2.2 backport and it seems like electrical power producing capabilities of the antimatter reactor are severely limited by the 'max power' on the converter generators (using MHD and charged particle generator for good measure). So in the sandbox mode the reactor says it can make like 700 or more gigawatts but its current power always hangs around 30GW or so. Is this:

A. me being dumb and not using the right generator setup or something?

B. intended behavior so that the only way to really get the most out of the antimatter reactor is using charged particle propulsion?

or C. something that has since been fixed in more recent updates?

 

I am planning on assembling a 1.3.1 mod portfolio once thanksgiving break rolls around so if your answer is 'just update', that's already the plan.

[mrgreco]

not showing me my full output power of my reylay network, not showing how much i have or have left or bein used,,,, just sayin thats all, not a big deal but maybe somthing to work on later when all the big bugs are fixed

[mrgreco]

i wish i could show you guys better but i cant but all the numbers on the disply tabs are flicking like crazy       power relay power plant

[FreeThinker]

13 hours ago, Jumberlack said:

Ok I'm using the most recent 1.2.2 backport and it seems like electrical power producing capabilities of the antimatter reactor are severely limited by the 'max power' on the converter generators (using MHD and charged particle generator for good measure). So in the sandbox mode the reactor says it can make like 700 or more gigawatts but its current power always hangs around 30GW or so. Is this:

A. me being dumb and not using the right generator setup or something?

B. intended behavior so that the only way to really get the most out of the antimatter reactor is using charged particle propulsion?

or C. something that has since been fixed in more recent updates?

4

It is intended behavoir. The reason has to do with maximum waste heat strain. Whenever you attempt to convert power from one form into another (kenetic to power or thermal to electric power), wasteheat is created.Magnetic Nozzles, on the other hand, transfers the kinetic energy of charged particles to the vessel. Because power is not converted, no wasteheat is created. Your cooling system tries to get rid of this wasteheat , but there is a limit on the maximum amount of wasteheat that can be diverted. This is why direct magnetic nozzle propulsion can use all power produced by beam core antimatter reactor while power production and thermal propulsion power is limited to a fraction (5%) of maximum power.

In the future I will attemp to adres this confusion by adding an antimatter reactor specialized in thermal power and make the beam core antimatter reactor more specialized for it intended role, which is delivering extremely high Isp propulsion meant for interstellar transfers.

Edited October 20, 2017 by FreeThinker

[mrgreco]

how about an antimatter engine???

[FreeThinker]

4 hours ago, mrgreco said:

how about an antimatter engine???

I will as soon I can get access to a suitable model

But a possible shortcut would be to patch Nertia Far Future Antimatter reactor parts by converting them into KSPI parts

Perhaps we could add it as an optional patch if people are interested in it.

Edited October 20, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

On 18-10-2017 at 8:25 PM, giddonah said:

Sorry if this has been answered before.  I've been trying to find a solution to this for a few days.

I'm still playing 1.3.0 with Interstellar Fuel Switch (via KSPI Extended 1.15.2) and Near Future Electrical 0.9.5. I can mine for EnrU using IFS parts, but how do you then transfer that fuel into a reactor? There's a Level1 engineer on board, which brings up another question. I can click transfer fuel and then click on the reactor to transfer, but is there no way to control how much fuel gets transferred? I was planning on splitting that one tank between the two reactors for example:

At first I was just going to use the IFS container, but couldn't transfer fuel into the reactors, so I slapped that MF-2 tank on there to test.

 

I'm guessing there's some code I can copy into the ISF cfg files to make them "handle radioactive storage" but I can't figure out where in the KSPIE files the code lives to copy from.

EnrU is EnrU, no?  Would love to be able to transfer what I have mined on minmus since that's like $1M in Enriched Uranium I'd rather not put in the reactors in the VAB.

Nope, you simple require a KSPI Mobile processing lab on your vessel and start reprocessing the fuel, this should replace the Actinides in the reactor by EnrichedUranium when available.

[mrgreco]

this engine has bin doing this for awhile, im guessin noone uses this engine

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.16.1 for Kerbal Space Program 1.3.1 can be downloaded from here

Released on 2017-10-21

• Added Positrons, a cheaper, lower density type of antimatter
• Added several Positrons containment devices
• Added Thermal Antimatter Reactor (runs on any type of antimatter)
• Balances: increased Beam Core Antimatter charged particle power but reduced thermal propulsion thermal power
• Fixed reactors Wasteheat, overcapacity issue
• Fixed Thermal Electric Generators being staved on reactors that are also used for thermal propulsion

Edited October 21, 2017 by FreeThinker

[mrgreco]

the thermul antimatter reactor is in the utlillity tab

[enewmen]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Version 1.16.1 for Kerbal Space Program 1.3.1 can be downloaded from here

Released on 2017-10-21

• Added Positrons, a cheaper, lower density type of antimatter
• Added several Positrons containment devices
• Added Thermal Antimatter Reactor (runs on any type of antimatter)
• Fixed reactors Wasteheat, overcapacity issue
• Fixed Thermal Electric Generators being staved on reactors that are also used for thermal propulsion

I notice the changes.  CKAN also updated 1.6 to 1.16.   Excellent, thanks !

[Yiannis]

Amazing mod with all the possibilities it gives BUT, the minute I installed it my current game became unplayable.
I uninstalled all mods, left KSPI and tweakscale as the only two mods. No change. Extremely sluggish behavior and a huge amount of errors such as "Error:[KSPI] - Exception in FNSolarPowerWasteHeatModule. on fixed update" in the debug console. 
Removed KSPI and reinstalled all mods, the game plays beautifully. 
Thought it was a problem with the persistent file so I started a career anew.
Up until the moment I discovered photovoltaics everything worked like a charm. The second I added the most rudimentary panel on my ship, the sluggish behavior and all the errors reappeared.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[giddonah]

23 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Nope, you simple require a KSPI Mobile processing lab on your vessel and start reprocessing the fuel, this should replace the Actinides in the reactor by EnrichedUranium when available.

Do you mean the Science Laboratory?  These reactors don't have Actinides, I'm talking about transferring the EnrU into the reactors and ISF tanks.  How do you transfer EnrU?  Even if don't use ISF tanks for EnrU and stick with the MF-2 (and the lvl1 engineer), it's an all or nothing proposition.  You click transfer fuel, then click on the destination part, and all the fuel gets transferred.  What if I wanted to only transfer half of what's in the tank into each of the two reactors?  Or transfer anything into or out of IFS Radioactive Fuel Containers? When I try transferring in, it says "selected part can't handle radioactive storage, exiting transfer mode". I see no way to even try to move it out.

So far my solution has been to land the ship at the minmus drilling site and connect it to the base with KAS connectors and let newly made EnrU collect in a Whirlijig Nuclear Reprocessor from Ore and transfer it from that to the reactors.  But even still, I can only transfer all fuel, wait for more to collect, then fuel up the other reactor.  But the ISF tank is useless it seems.  Can't transfer into or out of, but EnrU collects in it.

It's a mess, but I'm still trying to figure out how all the parts work together.  Also trying to figure out Megajoules, because I'm apparently using 27,726% of my available power:

[mrgreco]

self fueling Canadain ship ,,,,,,,solar wind to hydrogen, for fuel,,,,, antimatter collectors