Dawn Electric Engine breaks after time warp

[Eirhead]

I don't know if it's just my install or if this is a common issue or what... But every time I use a time warp after activating my Dawn electric engines, they cease to work. I try turning them off an on again, and no dice. My xenon is plentiful, my electric charge is there. I can even retract my solar panels "activate" the engines, and the battery reserve won't deplete. They simply break after I utilize a time warp.

I don't have any mods installed or anything... I did the steam verify install thing, but that didn't help. Should I just try reinstalling my game? Thanks.

[Gargamel]

Right click on the engine, does it say it's broken?  (I've only seen this with solar panels, never engines).

Or is it just not working but everything looks kosher?

[Eirhead]

I'm just at work right now. But I don't recall seeing anything that actually says the engine is "broken". Just after the time warp it stops working. It looks like it should work, I think it should work, but it just doesn't work. In the right click menu I can see that it's not consuming any resources anymore despite being activated.

Like the one time I left the game running for 2-3 hours without time warping, came back and the engines were still chugging along. But as soon as I give it a X5 time multiplier for a mere 2-3 seconds, bam the engine stops working and it won't work again until I revert back to launch.

And I'm usually running multiple dawn electric engines. My latest mini-craft has 6 of them. And they all break simultaneously upon time warping.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Eirhead

[HerobrineLiu]

I'm not very good at troubleshooting, and this has never happened to any ksp player I know, but I have you tried going back to the space center and then coming back? It's not a true solution but it might make the game more playable for you. Also, if you're using 1.4, there are probably many glitches that squad hasn't fixed yet. 

Good luck!

[Eirhead]

My steam is set to automatically update with the newest version. So I think I'm playing with 1.4.1

I've also started several new games and have the same issue no matter how many different space crafts I build with the Electric Dawn engines. So I don't think going back to the space center will fix it... Besides, I do need the engines to be active while I'm time warping otherwise it's almost pointless to use them since they are intended to go on multi-hour burns. But I'll try it out and see what happens.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Eirhead

[MechBFP]

6 hours ago, Eirhead said:

My steam is set to automatically update with the newest version. So I think I'm playing with 1.4.1

I've also started several new games and have the same issue no matter how many different space crafts I build with the Electric Dawn engines. So I don't think going back to the space center will fix it... Besides, I do need the engines to be active while I'm time warping otherwise it's almost pointless to use them since they are intended to go on multi-hour burns. But I'll try it out and see what happens.

Do you mean the engines don’t work DURING time warp?

If so, ya that’s normal, no engines work during physics-less warp. 

If you hold alt plus the increase time warp button, you can do up to 4 times physics warp, which the engines will keep working in. 

[Gargamel]

11 hours ago, Eirhead said:

Besides, I do need the engines to be active while I'm time warping otherwise it's almost pointless to use them since they are intended to go on multi-hour burns. But I'll try it out and see what happens.

As mechbfp said, Engines don't work during normal time warp.   But if you use Physics warp, they will run, upto 4x.  Use alt-. to increase the physics warp.  This is almost required for ion burns, as they can take a long long time.  Even with physics warp, I will start a burn and go do something else, setting an alarm to return. 

But if you are coming out of time warp, back to a warp of 1x, and the engines won't work, try what Hero said, jump back to KSC, and then back to the ship.  It should reload the vessel and make the engines usable again. 

One other point.  You should try to break up large burns like you are describing into smaller chunks.  Do a part of the burn, then come around to periapsis again, and do the burn again.  The longer the burn, the more it will affect other parts of your orbit that you don't want changed.  When capturing around places like Moho, sometimes you have to do a first burn just to get into orbit (any orbit), and then more burns to get the orbit you want.   

Unless your craft is severely underpowered, I've never seen multi hour burns.  If it's that under powered, even for ions, you probably have to capacity to add a couple more ions to the mix (along with the eletrical to go with them). 

Edited March 21, 2018 by Gargamel

[Eirhead]

20 hours ago, MechBFP said:

Do you mean the engines don’t work DURING time warp?

If so, ya that’s normal, no engines work during physics-less warp. 

If you hold alt plus the increase time warp button, you can do up to 4 times physics warp, which the engines will keep working in. 

Well yes, but also I can't use the engine again after a warp. But I will try the physics warp and see what happens with that. Thanks for that suggestion.

I'll also have to try a normal time warp with the engines off to see what happens then. I know the engines break when they're burning and I do a normal time warp. But maybe if I turn them off before a 5x+ time warp they won't break, since clearly I can't use them during that kind of a time warp - which is fine... 4x physics warp should be good enough for that.

EDIT: Ya all my engines break after a normal time warp. Liquid engines, electric engines. My crafts become unusable after I time warp. Physics time warp is ok. 

EDIT2: I'm going to reinstall the game and see what happens. I'll let you guys know if it fixes it.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Eirhead

[Gargamel]

One more before you tackle a reinstall then....

Right click the engine, disable it, and then reactivate it.  See if that works.  Still not the normal behavior, but it may save your saves. 

[Eirhead]

Still have the problem. I reinstalled the game too.

[Serenity]

Have you tried changing the hibernation setting?Maybe you experiencing some weird bug with that option.

Can you toggle SAS/RCS  right after you end the warp?

Also check your difficulty settings and play around with turning off the signal require

and toggling some infinite cheats with alt+f12, for fuel and or electricity, see if that makes any difference.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Boyster

[Eirhead]

I can toggle SAS/RCS still

Signal require was off, but I tried toggling it both ways.

Not sure what or where the hibernation setting is, most of my settings in the game are pretty much default, and go into sandbox mode.

I'll have to look more into the cheats, I've never used them before and not sure how to do them... I press alt+f12 and nothing comes up.

[Serenity]

Have you checked your throttle indicator?Does it go up and down after the warp?Hold shift see if it moves.

After warp it throttles down so you have to manually increase it again.

3 hours ago, Eirhead said:

I'll have to look more into the cheats, I've never used them before and not sure how to do them... I press alt+f12 and nothing comes up.

Alt+F12 is the debug menu while ingame,  including cheats.

Hibernation is a setting in probecores so the vessel wont consume electricity during warp if set to auto, or have it on for full hibernation.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Boyster