[1.7.1][1.8.1][1.9.1][1.10.1] Persistent Thrust Extended 1.7.5 (now with background persistent thrust)

[Kielm]

Hi, 

First, thank you for this mod - it's great for making Ion engines (or just low thrust engines) useful. 

I realise that 1.11 isn't officially listed as supported but I'm using it in my career game. I am seeing a lot of these errors in the log files:

[EXC 23:47:16.390] ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection.
Parameter name: index
	System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentOutOfRangeException (System.ExceptionArgument argument, System.ExceptionResource resource) (at <ad04dee02e7e4a85a1299c7ee81c79f6>:0)
	System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentOutOfRangeException () (at <ad04dee02e7e4a85a1299c7ee81c79f6>:0)
	PersistentThrust.PersistentEngine.FetchActiveEngineModule () (at <c21f67e9fc9e4095932061aa47eea29a>:0)
	PersistentThrust.PersistentEngine.FixedUpdate () (at <c21f67e9fc9e4095932061aa47eea29a>:0)
	UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:LogException(Exception, Object)
	ModuleManager.UnityLogHandle.InterceptLogHandler:LogException(Exception, Object)
	UnityEngine.Debug:CallOverridenDebugHandler(Exception, Object)

It's frustratingly intermittent and difficult to isolate to a specific craft setup, but doesn't appear to cause any gamebreaking issues - it's just very spammy. Anecdotally, I see this error a lot when using the poodle engine, but other engines too. I'll try to pin it down with some more testing. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Kielm

[CDSlice]

On 12/22/2020 at 11:24 PM, KSPrynk said:

@FreeThinker, I think I've found a problem that may be related to some issues reported in September.  In base KSP 1.11, no expansions or other mods, and with Persistent Thrust Defaults all set to Disabled in Settings (be sure to confirm still disabled on craft in VAB).  When launching a craft, PAW click on the engines before activation and you'll see Specific Impulse is reading as 0 sec, and Prop Requirement Met prop at 0%.  Activate the engines and throttle up and you'll see the engines stuttering, with Isp, thrust, and Prop Reqts also fluttering.  It doesn't get resolved until the Persistent Thrust button is set to enable.  Which becomes problematic if engines weren't cloned together as a group at assembly.

This has also worked just manually resetting everything to Disabled in the VAB before launch.  The easy answer is probably just keep everything at Enabled, but I'm concerned about leaving an engine running when jumping to warp (a cheaty way to stabilize a tumbling craft), so I make a point of only enabling it on specific craft, like those with ion engines.

I don't know if this is related to KSP 1.11's dv calculations, which are currently causing havoc with MJ and KER, but it happens with both manned and probe core-only craft (I don't have an instance of 1.10.1 anymore to test). 

I can confirm that this same issue happens in KSP 1.10.1

[king of nowhere]

it's not working at all for me.

using 1.11, kerbalism and kerbal wind tunnel. no effect. i may be doing something wrong with installing, but i have no idea what

[The Destroyer]

How exactly do you get the background processing to work? I've managed to get it working once during a retrograde burn to pluto, but I haven't been able to replicate it :-/

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, The Destroyer said:

How exactly do you get the background processing to work? I've managed to get it working once during a retrograde burn to pluto, but I haven't been able to replicate it :-/

Thrust need to be active when switching to KSC  (also it needs to be enabled)

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by FreeThinker

[The Destroyer]

31 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Thrust need to be active when switching to KSC  (also it needs to be enabled)

 

I've tried it with normal SAS hold and prograde hold. going to tracking station while time warp is normal and thrust is on, or timewarp 10x with thrust on, using a VASMIR from near future propulsion (I'm using RSS/RO, kerbalism with ROkerbalism configs, KSP 1.8.1)...

 

it works great in normal flight but I can't get it to do background processing, and I'm not sure why. I *did* get it to work once before a few weeks ago in testing, but I'm not sure what I'm missing now.

 

I'm also not sure how "persistent heading" works. I have Persistent rotation, so maybe that's conflicting?

 

What would the best way for me to figure this out? Send you a log and video?

Edited March 10, 2021 by The Destroyer

[FreeThinker]

Wel, several thing can go wrong as it attempt to simulate if the condition for propulsion are present. Your version relies on Kerbalsim for all resource managagement, if Kerbalism rutns no resources are presentt, it will not do any acceleration in the background. At the time of release this worked but I never tested it with the more recent version of Kerbalsim

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by FreeThinker

[The Destroyer]

Trying to figure out what I'm missing: The one with the rover doesn't work - it will do normal persistent thrust but it won't hold heading, won't do background processing, the other one will. Same power source, same fuel, same engine, yet nonfunctional.

https://imgur.com/a/DB1XmkC

 

EDIT: After decoupling the rover, it works. hmm, interesting. I re-rooted to the probe instead of the rover and now it works, that's fun.

Edited March 10, 2021 by The Destroyer

[FreeThinker]

On 3/11/2021 at 12:32 AM, The Destroyer said:

Trying to figure out what I'm missing: The one with the rover doesn't work - it will do normal persistent thrust but it won't hold heading, won't do background processing, the other one will. Same power source, same fuel, same engine, yet nonfunctional.

https://imgur.com/a/DB1XmkC

 

EDIT: After decoupling the rover, it works. hmm, interesting. I re-rooted to the probe instead of the rover and now it works, that's fun.

Well this is important to understand, it will use the heading of your controlling part up direction to determine the direction which should align with your orbit heading. If it doesn't align it won't do any background acceleration. This is safety feature to prevent you from accelerating in wrong heading while you are not looking.

Edited March 12, 2021 by FreeThinker

[The Destroyer]

Yeah - the rover is set to "Up" so it's the same as the probe core, but I guess PT sees the other possible control directions of the rover body and dislikes it.

 

The only other issue I'm having is when PT seems to block time warping fully - can't do physics warp or on-rails warp, regardless if the engine is throttled up or not. Sometimes quicksaving or scene switching will fix it, but I'm not sure why it locks up in the first place.

[FreeThinker]

12 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

Yeah - the rover is set to "Up" so it's the same as the probe core, but I guess PT sees the other possible control directions of the rover body and dislikes it.

 

The only other issue I'm having is when PT seems to block time warping fully - can't do physics warp or on-rails warp, regardless if the engine is throttled up or not. Sometimes quicksaving or scene switching will fix it, but I'm not sure why it locks up in the first place.

To figure out what is wrong, first try something basic, like an small probe with ion engion, xenon and sufficient solar panels, put it in orbit and try if perfisten thrust functions

[Guest]

This mod is great in many ways, but there's one thing that is super annoying-

Whenever I warp somewhere by clicking the "warp here" button, it will always end the warp too early. 

Does anybody know how to fix this??

[king of nowhere]

This mod revolutionized the way I used ion engines; unfortunately, it is bugged.

in my most recent save, the engines randomly stopped working. fuel is plentyful, electricity is plentyful, there is full control, but the engines just do not work. even liquid fuel engines are not working anymore. and it happened multiple times; other times i was able to fix just by saving and reloading. this time it's not working. but it worked again once i removed the persistent thrust mod.

I can provide additional information if needed

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

This mod revolutionized the way I used ion engines; unfortunately, it is bugged.

in my most recent save, the engines randomly stopped working. fuel is plentyful, electricity is plentyful, there is full control, but the engines just do not work. even liquid fuel engines are not working anymore. and it happened multiple times; other times i was able to fix just by saving and reloading. this time it's not working. but it worked again once i removed the persistent thrust mod.

I can provide additional information if needed

You to describe in as much detail when a problem occured, like exactly when it happened, in what orbit it happend and at what timewap speed

Edited March 17, 2021 by FreeThinker

[king of nowhere]

46 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

You to describe in as much detail when a problem occured, like qhen it happened, in what orbit it happend and at what timewap speed

doesn't seem related to any of that.

it happened the first time with a small probe without time warp. was in low kerbin orbit and the probe was just launched.

now it happened with a large ship in high kerbin orbit. Again, changing time warp doesn't seem to matter. and the ship had been flying over 1 year.

 

two things in common between those occurrences: in both cases i have the kerbalism mod and i am using kerbalism gas containers as xenon tanks (but chemical engines also stopped working, so i would rule out a problem with recognizing fuel tanks).

and in both cases, i have a large (750 parts) ship into physical range, and ships that big tend to spawn little krakens wherever they go.

[Tacombel]

I am experiencing something similar, but which I didn't mention because it appears to have no consequences.  Frequently when flying I receive a message on screen saying that the propulsion has been stopped because there is no propellant or something similar. It happens in flight, at x1 speed while burning a maneuver, but there is more than enough fuel.

KSP 1.11.1

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Tacombel

[Guest]

This mod is great and all, but I have one super annoying issue -

Sometimes, for unknown reasons, I can't timewarp. I try using the period key and clicking on the timewarp bar, but nothing happens 

any help appreciated!  

[FreeThinker]

On 3/17/2021 at 5:04 PM, king of nowhere said:

This mod revolutionized the way I used ion engines; unfortunately, it is bugged.

in my most recent save, the engines randomly stopped working. fuel is plentyful, electricity is plentyful, there is full control, but the engines just do not work. even liquid fuel engines are not working anymore. and it happened multiple times; other times i was able to fix just by saving and reloading. this time it's not working. but it worked again once i removed the persistent thrust mod.

I can provide additional information if needed

exactly what engines failed to work?

[king of nowhere]

15 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

exactly what engines failed to work?

everything.

it starts from ion engines, because they are the ones that are used for long times. but once the bug strucks, no engine on the ship will work. and it is a large mothership intended for a grand tour, so it has a lot of different engines for the landers, and i tested several at random. none works.

19 hours ago, SpaceX_Boi said:

This mod is great and all, but I have one super annoying issue -

Sometimes, for unknown reasons, I can't timewarp. I try using the period key and clicking on the timewarp bar, but nothing happens 

any help appreciated!  

i got this bug too, but i got it in the past too. not sure if ever got it before using persistent thrust, though. and never noticed it anymore after removing the mod. i can say that saving/reloading generally works for that.

 

Well, simple solution for me so far is to remove persistent thrust, and just put it back in the folder again if i have to make a long manuever with ion engines.

[Guest]

Hi, one more thing -

When I'm using one the VASMIR engines from NF Propulsion, I can only warp to the third green arrow.  If I warp any more, it'll think that the propellent is depleted, when it isn't. 

I'm in 1.11.2, in the stock solar system, and don't know if it's a problem with NF propulsion or this mod.  

I really want to get to Jool using NF Tech, and It'll take forever to get there with only the third arrow

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, SpaceX_Boi said:

Hi, one more thing -

When I'm using one the VASMIR engines from NF Propulsion, I can only warp to the third green arrow.  If I warp any more, it'll think that the propellent is depleted, when it isn't. 

I'm in 1.11.2, in the stock solar system, and don't know if it's a problem with NF propulsion or this mod.  

I really want to get to Jool using NF Tech, and It'll take forever to get there with only the third arrow

Most likely, you have insufficuent power. Make sure you generate sufficient power

Edited March 25, 2021 by FreeThinker

[Guest]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Most likely, you have insufficuent power. Make sure you generate sufficient power

Ya, u were right

I generate sufficient power at first, but my electricity and/or reactor will get confused with the higher warp, and the electricity will start going all over the place, triggering the abort for the timewarp. The only wat I could really fix this was to turn on infinite electricity, sadly .

Thanks 4 the help!

[Tacombel]

Not sure if it is intended, but it took me a while to discover it.

When out of fuel, persistent thrust doesn't  let you time warp if the throttle is up. Setting it to zero solves it.

[Probus]

Is the development release zip file corrupted or is that just me?

https://github.com/sswelm/PersistentThrust/releases

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Probus said:

Is the development release zip file corrupted or is that just me?

https://github.com/sswelm/PersistentThrust/releases

no its indeed corrupt, it on old experimental file