Flight EC is not consumed or is produced infinitely

[RalphKerman]

Reported Version: v0.1.3 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes 
OS: Win 10 | CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K | GPU: 2 x NVIDIA 1080 | RAM: 32 GB

 

Scenario: Having no engine on a craft but consumers of EC will have no effect on EC level. The level of EC remains at max no matter how long you use anything that is supposed to consume EC.

Test vehicle: MK1-3 pod with 150 EC internal storage capacity, 2 medium sized reaction wheels right underneath it, a medium decoupler underneath them, a tank and an engine (mainsail, but that does not matter at all).

Test: Launch vehicle to some point where it can fly for a bit, decouple the engine and tank bit so that only the command pod and the 2 reaction wheels remain. While flying keep pressed any key that performs an action that requires the reaction wheels, e.g. keep q depressed to roll faster and faster. The wheels are supposed to consume 2.xx EC per second (according to tooltip in VAB) so it should drain the 150 EC from the command pod fairly quickly.

Result: The EC level remains at 150 EC without any change at all no matter how long I use the EC consumers.

Either the EC consumption is 0 or the EC production is constantly at a very high level without any engine or solar panel. Both of these conditions are wrong and should be classed as a bug.

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by Anth12

[Mitokandria]

Experiencing the same thing. Just sent a vessel to the Mun with no solar panels and a small battery.

[Mitokandria]

Appears to be caused by decouplers. EC acts as expected until initiating decoupling.

Setup: Any probe core, any antenna, and any stack decoupler on the bottom.

Replication: Launch vehicle on launchpad. Stage decoupler. Time Warp to see EC is no longer being consumed or produced.

 

I have not tried yet with stack separators or docking ports. Will test that shortly.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Mitokandria

[Mitokandria]

After further troubleshooting the issue occurs with all coupler types (Stack, Radial, Stack Separators, and ports). The issue does not require staging only activation either through staging or parts manager.

Minimum Setup for replication: any probe core or cockpit, any antenna, any (de)coupler.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Mitokandria

[Guest]

TBH I though that EC was not really implemented yet and never thought that this was a bug due to staging/decoupling.

Edited June 24, 2023 by running_bird

[RalphKerman]

I did some more testing and it it is way more strange than I wrote in my original post....

1. Craft with unmaned probe cores: EC is consumed but a tiny fraction of what it should be and as @Mitokandria wrote, it is depending on decouplers.
2. Craft with manned capsule: The behaviour is partially reversed (see description down below)

Scenario 1:

3 part craft:

• Probe core (for example HECS, but does not matter, all unmanned probe cores behave identical)
• a decoupler (I used the "small" one but that does not matter also as all decouplers behave identical)
• a solid motor (here I used the "flea" but again: it does not matter) to make 100% sure I have no engine with an alternator that might produce some EC. Solid rocket boosters don't do that.

Expectation:

There is no power source so the internal storage of the probe core should deplete at the given rate stated in the VAB tooltip.

Using the built-in reaction wheel should increase the rate of EC depletion when I use it in flight.

Test:

• Craft on Launch pad, open Resource Manager window -> EC is depleted at the expected rate (btw, in the resource manager you have decimals, in the vehicle status in the upper right corner where vehicle resources are shown you round to integers, so you only see changes when the value passes .5 and the rounding down occurs -> inconsistant display)
• Fire the solid rocket motor and fly -> EC is depleted at the expected rate
• When the motor has burnt out, decouple -> EC depletion rate is going down to approximately 1/10th of what it was before for the rest of the flight -> that is wrong, it should remain constant
• Using the reaction wheels at any point (while engine is burning or not, while decoupled or not) does NOT increase the EC depletion rate despite the craft using its reaction wheels which should consume more power.

 

Scenario 2:

Same as Scenario 1 but instead of an unmanned probe a manned capsule was used (size does not matter, tested it with MK1, MK1-3 and the largest one (name eludes me at the moment).

Result: There is NO EC depletion while the engine is attached (Craft on launch pad, resource manager open -> zero loss of EC; flight with engine fireing -> zero loss of EC, no matter if reaction wheels are used or not)

After decoupling the EC starts to deplete at about 1/10th of the expected rate (same as Scenario 1)

 

Scenario 1 and 2 (extension of test parameters):

When I add several reaction wheels to both manned and unmanned craft (tried adding up to 4 reaction wheels of different sizes, all behave identical) there is NO EC used from any of these consumers, the only depletion of EC is the slow ticking from the probe core/crew capsule without taking any extra consumer into the calculation

 

Summary: EC usage is implemented in the game but is entirely wrong. EC depletion rate is changing with decoupled state, happens at way too low rate and does not consider anything but the core/capsule.

[Anth]

This is fixed as of 0.1.4.0