Discussion on KSP 2 fuel-cells / methalox electric generators

[Flush Foot]

Maybe it's just me, but I quite (well, mostly) liked how KSP 1 handled fuel-cells...

	KSP 1	KSP 2
Power-gen	Only activated when craft's battery level fell below [I think] 95% total capacity and then 'self-regulated' output until batteries @95%	While active, it runs constantly at the rate selected in Parts Manager, regardless of power-reserves
Fuel-usage	Scales with the above, only consuming fuel "when necessary", acting more as a "UPS" for the craft	Scales with the rate selected in Parts Manager, but if active it is constantly consuming fuel regardless of electrical-draw

Especially when ISRU was 'still a thing', it allowed for surface mining outposts to operate 24/7 by tapping off some of their fuel-production to literally keep the lights on.

In KSP 2, you have to realize "oh, my science experiments / data-transmission / ion-engines are running down my battery... better toggle the fuel cells on (and not forget to turn them off later)".

Admittedly KSP 1's cells were (almost certainly) hydrogen fuel-cells and so more closely resemble how Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) work, but I expect no one would use FCEVs for personal or commercial driving if they were constantly "draining the tank" as soon as the vehicle was turned on at the same rate they do when recharging the [smaller] batteries driving down the highway.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to think that a species capable of spaceflight could also have 'intelligent' fuel-cells / control-valves such that they don't overproduce electric charge?

 

</end of rant>

Oh... and maybe also some kind of toggle for "pull fuel only from the attached-to tank / stage" vs "pull fuel from the whole craft"

I am trying to remember, but I do believe 'at least' it respects fuel-flow rules (ie won't consume from tanks connected by decouplers / impeded by heat shield) but given that RCS is (seems to be?) immune from such flow-considerations, I think an explicit toggle/mode-select on the generators might be worthwhile.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

This is interesting and not something i have ever put thought into. 

From a logic standpoint with redundancy, I think setting the fuel cell to a base percentage and letting it supplement solar is the goal of the current fuel cell.  
This is my though process using logic:

"if a fault was to occur, and something prevented the battery from turning itself on, then there would be no probe control. You would be unable to manually turn it on. Therefore setting it to 2% trickle would prevent this from happening."

Considering KSP is only loosely based on realism, and also logic then the reason it exists in its current state is more likely due to ease.

I imagine it is easy to code a toggle with then it is to toggle an if / then statement that checks a ratio between current power / total power. This is only an exercise in speculation on my part though.
 

There is a mod that addresses just this, I believe it is a WIP though.



One thing i like about KSP1 was the advanced tweakable features. Similarly to how one can adjust the 'angle of deployment' and 'wing authority' from the parts manager window.
I think something using that type of feature mechanic may be cool. You can then have all the options at your disposal.  

From a player stance, the current mechanic is not very user friendly. With the desire to create colonies and have ships spread across the interstellar  fabric... there are going to be a lot of ships running out of fuel. 

I put engine on my orbital scanners. Sometimes getting that last little bit of Scan complete requires adjustments to the satellite. 

I do not know why i put a fuel cell on the damn thing, it had plenty of solar exposure. When i came back quite some in game time later.. my fuel reserves were drained.

I cannot speak to the community, but feel that fuel cells in their current state are not as well thought out as they could have been. 

 

[AtomicTech]

13 hours ago, Flush Foot said:

Maybe it's just me, but I quite (well, mostly) liked how KSP 1 handled fuel-cells...

You're not alone

[Flush Foot]

1 minute ago, AtomicTech said:

You're not alone

[CFTeague2]

I havent tried the fuel cells out yet.   Guess I should.

For comparison -- how does the reactor generator work, in terms of fuel consumption on-demand or always-burning?

 

[Flush Foot]

20 minutes ago, CFTeague2 said:

how does the reactor generator work

Do you mean the ‘RTGs’ or the larger, scalable one that consumes uranium?

The former are definitely forever active (with a fixed “life span”, trickling out electric charge.

The latter I’ve also not used much, but I believe they are like true ‘mini nuclear power plants’ in that they run at a (user-)set speed, regardless of the craft’s needs.

[CFTeague2]

Yes, sorry, the actual fission reactor one, its like 1t or 1.5t.      Like a fuel cell, it has an "activate" / "deactivate" toggle to manually turn it off.    I assume that would mean putting in some kind of control rods to damp the reaction, for that to be IRL plausible.

So then I guess, if you can manually control the reaction, why not have a way to automatically control the reaction, when power is not needed?    but I dont know if they actually DO that like KSP1 fuel cells did