[0.25]KSP Interstellar (Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp) Version 0.13

[Fractal_UK]

With pleasure

You sure this only happens with Interstellar installed? There are some errors on loading to the main menu:

getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: 112.659999999996
ObT : NaN
M : NaN
E : NaN
V : NaN
Radius: NaN
vel: [NaN, NaN, NaN]
AN: [NaN, NaN, NaN]
period: NaN
[OrbitDriver Warning!]: Apollo Station had a NaN Orbit and was removed.
getObtAtUT result is NaN! UT: 112.659999999996
ObT : NaN
M : NaN
E : NaN
V : NaN
Radius: NaN
vel: [NaN, NaN, NaN]
AN: [NaN, NaN, NaN]
period: NaN
[OrbitDriver Warning!]: Apollo Station had a NaN Orbit and was removed.

later

[HighLogic]: =========================== Scene Change : From SPACECENTER to FLIGHT =====================

(Filename: C:/BuildAgent/work/7535de4ca26c26ac/Runtime/ExportGenerated/StandalonePlayer/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 54)

NullReferenceException
  at (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEngine.Component:InternalGetTransform ()
  at UnityEngine.Component.get_transform () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at SpaceCenterCamera2.UpdateTransformOverview () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at SpaceCenterCamera2.UpdateTransform () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at SpaceCenterCamera2.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

and

Cannot find InternalPart 'cupolaInternal'

(Filename: C:/BuildAgent/work/7535de4ca26c26ac/Runtime/ExportGenerated/StandalonePlayer/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 54)

ArgumentException: The thing you want to instantiate is null.
  at UnityEngine.Object.CheckNullArgument (System.Object arg, System.String message) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at UnityEngine.Object.Instantiate (UnityEngine.Object original) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Part.AddInternalPart (.ConfigNode node) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Part.CreateInternalModel () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Part.SpawnCrew () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Vessel.SpawnCrew () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Vessel.MakeActive () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at FlightGlobals.setActiveVessel (.Vessel v, Boolean force) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at FlightGlobals.SetActiveVessel (.Vessel v) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at ShipConstruction.AssembleForLaunch (.ShipConstruct ship, System.String landedAt, System.String flagURL, .Game sceneState, .VesselCrewManifest crewManifest) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at FlightDriver.Start () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

I'm seeing a lot of errors but nothing to do with Interstellar.

Can you start a completely new savegame and try to create some ships there and see if you have the same issues?

[Fractal_UK]

The Nuclear reactor works perfectly and is connected directly to the Electric Generator. When I Launch the vessel from the SPH for testing, I usually check the reactor bay if the both are online, and the display says that both the Reactor and the Generator are up even though the Reactor's not producing ThermalPower when the the Generator is on. And when I do shut the Electric Generator off, that's when the Nuclear reactor starts producing ThermalPower. And nope, the reactor didn't overheat.

Here's a photo of the actual vessel with the info display for the engine block:

There is nothing wrong here, all the Megajoules are being used by the Alcubierre Drive to charge up its supply of ExoticMatter. If you click "Stop Charging" on the Alcubierre drive, the Megajoule bar will begin to fill up. ThermalPower is likewise not being produced because the generator is using it all.

Edit: The alcubierre drive also gets low priority on any power so anything else you try to do with your Megajoules will get a chance at the power before the Alcubierre drive gets the leftovers.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Lyinginbedmon]

I'm seeing a lot of errors but nothing to do with Interstellar.

Can you start a completely new savegame and try to create some ships there and see if you have the same issues?

I can't really launch anything with the staging and functionality bugs, but here's a clean save version with a rocket (the stock Kerbal X) stuck on the launchpad and a non-functional thermal jet on the runway.

[teohoch]

Post the ship teohoch.

Here's the Craft file

and a Photo:

it's a modular spherical tank with a not-upgraded 3.5m nuclear reactor and a not-upgraded 3.5m generator, with 6 huge radiators.

[Fractal_UK]

I can't really launch anything with the staging and functionality bugs, but here's a clean save version with a rocket (the stock Kerbal X) stuck on the launchpad and a non-functional thermal jet on the runway.

There don't appear to be any errors at all in this version, can you descrive these functionality and staging bugs in more detail?

[Lyinginbedmon]

There don't appear to be any errors at all in this version, can you descrive these functionality and staging bugs in more detail?

Hitting stage has no effect save the sound effect

All Interstellar engines provide zero thrust regardless of situation, most just shut down automatically regardless of reactor and generator status (the thermal jet in that save being one example)

Radiators seem to work but by and large all the functions of Interstellar parts seem to be broken

SAS seems to be ineffective despite showing its usage, with many parts of the HUD overlay being blank or matte colours

Unloading and reloading some craft occasionally restores function like heat radiating and power transmission but also results in the Hell glitch (Apollo station in the first version of the log had this issue).

Edited December 10, 2013 by Lyinginbedmon

[feriofukada]

There is nothing wrong here, all the Megajoules are being used by the Alcubierre Drive to charge up its supply of ExoticMatter. If you click "Stop Charging" on the Alcubierre drive, the Megajoule bar will begin to fill up. ThermalPower is likewise not being produced because the generator is using it all.

Edit: The alcubierre drive also gets low priority on any power so anything else you try to do with your Megajoules will get a chance at the power before the Alcubierre drive gets the leftovers.

LOL That was pretty dimwitted of me. Thanks for pointing out good sir

[Bromoc]

Any way to make the Large MW transceiver to start with lower drag when it collapsed? with FARS there is no Way I can launch it is behaving like its deployed.

[Bromoc]

Also, I do like the facing mechanic. But unless the system allows you to face a body and keep that facing through orbits. there is too much uncertainty. For example, I Face away from Kerbol, and my transmitter is facing away from kerbal. The Dot product makes that vector away from kerbal not very efficient.

If I were a JPL engineer, I would always make sure my power input would face the source in the most efficient way,

[Donziboy2]

Here's the Craft file

and a Photo:

it's a modular spherical tank with a not-upgraded 3.5m nuclear reactor and a not-upgraded 3.5m generator, with 6 huge radiators.

What version of KSPI are you using and whats the location of the craft?

The dish is a remotetech?

Can you also zoom in on the gen/reach and bring up their stats, I think something is drawing power and when you go into warp that power draw is amplified and the radiators don't keep up.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Donziboy2

[teohoch]

What version of KSPI are you using and whats the location of the craft?

The dish is a remotetech?

Can you also zoom in on the gen/reach and bring up their stats, I think something is drawing power and when you go into warp that power draw is amplified and the radiators don't keep up.

I'm using KSPI 0.8.2.1, and the craft is in a eccentric orbit around the sun, but the problem was observed also in high kerbin orbit.

The dish is remotech.

For X100 warp the stats are:

For X1000 warp the stats are:

I think is a overflow issue, because as the warp increases, the stats get higher and higher until on moment when it jumps to a negative number.

PD: Nice nuclear plane!

[Donziboy2]

I'm using KSPI 0.8.2.1, and the craft is in a eccentric orbit around the sun, but the problem was observed also in high kerbin orbit.

The dish is remotech.

For X100 warp the stats are:

For X1000 warp the stats are:

I think is a overflow issue, because as the warp increases, the stats get higher and higher until on moment when it jumps to a negative number.

PD: Nice nuclear plane!

I need to see the actual reactor, generator, and radiator stats that appear when you click on them. With 6 of those large radiator panels heat should not be a problem. How fast does waste heat go down when your in 1x mode? I may have to reinstall 0.8.2.1 and try it, I have been playing with the DEV version.

PS: its a B9 plane that I just removed the standard jet engines and added nuke engines to it.

[Fractal_UK]

Time to write a little bit about some of the features coming in 0.9:

The new fusion reactors are going to see a bit of a bit makeover and have their capabilities expanded, this will come through drawing a distinction between mainly neutron producing fusion reactions (such as Deuterium/Tritium fusion) to entirely charged particle producing fusion reactions such as (Helium-3 fusion). The big advantage of a fusion reaction that produces lots of charged particles is that instead of using some kind of heat difference to generate electrical power, you can directly extract electrical energy from the motion of the charged particles making conversion extremely efficient.

These second and third generation fusion fuels are only available with the upgraded fusion reactor because it is significantly harder to achieve the neccessary temperatures and pressures to attain fusion with these fuels.

0.9 will see three options for fusion fuels:

• Deuterium/Tritium fusion: The one in the game now. Produces 80% ThermalPower and 20% charged particles.
  
• Deuterium/Helium-3 fusion: A reaction that at first glance looks to be aneutronic but actually generates quite a lot of neutrons via Deuterium/Deuterium fusions. Produces 21% ThermalPower and 79% charged particles.
  
• Helium-3 fusion: Produces 100% charged particles.
  

Why is this interesting?

Well, as I said, charged particles can be used to generate electricity much more efficiency than heat can be so you'll have new generator options that require charged particles instead of thermal power in order to produce electrical power - and they will do it at 85% efficiency! That means if you don't need to power a thermal rocket with your reactor and you only need the electrical aspect then these new charged particle producing reactors will be unrivalled in their efficiency.

Want to power a DT-vista engine or a plasma thruster without producing a ton of waste heat? This is the place to be.

You can also mix and match charged particle generators and thermal rockets - for example with a Deuterium/Tritium reactor you could attach a direct conversion electrical generator and a thermal rocket, you can run your engines at full power, using 80% of the power *and* run an electrical generator, creating power at 85% efficiency, with the 20% charged particle power. This is proving to be a surprisingly useful combination in my testing!

Alright, so how do I get Helium-3?

This is the tricky part! Helium-3 is extremely rare but fortunately one of the fusion fuels you already have, namely Tritium, is unstable and decays with a half-life of just over 12 years. The decay product? You guessed it, Helium-3. Thus, as you spend time in space, you'll find that any Tritium you brought along will tend to decay into Helium-3 which you can collect and use for your second and third generation aneutronic fusion reactors.

In the future, it will also be possible to rove around the polar regions of various moons gathering up Helium-3 but I need a very specific part model for this purpose, which I don't presently have but you can rest assured that this system has plenty of scope for advancement.

[Donziboy2]

Time to write a little bit about some of the features coming in 0.9:

The new fusion reactors are going to see a bit of a bit makeover and have their capabilities expanded, this will come through drawing a distinction between mainly neutron producing fusion reactions (such as Deuterium/Tritium fusion) to entirely charged particle producing fusion reactions such as (Helium-3 fusion). The big advantage of a fusion reaction that produces lots of charged particles is that instead of using some kind of heat difference to generate electrical power, you can directly extract electrical energy from the motion of the charged particles making conversion extremely efficient.

These second and third generation fusion fuels are only available with the upgraded fusion reactor because it is significantly harder to achieve the neccessary temperatures and pressures to attain fusion with these fuels.

0.9 will see three options for fusion fuels:

• Deuterium/Tritium fusion: The one in the game now. Produces 80% ThermalPower and 20% charged particles.
  
• Deuterium/Helium-3 fusion: A reaction that at first glance looks to be aneutronic but actually generates quite a lot of neutrons via Deuterium/Deuterium fusions. Produces 21% ThermalPower and 79% charged particles.
  
• Helium-3 fusion: Produces 100% charged particles.
  

Why is this interesting?

Well, as I said, charged particles can be used to generate electricity much more efficiency than heat can be so you'll have new generator options that require charged particles instead of thermal power in order to produce electrical power - and they will do it at 85% efficiency! That means if you don't need to power a thermal rocket with your reactor and you only need the electrical aspect then these new charged particle producing reactors will be unrivalled in their efficiency.

Want to power a DT-vista engine or a plasma thruster without producing a ton of waste heat? This is the place to be.

You can also mix and match charged particle generators and thermal rockets - for example with a Deuterium/Tritium reactor you could attach a direct conversion electrical generator and a thermal rocket, you can run your engines at full power, using 80% of the power *and* run an electrical generator, creating power at 85% efficiency, with the 20% charged particle power. This is proving to be a surprisingly useful combination in my testing!

Alright, so how do I get Helium-3?

This is the tricky part! Helium-3 is extremely rare but fortunately one of the fusion fuels you already have, namely Tritium, is unstable and decays with a half-life of just over 12 years. The decay product? You guessed it, Helium-3. Thus, as you spend time in space, you'll find that any Tritium you brought along will tend to decay into Helium-3 which you can collect and use for your second and third generation aneutronic fusion reactors.

In the future, it will also be possible to rove around the polar regions of various moons gathering up Helium-3 but I need a very specific part model for this purpose, which I don't presently have but you can rest assured that this system has plenty of scope for advancement.

Sounds like fun Fractal_UK, I look forward to brea.... playing with it:)

[Helix935]

i am guessing that this helium-3 will be mostly located on the Mun

[Kenken244]

Sounds cool. Will there be any difference in energy output aside from differing conversion efficiency?

[teohoch]

I need to see the actual reactor, generator, and radiator stats that appear when you click on them. With 6 of those large radiator panels heat should not be a problem. How fast does waste heat go down when your in 1x mode? I may have to reinstall 0.8.2.1 and try it, I have been playing with the DEV version.

PS: its a B9 plane that I just removed the standard jet engines and added nuke engines to it.

At 1x:

At x100:

At x1000:

the waste heat at 1x goes down at 111,48. if the variable storing this value is a Short int, at X1000 i would overflow , as the maximun value for a signed short int is +32,767 and at 1000x the value would be 111,48 x 1000 = 111 480 > +32,767

[bojangles9999]

Sorry, I'm very new at this.

In regards to the fixed solar panels that don't shut off when their waste heat capacity is met:

in this code from FNSolarPanelWasteHeatModule.cs:

ModuleDeployableSolarPanel solarPanel = (ModuleDeployableSolarPanel)this.part.Modules["ModuleDeployableSolarPanel"];

if (solarPanel != null) {

float solar_rate = solarPanel.flowRate*TimeWarp.fixedDeltaTime;

float heat_rate = solar_rate * 0.5f/1000.0f;

if (getResourceBarRatio (FNResourceManager.FNRESOURCE_WASTEHEAT) >= 0.98 && solarPanel.panelState == ModuleDeployableSolarPanel.panelStates.EXTENDED && solarPanel.sunTracking) {

solarPanel.Retract ();

if (FlightGlobals.ActiveVessel == vessel) {

ScreenMessages.PostScreenMessage ("Warning Dangerous Overheating Detected: Solar Panel retraction occuring NOW!", 5.0f, ScreenMessageStyle.UPPER_CENTER);

}

return;

}

wasteheat_production_f = supplyFNResource(heat_rate,FNResourceManager.FNRESOURCE_WASTEHEAT)/TimeWarp.fixedDeltaTime*1000.0f;

}

can a line be added after this:

if (getResourceBarRatio (FNResourceManager.FNRESOURCE_WASTEHEAT) >= 0.98 && solarPanel.panelState == ModuleDeployableSolarPanel.panelStates.EXTENDED && solarPanel.sunTracking) {

solarPanel.Retract ();

that adds something like:

if (getResourceBarRatio (FNResourceManager.FNRESOURCE_WASTEHEAT) >= 1.00 && solarPanel.panelState == ModuleDeployableSolarPanel.panelStates.EXTENDED && solarPanel.sunTracking) {

solarPanel.decouple/overheat () or temp=500000000/exceed maxtemp threshold and explode;

the idea is to make the fixed panels destroy or decouple themselves after their wasteheat capacity is met, or if the panel can retract do so when the wasteheat is at 98% to capacity to prevent panel destruction. Maybe i'm looking in the wrong places in the forum, or maybe there's a better place to post this?

I hope this makes sense, again I really have no idea what i'm talking about

[Donziboy2]

At 1x:

At x100:

At x1000:

the waste heat at 1x goes down at 111,48. if the variable storing this value is a Short int, at X1000 i would overflow , as the maximun value for a signed short int is +32,767 and at 1000x the value would be 111,48 x 1000 = 111 480 > +32,767

From the pictures whats happening is the generator/reactor output is scaling with the warp increase. You jump from 73.5KW(1x) to 7.35MW(100x) to 66.9MW(1000x), the problem is the radiators don't scale with everything else when in time warp... Fractal_UK, any thoughts? I think we actually ran into this with 8.2 or 8.2.1....

[Myrten]

Something is wrong in power consumption of multiple DT Vista Fussion engines

First engine turned on makes generator produce 2.45 GW - looks correct

Second engine increases total consumption to 22 GW after turning on

Third engine increases total consumption to 41.6 GW after turning on.

This leads me to conclusion that while first DT Vista Fussion engine consumes 2.45 GW every subsequent DT Vista Fussion engine consumes ~19.5GW

[Donziboy2]

I can confirm teohoch's bug, I just put 0.8.2.1 back on my system and it does the same thing with a similar build and a few EC/s of draw on the system.

Myrten what version are you running?

[Myrten]

I can confirm teohoch's bug, I just put 0.8.2.1 back on my system and it does the same thing with a similar build and a few EC/s of draw on the system.

Myrten what version are you running?

0.82 with modified microwave relay routing algorithm, but it's almost impossible that this change would affect DT Vista.

[Donziboy2]

0.82 with modified microwave relay routing algorithm, but it's almost impossible that this change would affect DT Vista.

I just tried it with 0.8.2.1 and it worked just fine.

[Myrten]

I just tried it with 0.8.2.1 and it worked just fine.

I think something is wrong when thermal power for the vessel is produced by thermal receivers - because I've just tested on the same version another ship in which thermal power is produced by nuclear reactors and it worked just fine.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Myrten

[Donziboy2]

I think something is wrong when thermal power for the vessel is produced by thermal receivers - because I've just tested on the same version another ship in which thermal power is produced by nuclear reactors and it worked just fine.

So are you using a receiver or an AM Reactor?