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

[Northstar1989]

I seem to have a recurring problem with the efficiencies on my (always upgraded!) electric generators dipping down to around 0.6%, *AFTER* which WasteHeat often starts to seriously build up due to the reduced efficiency and the fact that it still revs up the reactor to 100% to get that 0.6%... Or, for some reason, a design that once was able to maintain zero WasteHeat, suddenly starts building up a surplus of WasteHeat even with the generator off, and with no significant quantity of Actinides accumulated in the reactor. Or, worse, BOTH happen, like in the case shown here:

I'd really like to know why this keeps occurring...

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm using an (upgraded) 2.5m inline radiator on this space station, it's to reduce lag from independently moving parts, and create fewer parts that can potentially be broken off by a ship attempting to dock with the station passing a little too close...

However, the buildup of WasteHeat is clearly not due to insufficient radiator mass- I also had a similar problems with a station that hosted no fewer than FOUR of the upgraded 2nd-largest deployable radiators, and a 3.75m reactor/generator pair with minimal power drain (just one Science Laboratory), meaning the generator and reactor didn't need to be on most of the time (but, as with this design, WasteHeat initially was in balance shortly after the vessel reached space, but a few load/unload cycles later it was generating a large WasteHeat surplus even with the Generator off...)

Also yes, I checked several times that the mod was installed correctly. It is, without a doubt, in the right location.

Regards,

Northstar

[Donziboy2]

I just used ModuleManager to make these changes, there isn't really a way to target cargobay doors or air-breathing engines programatically so I just used MM configs to change them manually.

Any idea whats up with the intercoolers? Without them SSTO's have a hard time getting into orbit, especially heavy ones;)

I seem to have a recurring problem with the efficiencies on my (always upgraded!) electric generators dipping down to around 0.6%, *AFTER* which WasteHeat often starts to seriously build up due to the reduced efficiency and the fact that it still revs up the reactor to 100% to get that 0.6%... Or, for some reason, a design that once was able to maintain zero WasteHeat, suddenly starts building up a surplus of WasteHeat, with no significant quantity of Actinides accumulated in the reactor. Or, worse, BOTH happen, like in the case shown here:

http://i.imgur.com/I2D6p99.png

I'd really like to know why this keeps occurring...

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm using an (upgraded) 2.5m inline radiator on this space station, it's to reduce lag from independently moving parts, and create fewer parts that can potentially be broken off by a ship attempting to dock with the station passing a little too close...

However, the buildup of WasteHeat is clearly not due to insufficient radiator mass- I also had a similar problems with a station that hosted no fewer than FOUR of the upgraded 2nd-largest deployable radiators, and a 3.75m reactor/generator pair with minimal power drain (just one Science Laboratory), meaning the generator and reactor didn't need to be on most of the time (but, as with this design, WasteHeat initially was in balance shortly after the vessel reached space, but a few load/unload cycles later it was generating a large WasteHeat surplus even with the Generator off...)

Also yes, I checked several times that the mod was installed correctly. It is, without a doubt, in the right location.

Regards,

Northstar

The inline radiators are made for atmo craft, they are crap in space...... Use the deployable radiators...

[Fractal_UK]

Soooo... KSP Interstellar has that weird "energy lightning symbol" to the lower right... What does it do? Can I get rid of it?

If you have a generator or microwave receiver or generally any component that produces Megajoules, if you click on it, it will bring up the power management window that tells you about supply and demand of electrical power. I'll see if I can hide it for ships that don't have anything like that.

[cy-one]

If you have a generator or microwave receiver or generally any component that produces Megajoules, if you click on it, it will bring up the power management window that tells you about supply and demand of electrical power. I'll see if I can hide it for ships that don't have anything like that.

Thanks for the explanation, and yes, that'd be greatly appreciated. I got that button without even having anything KSP Interstellar on the craft.

[Fractal_UK]

Any idea whats up with the intercoolers? Without them SSTO's have a hard time getting into orbit, especially heavy ones;)

What do you mean?

I seem to have a recurring problem with the efficiencies on my (always upgraded!) electric generators dipping down to around 0.6%, *AFTER* which WasteHeat often starts to seriously build up due to the reduced efficiency and the fact that it still revs up the reactor to 100% to get that 0.6%... Or, for some reason, a design that once was able to maintain zero WasteHeat, suddenly starts building up a surplus of WasteHeat even with the generator off, and with no significant quantity of Actinides accumulated in the reactor. Or, worse, BOTH happen, like in the case shown here:

I'd really like to know why this keeps occurring...

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm using an (upgraded) 2.5m inline radiator on this space station, it's to reduce lag from independently moving parts, and create fewer parts that can potentially be broken off by a ship attempting to dock with the station passing a little too close...

However, the buildup of WasteHeat is clearly not due to insufficient radiator mass- I also had a similar problems with a station that hosted no fewer than FOUR of the upgraded 2nd-largest deployable radiators, and a 3.75m reactor/generator pair with minimal power drain (just one Science Laboratory), meaning the generator and reactor didn't need to be on most of the time (but, as with this design, WasteHeat initially was in balance shortly after the vessel reached space, but a few load/unload cycles later it was generating a large WasteHeat surplus even with the Generator off...)

I'd hazard a guess that it's happening because you have upgraded radiators and unupgraded reactors - those are a bad combination because the radiator temperature can get as hot the reactor and when that happens efficiency -> 0. The problem can still be solved by more radiators though. Basically, you won't see much benefit of having upgraded radiators until you get upgraded reactors because the upgraded radiators won't be able to get hot enough to work at anywhere near full capacity.

Additionally, those inline radiators are really not designed for radiating the heat of a nuclear reactor in space, it's nowhere near big enough. They're amazing little things in atmosphere but you will need a huge quantity in space to get the job done.

For a 3.75m generator/reactor, four of the second largest radiators might not be enough (at least until you get those reactor upgrades). The second largest radiator dissipates 75MW when unupgraded, without upgraded reactors you won't see substantially more than this even from an upgraded radiator - you might get 100MW. The 3.75m reactor is 3GW thermal upgraded, so four lots of 100MW is not going to do the trick, not even close.

2 of the huge radiators will do the trick though, provided you don't want to run the reactor at full power all the time, if you do, try three or four.

To cool the 1.25m reactor, three or four small deployable radiators or 1 medium deployable radiator will easily handle it.

[Donziboy2]

What do you mean?

I never make it past 27Km because the Intercoolers never come online.....

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-KSP-Interstellar-%28Tweakables-New-ISRU-Preecoolers%29-Version-0-9-%28Beta%29?p=852191&viewfull=1#post852191

[Fractal_UK]

I never make it past 27Km because the Intercoolers never come online.....

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-KSP-Interstellar-%28Tweakables-New-ISRU-Preecoolers%29-Version-0-9-%28Beta%29?p=852191&viewfull=1#post852191

You're using Atmospheric Intakes, that'll be why. I only left those in for compatibility purposes to prevent people's craft not being selectable in the VAB. I'll edit this so that they are no longer selectable in the VAB in future updates (but still remain as a part), I should've thought of doing this already.

Replace those atmospheric intakes with ram intakes and you'll be fine.

[Donziboy2]

You're using Atmospheric Intakes, that'll be why. I only left those in for compatibility purposes to prevent people's craft not being selectable in the VAB. I'll edit this so that they are no longer selectable in the VAB in future updates (but still remain as a part), I should've thought of doing this already.

Replace those atmospheric intakes with ram intakes and you'll be fine.

Bah Atleast its something simple.....

[Donziboy2]

One more question Fractal_UK, I noticed that the Thermal TurboJets particle affects have changed since 0.22. It now has flames no matter if your using Atmo or Fuel, before it was using the jet engine effect for Atmo and Flames for fuel. Is this a bug or as intended?

Atleast until I think up more

Edit....

Ok so I changed out the KSPI Intakes for stock intakes and.... it sucks... The stock intakes bring in less fuel and I have spun out several times when one engine looses thrust....

With the KSPI Intakes I was doing 1 to 1 intake/turbojet I quickly got to 25Km, but with stock intakes I had to level out at 13Km because I lost thrust at 2/3 throttle and almost lost control...

Edit 2...

I ended up not being able to get past 16Km with stock intakes.

Edit 3..

Also appears that the IntakeAir/IntakeATM are not evenly distributed which may be causing flameouts when I still overall have more then half my AIR/ATM left...

Edited December 19, 2013 by Donziboy2

[TheNewGuy]

I've downloaded interstellar, but i'm kinda new with mods, and I can't get some of the parts. But I watch Scott Manley a lot, so I kinda know how it works. But I can't get some of the parts, again. Can anyone help? Maybe its the version? I don't know. But anyone know whats going on here?

Edited December 20, 2013 by TheNewGuy

[RadHazard]

I'm still having issues with solar panels. I loaded up a test ship on the launchpad with the exact same solar panels as my satellites, and they loaded the waste heat module. However, I went to the tracking station and swapped to one of my satellites, and they still aren't loading it. I'm not sure what could be causing this problem.

Link to my log file. I couldn't find anything that looked like a related error to me in the log. I linked it as it was rather long, as it's full of a bunch of "Parsing int/bool/string". I cut off everything before I launched my test craft to keep it at a reasonable length. I didn't touch it otherwise, apart from deleting approximately 3000 lines of "MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'EditorLogic.SetSoftLock'.", which I'm fairly confident isn't related to my issue. I marked the place where they were just in case, though.

[Lightwarrior]

Also tried to use stock intakes and got same result. No matter how much intakes i use one engine will flameout forcing me to shut down them all to avoid loss of control. By this moment i still have lots of intake air/intake atm.

[Fractal_UK]

I'm still having issues with solar panels. I loaded up a test ship on the launchpad with the exact same solar panels as my satellites, and they loaded the waste heat module. However, I went to the tracking station and swapped to one of my satellites, and they still aren't loading it. I'm not sure what could be causing this problem.

Link to my log file. I couldn't find anything that looked like a related error to me in the log. I linked it as it was rather long, as it's full of a bunch of "Parsing int/bool/string". I cut off everything before I launched my test craft to keep it at a reasonable length. I didn't touch it otherwise, apart from deleting approximately 3000 lines of "MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'EditorLogic.SetSoftLock'.", which I'm fairly confident isn't related to my issue. I marked the place where they were just in case, though.

Can you try and see if you can replicate this with just Interstellar installed? Your log file is almost impossible to read because some of your mods are just spamming the log file to hell. The only other thing to check is maybe when you built the satellite, it's theoretically possible that the WasteHeat update to solar panels only happens to solar panels that have been produced in the VAB since the version of Interstellar that started doing this particular update procedure was installed. I'll try and check out this possibility tomorrow - seems unlikely though.

Also tried to use stock intakes and got same result. No matter how much intakes i use one engine will flameout forcing me to shut down them all to avoid loss of control. By this moment i still have lots of intake air/intake atm.

I took out some code in the latest version to try to improve performance, I did not experience problems but these things can all come down to the types of ships you build - I think I have an idea about how I can improve things.

[RadHazard]

Okay, I removed all the mods except interstellar and the stripped-down version of Near Future I got the solar panels from. I built a quick test craft to confirm the solar panels are loading the waste heat module, and then swapped directly to my satellite, which still isn't loading it. I saw in the log that I have a couple errors from some parts who's model paths I forgot to change when I renamed the folder, but none of those are the solar panels that are giving me issues.

Link to log

EDIT: Interesting. I took a look at my persistence file just to see what was there. I found that all the solar panels on my three satellites had this:

MODULE
{
	name = FNSolarPanelWasteHeatModule
	isEnabled = False
	EVENTS
	{
	}
	ACTIONS
	{
	}
}

While my test craft's solar panel had this:

MODULE
{
	name = FNSolarPanelWasteHeatModule
	isEnabled = True
	EVENTS
	{
	}
	ACTIONS
	{
	}
}

For some reason, the waste heat module is present disabled on all of my satellite solar panels. I don't know why, but I hope this helps narrow down the problem. I'll try editing them all to enabled and see if that fixes it.

EDIT2: Actually, I did a search and I'm seeing a lot of disabled solar panel waste heat modules in my file. My Gigantor sats (which were launched before the Near Future ones) have it enabled, but plenty of my landers I launched before that have it disabled. All of those have stock solar panels.

EDIT3: I can confirm that the solar satellites work as expected after I did a find/replace on all the disabled waste heat modules.

Edited December 20, 2013 by RadHazard

[Fractal_UK]

EDIT3: I can confirm that the solar satellites work as expected after I did a find/replace on all the disabled waste heat modules.

I'll try adding that to the OnStart() then and see if that heads off any problems, it shouldn't be needed, I don't why they would be disabled but I'll try it anyway.

In other news, I've actually created some 3D models - an inline refinery part, useful for all those playing with FAR who can't easily launch the standard one, two new methane tanks (one to replace the old methane tank and one a bit smaller and more suited to landers) and a large fusion reactor - suitable for the 2.5/3.75m parts. Both the refinery and the fusion reactor, however, require texturing skills far in excess of my own. If anyone is good at texturing and would be willing to help, please send me a PM, I'd be greatly appreciative.

[hawkinator]

So I found an interesting bug... (a picture, or several, is worth a thousand words)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I can switch to another tab of the parts list and come back, and it will just be there like in the first image until I mouse over it again, then it starts doing it again.

It happens every time I mouse over the part while the part can be seen, and it only affects the ISRU refinery, all other parts from all other mods and Interstellar are fine.

While it is happening, the following is spewed into the debug console and log:

[exception]:ArgumenOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range
Parameter name: index

I have several mods installed and it may very likely be a cross mod interaction. The mods are: Extraplanetary launchpads, Firespitter, KAS, Kethane, and MechJeb2 (dev build 137), plus a few parts mods.

If I've left something out that you'd like to know, please ask.

[Donziboy2]

Ok, Fractal_UK I found out what was causing my Hiccups.... Its due to the game trying to make room in ram since the Texture reduction packs combined with Active Memory Reduction plugin actually increase the memory used....

[imasquare]

Hi Fractal,

I'm looking for the part.cfg to modify for the B9 Aero style scoop, I want to make a 3.75m version of it to mate it to a 3.75m version of the thermal turbojet which...looks awesome when there are 5 of them ploughing you through the atmosphere at 800m/s.

I find I had to scale up the fusion reactors as well. My reasoning is less to do with cheating and more to do with reducing part count so things are less floppy and explodey. It's been tricky doing all the spread sheets and keeping the scaling the same or similar energy levels.

It would be nice if you scaled up all parts to 3.75m, or better yet 5m for when packing it with 5m nova punch parts. I don't really care if the graphics look a bit stretched, it would save me time and part count in having to do it myself and check everything every release...and knowing it's correctly within your scaling as well.

Edit:

Nevermind, it wasn't B9 it was warpAtmIntake. Still it would be nice to see all sizes up to 5m as stock delivery.

Edited December 20, 2013 by imasquare

[Doomydoom]

This mod feels like it's becoming a victim of feature creep. Why are you introducing things like precoolers for jets?

[Deathsoul097]

What tree node is the KSPI lab in? I would really like to use it, but I cant find it.

EDIT: Hawkinator, I get the exact same thing as you, and my save is completely clean other than interstellar. So, no, this is a problem with KSPI itself.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Deathsoul097

[docfish]

Man I love the promise of the later stages of this mod, I've finally sticking with a save long enough to near unlocking some coolness, but I've hit a snag. Ok after much fiddling I believe I might be able to say I've run into a bug with my radiators. Specifically, they radiate just fine before launch, but are nearly ineffective in space. In a sandbox game I chucked 3 big solar panels and 3 small radiators up into lowish orbit (after cleaning out all my other mods to make sure it wasn't my own fault ), I found that the small radiators rated for nearly 18mw were radiating 0.002mw each. Only the two sun-ward panels open, all 3 radiators out and I still was managing to accumulate waste heat (very very slowly though). I'm 0.23, and the screen shots below are without any other mods going, I even fired up steam and had it validate the game cache. I'm at a loss here, in my campaign I'm pretty much ground to a halt because any reasonable amount of power racks up heat so quickly I won't make it to another planets SOI even if I launch right before the window. Oh and one last thing, I deleted interstellar (and it's dependencies) and re-downloaded it, the screen shots are from a sandbox game from after the other mods were removed.

Now if I've done this right, here's a couple screen shots to show the condition I left my test save in:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

This is the first time I've run across something that I actually believe to be a glitch worth reporting to anyone, so if I've left any information out or should try something new by all means chime in, I'm desperate to keep flying so I'll try most anything.

PS. I realize it seems to be saying there's no change to waste heat in that picture, but I opened the radiators *before* the solar panels, which means there shouldn't have been any accumulated (at least that's what past experience has suggested) and the radiators are rated for so much higher than the panels are putting out they should be able to wipe that much in less than a second, and that's after a few minutes.

Edited December 20, 2013 by docfish
one last note...

[Kass]

This mod feels like it's becoming a victim of feature creep. Why are you introducing things like precoolers for jets?

What do you mean exactly?

[Ralathon]

What do you mean exactly?

He means that this mod started out as a warp drive and it now has turbojets and resource maps. I don't think it loses focus though, this entire mod focuses on propulsion methods that we could theoretically use IRL but either don't have the tech or don't have the money for (With the exception of the warp drive, there we lack the negative mass).

[Kass]

He means that this mod started out as a warp drive and it now has turbojets and resource maps. I don't think it loses focus though, this entire mod focuses on propulsion methods that we could theoretically use IRL but either don't have the tech or don't have the money for (With the exception of the warp drive, there we lack the negative mass).

Hmm well sounded like he was whining that Fractal was doing too much work for free for us.

@ Doonydoom. Travelling at hypersonic speeds generates enormous heat. At speeds exceeding mach 5 the intake air temperature exceeds 1000 degree Celsius. The precoolers mechanism that has been introduced allows integration with the B9 pack and specifically the SABRE engine and pre-cooler. The SABRE pre-cooler cools air from 1000 degree C to -150 degree in less than 20 milliseconds and is essential to the functioning of the engines at that speed.

It would be inconsistent, as well as stupid, to have to fit radiators (thus ruining ones aerodynamic profile) to an engine that would obviously overheat when the actual technology exists and the parts for it exist in game. It would then also be inconsistent if you could overheat a rocket engine travelling at that same speed but heat itself didn't affect the jet engines. I personally think it is a great way to homogenize the way all parts work in the game and gives an excuse to fit the really cool looking SABRE pre-coolers to the SABRE engines more than just thinking "these look great even though I know they don't do anything except add mass to my SSTO".

[Donziboy2]

Man I love the promise of the later stages of this mod, I've finally sticking with a save long enough to near unlocking some coolness, but I've hit a snag. Ok after much fiddling I believe I might be able to say I've run into a bug with my radiators. Specifically, they radiate just fine before launch, but are nearly ineffective in space. In a sandbox game I chucked 3 big solar panels and 3 small radiators up into lowish orbit (after cleaning out all my other mods to make sure it wasn't my own fault ), I found that the small radiators rated for nearly 18mw were radiating 0.002mw each. Only the two sun-ward panels open, all 3 radiators out and I still was managing to accumulate waste heat (very very slowly though). I'm 0.23, and the screen shots below are without any other mods going, I even fired up steam and had it validate the game cache. I'm at a loss here, in my campaign I'm pretty much ground to a halt because any reasonable amount of power racks up heat so quickly I won't make it to another planets SOI even if I launch right before the window. Oh and one last thing, I deleted interstellar (and it's dependencies) and re-downloaded it, the screen shots are from a sandbox game from after the other mods were removed.

Now if I've done this right, here's a couple screen shots to show the condition I left my test save in:

http://imgur.com/a/5EJft

This is the first time I've run across something that I actually believe to be a glitch worth reporting to anyone, so if I've left any information out or should try something new by all means chime in, I'm desperate to keep flying so I'll try most anything.

PS. I realize it seems to be saying there's no change to waste heat in that picture, but I opened the radiators *before* the solar panels, which means there shouldn't have been any accumulated (at least that's what past experience has suggested) and the radiators are rated for so much higher than the panels are putting out they should be able to wipe that much in less than a second, and that's after a few minutes.

That is how they are designed, on the launch pad you have an atmosphere that makes dumping heat childs play. In space you have to radiate it, the new mechanic for it means that the hotter it is the more it will radiate. It will heat up until it reaches equilibrium.