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

[Fractal_UK]

I, er, feel I should say that it actually broke my game pretty hard, and I had to go back to 0.5. I haven't yet fully investigated why, but the symptom was that whenever I tried to switch to my Munbase or the KSS (which both had nuclear reactors, science labs and MBP parts) the game crashed straight to the desktop.

I did try removing and/or destroying every microwave transmitter I had (that being the part that had vanished... sort of), and that didn't help, so it might be something to do with the nuclear reactors. Ships with no KSPI parts anywhere nearby would load, and I did go to a test save and try launching a science lab with a Stayputnik on top, which worked...

...But in any case, if it's just me seeing this, I'm quite prepared to entertain the possibility that I've just finally reached that critical mass of mods where KSP can't quite handle it anymore. Between this, KAS v.4 and KW v.2.5 it's getting tempting to start over with a new install, and maybe being a bit more selective about just how many mods I really need...

0.6 has a lot of new models and art added, so chances are in 0.5 you were sitting just below KSP's 32bit RAM limit and the 0.6 update has tipped you over causing crashes to desktop. You can fix this by deleting entire mods or, if you want to keep different bits of different mods, just delete the parts you don't really need or use.

Any chance of someone getting this in a plain text table for those that aren't on imgur-friendly networks?

Thankyou!

I'll see what I can do!

Oooh, argon! You should add a pun with the fact that argon sounds like "are gone" like "The engineers now use argon because the xenon supplies argon". Seriously though, what engines do you use for argon?

The plasma engines use Argon. It's just a heavier alternative to Hydrogen, so you can get more thrust and less specific impulse from it.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Donziboy2]

Hmm is this right? My heat production is over 10X what im receiving?

[Fractal_UK]

Hmm is this right? My heat production is over 10X what im receiving?

No, the plasma engine is supposed to be 72% efficient, heat production should be 28% of the power you receive. It seems there is extra divide by TimeWarp.fixedDeltaTime in the code, which is making the heat production too high. Fixed now, cheers.

[Fractal_UK]

Another thing I noticed: The Fusion engine used to be possible to use continuously with an upgraded 3.5m nuclear reactor. Currently, it's the only thing drawing megajoules on my ship, which features an upgraded 3.5m reactor and generator, and an upgraded 2.5m reactor with two generators. The warp drive isn't charging, the ExoticMatter flow is disabled entirely, and I've no science components on the vessel (the A.I. core isn't upgraded yet). It's draining at a rate of about 7166.66...MJ/min, which is enough for six minutes of burning. Granted, it recharges in about twenty-five seconds, but where'd that capability go?

I've figured this out, it appears that the generators weren't detecting the upgraded reactor power output properly under specific conditions - namely depending upon the order of loading of generator and reactor, the generator might think its dealing with an un-upgraded reactor so it only attempts to draw this smaller amount of power. This was indeed due to a subtle alteration to the reactor code in the last update. This issue will be fixed in the next update.

[Ashtoruin]

Okay, so Back to my spacecraft that all the engines were cutting out on, now I'm having the problem that they are producing Thermal Power SUPER Slow, even when the engines aren't running, we're talking like .1 Thermal Power per second per Generator.

[forsaken1111]

Some rocket designs which seem to work just fine are experiencing an oddity on reaching low orbit. When I cut thrust to the rocket, the thermal nozzle suffers a structural failure and falls off. Just the nozzle, and only when I cut thrust once I'm out of the atmosphere.

Edit: After a bit more testing I think it might be some kind of 'bounce back' from cutting thrust on rockets with large masses, but its very weird. Unfortunately you've made it impossible to attach struts to the nozzle so I can't reinforce it.

The rocket in question had an antimatter reactor attached directly to the thermal nozzle.

Edited October 5, 2013 by forsaken1111

[Fractal_UK]

Okay, so Back to my spacecraft that all the engines were cutting out on, now I'm having the problem that they are producing Thermal Power SUPER Slow, even when the engines aren't running, we're talking like .1 Thermal Power per second per Generator.

Don't expect the thermal power bar to fill up if you have electrical generators running, it might but you shouldn't expect that it will, especially if you have something like a charging warp drive on your ship. Try turning the generator(s) off and see what happens to the charging rate then.

Did you try changing the transfer on ThermalPower or getting the info from the KSP.log file for the other thermal rocket problems?

Some rocket designs which seem to work just fine are experiencing an oddity on reaching low orbit. When I cut thrust to the rocket, the thermal nozzle suffers a structural failure and falls off. Just the nozzle, and only when I cut thrust once I'm out of the atmosphere.

Edit: After a bit more testing I think it might be some kind of 'bounce back' from cutting thrust on rockets with large masses, but its very weird. Unfortunately you've made it impossible to attach struts to the nozzle so I can't reinforce it.

The rocket in question had an antimatter reactor attached directly to the thermal nozzle.

Is this a 3.75m rocket, by any chance? Getting those things to hold together is something of an art, both as a player and in terms of cfg values. You should, however, be able to strut downwards onto the thermal rocket to help you keep it together.

[forsaken1111]

I'll try that next launch. I couldn't get the struts to attach to the rocket nozzle at all previously but I could have been derping a bit

[Scotius]

You know what we need now? A moveable, tracking microwave receiver. I have one 'Communotron' dish on my ship facing slightly downward, and it doesn't get any power despite being connected to 4 power sats. I've angled the dish intentionally, because this ship is meant to go to Duna and Jool, so with dish aimed retrograde i would get better connection to sats in Kerbin/Kerbol orbits for most of the journey. Alas, it means very little power input until my ship gets into space and can turn around. Or i have to redesign it with multiple receivers angled by 90 degrees from ship's axis, so they get at least some power. So...zzz, any plans for small receiver antenna that can rotate around? Is it even possible to code such thing to rotate towards strongest source of microwaves, like solar panels track the sun?

[Fractal_UK]

Is it even possible to code such thing to rotate towards strongest source of microwaves, like solar panels track the sun?

Anything is possible with sufficient vector calculus. Actually, pointing an object at a different object is trivially easy compared to the code that rotates the radiators.

[Hremsfeld]

I've figured this out, it appears that the generators weren't detecting the upgraded reactor power output properly under specific conditions - namely depending upon the order of loading of generator and reactor, the generator might think its dealing with an un-upgraded reactor so it only attempts to draw this smaller amount of power. This was indeed due to a subtle alteration to the reactor code in the last update. This issue will be fixed in the next update.

Awesome, thanks for the followup. I've noticed you've fixed a few bugs just these past few pages; any chance of a v6.1 bugfix update?

Speaking of, the antimatter reactors seem to behave strangely. The attachment nodes aren't quite on the top or bottom of the reactors. The collision meshes work just fine, so this isn't The Incredible Levitating Machineâ„¢ or anything. It's stable, so it works, too. It's just a cosmetic thing, I think. I haven't tried getting a kerbal to EVA between them yet.

Edit: Yep, it's possible to walk/jetpack between them.

Say, do you want me to just PM these at you if I find them, instead?

Edited October 5, 2013 by Hremsfeld

[zzz]

antenna that can rotate around?

Not currently but can you describe it in more detail?

Speaking of, the antimatter reactors seem to behave strangely.

Looks like it loads wrong model. Last time I saw this reactor it looked different.

...try to rename NewModel.mu to model.mu in WarpPlugin\Parts\Electrical\AntimatterReactors, I think it will work more consistent than.

Edited October 5, 2013 by zzz

[Exposure]

Not currently but can you describe it in more detail?

I think he wants a dish that can do something like this:

The playtest version of Remotetech 2 features dishes that work like that if you (or maybe Fractal? Not sure how the RT guys got the dishes to track their targets visually) need something for reference.

[Ashtoruin]

Don't expect the thermal power bar to fill up if you have electrical generators running, it might but you shouldn't expect that it will, especially if you have something like a charging warp drive on your ship. Try turning the generator(s) off and see what happens to the charging rate then.

Did you try changing the transfer on ThermalPower or getting the info from the KSP.log file for the other thermal rocket problems?

I changed the cfg to flow all and it worked great. Now though I have 6 1.25m electric gens to 6 antimatter reactors to 6 thermal rockets, the warp drive is fully changed as are the electric generators even though everything is still turned on.

[Hremsfeld]

Looks like it loads wrong model. Last time I saw this reactor it looked different.

...try to rename NewModel.mu to model.mu in WarpPlugin\Parts\Electrical\AntimatterReactors, I think it will work more consitent then.

Alright, I figured it was something like that when I had two sets of the electric generators, identical in all but model (And when it turned the really-nice looking ones into scaled up FT-200 tanks). I'm going to delete my WarpPlugin folder and replace it with a fresh extract. Let's see if this works...

Edit: Yup. Between renaming the .mu and making sure I had the same directory as everyone else, I got the new reactors, and wow are they ominous-looking. This is not at all a bad thing.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Hremsfeld

[Jivaii]

I think he wants a dish that can do something like this:

The playtest version of Remotetech 2 features dishes that work like that if you (or maybe Fractal? Not sure how the RT guys got the dishes to track their targets visually) need something for reference.

Would make sense to me if they based it off the solar panels tracking.

[Fractal_UK]

Awesome, thanks for the followup. I've noticed you've fixed a few bugs just these past few pages; any chance of a v6.1 bugfix update?

Speaking of, the antimatter reactors seem to behave strangely. The attachment nodes aren't quite on the top or bottom of the reactors. The collision meshes work just fine, so this isn't The Incredible Levitating Machineâ„¢ or anything. It's stable, so it works, too. It's just a cosmetic thing, I think. I haven't tried getting a kerbal to EVA between them yet.

Edit: Yep, it's possible to walk/jetpack between them.

Say, do you want me to just PM these at you if I find them, instead?

Yeah, for some reason, you don't have the new antimatter reactor model. It should look like it does in that picture I posted above. Other people have posted images with the antimatter reactor models working, so you might want to check your install.

Specifically, if you just overwrote version 0.5.1 rather than deleting it, you might well have still have the old model file in that directory, at which point it could be a lottery as to which one the game loads. Go into the GameData/WarpPlugin/Parts/Electrical/AntimatterReactors folder and if you see both "Model.mu" and "NewModel.mu" delete "Model.mu".

And yes, I will indeed release a 0.6.1 but I want to make sure everything is working with that before I release it.

[Ashtoruin]

I changed the cfg to flow all and it worked great. Now though I have 6 1.25m electric gens to 6 antimatter reactors to 6 thermal rockets, the warp drive is fully changed as are the electric generators even though everything is still turned on.

Bump. I think it got overlooked with 4 simultaneous posts

[zzz]

I think he wants a dish that can do something like this:

I.e. to rotate? This is to be expected given that it's rotating dish. I can to model something but was interested how he imagine it. I don't know why it's allways hard question.

Edited October 5, 2013 by zzz

[Fractal_UK]

I changed the cfg to flow all and it worked great. Now though I have 6 1.25m electric gens to 6 antimatter reactors to 6 thermal rockets, the warp drive is fully changed as are the electric generators even though everything is still turned on.

Bump. I think it got overlooked with 4 simultaneous posts

I may be missing something here but I don't understand what the problem is? What are you expecting to happen that isn't happening?

[Ashtoruin]

The reactors are running at 0% with less than 10/300000 thermal power

[forsaken1111]

I may be missing something here but I don't understand what the problem is? What are you expecting to happen that isn't happening?

Looks like he's saying there is nothing drawing power but the reactors are still running

The reactors are running at 0% with less than 10/300000 thermal power

Ah, the reactor powers down when there is no energy draw. That isn't a problem.

[Scotius]

I.e. to rotate? This is to be expected given that it's rotating dish. I can to model something but was interested how he imagine it. I don't know why it's allways hard question.

Yes, something like that mobile antenna. Working like solar panels - aiming at closest/strongest source of microwaves. This way no matter where we place it, receiver will do its best to catch as much microwaves as possible. I think kethane detectors work like this - always aiming themselves at the ground.

[Ashtoruin]

Looks like he's saying there is nothing drawing power but the reactors are still running

Ah, the reactor powers down when there is no energy draw. That isn't a problem.

So 6 1.25m Antimatter reactors combined can only run 1 1.25m Thermal Rocket? Because When Im running my rockets, They all run out of thermal power and then all shut down except for one even with all 6 reactors turned on.

[Fractal_UK]

So 6 1.25m Antimatter reactors combined can only run 1 1.25m Thermal Rocket? Because When Im running my rockets, They all run out of thermal power and then all shut down except for one even with all 6 reactors turned on.

I thought you said that changing to flowMode = ALL_VESSEL fixed that?