[WIP] Nert's Dev Thread - Current: various updates

[Plutron]

38 minutes ago, Cochies said:

Hammertong is almost useless in practice, opens very early in a node with simple atomic engines and completely loses to an enriched uranium engine.

Do you perhaps mean the 'Impulse' engine? I get incredibly large DeltaV numbers with the Hammertong.

[Clamp-o-Tron]

48 minutes ago, Cochies said:

I really do not want to criticize, I have been using NERTEA's mods for a long time and with great pleasure.
Yes, the new FF is great, the waterfall is perfect for these engines, the heat mechanics are interesting and much better than the stock one, the model is (as always) at the highest level.
But so far this mod has huge problems with the balance of characteristics.

The NSW atmospheric engine is more powerful and much more efficient than a toroidal thermonuclear engine, although the price is 4 times lower and it is simpler by 2 levels of technology.
Hammertong is almost useless in practice, opens very early in a node with simple atomic engines and completely loses to an enriched uranium engine.

It's WIP. This pre-release is mostly just to work out the bugs in the system. Some of it will be inherently unbalanced because the corresponding engines are overpowered IRL (read: NSWR and Project Orion).

If you have any tweaks, make a PR on github.

[Cochies]

8 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

It's WIP. This pre-release is mostly just to work out the bugs in the system. Some of it will be inherently unbalanced because the corresponding engines are overpowered IRL (read: NSWR and Project Orion).

If you have any tweaks, make a PR on github.

Of course, I understand that WIP. Therefore, I'm talking about the problems here and before the release.))
Of course, everyone can open configs and change anything they want, but it would be a pleasure to see such a high-quality mod without problems on release.

[Plutron]

A lot of the issues have been fixed, great work Nertea! However, after some testing I sadly discovered another bug, a probably unintentional trait of the particle scoop. And possibly a visual bug. 

In the menu of the Fresnel engine 2 'activate engine' buttons are visible as well as the stats of both modes (Note the 2 thrust limiter sliders). But there is a more serious problem present.
It appears that when using the Fresnel fusion engine in 'Reaction Products' mode, the stock heating system kicks in.Although the radiators should provide enough cooling, both the engine and the radiators experience a massive amount of overheating.Ouch!
This doesn't seem to happen when using the hydrogen injection mode though.

Then for the particle scoop (It can be used inline??? Awesome!)Using the scoop in LKO gave me 4*10^8 units of lqdhydrogen per second!!! Perhaps it should be 4*10^-8 units? I'm not complaining but I imagine this isn't intentional.

Then for the visual bug:

The plume of the Clarke fission fragment engine seems to change opacity depending on viewing angle.

When viewed from the side, the beautiful blue plume is clearly visible.

From certain angles however, it turns almost invisible.


I would also like to provide some feedback regarding the different chamber lengths of the Fresnel fusion engine. I feel as if the jumps in heat generation may be a bit too harsh. When building vessels I've noticed that the massive amount of heat generation of the longer versions often completely counteracts the performance increase, resulting in roughly the same DeltaV due to added radiator mass, for a price increase that's incredibly high. Only the TWR seems to profit off of increased chamber lengths at a massive cost.


#ENDGAMENSWR2020

[Nertea]

2 hours ago, Cochies said:

I really do not want to criticize, I have been using NERTEA's mods for a long time and with great pleasure.
Yes, the new FF is great, the waterfall is perfect for these engines, the heat mechanics are interesting and much better than the stock one, the model is (as always) at the highest level.
But so far this mod has huge problems with the balance of characteristics.

The NSW atmospheric engine is more powerful and much more efficient than a toroidal thermonuclear engine, although the price is 4 times lower and it is simpler by 2 levels of technology.
Hammertong is almost useless in practice, opens very early in a node with simple atomic engines and completely loses to an enriched uranium engine.

Yes this is why we are looking at this in dev - to find the bugs but also look at the balance. As I mentioned in the "things to know" section of the post, balance is just beginning. 

I think you must be talking about the Impulse. So right now it is the only 'cheap' engine that can use D-D fusion and achieve decent performance without super-expensive He3. Aside from that it is intended to be strictly entry-level. It is also pretty forgiving in terms of cooling needs. 

The real problem you're getting at is that the NSW engine is fundamentally overpowered. The real life downside is that you shouldn't use it anywhere near humans and that the fuel is expensive. I can certainly make the fuel *more* expensive, but that isn't really a solution. Can  also bump it down the tech tree too... I am open to suggestions!

I honestly would try to look at the mod with the NSWR removed from a balance PoV. It needs to be tackled separately.

 

2 hours ago, ra4nd0m said:

A little request here. I think that ability to start/stop capacitor charge on fusion reactors should be added into SystemHeat control panel. Since fusion reactors could not be started without charged capacitors currently the only option on control panel we have is to turn it off.

How about this? Small capacitor icon + charge progress bar will appear when appropriate. 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Plutron said:

I would also like to provide some feedback regarding the different chamber lengths of the Fresnel fusion engine. I feel as if the jumps in heat generation may be a bit too harsh. When building vessels I've noticed that the massive amount of heat generation of the longer versions often completely counteracts the performance increase, resulting in roughly the same DeltaV due to added radiator mass, for a price increase that's incredibly high. Only the TWR seems to profit off of increased chamber lengths at a massive cost.

Ok worth looking at the spreadsheet a bit.

13 minutes ago, Plutron said:

The plume of the Clarke fission fragment engine seems to change opacity depending on viewing angle.

All the plumes do, but I will see what can be done to help here. 

13 minutes ago, Plutron said:

the scoop in LKO gave me 4*10^8 units of lqdhydrogen per second!!! Perhaps it should be 4*10^-8 units? I'm not complaining but I imagine this isn't intentional.

The exospheric distributions may need to be calibrated a bit, pretty sure the rates are right but the density might be too high.

15 minutes ago, Plutron said:

In the menu of the Fresnel engine 2 'activate engine' buttons are visible as well as the stats of both modes (Note the 2 thrust limiter sliders). But there is a more serious problem present.
It appears that when using the Fresnel fusion engine in 'Reaction Products' mode, the stock heating system kicks in.

Looks like the multi module engine is not configured correctly. I will also have a look

Thank you for all these reports and testing hours!

[ra4nd0m]

51 minutes ago, Nertea said:

How about this? Small capacitor icon + charge progress bar will appear when appropriate. 

Oooo. This is amazing! Even better than I imagined!

Edited November 2, 2020 by ra4nd0m

[Plutron]

Tried to recreate the fdr spacecraft using near future parts. I think it turned out alright (I'm no artist), had to make the solar panels a 'bit' bigger to power the engine though.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Plutron

[ra4nd0m]

I think that the best way to balance everything is to ignore NSWR. Also it can be split into separate submod which will be completely optional.

Unfortunately this engine is both really popular to be must have in such mod like FFT and a terrible nightmare to balance against other engines. It does even more damage to any potential balance than to planetary biospheres in reality.

[Plutron]

Maybe the NSWR needs to be near the end of a tech tree, not because of the material science, or nuclear science needed, but the political science required to convince people to let the ksc use it 

[Clamp-o-Tron]

25 minutes ago, ra4nd0m said:

I think that the best way to balance everything is to ignore NSWR. Also it can be split into separate submod which will be completely optional.

Unfortunately this engine is both really popular to be must have in such mod like FFT and a terrible nightmare to balance against other engines. It does even more damage to any potential balance than to planetary biospheres in reality.

@Nerteaan idea to fix these balance issues for the NSWR is to more fully develop this (GitHub stalking, I know). As far as I can tell it docks reputation points for firing open-cycle nuclear engines in the homeworld's atmosphere.

In the same vein, having neutron radiation be lethal to crew (not like kerbalism, more like "if you go within x meters of the running engine, you will die) could be inherently balancing (IIRC KSPIE does this too).

[ra4nd0m]

3 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

having neutron radiation be lethal to crew

This would apply to every engine in the mod. Not only to NSWR. Everything in this mod is so powerful that it obliterate evereything and everyone in the way. Reputation penalty is good but it is not enough to properly address problems with NSWR. The only possible solution I see except splitting it into a submod is to:

1. Develop some kind of radiation plugin like Kerballism does.

2 Add some heavy penalties for using highly energetic engines based on the plugin mentioned before so it would balance out positive sides.

There are no other way. We can't simply put NSWR into a 100000 science node because it will be unreachable for most installs and terribly grindy for other.

Also simple penalities are terribly boring for players and make this engine "not worth" using without complex system which would handle this.

Solution: just split it up into a submod and/or add warning into it's description.

[Plutron]

Did some more testing, and found some more interesting things!

Concerning the 'Verne' engine, I have found that the engine continues to drain the battery, even after it has been fully charged. Disabling engine charging stops the drainage. I believe more engines have this property, but I forgot to keep track of them.
EDIT: The 'Casaba' engine also keeps draining when fully charged.
Note that the capacitors are at maximum, while the electric charge resource experiences massive draining.

Another thing I discovered with the 'Verne' engine, was that it's sound starts to sputter, and pauses whenever a new pulse unit is loaded if throttle is low enough. 
EDIT: The same is the case with the 'Casaba' engine

I have also discovered some things concerning the 'Asimov' engine.
In Reaction Products mode, the engine doesn't actually produce heat, even though it shows an engine heat generation.

In Afterburning mode, it does produce heat, however it doesn't generate EC. Though the engine states an alternator output of 150 EC/s, a quick peek at my electric charge storage shows that is is being drained. This vessel has no parts that use 150 EC/s or more, so I can conclude that the engine doesn't have power generation in this mode.

 

Finally, I've noticed that due to the thermal scaling fix, certain engines overheat extremely fast unless they have enough radiators. Though certainly fitting for these types of engines, I'm not sure if it is intended. It makes designs relying on short bursts of heating with long cooling periods less viable, though they may have never been intended to work at all. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Plutron

[Nertea]

Ooof bugs coming in faster than I can fix them...

21 hours ago, Plutron said:

Tried to recreate the fdr spacecraft using near future parts. I think it turned out alright (I'm no artist), had to make the solar panels a 'bit' bigger to power the engine though.

I think you could get away with smaller panels, that's 1 MW of power! The engine should only need about 200 kW.

5 hours ago, Plutron said:

Finally, I've noticed that due to the thermal scaling fix, certain engines overheat extremely fast unless they have enough radiators. Though certainly fitting for these types of engines, I'm not sure if it is intended. It makes designs relying on short bursts of heating with long cooling periods less viable, though they may have never been intended to work at all. 

Yeah that is what you get when you have multi-MW heat fluxes. Also note that all fluxes in FFT are about 3 orders of magnitude lower than reality. There are some tools in SystemHeat to use if you want to do short bursts now (heat sink, additional coolant tanks). I'm also suppose to make some more radiators at some point, but who knows if that will happen. 

20 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

@Nerteaan idea to fix these balance issues for the NSWR is to more fully develop this (GitHub stalking, I know). As far as I can tell it docks reputation points for firing open-cycle nuclear engines in the homeworld's atmosphere.

Yes, or I could finish Radioactivity, or something. Really not enough time for those though. 

For now, let's leave the NSWR off to the side in balance discussions.

 

FFT 0.9.2

• Updated SystemHeat to 0.1.3
• Updated SpaceDust to 0.1.4
• Added engine nicknames to part tags
• Added ability to specify a sound curve to ModulePulseEngine and set it up for Casaba, Verne, Hammertong, Impulse; should resolve most sound issues
• Fixed stock heat production of Fresnel engine being enabled in Reaction Products mode
• Fixed beam glow directionality on Clarke FFRE
• Fixed typo in Action group localization for Chargeable Engines
• Fixed CTT patches for a few parts using the old pre-0.9 part names
• Fixed ModuleChargeableEngine still consuming power once the charge process is completed
• Fixed Asimov FFRE not generating power in both modes
• Fixed Asimov FFRE not generating heat in both modes
• Increased ResToLeave for NSWR engine module, should prevent hovering/flickering problems
• Reduced scaling of heat when adding additional segments to the Fresnel

As usual, a bunch of bugfixes do depend on updates to the submods so make sure you have those too.

Note that the bug with multiple engines being active on the Fresnel will require a B9PS update to fix - for now you can fix it by toggling the mode. 

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Nertea

[Plutron]

4 hours ago, Nertea said:

FFT 0.9.2

• Updated SystemHeat to 0.1.3
• Updated SpaceDust to 0.1.4
• Added engine nicknames to part tags
• Added ability to specify a sound curve to ModulePulseEngine and set it up for Casaba, Verne, Hammertong, Impulse; should resolve most sound issues
• Fixed stock heat production of Fresnel engine being enabled in Reaction Products mode
• Fixed beam glow directionality on Clarke FFRE
• Fixed typo in Action group localization for Chargeable Engines
• Fixed CTT patches for a few parts using the old pre-0.9 part names
• Fixed ModuleChargeableEngine still consuming power once the charge process is completed
• Fixed Asimov FFRE not generating power in both modes
• Fixed Asimov FFRE not generating heat in both modes
• Increased ResToLeave for NSWR engine module, should prevent hovering/flickering problems
• Reduced scaling of heat when adding additional segments to the Fresnel

As usual, a bunch of bugfixes do depend on updates to the submods so make sure you have those too

Note that the bug with multiple engines being active on the Fresnel will require a B9PS update to fix - for now you can fix it by toggling the mode. 

Awesome work Nertea! This mod gets better by the day.
 

4 hours ago, Nertea said:

I think you could get away with smaller panels, that's 1 MW of power! The engine should only need about 200 kW.

Hmm the 'Impulse' actually requires 300.103 EC/s. New bug discovered???.  EDIT: Oops, should've looked better, the He3/Deut mode does indeed only need about 200kw. The solar panels are on me, I typically pack more solar panels then needed, in case of bad angles/ larger distance from Kerbol.

 

4 hours ago, Nertea said:

Yeah that is what you get when you have multi-MW heat fluxes. Also note that all fluxes in FFT are about 3 orders of magnitude lower than reality. There are some tools in SystemHeat to use if you want to do short bursts now (heat sink, additional coolant tanks). I'm also suppose to make some more radiators at some point, but who knows if that will happen. 

I thought this would be the case, time to pack some more radiators!

Edited November 3, 2020 by Plutron

[NHunter]

- Enabling fusion reactor via the part actions popup doesn't enable it in "Installed Reactors" control window (one summoned via the button on the righthand side of the game window).  Thus, when the control window is open, reactor shuts down. Enabling reactor in the control window, however, correctly marks the reactor as enabled in part actions popup. (FX-2, FX-3, JR-15 'Discovery', JR-20 'Ouroboros', JR-45 'Fresnel')

- When you highlight JR-20 'Ouroboros', this happens:

Edited November 3, 2020 by NHunter

[drakon55]

Hi! Just wanted to say this mod is very sick, I've been experimenting some but I haven't found any bugs. A balance recommendation though, it might make sense to move fusion reactors from electric branch to the fusion rocket branches, since a fusion reactor is basically a fusion rocket without a nozzle. Would make more sense than having it in advanced electrical imo. 

[L1L1TH]

Hey, I have alot of problems with FFT. One is that Systemheat is not working properly, I put alot of radiators on a vessel to keep the "Clarke" Engine cool. But its temperature still went up like crazy, once I even just throttled a bit in orbit. The crafts temperature went insane from like 0 up to 120000Kelvin in just a split second.

 

Also the other bug that I have happens because of WaterfallRestock. I see white little pixels appearing on the engine's back, also when I select an engine or hover with the mouse over it. The plume seems to be a physical object attached to the engine which is weird. basically same problem as NHunter!

 

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by TR_HyDra

[NHunter]

@TR_HyDra, which radiators did you use? If they were static, did you actually turn them on? At least of non-folding radiators start as deactivated but SystemHeat helper doesn't account for that while in VAB/SPH. That said, such a quick overheating looks suspicious. (on a loosely-related note, should an idle fusion reactor have MBR temperature of 3K?)

Yeah, I see white dots too, but it is generally not something too bothersome, so I can safely ignore it. And as far as I've experimented, JR-20 is the only engine that has the problem with "something ghostly" being attached to the actual engine.

Edited November 4, 2020 by NHunter

[TBenz]

1 hour ago, TR_HyDra said:

Systemheat is not working properly, I put alot of radiators on a vessel to keep the "Clarke" Engine cool. But its temperature still went up like crazy, once I even just throttled a bit in orbit. The crafts temperature went insane from like 0 up to 120000Kelvin in just a split second.

What does the system heat UI say in the editor? Do you actually have sufficient radiators for your vessel according to that? What type of radiators are you using?

The stock radiators have such abysmal performance that Heat Control seems almost mandatory to cool these engines without using hundreds of radiators.

[Nertea]

3 hours ago, drakon55 said:

Hi! Just wanted to say this mod is very sick, I've been experimenting some but I haven't found any bugs. A balance recommendation though, it might make sense to move fusion reactors from electric branch to the fusion rocket branches, since a fusion reactor is basically a fusion rocket without a nozzle. Would make more sense than having it in advanced electrical imo. 

Last update should have fixed this, under CTT they should be Fusion Power and Advanced Fusion Reactions. 

On 11/3/2020 at 11:56 AM, NHunter said:

- Enabling fusion reactor via the part actions popup doesn't enable it in "Installed Reactors" control window (one summoned via the button on the righthand side of the game window).  Thus, when the control window is open, reactor shuts down. Enabling reactor in the control window, however, correctly marks the reactor as enabled in part actions popup. (FX-2, FX-3, JR-15 'Discovery', JR-20 'Ouroboros', JR-45 'Fresnel')

- When you highlight JR-20 'Ouroboros', this happens:

 

1. Good catch, will be fixed next SH update.

2. I just tried to reproduce this, and I can't. Can anyone else do so? If so, please provide more information, KSP version, other mods, etc...

1 hour ago, TR_HyDra said:

Hey, I have alot of problems with FFT. One is that Systemheat is not working properly, I put alot of radiators on a vessel to keep the "Clarke" Engine cool. But its temperature still went up like crazy, once I even just throttled a bit in orbit. The crafts temperature went insane from like 0 up to 120000Kelvin in just a split second.

Repeating what TBenz said, what did you actually put on it? SH has a whole UI dedicated to telling you when there are enough radiators. If that UI tells you things are fine, and it's not fine, that's a bug. If not, it isn't (add more radiators).

Screenshots of the ship with the radiators and the UI open would help too. 

1 hour ago, TR_HyDra said:

Also the other bug that I have happens because of WaterfallRestock. I see white little pixels appearing on the engine's back, also when I select an engine or hover with the mouse over it. The plume seems to be a physical object attached to the engine which is weird. basically same problem as NHunter!

If it is a bug with Waterfall then you should post it in Waterfall. I also can't reproduce this issue and need more details. Previously some small dots appeared in older KSP versions with a post-processing mod installed, so give me some info there. 

32 minutes ago, NHunter said:

(on a loosely-related note, should an idle fusion reactor have MBR temperature of 3K?)

No! good find, the temperatures are not configured right for the two fusion reactors. They are set to 5-6k K, should be around 1400K. 

[Plutron]

9 hours ago, Nertea said:

I just tried to reproduce this, and I can't. Can anyone else do so? If so, please provide more information, KSP version, other mods, etc...

I was able to reproduce it. Hmm, really strange.
Currently running on KSP 1.10.1
Modlist as follows:
SpaceDust
SystemHeat
FarFutureTech
WaterFall
B9 Part Switch
Community Resource Pack
Community Tech Tree
Cryo Tanks
Cryo Tanks Core
Cryogenic Engines
Deployable Engines Plugin
Dynamic Battery Storage
Heat Control
Kerbal Actuators
Kerbal Engineer Redux
Kerbal Joint Reinforcement Continued
Kerbal Reusability Expansion
Mark IV Spaceplane System
Mechjeb 2
Module Manager
Near Future Aeronautics
Near Future Construction
Near Future Electrical
Near Future Electrical Core
Near Future IVA Props
Near Future Launch Vehicles
Near Future Propulsion
Near Future Solar
Near Future Solar Core
Near Future Spacecraft
RasterPropMonitor
RasterPropMonitor Core
ReStock
Restock+
Stockalike Station Parts Expansion Redux

Link to Outputlog:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-GYMZwYaaS5ZEQ0TldEUVk3dXc/view?usp=sharing

[NHunter]

9 hours ago, Nertea said:

No! good find, the temperatures are not configured right for the two fusion reactors. They are set to 5-6k K, should be around 1400K. 

Uhm... I meant <off>, not <idle>, but either way, it's temperature falls below that of environment, which should not be the case: "space temperature" in LKO is around 200K.

And speaking of fusion reactors... while should probably go into SystemHeat, I'll still post it there since we're talking about it here already anyway: 
- FX-2 and FX-3 reactors seem to have wrong icon for SystemHeat overlay. Shouldn't it be <science> or <nuclear> ?
- Both reactors also show temperature output of NaN in VAB.

9 hours ago, Nertea said:

2. I just tried to reproduce this, and I can't. Can anyone else do so? If so, please provide more information, KSP version, other mods, etc...

KSP v1.10.1 build 02939 (steam/master); FFT v0.9.2; SystemHeat v0.1.3; Waterfall v0.2.3; SpaceDust v0.1.4

As for mods... Well... I might have a bit too many of those. But as far as I know, none should interfere with models from FFT to cause the highlighting issue.

[WarriorSabe]

On 11/3/2020 at 11:56 AM, NHunter said:

- When you highlight JR-20 'Ouroboros', this happens:
<image>

While I haven't tried FFT itself yet personally, I definitely recognize that as being from Waterfall - some (re)stock engines had their exhaust meshes highlight along with the engine mesh.

[Nertea]

I discovered I couldn't reproduce it because it turns out these fancy glowy edge highlights only work with AA on, and well, my laptop doesn't love that. So I can reproduce it now, which is progress!

4 hours ago, NHunter said:

Uhm... I meant <off>, not <idle>, but either way, it's temperature falls below that of environment, which should not be the case: "space temperature" in LKO is around 200K.

 

Space temperature everywhere is treated as the CMB temp.

4 hours ago, NHunter said:

And speaking of fusion reactors... while should probably go into SystemHeat, I'll still post it there since we're talking about it here already anyway: 
- FX-2 and FX-3 reactors seem to have wrong icon for SystemHeat overlay. Shouldn't it be <science> or <nuclear> ?
- Both reactors also show temperature output of NaN in VAB.

I'll check it out.

[Nertea]

FFT 0.9.4: slowly having less bugs to fix every version

• Updated SystemHeat to 0.1.4
• Updated Waterfall to 0.2.4
• Clarke FFRE can no longer pull fuel from Uranium containers elsewhere on the ship
• Fixed fusion reactor thermal properties (outlet temperatures to 1600K, made thermal output consistent)
• Fixed fusion reactors showing the wrong icon in the thermal overlay
• Fixed fusion reactors not generating heat in the VAB simulator
• Fixed NSWR meshes again