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

[Fraz86]

In order to test the effects of doubling reactor heat production and radiator heat transfer, I applied the following patch:

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[FissionReactor]]:Final
{
	@MODULE[FissionReactor]
	{
		@HeatGeneration *= 2
    }
}
@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleGenericRadiator]]:Final
{
	@MODULE[ModuleGenericRadiator]
	{
		@Radiation *= 2
		@RadiationExtended *= 2
    }
}

Then I built this spacecraft:

All reactors stabilized below nominal temperatures. Details are as follows:

[table=width: 500]

[tr]

[td][/td]

[td]Reactor Temp[/td]

[td]Radiator Temp[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]M-EXP[/td]

[td]273[/td]

[td]1161[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]MX-4[/td]

[td]273[/td]

[td]1395[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]MX-1[/td]

[td]352[/td]

[td]1135[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]MX-L[/td]

[td]831[/td]

[td]1123 (GR-1) & 1444 (XR-550)[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]MX-2[/td]

[td]273[/td]

[td]1417[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

Edit:

In order to test the effect of doubled reactor heat on a spacecraft that attempts to use structural heat dissipation in lieu of actual radiators, I used one the the NFT example craft, Deep Space 2, with each of its 4 GR-EXP radiators replaced by a Structural Wing Type D. This modification represents a 25% increase in "radiator" mass, with a 60% decrease in cost. In the original configuration, the reactor stabilizes at 273K. In the modified version (without radiators), the reactor stabilized at 864K. This is well below its critical temperature of 1300K, but above its nominal temperature of 650K. I would personally prefer that it was a bit more punishing, but it's certainly an improvement from before.

Edited May 17, 2015 by Fraz86

[Captain Sierra]

Oh, I almost forgot. Utility tabs is way too crowded, did you concider carrying your reactor and solar panel to a different tabs? I know you can create new tabs, OSE and KIS did it, I think your stuff deserve its own tab.

Nert, he's got a point, but as you've slaved weeks over this, here's what I propose. Finish up what you have and throw it out there. Take a week or so and actually enjoy the game and mods you spends so many hours slaving over. Then come back and do bugfixing, balance tweaking, and this. I'd love to see an "Electrical" tab in there next to Utility where I can find all the solar panels, batteries, RTGs, fuel cells, reactors, & radiators (and insulators if they don't end up in structural).

EDIT: I still stand by the belief that decoupling reactor core and reactor surface temps would be an easier-to-balance setup. Can I ask nicely that you hold on to the older plugin code? I may know almost nil about plugin modding, but I'd love to crack it open and see if I could derive a version that could work in 1.0 (obviously more than a straight recompile here).

Edited May 17, 2015 by Captain Sierra

[MatterBeam]

Just to confirm: NearFuturePropulsionX_5_3 is the latest build for NFP?

Also, two suggestions:

-Electric/Thermoelectric jet engines. I'll create my own .cfg file and share it here if anyone is interested.

-Microwave power relay. It's the only thing of interest to me in KSP-Interstellar, but lately I'm having problem after problem with it, so I just removed everything and stuck with Near Future. Is there any way of converting KSPI's microwave receivers and transceivers into something that works with Nertea's NF-Electrical? Is there any chance of getting a native analogue for this system in Near Future?

Edited May 17, 2015 by TruthQuark

[Captain Sierra]

Just to confirm: NearFuturePropulsionX_5_3 is the latest build for NFP?

Also, two suggestions:

-Electric/Thermoelectric jet engines. I'll create my own .cfg file and share it here if anyone is interested.

-Microwave power relay. It's the only thing of interest to me in KSP-Interstellar, but lately I'm having problem after problem with it, so I just removed everything and stuck with Near Future. Is there any way of converting KSPI's microwave receivers and transceivers into something that works with Nertea's NF-Electrical? Is there any chance of getting a native analogue for this system in Near Future?

As a future thing, maybe. I'd certainly like some kind of ranged power relay. but right now people need to stop suggesting things. THis update has been too long coming and I imagine Nertea's pretty tired working on it.

Thermoelectric jets are, I believe, considered out of scope. And yes, 5.3.X is the latest version on NFP, but its an experimental build.

[MatterBeam]

As a future thing, maybe. I'd certainly like some kind of ranged power relay. but right now people need to stop suggesting things. THis update has been too long coming and I imagine Nertea's pretty tired working on it.

Thermoelectric jets are, I believe, considered out of scope. And yes, 5.3.X is the latest version on NFP, but its an experimental build.

I'm sorry!

I've never suggested anything to Nertea before.

[Nertea]

I have a good feeling about this plan!

I'm not sure I follow you. You mean the number of radiators required to dissipate the heat from an LV-N, for instance? If so, I agree, and doubling the heat transfer should go a long way toward correcting that issue as well.

Yup, exactly!

Hello guys.

First, you guys are awesome. This mod is great.

Second, if I may interject about cost balancing, its ok if reactor cost alot, but the large one are a bit too expessive. On the other side radiator should be relatively cheap. Radiator are not state of art technology after all. Their cost should be cheaper than any home made radiator could be, people should feel encourage to use them.

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot. Utility tabs is way too crowded, did you concider carrying your reactor and solar panel to a different tabs? I know you can create new tabs, OSE and KIS did it, I think your stuff deserve its own tab.

Edit 2: The YZ-1 create alot of drag, regadless of its orientation. And when connection break, there is a bug, center of mass and camera start drifting behind the ship...

The YZ-1 doesn't correctly generate a drag cube, so it's relatively buggered in many ways . I'm going to have to do some price tweaks anyways I expect.

In order to test the effects of doubling reactor heat production and radiator heat transfer, I applied the following patch:

I like this anyalysis, things sit quite in a nice spot. Once I've fixed the bugs with the radiators I will upload a new test build.

Just to confirm: NearFuturePropulsionX_5_3 is the latest build for NFP?

Also, two suggestions:

-Electric/Thermoelectric jet engines. I'll create my own .cfg file and share it here if anyone is interested.

-Microwave power relay. It's the only thing of interest to me in KSP-Interstellar, but lately I'm having problem after problem with it, so I just removed everything and stuck with Near Future. Is there any way of converting KSPI's microwave receivers and transceivers into something that works with Nertea's NF-Electrical? Is there any chance of getting a native analogue for this system in Near Future?

Was planning on collaborating with Rover for something like this in the future, actually. But not soon .

Nert, he's got a point, but as you've slaved weeks over this, here's what I propose. Finish up what you have and throw it out there. Take a week or so and actually enjoy the game and mods you spends so many hours slaving over. Then come back and do bugfixing, balance tweaking, and this. I'd love to see an "Electrical" tab in there next to Utility where I can find all the solar panels, batteries, RTGs, fuel cells, reactors, & radiators (and insulators if they don't end up in structural).

EDIT: I still stand by the belief that decoupling reactor core and reactor surface temps would be an easier-to-balance setup. Can I ask nicely that you hold on to the older plugin code? I may know almost nil about plugin modding, but I'd love to crack it open and see if I could derive a version that could work in 1.0 (obviously more than a straight recompile here).

I'm not leaving the old system around, I'm afraid. too much work to do that, sorry.

[Captain Sierra]

I'm not leaving the old system around, I'm afraid. too much work to do that, sorry.

Not wanting to keep the code in the current version. I mean can you not wipe the 0.90 version of the plugin's source code from existence? Or should I grab a backup of that now?

[Starbuckminsterfullerton]

NTR patches are getting a significant change.

Since you are eventually going to rewrite that patch to include some more stuff, I thought I'd draw your attention to this MM patch in the Atomic Age thread. Maybe you already thought to do it that way, but it's still cleverer than mine since it handles new engines without additional edits.

I like the 2x heat production, it seems to me that the cure for pseudo-radiators is just upping reactor heat and radiator emission until radiators are the only things capable of handling that level of production.

Edited May 17, 2015 by Starbuckminsterfullerton

[Captain Sierra]

Since you are eventually going to rewrite that patch to include some more stuff, I thought I'd draw your attention to this MM patch in the Atomic Age thread. Maybe you already thought to do it that way, but it's still cleverer than mine since it handles new engines without additional edits.

I like the 2x heat production, it seems to me that the cure for pseudo-radiators is just upping reactor heat and radiator emission until radiators are the only things capable of handling that level of production.

Here's hoping that the NTRs get a significant heating reduction come Nertea's patch. I have yet to write that into my custom NTRs cfg.

[cipherpunks]

Nertea, please make it so we're able to "deploy" radiators in VAB/SPH. Much needed to judge clearances etc.

Also, RCS Build Aid says that VX-100, as well as LF-9, and - most of all - VW-10k, has sideways torque in latest dev build. Clustered Hi-SNAP seems to have that fixed. Hadn't checked them all in flight, though.

Edited May 18, 2015 by cipherpunks
add

[Akira_R]

Nertea, please make it so we're able to "deploy" radiators in VAB/SPH. Much needed to judge clearances etc.

Also, RCS Build Aid says that VX-100, as well as LF-9, and - most of all - VW-10k, has sideways torque in latest dev build. Clustered Hi-SNAP seems to have that fixed. Hadn't checked them all in flight, though.

Might I suggest Tweakable Everything?

It should allow you to open them in the VAB, also allow you to open solar panels and just about everything else stock doesn't allow you to do

[cipherpunks]

I'm afraid I have that one installed but still no luck.

[DerekL1963]

I don't particularly like the sheer number of radiators needed to fix stock heating.

Me either... the more I work with LV-N based designs, the more apparent it becomes that while it's doable with the current values, there is a pretty narrow window between "low T/W, blows up because of extended burn time" and "enough motors to hold the burn time down but barely enough space mount enough radiators to avoid blowing up".

[iVG]

Just a quickie - Are the NTR hydrogen configs intentionally mission from the 5.3 download and where can I download configs for nukes to use hydrogen instead?

[Captain Sierra]

Just a quickie - Are the NTR hydrogen configs intentionally mission from the 5.3 download and where can I download configs for nukes to use hydrogen instead?

From the post which contains the download link:

Here, no promises but it's almost 100% stable. No H2 NTRs yet.

[smjjames]

What's an NTR?

[somnambulist]

What's an NTR?

Nuclear Thermal Rocket.

[iVG]

What's an NTR?

Lol

Also I can only make one of the fission reactors to work, the small 400 ec/s one, the rest produce 0 EC?

[Streetwind]

You need to switch them on? Worked fine for me with every reactor in every test build so far, and nobody else reported issues either. If it's not working for you, you may have an installation issue.

[Nertea]

X.4.13

Seems pretty good now. Finally fixed the Tau. Weird, weird bug.

• Fixed radiator on/off persistance
  
• Tried a fixed for conduction problem
  
• Fixed radiator on/off outside of VAB
  
• Fixed Tau radiator's heat properties and drag
  
• Doubled all reactor, radiator and heat pipe thermal properties
  

[Overlocker]

I was going to download this because of the fixes and when I was at Dropbox It said the file was uploading... I think I want things TOO early

[Streetwind]

I'm stuck at work and can't test Hopefully will have time tonight but no promises...

...meanwhile, there's this fun mod I just found: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121987

If the pull request for colored lighting goes through I might try and make a custom config for NF Propulsion.

[SmashBrown]

i'm stuck at work and can't test hopefully will have time tonight but no promises...

...meanwhile, there's this fun mod i just found: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121987

if the pull request for colored lighting goes through i might try and make a custom config for nf propulsion.

do iiiiit!!!

[DerekL1963]

X.4.13

• Doubled all reactor, radiator and heat pipe thermal properties
  

That made a huge difference. A quick test shows that LV-N powered "toss a hundred twenty tons to Jool" monsters will still be challenging, but more modest payloads (on the order of an orange tank) to Duna are much less nerve wracking. (A good place to be I think, Jool should be a challenge.)

I'll recheck the base configurations as soon as I can, I'm especially curious to see how the Sundiver performs near peri.

Also, if Heat Control is (AIUI) intended to be installed separately, shouldn't the folder be renamed to be in line with the other NF mods?

[smjjames]

X.4.13

Seems pretty good now. Finally fixed the Tau. Weird, weird bug.

• Fixed radiator on/off persistance
  
• Tried a fixed for conduction problem
  
• Fixed radiator on/off outside of VAB
  
• Fixed Tau radiator's heat properties and drag
  
• Doubled all reactor, radiator and heat pipe thermal properties
  

Awesome.

*downloads*

Edit: Why the hell does dropbox do a popup asking if you want to register every time I click on a new dropbox download link for the first time?

Edit2: What's the heatcontrol part?

Edit3: What's the best one to keep a nuke engine from overheating?

Edit4: I'm trying to place the radiators directly on the engine (or specifically, the 1.3 meter inline nuke engine from, uh, KWrocketry I believe) and I'm not sure how well it's working, or if I'm doing it right.

Edited May 19, 2015 by smjjames