Realism Overhaul Discussion Thread

[Jovus]

You beat me to this post by about ten seconds.

[Phineas Freak]

@Bornholio A fair note about the radiators: not all of them are equal. Currently, there are two different categories, the "ambient" and the "cryogenic" ones. The "ambient" can only cool down to approximately 290K and the "cryogenic" ones to 20K.

Ambient radiators:

• EATCS Radiator Panel (Fin)
• EATCS Radiator Panel (Short)
• EATCS Radiator Panel (Long)
• Thermal control system (large).

Cryogenic radiators:

• Thermal control system (small)
• Thermal control system (medium)

Note that they are "misconfigured": the retractable radiator panels are modeled after the ISS radiators, so they should be set as "ambient" ones. A better solution would be to create "cryogenic" copies of the radially - attached panels.

@Gordon Dry this "expansion" is not meant to be a mod (and that is why it does have a "release"). It is just a collection of global MM patches, PP textures and custom parts that are/were missing from my RSS/RO/RP-0 installations. The RP-0 tech tree was a first try to finally set up a non - broken one but, as i have never really played KSP since version 0.90, i did not have the motivation to finish it.

TL;DR: it is not a mod, no support is provided for it, use it if you want at your own risk.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Phineas Freak
Typo

[NSEP]

I always need 10,4km/s of Delta-V to get into orbit, but sources like wikipedia say you only need 9,4km/s. I have seen some that say you only need 8,6km.

Are my launches just inefficient? Is wikipedia wrong? What is going on?

Nvm figured it out its gravity and drag.

Thanks by the way, for creating this awesome modpack community.

 

Edited June 6, 2017 by NSEP

[Bornholio]

4 hours ago, Phineas Freak said:

@Bornholio A fair note about the radiators: not all of them are equal. Currently, there are two different categories, the "ambient" and the "cryogenic" ones. The "ambient" can only cool down to approximately 290K and the "cryogenic" ones to 20K.

Ambient radiators: EATCS Radiator Panel (Fin),EATCS Radiator Panel (Short), EATCS Radiator Panel (Long), Thermal control system (large).

Cryogenic radiators: Thermal control system (small),Thermal control system (medium)

Note that there are "misconfigured": the retractable radiator panels are modeled after the ISS radiators, so they should be set as "ambient" ones. A better solution would be to create "cryogenic" copies of the radially - attached panels.

 

Ah. I needed to look closer at all of them.  I was assuming the TCS large was and tested it.

[Motokid600]

How viable is aerobraking in RSS/RO? I imagine it tricky for Mars... Deadly for gas giants?

Edited June 8, 2017 by Motokid600

[Bornholio]

Hard for Mars, need light payload, large area drag enclosures. Venus is tricky you have to hit the right band or either thermal hits too hard or G forces.  Never got a Jupiter capture below 26G. Aerobraking is easy, do it all the time, earth, mars, Jupiter. Needs to be properly tested to get the right depth or you will be sucked in or have a uselessly weak effect.  Multipass can burn up ablator like mad.

[wb99999999]

I have encountered a very strange issue...

I've been messing with procedural SRBs, and it occurred to me that whenever I set the burn time below 2 minutes (120 seconds), the booster bugs and reset the burn time to 2 minute and 14 seconds  (and thrust level correspondingly) upon loading the craft on the launch pad. The parts work fine when burn time is set anywhere above 2 minutes, but as soon as I lower it below 2 minute, it bugs out and resets the time.

Any clues on how to fix this?

[KerbolExplorer]

does enybody knows how to build a plane

[regex]

Is there a mod I need in order for the 28N cold gas thrusters (attitude jets) that show up early in RP-0 to work? I have them surface attached to a fuselage proc tank filled with nitrogen, they don't work. I've deactivated and activated them, staged them, checked for a crossfeed tweakable, everything I can think of.

[Theysen]

5 minutes ago, regex said:

Is there a mod I need in order for the 28N cold gas thrusters (attitude jets) that show up early in RP-0 to work? I have them surface attached to a fuselage proc tank filled with nitrogen, they don't work. I've deactivated and activated them, staged them, checked for a crossfeed tweakable, everything I can think of.

We had the exact same question on the IRC today.

The thruster isn't placed at the Center of Mass?

[regex]

19 minutes ago, Theysen said:

We had the exact same question on the IRC today.

The thruster isn't placed at the Center of Mass?

COM shouldn't matter, it's not activating at all. I've done two tests so far and I don't think either was at COM.

[Theysen]

3 minutes ago, regex said:

COM shouldn't matter, it's not activating at all. I've done two tests so far and I don't think either was at COM.

Can you share the .craft? I'd like to test that myself too. RCS didn't change and doesn't require any new mods.

[regex]

1 hour ago, Theysen said:

Can you share the .craft? I'd like to test that myself too. RCS didn't change and doesn't require any new mods.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3inxvqezhcdze9q/RCS Test.craft?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/220bkzghoe6nzn1/OR-A Kestrel.craft?dl=0

 

[Theysen]

10 hours ago, regex said:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3inxvqezhcdze9q/RCS Test.craft?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/220bkzghoe6nzn1/OR-A Kestrel.craft?dl=0

 

RCS_Test craft has the thrusters too close to the CoM to make an impact on attitude control, it is draining nitrogen though but the lever arm around the CoM is too short to make KSP realize what you want to do. IIRC that is due to stock code and implementation of the RCS module.

I unfortunately can't open your second craft yet - going to install the part mods. brb

 

EDIT: The Kestrel's RCS on the AJ stage works fine here.

Edited June 18, 2017 by Theysen

[kerbinorbiter]

just a quick question how does RO make the performance very very very good? (i think its RO that does that just wondering because its amazing how it is done)

[Mr. Sandman]

I have to do a Mars Direct-like mission and I need to produce fuels In-Situ.Here comes the problem...Real Fuels uses complex fuels and the stock ISRUs produce only Monopropellant/Liquid Fuel/Oxidizer.So here's the question : Is there a way/mod to fix this?Do you have plans of integrating ISRU with Real Fuels production?

[TheRagingIrishman]

3 hours ago, Mr. Sandman said:

I have to do a Mars Direct-like mission and I need to produce fuels In-Situ.Here comes the problem...Real Fuels uses complex fuels and the stock ISRUs produce only Monopropellant/Liquid Fuel/Oxidizer.So here's the question : Is there a way/mod to fix this?Do you have plans of integrating ISRU with Real Fuels production?

 

[regex]

8 hours ago, Theysen said:

EDIT: The Kestrel's RCS on the AJ stage works fine here.

Do you know if there are any mods missing from a CKAN install? Maybe I've got something else installed causing the issue...

[Kertherina]

How are you supposed to land on Venus? I made a successful entry just yesterday and even successfully landed in previous versions of KSP / RO, but now once i reach 4000kPa pressure everything just explodes. Since as far as i know there are simply no parts that can withstand more than that (i've looked through most of the tech tree), how can you make things not explode before reaching the ground? Should you simply not use the option where pressure can destroy parts?

Edited June 24, 2017 by Kertherina

[Wisq]

So I'm having some serious heat issues:

1: If I have any cryogenic fuels on board, heat goes nuts as soon as I cross from 100x to 1000x time warp.  I understand that this is when Kerbal goes from "simulation mode" to "analytical mode" as far as heat is concerned, so I'm assuming this is the cause.  Now, I fully understand that there's boil-off of cryogenic fuels, but the tanks aren't actually the problem — what happens is, other components on my ship start overheating and exploding, almost always starting with my communication antennae (I think because they have the lowest heat tolerance?).

2: I can't survive reentry to save my life.  I've tried what ought to be the absolute gentlest reentry possible — starting from a circular orbit just above the atmosphere (140.1km) and then dropping my perigee to some reasonable number (generally in the 90km to 110km range).  Every time, what happens is, my parachute (Mk16) overheats and explodes first, and then my capsule next.  If I put the lunar-rated 2m heat shield on it, then the capsule survives okay, but the parachute still burns up, so it's game over for the capsule anyway.

Given that these bugs both involve heat (albeit different issues in different modes), I'm wondering if I've got some mess-up in that area?

I've got RP-0 and all dependencies and recommendations installed, except TestFlight.  I've also got a few extra mods on top of that, but none of them should be touching heat.  If those are the suspected cause, I can try a fresh install plus RP-0, but I'm hoping this is a known issue and/or I'm just doing something wrong.

[Aelfhe1m]

3 minutes ago, Wisq said:

2: I can't survive reentry to save my life.  I've tried what ought to be the absolute gentlest reentry possible — starting from a circular orbit just above the atmosphere (140.1km) and then dropping my perigee to some reasonable number (generally in the 90km to 110km range).  Every time, what happens is, my parachute (Mk16) overheats and explodes first, and then my capsule next.  If I put the lunar-rated 2m heat shield on it, then the capsule survives okay, but the parachute still burns up, so it's game over for the capsule anyway.

Very shallow re-entries give much more time for heat to build up (and the capsule experiences less braking and stays faster longer as well). The amount of heat being generated at any given instant may be lower but the total amount of heat is greater. I generally use about 50-60km as a ballpark figure for re-entry pe.

[Wisq]

6 hours ago, Aelfhe1m said:

Very shallow re-entries give much more time for heat to build up (and the capsule experiences less braking and stays faster longer as well). The amount of heat being generated at any given instant may be lower but the total amount of heat is greater. I generally use about 50-60km as a ballpark figure for re-entry pe.

Okay, it looks like the problem was either the Mk16 parachute itself, or how it was fitting on my craft.  I replaced it with a RealChute Cone Chute, one size smaller than default (so it was flush with the capsule), and didn't have any problems any more.

Looking at the thermal debug info, it looks like the problem was that the Mk16 was getting ridiculous external skin temperatures, in the 1000ºK+ range.  (The cone chute never went above 600ºK skin temperature.)  In every test I did — 60km, 50km, 40km, 30km — the Mk16 parachute would catch fire at 70km altitude and explode before 60km altitude, long before I was seeing even just 1G of deceleration, while my speed was still up in the region of 6000 m/s.  So there was just no hope of using that one.

Edit: Are the margins supposed to be this tight, though?  I mean, with only a capsule and a parachute, at almost any reentry angle, from the bare minimum possible orbit (140.1km), I'm either coming out of reentry with only ~3 ablator left, or I'm just barely running out and blowing up, at almost any choice of perigee altitude — I've tried as high as 90km and as low as 30km.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Wisq

[wb99999999]

4 hours ago, Wisq said:

Edit: Are the margins supposed to be this tight, though?  I mean, with only a capsule and a parachute, at almost any reentry angle, from the bare minimum possible orbit (140.1km), I'm either coming out of reentry with only ~3 ablator left, or I'm just barely running out and blowing up, at almost any choice of perigee altitude — I've tried as high as 90km and as low as 30km.

Your case sounds like incorrect/faulty thermal configs on the mods... you may want to check if you have the RO patches correctly installed. Are you using CKAN or did you do a manual install? Did you install Realheat?

[Wisq]

1 hour ago, wb99999999 said:

Your case sounds like incorrect/faulty thermal configs on the mods... you may want to check if you have the RO patches correctly installed. Are you using CKAN or did you do a manual install? Did you install Realheat?

Yeah, installed via CKAN, just asked for RP-0 and accepted all the recommendations, etc.  RealHeat is definitely installed.  Zero non-CKAN mods installed.

Interesting note: TestFlight does not get installed by default, despite being in the Recommended list for RP-0.  (Just tested with a fresh install.)  I'll see if any other mods are missing.

Edit: PersistentRotation is also Recommended by Realism Overhaul but missing.  And by "missing" I mean "did not show up at all on the recommended list when I hit Apply Changes" — I didn't deselect anything.  (However, I specifically installed it in my game.)  It also doesn't install the recommended mods "Realism Overhaul Craft Files" and "RSS Date Time Formatter" (which I don't have installed).

Are we looking at a bug in CKAN here … ?  But I don't think any of those mods would have affected my heat issues.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Wisq

[wb99999999]

10 minutes ago, Wisq said:

Are we looking at a bug in CKAN here … ?  But I don't think any of those mods would have affected my heat issues.

It seems to me that your heat load problem sounds a lot like when I played RSS without RO (and thus default thermal settings), but if you got the entire RO bundle this is probably not the case then. Just a reminder that the standard MK1 capsule has a LEO-rated heat shield built-in with RO, and both MK1 and MK2 capsules should survive a low orbit reentry WITH EASE especially if you do a ballistic (non-lifting) reentry: they probably would survive a negative perigee if you have them plunges into the atmosphere steeply and decelerate rapidly. So what I am saying is no, there's definitely something wrong going on with your install. CKAN is unlikely to have a lot to do with it though...