Ion Engines Flameout But Have Fuel

[crudbasher]

Greetings,

Very strange situation. I have a deep space ship with an Ion probe attached at a jr docking port. This probe carries my Scansat gear. I have used it successfully at Duna and Dres so far. Today I was in orbit around Tylo and detached the probe. I had full Xenon gas tanks and activated the engines. However when I throttled up nothing happened. No gas consumed, no battery used, no thrust, no engine glow. Right clicking on the engines shows that they flameout as soon as I throttle up.

I used the rcs to reattach to the mother ship. As a test, I tried throttling up while attached and they now work! Undock again and they don't work. Very very strange.

The only thing that has changed is I docked a refueling module containing extra Xenon gas to the main ship and then refueled the probe. Somehow this messed something up. It seems as though it doesn't recognize the presence of the two xenon tanks on the probe anymore.

I have looked in the persistence file but didn't see anything obviously wrong.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks much!

Crudbasher

Edited November 7, 2014 by crudbasher

[ratchet freak]

is the battery enabled? (a little red marker on the guage)

[Starman4308]

is the battery enabled? (a little red marker on the guage)

Similarly, are the xenon tanks enabled? Right-click, and if the marker on the right is a little red crossed-O, it's disabled; if it's a green triangle, it's enabled.

[crudbasher]

Hey thanks for replying. Yes the tanks and battery are enabled. I also was able to confirm this in the persistence file.

[Vaporo]

A picture of your craft could also help.

[crudbasher]

Sure here are some pics. The probe is a small cube probe body with jr docking port on top. Then a Z-1k battery (1000 units) a rcs tank, 2 inline xenon tanks then the sar SCANSAT radar on the end. I used cubic struts on the sides to put the engines. Like i said, this design has worked so far.

I have some screenshots but I'll take better ones when I get home.

I wonder if the problem is activating the engines before detatching? Maybe it's setting the xenon source to the main ship?

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Edited November 6, 2014 by crudbasher

[crudbasher]

Ah ok I found it. The fuel tanks were in fact disabled. I didn't do it and I also found a few other fuel tanks around my ship in the same state. Weird.

Thanks much for the help folks!