What have they done to electric charge drain??

[boxman]

I just forgot to add solar panels and RTG and yet there is no drain at all when using time warp??

Please dont tell me this is a new "feature"???

I really hope this is a bug or else it will make it pointless to include energy supply for interplanetary trips.

[Rithsom]

Electricity only drains when using probes. Perhaps you're using a command pod?

[Tortoise]

Yes it's some bug. Do you have unlimited fuel enabled or something?

Rthsom: if he has SAS enabled I believe it drains too

[robopilot99]

It's an issue that has been around for quite a while. No resources are consumed while timewarping. You're just gonna have to live with it until the devs fix it.

[Starman4308]

If you are using a vessel which only has manned command pods, it is possible to have 0 electrical consumption. If you are using a probe core or other electricity-leaking part, though, I don't know what's going on; I've always had electricity deplete through timewarp on the dark side of moons, though that might be a consequence of one of the mods I use.

[boxman]

Electricity only drains when using probes. Perhaps you're using a command pod?

It is draining energy when playing in realtime but during timewarp it drains 0. I know for a fact that I have run out with manned capsules before even though they generated a tiny bit of energy.

Not only that, but once you ran out you were completey screwed with all input being locked. That seems also to be a thing of the past since the last times i ran out of energy a few versions ago you could still throttle up and recharge.

[boxman]

It's an issue that has been around for quite a while. No resources are consumed while timewarping. You're just gonna have to live with it until the devs fix it.

If it is a bug then I am fine with it. I just feared this was another one of those features to make the game easier.

[NathanKell]

There are three relevant conditions here:

1. Vessel is not under timewarp ("loaded / off rails"). All modules work normally.

2. Vessel is under timewarp, but the active vessel ("on rails"). Charge generation and drain is sped up, with occasional bugs (fewer now that ModuleGenerator finally got fixed).

3. Vessel is unloaded (not the active vessel, not within 2.5km; i.e. you have two vessels, and this isn't the active one, or you're at the space center / tracking station / whatever): nothing happens.

[Alshain]

Yes it's some bug. Do you have unlimited fuel enabled or something?

Rthsom: if he has SAS enabled I believe it drains too

SAS only drains if your using it to turn the ship. If you have a command pod and no other energy draining sources, it is possible to not lose any power despite not having a charging source.

[boxman]

Yes it's some bug. Do you have unlimited fuel enabled or something?

Rthsom: if he has SAS enabled I believe it drains too

No unlimited fuel. It drains like it should as long as i am not in timewarp.

[Random Tank]

It is draining energy when playing in realtime but during timewarp it drains 0. I know for a fact that I have run out with manned capsules before even though they generated a tiny bit of energy.

Not only that, but once you ran out you were completey screwed with all input being locked. That seems also to be a thing of the past since the last times i ran out of energy a few versions ago you could still throttle up and recharge.

You didn't really answer the question here...

Right, this is entirely dependant on if you are using a probe or a kerballed capsule.

Probes consume a small amount if electric charge all the time, they need it to function, and as soon as it runs out completely, the probe shuts down and you can't control it anymore, it's dead.

Capsules do not require electric charge to function, and therefore do not consume it; if it runs out, they don't care, you can still control everything on the ship, apart from one thing. Both probes and capsules have reaction wheels, which is the most common method of turning the ship, but these require electricity, and once it runs out, these can't turn the ship.

So on a capsule that has run out of electric charge, you can still change everything and throttle up and stuff, you just won't be able to turn (unless you have RCS); on a probe though, nothing will work and it's dead.

These only apply when the ship is in focus though, if you go into thre tracking station and time warp, no ship will consume any electric charge, as they can only do that when in focus.

[boxman]

You didn't really answer the question here...

Right, this is entirely dependant on if you are using a probe or a kerballed capsule.

Probes consume a small amount if electric charge all the time, they need it to function, and as soon as it runs out completely, the probe shuts down and you can't control it anymore, it's dead.

Capsules do not require electric charge to function, and therefore do not consume it; if it runs out, they don't care, you can still control everything on the ship, apart from one thing. Both probes and capsules have reaction wheels, which is the most common method of turning the ship, but these require electricity, and once it runs out, these can't turn the ship.

So on a capsule that has run out of electric charge, you can still change everything and throttle up and stuff, you just won't be able to turn (unless you have RCS); on a probe though, nothing will work and it's dead.

These only apply when the ship is in focus though, if you go into thre tracking station and time warp, no ship will consume any electric charge, as they can only do that when in focus.

I know for a fact that I have run out of electricity in the past using a manned capsule, as I both stranded kerbals and also in desperation tried to extend solar panels manually, since the controls including even the throttle locked up after i ran out.

And this ship was also in focus all the time and yet used 0 electriity during timewarp while in realtime doing nothing it drained electricity. So something definitely has changed. I have no idea when things have changed, since it has been quite a while since i forgot to include anything that generates power.

[Random Tank]

And this ship was also in focus all the time and yet used 0 electriity during timewarp while in realtime doing nothing it drained electricity. So something definitely has changed. I have no idea when things have changed, since it has been quite a while since i forgot to include anything that generates power.

You still haven't answered the question... Does this ship have a kerballed Capsule, a Probe Core, or both??

As I said earlier, the capsule doesn't use electric charge, but its reaction wheels do, and SAS will use these to keep the craft stable, so using electric charge even if you aren't turning the ship; but as someone else said earlier, the ship can't rotate during time warp, therefore the reaction wheels can't function, and (I assume) you are using a capsule, they don't use electric charge, so that's why it doesn't use charge while time warping.

I know for a fact that I have run out of electricity in the past using a manned capsule, as I both stranded kerbals and also in desperation tried to extend solar panels manually, since the controls including even the throttle locked up after i ran out.

This isn't stock behaviour. A capsule does not require or use electric charge, so it will still be controllable when charge is depleted; the only thing that won't work is its reaction wheels, so you wouldn't be able to turn the ship without RCS. The only reason why you wouldn't be able to control the ship is: You were still time warping; the capsule had no kerbal in it; or you have a mod that changes this behaviour, as in Stock 0.25 that ship would still be controllable.

[magnemoe]

Stock an pod don't use power if sas is off. An probe does. With TAC life support pods use power.

If not loaded, nothing uses power, if it used power it would cause problems unless you also calculated solar panel input during warp and this would be cpu intensive.

Imagine the problem, you have an probe, you launch it to orbit, extend solar panels, it also have batteries and static one as backup, however you leave the probe in darkness,

14 days later kerbal alarm clock call you back for the burn to intercept the astroide, you are also now in the shadow of kerbin and probe is out of power.

That is even if the power system is overkill for your probe.

Yes they could have done something like average power input, static solar panels has an 0.3 efficient factor, the other more like 0.6.

TAC does something like this on life support, it calculate resource uses, then refund if you have water or air recycles.

[lajoswinkler]

You can also turn off the battery and later turn it back on. You couldn't do that before (realism), and now you can (fantasy).

[Overfloater]

boxman: your ship doesn't constantly consume power if there isn't a probe core on it.

A ship with no probe core consumes power because the SAS is always working to stabilize it, because when not warping it's never 100% still.

[Wanderfound]

You can also turn off the battery and later turn it back on. You couldn't do that before (realism), and now you can (fantasy).

Batteries aren't turned off, but they can be temporarily isolated from the rest of the system. This is no more "unrealistic" than temporarily removing the batteries from your torch to prevent in from turning on while it's in your rucksack.

[sal_vager]

You can also turn off the battery and later turn it back on. You couldn't do that before (realism), and now you can (fantasy).

Batteries aren't turned off, but they can be temporarily isolated from the rest of the system. This is no more "unrealistic" than temporarily removing the batteries from your torch to prevent in from turning on while it's in your rucksack.

Or, you know, flipping a switch

You know switches? Or maybe they're called toggles? Pretty common in electrical circuits really...

Edited November 16, 2014 by sal_vager

[boxman]

You still haven't answered the question... Does this ship have a kerballed Capsule, a Probe Core, or both??

As I said earlier, the capsule doesn't use electric charge, but its reaction wheels do, and SAS will use these to keep the craft stable, so using electric charge even if you aren't turning the ship; but as someone else said earlier, the ship can't rotate during time warp, therefore the reaction wheels can't function, and (I assume) you are using a capsule, they don't use electric charge, so that's why it doesn't use charge while time warping.

This isn't stock behaviour. A capsule does not require or use electric charge, so it will still be controllable when charge is depleted; the only thing that won't work is its reaction wheels, so you wouldn't be able to turn the ship without RCS. The only reason why you wouldn't be able to control the ship is: You were still time warping; the capsule had no kerbal in it; or you have a mod that changes this behaviour, as in Stock 0.25 that ship would still be controllable.

I think i made it clear enough that it was a manned capsule and not a probe core. And not being able to control the ship is a behaviour I said vanished in past which used to be there in stock game even when using only a manned capsule. The lack of electric drain at all in timewarp is something new.

And about lack of control when energy runs out... It was definitely not time warp. If i was in time warp there would be no way to EVA and try to extend panels. I have also seen other people getting their kerbals stranded just because they forgot solar panels/rtg even though it was NOT controlled by a probe core.

My guess is that you are new to the game and started playing after these changes took place.

[boxman]

boxman: your ship doesn't constantly consume power if there isn't a probe core on it.

A ship with no probe core consumes power because the SAS is always working to stabilize it, because when not warping it's never 100% still.

So in other words squad did change the behaviour then, because it very much drained like that in the past both in normal operation and in time warp.

[Starman4308]

The lack of electric drain at all in timewarp is something new.

I've only been playing since 0.24.2, but I am 95% sure command pods have never passively drained electricity. Anybody who has had manned missions run out of juice is either using a probe core, lights, a mod like TAC: Life Support, is using SAS during physical time warp, or otherwise has some other source of power drain going.

EDIT: I can't read (in reference to Overfloater's post). Still: command pods will not drain electricity in non-physical time warp, because SAS cannot function, and (unless modded) has no passive drain associated with it.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Starman4308
Lack of basic literacy skills.

[Guest]

Or, you know, flipping a switch

You know switches? Or maybe they're called toggles? Pretty common in electrical circuits really...

While it is true that a battery can be isolated in order to lengthen its service, there is no such thing as the "perfect" battery IRL. All batteries have internal resistance, albeit some smaller than others. Eventually, the battery will drain, whether it's isolated or not, if nothing exists to counter the internal resistance.

The OP has stated more than once that drain occurs in real time but not on rails. I am also curious as to whether batteries are being simulated while on rails as they were in previous versions. Much like the creeper of minecraft, this has been one of my favorite features.

Oh, did you forget your solar panels again?

Edited November 16, 2014 by Otis
grammar

[boxman]

I've only been playing since 0.24.2, but I am 95% sure command pods have never passively drained electricity. Anybody who has had manned missions run out of juice is either using a probe core, lights, a mod like TAC: Life Support, is using SAS during physical time warp, or otherwise has some other source of power drain going.

EDIT: I can't read (in reference to Overfloater's post). Still: command pods will not drain electricity in non-physical time warp, because SAS cannot function, and (unless modded) has no passive drain associated with it.

I was still playing vanilla back then, so something has definitely been changed. I just wish I knew when..

When it was first added I did this mistake several times and usually only noticed it after a time warp since then batteries would be entirely drained leaving my ship completey frozen.

[lajoswinkler]

Batteries aren't turned off, but they can be temporarily isolated from the rest of the system. This is no more "unrealistic" than temporarily removing the batteries from your torch to prevent in from turning on while it's in your rucksack.

You can press the green triangle in its menu and turn it off. If you did that in real life, the probe can't respond anymore. Sending a signal "wake up" can't be processed because the probw no longer works. It's that simple and it was featured in older KSP versions. We need that because it adds a sense of reality and caution.

[KSK]

You can press the green triangle in its menu and turn it off. If you did that in real life, the probe can't respond anymore. Sending a signal "wake up" can't be processed because the probw no longer works. It's that simple and it was featured in older KSP versions. We need that because it adds a sense of reality and caution.

Or perhaps the probe core has a built in reserve battery to handle that exact scenario? A little like having a battery on your PC motherboard to keep the clock running even when the computer is switched off. Switching off the battery (as in the battery component you added in the VAB), merely powers down the rest of the probe systems. Being able to deliberately shut a probe down to the point where it can't be restarted is neither particularly realistic, nor adds anything to the game other than a pointless irritation.