[1.0.5] Atomic Age - Nuclear Propulsion - Red Hot Radiators

[Tau137]

On 11/6/2016 at 10:29 PM, Deimos Rast said:

Here are some patches for AtomicAge. It adds in missing things such as tags and bulkheads, and balances things like thermal values and costs vis-a-vis stock. To be fair, you can play with the mod as is, just fine... for the most part.

There are two optional patches, disabled by default, that removes GimbalResponseSpeed and another that converts ModuleAnimateHeat over to FXModuleAnimateThrottle. Use if you're having issues with either.

I tested everything, got everything nice and glowing. Works fine.

Repo is shared with patches updating Porkjet's HabitatPack as well; you can delete that folder if you don't use that mod.

Requires Module Manager, and the base mod. Extract somewhere into GameData.

As always, feedback is welcomed.

Enjoy.

Direct download of v0.1 here

Repo here

 

Nice, thank you!  I will test how this works (w/ Kerbal Atomics/NFE custom patch)...

EDIT:  Everything seems to work fine in stock (thank you again!).... NFE/KerbalAtomics, although extremely cool and somewhat realistic, is still bugged beyond belief and not usable in career.. Damn, do I really have no other option but to move to the fantasy land of Karbonite+?

P.S. Anyone capable of working on 3d model, please fix the NuclearTurboJet throttle animation.

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by Tau137
Updatre

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, Tau137 said:

EDIT:  Everything seems to work fine in stock (thank you again!).... NFE/KerbalAtomics, although extremely cool and somewhat realistic, is still bugged beyond belief and not usable in career.. Damn, do I really have no other option but to move to the fantasy land of Karbonite+?

There's @Angel-125's DSEV mod.  Fusion engines with real-world resources.

[Deimos Rast]

15 hours ago, Tau137 said:

Nice, thank you!  I will test how this works (w/ Kerbal Atomics/NFE custom patch)...

EDIT:  Everything seems to work fine in stock (thank you again!).... NFE/KerbalAtomics, although extremely cool and somewhat realistic, is still bugged beyond belief and not usable in career.. Damn, do I really have no other option but to move to the fantasy land of Karbonite+?

P.S. Anyone capable of working on 3d model, please fix the NuclearTurboJet throttle animation.

 

what's wrong with the turbo jet animation? It worked fine for me (the fins at the back dilate with throttle).

Also, and I know this isn't the right thread for it, but what's wrong with NFE/Kerbal Atomics (as far as bugs go)?

EDIT: this is what the throttle animation looks like for me.

Edited November 20, 2016 by Deimos Rast

[StahnAileron]

3 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

what's wrong with the turbo jet animation? It worked fine for me (the fins at the back dilate with throttle).

EDIT: this is what the throttle animation looks like for me.

I don't think the exhaust nozzle is supposed to look like that. If you go by the image in the OP, it should be a smooth, round nozzle like you'd see on a typical jet engine/fighter plane. There shouldn't be any "fins". Something is up with the model. I imagine something got lost/changed between 1.0.5's model handling and 1.2's.

BTW, did anyone else suffer explosive ejection of the KANDLE's fairing? (The RTG NTR engine.) I know in 1.0.5 I always had to disable it's fairing. If I didn't, it'd get violently ejected when I staged/decoupled. It also apparently solid: I've had it knock solar panels off my satellites. (This is why I need to disable the fairings.)

[Deimos Rast]

4 hours ago, StahnAileron said:

I don't think the exhaust nozzle is supposed to look like that. If you go by the image in the OP, it should be a smooth, round nozzle like you'd see on a typical jet engine/fighter plane. There shouldn't be any "fins". Something is up with the model. I imagine something got lost/changed between 1.0.5's model handling and 1.2's.

BTW, did anyone else suffer explosive ejection of the KANDLE's fairing? (The RTG NTR engine.) I know in 1.0.5 I always had to disable it's fairing. If I didn't, it'd get violently ejected when I staged/decoupled. It also apparently solid: I've had it knock solar panels off my satellites. (This is why I need to disable the fairings.)

yeah, you're right, looks like it got turned inside out or something. Not the end of the world, but I don't know how to fix it. I could remove the animate with throttle effect though, but meh.

Regarding the fairing, there are a few options: delete it or change the ejection force to zero (it'd still have mass/be solid probably, but wouldn't go flying). I can't say this is something I ran into though. I could also add something to the description to the effect of "do not aim at face when staging."

[Nertea]

On 11/19/2016 at 4:32 PM, Tau137 said:

EDIT:  Everything seems to work fine in stock (thank you again!).... NFE/KerbalAtomics, although extremely cool and somewhat realistic, is still bugged beyond belief and not usable in career.?

 

Can you expand on this please? Or potentially notify me of these "bugged beyond belief" things?

[StahnAileron]

6 minutes ago, Deimos Rast said:

Regarding the fairing, there are a few options: delete it or change the ejection force to zero (it'd still have mass/be solid probably, but wouldn't go flying).

I actually tried that. Didn't change anything. Still got flung out like a slingshot. I think when this mod got "updated" to 1.0.5, the models weren't thoroughly tested or something. If I recall, 1.0.5 mandated convex- or concave-only (forgot which) collision meshes or something. I recall the author of another mod recounting how that broke several of his parts. Fixing them made the models more complex. I don't recall problems with the KANDLE in 1.0.4, which I think was when I first found and used this mod.

If so, much like the thermal jet, it's an inherent model issue. Someone would have to take a look at the models and fix them. It's not a config issue. (I love the KANDLE. This is partly because I like making small, compact satellites and probes that can be launched via 1.25m lifters or Mk2 profile SSTO Spaceplanes.)

[Deimos Rast]

3 hours ago, StahnAileron said:

I actually tried that. Didn't change anything. Still got flung out like a slingshot. I think when this mod got "updated" to 1.0.5, the models weren't thoroughly tested or something. If I recall, 1.0.5 mandated convex- or concave-only (forgot which) collision meshes or something. I recall the author of another mod recounting how that broke several of his parts. Fixing them made the models more complex. I don't recall problems with the KANDLE in 1.0.4, which I think was when I first found and used this mod.

If so, much like the thermal jet, it's an inherent model issue. Someone would have to take a look at the models and fix them. It's not a config issue. (I love the KANDLE. This is partly because I like making small, compact satellites and probes that can be launched via 1.25m lifters or Mk2 profile SSTO Spaceplanes.)

Bummer. Saves me from making a patch though. I know what you mean about the concave/convex collider issue - run into it a bit here and there with the older mods. Safest to delete the fairing then I guess.

Is it the only engine that does that?

I opened a github issue about the engine troubles we discussed though. Not much more I can do really.

Thanks for mentioning it.

[StahnAileron]

12 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

Is it the only engine that does that?

I can't say since the KANDLE's about the only engine I use from Atomic Age so far. The other engines are far too large and heavy for the type of designs I tend to make.

[Tau137]

On 11/20/2016 at 5:49 PM, Nertea said:

Can you expand on this please? Or potentially notify me of these "bugged beyond belief" things?

My apologies, I should have explained that in the KA thread instead of saying that, but at that time I kinda "lost all hope" and did not want to bother/bug you, and instead started looking for alternatives (none found)...  I had a bunch of issues, such as:

1.  BUG.  Reactor in a nuclear engine stops functioning after some time warp.  Just stops, all control options (right-click) are gone.  Could not find the exact point when/why this was happening, but it was pretty reliable in failing (each individual engine independently and seemingly at random, so it was not a plugin crash).  Save/load would not fix it.  Weird, but I did not see similar behavior with normal (non-engine) reactors.

2.  BUG/under-thought?  Reactor fuel consumption is constant no matter the power setting (i.e., if I start reactor, waiting until it heats up to optimal temperature, then drop it to 5% just to keep it hot - it will at the same rate as if it was running at 100%)

Not sure if any of the above was fixed in latest version, may test today.

3. Wrong math or bug?  Cooling by exhaust is ridiculously low.  Being able to run LNV for an hour after reactor was shut down with decent ISP is... well, ridiculous.  It should be adjusted so that both ramp-up and cool-down were relatively quick and resulted in corresponding temperature changes.  I may play with this a bit more today, and may report back top KA thread.

Effectively, I think applying the same mechanics to nuclear engine as those for reactor/generator simulation is a wrong approach, there should (imho) be more direct integration with throttle control, or, at the very least, automatic power control (i.e., power on demand) as well as (3) above.  Just my opinion.

I understand why you took this route (using existing solution), but it just does not work for me.  I was looking for a reasonable, low-medium maintenance enhancement for stock/AE/KA nuclear engine that would give them fuel and need for reload (and only because I really want to use NFE+P, but having reactors that use fuel, and engines that do not does not compute; using hack Propellant=EnoichedUranium also fails due to mass and a few other factors)

Again, sorry for the words you quoted, I meant no disrespect, just was frustrated due to yet another broken career.

 

EDIT:  Tested a bit more, posting results in KA thread.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Tau137
Update:

[CrazyCanuck]

any plans for a 1.2.1 update?

 

[PocketBrotector]

3 minutes ago, CrazyCanuck said:

any plans for a 1.2.1 update?

 

Read the last page of the thread, particularly Deimos Rast's posts...

On 11/7/2016 at 0:29 AM, Deimos Rast said:

Here are some patches for AtomicAge. It adds in missing things such as tags and bulkheads, and balances things like thermal values and costs vis-a-vis stock. To be fair, you can play with the mod as is, just fine... for the most part.

There are two optional patches, disabled by default, that removes GimbalResponseSpeed and another that converts ModuleAnimateHeat over to FXModuleAnimateThrottle. Use if you're having issues with either.

I tested everything, got everything nice and glowing. Works fine.

Repo is shared with patches updating Porkjet's HabitatPack as well; you can delete that folder if you don't use that mod.

Requires Module Manager, and the base mod. Extract somewhere into GameData.

As always, feedback is welcomed.

Enjoy.

Direct download of v0.1 here

Repo here

Edited November 28, 2016 by PocketBrotector

[GantradiesDracos]

sorry to be a pain again, but would it be possible to mark AA as compatible with the most recent KSP version in ckan again? >.>

still maintaining the modpack, have 3 OTHER friends interested in joining my DSP server, but since the last update roughly a third of the mods involved (a lotta the Near-future ones in particular) arent "officially" compatible again, and Ckan's STILL refusing to implement a ignore compatibility option outside the console

Edited December 23, 2016 by GantradiesDracos

[toric5]

the spacedock link seems to go to an insicure version of the site. firefox does not like it, and it has diffrent autologin cookes from the main one.

[RB101]

Does anyone know how to fix the weird looking turbo jet engine nozzle? it's really bothering me.

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by RB101

[eberkain]

On 2/27/2017 at 7:54 AM, RB101 said:

Does anyone know how to fix the weird looking turbo jet engine nozzle? it's really bothering me.

 

I did some looking, and apparently there is no fix right now. 

[StahnAileron]

Anyone here know the meanings of the fields for ModuleJettison? I'm trying to see if I can fix the engine fairing on the KANDL to not forcibly eject itself into stuff when decoupled/jettisoned. (I've lost solar panels and antennae thanks to that...)

Namely, I want to know what "isFairing" does (True/False) and "jettisonDirection". The latter I think is just XYZ directions, though I'm a bit confused since I thought KSP parts have Y as the fore/aft axis with X & Z being lateral. (I THINK X is Port/Starboard and Z is Dorsal/Ventral, though the difference between whichever are lateral axes are less of a concern to me right now. Info on which is what is still useful, however.) I tried looking at other parts, but they don't tell me much more. If what I thought is correct, the fairing ejects to the side...

I currently just disable the fairing, but my OCD is nagging about how wrong it looks. (I've lived with it for a while, but I do sorta wanna fix this.) I believe the fairing worked properly in 1.0.4. I think 1.0.5 was when it started acting funny. If I recall, that was when convex colliders were enforced for use in KSP. So, either I can do a workaround with stock module settings or I outta luck and it's inherent to the model.

[Starwaster]

5 hours ago, StahnAileron said:

Anyone here know the meanings of the fields for ModuleJettison? I'm trying to see if I can fix the engine fairing on the KANDL to not forcibly eject itself into stuff when decoupled/jettisoned. (I've lost solar panels and antennae thanks to that...)

Namely, I want to know what "isFairing" does (True/False) and "jettisonDirection". The latter I think is just XYZ directions, though I'm a bit confused since I thought KSP parts have Y as the fore/aft axis with X & Z being lateral. (I THINK X is Port/Starboard and Z is Dorsal/Ventral, though the difference between whichever are lateral axes are less of a concern to me right now. Info on which is what is still useful, however.) I tried looking at other parts, but they don't tell me much more. If what I thought is correct, the fairing ejects to the side...

I currently just disable the fairing, but my OCD is nagging about how wrong it looks. (I've lived with it for a while, but I do sorta wanna fix this.) I believe the fairing worked properly in 1.0.4. I think 1.0.5 was when it started acting funny. If I recall, that was when convex colliders were enforced for use in KSP. So, either I can do a workaround with stock module settings or I outta luck and it's inherent to the model.

It was 'fixed' because of a few players (actually maybe as low as one player) complained that jettisoned fairings were destroying their craft. IIRC they insisted on jettisoning in a way that would jettison the fairing at the same time as they decoupled (there was actually a choice in the matter at that time) which naturally resulted in the fairing bouncing back into their engine. I think it was isFairing that controlled that and if it's set to false then it USED to stay with the engine until jettisoned and if true then it would detach with the decoupler instead.

I don't know if it is still possible to do that; for instance I don't know if it was only fixed in the configs or if they actually changed that functionality in the code as well.

[StahnAileron]

2 minutes ago, Starwaster said:

[...] IIRC they insisted on jettisoning in a way that would jettison the fairing at the same time as they decoupled (there was actually a choice in the matter at that time) which naturally resulted in the fairing bouncing back into their engine. I think it was isFairing that controlled that and if it's set to false then it USED to stay with the engine until jettisoned and if true then it would detach with the decoupler instead.

...That would explain why the engine fairing on the KANDL would separate from the decoupler. I always thought the fairing stayed attached to the decoupler. (I figured the KANDL's fairing was being ejected so hard from collision detection kicking it that is broke the connection with the decoupler.)

I wish KSP's system had better, accurate, and current info available. The more I dig into modding (even just simple stuff like changing parameters), the more I feel sorry for modders who have to figure out this stuff to make something for me to edit in the first place. I wonder if SQUAD will ever sit down and publish proper modding documentation. The wiki is (still...) kinda half-assed.

*sigh* Thanks for the reply. The more history I learn about KSP (even if secondhand), the more *facepalm* I feel.

I think I'll just keep believing it's a collider issue I can't readily fix without getting into modeling. My work around works well enough. Though in that case, I'd like to permanently disable the fairing. Anyone know what I'd need to modify or delete from the config?

[Starwaster]

2 hours ago, StahnAileron said:

...That would explain why the engine fairing on the KANDL would separate from the decoupler. I always thought the fairing stayed attached to the decoupler. (I figured the KANDL's fairing was being ejected so hard from collision detection kicking it that is broke the connection with the decoupler.)

I wish KSP's system had better, accurate, and current info available. The more I dig into modding (even just simple stuff like changing parameters), the more I feel sorry for modders who have to figure out this stuff to make something for me to edit in the first place. I wonder if SQUAD will ever sit down and publish proper modding documentation. The wiki is (still...) kinda half-assed.

*sigh* Thanks for the reply. The more history I learn about KSP (even if secondhand), the more *facepalm* I feel.

I think I'll just keep believing it's a collider issue I can't readily fix without getting into modeling. My work around works well enough. Though in that case, I'd like to permanently disable the fairing. Anyone know what I'd need to modify or delete from the config?

As far as collider issues, it's a matter of using multiple simple parts (rectangles or squares) for the collider, but that's probably not useful to you dealing with someone elses model.

About disabling the fairing, can you clarify please? You mean as in having the shroud disabled without having to disable it in the VAB? Or do you mean something else?

• If you mean to hide it from the start, try shroudHideOverride = True
• If you want to leave it on but disable decoupling, try decoupleEnabled = False

[StahnAileron]

6 minutes ago, Starwaster said:

About disabling the fairing, can you clarify please? You mean as in having the shroud disabled without having to disable it in the VAB? Or do you mean something else?

• If you mean to hide it from the start, try shroudHideOverride = True
• If you want to leave it on but disable decoupling, try decoupleEnabled = False

The first option. Since there's no point in it ever being there due to my workaround for the collision issues, I just want it hidden/disabled by default instead of needing to set the tweakable setting. Thanks for the info!  Though where would I put that override setting? In ModuleJettison?

[Starwaster]

3 minutes ago, StahnAileron said:

The first option. Since there's no point in it ever being there due to my workaround for the collision issues, I just want it hidden/disabled by default instead of needing to set the tweakable setting. Thanks for the info!  Though where would I put that override setting? In ModuleJettison?

Correct, just copy and paste it out of my message into the ModuleJettison in the config.

[StahnAileron]

3 hours ago, Starwaster said:

Correct, just copy and paste it out of my message into the ModuleJettison in the config.

First, thank you for the help with this part.

Second, thank you again because you made me realize I could check my friggin' craft files for these types of "hidden" settings: KSP has to store them SOMEWHERE to persist in re-use of designs. Where else than in the craft files, duh! Didn't dawn on me until after I spoke to you, when I wanted to do another MM CFG (to set new, personalized defaults on fairings).

You been a tremendous help!

[Nicias]

Has anyone checked to see if this works with 1.3?

[Terwin]

On 6/1/2017 at 0:36 PM, Nicias said:

Has anyone checked to see if this works with 1.3?

Seems to work the same in 1.3 s it did in 1.2: some of the gimbals do not work properly on the lightbulb.

I just copied my Atomic engines directory from 1.2.2 to 1.3 and my career game with lots of lightbulbs works just fine.

(The first time I loaded up a heavily clipped vessel from 1.2 into 1.3 it exploded, but all the other vessels were fine(even clipped ones), and after adding in a couple mods I had over-looked, I was able to go back in and everything worked fine, including he ship that previously exploded)