Skip to content

Run boiloff in the background through Kerbalism#359

Draft
siimav wants to merge 4 commits into
masterfrom
GottaCatchThemAll
Draft

Run boiloff in the background through Kerbalism#359
siimav wants to merge 4 commits into
masterfrom
GottaCatchThemAll

Conversation

@siimav
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@siimav siimav commented Apr 23, 2026

Replace the janky boiloff catchup mechanic with proper background processing.

TODO:

  • GC reduction pass
  • account for thermal mass for unloaded vessels (slower temperature swings)
  • Dewars need rework. New MLI logic does not apply to them.
  • Validate the boiloff rates against old logic. Or perhaps some actual IRL numbers?
  • rip out the current fetid radiator logic
  • cryocooler integration
  • structuralThermalMass should be split up per-tank
  • Part internal thermal mass is structure + resources. Unsure if it's worth solving because I can't see an easy fix.
  • Do something about MLI mass penalty? Common bulkhead is no-go and I think the tank walls cannot be structural.

Also removed the deprecated loss_rate feature since all liquids we care about already implement vsp. No point in keeping dead code around.

Depends on Kerbalism/Kerbalism#1017

@github-actions
Copy link
Copy Markdown

github-actions Bot commented Apr 23, 2026

Download the artifacts for this pull request:

@siimav siimav marked this pull request as draft April 23, 2026 23:19
@siimav siimav force-pushed the GottaCatchThemAll branch from 67eeb82 to c8f3f2a Compare April 25, 2026 00:08
@siimav siimav force-pushed the GottaCatchThemAll branch from 2358f2f to 54b390c Compare May 12, 2026 11:16
@siimav
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

siimav commented May 20, 2026

Decided to do a fundamental overhaul of the boiloff system.
The new model gives each FuelTank its own internalTemp that evolves thermally through a proper heat capacity (hsp), both during flight (FixedUpdate) and in Kerbalism background processing for unloaded vessels. Once tanks reach propellant boiling point, the entire processing boils down to (heh) calculating the heat flux penetrating the insulation and removing the amount corresponding to vsp.
Also the conduction processing now skips KSP definition of part internals and is now directly from skin to propellant. This simplification is needed because in the background we only know the temperature of the entire vessel.

@siimav siimav force-pushed the GottaCatchThemAll branch from 0be8100 to 36cb685 Compare May 22, 2026 23:48
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant