Advanced Heat Management
This page covers topics that advanced Kerbal engineers can use to optimize your vessel.
You may have noticed the Loop Volume field in the System Heat info box.
This loop volume differs for each part and defines how much volume the part contributes to the simulation. Loops that have more volume will change temperature more slowly, giving you more time to react or build buffered systems. Typically, bigger parts have more volume.
It is also possible to use the included Coolant Tank to add more volume to your loops:
Is is not possible to change part loops in flight for balance reasons. However, you can change Loop IDs in flight - this changes the ID of all parts associated with a loop. This is mostly intended to support docking vessels with different cooling systems, as docking two vessels with identical loop ID will merge loops.
For example, you want to dock a deep space vessel with a space station. The DSV has a reactor and ion engines on Loop 1, but the station has an ISRU deployed on Loop 1 as well. If you dock the two, the ISRU may not work well due to the loops being merged.
To solve this, change the Loop ID of the DSEV reactor to Loop 2. Doing this in flight will automatically change all parts belonging to Loop 1 to Loop 2. The vessels can now dock with no issues!
Sometimes you might want to transfer heat between loops. This can be done with the PX-1F Heat Exchanger. This part can move heat between two loops, loop A and Loop B.
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It can move a player-specified amount of heat - adjust the slider to specify. Heat will be taken from Loop A and added to Loop B.
As a secondary function, the heat exchanger can also increase or decrease the temperature of the target loop. Doing so has a power and a heat cost - more temperature change will result in higher costs and higher heat products generated. This can be useful in a few very specific situations:
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