Description
The Fuel Consumer Model operates as an intermediary, seamlessly bridging components and the spacecraft’s fuel sources. In instances where a connection is not created, the objects will presume optimal mass flow conditions. Currently, the Cold Gas Thruster component supports usage with this model.
A diagram of the fuel flow chain with a thruster can be seen below:
Below is the execution flow diagram of fuel flow in a simulation tick for a thruster.
Example Use Cases
- Fuel consumption for thrusters:* With this model, the thruster can be modified to consume fuel from a fuel source.
Module Implementation
In this model, the component this model is attached to will set the DesiredFlowRate based on the requested fuel from the component. How it’s implemented will depend on the component. In the Cold Gas Thruster for example, it will be calculated to request the amount of mass to produce the requested thrust. Meanwhile, the fuel source will determine and set the ProvidedFlowRate on the model with the ratio of provided to desired flow ratio. The fuel source will also split its fuel flow proportionally amongst all attached Fuel Consumer Models. The model will have its ProvidedFlowRate be 1 as being optimal, if there is no fuel source connected.
The desired mass will be requested and consumed on the same tick if possible as seen in the execution flow diagram.