flyguybc

What kind of feedback are you asking for? Bugs or improvements? 1.) Improvement - Can we add a window like on fuel tanks "the switch window" for the engines as well. Its very tedious to click through propellants. 2.) Improvement - Maybe create a tutorial mission to build some very basic craft setups? With the new mission system it ought to be possible I think. 3.) Bug - the only bug I've found is the burn indicator. So question about the Attila thruster. I stuck it on a tokamak with a Thermal generator and I can't get it to do anything. I see numbers going like its on, but their is 0 actual thrust coming out. I think I read it needs charged particles? I.E. the Charged particle generator? If this is the case why is the engine unlocked 2 levels below the CP Generator? Maybe something in the description explaining what it needs? Question about fuel. Everything seems to operate best on "Liquid Fuel". So why would I want to use something else? Also if its one of the best fuels, why isn't it available in the other liquid tanks. Maybe I'm missing something. I'm working on an updated guide for this mod. I've taken all the links and things I've learned thus far and created a reddit post. I'll post it tomorrow and link it for you THank you for a GREAT mod!!

Aaaah ok. I noticed the burn time said 4 days, but I guess I can't time warp for without a mod for that long. Went back to Nukes as I'm sending probes to Moho and Dres to get some science. Also, I don't think anyone that takes on your mod can be classified as a "casual" player just saying lol. I just want to say again how much I'm enjoying your mod, and how much life it has given to this game for me. Once you hit the 1500 level of the tech tree you really have to start thinking about going to farther planets to get the science you need to progress. I'd never been beyond Duna in the normal game!

So I looked through the thread and couldn't find an answer. My ion engines aren't working right. When I'm setting them up it says a TWR of .31 however when I get in space and turn it on I get something like .00001 thrust. Is this some sort of bug?

Huh that makes sense now. Didn't know that. Thank you! @TanoPrime 1. There aren't any by default (unless i missed something) but there are the outer planets mod, and a system called Dawn, and a few others. You would have to add them in. 2. No idea all you FreeThinker 3. Kerbal Joint Reinfocement Continued - A mod you can get from ckan or elsewhere that enhances the integrity of joints so less SPLOSIONS!

So I found out something interesting about the burn time issue. I think it has to do with something like fuel amount or radial tanks maybe. The burn indicator wasn't there, but after I got to orbit I noticed it started working again. I only had fuel left in two center line tanks. I tried moving that fuel to the outer tanks, but the burn time indicator still worked. That's why I wonder if it has to do with the amount of fuel. I also jumped over to another ship that had the same issue, and it was working too, but it still have fuel in some radial tanks. Sounds like the good news is that it CAN work. Just haven't figured out what the specific cause is.

So I finally got one up. Some balance issues coming down but I think managing fuel will work that out. So how does everyone cope with the burn time not showing properly? Is there a mod that gives a different burn time indicator that works? https://imgur.com/gallery/d3CVfxZ Also how do you post a picture directly into the post?

So is there no way around it or to fix it or a mod to make it available. Its somewhat challenging to guess the burn times. I noticed on the videos on the first page of this thread it looks like it works on the SSTO the guy has made. Does it do this in your saves? How do you cope with it? I also made a spacecraft the other day with a different engine and it worked fine, but it was liquid fuel so I guess that's probably why it was fine.

Thanks for the answers! I've got the power to get into orbit now, but I'm experiencing two challenging issues. 1.) So I put two ramjets on the ends of the wings, however, when doing so it made the center of thrust move off center. I take the nozzles off it goes back to center. Its very weird. I've currently gotten around it by doing a plate with 3 Turbo jets surrounding a single Ramjet in the center. Any ideas? 2.) Is there a way to make maneuver nodes understand the burntime with the KSPIE engines? For example I got into orbit, but made a node for a circularize burn, but the bar just turned red, and then the burn time said .1 Its very hard to plan maneuver when I don't know how long to burn. Is this a bug? or is there a way around it? Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Thanks for the reply. I think my questions aren't translating correctly. Let me ask a different way. Is the answer to #1. a.) Both Ramjet and a single Turbojet need to be .88 or b.) Ramjet is 1.25 and two turbojets are .88 #2 Where do I see the power requirement for the reactor to maintain its fusion? So I can see how much power I need to keep it going. Thank you again for all your help!! I'm about to make some good Duna crafts!

Hello my friend just moving in from our other discussion. 1 Regarding usage of multiple nozzles, its important to match the cumulative surface area of the diameters the nozzles with the reactor. Lets say you have a 1.25 PubbleBed reactor connected to a Thermal Ramjet. To connect it turbojet as well the diamters of the turbojet would idealy be sqrt(1.25 * 1.25 / 2) = 0.88 m 2: When powering a targed fusion reactor, you need an external power source, or it needs to power itself by connecting it with a power generator. But a power generator will by have the capacity to convert all thermal power into electric power, but you only need a fraction of that to keep the reactor for beeinged power. In the VAB there is an option to lower the capacity of the generator, this will reduce the mass of the power generator to a significantly. 3: The thermal power helper only shows the worst conditions where you want convert all thermal energy into electric power. In that case you need a lot of radiators but for a SSTOyou are generally only interested in keeping it passive heat production under control as the majority of the wasteheat is absorbed by the open cycle cooling. 1. I'm not quite following your math. Are you saying both the Ramjet and the Turbojet need to be .88m in that situation? Or are you saying a 1.25 Ramjet with two .88 Turbojets? 2. So where do I see what the requirement is to keep the reactor stable? I now see the option regarding the Capacity and how it affects its mass. So for example 2.5 Generator attached to the targeted fusion has a theoretical power of 200mw at 100% capacity. You're saying that if the Fusion reactor only needs 100mw to keep reacting I can pull the generator down to 50-60% and save some mass. Thus not needing a second reactor. 3. Ok that makes more sense. What about long space transfers though where you aren't running the engines for 100 days. Is it still easy enough to reach an equilibrium there? Or do I need to limit the generator to cut back on the thermal/electric heat? Thank you so much again for your help, I'm starting to use more and more of the parts as I'm figuring this stuff out. Its great!!!!

Thanks for the response! I'll move this questioning in there.

Anyone got any tips for the above?

Ok. So I see now that those tanks have HTP. However, the Mk3 parts can't shift over to them? So either I'm not understanding something or I'm flying wrong. I recreated your ship part for part (other than the radiator tail don't have that yet). I can't get it over about 350ms and barely up to 10k before I can't sustain the climb. Initially I was lighting all 3 engines at take-off and I couldn't cross 250ms. However, I then realized the ramjet was actually draining my speed (i'm guessing because it was dissipating all the heat? So then when I took off with just the turbojets I was finally reaching 350m/s. However, after crossing about 8k the speed slowly decreased until I couldn't maintain altitude. So I thought I'd fire up the ramjet. Tried it with both engines, and with only the ramjet on and it bled speed even faster than the turbo's. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Is there some upgrade tech that makes a huge difference maybe I haven't researched yet? Clarification questions. 1.) Fusion reactors - I read somewhere you have to have a second reactor to jumpstart them? or keep them going? Should I use a small pebblebed for that, or do I need another fusion generator that's smaller? 2.) Heat - So I try and follow the Interstellar helper for the radiators. However, it takes a crazy amount of radiators to get it to yellow or green. I've tried using the skin ones, and the ones that wrap around the fuselage. Do those cause drag? 3.) Am I barking up the wrong tree here? In normal KSP people use rapiers and nukes to make some pretty nice SSTO's. Is that just not going to happen with these new techs? Am I not going to be able to make a spaceplane that can SSTO 10-100 tons into orbit? Thanks again for all your help sir! *UPDATE* Ok so apparently size matters. I kicked the Magnetized Fusion up to 3.5, and used 4 Turbojets with 1 ramjet central. Turbos are at 1.8 and Ramjet is at 2.5. Part of the problem was I was getting the "Plasma not hot enough for fusion" warning. So I increased the size of the "jumpstart" Pebble Bed + Thermal Generator to 1.8 and holy crap. The thing lept off the runnway. I was at 1200m/s before 7k. It was ridiculously crazy. In orbit I kicked over to the ramjet and circularized with about 1400 m/s left. I was super happy. So the fusion HAS to have a big nuke reactor powering it? When the Pebblebed reactor was at 1.25 size I tried adding power capacitors, and batteries to the point where I had 91 Megajoules. Then I hit the throttle and just watched it drain. So for the 3.5 Mag Fusion it HAS to be at least 1.8 which is more space taken up. Le sigh. My plane is 96000 Kg with the two reactors. Also what's the best way to cool it. I see the waste heat building up, and I've got wrapper graphene around the whole reactor. I even pulled up the KSPI window and started thowing on the biggest thermal radiators I had (Titanium long). By the end I could barely see the aircraft before the window turned yellow.

So I see the HTP in the tanks description now, but when I start going through its not there as on option on IFS. I use ckan. Is there a more updated release I need to install?

Also what tanks is the HTP in?

Gotcha! I will try this out when I have some time. Spent last 2 nights building a miner for minmus. I didn’t realize how much power the big yellow drill takes haha. I’ll need one with a reactor next time lol.

Pebble Reactor and Thermal Turbo. I understand the difference between turbo and ramjet, but I thought I read somewhere in this mod the Ramjet was confusingly named and was more of a space engine than actual ramjet. I also read somewhere that either the turbo or Ramjet in this mod gets a closed cycle like the sabre? I haven't seen that yet though? The challenge with the fuel tanks is the only thing that I can get HTP out of is the inline spheres or the cryo tanks. No normal plane parts carry it. So the only way I could get enough dV was to use those, and since they are more fragile I had to hide them in a cargo bay. I think you said you're changing that in the next update though. I'm using procedural wings, and they are I'd say on the small side of medium. However, again they can't hold the right type of fuel so I don't add the extra mass of another fuel. So you are saying I should have the turbo jet to get me up to 15-20km, then kick in the ramjet, then swap to HTP to circularize? I'll give that a shot tonight. P.S. which radiators would you recommend for a SSTO/spaceplane. Thanks again! Enjoying this talk!

Ok thanks for the reply. So the thermal engine doesn't use it. Got it. Ironically I kind of figured that out using KER and applying different fuels to the engine. HTP gave me the best dV in vacuum. I tested some other fuels at altitude 20k (where atmosphere engines tend to drop off) and I found that liquid Krypton gave me the best dV with a 2.5 TWR. So I took the long mk3 cargo hold and filled it with inline spheres of HTP for the top of my climb. I then used a scaffolding? block to attach to the end of the wing, and I made a wingtip section of Shock cone - Inline sphere - Inline sphere - scaffhold - 2.5 thermal turbo engine. With a few heat panels. So 3 engines. Center 3.8 wingtips 1 2.5 each for a total of 3 engines. It actually worked decently. I got to 20k on atmo, kicked in the krypton which got me most of the way up, and then finished the climb with HTP and circularized. The problem was the wingtip pods never survived. I don't know if it was heat, or the fact the tanks were only attached with the scaffold piece (I did have autostrut on), but somewhere along the way one of the fuel tanks would give way and the shock cone and other tank would fall too their doom. Quite comically the Engine remained attached to the scaffold piece and kept burning along lol. The main problem was it wasn't very practical. I only got there with about 1500 dV and 0 cargo room. The bay had to be full of the fuel spheres to get any decent dV. From what I can tell, at my current level of reactor its just not going to cut it. On top of that I did a comparison to the NERVA and at the exact same amount of respective fuel the NERVA still has better ISP than HTP. My goal is to eventually create something that can have fewer engines, but keep up with my current SABRE NERVA combos. I even tried throwing the generator on current SSTO's with the thought of well if I can eliminate the atmo climb dV drain by using the reactor, that's that much more I can have in space. However, adding the reactor usually made the craft too heavy, and I would have had to follow the "moar boosters" method. Anyone have any other ideas, or am I missing anything?

Hello fellow Kerbalnauts! So I'm running a career with KSPIE and so far loving it. The extended tech tree has given me so much more to work towards. I've reached the end of the normal tech tree and started a little into the new stuff. I have the thermal turbo/ram/rocket engines, and I'm up to the Pebble Reactor with a few efficiency levels. So I've built a Mk3 SSTO Cockpit-MonoProp-1 2x liquid fuel-1 2x rocket fuel containter - engine housing - Pebble Reactor - Thermal Turbo Jet. Procedural wings, and at the tips I put a Shock Cone and an Air cooler for extra intake, plus the small long intakes on the hull. Ok so at the 3.5 size the thermal turbo alone has no problem getting the ship up. I can easily reach about 20k altitude and get up to 400-500 in Atmosphere mode. Getting the rest of the way is where I struggle. I've tried switching fuels to liquid argon, or something like that, but the fuel runs out too fast. I tried throwing NERV's on the wing tip, and changing the fuel to liquid fuel to get more delta V out of them, but the NERV's don't have the strength to carry it to orbit. I'm also having trouble with the tanks. For example I went to liquid argon in the normal fuel tanks, but when I launch the tanks are empty even through they are full in the SPH? So I threw on 2 cryo tanks and put the argon in there and I had fuel on the runway now, but it still wasn't enough to get me into orbit. I've read people talk about Hydrozine, but if I'm not mistaken the thermal turbojet can't run on Hydrazine? I don't see it as a fuel option for the engine? I do see it in tanks. Also I've seen people say that the engine can burn LFO? However, I don't see that option on the thermal turbojet either. I see Intake Air/Hydrogen, but no matter what fuel I switch the engine too, it won't use LFO. So I feel like I'm missing something. I am working towards getting the Fusion reactor unlocked, because I hear it gives a huge jump in performance, but I'm enjoying the challenge of trying to make this work. Any help is appreciated!! Love this mod!!

Thank you both for your response and inputs? Stone why would you consider it heresy? Just wanting your perspective. Jade thanks so much man! I now understand my choices. Sounds like recon is a good choice if I go OPt. I think the only reason I went legacy back in the day is there was a cockpit with a built in docking port in it. Has that made it to OPT main? Thanks again gents!!

So I just came back to Kerbal. I've always loved OPT. So in the past I did the main parts pack, and legacy. Is this mod the newest version of the main parts pack? It looks like this is a newer version? If I download this do I have to use those life support mods mentioned in the description? Essentially I am starting a new play through and I wanted to try out interstellar extended. In my past play throughs as I reach the top of the science tree I tend to putter out. So extending the tree so far gives me a lot more to do. I've reached the part where I'm at SSTO Tech and in the past I've used OPT and a few others, but I remember how overpowered the engines were. I see you re-balanced some? I was also thinking of adding B9 (not the HX part. Too op). So what would your advice be knowing what my goal is, and is this the right mod, or do I need to follow your link to the original main parts list? Thanks for all your work on this, and you've been kind enough to help me in the past with advice so thanks for that too!!

So I was curious about a few things here. I used this back a year ago, and am recently coming back to kerbal. 1.) Is this the thread to download OPT for for the current version 1.3.1 2.) I saw your WBI addon. What is WBI? I've googled and I can't really find a description. I found the page that has all the different mods I guess. I'm all for immersion, but I'm not really interested in dealing with life support. 3.) It sounds like OPT legacy no longer works in 1.3.1? If it does, where do I download it? Thanks for your help and answers. I loved these parts when I used them last, so really want to be able to toy with them again.

Sorry I mean to say linear. Like this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine So I need to download the legacy pack, got it. Degenerate I would definitely love a copy of your craft files, sans the RCS if that's ok (I've got enough mods running as is lol) They look great! So the J-92 is good atmosphere engine. The ARI have amazing thrust but eat fuel, not as good in space. Dark Drive and J81 (linear) are the OP air and space engines. J61 is the small linear also very powerful. J60 seems to be in between them all if I'm reading right? Love the information guys!! I'm gonna have fun building this weekend!

So would anyone mind giving me some guidelines for the engines in this pack. I've tried making a few different designs. My first vision is a J type body, with a large docking connector 2 cargo bays and then a fuel section followed by engine mount. I've had trouble finding a good balance because I don't seem to be understanding the engines. Question, there are only 4 engines right? Dark Goo, Circular Scramjet, big inline scramjet and the smaller liquid fuel/ox one? I keep seeing this small inline scramjet in pictures but I don't see it in the mod. (sorry for not knowing their names don't have it in front of me). I've been building space planes in stock with the Rapier NERV combo. Rapiers to get to orbit, then kick in Nervs. I haven't figured out a similar combo in this mod. It seems to me the little liquid/ox engine is the closest efficiency to the nerv in space. (I'm trying to not use the dark goo mostly because while its REALLY COOL I feel its a little OP. I may use it for fun or on a station at some point later) Now I've successfully made it to orbit using the little liq/ox engine and the circular scramjet. (Love the effect on the scramjet as you speed up btw!) However, I have very little fuel left when I get to orbit because the little engines eat up a lot. My end goal is an SSTO that I can take to minmus or the mun with decent cargo. *note I've also go the Mark4 pack with the scimitar engines if those would be better choices.