Search the Community

Well, I've had 0.9 (Release Candidate to use poncy terms) out for a bit, and no-one seems to have complained, so it's time to call this a release. This mod started as a way of not-quite-cheating-outright. Basically, for when most people would have been sane and just enabled the infinite fuel, I added these parts (or actually, a primitive early version of them) and still flew, and checked fuel and all that, they were just absurdly overpowered. In fact, it started with that RSS-start-on-Mars mod. Because as hard as launching from Earth, landing on Mars, taking off again, returning to Earth is. It pales to the horror of doing it the other way around. And hell, MARTIANS. But then the parts just sat there for ages. But then I thought, "wouldn't it be cool to do silly Sci-Fi grade stuff?". So I merged the old idea with some new waffle, and then added stuff, and noticed existing mods for Alcubierre drives (thanks @RoverDude) and added warp drives. I added a silly chain of resource convertion, so craft needed some work to function. And here we are. Space Opera. Available for download from https://spacedock.info/mod/1137/Space Opera Or CKAN. The mod contains the parts and resources to enable both sub-light drives and super-light drives. Plus a power generator you will want to use if you're going to use the other bits. For sub-light, the engines (and RCS) run off a resource called Handwavium; Sublight drives are either the long "interplanetary" drive (many G, be careful) or the "planetary" drive, which has a lower thrust and can be carefully throttled for things like landings. RCS is available in 3 profiles and 3 sizes. Handwavium can be either a stored resource for short journeys (aka, to another planet and back) or generated from TaurusFecalium, via a converter; For super-light drives, you will need to grab Rovrdude's Alcubierre drive. You can obviously just use his (which are smaller, so fit those pesky little craft), or use the drives from this mod, which are larger, faster, and more annoying. :-) The hyperdrives come in two flavours (so far). Both use two outriggers that I will not call nacelles. The faster, beefier one, has fixed n\outriggers, while the slightly slower one extends the outriggers when running. Now, to get the warp drives to work, you'll need some electricity and polarity field. You'll need some Negative matter to generate that polarity field. And some Quantum flux to generate the negative matter. Which you'll get from the warp core. Converters all provided. I have vague hopes of making a module that allows a part to produce a "field" to turn off acceleration (G) effects for kerbanauts. Until that distant day when inertial field generators work, I advise disabling the advanced tweak feature of G effects when using this mod. This mod now has a Kottobos review Continued from dev thread;

I came across this mod (https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/1175/Nuclear%20Rockets) a few weeks ago, and I succesfully sent a giant probe (launched using 7.5m parts) onto an interstellar trajectory (using the Oberth effect, previously sending it into a Kerbol trajectory with an extremely low periapsis. Now, I have started to wonder whether using this mod is considered "cheating". PRO: - The Orion drive allows for quick acceleration while a large fuel reserve is accessible; far targets that otherwise take months of planning and designing complex interplanetary missions can easily be reached. CONTRA: - Extremely high G-Forces that are not constant may cause for crew transportation to be extremely complicated (Pancakes made out of Kerbals...yummy!). - Actually putting the thing into space is extremely hard. 5m+ stacks are required. What are YOUR opinions to the following questions: - Is using the Orion drive considered "cheating"? - Is it allowed in the late part of a career game or while playing with a high technology level / recreating Sci-Fi missions in sandbox? - What constraints or handicaps can lower the cheatiness level of an Orion drive? Is the Orion drive presented in the above mod actually realistic? - What effects does the usage of an Orion drive have on crew and fragile freight? Does the crew have to be placed in hibernation before using the Orion drive to prevent death? - What effects on the environment does the Orion drive have? Should usage within the closer proximity of Kerbin be prohibited in order to prevent radioactive fallout? - How to safely eliminate an expended or defective Orion drive? I think crashing it straight into Kerbin won't be very healthy for the Kerbal Space Program and the insurance agency. - Should the Orion drive generally be used for longer burns or for course correction? - Is the throttleability of an Orion drive legitimate and realistic? How would it be reached in real life (adjusting time between bomb detonations, using weaker bombs for fine-tuning, etc...)?