[WIP] [1.05] THERMONUCLEAR TURBINES! 1.0 Nuclear Aircraft Engines

[Eskandare]

 

Nuclear Aircraft Engines

To download, go to the Thermonuclear Turbines 1.1 release page.

 

Development Album

 

 

OLD Development Album

 

A new hot way to get into orbit!

This is a small mod in development that adds nuclear turbine aircraft engines based off of this concept, Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion, Project Pluto (Thanks to Nothalogh for sharing this link) and the similar Soviet program Tupolev Tu-95LAL, also with a little influence from the Choujikuu Yousai Macross anime series and sequels to give one of the engines space capability. I've been passing this idea around for a bit, and with the new changes to the LV-N Atomic Rocket, I can now make it.

The concept behind the engine is that thermal energy is transferred through a heat exchanger into the "can" (combustion section of a turbine) instead of using combustion to rapidly heat up gasses to turn the turbine and provide thrust.

Features:

• Six Engines: MASAMUNE, KUNAI, Short-M, NODACHI, MURASAMA, KATANA
• Custom Sounds
• Custom FX

 

Attention: Much like the R.A.P.I.E.R. engine, the nuclear engines' CoM is adjusted forward to both help balance the craft and to simulate parts being gutted out to make room for the compressor, diffuser, and reactor "can."

Current Issues

• A small bug with using conventional engines along with the nuclear engines will make them effectively nuclear. FIXED!
• A small bug with the "turbine spin" when switching modes of the MASAMUNE where the turbine spins down in nuclear rocket mode. FIXED! (New models and design change this.)
• Bug where the alternator does not supply electricity in nuclear rocket mode. This is caused by the muti-mode engine module. Just deploy solar panels in space.  FIXED! (Although still good to have solar panels.)

 

Current Status:

• M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E.: COMPLETE
• N.O.D.A.C.H.I.: COMPLETE 
• K.U.N.A.I.: COMPLETE
• SHORT-M: COMPLETE
• M.U.R.A.M.A.S.A.: COMPLETE 
• K.A.T.A.N.A.: MK2 cross-section, Being finished

 

Currently Planned:

• Direct Air Cycle Engines (Phase I)
  • MX-01 K. U. N. A. I. (Kerbin Utility Nuclear Aircraft Inductor) for those transport planes that never need to land. [does not go to space]
  • MX-01X M. A. S. A. M. U. N. E. (Multiple Accelerator, Specialized Aicraft, Modified Utility Nuclear Engine) [goes to space]
  • MXF-01 SHORT-M (Short M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E.) [lighter, less powerful, designed for small minimalist SSTOs]
  • MX-02 N. O. D. A. C. H. I. (Nuclear Over Drive Aerospace Craft Heat Inductor) For your forever 2.5m flying needs [goes to space]
  • MPX-01 M. U. R. A. M. A. S. A. (Multi Use Rotating Air Mechinism And Specialized Aircraft) Nuclear Propeller [you'll wish it went to space]
  • MX-02 K.A.T.A.N.A. (Kerbin Aerospace Transport And Nuclear Acceleration) MK2 Style hybrid engine. [Also goes to space]
• Indirect Air Cycle Engines: (Phase II) planned but tentative
  • Mk-II Reactor
  • Mk-III Reactor
  • 1.25m Reactor
  • 2.5m Reactor
  • ID-01 Turbine
  • IDX-01X Hybrid Turbine
  • IDP-02-ID Nuclear Propeller

 

CHANGE LOG

1.0.0: Almost complete. No release yet.

0.1.42a: Accidentally broke the Masamune and Kunai engines, fixed now.

0.1.42: - Updated all plugins for 1.04 (licenses included)
        - Corrected animation for Short-M engine
        - Minor fixes

0.1.41: A little tuning to the configs and fixes the attachment node for Short-M Engine

0.1.4: Added 'Short M' engine (early)

0.1.3a: Hot Fix!!!

0.1.3: Fixed resource for air breathing, used Community Resource Pack's IntakeAtm intead of IntakeAir (thanks to suggestions by Svm420 and FreeThinker). Added MM patch for all intakes. A few minor config tweaks.

0.1.2: Changed emissive constant.

0.1.1: Description Fix in M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E Engine

0.1.0: Initial Alpha Pre-release

 

Additional Credit:

• BahamtoD: BDAnimationModules.dll & Exhaust Effects B.Dynamics - Retracting/vectoring engines etc. (Pre 1.0.0)
• nli2work: for his awesome propeller meshes.
• Nazari1382: Hot Rockets (And the tutorial to make my own.)
• Snjo: for FireSpitter (*.dll Packaged with Thermal Nuclear)
• sarbian: for Module Manager (*.dll Packaged with Thermal Nuclear)
• RoverDude: for Community Resource Pack (Packaged with Thermal Nuclear)

 

 

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

Edited May 4, 2016 by Eskandare
News of 1.0 for 1.05

[Enceos]

Interesting concept! Rock on!

[Nothalogh]

• N. O. D. A. C. H. I. (Nuclear Over Drive Aerospace Craft Heat Inductor) For your forever flying needs [does not go to space]

Project Pluto, here I come

[MatterBeam]

I can help with creating realistic engine .cfg files.

[Svm420]

Watching with great interest. Nice work.

[Eskandare]

Project Pluto, here I come

That gave me an idea! Added a new engine called the K.U.N.A.I. (Kerbin Utility Nuclear Aircraft Inductor) [The name not not a sword, more of a gardening tool used as a weapon] It will serve as a nuclear version of the turbo jet. Nodachi is moved up to being a ram jet. the MASAMUNE is basically a Nuclear RAPIER. I'm placing these engines high on the community tech tree so that career mode isn't made instantly easy.

[Mekan1k]

Add a nuclear version of that that only runs on intake air, speed, and nuclear magic please.

[Eskandare]

Add a nuclear version of that that only runs on intake air, speed, and nuclear magic please.

That is basically the idea, except I'm putting in a few nerfs to prevent the engines from being overpowered or cheats.

[Nothalogh]

Add a nuclear version of that that only runs on intake air, speed, and nuclear magic please.

It's not magic, it's good old fashioned American cold war tomfoolery

- - - Updated - - -

That is basically the idea, except I'm putting in a few nerfs to prevent the engines from being overpowered or cheats.

In career mode, nuclear launches should cost more in reputation than funds

[Eskandare]

In career mode, nuclear launches should cost more in reputation than funds

Since when did Kerbals care about launching nukes? Unless you crash them... Originally the nuclear turbine was going to be used in a bomber as a test, but it got canceled because of the ICBM.

[MatterBeam]

It's not magic, it's good old fashioned American cold war tomfoolery

- - - Updated - - -

In career mode, nuclear launches should cost more in reputation than funds

How do you make them cost reputation?

[Eskandare]

How do you make them cost reputation?

I am pretty sure that would require a plugin.

[Nothalogh]

Since when did Kerbals care about launching nukes? Unless you crash them... Originally the nuclear turbine was going to be used in a bomber as a test, but it got canceled because of the ICBM.

To keep it from being easymode

- - - Updated - - -

Unless you crash them...

Just where do you think we are?

[FreeThinker]

This might look like a nice addition to the existing KSPI Thermal TurboJet

[Eskandare]

This might look like a nice addition to the existing KSPI Thermal TurboJet

Thank you

I'm making this as a stock alike. The textures I'm making are going to be reminiscent of the stock LV-N, and Turbo Jet.

[Eskandare]

New pics added to OP.

[Eskandare]

Small updates

[Eskandare]

More Changes and Updates, Alpha prerelease coming soon.

[Eskandare]

Release of Thermal Nuclear 0.1.0 is imminent. I solved the issue of engines not able to use the atmospheres of Eve, Duna, and Jool with a bit of jiggery-pokery. It's not perfect but it works for now. A small bug with using conventional engines along with the nuclear engines will make them effectively nuclear... and chew up all the valuable liquid fuel.

Also a small bug with the "turbine spin" when switching modes of the MASAMUNE where the turbine spins down in nuclear rocket mode and the unique turbine spool sounds I used for the nuclear turbine spools down and quits, so I won't be using them on the MASAMUNE either, but they will be available on the strictly atmosphere breathing engine (it is a real treat to start the engine at zero throttle ).

A few more power and Isp tweaks to the MASAMUNE (for dealing with Eve's atmosphere) and it will be ready for pre-release.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Eskandare

[Nansuchao]

Very good!

[Eskandare]

Released 0.1.0 Alpha Pre-release!

Oops I goofed on the M.A.S.A.M.U.N.E. description, fixed with 0.1.1 patch.

Edited May 30, 2015 by Eskandare

[Midnight]

Awesome! so many cool mods! so little memory >.<

[Eskandare]

Awesome! so many cool mods! so little memory >.<

I made every attempt to keep the memory footprint low, and maintain good quality. I currently run in open gl and make sure that most textures are *.dds.

[Svm420]

 PROPELLANT
{                
name = IntakeAtm
ratio = 1
DrawGauge = True
}

If you use this resource already commonly used from the Community resource pack you can avoid your issue that cause all other jets to operate without O2.

[MinorInconvenience]

Oh how I love this mod...

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Masamune is so much fun as the endgame SSTO engine.