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Corvus Applied Sciences (In Progress)


IAN 4000

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Last week, I started development on a new deep space exploration mod, with manufacturer name Corvus Applied Sciences. It's going to be a sci-fi / quantum  physics themed mod, with an emphasis on using real-world quantum physics principles to make space travel easier. I think it's safe to say I'll be doing plenty of background research for it. I'll end up using plenty of quantum physics jargon, but I assure you it'll at least be appropriately used. And because I have a background in 3D, aesthetics are going to be a major focus. Actual game balancing is going to end up taking a backseat to the models. 

The mod is mainly going to focus on high-thrust, high ISP engines and high energy output fusion reactors, the only catch being that they are very expensive and produce a LOT of waste heat. The only ways to keep them from overheating and exploding are to vent them manually (which disables the functionality of the part while it's happening), or to attach a closed-loop superfluid cooling system. This allows you to continue to use the part while it is cooling. 

The cooling system was the first part I've made so far, and besides a few tweaks I'm going to make to the animations, it's essentially done. The cooling system uses Helium-4 in a superfluid state, and passes it around to keep high-heat parts at safe temperature levels. As the liquid helium-4 is warmed up by the waste heat, it will convert back into gaseous helium-4. However, if the cooling system is turned on (not just deployed), it'll use a set of radiators and "polarization gradient" lasers to condense it back down to superfluid state (while using large amounts of energy to do so). Polarization gradient lasers are in essence cooling lasers. They are currently used in laboratory settings to reach temperatures near absolute-zero. 

 

Planned parts: 

Magnetoplasma thruster: This 2.5m engine uses large amounts of energy to produce high thrust, with high efficiency. It uses hydrogen gas as a fuel. As a catch, while it is burning, it will also heat up very quickly. The only way to avoid overheat (and the subsequent explosion) will be to stop your burn, and vent the engine by passing gaseous hydrogen through it. This hydrogen will be wasted by being blasted out the sides of the engine, but will help cool it down to reasonable levels. If you don't like the prospect of constantly stopping your burns to cool off the engine, you can attach a superfluid cooling system to it. This will allow you to burn all you want and not have to worry about engine overheat. 

 

Miniaturized fusion reactor: This part will produce high amounts of energy for long periods of time, but because storing ionized plasma at 100 million degrees is no small feat, you'll need to either vent it or attach a cooling loop if you want it to continue to function without exploding. It will use custom fuels such as Deuterium and Tritium, since I feel like using regular hydrogen gas would probably make it overpowered. 

 

Pre-built science probes: Since I've had problems with building rovers and surface probes in the past, I figured it'd be interesting to try making surface drones that already have all the parts you need built into them. Since they'll already have their own power supply, science parts (possibly interchangeable ones), thrusters, crawler legs, and cameras (possibly hullcam-enabled) built into them, there's no need to mess with Tweakscale or IR to make a space probe. Although, because they're pre-built, you'd have limited (if any) ability to customize it. I'll be designing them for my own use, personally because I think it'd be really cool (and good game asset design experience), but I'd like to know if you want them to be in the final mod. 

 

Science parts: These may include mass spectrometers (lasers which can analyze rock content, like ChemCam), Infra-red cameras, X-ray imaging systems, so on. Realistic science results like mineral composition would also be incorporated into science messages. Not sure how much community interest there'd be in this, though, so I can't say with certainty that it'll end up in the final product. 

 

I made a Youtube video showing off the model and slapped some music on it (Disregard complete lack of tech specs and info, it's a model showcase as well as a proof of concept and not a mod outline): 

I'm not worried about the polygon count, even though it looks excessive in the video. Right now it's floating around the 45,000 mark. For a point of reference, the Mainsail is 10,000. Polygons are usually less game engine intensive than collision meshes and textures, both of which I'll try to keep as simple as possible. I've done all of the part details in 3D anyway so I don't see how I'll be needing anything more than solid colors (and perhaps metallic shaders) with the final product. Unity makes a pass for every 66,000 polygons, so any less than that shouldn't tax any modern computer too extensively. 

 

I shared this all with you because since this is my first mod, I wanted to know what kind of community interest there would be with something like this, what other kinds of related parts the community would be interested in, and which direction I should take this mod in. That's why this is posted in add-on discussion as opposed to add-on development. When I make some more progress on modeling, I'll create an add-on development page. 

 

Edited by IAN 4000
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This is some pretty kick-ass model and animation work! :0.0: I like it a lot.

In regards to your plans - are you going to make your own resources, or are you going to hook into Community Resource Pack? If it's the latter, you could consider supporting/using the lightweight "SimpleBoiloff" plugin Nertea made for CryoTanks (a set of liquid hydrogen tanks distributed with Kerbal Atomics and Cryogenic Engines) for your hydrogen/deuterium/tritium tanks.

Thankfully KSP 1.2 is likely going to do away with the current issues plagueing designing for fuels being used in different engine types, so using the CRP resources should not cause you any grief with cross-mod engine balance for long (beyond your own choice in engine stats, that is). In fact, in the long run, CRP should make everything way more compatible.

Edited by Streetwind
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