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Buzzard Collectors


Dunrana

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On 4/8/2017 at 3:24 PM, Dunrana said:

Snippy snip

Wow.... This is an amazing concept, may I make some recommendations for future development? 

Like others have said, the closer you are to Kerbol, the faster it should refuel, based on the square cube law for the most accuracy. And past Eeloo, there would be a constant stream of solar wind, also, will this work with star pack mods? It would be interesting to use various Nerv rockets to constantly accelerate to other stars.

And for future sails, one that's basically just a bunch of wires in a cone shape, with a magnetic field, this would be more advanced, and could collect fuel faster. And a 'scram-jet (I dunno)?' Sail that's just a powerful magnetic field, this would be the most advanced, and would be best suited as velocities of say, 50 km/s and higher.

Are you planning on adding fusion versions of this?

All and all, this is incredible, I might have to get this for orbital depots around other stars. Great job!! :)

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@Dunrana I just read some more posts, and noticed you didn't want this to be an endgame thing :P But I have to ask this, if you're producing tons of energy, from say, nuke reactor or rtgs, would refueling take shorter amount of times? I imagine it does, but you wanted to limit this, so I was just curious. :)

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Does the collector cause any drag? Bussard collectors would case decelleration for any speed above 4000km/s. Also - there was an older mod that made a ramscoop - but instead of an antenna dish they modelled a transparent magnetic field thing. It's pretty cool looking and the modder just posted the files saying anyone could use it.

Cheers

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22 minutes ago, iontom said:

Does the collector cause any drag? Bussard collectors would case decelleration for any speed above 4000km/s. Also - there was an older mod that made a ramscoop - but instead of an antenna dish they modelled a transparent magnetic field thing. It's pretty cool looking and the modder just posted the files saying anyone could use it.

Cheers

Maybe slight deceleration, the real trouble begins at ~30k km/s or 0.1c, which is thought to be its 'speed limit' however, purely using magnetic fields and some fancy pansy engineering  might allow it to travel to higher velocities, maybe even 0.2c

But that is the fusion version, and this is KSP, so I think we can let it slide :)

Edited by Spaceception
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55 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

@Dunrana I just read some more posts, and noticed you didn't want this to be an endgame thing :P But I have to ask this, if you're producing tons of energy, from say, nuke reactor or rtgs, would refueling take shorter amount of times? I imagine it does, but you wanted to limit this, so I was just curious. :)

I must have mis-phrased my earlier post, I DO want it to be an end-game thing. It generates fuel on an in-flight craft, so it’s a little cheaty. The end of the tech tree is the perfect place for nearly-cheaty parts.

Adding more power wouldn’t have much effect, for there's only so much hydrogen in front of the dish. But mostly, I don’t think the resource converter module can do that.

Edited by Dunrana
extra space
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18 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Maybe slight deceleration, the real trouble begins at ~30k km/s or 0.1c, which is thought to be its 'speed limit' however, purely using magnetic fields and some fancy pansy engineering  might allow it to travel to higher velocities, maybe even 0.2c

Actually, I am quite okay with using it for deceleration. I really want a combination of mods that would let me have:

  • Acceleration out of the Kerbol system using a photon sail that can be pushed by multiple lasers - possibly up to 0.2 or 0.3c
  • Secondary propulsion using onboard antimatter reactor to add another ~0.4c in velocity to hit 0.6 or 0.7c
  • Using the bussard-scoop for breaking against the ISM, which actually is more efficient at higher velocities - and could drop you from any speed down to below 0.1c
  • Using the fuel picked up from the ramscoop - either use a fusion engine or the antimatter reactor to break down to the ~25,000 km/s speed
  • Use some higher-trust fusion drives for arrival-system maneuvering, keeping a fuel budget for around 50km/s delta-V  so that you can drop off deliveries to multiple planets in the new system.
  • Using interplanetary launchpads and packing a bunch of MaterialKits + Specialized Parts, build a resource harvesting base in the new system
  • Repeat with as many interstellar spacecraft as needed until you have a fully self-sufficient exoplanet colony that can build new things on site

I really need a better computer with higher ram to handle it though. Anyway - check out Interstellar Extended by @FreeThinker - and we could totally use some help on the proper antimatter storage ratios for anybody who is interested.

 

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5 minutes ago, Dunrana said:

I must have mis-phrased my earlier post, I DO want it to be an end-game thing. It generates fuel on an in-flight craft, so it’s a little cheaty. The end of the tech tree is the perfect place for nearly-cheaty parts.

Adding more power wouldn’t have much effect, for there's only so much hydrogen in front of the dish. But mostly, I don’t think the resource converter module can do that.

 

What's the ISP for NERVs with this? Is it essentially infinity? And how long do you think it'd take to reach high velocities?

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3 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

What's the ISP for NERVs with this? Is it essentially infinity? And how long do you think it'd take to reach high velocities?

nowhere near infinity. the best dish produces around two liquid fuel an HOUR. with this installed, the fuel tanks act as a buffer, allowing a burn every few days.

it's also heavy enough to significantly hamper the amount of delta-V that burn produces.

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2 hours ago, Budz42 said:

Would it be possible to make this work with CRP and its hydrogen fuels rather than 'liquid fuel'?

That is easily done.

@Spaceception This mod doesn't alter any stock parts. All it does is let you refuel on the fly (refuel infinitely, yes. But the NERV keeps its 800 Vac Isp.)

On 4/12/2017 at 5:15 PM, Dunrana said:

that said, if someone could advise me on a simple way to vary the collection rate, i would totally do it. High-risk high-reward edge of the atmosphere fuel-skimming missions is something I would love to see.

In addition to enabling this mod to produce LqdHydrogen for the other person's request, I could also enable this if there's interest. All it would require is an additional stock module or two, and a CRP config (but probably not for LiquidFuel), in keeping with the KISS philosophy. I must advise that not every atmosphere would cooperate with this form of action. iirc most solid worlds barely have Hydrogen in their atmospheres.

 

Edited by JadeOfMaar
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8 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

What's the ISP for NERVs with this? Is it essentially infinity? And how long do you think it'd take to reach high velocities?

Maybe in the game, but not in reality. NERVs have a pretty low ISP (5000 s). The highest ISP engines ever imagined is beamed core antimatter reactors with magnetic nozzles - and those are effectively 10,000,000 s.

In reality, once you get above 0.1c you're going to experience more drag from your ramscoop than the thrust from your engines. Which makes ramscoops a great tool for deceleration, but not much else.

Edited by iontom
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2 hours ago, Budz42 said:

Would it be possible to make this work with CRP and its hydrogen fuels rather than 'liquid fuel'?

the simplicity of this mod means a CRP version is easy. look for a "Hydrogen Lovers Version" soon.

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So for those that like to play RealFuels-Stockalike (same patch could work for regular real fuels as well, just take out the the "FOR:[]" mod name and multiply the ratios as needed) like me and thought this mod looks amazing and would like to include it, I've created a pretty simple MM patch to make it work with RF. Naturally the output resource has been changed to Liquid Hydrogen. Due to boiloff of RF, I've multiplied the collection ration by 10x (extensive testing may prove this to be too much or too little, it needs to increase despite boiloff). Anyways, thought I'd share it here:
 

Spoiler

@PART[dmBusardCollectorsmall]:FOR[RealFuels_StockEngines] //Buzzard Collector Small
{
    @MODULE[ModuleResourceConverter]
    {
         @OUTPUT_RESOURCE
         {
            @ResourceName = LqdHydrogen
            @Ratio = 0.001
            @DumpExcess = false
         }
    }

}

@PART[dmBusardCollector]:FOR[RealFuels_StockEngines] //Buzzard Collector Normal
{
    @MODULE[ModuleResourceConverter]
    {
         @OUTPUT_RESOURCE
         {
            @ResourceName = LqdHydrogen
            @Ratio = 0.003
            @DumpExcess = false
         }
    }

}

@PART[dmBusardCollectorLarge]:FOR[RealFuels_StockEngines] //Buzzard Collector Large
{
    @MODULE[ModuleResourceConverter]
    {
         @OUTPUT_RESOURCE
         {
            @ResourceName = LqdHydrogen
            @Ratio = 0.005
            @DumpExcess = false
         }
    }

}

 

Obviously create a .cfg file and paste the code above into it. The ratio may change upon testing. My goal is to have the smallest buzzard part give the ability to prevent boiloff and output LqdHydrogen at about 1/1000 units per second, and increase from there. Maybe even just enough to prevent boil-off at the hottest point you can travel to in stock (orbiting Kerbol), however since afair the boiloff rate is exponential based off temperature, this may take some real tweaking to make it... not overpowered.

Anyways, thanks for the great mod!

 

Edit: Just read up a few posts and yes, this is essentially the same as the file added by forum user @Dunrana except this will continually work after updates so long as the conversion module doesn't change. Also, this assumes that you're using Real Fuels. If you'd rather use an MM patch without real fuels (but somehow still have Liquid Hydrogen in your game) simply remove the ":FOR[RealFuels...]" line, add an extra zero to the ratio, and then it will simply collect at the same rate as it would Liquid Fuel. The choice is yours! :P

Edited by shoe7ess
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14 hours ago, iontom said:

The highest ISP engines ever imagined is beamed core antimatter reactors with magnetic nozzles - and those are effectively 10,000,000 s.

 

Actually, it is twice of that 20,000,000s. At least according to tho the last published research on beam core antimatter isp. Anyway, you can now use it the latest beta. Just Make sure you have a sufficient amount of radiators, this beast produces a lot of wasteheat.

But this mod gave me an idea. It could collect hydrogen during interstellar travel which could be used to boost antimatter trust. The question is if the additional thrust would be enough to overcome the drag caused by the busshard ram. Originally the busshard ram  supposed to use the collected hydrogen directly for fusion, but this would be insanely hard, and even if you succeed, it would produce less thrust then gained. However, if used the hydrogen would be used with antimatter instead, it might overcome the drag and create a net positive thrust.

Edited by FreeThinker
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6 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

It could collect hydrogen during interstellar travel which could be used to boost antimatter trust. The question is if the additional thrust would be enough to overcome the drag caused by the busshard ram. Originally the busshard ram  supposed to use the collected hydrogen directly for fusion, but this would be insanely hard, and even if you succeed, it would produce less thrust then gained. However, if used the hydrogen would be used with antimatter instead, it might overcome the drag and create a net positive thrust.

That's a very interesting idea. how would you generate the electric charge for the dish?

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26 minutes ago, Dunrana said:

That's a very interesting idea. how would you generate the electric charge for the dish?

Electric Power can be generated from the heat accumulating in the gamma ray radiation shield, which it transmitted in abundance after matter-antimatter annihilation. Large Energy is also required to redirect the charged particles of the protium-anti protium reaction.

For KSPI-E I scaled down the  Frisbee vessel 4000 ton beam core antimatter reactor at 500 TW to a 16 ton reactor with a power output of 720 GW

Edited by FreeThinker
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1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Electric Power can be generated from the heat accumulating in the gamma ray radiation shield, which it transmitted in abundance after matter-antimatter annihilation. Large Energy is also required to redirect the charged particles of the protium-anti protium reaction.

that works, thought i had to do a bit of google-ing to figure out what you were talking about. I'd never heard of hydrogen-1 being called "protium".

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15 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

But this mod gave me an idea. It could collect hydrogen during interstellar travel which could be used to boost antimatter trust. The question is if the additional thrust would be enough to overcome the drag caused by the busshard ram. Originally the busshard ram  supposed to use the collected hydrogen directly for fusion, but this would be insanely hard, and even if you succeed, it would produce less thrust then gained. However, if used the hydrogen would be used with antimatter instead, it might overcome the drag and create a net positive thrust.

I think it's a matter of comparing forces. The drag you'd experience would be related to the momentum transfer with the particles, which depends on their velocity relative to your mag scoop (relativistic momentum). ISM is both slow velocity and high velocity stuff, but all will have a relative velocity compared to your ship. Somewhere out there is probably a statistical particle dispersion we can look up - but it we would probably have to find a way to derive a function:

F(ship_vel, array[nearest_stars, star_luminosity, star_gravity]) - if you're within the range of a star, you'd experience solar wind particles (more complex for binaries too). Once you hit termination shock you'd have the ISM instead, and could use the interstellar medium dispersion eqs to determine the drag force. There's also conceivably an element of randomness to this - so it's hard to plan for it directly when making fuel use plans.

For the force from acceleration from fuel to thrust, I guess it depends on the rate of inflowing particles, and the rate at which you're using the newly acquired matter in the antimatter reaction versus just pushing it into the exhaust to increase the reaction mass.

My gut feeling is that there's probably a velocity range sweet spot where you could conceivably have net gain from keeping the ramjet turned on. However, the faster you go, the more particles you hit, and the more relativistic mass/momentum is going to be a significant factor. Also, as are starting to find out, antimatter storage density is the bigger problem than the regular matter.

For more dependable flight plans, it would probably make sense to keep the scoop off until you wanted to decelerate, and then just fill up your tanks again - but KSP is all about experimentation and we won't know until we do the math (or find somebody even smarter to help us review our math)

Cheers!

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A fair amount of the math has already been done: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight.php#id--Go_Fast--Bussard_Ramjet

The lower end of the range sweet spot depends on the efficiency of your collectors, and the amount of material in the local interstellar medium.  (Note that Earth is in a bubble of low-density space...)  Upper range is around 0.12C.  If you want to get *really* speculative, there's nothing theoretically stopping you from collecting most of the energy that's being turned into drag and using it instead - which would negate the upper end of the range.  (But we have no clue how to even approach figuring out how to start the research to do so at this time.)

General consensus is that you can actually do better with more conventional nuclear rockets and carrying your fuel with you.  But I see no reason that should stop us here.  :wink:

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7 hours ago, DStaal said:

A fair amount of the math has already been done: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/slowerlight.php#id--Go_Fast--Bussard_RamjetThe lower end of the range sweet spot depends on the efficiency of

 
 
 

The interesting part:

Quote

Things started to unravel in 1978. T. A. Heppenheimer wrote an article in Journal of the British Interplanetary Society entitled "On the Infeasibility of Interstellar Ramjets." Heppenheimer applies radiative gas dynamics to ramjet design and proves that radiative losses (via bremsstrahlung and other similar synchrotron radiation-type mechanisms) from attempting to compress the ram flow for a fusion burn would exceed the fusion energy generated by nine orders of magnitude, that is, one billion times. The energy losses will probably show up as drag. This was confirmed by Dana Andrews and Robert Zubrin in 1989

 
 
 

So if antimatter would create more than one billion times the power per gram of hydrogen then proton-proton fusion we would be golden. I haven't verified but my gut feelings sais that is not the case.

Edited by FreeThinker
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