KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, Shively said:

Apologies for the possibly dumb question - been over a year since I played KSP, let alone this mod.  Should Thermal Ramjets/rocket engines be requiring IntakeAir to function?  I don't recall this in the past except for the turbojet for atmospheric flight, which I'm not using.  Can post screenshots/logs of the issue in a couple hours if need be. 

 

No strictly speaking they don't need IntkeAir which is generated by any stock air intake, but it is optional and can help you minimize Delta V cost in the atmosphere. If used correctly it can help you get into  an suborbital  orbit and wirh antimatter you could even escape kerbin gravity and directly fly to another planet, but this is extremely hard.

[Rehpic]

On 3/23/2017 at 10:14 AM, FreeThinker said:

On 3/23/2017 at 9:06 AM, Rehpic said:

I replaced the stock radiators with the Large Folding Graphene Radiators and they have the same problem. Reactor is cooled properly on the KSP launch pad, but overheats in orbit.

Lol it is exactly the other way as it supposed to. Thanks now I know how to fix it

I noticed there was a radiator fix in 1.12.14, but this problem is still occurring.

Edited March 28, 2017 by Rehpic

[FreeThinker]

45 minutes ago, Rehpic said:

I noticed there was a radiator fix in 1.12.14, but this problem is still occurring.

Could you describe the problem in more detail, is it stock overheating or wasteheat overheating , where is the vessel located and what radaitors did you use?

Edited March 28, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Thorbane]

Why do nuclear reactors have to be started manually?  And shouldn't this be a config option instead of being hardcoded?

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Thorbane said:

Why do nuclear reactors have to be started manually?  And shouldn't this be a config option instead of being hardcoded?

I agree the behavoir may seem a bit arbitrary but the behavior is part of the Molten Salt Nuclear Reactor class which existed from the start of KSPI. I believe it represents the non electronics nature of these reactors and require manual switches to be activated. Perhaps it's an in idea to allow high level engeneers to activate the reactor remotely.

[Rehpic]

6 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Could you describe the problem in more detail, is it stock overheating or wasteheat overheating , where is the vessel located and what radaitors did you use?

I am running with a bunch of mods including SETI, USI, Near Future, and KSPI-E.  

I believe it is what you would call stock overheating.  The reactor core temp rises above its optimal level and eventually goes high enough that the reactor shuts down. I'd tried it in orbit around Kerbin, in orbit around Pol, landed on Pol and landed on Minmus. It happens with stock radiators (which KSPI adds the FNRadiator module to) and with graphene radiators. 

Here is a shot of the reactor at the KSC launchpad. Note that Core Temp. is steady at 900/900:

https://goo.gl/photos/kDJfee9jWJwjKH1q6

Here is the same reactor moved to Kerbin orbit. Core Temp. has started to rise:

https://goo.gl/photos/8xmTVDtc4VbAQ7Kz5

If I edit kspstockthermal.cfg to remove the patch that adds the FNRadiator module to stock radiators then they work as expected (capping core temp at 900/900) no matter the location.

 

[raxo2222]

What happened to big fusion engine?

That light blue one. There were four ones - Daedlius, Vista, MagnetoInertial Engine and other one.

[Nansuchao]

2 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

What happened to big fusion engine?

That light blue one. There were four ones - Daedlius, Vista, MagnetoInertial Engine and other one.

Tokamak?

[raxo2222]

2 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

Tokamak?

yeah

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.12.15 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.2

Released on 2017-03-28

• Added new part Inline Phased Array which is a microwave tranciever with a unwrapped diameter if 50 m ( credits by @silversliver)
• Added ability of ISRU Atmospheric Processing to operate without air intake, but ut still benefit from air intakes
• Added ability of Fusion reactors to run on FusionPellets as an alternative to D+He3
• Added ability of ISRU refinery to store overflow setting
• Added ability to create FusionPellets from Deuterium and Helium3 in Daedalus and Refrigerator
• Added ability to store Fusionpellets to Daedalus, Cryo storage tank and Spherical tank thermal heat buffer to beamed power receivers, allowing Ablative Laser Nozzle to operate effectively in NF mode
• Added ability of fusion engine in Li6-D Fusion mode to use LithiumDeuteride
• Balance Daedalus now requires Fusionpellets instead of Deuterium+Helium3
• Balance Doubles power transfer radiators
• Balance allow radiators to be tweakscaled larger
• Balanced atmospheric performance radiators in NF mode
• Balanced reduced power requirement Daedalus Fusion engine by a factor of 10
• Fixed refinery power consumption in NF mode

4 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

yeah

The Magnetic Confinement Fusion engine combined with a plasma engine has the same abilities (high isp) , so there is no reason to keep it anymore.

Edited March 28, 2017 by FreeThinker

[iontom]

Hello,

I've got a few suggestions that I wanted to toss in, but I don't know how flexible the codebase is, or how much time the developer has - but thanks for making such a great mod!

• Photon Sails: Update the "Solar Sail" into becoming a Photon Sail - such that it could receive "thrust" the same way that the beamed energy dishes receive energy. Laser Driven Photon Sails - like those being pioneered by the UCSB Deep-In and the Breakthrough Starshot project are one of the most feasible mechanisms of interstellar travel.
• Magnetic Sails/Scoops: Magnetic Sails actually can be used to Decelerate a spacecraft without using on-board propulsion. A magnetic sail can actually break against the solar wind, and it works better the faster you are moving. It can allow you to brake from any relativist speed down to about 2000 km/s; and more than that, you can actually scoop up interstellar gasses (mostly molecular hydrogen) as you are decelerating - which can then be used by other propulsion mechanism.
• Adjustments to Beam Core & Magnetic Nozzle: Essentially the beam core reactor should be able to produce particles that have velocities of upwards of 0.8c - which I'm not sure is accurately reflected in the impulse. I think it may be off by about a factor of ten.
  • Also - allowing other fuels to react with the anti-matter would be significant. Water or Methane have a lot of hydrogen, and higher density than liquid hydrogen, without the need for super-cryogenic storage. While pure atomic hydrogen should stay pure inside the reaction chamber - other materials could be dumped into the plasma to contribute to the overall kinetic energy of the exhaust. This type of setup is ideal since L-H can boil off and tunnel out of containment.
• Metallic Hydrogen:  has a density of 0.7 gm/cm3 (liquid H2 density is about 0.07 gm/cm3) - that ten-fold increase means a lot less dry mass for storage needs, and thus faster speeds. You probably could generate power from undergoing phase transition too - so you'd need a "Phase Converter" that produced energy that could be used for life support - all while acting as the primary feedstock into the Beam Core reactor.

(*Notice the blue-line indicating the deceleration limit of a magnetic sail)

Anyway, I recently made an interstellar trip in Kerbal using the beam core, I just had to cheat and Re-Up my fuel about 20x on LH and 200x on Anti-Matter (to reach speeds of about 0.3c) - anything slower than that will take days or weeks of time warp rather than hours. It 100 Kebin years (~25 earth years) in-game time to go 1 light year to reach the "Valentine" system. Overall I think it was between 2 and 4 hours of waiting, although I wasn't watching the clock super closely at first and I was trying not to cheat, but 1000+ Kerbin years was too long to wait.

I think that people overuse the Warp Tech without appreciating the true challenges of interstellar flight. FTL might not even be possible. Now I know this is just a game, but I am trying to model this stuff for both fiction and non-fiction books - and there's no better way to explore a concept than to play.

Basically - I imagine building a ship like the RAIR imagined by my friend Seth Pritchard. Except that the first stage of propulsion will be a photon sail, and the primary propulsion method will be Beam-Core rather than AM-Catalyzed fusion.

 

Anyway - my first sortie into interstellar space (with cheats) - went well - and I least proved that interstellar trajectories are challenging but not impossible. Point and shoot works for 99% of the trip. Just bring a little extra fuel for final maneuvers. Here's the album, and yes, I feel sort of bad about cheating, but I wanted to know how long it would take in real time - which is about 3-4 hours if you can hit 0.25-0.3c for one light year. So plan accordingly!

 

[ss8913]

so about that compressed air thing... any ideas?  am I using it wrong, is it broken, or is it just the wrong solution for what I'm trying to do?

[juanml82]

Uh... with this mod installed, four stock medium sized deployable radiators can't keep two radial drills at 500 °K in an atmosphere-less body even though they are working at less than 30% each... I doubt this is intended behavior - it breaks a stock mechanic. Here's a screenshot

Edited March 29, 2017 by juanml82

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, juanml82 said:

Uh... with this mod installed, four stock medium sized deployable radiators can't keep two radial drills at 500 °K in an atmosphere-less body even though they are working at less than 30% each... I doubt this is intended behavior - it breaks a stock mechanic. Here's a screenshot

 

 

Notice maximum energy transfer is very low, this should be much higher

Oh Crap, I see the problem now

Edited March 29, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.12.16 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.2

Released on 2017-03-29

• Fixed loss of energy transfer in Radiators in NearFuture-mode

[FreeThinker]

13 hours ago, iontom said:

Anyway, I recently made an interstellar trip in Kerbal using the beam core, I just had to cheat and Re-Up my fuel about 20x on LH and 200x on Anti-Matter (to reach speeds of about 0.3c) -

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, you ran into the classic mistake in thinking a few kg of antimater could get you to another star. Although Antimatter is very powerfull for every gram, it storage density and effective mass (including container mass) is actually horrible. This isn't a big problem until you need to continuously power something for more than a day. Antimatter is not a power source, its a powerfull but very inefficient power storage method. This is the cruel joke that is common in interstellar, everything interesting is difficult or very temporary. A far more efficient method is to use Antimatter Initiated Fusion, which uses antimatter merely as the spark create real power from mass because that what fusion is, a limited means to convert mass to energy. The most effiicient means of producing energy from mass is to use a small black hole, which is feed by mass, which get evaporated to hawking radiation. This is what the Quantum singularity reactor was made for. For balance reasons I kept it a pure power reactor, but I have plans to alow it to generate charged particles which can be used for propulsion.

Edited March 29, 2017 by FreeThinker

[juanml82]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Version 1.12.16 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.2

Released on 2017-03-29

• Fixed loss of energy transfer in Radiators in NearFuture-mode

Wow, that was quick. Cool!

[Boufi]

Hey guys, sorry if what i'll say has been already mentioned or even solved but i'm having some problems just running the game since i installed the mod. I'm playing on 1.2.2, i downloaded KSPIE with a bunch of other 1.2.2 compatible mods to play as Scott Manley in his interstellar adventure. Well, i'm having issues loading the WarpPlugin/Spaces/sci/internals/crewtestinternals. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the mod several times, launching the game in 32 or 64 bit bot nothing works. Any ideas?

Edit: After some searching on the curse page of the mod i found the solution (verify game files via steam and 1700 files missing) I think maybe you could add the solution somewhere on the main page of the mod so noone will ever have this issue again

Edited March 29, 2017 by Boufi
Problem solved

[SpaceX]

I wonder if at some point there could be radiation exposure captured in the gameplay...it seems to me that working around all of these dangerous elements (especially some of the ISRU stuff) could potentially be harmful, if exposed for long periods of time. Has there been any thought to having a rads counter (perhaps similar to fallout or something) and the use of Geiger counters. Perhaps there should be implications for just de-orbiting a reactor spacecraft, exposing that area it lands to radiation for a certain period of time or something... just food for thought?

What do you guys think?  

[Nansuchao]

28 minutes ago, SpaceX said:

I wonder if at some point there could be radiation exposure captured in the gameplay...it seems to me that working around all of these dangerous elements (especially some of the ISRU stuff) could potentially be harmful, if exposed for long periods of time. Has there been any thought to having a rads counter (perhaps similar to fallout or something) and the use of Geiger counters. Perhaps there should be implications for just de-orbiting a reactor spacecraft, exposing that area it lands to radiation for a certain period of time or something... just food for thought?

What do you guys think?  

Something like this was partially implemented in the past (before 0.90) and then discarded by FractalUK cause it was nearly impossible to include it, at the time.

Actually Kerbalism has a similar radiation system, but I don't know if it will be doable to include everything in that system and make it support KSPIE completely.

[SpaceX]

It would be interesting...having to actually deal with spent nuclear fuel...or consider exposure implications. I think this could potentially add a real interesting dynamic. 

[Rehpic]

6 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Version 1.12.16 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.2

Released on 2017-03-29

• Fixed loss of energy transfer in Radiators in NearFuture-mode

Thanks, this fixed the problem I was having with stock overheating. I think there may still be a problem with waste heat, but I didn't have time to dig into it. If I find anything I'll post this evening.

[ryan123]

Can someone explain how Thrust is determined for the Thermal Ramjet Nozzle? I see EngineMaxThrust and Thrust is far off (10% of max even though I've throttled to 100%). FuelFlow also looks low but adding more supersonic intakes had no effect. Nor did scaling up the Pebble Bed Reactor to achieve more Waste Heat. Nor did moving up to upper atmosphere 20km...

I have no issues with the Thermal Turbo Jet which gets me past 700m/s (850m/s top speed). I was hoping switching to the Thermal Ramjet Nozzle at 500+ m/s would achieve an even higher top speed but no luck

 

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by ryan123

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, SpaceX said:

I wonder if at some point there could be radiation exposure captured in the gameplay...it seems to me that working around all of these dangerous elements (especially some of the ISRU stuff) could potentially be harmful, if exposed for long periods of time. Has there been any thought to having a rads counter (perhaps similar to fallout or something) and the use of Geiger counters. Perhaps there should be implications for just de-orbiting a reactor spacecraft, exposing that area it lands to radiation for a certain period of time or something... just food for thought?

What do you guys think?  

Well I was hoping to integrate with

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Titan 3000]

@FreeThinker, I have some thoughts and question about the KSP-I extended.

First and most recently, about the Tokamak engine. A way you could make it have it's own niche in game-play is to have both the functions of a magnetic nozzle and the plasma nozzle with it by toggling between two modes. That way it wouldn't be replaced by a combination of parts already in the game, this may make it an overpowered part in game and would by nessesity make it higher up on the tech tree than both parts. Another, less intellectual reason is that the model and texture is just so attractive. It is one of the pretties engines in the game.

Another point is the addition of two possible engines to mod. One is a Vapor core NTR engine, which is a simply a solid core nuclear rocket engine with the fuel being a uranium fluoride being heated to a vapor inside the engine. This is not a powerful engine in terms of performance the real reason to build one is as a stepping stone to designing a gas core NTR. It would have an upgraded ISP of 1,200 and a thrust of about 330 Kn at 1.25 m diameter and a mass of 7 tons.

Another engine that would go well with the upgraded beamed power network is the inclusion of the Lightcraft engine, The main difference between the lightcraft and laser ablative nozzle is that in the atmosphere the lightcraft engine uses atmosphere as the propellant and maybe after an upgrade then it could use any gas as a propellant in space. A balance point is that the lightcraft would have a lower thrust than the laser ablative nozzle but the lightcraft would have a larger collection size that the node size. For example the 1.25 m would have a collection diameter of 1.875 m and so on. May have too large of a game play overlap with the laser ablative nozzle but just an idea. (Would do all this myself but I literally have no idea how to model or texture)

A Question I have is that over the time I have used the amazing KSP-I extended the thermal turbojet has consistently reduced in power over time. I have rebuilt over the game versions and over time the thrust from one thermal turbojet has dropped badly. When I first constructed it it had a TWR of 3:1, now after having reduced the mass by quite a bit the TWR has dropped to less than one and I want to know what has happened and why.

Also I have a problem with how the Plasma wake-field engine works. My problem is that it shouldn't have a variable ISP. When I was (trying to) calculate the true ISP I found an equation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_acceleration) that would told how to calculate the strength of the electric field. The two variables that could conceivably be changed were the plasma density and the mass of the electron. The mass has interesting connotations for the engine because as the mass of individual particles increases it would increase the strength of the electric field and thus the ISP. If it was a negative interaction as the mass increased it would be more in line with the performance in KSP-I extended as it is now. So for now a high, constant ISP would reflect real physics. If the Variable ISP is a game play element then I apologize if it seems like I am being critical. I will get back to you on the Realistic ISP when I can figure out how much each particle is accelerated in a 20 GV accelerator. (lots of weird conversions)

Edited March 30, 2017 by Titan 3000
each particle is accelerated not the amount of mass.