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KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread


FreeThinker

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20 hours ago, wkwied said:

Is there a reason why some parts are not able to be scaled down? Is it possible for me to tweak my install to allow them to be scaled down? Namely, I am referring to the z-pitch engines - they can not be scaled downwards

1

In general, the reason is game balance but in the case of z-pitch engines which have sub-par performance (mainly mend as a user-friendly alternative), I guess there is no real reason it cannot be miniaturized

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On 4/7/2019 at 4:20 AM, wkwied said:

Is there a reason why some parts are not able to be scaled down? Is it possible for me to tweak my install to allow them to be scaled down? Namely, I am referring to the z-pitch engines - they can not be scaled downwards

The one I always want to miniaturize is the black hole reactor.  But I figure that's not miniaturizable due to our current view of the distant future tech's possibilities (since at that end of the tech tree, play balance isn't really much of an issue anymore).

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FreeThinker, I am trying to use your mod but I have encounter some issues. First, every engine I have tested in space has worked with about 1/10 the stated ISP. For Example the magneto plasma dynamic thruster operates at around 1400 ISP with xenon gas in creative mode. Also the beam core antimatter reactor requires 18,750 GW of cooling, is this as intended? I am playing with the world beyond and it's visual enhancement pack, KW rocketry, and persistent rotation, mechjeb and better burn time.

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On 4/9/2019 at 10:55 PM, auris2 said:

 First, every engine I have tested in space has worked with about 1/10 the stated ISP.

By default, max isp is only achieved with Hydrogen as a propellant. Exception to this are pure fusion modes which can go much much higher.

On 4/9/2019 at 10:55 PM, auris2 said:

For Example the magneto plasma dynamic thruster operates at around 1400 ISP with xenon gas in creative mode.

Yes, xenon  molecules are realy heavy. It has an isp multipler of 0.1234 where 1 is hydrogen. Devide 1400 by 0.1234 and you get the max isp of 11.345s, the isp of a MPD thruster.

On 4/9/2019 at 10:55 PM, auris2 said:

. Also the beam core antimatter reactor requires 18,750 GW of cooling, is this as intended?

Yes it is,  the beam core antimatter reactor is scaled but it performance is based on the engine from this 600 kilometers long design

antimatter_ship.gif

0rrSn0E.jpg

dyEEyz0.jpg

 

In Ksp, it doesn't have to be that long, using the ultra high graphine temperature radiators, the vessel can be made reasonably short. A realistic design would look something like this

 

5VquFLP.png

In this design, the antimatter tanks are put in between the radiators. This makes the vessel shorter and the radiators also serve as a kind of wimple shield

Edited by FreeThinker
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24 minutes ago, wkwied said:

Could anyone shed some light on how to create fusion pellets via ISRU? I understand it requires LqdHe3, however my problem is, how do I obtain this? Is it possible to obtain via regolith mining?

1

You are correct it requires LqdHe3, but also LqdDeuterium. Fusionpellets can be made with the inline ISRU refrigerator.

PS, I just noticed the Hex Module ISRU Refrigerator should also have this ability but it is currently missing, I will add it in the next release.

Edited by FreeThinker
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4 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

You are correct it requires LqdHe3, but also LqdDeuterium. Fusionpellets can be made with the inline ISRU refrigerator.

 

That builds to my next question, but where do I find Lqd/He3? Is this possible without a solar wind collector? And for Lqd/Deuterium , I have no clue where that can be found.

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32 minutes ago, wkwied said:

That builds to my next question, but where do I find Lqd/He3? Is this possible without a solar wind collector? And for Lqd/Deuterium , I have no clue where that can be found.

There are several ways to collect  Helium-3 and Deuterium. At Kerbin Deuterium is most easily made from SeaWater. In space, the best source for Helium3 are the atmospheres of Gas Giants which also contain Deuterium. Scooping can be achieved with either air intakes or specialized high atmosphere scoops. Closer to home, Helium3 can be harvest from Regolith from Celestial Bodies without an atmosphere. With More advanced technology, you can also harvest Helium3 and Deuterium directly from the solar winds using Magnetic Scoop.  For all He3 mining, the general rule is the closer to the sun the higher the concentration. A completely different method is constructing Helium3 and Deuterium is artificial using fusion, with the Cyclotron or Muon Catalyzed Fusion reactor. Helium3 can also be made with Fission with any reactor with Tritium Breeding Bed. Any bred Tritium will eventually degrade into Helium-3, but it can take a while.

Edited by FreeThinker
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All right. I can't check in game right now, but correct me if I'm wrong, but..

I would be able to create fusion pellets via the atmosphere of gas giants, by harvesting H3 and Deuterium both at the same spot. Or, I can mine H3 (AND  Deuterium? I'm unclear on this) from regolith close to the sun.

 

Is this correct?

 

Thank you for the reply by the way

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3 minutes ago, wkwied said:

All right. I can't check in game right now, but correct me if I'm wrong, but..

I would be able to create fusion pellets via the atmosphere of gas giants, by harvesting H3 and Deuterium both at the same spot. Or, I can mine H3 (AND  Deuterium? I'm unclear on this) from regolith close to the sun.

 

Is this correct?

3

Yes you are correct, Both Gas giants and Regolith are sources of Helium3 and Deuterium.

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I'm currently puzzled by something I've been experiencing for a while.  This seems to apply to plasma nozzles (when I replace the plasma nozzle with a krusader, the problem seems to go away).  KSP 1.6.1, and the previous 2-3 releases of kspi, situation is vacuum.  Game is career with the positron reactor fully upgraded.

Ship design is a  simple stack: mini molten salt reactor and thermal power plant, positron storage, probe core, large Lh2 tank with graphene radiators wrapped around it, positron rector, nozzle.

With the plasma nozzle, the ship sometimes will operate properly, and I get a reasonable expected amount of thrust.  However more often I get 0 thrust.  The engine seems to pulse a tiny bit of thrust when I throttle up, but then immediately goes back to 0.  Occasionally on more complex vessels I also get a small percentage of expected thrust (like 1%) which seems to very slowly ramp up (though not to 100%).  As stated above, if I replace the plasma nozzle with the krusader, the craft works perfectly (albeit with lower ISP and higher anticipated and actual thrust).

What is going on?  What am I doing wrong?

Edit: Craft file: https://gist.github.com/chris9871/c0648ff8c48e4cfc700cad2d76ab340c

Edit 2: This design appears to work: https://gist.github.com/chris9871/a7445410fdc09bb042f4cea05da0fe8b

Note that in the working design, I've removed the molten salt+ therm and replaced them with an mhd on top of the positron reactor.

Edit 3: This design works except in a weird case: https://gist.github.com/chris9871/52934705a37fd646583ea7ab30a01e0f

In this design, power up the black hole reactor, then quicksave and reload.  _then_ enter the atmosphere (of kerbin).  After entering the atmosphere, the nozzle stops producing thrust.

Edit 4: PS On a side note, the triangle radiators on testr3 seem to have a noticeably lower weight to heat dissipation ratio than other head radiators.  This doesn't seem like it was intentional, though I can't tell for sure.

Edited by mbaryu
Add craft file.
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Here is a question.

 

Could someone give me a very basic list of what parts are needed, in full, to create positions while in Jool orbit? I have an antimatter collector, so I can collect antimatter (however the positron reactor needs positrons to make power so it seems), but can not figure out how to convert the antimatter into positrons. I've had _some_ luck with the diamagnetic container, but I do not understand how antihydrogen production/deconstruction works (or if it is even relevant to creating positrons).

 

Thanks

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1 hour ago, wkwied said:

 to create positions while in Jool orbit?

Currently, the only way to produce positrons is with  the Free Electron Laser. This part is rather large so I will add a positron production version of the Cyclotron Antiproton Factory.

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3 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Currently, the only way to produce positrons is with  the Free Electron Laser. This part is rather large so I will add a positron production version of the Cyclotron Antiproton Factory.

Also the Quantum Singularity Reactor produces positrons.  The rate of production of the free electron laser is so low that in career mode it took me less time to develop the more advanced tech (and faster production) than it took to recharge a single ship using the free electron laser.  However the quantum singularity reactor is also massive and seems unable to connect to any nozzle to provide thrust (it says it can be hooked up to a magnetic nozzle, but the thrust produced is minuscule).

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@mbaryu  Silly me, I forgot that the Plasma nozzle requires a MJ power  source to operate as it requires power  to magnetize the  plasma nozzle, a specialized kind of  magnetic nozzle, Notice that the Crusader has taken over this role of unpowered high isp, at the expense of a maximum isp. I will add a field to make it clear the plasma nozzle is lacking power when unpowered

Edited by FreeThinker
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2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

@mbaryu  Silly me, I forgot that the Plasma nozzle requires a MJ power  source to operate as it requires power  to magnetize the  plasma nozzle, a specialized kind of  magnetic nozzle, Notice that the Crusader has taken over this role of unpowered high isp, at the expense of a maximum isp. I will add a field to make it clear the plasma nozzle is lacking power when unpowered

Great, that makes sense, thanks!  However there's still the problem of the example 3 which causes the plasma nozzle(s) to fail after entering the atmosphere.  The bizarre workaround is to turn off the singularity reactor, then power it back up after entering the atmosphere (although at high altitude so there's still near 0-g acceleration).

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On 4/13/2019 at 10:50 PM, mbaryu said:

Edit 4: PS On a side note, the triangle radiators on testr3 seem to have a noticeably lower weight to heat dissipation ratio than other head radiators.  This doesn't seem like it was intentional, though I can't tell for sure.

Yes it is intentional. it sacrifices versatility and space for minimum mass and scales with surface area.

On 4/13/2019 at 10:50 PM, mbaryu said:

In this design, power up the black hole reactor, then quicksave and reload.  _then_ enter the atmosphere (of kerbin).  After entering the atmosphere, the nozzle stops producing thrust.

If I'm not mistaken this is a automated safety feature to prevent the black-hole from uncontrollably sucking up the atmosphere and the planet in the process. It similar how the NSWR stops producing thrust when aiming the exhaust to your homeworld.

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1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

If I'm not mistaken this is a automated safety feature to prevent the black-hole from uncontrollably sucking up the atmosphere and the planet in the process. It similar how the NSWR stops producing thrust when aiming the exhaust to your homeworld.

Interesting.  I see the rationale, though I think there are three problems with it:

1st, even a PBH wouldn't have a lot of impact on the atmosphere  and PBHs are many orders of magnitude larger than what I suspect the Quantum Singularity Reactor is supposed to use (I assume based on the fact that it feeds in Hydrogen or Helium that it is an unstable size, which means fairly small).

2nd, if that were the reason, why could I then power it up inside the atmosphere?

3rd, The ship has a bunch of MHDs, one for each positron reactor, which haven't been turned off (this is how the ship was originally launched, after all).  So something is wrong with the power feed to the plasma nozzles if that's the case.

But it's definitely a weird problem.

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I'm having a problem where the electric charge and megajoules are going to NaNs during time acceleration. NaNs love to spread into other variables and break everything of course, so it's a bit of a show stopper. Has anyone else seen this problem?

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1 hour ago, Snoman314 said:

I'm having a problem where the electric charge and megajoules are going to NaNs during time acceleration. NaNs love to spread into other variables and break everything of course, so it's a bit of a show stopper. Has anyone else seen this problem?

Could you explain how to reproduce?

On 4/15/2019 at 2:56 PM, Dollehz said:

Question:

Having some issues with the Candle engine. The engine gimbal is not working in the Yaw axis.

Is this working as intended?

 

No, Its a bug and will be fixed in next release

Edited by FreeThinker
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Question about fusion pellets in the z-pinch engine.... what dictates their use? When going to Eve, one time I totally ran out of pellets while under time acceleration, the other time I was able to go there and back without using a single one.

 

Additionally, what defines the power needed for warp? I've had cases where, sometimes I'm able to generate enough power, sometimes I am not. This is with a 122t craft, folding warp drive, and a Tri Alpha reactor

Edited by wkwied
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1 hour ago, wkwied said:

Additionally, what defines the power needed for warp? I've had cases where, sometimes I'm able to generate enough power, sometimes I am not. This is with a 122t craft, folding warp drive, and a Tri Alpha reactor

well assuming your craft isn't changing mass, either by staging, fuel consumption, or docking, or changing warp power by adding warp rings, the power required to warp has to do with the warp throttle. The closer you are to a gravity well,  the lower your max warp speed will be. At warp speed c=1, it requires the least amount of energy per time, so any speed above or below that requires more and more energy the slower less than 1c or faster higher than 1c. So if you're trying to activate warp right next to Jool, it will take a lot more than if you were in the middle of nowhere because your max warp throttle will be limited to significantly less than 1c. as you get further away from planets, your max throttle will increase.

Edited by Jumberlack
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