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KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread


FreeThinker

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4 hours ago, juanml82 said:

Vasmir

Requires up to 2MW of electric power, paired with pebble bed reactor and electric generator, can’t generate near enough trust to move such a heavy ship (plus the 40t payload). Only to be used within the reach of a wireless power network?

The Vasmir is an high isp throttled electric engine which should be used over long periods (with timewarp) for orbital transfers, rather than chemical engine which provides high amount of thrust at short burn which is ideal to launch out  of or land on gravity wells

Edited by FreeThinker
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4 hours ago, juanml82 said:

Plasma Nozzle

Needs a reactor with charged particles (has to be directly attached?). Chose the Tri-alpha due weight at 6 tons (does the ship benefit from using a heavier, more powerful reactor?). The reactor lowers it’s output significantly while the engine is running.

Lol, the Tri-alpha is not supposed to be able to function with any nozzle. thanks for reporting.

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The Daedalus engine should work during timewarp right?  I've been able to use the MPD and other electric engines under timewarp, but when I try to timewarp with the Daedalus or Vista engines the game gives me the "Can't timewarp under acceleration" message.  Is there some setting or some add-on I'm missing?

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17 minutes ago, DGerry said:

The Daedalus engine should work during timewarp right?  I've been able to use the MPD and other electric engines under timewarp, but when I try to timewarp with the Daedalus or Vista engines the game gives me the "Can't timewarp under acceleration" message.  Is there some setting or some add-on I'm missing?

Only the Daedalus can warp under time warp and to overcome the the "Can't timewarp under acceleration" simply lower thrust and accelerate, it will always attempt to accelerate at maximum possible thrust.

Edited by FreeThinker
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1 hour ago, DGerry said:

The Daedalus engine should work during timewarp right?  I've been able to use the MPD and other electric engines under timewarp, but when I try to timewarp with the Daedalus or Vista engines the game gives me the "Can't timewarp under acceleration" message.  Is there some setting or some add-on I'm missing?

Max acceleration under time warp is 1 m/s2. Get kerbal engineer to see wharts your acceleration.

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From the settings of the KSPI Super Capacitor I assumed it can convert EC into Megajoules and reverse, but however I set the slider it never seemed to produce MJ from EC. Do I misunderstand the settings? (Running KSPIE with NFE installed)

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18 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

The Vasmir is an high isp throttled electric engine which should be used over long periods (with timewarp) for orbital transfers, rather than chemical engine which provides high amount of thrust at short burn which is ideal to launch out  of or land on gravity wells

Wait, by "timewarp" you mean the "non-physics timewarp aka on-rails"? That's awesome, but how do you plot a course that way

21 hours ago, DGerry said:

I'm not sure why your Stellarator reactor shut down except maybe it didn't have enough fuel?  It doesn't come with much by default, you probably need an extra supply.

I haven't unlocked the antimatter stuff yet. As for the Stellarator, it's not running out of fuel. Is it due the "fusion mantaince"? The thermal electric converter should be able to provide that power. Here's a screenshot.

veEISyv.png

If I don't activate the thermovoltaic cells to receive power from a visible light network, the amount of "wall to beam power" of the laser transmitter keeps going down. If I draw power from the beamed power network, it doesn't (but is the laser using power from the reactor or just the power network, which means the reactor becomes dead weight?)

Also, how do you pack more deuterium? There is a radial fuel tank for "liquid deuterium" but that's a different resource than "deuterium". Is there a way to pack "deuterium" or should I unlock the All in One ISRU and keep converting "liquid deuterium" to "deuterium".

As for all the Helium the reactor produces, I guess it's a matter of adding a large, empty, Helium tank and either jetissoning it's contents regularly or docking something that burns helium regularly to refuel, right?

 

 

Also, what's the deal with the Daedalus? I still have some 5,300 science points, so I can continue to push towards antimatter collectors, unlock the last NFT engines, or get the Daedalus. Would it work fine with the Stellarator or the other fusion reactor (if I can understand how they work) so I can use that to make my interplanetary mothership?

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1 hour ago, juanml82 said:

I haven't unlocked the antimatter stuff yet. As for the Stellarator, it's not running out of fuel. Is it due the "fusion mantaince"? The thermal electric converter should be able to provide that power. Here's a screenshot.

veEISyv.png

If I don't activate the thermovoltaic cells to receive power from a visible light network, the amount of "wall to beam power" of the laser transmitter keeps going down. If I draw power from the beamed power network, it doesn't (but is the laser using power from the reactor or just the power network, which means the reactor becomes dead weight?)

Also, how do you pack more deuterium? There is a radial fuel tank for "liquid deuterium" but that's a different resource than "deuterium". Is there a way to pack "deuterium" or should I unlock the All in One ISRU and keep converting "liquid deuterium" to "deuterium".

As for all the Helium the reactor produces, I guess it's a matter of adding a large, empty, Helium tank and either jetissoning it's contents regularly or docking something that burns helium regularly to refuel, right?

 

 

Also, what's the deal with the Daedalus? I still have some 5,300 science points, so I can continue to push towards antimatter collectors, unlock the last NFT engines, or get the Daedalus. Would it work fine with the Stellarator or the other fusion reactor (if I can understand how they work) so I can use that to make my interplanetary mothership?

So the reason the "wall to beam power" is going down is because of the temperature of your radiators going up - the output of the reactor is staying the same, but the efficiency of the thermal generator is going down.  The only thing you can do about this is add more radiators, but that has diminishing returns past a certain point.  Your charged particles generator wouldn't be affected by this but the D-T fusion reaction only produces about 20% of its power as charged particles, the other 80% requires the thermal generator whose efficiency depends on the difference between the "hot bath" and the "cold bath". 

 

You can use liquid deuterium I believe if you set the slider on the tank to the "deuterium" side(the right side) - this will convert lqd deuterium to gas as needed I think.  You can also use the pressurized gas tank and fill it with deuterium(same goes for tritium).

 

As for the helium, if you really wanna save it you can but when the helium storage fills up I think the reactor just keeps running and it's assuming that the reactor is venting the excess.

 

The Daedalus requires about 200MW of power to run, so you can run it with a wide variety of reactors.  The main thing is that it requires the fusion pellets for fuel which are expensive.  You can make the fusion pellets out of He-3 and Deuterium, which I believe works out to be cheaper, but He-3 is expensive as well.  The Daedalus engine itself costs IIRC 6million funds.  It's extremely efficient, and for an interplanetary ship the main advantage would be that you can run really inefficient transfers and not have to wait for transfer windows and have shorter transit times.  You'll use a huge amount more delta-v  than is typically necessary for an interplanetary transfer, but you can do it.  I think the Daedalus is mainly "intended" for inter*stellar* journeys, where you accelerate for long enough to reach significant fractions of the speed of light.  I haven't used the Daedalus yet(don't have the funds to support it just yet) but I'm thinking about it, just depends on how easily I can get He-3 without buying it(because buying it is expensive and the Daedalus is expensive as it is).

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1 minute ago, DGerry said:

So the reason the "wall to beam power" is going down is because of the temperature of your radiators going up - the output of the reactor is staying the same, but the efficiency of the thermal generator is going down.  The only thing you can do about this is add more radiators, but that has diminishing returns past a certain point.  Your charged particles generator wouldn't be affected by this but the D-T fusion reaction only produces about 20% of its power as charged particles, the other 80% requires the thermal generator whose efficiency depends on the difference between the "hot bath" and the "cold bath".

Ah, got it. So it's not like I'm doing something wrong. I guess I should just demand power from the reactor (as in, turn on laser transmitters) when they are needed. Not only that saves radiator fuel, it keeps the waste heat from building up.

 

Quote

The Daedalus requires about 200MW of power to run, so you can run it with a wide variety of reactors.  The main thing is that it requires the fusion pellets for fuel which are expensive.  You can make the fusion pellets out of He-3 and Deuterium, which I believe works out to be cheaper, but He-3 is expensive as well.  The Daedalus engine itself costs IIRC 6million funds.  It's extremely efficient, and for an interplanetary ship the main advantage would be that you can run really inefficient transfers and not have to wait for transfer windows and have shorter transit times.  You'll use a huge amount more delta-v  than is typically necessary for an interplanetary transfer, but you can do it.  I think the Daedalus is mainly "intended" for inter*stellar* journeys, where you accelerate for long enough to reach significant fractions of the speed of light.  I haven't used the Daedalus yet(don't have the funds to support it just yet) but I'm thinking about it, just depends on how easily I can get He-3 without buying it(because buying it is expensive and the Daedalus is expensive as it is).

Well, I'm playing science career, so funds aren't an issue. I'll unlock it the next time I play

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Ok, I had asked in the development thread by mistake. In any case, I've been testing the Deadalus, and it always maxes out at 400 kw, producing maximum thrust. Is that correct or a bug? In other words, I can run it with one of the early fission reactors instad of a heavier fusion reactor

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3 hours ago, juanml82 said:

Ok, I had asked in the development thread by mistake. In any case, I've been testing the Deadalus, and it always maxes out at 400 kw, producing maximum thrust. Is that correct or a bug? In other words, I can run it with one of the early fission reactors instad of a heavier fusion reactor

I don't think that's a bug, I think it's due to the fact that you're running with the Near Future mod installed.  I believe NF "squishes" all the numbers from KSPI-E.  You should be able to run it with one of the early fission reactors no problem.  The real issue with running it is the cost and cost of fuel but, as you said, you're on Science career so funds aren't an issue.

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8 hours ago, DGerry said:

I don't think that's a bug, I think it's due to the fact that you're running with the Near Future mod installed.  I believe NF "squishes" all the numbers from KSPI-E.  You should be able to run it with one of the early fission reactors no problem.  The real issue with running it is the cost and cost of fuel but, as you said, you're on Science career so funds aren't an issue.

 
 
 

Negative, you still need a KSPI reactor, but I'm looking for ways to making it possible in te near future like it is now done solar panels

Edited by FreeThinker
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1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Negative, you still need a KSPI reactor, but I'm looking for ways to making it possible in te near future like it is now done solar panels

So I can just plug a Tri-Alpha Something Reactor and the ship won't end up useless with a bug fix update in the future that fixes the "Daedalus using too little power when NFT is installed"?

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2 minutes ago, juanml82 said:

So I can just plug a Tri-Alpha Something Reactor and the ship won't end up useless with a bug fix update in the future that fixes the "Daedalus using too little power when NFT is installed"?

Yes it's safe and it's rather going to use less than more. The fact is the Daedalus is an open cycle fusion reactor, which produces it own maintenance power. It technically only needs power to startup and charge it internal capacitators at startup

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12 hours ago, DGerry said:

I don't think that's a bug, I think it's due to the fact that you're running with the Near Future mod installed.  I believe NF "squishes" all the numbers from KSPI-E. 

So are Near Future and KSPI-E not very compatible? Is it best to run one and not the other, or are there just some issues that one can work around?

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Just now, Mandella said:

So are Near Future and KSPI-E not very compatible? Is it best to run one and not the other, or are there just some issues that one can work around?

I don't mean to give that impression at all, and FreeThinker or perhaps Nertea could answer this better than I can.  My understanding is that when you have both NF and KSPI-E installed, KSPI-E's power values are all "normalized" to levels that integrate well with NF.  If you look at juanml82's screenshot above you'll see his Stellarator reactor producing 15MW - in KSPI-E terms that's tiny, but I imagine that in NF terms that's fairly substantial.  I would further assume that the power *requirements* of KSPI-E parts are reduced in the same way.  My understanding is that this is all intentional and that the goal is to make it so that the NF stuff is worth using, because otherwise it would all be completely outclassed by KSPI-E reactors/parts.

My disclaimer on this post is that I'm not involved in the development of either mod and I could be completely wrong on this.  If either FreeThinker or Nertea say differently, assume they're correct and I'm not.

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35 minutes ago, DGerry said:

I don't mean to give that impression at all, and FreeThinker or perhaps Nertea could answer this better than I can.  My understanding is that when you have both NF and KSPI-E installed, KSPI-E's power values are all "normalized" to levels that integrate well with NF.  If you look at juanml82's screenshot above you'll see his Stellarator reactor producing 15MW - in KSPI-E terms that's tiny, but I imagine that in NF terms that's fairly substantial.  I would further assume that the power *requirements* of KSPI-E parts are reduced in the same way.  My understanding is that this is all intentional and that the goal is to make it so that the NF stuff is worth using, because otherwise it would all be completely outclassed by KSPI-E reactors/parts.

My disclaimer on this post is that I'm not involved in the development of either mod and I could be completely wrong on this.  If either FreeThinker or Nertea say differently, assume they're correct and I'm not.

Yes, AFAIK there is a patch in KSPI-E that reduces electrical output of the KSPI-E generators if NFT is present. IIRC (I'm at work, I don't have ksp at hand) they are still substantially more powerful than NFT reactors (otoh, they are also heavier). You can power NFT electrical engines with either KSPI-E reactors or with a KSPI-E power network, but I feel the latter is kind of cheating: NFT electrical engines were designed and balanced to be used with nuclear reactors (or a lot of big solar panels). Replacing an 8 tons reactor with 0.2 tons of thermal solar panels from kspi-e makes the NFT plasma engines ridiculously OP. I think. I'm still trying to figure things out. I get the feeling that KSPI-E reactors are better used for KSPI-E stuff while NFT reactors are better suited for stock and NFT stuff. They are interchangeable, but there is no point in using the heavier, more complex, KSPI-E reactors to power a mining rig and I don't think NFT reactors would be powerful enough for KSPI-E engines (although I haven't tested that)

 

Used in combination, I feel NFT is more "predictable" as you build stuff, since every engine uses a single fuel type and demands a certain electrical power, which you can match to a certain nuclear reactor (well, I think NFT lacks a mid range reactor between the first 1.25m one and the heavier reactors). Nertea's Kerbal Atomics is also simpler than KSPI Nuclear thermal engines: Nertea's engines use liquid hydrogen and that's it. In KSPI-E the engines performance depends on your choices of fuel type, and available electrical power. Also, unfortunately, whatever Freethinker designed to make that possible with electrical engines doesn't integrate into whatever KER and MJ use to calculate information, so you can't rely on MJ/KER to provide accurate information in the VAB regarding electrical engines performance. KSPI-E nuclear thermal engines are simpler in that regards but, unfortunately, KSP interface doesn't help to easily select a fuel. Instead of being able to change all the fuels of a certain stage or even see a chart with the expected results beforehand, you need to individually switch the fuels for both engine and tanks.

Edited by juanml82
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So I've been playing this mod some and I'm really stumped on how the TORY ramjet works. I can't find the Uranium Oxide resource it supposedly requires and the mode switch doesn't work. Also when shutting down the reactor there's no option to restart it again.

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Maybe I'm blind, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to condense gasses like hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia etc into liquids and vice-versa. I'm trying co condense gaseous nitrogen, ammonia etc into liquid form for fuel use and none of the IRSU parts seem to have any facilities for accomplishing this. Plis Halp.

Edited by Citizen Joe
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14 hours ago, DGerry said:

I don't mean to give that impression at all, and FreeThinker or perhaps Nertea could answer this better than I can.  My understanding is that when you have both NF and KSPI-E installed, KSPI-E's power values are all "normalized" to levels that integrate well with NF.  If you look at juanml82's screenshot above you'll see his Stellarator reactor producing 15MW - in KSPI-E terms that's tiny, but I imagine that in NF terms that's fairly substantial.  I would further assume that the power *requirements* of KSPI-E parts are reduced in the same way.  My understanding is that this is all intentional and that the goal is to make it so that the NF stuff is worth using, because otherwise it would all be completely outclassed by KSPI-E reactors/parts..

 
 
 

Yes your right, it is intentional to make KSPI balance better with NF (KSPI-E was designed for this purpose), but this is far from ideal. For once, it confuses the hell out of people, second is that it is factual wrong. Fortunately there is hope for a better solution. I talked with Nertea, and he suggested to do the reversal meaning increase NF reactor/engines to KSPI power levels (as primitive nuclear reactors). Now this would be much better in some respect, but it also introduces also a whole lot of technical and balance problems. Which intend to tackle one at the time.

Edited by FreeThinker
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1 hour ago, Citizen Joe said:

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to condense gasses like hydrogen, nitrogen, ammonia etc into liquids and vice-versa. I'm trying co condense gaseous nitrogen, ammonia etc into liquid form for fuel use and none of the IRSU parts seem to have any facilities for accomplishing this. Plis Halp.

 

There are several parts capable of this, the most obvious are the Inline ISRU Refrigerator, Refrigerator Hex Module and the Liquidator and Universal Storage unit.

13 hours ago, EleSigma said:

So I've been playing this mod some and I'm really stumped on how the TORY ramjet works. I can't find the Uranium Oxide resource it supposedly requires and the mode switch doesn't work. Also when shutting down the reactor there's no option to restart it again.

 

The fact that you were able to shut it down is the real bug. These reactor function like a candle once lit they burnup until there is nothing left.

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1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

There are several parts capable of this, the most obvious are the Inline ISRU Refrigerator, Refrigerator Hex Module and the Liquidator and Universal Storage unit.

Erm... how? Where are the "liquidator" and "universal storage unit?" I can see that the refrigerators are supposed to have converters in the VAB, but once out on the pad or in space, the inline refrigerator has no options for conversion at all, and the hex core one can only convert the resources it possesses its own liquid storage for, namely Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, Deuterium, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen

EDIT: Ohh... I see. Thats extremely handy the tanks can do that. Seems like one of my mods is interfering with some things including preventing converters from working unless the converter part itself has local storage for the liquid. which is slightly odd.. I'll have to hunt that down. :[

Edited by Citizen Joe
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Alright, not sure how this has been missed, but some of the conversion ratios (actual liquid weights possibly) from liquds to gasses and vice versa are off by a staggering margin of a factor of 5 times, one way or the other. I tested this on a clean install with only KSPI's package installed and some of the numbers are off by a ridiculous amount, like 100k O2 weighing 141kg converting into 618 LOX weighing 705.1410kg. This works both ways as well for all of the afflicted resources, so that 705kg of liquid O2 will convert back to 141kg of gaseous O2.

Actual Numbers for a variety of resources incoming

EDIT : Alright, tested a number of conversons, and here we are. Some of the other possible conversions are probably off too:
 

Spoiler

 

Fluorine
100,000 Gas: 169kg
Converts to
~563 Lqd: 848kg
Off by a factor of 5

Helium-3
100,000 Gas: 12.5kg
Converts to
~212 Lqd: 12.5kg
Ratios are fine

Helium/Helium-4 (The tank name for LqdHelium is Helium 4, for some reason, but not helium gas)
100,000 Gas: 17.86kg
Converts to
20 Lqd: 3.572kg
Off by a factor of 5

Methane
100,000 Gas: 71.7kg
Converts to
~168 Lqd: 71.7kg
Ratios are fine

Deuterium
100,000 Gas: 18kg
Converts to
~111 Lqd: 18kg
Ratios are fine

Hydrogen
100,000 Gas: 8.99kg
Converts to
~127 Lqd: 8.99kg
Ratios are fine

Nitrogen
100,000 Gas: 125.1kg
Converts to
~30.33 Lqd: 25.02 kg
Off by a factor of 5

Oxygen
100,000 Gas: 141kg
Converts to
~618 Lqd: 705.1410kg
Off by a factor of 5

Carbon Dioxide
100,000 Gas: 195.1kg
Converts to
~166 Lqd: 195.1kg
Ratios are fine

 

Is it possible to temp fix this in one of the config files?

Edited by Citizen Joe
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I'm brand new to this mod and having difficulty understanding the mining/resource processing aspect. I understand that it's desirable to mine some resources as they're very expensive otherwise. Is there a tab;e somewhere that gives the resource costs? Is there a way to "sell" resources without recovering the associated vessel? Does it work well to mine resources, sell them, then rebuy as needed or is there a better way to handle things? Obviously orbital/interplanetary refueling is it's own beast, but I at least get the idea of how that should work.

Thanks for your help.

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On 12.4.2017 at 8:04 PM, kanvil said:

This is the patch that causes the problem. It just happens to also catch the Alcubierre drive.


//------\\
//---Moves early dedicated reaction wheels to miniaturization---\\
//------\\

@PART[*]:HAS[!MODULE[ModuleCommand],@MODULE[ModuleReactionWheel]]:NEEDS[UnmannedBeforeManned]:FOR[zzzzUnmannedBeforeMannedChallenge]
{
	@TechRequired = miniaturization
}

 

Whoops, will fix it in the next version, thank you very much!

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