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KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread


FreeThinker

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Just now, FreeThinker said:

I still need to know for exactly what nozzle and reactor combination. It matters

Thermal ramjet nozzle and thermal turbojet.

"The reactor doesn't seem to matter either. I have tried some of the antimatter reactors and the pebble bed reactor."

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On 11/1/2018 at 5:08 PM, Wiowt said:

Thermal ramjet nozzle and thermal turbojet.

"The reactor doesn't seem to matter either. I have tried some of the antimatter reactors and the pebble bed reactor."

Well the thermal turbojet and thermal ramjet are both oxidizing resistant nozzles, meaning they use propellant containing oxygen atoms like water and CO2 and noble propellants like Helium, and Argon. The Thermal Nozzle work by the principle of a heat exchange, which consist of exchanging heat between the reactor and the propellant. This is achieved by pumping the propellant though many small tubes. When heating propellant to high temperature (up to 3500K) you need a coating that prevents it from dissolving the heat exchanging and eventually create a leak in the reactor. Now the big limitation is that you can only apply either an anti-reducing coating or antioxidising coating, but not both. Then you have to apply an antioxidising coating which is the case for thermal ramjet and turbojet which needs to be able to heat up an oxygen-containing atmosphere to high temperatures, it cannot function with reducing propellants like Hydrogen, Methane, Hydrazine and Liquid Fuel as they would immediately dissolve the antioxidising coating and dissolve the reactor creating a leak.

Edited by FreeThinker
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Just now, FreeThinker said:

Well the thermal turbojet and thermal ramjet are both oxidising resistant nozzles, meaning they use propellant containing oxygen atoms like water and CO2 and noble propellants like Helium, and Argon. The Thermal Nozzle work by the principle of a heat exchanger, which consist of exchanging heat between the reactor and the propellant. This is achieved by pumping the propellant at though many small tubes. When heating propellant to high temperature (up to 3500K) you need a coating that prevents it from dissolving the heat exchanging and eventually create a leak in the reactor. Now the big limitation is that you can only apply either an anti-reducing coating or antioxidising coating, but not both. Then you have to apply an antioxidising coating which is the case for thermal ramjet and turbojet which needs to be able to heat up an oxygen-containing atmosphere to high temperatures, it cannot function with reducing propellants like Hydrogen, Methane, Hydrazine and Liquid Fuel as they would immediately dissolve the antioxidising coating and dissolve the reactor creating a leak.

It means that now i need to put 3 different engines on ssto?(for example: thermal jet for low atmosphere, nuclear engine for high atmosphere and plasma accelerator for vacuum).And you said thermal jet can't function with hydrogen, but I have Air/Hydrogen mode.

 

Edited by Wiowt
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On 11/1/2018 at 7:43 PM, Wiowt said:

It means that now i need to put 3 different engines on ssto?(for example: thermal jet for low atmosphere, nuclear engine for high atmosphere and plasma accelerator for vacuum).

 

Not necessarily, you can share the same reactor with multiple nozzles and switch between them using action group. But I recommend using Liquid Helium as an alternative to  Liquid Hydrogen

On 11/1/2018 at 7:43 PM, Wiowt said:

And you said thermal jet can't function with hydrogen, but I have but I have Air/Hydrogen mode

IntakeAir/Hydrogen is a advanced mode which heat up IntakeAir  (oxygen rich atmosphere) and uses Hydrogen as an afterburner

Edited by FreeThinker
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Ah thanks FreeThinker for the clarification.

I have played with the mod before and I was not aware of the changes. Additionally, the Interstellar wiki could use an update as it doesn't distinguish between the "new" nossels but I can understand why it isn't a top priority :)  Keep up the good work. 

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On 11/1/2018 at 1:36 AM, FreeThinker said:

The Laser Ablative nozzle is very powerful if you know how power it correctly

That's very cool. surprisingly even. How did you handle the heat?
The one problem I got into is that the nozzle gets really hot, so I had to add quite a few radiators.

But all in all, I managed to lower the cost for orbit salvage mission to about 9k kerbucks (is that how we call the currency?) after ground recovery.

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3 hours ago, Omeran said:

That's very cool. surprisingly even. How did you handle the heat?
The one problem I got into is that the nozzle gets really hot, so I had to add quite a few radiators.

But all in all, I managed to lower the cost for orbit salvage mission to about 9k kerbucks (is that how we call the currency?) after ground recovery.

If you're talking about engine temperature and not wasteheat (that is, it tends to explode) I find that scaling up the engine a little usually solves the problem. Perhaps its heat generation doesn't tweakscale as well as its heat capacity/dissipation.

Also I think it might be generating more heat when running at low power, far less that its receive maximum. But I need to test this some more.

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8 hours ago, Omeran said:

That's very cool. surprisingly even. How did you handle the heat?
The one problem I got into is that the nozzle gets really hot, so I had to add quite a few radiators.

The wastheat problem is currently a problem but it will be fixed next release. Technically wasteheat should only be a problem when the beamed power spotlight becomes larger than the nozzle  causing the laser to heating up the vessel as if it hit by 10000 suns

Edited by FreeThinker
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First I understand the warp drives remember your current velocity when entering warp and reapplying it when you exit warp but unless I'm missing a variable here this is greatly bugged such as warping just outside the influence of a planet you were orbiting to just to be flying off into space in the complete opposite direction of the planets orbit.

Ex.

ugHZboO.pngOnly now realizing how hard it is to see the orbit line

Edited by Mcglin250
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3 hours ago, Mcglin250 said:

First I understand the warp drives remember your current velocity when entering warp and reapplying it when you exit warp but unless I'm missing a variable here this is greatly bugged such as warping just outside the influence of a planet you were orbiting to just to be flying off into space in the complete opposite direction of the planets orbit.

I've also noticed that sometimes the warp drive results in inconsistent velocity vectors when you exit warp.  I haven't been able to figure out the characteristics of the failure, and it seems to be rare.  Usually the velocity vectors after leaving warp are appropriate to the source velocity vectors.

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On 11/3/2018 at 2:12 PM, Wiowt said:

How to make vista work in atmosphere?

In PartModule VistaUCU2 add a property called maxAtmosphereDensity and give it value 1 and should be able to function in Kerbin Atmosphere

Edited by FreeThinker
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2 hours ago, Wiowt said:

 

What is more important for thermal engine: core temperature or thermal power?

Depends what you intend to achieve. core temperature determines maximum isp, thermal power determines overall produced thermal power, which combined with isp determines base thrust. Dependimg on your mission profile, you want to use a isp that matches best with the requires deltaV, too high isp can hurt you as it requires you to spend more power and tim than needed and makes you less maneuverable and therefore flexible

Edited by FreeThinker
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KSPIE Version 1.20.9 is now available for KSP 1.3.1KSP 1.4.5 and KSP 1.5.1

Released on 2018-11-05

  • Balance: Added Surface attaching to Pebble Bed and Positron Antimatter reactor
  • Balance: increased fuel storage Pebble Bed reactor
  • Balance: Magnetic field strength is affected by presence and height atmosphere
  • Fixed issue where power production would not decrease after it was no longer used
  • Fixed number display issue power management window
  • Fixed Surface attachment of surface attachable reactors
  • Fixed overheating issues ablative nozzle
  • Fixed Positron Antimatter reactor to use all propellants available by nozzles
  • Fixed nozzle sound explosion at startup
  • Fixed switching to Hydrogen for incompatible nozzles
  • Fixed static radiator not activating at startup
  • Fixed missing plume effect on Thermal Turbojet VTOL nozzle
  • Fixed spamming of Magnetic Field Instrument
  • Fixed power instability Solar Panels
  • Fixed power stability iHall
Edited by FreeThinker
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Just now, FreeThinker said:

Depends what you intend to achieve. core temperature determines maximum isp, thermal power determines overall produced thermal power, which combined with isp determines base thrust. Dependimg on your mission profile, you want to use a isp that matches best with the requires deltaV, too high isp can hurt you as it requires you to spend more power and tim than needed and makes you less maneuverable and therefore flexible

Thanks!So what reactors perform well with thermal engines? Pebble Bed?How to chose correct number of radiators when i use reactor+thermal engine?

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8 hours ago, Wiowt said:

Thanks!So what reactors perform well with thermal engines? Pebble Bed?How to chose correct number of radiators when i use reactor+thermal engine?

Well every reactor has it pro and cons, the pebble has decent power output power propulsion but isn't the best but it can be used with a thermal power generator but requires a relatively high amount of radiators. When using it only for propulsion you need a lot less radiators but be aware that it has a negative heat throttling, meaning the hotter it becomes, the less power it produces. If you need better nuclear power to weight ratio and are not interested in high electric power generation, the timberwind is you best bet. If that is still not enough power, the antimatter initiated micro-fusion reactor is your best bet, which uses a relatively low amount antimatter to produce a decent amount of power but for the highest amount of thermal power, the is nothing more powerful then the positron antimatter reactor, but it main achilles heel  is that besides the fast that it produces a lot of wasteheat, positron antimatter storage is realy difficult therefore limiting endurance unless you can produce your positron antimatter at a reachable location. When you need long endurance, early on the Molten Salt Reactor combined with a KSPIE  Science lab can run for many years, later when Fusion becomes an option that become very durable able retrieve a lot of power from matter for decades . But all of that becomes insignificant when you can use the Quantum Singularity Reactor , especially when combined with a magnetic scoop allowing you turn any matter directly into power till the end of time.

Edited by FreeThinker
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Several unrelated questions -

1. Looks like the latest version from CKAN is 1.20.9.1 (not 1.20.9.2). Is this just a matter of time or another problem?

UPDATE: it shows up now.

2. I tried landing my large Daedalus-based ship on Tylo (because, why not?) and noticed that even though it doesn't have any atmosphere, the ISP goes down when getting very low (i.e. <10km). Why is that?

It's powered by a Tri-alpha colliding beam fusion reactor.

3. If the Kerbstein engine is described to be a modified Vista engine, shouldn't it bear more resemblance to the Vista engine and not the Daedalus/Bussard engine? or does it look this way because of the "original" Epstein engine? (BTW, the Vista engine is the best looking one, IMHO)

Edited by Omeran
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I have a few part ideas if you you would like to consider them. Well one's a part the other is a part feature.

One.

Could there be some kind of thermal piping? So engines can utilize the heat from further away reactors.

Two.

Couldn't the Graphite Radiator Skin Wrappers act as a sort of heat shield covering a side if not all of a fuelselage?

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KSPIE Version 1.20.10.2 is now available for KSP 1.3.1KSP 1.4.5 and KSP 1.5.1

Released on 2018-11-09

  • Fixed Positron Antimatter Reactor ability to function with any thermal or plasma nozzle and respond without delay
18 hours ago, Mcglin250 said:

I have a few part ideas if you you would like to consider them. Well one's a part the other is a part feature.

One.

Could there be some kind of thermal piping? So engines can utilize the heat from further away reactors.

Two.

Couldn't the Graphite Radiator Skin Wrappers act as a sort of heat shield covering a side if not all of a fuelselage?

Suggestion One is technically already in place, you can use engine nozzles further away from the reactor. But the further away from the reactor, the less effective it becomes.  A notifiable exception to this is the molten salt reactor which heat can be transported with minimal loss.

Suggestion Two is problematic because Graphene is basically a form of graphite in stronger molecular configuration. But graphite oxidizes, especially at high temperature.  Even diamond will burn when heated up to high temperatures. Therefore graphene is not ideally suited to act as a heat shield, at least not without some antioxidising coating.

However, one idea have is to increase the maximum thermal resistance based on unlocked thermal control techs, this should make it easier to build SSTO which need to travel at high speed though the atmosphere.

By the way, any ideas should be posted in the Development, not the support thread which is mend for questions and solving problem with KSPIE

Edited by FreeThinker
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Ok so here is a question then. Why does the positron antimatter reactor never run at full power when attached to a thermal or plasma engine? I know the engines themselves can only take so much but if you were running more than one engine on the reactor it could run at a higher power.

Also I think the new version 1.4.5 broke KerbNet I haven't checked with an older version so I'm not sure. 

Edit: Went back to 20.7 KebNet still broke so I'm pretty sure you're clear.

Edited by Mcglin250
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KSPIE Version 1.20.11 is now available for KSP 1.3.1, KSP 1.4.5 and KSP 1.5.1

Released on 2018-11-11

  • Added active prograde and retrograde steering during timewarp to all Interstellar Persistent thrust capable engines
  • Added Persistent thrust to Toroidal Aerospike
  • Balance: Reduced power requirement Daedalus Fusion engine by 90%
  • Balance: Increased thermal transport efficiency of Molten Salt Reactor to 99% and other reactors to 90%
Edited by FreeThinker
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@FreeThinker

I have some questions:

1.Where can i use solar wind?

2.Where can i store enough antimatter? It is consumed by reactors in few seconds(i used particle trap)

3.What should i do to make  free electron laser produce positrons?

4.Where can i use antimatter fusion, antimatter and positron reactors? They have very high power and need a lot of radiators.Besides, most engines have input power limit(most effisient engines(bussard end daedalus) dont scale with reactor power at all)

5.Why do vasimr and attila have flat plumes?)))))In old videos they were valumetric.

Edited by Wiowt
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@FreeThinkerI dunno if this is a KSP-I issue but I think it might be because of the way KSP-I overhauls the thermal and IRSU systems

ISRU core temperatures. No matter how many radiators I put on my test ship (or where I put them, or where the ship is located) my Convert-o-tron 250's thermal efficiency sticks rigidly to 19%, which is rubbish.

Whats going on? Every other source I've found basically says "Make sure you have enough radiators!" and it's clearly NOT that.

 

Related Question: What are the upgrade techs for radiators, I have thus far worked out

  • Heat Management - Introduces Titanium Rads.
  • Nanolathing - Graphene upgrade
  • Adv. Heat Management - Introduces Graphene Rads.
  • Exotic Rads. - Graphene upgrade
  • Extreme Rads- Graphene upgrade

My Rads were MkIII, I just researched Nanolathing. . . . still MkIII, am I missing something?

Edited by Bishop149
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@FreeThinker - using the latest version of the mod in KSP 1.5.1, I've found a corner case bug... if a ship overheats (any part), it seems to trigger an antimatter containment breach followed by an explosion - at least with the positron containers that I'm using.

The problem is that when this explodes, it puts the game into a state where ESC and F9 both are non-functional - F3 and F12 and ALT-F12 still work, but there's no way to get back to the space center or revert the flight - KSP must be killed from the task manager at this point.

Sometimes this is accompanied by the antimatter explosion animation played on a continuous loop, sometimes it is not.

Obvious workaround: don't let your antimatter containers explode... but.. we all know that's not always possible :)

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