Bigger Ion Engines / Potential EM drive?

[krblman]

So we have MK0.5 ION engines ("Dawn").

But what if we had a slightly bigger ion engine for MK1 rockets? And at that, what if we have a MK0.5 nuclear motor?

Another thing - Since Career Mode is a thing, what if we also had Argon-powered ion drives that are lighter and cheaper but less powerful and last longer?

 

And also, there's something called an "EM Drive". It's slower than an Ion drive and works purely on electricity. However, it only works because of magnetic fields. Nonetheless, it'd be really cool to have an EM drive, and it'd be even cooler if it got stronger the closer you are to massive bodies - Kerbol should have around 0.1 kerbins of force just to make it fair, but for example the EM drive is 10x faster in Jool's vicinity due to Jool being the size of earth, and KSP is at 0.1x scale, so Kerbin is 1/10 of Jool's size.

 

 

[Single stage to ocean]

No argon or bigger ion engines, but there should be an option to overclock ion engines inc exchange for releasing loads of heat and energy consumption, as well as lower efficiency.

EM drive will get OP fast and doesn't fit in game spirit. There is a similiar mod called Magnetricity with the a magnetic drive which only work in planet SOIs. And soon there will be players using the EM drive to reach millions of km/s with bettertimewarp and persistent thrust to speed things up millions of times if it added. It will make almost all propulsion obselete, even if it has almost nonexistent thrust, need radiators, and huge power needs if you have any patience to just wait a few hours.

Note, EM drives don't work by magnets. they are actually useless IRL, even pointing a flashlight and using it as a rocket it better, b/c the EM drive has 0 thrust, its just the wires inside reacting against Earths magnetic feild genertating the "thrust". Flashlight will increase ur speed by a few nanomters a s econd

Edited May 21, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Guest]

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Edited June 20, 2021 by Guest

[Single stage to ocean]

It is kind of terrible outside of tiny craft. Ob my large grand tour kerbalism craft concepts, I get a recurring TWR of just 0.01 at best. Sometimes it reaches 0.00, b/c it rounds more closely to that, hence i can infer TWR<0.005. An option to boost them is urgently needed. The boost mode reduces ISP to 2000, creates 100kW of heat, needing a large radiator panel, and keeps EC consumption the same, and increases thrust to 3kN. Adequately nerfed.

Edited May 23, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[kspnerd122]

EM drive is super scummy, even if it costs stuff, its still a reactionless drive, which is cheaty, since you could just stick a bunch of RTGs on and never run out of power

[Incarnation of Chaos]

1 hour ago, kspnerd122 said:

EM drive is super scummy, even if it costs stuff, its still a reactionless drive, which is cheaty, since you could just stick a bunch of RTGs on and never run out of power

I mean not really, because it doesn't actually generate any thrust. You'd be better off powering a lightbulb with them....or using a solar sail.

Basically if they add it, it would be an April fool's joke made as a part. ec consumption? 1500 kilowatts for 0.0 kn of thrust, and can consume up to 1500 megawatts for additional 0.0 in. 

I hope people have realized by now this thing is bunk, and has been tested and given a fair shot.

There's no novel physics in the EM drive, just a bit of geometry that focused some radio waves that didn't even replicate in the later test. Yes, even the tiny bit of thrust it supposedly made was ruled out. 

I know people want a slipspace drive/warp drive/magicalunicornnegativeEntropiclelomgwotisC drive but it isn't the EM drive lel

Humans are clever though, we'll keep testing (exploding) things until eventually we brute-force our way to something. 

As for the OP, look at near future electric and it's VASMIR and other drives. Then grab some atomic rocket's and thank nerta for being awesome. 

Not only are they actually possible, but they beat the stock electric drives by far. Not reactionless though, but that's just physics. 

 

 

 

[kspnerd122]

18 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I mean not really, because it doesn't actually generate any thrust. You'd be better off powering a lightbulb with them....or using a solar sail.

Basically if they add it, it would be an April fool's joke made as a part. ec consumption? 1500 kilowatts for 0.0 kn of thrust, and can consume up to 1500 megawatts for additional 0.0 in. 

I hope people have realized by now this thing is bunk, and has been tested and given a fair shot.

There's no novel physics in the EM drive, just a bit of geometry that focused some radio waves that didn't even replicate in the later test. Yes, even the tiny bit of thrust it supposedly made was ruled out. 

I know people want a slipspace drive/warp drive/magicalunicornnegativeEntropiclelomgwotisC drive but it isn't the EM drive lel

Humans are clever though, we'll keep testing (exploding) things until eventually we brute-force our way to something. 

As for the OP, look at near future electric and it's VASMIR and other drives. Then grab some atomic rocket's and thank nerta for being awesome. 

Not only are they actually possible, but they beat the stock electric drives by far. Not reactionless though, but that's just physics. 

 

 

 

"Thank Nerta for being awesome"

Well, I kinda like to disagree with that statement, because, although nerta has made some good mods, you have to realize that first off, no tweakscale compatibility, despite it being ridiculously easy to add, 2nd, some of the mods they make are a lagfest on slower computers

[Incarnation of Chaos]

On 5/24/2021 at 7:25 AM, kspnerd122 said:

"Thank Nerta for being awesome"

Well, I kinda like to disagree with that statement, because, although nerta has made some good mods, you have to realize that first off, no tweakscale compatibility, despite it being ridiculously easy to add, 2nd, some of the mods they make are a lagfest on slower computers

Mods always come with overhead, they have to be loaded into memory afterall.  So slower computers aren't going to be having a good time with ANY mods aside from the most basic.

Secondly Tweakscale support for many of his parts isn't that easy due to modules, fuelswitchers etc.

Plus you could always roll your own Tweakscale patches if you really wanted.

He did the hard work of making the models, texturing them, updating them from KSP version to version and then releasing it all for FREE for us to use. A few minor things doesn't take away from that, dude is awesome imo.

You're free to disagree, but i find your reasoning rather weak tbh.

[Starhelperdude]

13 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Mods always come with overhead, they have to be loaded into memory afterall.  So slower computers aren't going to be having a good time with ANY mods aside from the most basic.

Secondly Tweakscale support for many of his parts isn't that easy due to modules, fuelswitchers etc.

Plus you could always roll your own Tweakscale patches if you really wanted.

He did the hard work of making the models, texturing them, updating them from KSP version to version and then releasing it all for FREE for us to use. A few minor things doesn't take away from that, dude is awesome imo.

You're free to disagree, but i find your reasoning rather weak tbh.

I agree with every word you just said

[Lisias]

On 5/24/2021 at 9:25 AM, kspnerd122 said:

some of the mods they make are a lagfest on slower computers

Lower the Texture Quality on Main Menu / Settings / Graphics. On the Rendering Section, you will find a Slider called Texture Quality.

It's usually on Full Res, and the other options are Half Res, Quarter Res and Eighth Res.

Everybody is upgrading the Textures to 4K nowadays, and this not only is a waste for people gaming on 1080p, as it more than doubles the memory needed for textures both on GPU as on GPU (including loading times). By lowering this setting, the Textures will be downgraded on loading, saving you some precious memory. Even if you have a beefier machine, if you are playing on 1080p this setting would save some VRAM, allowing you to get better FPS or even rendering the game playable on cheaper GPU cards.

The bad side of this solution is that Textures that are fine for 1080p will be downgrade too (it's all or nothing), and this can render the U.I. somewhat problematic (some widgets can get so blurred on Eighth Res that you can't tell if a checkbox is checked or not.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Lisias
Eternal typos of the Englishless Mind

[Guest]

On 5/24/2021 at 1:25 PM, kspnerd122 said:

"Thank Nerta for being awesome"

Well, I kinda like to disagree with that statement, because, although nerta has made some good mods, you have to realize that first off, no tweakscale compatibility, despite it being ridiculously easy to add, 2nd, some of the mods they make are a lagfest on slower computers

I for one shall be very excited to test your  full catalogue of unique parts, with those issues magically addressed, when you release them 

[juanml82]

Ion engines are made for small probes. Bigger engines would fall into the cheat/torchship category.

Even some of Near Future Propulsion engines feel cheaty - you can make a lightweight lander that will land in the smaller moons and with a dV in the range of 4,000-5,000 dV and using engines unable to lift their own weight in real life. I still use them, but I can see why they aren't stock.