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[1.12.2] Tea Kettle RCS 1.2 | Dec 22, 2022


JadeOfMaar

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BjCE2yJ.png

Standalone thermal RCS for atomic ships.

(Stock RCS for scale).

There are many of us who really don't like the idea of carrying any significant load of MonoPropellant or LFO on a ship that revolves around hydrogen and nuclear reactors. It's time to stage that worthless mass and go!

The thrusters themselves are not atomic but do depend on built-in heat exchangers which tap the thermal energy from an active reactor (not implemented in configs) to accelerate the propellant. Find them in the same tech node as the stock NERVA.

If CryoEngines, Kerbal Atomics, or Rational Resources is present, expect 5 fuel options with detailed tooltip in accordance with the offerings of Rational Resources Nuclear Family. Provides basic LiquidFuel option (and only this option) if these mods are not present or if "Kerbal Atomics use LiquidFuel" patch/modlet is present.

Does not contain System Heat, Waterfall or tech tree configs (yet).

Stock inventory volumes thanks to:

DOWNLOAD :: SPACEDOCK :: GITHUB

REQUIREMENTS:

Recommended Mods:

  • Cryogenic Engines
  • Kerbal Atomics (without its LiquidFuel patch)
  • Rational Resources

License: MIT

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  • 3 weeks later...

Allow me to start off by saying that this is a mod that I never knew how much I needed until I saw it. I love using NTRs as propulsion in space/orbit, and these mean I can finally give up carrying around a tiny bit of Monopropellant or Oxidizer specifically to fuel the RCS, which is something I really like the idea of (I've got enough different resources to keep track of already, less is better).

I love the idea of this mod, but I have some feedback:

Since I don't use Rational Resources, but I do use CRP, I hope that things work fine when configured that way (none of the other mods I have specifically need Rational Resources, so I don't have it installed).
Unless I'm mistaken in what Rational Resources does (in which case please correct me!), it's basically doing the same thing CRP does but mostly with less confusion (so with Rational Resources you don't end up with like 5 different resources all representing "water" for example, which is a slight issue that CRP does not attempt to address).

 

Possibly a bug report? Might be I'm doing something wrong, but I'd like to know which of those two it is:
I'm using this mod, and Kerbal Atomics, and CRP, but I don't get the option to switch fuel types (the only fuel the thrusters are willing to operate on is LH2, which kinda sucks since I have NTRs that use LF, and other NTRs that use LH2, but the ones that use LF aren't from Kerbal Atomics (they're Porkjet parts and those spherical NTRs that I forget the maker of).

I don't have the "KerbalAtomics use LiquidFuel" MM patch installed, so I'm confused as to what's happening here. I should be getting options for these teakettle RCS to operate off of either LH2 or LF, but I don't even get the button to switch types. Maybe something wrong with a patch somewhere?

 

Now for feature requests for future versions:

1. More Thrust! I need something like this, but in the 100kn thrust range, and I don't really want to go into adding TweakScale to my portfolio of mods in this KSP install.
I build Big Vessels, and I'm always running into this problem. I can never find multi-directional RCS thrusters with high thrust, no matter what fuel they may use. Not to mention that using monopropellant on vessels this big presents its own suite of problems mostly relating to storing the monopropellant in great enough quantities that I can actually do something useful with it.
Because I'm building Big Vessels, I don't particularly care if this means that the resulting parts need to be something like 2 to 5 tons mass to justify that thrust level. I'm trying to reduce part count and simplify how many fuel types I'm carrying at the same time.

2. Different nozzle configurations; These RCS thrusters having nozzles not oriented on the cardinal axes without rotating the part means that I'm losing efficiency (unless somehow you intentionally decoupled the effects source transforms from the RCS thrust transforms, which would be a nice touch! However, I have no way of knowing that that's what's going on without you specifically calling out that you did it).
Yes, these thrusters have great ISP, but the specific configuration and orientation of the nozzles matters just as much as what propellant they're using, how much thrust they have, and how finely you can control them in each axis. For my needs, the thruster configuration that seems to always be missing is "3 nozzles, oriented so that each nozzle is aligned with one of the cardinal XYZ axes" just like the RX-15T from the Near Future Spacecraft mod.
I'll need a high thrust version of that too, naturally.

3. If it's not already in, the ability to use Water as a propellant. Can't make a good replica of the Roci from The Expanse without the "tea-kettle RCS" running on water, now can I! :D (yeah, this one's mostly in the "if you don't have anything else to do" category, but it would still be appreciated as Water is a very dense resource meaning that even if I do have to carry one more resource it won't be taking up that much space in my vessel).

Edited by SciMan
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@SciMan Heh. You're welcome. It's rather surprising when a mod comes out and players only learn at that point how much they needed it. :P About Rational Resources, I just looked and found that the options patch for the RCS is broken. You should already have access to the various RR-like fuel options so that will be fixed.

About the "round" NTRs, am I to assume you mean these?

Spoiler

jj2fv0F.jpg 

 

About feature requests:

  1. I can provide larger thrust options but my advisor on these things told me that 100kN is far too high. Realistically the inner workings of such powerful thrusters can't be done without breaking physics or equipping an ungodly large heat conversion system for the thrusters.
  2. Sorry, the "diamond" RCS indeed has a pitch angle of 15deg for its nozzles except the outward one. I really wanted to avoid that happening. I designed my thrusters with (to some degree) this kind of request in mind, though it wouldn't be optimal, texture-wise to actually do it. I've always wondered why people are interested in the T-shape (...and Y-shape) 3-nozzle layout . I think I have a good idea...but do enlighten me to why you are interested.
  3. As I mentioned earlier, you should have the various RR-alike fuel options available but there's an error in the mod detection patch for this. You should have access to Hydrogen, Methane, Water, Ammonia, Carbon Dioxide.

I've created 3-way nozzle options. You're satisfied with this, right?

eXQt3vW.png

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The reason I was asking for very high thrust RCS was one based on gameplay issues, not the realities of making a thruster that large. Basically, the reason I need high thrust RCS is that I already am making large, high part-count motherships, and I need that RCS to help them get to a specified attitude without taking a full minute.
For reference, the ships I'm talking about are over 200m long when fully constructed, about 300 parts already without RCS, and even with the provision of plenty of reaction wheels they take 45 seconds to a minute to complete a single 90 degree attitude change.
My issue is not "every gram counts" which is the typical case in aerospace engineering. My issue is "Every part I add makes the framerate drop even more" and I'm trying my best to avoid that, but 300 parts seems to be as low as I can get things and still have enough reaction wheel authority to have what I consider "marginal" attitude control of the vessel.
Perhaps I should be asking elsewhere for higher power reaction wheels instead, since my issue is attitude control not translational thrust, but even then docking such large craft to other large craft does cause issues that would require high-thrust RCS.
Most of what I'm trying to do with these high thrust RCS is avoiding the need to spam low-thrust RCS to compensate for the fact that the high-thrust RCS doesn't exist.
The no-longer-maintained SpaceY "mostly fuel tanks and engines and SRBs" mod (that I still use, even in it's unmaintained state since most of the stuff still works) already has a LFO RCS jet that puts out 100 kn, but because it uses LFO I can't make it work without carrying around more fuel tanks to carry around that LFO to make them run. Plus, that's just a single-direction nozzle so I still have to put on at least 8 of them to give full 3-axis rotational authority to the vessel. I'd much prefer if I could just put 2 or 4 of them.

About the tri-nozzle RCS, I'm almost satisfied. Those T and corner-T RCS will certainly be useful for something, but it's not quite what I had in mind.
What I had in mind was a 3-nozzle RCS where each nozzle points in a direction perpendicular to the other two nozzles, so you'd basically take the corner of a cube, and align one nozzle parallel to each of the edges. Should come out looking something like the "RX-15T" tridirectional RCS nozzle cluster from the Near Future Spacecraft mod.
The idea is that you can get full 6-axis control of a spacecraft (3 axis attitude + 3 axis translation) with all the RCS jets aligned with the cardinal XYZ axes, with just 8 of these thruster blocks. You would place them in two sets of 4x symmetry, 45 degrees off of the cardinal X-Y axis lines, with the lower set of 4 having the third nozzle pointing prograde, and the upper set of 4 having the third nozzle pointing retrograde. This gives you balanced thrust in all directions (4 nozzles pointing in each of "+x, +y, +z, -x, -y, -z" axes), and assuming you placed both sets equidistant from the average COM of the vessel it also gives you minimal unwanted torque when using translational thrust for docking or small orbital adjustments.

EDIT:
Oh yeah, those NTRs are the ones I was talking about, there were some other versions of those from the same author that had mostly spherical reactor cores.

Edited by SciMan
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That's a good point, I didn't think about that. However, the chances that something like a crew hatch would be on a cardinal side of the spacecraft becomes problematic, because I usually mount some RCS to the crew capsule since it's usually pretty far from the vessel COM in my designs. The engines are on the opposite side of the COM and usually similarly distant, but the RCS for that end of the ship usually ends up mounted to a fuel tank or reaction wheel that I put there because it's usually not possible to mount things to an engine directly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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Release 1.1

  • Fixed mod detection for fuel options.
  • Added 3-way options to "Brick" RCS thruster.
  • Allowed LiquidFuel option to persist with LqdHydrogen and other options.
  • Minor nerf to Isps.

@SciMan @leopardenthusiast I'm contemplating (for heavy RCS) a 2.5x size thruster with basically the stats of the stock NERVA or a 3x size thruster with 150% those stats (except Isp).

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A 60kn (or if you go for the even larger option, 75kn) RCS thruster would be a great thing to see! Especially if it has the triple-nozzle options like the smaller ones do.

Also, just so you know, that one in the middle is what I was trying to describe, and you seem to have done an excellent job on it! Now I can have my smaller nuclear transfer stages carry around less different resources, and with that larger thruster block you're talking about I'll also be able to use less thruster blocks, both things which are quite nice.

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  • 1 year later...

Not sure if I understand it right? So these thrusters only work, if the ship has an active nuclear reactor? Or does it only check for presence of the respective mods, so that the thrusters could also be abused for non-atomic driven vessels?

So they are more powerful brothers of the NF-electrical LqH-driven electrical thrusters... (not physically, but gameplaywise)?

 

I like the design shown in the pictures.

Edited by Rakete
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2 hours ago, Rakete said:

So these thrusters only work, if the ship has an active nuclear reactor?

That's the idea, and additionally, that reactor must produce a resource that represents heat (namely, ThermalPower, used by KSPI-E). However, I don't intend to introduce that mechanic except where the reactors are parts made by me or parts that aren't too involved by other ISRU mods. I'm working on an update right now for Rational Resources Nuclear Family, where the nuclear jet engines from KARE and other mods can make good stand-ins, as using ThermalPower directly is how both those engines and this kind of RCS work.

2 hours ago, Rakete said:

So they are more powerful brothers of the NF-electrical LqH-driven electrical thrusters

I forget what the performance is like for those, but in any case, I'm quite sure that my thrusters are quite high thrust vs those.

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5 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

That's the idea, and additionally, that reactor must produce a resource that represents heat (namely, ThermalPower, used by KSPI-E). However, I don't intend to introduce that mechanic except where the reactors are parts made by me or parts that aren't too involved by other ISRU mods. I'm working on an update right now for Rational Resources Nuclear Family, where the nuclear jet engines from KARE and other mods can make good stand-ins, as using ThermalPower directly is how both those engines and this kind of RCS work.

 

I forget what the performance is like for those, but in any case, I'm quite sure that my thrusters are quite high thrust vs those.

How about the fission reactors from Near Future Electrical and the fusion reactors from far future tech by Nertea? Will they also supply the needed power for those bad boys!? Is it already integrated? Can I akready use it, because I don't have KSPI-E.

 

The mentioned LqH2-RCS from Near future propulsion are rather weak. They are weaker than the stock RCS blocks... for balancing purposes.

 

Edited by Rakete
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8 hours ago, Rakete said:

How about the fission reactors from Near Future Electrical and the fusion reactors from far future tech by Nertea? Will they also supply the needed power for those bad boys!? Is it already integrated? Can I akready use it, because I don't have KSPI-E.

 

The mentioned LqH2-RCS from Near future propulsion are rather weak. They are weaker than the stock RCS blocks... for balancing purposes.

 

Can't and don't want to use anything Nertea makes. They have their own plugin(s) for energy generation and they don't support multiple resource output. (Why should they?) And patching into Nertea's things to change their behavior puts a bad taste in my mouth.

I hear that SystemHeat in itself provides a resource that represents heat but I still haven't played with that mod so idk if I can access it.

That RCS is weeeeeeak. :D "For balance. Of course."

 

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4 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Can't and don't want to use anything Nertea makes. They have their own plugin(s) for energy generation and they don't support multiple resource output. (Why should they?) And patching into Nertea's things to change their behavior puts a bad taste in my mouth.

I hear that SystemHeat in itself provides a resource that represents heat but I still haven't played with that mod so idk if I can access it.

That RCS is weeeeeeak. :D "For balance. Of course."

 

This means, I will not be able to use them, cause I have no other reactors than nertea's great ones at hand, right?

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