[0.25]KSP Interstellar (Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp) Version 0.13

[NeoAcario]

Finished a first pass on cost adjustments. Expect wildly inflated costs and relative weirdness. Feedback on SPECIFIC part costs is appreciated. Yes, cost is intended to somewhat prohibit what you are able to do. career != sandbox.

Resource costs( and recovery, hopefully), along with ongoing part cost adjustments are coming next.

That's my man! Just what I've been waiting for. Tell me, what's different in your version compared to the F-UK version? Have a change log? Do you have any plans for something like no selling back AM?

Do you have the collapsible warp drives in there instead of the stock ones... or with the stock ones... at all?

~Steve

[Kiithnaras]

Curious issue. Using upgraded KTEC generators don't seem to generate power from basic Fission reactors now in either Uranium or Thorium modes. Not sure if that always was, is an issue with x64, or is an issue with Experimental. Figured it'd be worth mentioning.

Alright, pinned that one down - It seems that I fiddled with something in the VAB on a Deployable Phased Array, setting the transmit power up decently high. However, the transmit was disabled, and thermal power levels were just fine. Somehow, it decided that it was just going to make the generator unable to produce energy, no matter how much I toggled its power. Weird. Everything is working fine now.

Also, having to wait for moderators to approve posts is a big PITA.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Kiithnaras

[WaveFunctionP]

That's my man! Just what I've been waiting for. Tell me, what's different in your version compared to the F-UK version? Have a change log? Do you have any plans for something like no selling back AM?

Do you have the collapsible warp drives in there instead of the stock ones... or with the stock ones... at all?

~Steve

changelog is located in the folder.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/au307ai8xyi3lgz/changelog.txt

[KvickFlygarn87]

So what's the deal with FracktalUK? Some people say he's on Vacation... Is he really on a vacation.. or just taking a break from KSP? Did I miss a post of his somewhere?

~Steve

No idea why he's gone but he is. It's been a month today since his last activity.

EDIT: His last post at page 983 shows no indication that he's abandoned it. It shows quite the opposite; him getting people all hyped up for 0.12.

Edited July 22, 2014 by KvickFlygarn87

[Atrius129]

So glad to see work being done on this!

I checked the changelog and didn't see anything relating to the costs. Have you added the updated your experimental version to include these yet?

[theSpeare]

Yeah, wavefunction when will you be sending out the cost adjustments? Furthermore, are you just posting new experimental versions as you go or do you have a main post or thread somewhere holding the main links?

[WaveFunctionP]

I can't very well ask for feedback on changes that are not yet public.

The experimental version includes all changes I make as I make them.

[Lord DC]

Wait a minute, Fractal_UK left Interstellar? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[sam1133]

Hi, love the mod, but ksp wont load past warpplugin models thingy...on 64bit, anyone know why please.

thanx

[KvickFlygarn87]

Wait a minute, Fractal_UK left Interstellar? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Eh, no. Noone said that. He might have but no certainties. He may just be on vacation or something.

[Konnor]

An observation: Rapier engine overheats in air-breathing mode (exploding at about Mach 4.5) even with inline air intakes adjacent to precoolers (without radial intakes whatsoever). Happens in both 0.11 and WaveFunctionP's experimental. Did not try B9 precoolers yet, only stock radial engine body, may have something to do with 0.24 changes adding liquid fuel. But right click menu does display precooler status as active.

[Stratoroc]

An observation: Rapier engine overheats in air-breathing mode (exploding at about Mach 4.5) even with inline air intakes adjacent to precoolers (without radial intakes whatsoever). Happens in both 0.11 and WaveFunctionP's experimental. Did not try B9 precoolers yet, only stock radial engine body, may have something to do with 0.24 changes adding liquid fuel. But right click menu does display precooler status as active.

precoolers do something now? that's new.

[AndreyATGB]

precoolers do something now? that's new.

It's pretty old, I think even 0.10 had this.

EDIT: yep, it's from 0.9.

Edited July 22, 2014 by AndreyATGB

[WafflesToo]

The seismic accelerometer isn't allowing the recording of impact data, which I'm pretty sure is a feature of Interstellar. And one of my favorite ones, I'm sad it's not working, because I love parking seismic probes on heavenly bodies and then blasting them with glorified missiles

Any chance of this being looked at soon, either in the official or unofficial builds?

I think I know what's wrong. I had a very similar problem with the Magnetometer recently and darn near went bald trying to find the cause. Check for multiple science.cfg files in the game folders. Deleting all but the one in the WarpDrive folder fixed it for me.

[benkh]

Excuse me please if this question has been asked before, but has there been any information regarding Fractal_UK current status?

~Ben

[Crim1]

Excuse me please if this question has been asked before, but has there been any information regarding Fractal_UK current status?

~Ben

Rumor has it, that Fractal, Tupac Shakur, and Bruce Willis have been recruited to carry out a secret 1 way mission to Mars. (shrug) seems legit.

[benkh]

Rumor has it, that Fractal, Tupac Shakur, and Bruce Willis have been recruited to carry out a secret 1 way mission to Mars. (shrug) seems legit.

Let's hope that this is not true

[Talavar]

OK, Im lost in a sea of information and links. "It's like I'm screaming out against soul destroying winds!" Can someone pass me the link to the newest version and status information on Experimental Interstellar?

[Northstar1989]

Finished a first pass on cost adjustments. Expect wildly inflated costs and relative weirdness. Feedback on SPECIFIC part costs is appreciated. Yes, cost is intended to somewhat prohibit what you are able to do. career != sandbox.

Some feedback specifically on the Thermal Rocket Nozzles.

First of all, so everybody else knows what I am talking about, their current costs from the experimental version linked to in your signature:

3.75m = 675000

2.5m = 125000

1.25m = 25000

0.625m = 5000

Those costs are, as you warned they might be, WILDLY INFLATED.

You see, in real life, one of the greatest advantages of thermal rockets is that they are cheaper than chemical rockets.

You read that right- CHEAPER, *not* more expensive.

Thermal rockets have fewer moving parts than chemical rockets, and require less complex engineering. The materials costs are also lower.

The vast majority of the cost of thermal rocketry is in the power source, not in the heat exchangers themselves. For instance, a nuclear thermal rocket is composed of a wildly expensive nuclear reactor coupled with a relatively cheap heat exchanger and nozzle.

The real-life costs are so wildly divergent between chemical and thermal rocketry that, even with Microwave Beamed Power, the cost of the heat exchanger + microwave receiver is significantly LOWER than that of a comparably-sized chemical rocket.

A 1.25 meter Thermal Rocket Nozzle (currently priced at 25000) plus a 1.25 meter Thermal Receiver (haven't checked the price for that yet) should cost LESS than a LV-T30 (currently priced at 850), for instance.

What makes thermal rocketry expensive in real life, as well as in the game, is the cost of the power source.

I.E. take the following cost-analysis of Microwave Beamed Power thermal rocketry:

- Solar panels are heavy (for their power production) and expensive for the amount of power they produce- and even more expensive to beam that power to a Thermal Rocket (Microwave Transceivers, unlike Thermal Receivers, should be expensive). More expensive STILL to build a rocket to launch a solar panel to near-solar orbit, though with a cheap enough launch system this should be capable of bringing down the overall price-per-watt.

- Nuclear reactors are heavy (those much less mass per watt produced, compared to solar panels at 1 AU), and wildly expensive for the amount of power they produce (though comparable on the ground with solar, overall, reactors are cheaper in orbit in the short run, due to the lower mass-per-watt and associated launch costs). Nuclear reactors capable of operating in zero-gravity are especially expensive (though the Russians built and launched several for their low-altitude military satellites during the Cold War- so not inconceivably so). Transmitting the power to thermal rockets is still expensive (once again, due to the cost of the transmitters- the Thermal Receivers are dirt-cheap by comparison), and nuclear reactors have recurring fuel/maintenance costs (especially for a space-based reactor, which is going to require regular visits to remove Actinide build-up, or a lot of heavy radiation-shielding to build in into a manned craft) that solar panels don't, making them even more expensive in the long run...

I choose to analyze Microwave Beamed Power thermal rockets here, because they are BY FAR the cheaper alternative to attaching a nuclear reactor to each and every thermal rocket- since the same reactor can power an entire fleet of Microwave-Powered thermal rockets with beamed power, instead of just one rocket (and also adding its mass to that rocket, drastically increasing launch costs) for placing those reactors on the rockets using them.

With enough launches to amortize the cost of a nuclear reactor over, the cost of beamed-power thermal rockets falls well BELOW the cost of chemical rockets, due to the lower cost of the thermal rockets themselves...

I suggest reading up on the economics of Beamed Power Thermal Rocketry a bit in this simple presentation (uses visible light lasers instead of microwaves- which are actually more expensive, but have lower transmission losses in space- making lasers more useful for boosting payloads to geosynchronous and higher orbits in a real solar system, instead of one Kerbal-sized)

Note particularly the bullet-point on the second page: "Very Low Marginal Cost to Orbit" (the cost of the rockets themselves, vs. the ground infrastructure)

http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/library/meetings/fellows/mar04/897Kare.pdf

And in this Doctoral Thesis, if you have the time:

http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/2405/1/Parkin-Thesis.pdf

And in some of the additional links in my forum thread about Next-Generation launch technologies:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81147-Next-Generation-launch-technologies-achievable-with-CURRENT-technology?p=1210983&viewfull=1#post1210983

Regards,

Northstar

P.S. Also, I noticed that the configs for the Thermal Rocket Nozzles all still have the phrase "LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine" commented out at the top. My guess is that this is due to the configs originally being derived from those for the LT-T30 in some manner. However it is obviously inaccurate. The comments should either be changed to describe the *CORRECT* parts (the respective thermal rocket nozzles), or deleted altogether to make the configs a little shorter and easier to understand.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Talavar]

Maybe I'm the only person who thinks this, but all of this stuff should be beyond the normal science tree. lets be honest.. you should build up in the stock game before you start hitting stuff that gives you basically "Free science" And to North-star, While your application of prices are very informative, the cost could remain low, but we had regular rockets and such WAY before any of this came into study. The science for any of this crap should be immense considering alot of it is impractical, or completely beyond normal capabilities of applying such technolog. Also, you should be starting with the weakest fuel up to the highest consecutively moving to the higher form. Don't throw 2 of them out at once. It also helps with the learning curve of the mod to allow persons to acquire such technology slowly so they can get used to the new stuff. Just my two cents on the subject. I can always change the stuff myself, but thought, just maybe, you may see my point. Keep this in mind.. the current cost of building a nuclear engine is estimated at 2 Billion and doesn't have launch capabilities! The current cost of launching a rocket is 500 million. So if your launching a small nuclear engine into space that cant launch itself, the cost should be roughly 4 times that of the launch itself. If your building one with launch capabilities... well.. heh... It's gonna be ALOT more than that.. lol

Edited July 22, 2014 by Talavar
added info

[Shade0017]

So Wavefunction, I just checked out your Interstellar videos. Yes I was still there, yes it was worth my time, can I have some more please? Oh and thank you.

[WafflesToo]

Maybe I'm the only person who thinks this, but all of this stuff should be beyond the normal science tree. lets be honest.. you should build up in the stock game before you start hitting stuff that gives you basically "Free science" And to North-star, While your application of prices are very informative, the cost could remain low, but we had regular rockets and such WAY before any of this came into study. The science for any of this crap should be immense considering alot of it is impractical, or completely beyond normal capabilities of applying such technolog. Also, you should be starting with the weakest fuel up to the highest consecutively moving to the higher form. Don't throw 2 of them out at once. It also helps with the learning curve of the mod to allow persons to acquire such technology slowly so they can get used to the new stuff. Just my two cents on the subject. I can always change the stuff myself, but thought, just maybe, you may see my point. Keep this in mind.. the current cost of building a nuclear engine is estimated at 2 Billion and doesn't have launch capabilities! The current cost of launching a rocket is 500 million. So if your launching a small nuclear engine into space that cant launch itself, the cost should be roughly 4 times that of the launch itself. If your building one with launch capabilities... well.. heh... It's gonna be ALOT more than that.. lol

Where are you getting your information from? A great deal of this "crap" exists now; the plasma thruster is a real thing, the arc thruster is a real thing, the thermal turbojet is from the 50s, microwave beaming is a real thing. A lot of this doesn't exist either because of a lack of funding or will to do so... and some of it doesn't exist because of politics (and face it, do you know anybody you'd trust with a 400GW microwave emitter antenna? I sure don't).

Personally I think Northstar brings up a good point; most of the cost of a thermal engine is not in the engine; it's in the power source... though I really think he overstated his case just a smidge.

[Jaxx]

The best argument is the one that's done thoroughly. Please keep his information in mind and act on it, Wave. It's going to basically change if people actually view your mod as something attainable and therefore something they want.

[WaveFunctionP]

Some feedback specifically on the Thermal Rocket Nozzles.

First, I am glad that you took the time to write your post, and I don't wish to discourage others from providing feedback.

However, real world value is of little interest to me. I designed the prices in part to reflect the part's relative performance. kspi outperform stock parts pretty much across the board. After you unlock fusion, there is little reason to ever use stock parts. The cost of kspi parts is meant to provide a reason to use stock parts and to limit the effect of kspi's wildly inflated performance. Make no mistake. KSPI breaks the game as early as basic fusion and it gets worse from there. The exponentially large inflation of part effectiveness outstrips the challenge of the game and makes it trivial.

If kspi parts aren't so easy to buy, then it becomes less of a problem. It also encourages the player to make decisions over how best to spend their excess funds intelligently. Otherwise you end up with this:

http://www.twitch.tv/wavefunctionp/c/4534515

4th mission STOs capable of landing on every single body except the sun and Jool in one single complete grand tour of the entire system. Even broken parachutes are much cause for concern.

Cost isn't the only factor that needs to be tweaked, otherwise kspi becomes a funds grind, but at least it helps to keep kspi in a more balanced state. With more resource limits on parts, perhaps the cost of some parts can be reduced. But of some sort of limitation either in infrastructure (resources) or funds is meant to be a balancing factor.

Edited July 23, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[Talavar]

Where are you getting your information from? A great deal of this "crap" exists now; the plasma thruster is a real thing, the arc thruster is a real thing, the thermal turbojet is from the 50s, microwave beaming is a real thing. A lot of this doesn't exist either because of a lack of funding or will to do so... and some of it doesn't exist because of politics (and face it, do you know anybody you'd trust with a 400GW microwave emitter antenna? I sure don't).

Personally I think Northstar brings up a good point; most of the cost of a thermal engine is not in the engine; it's in the power source... though I really think he overstated his case just a smidge.

Yes, some of it DOES exist. But most of it isn't even practical. And as I was saying before you tried to blow my comment to shreds with nothing but whatever you saw that wasn't there. I said we had rockets before any of this stuff.. not that (some of) it doesn't exist. But, no, some of it doesn't exist.. (warpdrive for instance) which is my point entirely.