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

[Raven.]

I should give this mod a go. Glad to see an update!

Be sure to grab the MM patch mentioned before and delete the TreeLoader folder in the GameData folder. Once you do those two things, Interstellar is golden on 0.25.

Speaking of which, what may need to happen is to have people code a new Treeloader dll that interstellar can use.

EDIT: Actually, come to mention it, let me see what can be done with coding a new tree loader. This might be doable.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Raven.

[benkh]

I have a bug with the .24.2 Version. If i launch a craft which contains an reactor my MW level and my Funds are set to "NaN"

Because this is my loved savegame it would be awesome to find a solution

[ArcFurnace]

how much work would be required to recode the plugin to uniformly use "electricCharge" in place of "Megajoules" with a scaling factor of 1 EC = 1000 MJ ?

The Megajoules resource is handled by a custom resource handler, because the stock resource handler didn't have nearly enough of the features Fractal wanted, and is just kind of bad in general- it's part of why we have problems with things like microwave beamed power from solar panels being limited by how much Electric Charge storage you have on the craft. To uniformly use Electric Charge, you'd have to outright override the stock resource handler, and I have no idea how difficult that could be or what sort of problems it could cause, but I suspect it could be nasty.

Also, I think you may have your scaling factor backwards, unless you really are saying you want 1 EC/s to be equivalent to 1 gigawatt rather than 1 kilowatt (the stock Interstellar scaling factor is 1000 EC = 1 MJ).

[Sokar408]

It's been three or four days that I didn't really check the forum below the front page. Please give me at least a week before you start telling people that my work is obsolete, and if you test it and tell me what's broken I can be more productive when I do have time to work on it.

Wow there buddy! I said, and I quote "unfortunately he doesn't seem to maintain it atm, which is unfortunate". At no point in there did I say your work was obsolete, that you weren't maintaining it (doesn't seem =/ doesn't. It means that appearances look like A, not that the situation necessarily is A), or anything else.

There is no need to be unpleasant.

[forsaken1111]

Wow there buddy! I said, and I quote "unfortunately he doesn't seem to maintain it atm, which is unfortunate". At no point in there did I say your work was obsolete, that you weren't maintaining it (doesn't seem =/ doesn't. It means that appearances look like A, not that the situation necessarily is A), or anything else.

There is no need to be unpleasant.

I didn't take what he said to be 'being unpleasant'. He even said please! We're all friends here.

[physicsnerd]

So, can someone please give me some pointers on using the magnetic nozzle? I'm having some issues getting it to function.

[PhoeniXYZ]

Are you not contradicting yourself?

Not really, why?

[Norcalplanner]

Does anyone have any resources you can point me to for all my questions on the previous page?

[Shalashalska]

The Megajoules resource is handled by a custom resource handler, because the stock resource handler didn't have nearly enough of the features Fractal wanted, and is just kind of bad in general- it's part of why we have problems with things like microwave beamed power from solar panels being limited by how much Electric Charge storage you have on the craft. To uniformly use Electric Charge, you'd have to outright override the stock resource handler, and I have no idea how difficult that could be or what sort of problems it could cause, but I suspect it could be nasty.

Also, I think you may have your scaling factor backwards, unless you really are saying you want 1 EC/s to be equivalent to 1 gigawatt rather than 1 kilowatt (the stock Interstellar scaling factor is 1000 EC = 1 MJ).

It would be nice if there was some sort of a manual converter, so you activate the part and it will drain EC and produce MJ. That way, you could have science labs powered by insanely huge solar arrays. (But seriously, why do science labs need as much power as a small town?)

[AetherGoddess]

how much work would be required to recode the plugin to uniformly use "electricCharge" in place of "Megajoules" with a scaling factor of 1 EC = 1000 MJ ?

It would be nice if there was some sort of a manual converter, so you activate the part and it will drain EC and produce MJ. That way, you could have science labs powered by insanely huge solar arrays. (But seriously, why do science labs need as much power as a small town?)

it would be possible, but it would make all of the parts EXPONETIALLY harder to use. the whole point of the Megajoule unit was to give very power hungry componets a chance to use as much power as the needed without needing batteries galore. The solar panel idea might be doable, but it would need to produce MJs in the same way the KSPi does, i.e. usage first, resources second, since that was the other major reason for the new unit; the stock EC must be stored before it can be used, which isn't much of a problem unless your draw is close to your production, and your production is on the order of several very large cargo ships worth of batteries.

also, KSPi_lite has added MJ production (very very small amounts) to the stock solar panels.

It's been three or four days that I didn't really check the forum below the front page. Please give me at least a week before you start telling people that my work is obsolete, and if you test it and tell me what's broken I can be more productive when I do have time to work on it.

Wave is active right now, FYI, and he has already said:

I'll try to have something done by the weekend. No promises, but check back then.

I'm not even entirely sure what would be broken.

sooo....

[...] meaning, the resource sharing we enjoyed with KSPI-L is no longer present. [...]

same goes for you buddy! you may be prolific and awesome, but past tense is not accepted here.

[ruifung]

Great!!!

where do I put that?

Stick it in a .cfg file anywhere in your gamedata folder?

[Lightwarrior]

So, can someone please give me some pointers on using the magnetic nozzle? I'm having some issues getting it to function.

Attach it directly to reactor, which can generate ChargedParticles, add generator (and obviously radiators) because magnetic nozzles require some power, and some liquid fuel. Then launch this "ship" into space. Once out of atmosphere it should work.

[Spyre2000]

Once you arrive in the SOI of the destination planet you will then have to make a burn, which does consume delta-v (and often massive quantities of it) in order to enter orbit. The warp drive is thus a great way of touring the solar system to see all the other planets very quickly but is definitely not a fuel efficient approach to getting from a stable orbit of planet A to a stable orbit of planet B.

Then you're doing it wrong. I've actually found my warp ships to be more fuel efficient than my conventional ships most of the time. The trick is to use physics to your advantage.

Say you want to go from Kerbin, which is orbiting at about 9.3K m/s, to Eve, which is currently on the opposite side of the sun orbiting at about 10.8K m/s. If you warp straight there the total delta-v difference is about 20.1k m/s which is a huge difference compared to the 2.3K delta-v of a rather optimal transition. But you can actually off set that by using gravity assist to change your speed.

So let's say looking at the solar systems straight down Kerbin is on the bottom below the sun and Eve is on the top above it. I set the ship to warp past the sun on the right side but break out of warp just before passing the sun. So now you are in fairly close elliptical orbit of the sun. It will slow you down fairly quickly and then send you heading back towards the sun which also happens to be in the same direction Eve is traveling. Wait until you speed gets fairly close to that of Eve and then warp out towards Eve. Sometimes it can take a few micro warp jumps near the sun to get your speed just right but when you do it makes up a huge difference in the amount of Delta-v needed to enter orbit.

For planets with an atmosphere like Eve I often try to align my approach vector so I can use atmospheric breaking. Skimming the atmosphere can slow you down to orbital speeds and really cut down on the need for fuel on your limited Delta-V. For planets without atmosphere I try to do as many micro-warp jumps around the planet to use it's gravity to slow me down until I get into an acceptable window where I won't use that much Delta-v to achieve orbit.

I will admit this method requires a huge amount of skill as there are currently no tools to automate it, as far as I know. It requires a lot of eye balling and winging it since you can't directly compare trajectories along with speed, as well as not being able to directly target locations with warp drive, you simply have to point in the direction and hope the angle is correct along with hitting the stop key on time. I recommend putting the warp go/stop in an action group. But even if you can't get it exact being able to at least ball park could be the difference between spending 20K Delta-V and about 3-5K Delta-V on a rough guess method.

So far I think my one trip to Eve where I only used up like 300 Delta-V was best. Most of the times it's a 1-2K Delta-V burn to enter orbit around a planet which is about what you'd need to burn to leave Kerbin orbit.

[KeyserSoze]

Quick question - is it intentional to not have waste heat production relative to the strength of the microwave power received? For instance - say I have a network of 200 GW around Kerbin, but I throttle the reception down to 20GW on a receiver. It appears that the waste heat production at this 20GW reception is no different than if it was at full reception. I took a glance at the code and it seems pretty easy to change the calculation, but I didn't want to play with it if it was intentional... Thoughts?

[PhoeniXYZ]

Quick question - is it intentional to not have waste heat production relative to the strength of the microwave power received? For instance - say I have a network of 200 GW around Kerbin, but I throttle the reception down to 20GW on a receiver. It appears that the waste heat production at this 20GW reception is no different than if it was at full reception. I took a glance at the code and it seems pretty easy to change the calculation, but I didn't want to play with it if it was intentional... Thoughts?

I also noticed that. Wouldn't it be best if the waste heat was just proportional to the total consumption? That way the reception-micromanagement wouldn't be necessary.

[Atragon]

I also noticed that. Wouldn't it be best if the waste heat was just proportional to the total consumption? That way the reception-micromanagement wouldn't be necessary.

The reception micro management wasn't added for waste heat IIRC, it was added to allow for fine throttle control. Imagine a small rocket /w thermal receiver and rocket, and a 200GW relay network, the ability to throttle reception allows for you to actually have control of the thrust other than none vs too much.

Conceptually, matching thermal load to power received makes sense as you're asking the relay network to only send you so much power, as opposed to only using x and trying to dissipate y.

[Sokar408]

Not really, why?

In which file should I make the changes then? Just a MM-fix.cfg?

[niceundtidy]

Hello all.

I really really tried to read through all the posts since .25, but I am very confused, so i hope someone will write a clarification for me:

I understand that the current version of interstellar has problems with 0.25, and that the custom science nodes interstellar uses are not being displayed.

Questions:

Is this fixed in the current version of Interstellar?

Is there a workaround to get these nodes into the 0.25 game? I read something about patches and alternate treeloaders, but didn't understand half of it.

Please help me clarify this long long thread.

[Bolter]

Hi,

No, Interstellar 0.13 still has the issue with the custom tree in 0.25

The fix is easy, thanks to UndercoverYankee (page 1190, post 11898.)

Step one: Move or delete the TreeLoader folder in Gamedata out of the KSP folder

Step Two: Download the file linked on the page/post above, and place it in you KSP root folder

The progression will be different, as some parts will be on different nodes, but it's playable.

I hope that helps,

Bolter

[Bolter]

So I've installed this mod for the first time with 0.25, and I'm having a blast. My tech tree is messed up, but I think I can fix it with the information provided earlier in this thread.

However, I have some questions about the tech I've already unlocked (particularly beamed power), and if anyone can provide answers or get me pointed in the right direction I'd appreciate it. Please note that I've already read the entire KSPI wiki.

How many MW can each size of microwave thermal receiver practically make use of? Is there a curve or a hard cutoff?

Is there any information regarding the amount of thrust that the different sizes of thermal rockets and thermal turbojets put out based on how many GW or how much thermal power is available?

I haven't been able to put multiple 1.25m engines on a 2.5m thermal receiver, but are there any problems with having multiple 1.25m receivers? Or is it just a wash compared to a single 2.5m receiver and engine?

How much power is realistically useful for various engines? I saw that the 1.25m ATTILA will use up to 15 GW of beamed power - what about the others?

I currently have between 5 and 6 GW of power available on the launch pad, depending on the angle of relay satellites and whatnot. Is it worth increasing this further?

What sort of increased performance am I looking at with a medium transceiver for receiving power at interplanetary distance vs. a small receive only dish?

Thanks in advance for any help.

The electric engines, both plasma and Attila's, have a max usable MJ rating at the very top of their detailed description on the Assembly Building parts list. You can see that their max MJ usage scales up with size. The next higher size is always slightly higher than 4x of the previous, so if you want to be able to use more MJ, use a bigger engine.

As far as the thrust of electric engines, they have a conversion rating of x.xx kN per MJ listed for each type of fuel. Simply multiply the available MJ in the craft by the appropriate fuel type rate for your total thrust. You can easily see that the Attila's have a much higher thrust per unit MJ, but the plasmas have a much better ISP so you'll get much higher dV per unit fuel. The mission profile will dictate your engine needs, as 50k dV is useless when you can't complete your captures because you sail right out of the SOI before completing your burn.

I got to say that the new magnetic nozzle engines are far superior to the rest of the electric engines. They run on charged particles, not MJ, so you have to have upgraded reactor technology to use them. Simply connect a reactor that doesn't have 0.00 charged particle ratio listed; no generator needed. Also, they have zero thrust in atmosphere, so you won't be getting into orbit with them. Sadly, they don't work with microwave receivers, as those collect MJ, not charged particles.

I don't have any information about the different microwave receivers. I only ever use the "umbrella" type because being able to point the receiver regardless of craft orientation outweighs any omnidirectional efficiency the "barrel" types may offer (IMHO.) With that said, though, you'd imagine that the "barrel" types would be better for space planes that don't need the funky drag, and are bathed by microwaves if they're close to your MW transmitters. On the other hand, if you're far enough from your transmitter that the MW source looks like a point in space, then you'd think that being able to point the umbrella at that point would be better, as all receiver area is pointing at the source.

I hope that helps,

Bolter

Edited October 16, 2014 by Bolter

[andrestirabo]

Sombody knows how to switch the fussion reactor from deuterium/tritium to helium3?

because i tried right clicking in the VAB and in the launchpad but i don't find the way to do it

[Bolter]

Sombody knows how to switch the fussion reactor from deuterium/tritium to helium3?

because i tried right clicking in the VAB and in the launchpad but i don't find the way to do it

There are only two resources that can't be had from the Assembly Buildings: Antimatter and He-3

The only decent source of He-3 is the atmosphere of Jool (use and air scoop; the deeper the better.) To switch the fuel once you have collected enough He-3, shut down the reactor and let it cool completely. Then EVA and refuel the reactor with He-3. You'll need an empty appropriate container for the fuel currently in your reactor, and a container with He-3 ON your craft (docking makes you part of the craft.)

I hope that helps,

Bolter

[Lightwarrior]

There are only two resources that can't be had from the Assembly Buildings: Antimatter and He-3

The only decent source of He-3 is the atmosphere of Jool (use and air scoop; the deeper the better.) To switch the fuel once you have collected enough He-3, shut down the reactor and let it cool completely. Then EVA and refuel the reactor with He-3. You'll need an empty appropriate container for the fuel currently in your reactor, and a container with He-3 ON your craft (docking makes you part of the craft.)

I hope that helps,

Bolter

This is incorrect.

He3 is now tweakable in VAB, it is expensive, but available.

And you do not need to shutdown fusion reactor and use EVA, modes can be switched in context menu. You do not even need fuel for this, you can switch modes anyway, and if fuel is not available reactor will just shutdown.

[Sokar408]

Hi,

No, Interstellar 0.13 still has the issue with the custom tree in 0.25

The fix is easy, thanks to UndercoverYankee (page 1190, post 11898.)

Step one: Move or delete the TreeLoader folder in Gamedata out of the KSP folder

Step Two: Download the file linked on the page/post above, and place it in you KSP root folder

The progression will be different, as some parts will be on different nodes, but it's playable.

I hope that helps,

Bolter

I followed the instructions to the letter, and the while tree is still a mess :/

[sober667]

i have problem within magnetic engines when I ad it to craft and lauch I have instant crush