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


Fractal_UK

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So basically take a thermal jet, add a reactor, but limit both to only operating with atmospheric gases as a medium to save weight? Nice concept and does have a place in the game I think. See what Fractal thinks. (EDIT: Maybe vary output of both jet AND reactor to atmospheric pressure?)

yes, sounds like you got what I'm thinking. :)

The "one rotating part" would be the hypersonic ram that compresses that air before it enters the combustion chamber...

Something we're all probably forgetting... Making the air pass through a nuclear reactor would make it rather highly radioactive...

Well, I don't anticipate starting issues because a generator is also a motor. Just feed some juice in to spin things up until the compression and reactor heat take over. This should have no issues in VTOL application.. and actually because of the air offset it might be more efficient at normal speeds rather than hypersonic..

Also, heat exchanger. No reason to expose radiation directly to atmosphere, don't want those soft metals sandblasted out the exhaust. Even if it's just a hard metal case that's good enough.

On a related note, the type of craft this is targeted for won't have a whole lot of electric demand. It would be overkill solid for typical science transmission and rover wheels. So maybe a few purely electric powered fans are in order? Electrolysis refuel? Jet with electric plasma arc as the combustion? maybe feed some fuel in as afterburner/boost. who knows. Just brainstorms. Do what you will. :) I know the intakes for this mod suck down some power and those would kinda be built-in to this. Unless of course they are just generators for a science base or something, but likely the larger reactors would be chosen for that.

Edited by automcdonough
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I have a question concerning the values in the thrust tables provided by Fractal. I did a test on the launch pad, but my thrust is nowhere near as much as would be indicated by the tables. I placed a 3.75 m rocket under a 3.75m nuclear reactor, using LFO, and according to the table my thrust should be 1337 (was that done on purpose?). But it was only about 360, almost 75% less than what the table would indicate. What is it I am not understanding? Thank you.

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Yeah... That thing is pretty much 80% intakes...

If you look at the resource bar, you will see the craft has zero antimatter, that is why it isn't working properly. There is a bug that is allowing craft with one antimatter engine to work without antimatter at some reduced performance level rather than not at all. That craft should produce zero thrust from both engines.

Also... Since we're on the topic of intakes...

Fractal, is every part designated as an "intake" supposed to produce IntakeAtm?

Cause pretty much all my designs use B9 intakes and sometimes the IntakeAtm shows up and sometimes it doesn't on the same craft designs when unpacking from SPH...

Yes, I'm not going to go quite as far as to say that it will work with every type of intake a modmaker might choose to produce, B9 is the only set of intakes that I've tested it extensively with but I've never had any problems.

I have 9 manned labs (Kerbalx3, Mun, Minmus, Eve, Gilly, Duna, and Ike) and they are working perfectly fine as well. The only issues I'm having are with these two unmanned stations using the upgraded computer cores.

You're right, the patch I applied to science labs didn't get added to computer cores. Will be fixed next time.

yes, sounds like you got what I'm thinking. :)

Well, I don't anticipate starting issues because a generator is also a motor. Just feed some juice in to spin things up until the compression and reactor heat take over. This should have no issues in VTOL application.. and actually because of the air offset it might be more efficient at normal speeds rather than hypersonic..

Also, heat exchanger. No reason to expose radiation directly to atmosphere, don't want those soft metals sandblasted out the exhaust. Even if it's just a hard metal case that's good enough.

On a related note, the type of craft this is targeted for won't have a whole lot of electric demand. It would be overkill solid for typical science transmission and rover wheels. So maybe a few purely electric powered fans are in order? Electrolysis refuel? Jet with electric plasma arc as the combustion? maybe feed some fuel in as afterburner/boost. who knows. Just brainstorms. Do what you will. :) I know the intakes for this mod suck down some power and those would kinda be built-in to this. Unless of course they are just generators for a science base or something, but likely the larger reactors would be chosen for that.

I'm not sure if I have missed a key element of your design but it looks to me like the setup that you have is very very similar to what a generator/reactor/thermal jet combination already represents. You have intakes to take in the atmosphere, that gets fed into the reactor and heated to very high temperatures before being expelled out of the back to produce thrust. Optionally, you have a generator as well, which is where your suggestion differs slightly: currently the generator will have to do make do with leftover power after the engines have had what they want while you suggest losing thrust to keep the generator powered.

Fractal - can you recommend max temperatures for your parts? I'm starting to use Deadly Reentry and I plan on personally integrating the max temperatures for KSPI with some ModuleManager cfgs.

I've never really looked at deadly reentry, so I'm not really sure. I'll try and find some time to investigate.

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If you look at the resource bar, you will see the craft has zero antimatter, that is why it isn't working properly. There is a bug that is allowing craft with one antimatter engine to work without antimatter at some reduced performance level rather than not at all. That craft should produce zero thrust from both engines.

Yes, I'm not going to go quite as far as to say that it will work with every type of intake a modmaker might choose to produce, B9 is the only set of intakes that I've tested it extensively with but I've never had any problems.

Yeah, my little antimatter shortage is now fixed...

On the intakes however... They're still producing the above problem... When I first loaded the KX-Nova singe-engine design, it had IntakeAtm available. I got it to a low orbit to meet up with a small manned satellite. I then loaded another Nova, exactly the same- didn't even go to the SPH, to test it's speed capabilities. This time there was no IntakeAtm at all being collected. Not even present in the resources drop-down list...

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You're right, the patch I applied to science labs didn't get added to computer cores. Will be fixed next time.

Thank you for the great news! I look forward to the next patch. I invested over 7k science into those computer core stations so that after finishing the Eeloo probe mission I had just launched, I would be able to afford the last tech node as well as having a steady source of science for upgrading future computer cores and warp drives. Very happy my "supercomputer" stations will work next patch!

Fractal_UK, you've done an AMAZING job with this mod. I tend to talk about KSP a lot around my friends and it was when I started using this mod that a few of them decided they wanted to play as well.

Also, zzz, the art in this mod is bloody fantastic!

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I'm not sure if I have missed a key element of your design but it looks to me like the setup that you have is very very similar to what a generator/reactor/thermal jet combination already represents. You have intakes to take in the atmosphere, that gets fed into the reactor and heated to very high temperatures before being expelled out of the back to produce thrust. Optionally, you have a generator as well, which is where your suggestion differs slightly: currently the generator will have to do make do with leftover power after the engines have had what they want while you suggest losing thrust to keep the generator powered.

That's the gist of it. Differs mainly just in physical package.

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I have a question concerning the values in the thrust tables provided by Fractal. I did a test on the launch pad, but my thrust is nowhere near as much as would be indicated by the tables. I placed a 3.75 m rocket under a 3.75m nuclear reactor, using LFO, and according to the table my thrust should be 1337 (was that done on purpose?). But it was only about 360, almost 75% less than what the table would indicate. What is it I am not understanding? Thank you.

Those tables are a little old, some of the numbers have been tweaked since that table was made(+-10% or so), but I think the only way we can say what the problem is is for you to post a screenshot of the craft, with reactor and engine stats shown.

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Those tables are a little old, some of the numbers have been tweaked since that table was made(+-10% or so), but I think the only way we can say what the problem is is for you to post a screenshot of the craft, with reactor and engine stats shown.

Donziboy2 did you ever play Arma2 with Legions of Sparta, if so this is Raven_2012.

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I have a question concerning the values in the thrust tables provided by Fractal. I did a test on the launch pad, but my thrust is nowhere near as much as would be indicated by the tables. I placed a 3.75 m rocket under a 3.75m nuclear reactor, using LFO, and according to the table my thrust should be 1337 (was that done on purpose?). But it was only about 360, almost 75% less than what the table would indicate. What is it I am not understanding? Thank you.

The thrust given is actually the thrust you will get in vacuum. In KSP, most of the stock engines have different surface and vacuum Isps but the thrust always stays the same meaning that fuel has to get pumped through the engines more quickly at sea level than in vacuum. That isn't very realistic, so I changed the way it works for my engines so that you get less thrust at sea level, as you get higher up you will see the thrust return to what it should be in vacuum.

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Those tables are a little old, some of the numbers have been tweaked since that table was made(+-10% or so), but I think the only way we can say what the problem is is for you to post a screenshot of the craft, with reactor and engine stats shown.

Screenshot not possible right now, but it's a 3.75 m thermal rocket with a 3.75 m reactor (basic) on top of that, and a LFO tank on top of that (and LFO fuel selection on the rocket), and a pod on top of that. According to the table this particular rocket and reactor should produce 668.5 thrust using liquid only. As I said it's a LFO so the thrust should be doubled (according to the table). With so few parts I'm not sure what a picture will tell anyone (although I would provide one if I could right now). This is on the launchpad, and I just simply throttle up to test the thrust. I right click the rocket and the thrust reads approximately 360 no matter how long I wait to throttle up. Are the tables just simply out of date?

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The thrust given is actually the thrust you will get in vacuum. In KSP, most of the stock engines have different surface and vacuum Isps but the thrust always stays the same meaning that fuel has to get pumped through the engines more quickly at sea level than in vacuum. That isn't very realistic, so I changed the way it works for my engines so that you get less thrust at sea level, as you get higher up you will see the thrust return to what it should be in vacuum.

Ahh, TYVM. I was wondering if that might also be a factor, but I couldn't find any information indicating those values in the table were for vacuum only.

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I've seen reference to a chart or table showing the optimal heights for science lab orbits, but was unable to find that info. I'm trying to lock down a good altitude for max science gain in moho orbit while at the same time capturing as much antimatter as I can. Anyone have the link for best orbits for science generation? I have the updated set of charts showing antimatter density around the planets and moons.

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I've seen reference to a chart or table showing the optimal heights for science lab orbits, but was unable to find that info. I'm trying to lock down a good altitude for max science gain in moho orbit while at the same time capturing as much antimatter as I can. Anyone have the link for best orbits for science generation? I have the updated set of charts showing antimatter density around the planets and moons.

Altitude actually only matters beyond a certain point, once you get beyond 1 planet radius above the surface it begins to scale down but provided you are less than limit, you will always get the same science rate while in orbit. Strictly, it's best to land your science labs/computer cores because there is a multiplier for being on the surface of a body. That multiplier is 2 for most planets, 2.5 for Eve and 3 for Tylo.

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Thank you, Fractal. Between the antimatter charts and the KSP wiki for the planetary radii, I should be set. Come next KSPI patch, I'll have to land a couple upgraded computer cores on Eve and Tylo for bonus tasty science. :)

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zzz, Fractal_UK, any word on a newer nuclear reactor model? Would be nice to attach things to the sides. Or a retextured Kiwi Model for bigger reactors?

Also Fractal_UK, do you have plans to change any of the reactor/gen stats? If not I will start working on redoing my spreadsheets with updated figures.

Keep up the good work guys;)

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Just read the blog post for goals in .23

One of them is the introduction of a science lab. Which is really just a double-sized hitchhiker container.

You going to be keeping your lab model in the Mod if theirs makes it into the update, Fractal?

Harvester's .23 blog.

Edited by Tharios
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Just read the blog post for goals in .23

One of them is the introduction of a science lab. Which is really just a double-sized hitchhiker container.

You going to be keeping your lab model in the Mod if theirs makes it into the update, Fractal?

Harvester's .23 blog.

Why shouldn't he?

Also, I'm rather interested to see what they do with data transport and storage...

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Why shouldn't he?

Also, I'm rather interested to see what they do with data transport and storage...

Redundancy?

At that point, I would probably suggest including his lab in the mod...but only its model...overwriting it onto the base-game's lab instead. No point at all in having two labs unless each does something massively different.

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Redundancy?

At that point, I would probably suggest including his lab in the mod...but only its model...overwriting it onto the base-game's lab instead. No point at all in having two labs unless each does something massively different.

You do know the KSPI Lab fills a very specific role in the KSPI mod, right? And just because the game will have a a stock Science Lab doesn't mean it will have to be the only Science Lab... There can be Labs with different experiments and functions available...

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Plasma engine powered designs are too greatly affected by heat. I can see the very obvious reason for this, with the lack of thermal energy venting. However, I don't think the addition of heat mechanics contributes to good gameplay. When the weight of your heatsinks exceeds the weight of your reactor, then something has gone wrong somewhere. Also, heatsinks of any kind are ugly and contribute to part count.

There is also talk of fast atmospheric jets but I am just not seeing them. Nor am I seeing working examples of any kind of ship. That is pretty telling in and of itself but let's go back to the jets. You would think a jet powered by an antimatter reactor would be able to reach at least mach 2 speeds in the lower atmosphere but that seems to be a stretch right now. Before - on .5.something the turbojets would put out a few thousand kn of thrust on one of my designs and it would seem to be a good amount of thrust but I really was not impressed even then. Now it seems like the engines have been nerfed further and they are 100% useless now, putting out only a few hundred kn of thrust. If there is a combination with high thrust now, it is certainly way too large to fit on a fighter craft.

The trouble with the thermal rockets is they need this massive stacked assembly to work, necessitating the design of your ship in a certain way. It would be nice to see remote antimatter tanks able to feed the reactors to reduce the overall length. Also, all the other configurations below the heaviest antimatter reactor are useless.

To summarize:

DT Vista - working great

Plasma - too much trouble with heat

Thermal rocket - too large and heavy

Thermal turbojet - too poor thrust and isp

My main point is not to make the game easier, but to open up possibilites that are being restricted right now. For example: a plasma powered SSTO (restricted by heat), thermal rocket VTOL (restricted by size), or a thermal turbojet interceptor (restricted by thrust).

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You do know the KSPI Lab fills a very specific role in the KSPI mod, right? And just because the game will have a a stock Science Lab doesn't mean it will have to be the only Science Lab... There can be Labs with different experiments and functions available...

Yes and no. The KSPI lab currently really does it all. It handles data collection, and all those other non-research functions.

I suppose it would be better to say the stock lab will be redundant. It's highly unlikely to do anything the KSPI lab can't. In fact, reading about it, I'd actually almost have to say they GOT the idea from the KSPI lab.

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