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

[WafflesToo]

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.

I agree with what you're saying Wave... but I also agree with what Northstar is saying; the cost should be in the power-plant, not in the thruster. It's the package cost that I think you should focus on instead of the individual components. A thermal rocket/"KIWI" fission combination probably should only cost a little more than the vanilla LV-1N, but the price tag of a thermal rocket/"OMEGA" fusion combination ought to be high enough to make a defense contractor blush. You can both have it your way, just make the reactors the expensive part of the system.

BTW, Wave, I really appreciate you taking the helm on this in Fractal's absence. It's really brave of you and you have my support.

Oh, any thoughts on how to incorporate a cost into the upgrade mechanics? I notice a lot of the upgraded reactors have wildly better stats than the baseline reactors do.

[Atrius129]

Thank you @WaveFunctionP for taking your time to make update the prices and make your experimental build.

You weren't kidding when you said "wildly inflated" in terms of the part pricing. I would agree with NorthStar that it is the power production that should be expensive, not the engines.

I haven't cleared out the Interstellar tree on my new playthrough so I am interested in seeing what prices you put for the Vistas, AM reactors and the collectors. Here are my two cents on part costs for now:

3.5 Fusion reactor 500k - 750k

2.5 Fusion reactor 100k

3.5 Generator 60k

2.5 Generator 10k

1.5 Generator 1.5k

2.5 Plasma 150k (One of the biggest Holy Crap moments was when I saw the 1 Mil tag on this. I understand that plasma engines are high-tech, and should be one of the more expensive engines, but I cant see going over 200k on one of these. )

1.5 Plasma 30k

3.5 Thermal Rocket 60k max

2.5 Thermal Rocket 10k

Massive Radiator 20k

Radiator 5k

Tiny Radiator 1.5k

3.5 Refinery 100k (plus all of the money for one that is actually cylindrical)

2.5 Refinery 25k

Radial Refinery 75K

Umbrella Receiver 8k

3.5 Receiver 60k

2.5 Receiver 10k

1.5 Receiver 2k

Transceiver 80k

Folding Transceiver 110k

Stock engines follow an approximate 1/6 scale on pricing going down through the sizes, so I largely based my prices following that.

@Crim1, your post made me laugh.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Atrius129

[Lightwarrior]

While low temperature thermall nozzles may be relatively simple and cheap, something that can handle temperatures mentioned in reactor stats will be both complex and expensive. And it will probably contain very expensive materials.

Also i like new prices from gameplay point of view, finaly there is something those tens of millions of funds can be spent on.

[Northstar1989]

Let me first start off by saying that I respect and immensely value what you are doing to maintain this mod, and FractalUK did to create it. So please don't let anything I say next strike you as abrasive, disrespectful, or harsh. I am trying to give constructive criticism here.

Going on...

However, real world value is of little interest to me. I designed the prices in part to reflect the part's relative performance.

Real-world value is the MAIN thing that should be of interest to you. Keep in mind that KSP is meant to mimic reality, after all. It doesn't have to be a perfect mirror of reality, but the costs should be believably similar to their real-world values, and have some of the same tradeoffs.

For instance, Microwave Beamed Power thermal rocketry is a pain in the a$$ to learn and use for most casual players (and even some experienced players such as myself who have very low-end computers), and therefore the rewards should be comparable to reality. One of the main advantages of the technology is lower cost of the rockets themselves (at the expense of high-cost ground infrastructure, but which can be amortized over many launches), and since there's no way to reflect things like the lower cost of the overall rocket due to the looser safety margins that are feasible with thermal rockets, the thermal rocket itself certainly should at least be cheaper than its chemical counterparts...

kspi outperform stock parts pretty much across the board. After you unlock fusion, there is little reason to ever use stock parts.

Except that it takes most players a LONG time to unlock the tech nodes for those parts- and even longer to reach the point of progress in their Career saves where they are ready to send rockets to the more distant locations like Jool and Eeloo, where KSP Interstellar can REALLY shine...

Most players aren't like Scott Manley or yourself- we don't unlock most of the tech tree by the end of our third mission.

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.

I hate to be telling you your job, but your job as a mod-maintainer or mod-author is not to determine for other players how they should play the game, it is to create something that is fun and enjoyable and that people will want to actually USE.

If you create unrealistically-inflated part-costs, you will not only upset realism-freaks like myself, who want to actually use better technologies than chemical rockets to obtain realistically superior performance and costs, and for whom the game is more about what CAN be done with space technology rather than what IS being done; you will also upset casual players who see no reason to ever use the parts, because they're so expensive.

Propulsion systems aren't an end in themselves for most players- they're a means to an end. If the technology is too expensive, or too low-performance, NOBODY will ever see a reason to use it- and the mod will be worthless. Players want to launch rockets to get places- not grind contracts forever just so they can afford an overpriced rocket that is supposed to be, in itself, a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

Keep perspective on the actual reason for using a rocket's propulsion system before making it an end in itself- it's easy for mod authors/maintainers who spend most of their time designing/balancing engines to forget that the engine is only a means to an end for most players. When in doubt about the correct balance, reality and realistic values should always be your best guide...

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:

Ahem. Excess funds? Clearly you and I aren't playing the same game at all- to me every single dollar has a purpose. And I'm not going to waste a cent of game "Funds" if there's a cheaper way to accomplish the mission. Call me a cheapskate, but that's how I am- and one of the biggest draw of KSP Interstellar technologies for me is the Microwave Beamed Power system- which could save NASA money in real life, and could save me money on my launches as well (with sufficient, as I said extremely expensive, infrastructure investment) well simultaneously guaranteeing superior performance.

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.

But missions like that aren't using fission-based Microwave Beamed Power. They're using (to abstract to this type of mission overall) OP'd technologies like Antimatter and DT-Vista. Stuff that's decades (or centuries) away in real life, and I have absolutely no issue with you making prohibitively expensive.

Microwave Beamed Power for thermal rockets based on a reasonable-sized array of fission reactors, on the other hand, only slightly outperforms traditional chemical rocketry.

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.

I've said this before- let reality be your guide. The best solution is always the one that follows real life- otherwise you're not creating a game about rocketry, you're creating some obscure alternate universe that follows only rules you create in your head.

Take that with a grain of salt- this is coming from a player who uses FAR and will never go back, who desperately wants to see planet-scale brought up to a more realistic 20% or 30% size rather than its current 1:11 scale, and who thinks better aerodynamics and re-entry heat should be on the top of the priority list for Squad; followed by bigger solar panels and the VASIMR engine (because it's the most promising propulsion technology that exists today- they're already putting one on the International Space Station)

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

While low temperature thermall nozzles may be relatively simple and cheap, something that can handle temperatures mentioned in reactor stats will be both complex and expensive. And it will probably contain very expensive materials.

Also i like new prices from gameplay point of view, finaly there is something those tens of millions of funds can be spent on.

Proposed designs for higher-temperature thermal rockets in real life (those that could operate off antimatter of fusion reactors, or off electrothermal propulsion- the latter of which is notably missing in KSP Interstallar, despite my proposal to add it not too long ago) operate off of magnetic fields to contain high-temperature plasma streams generated by the reactors, so they don't come in contact with the actual nozzles; rather than off of materials that could withstand those temperatures directly.

That being said, the same thermal rocket nozzle part is used for a cheap Heat-Exchanger based Microwave Thermal Rockets (which actually operate at LOWER temperatures than traditional LH2/LOX rockets- but obtain their superior ISP through use of just Hydrogen as propellant- which has MUCH lower molecular mass than the the water produced by LH2/LOX combustion, and thus higher molecular velocity and ISP) as for a wildly-expensive and futuristic Antimatter Thermal Rocket.

Therefore, the best solution would be to incorporate the cost of the advanced plasma-control systems needed for high-temperature reactors in the reactor part rather than in the thermal rocket nozzle.

Regards,

Northstar

[TomatoSoup]

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:

That's good, but the point is that the nozzles should be way cheaper. Either on par or cheaper than a similarly sized chemical engine. Because the real magic of the thermal nozzle isn't in the nozzle itself at all! It's in how you power it. Current pricing makes it prohibitively expensive to, say, put solar panels in low solar orbit and use that to power the thermal nozzle.

What you want to prohibit is the antimatter and fusion powered monstrosities. But you don't want to prohibit the less powerful systems like solar and beamed fission.

That being said, the same thermal rocket nozzle part is used for a cheap Heat-Exchanger based Microwave Thermal Rockets (which actually operate at LOWER temperatures than traditional LH2/LOX rockets- but obtain their superior ISP through use of just Hydrogen as propellant- which has MUCH lower molecular mass than the the water produced by LH2/LOX combustion, and thus higher molecular velocity and ISP) as for a wildly-expensive and futuristic Antimatter Thermal Rocket.

Therefore, the best solution would be to incorporate the cost of the advanced plasma-control systems needed for high-temperature reactors in the reactor part rather than in the thermal rocket nozzle.

Exactly! Either there should be different types of nozzles with different levels of permissible temperatures, or the nozzles only contain the turbopump and gimbal machinery while the reactor itself, for anything above fission, actually does the heat-exchanging magic.

Edited July 23, 2014 by TomatoSoup

[Lord DC]

Snip

But the joy of Interstellar is warping into the sun or Jool with a giant interstellar cruiser, which is equipped with "Antimatter and Fusion powered monstrosities"

[Northstar1989]

You weren't kidding when you said "wildly inflated" in terms of the part pricing. I would agree with NorthStar that it is the power production that should be expensive, not the engines.

I haven't cleared out the Interstellar tree on my new playthrough so I am interested in seeing what prices you put for the Vistas, AM reactors and the collectors. Here are my two cents on part costs for now:

3.5 Fusion reactor 500k - 750k

2.5 Fusion reactor 100k

3.5 Generator 60k

2.5 Generator 10k

1.5 Generator 1.5k

2.5 Plasma 150k (One of the biggest Holy Crap moments was when I saw the 1 Mil tag on this. I understand that plasma engines are high-tech, and should be one of the more expensive engines, but I cant see going over 200k on one of these. )

1.5 Plasma 30k

3.5 Thermal Rocket 60k max

2.5 Thermal Rocket 10k

Massive Radiator 20k

Radiator 5k

Tiny Radiator 1.5k

3.5 Refinery 100k (plus all of the money for one that is actually cylindrical)

2.5 Refinery 25k

Radial Refinery 75K

Umbrella Receiver 8k

3.5 Receiver 60k

2.5 Receiver 10k

1.5 Receiver 2k

Transceiver 80k

Folding Transceiver 110k

Stock engines follow an approximate 1/6 scale on pricing going down through the sizes, so I largely based my prices following that.

@Crim1, your post made me laugh.

Some of those seem like reasonable prices, but I have to make a point about Microwave Thermal Rockets:

Microwave Thermal Rockets, as they are implemented in KSP Interstellar, are composed of two parts- the Thermal Rocket Nozzle itself, and the Microwave Thermal Receiver.

Of the two, the nozzle is dirt-cheap in real life. This is because the temperatures it has to put up with aren't very high: less that 2400-2500K for a basic Microwave Thermal Rocket using LH2 (that's SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the +3500K the Space Shuttle Main Engines had to tolerate). The part should also be dirt-cheap, on the order of pricing of a structural part- 100 to 150 at the most for a 1.25 meter nozzle part.

The Thermal Receiver is where the REAL costs come into play with a Microwave Thermal Rocket. Though still comparably cheap, additional reading on the subject only makes in marginally cheaper than a comparable chemical rocket. Thus, a reasonable cost for a 1.25 meter receiver would be 600-700, which when combined with the 100-200 cost of the Thermal Rocket Nozzle, should add up to a cost of approximately 800-900 for a 1.25 meter Microwave Thermal Rocket propulsion system- placing its price at jsut less than the LV-T30 (costs 850), which is an example of a medium-cost (between the LV-T45 and the LV-909) stock-game chemical rocket...

Keep in mind that the Microwave Thermal Rocket won't operate in the same thrust range without a jaw-droppingly expensive external power source, however.

Currently the 1.25 meter version of this dirt-cheap nozzle, THAT DOES NOTHING BUT PROVIDE A DUMB SURFACE FOR A LOW-TEMPERATURE STREAM OF HYDROGEN TO PUSH AGAINST is a jaw-droppingly expensive 25,000 Funds to purchase. If funds are equivalent to dollars, it would be cheaper if it were made of solid silver. (400 kg in silver would only cost about $2685)

This is saying nothing of the cost of the Microwave Thermal Receiver (which receives the power, and should be modestly-priced), the Microwave Transceiver (which beams the power, and should be expensive), or the power source (which should be exorbitantly expensive). This is just the one, cheapest, component of the whole setup that costs more than TWO of my current low-cost (heavily SRB-based) Career-game 1.25 meter launch vehicles at the KSC, WITH PAYLOAD (each about 12K- keep in mind that's for 5K Delta-V, vs. 10K to orbit IRL), and more than a half-dozen low-end Contracts.

A single, small, low-temperature exhaust nozzle with no thrust vectoring shouldn't cost more than an entire rocket. EVER.

Regards,

Northstar

Edited July 23, 2014 by Northstar1989

[Lightwarrior]

Proposed designs for higher-temperature thermal rockets in real life (those that could operate off antimatter of fusion reactors, or off electrothermal propulsion- the latter of which is notably missing in KSP Interstallar, despite my proposal to add it not too long ago) operate off of magnetic fields to contain high-temperature plasma streams generated by the reactors, so they don't come in contact with the actual nozzles; rather than off of materials that could withstand those temperatures directly.

That being said, the same thermal rocket nozzle part is used for a cheap Heat-Exchanger based Microwave Thermal Rockets (which actually operate at LOWER temperatures than traditional LH2/LOX rockets- but obtain their superior ISP through use of just Hydrogen as propellant- which has MUCH lower molecular mass than the the water produced by LH2/LOX combustion, and thus higher molecular velocity and ISP) as for a wildly-expensive and futuristic Antimatter Thermal Rocket.

Therefore, the best solution would be to incorporate the cost of the advanced plasma-control systems needed for high-temperature reactors in the reactor part rather than in the thermal rocket nozzle.

Regards,

Northstar

Thats what i am talking about - those nozzles will need means to avoid propellant contact with nozzle, because no material exist that can be used to contain such temperatures.

But then to generate those magnetic field probaly superconducting materials will be needed, and overall such "nozze" will not be cheap.

And it will be probably be be built integrally with reactor, not as separate device.

Also "moving" all those complicated/expensive machinery to reactor part in KSPI may seem right what about situation when you use reactor with generator to generate power? This change will make power generation more expensive in KSPI, while nozzle+reactor price will not change.

[WaveFunctionP]

I just want to be clear. I am not maintaining KSPI. I have offered the experimental version for some time now. I wouldn't have made it if it weren't meant to be divergent in some way from KSPI. Fractal has demonstrated a priority for realism. I'm a gameplay first kind of guy, and the experimental version reflects this priority. I'll offer the changelog as evidence. Most every change that is listed improves the player experience by removing annoyances, informing player better, and generally cleaning up rough edges.

Am sensitive to the concerns about newer players and the impact that high cost will have on them. Part of the problem is the stat inflation from upgrades. Each size and tier is like 4x as effective as the next, which diverges from the stock game rapidly. Those gains need to be reflected in costs as well, but the upgrade system makes that problematic. Costs rise rapidly because part effectiveness rises so quickly. I'll admit that some of the scaling may be too steep, but whatever solution is implimented must reflect the value of the part in the end.

As to real world cost, I am aware of no exchange value for funds. Even if there were such values, fund incomes from contracts are not coupled to real world market conditions either, which makes the entire exercise moot. Funds are completely arbitrary. The right value for parts is then best determined by their impact on behavior within the context of the game, not real world economics.

I will look into value of reactors, but honestly, given the power scaling, I was worried that the cost of reactors would get prohibitively expensive. I think the size 3 AM reactor is like 6mil. I was worried about making reactors too expensive, so I decided to break up the cost a bit into other parts. I will have a look at what has been suggested, I should have something tomorrow.

[enneract]

Northstar might be coming off as a little forceful, but he is entirely right.

I was actually having basically this exact conversation with a coworker today (we both love ksp), and he was hitting on the same points. Repeatedly. With hand gestures. The entire point of beamed power, irl and in game, is to use expensive\complicated\heavy\fueled by rare resources nice and ensconced while you use propulsion systems which are cheap relative to chemical rockets out on your craft. If you think a 2.5M fission reactor + thermal nozzle combo should cost 1M FUNds, then the reactor should cost 999900, and the nozzle 100.

Did I mention this guy was an aerospace engineer?

[ecat]

@enneract

Excellent!

Now, can you or your friend tell me how large a surface area the microwave transmitter and receiver should have for the beam not to destroy anything which crosses its path? A second number for the safe passage of biological lifeforms would also be appreciated. A total beam power somewhere between 1Gw and 10Gw sounds about right. For reference, the solar constant for Earth is about 1.5Kw/m2 - which is safe - and up to 15Kw/m2 for Mercury - which certainly doesn't sound healthy.

If we want reality we may as well cover as many details as possible. Or we could just accept this is a game and while self consistent within its own reality it need only cross our reality where doing so does not get in the way of the fun factor. Here is the problem, we all find our own fun through our own play styles and there is no definitive right answer.

So please, express your opinions but don't bash on WaveFunctionP or Fractal_UK for ignoring pink skin reality while simultaneously cherry picking your own pink skin reality examples to justify your case.

[enneract]

So please, express your opinions but don't bash on WaveFunctionP or Fractal_UK for ignoring pink skin reality while simultaneously cherry picking your own pink skin reality examples to justify your case.

No one was bashing anyone.

Except you.

[krillin678]

Hey there all,

Just wanted to say that I love the mod, probably one of the best I have seen put together yet(over b9 imo).

I understand the need for realism, difficulty, and the lack of those two. I haven't payed much attention in rocket school and I do, once in a while, pay attention to future technologies. The major point I want to make is why couldn't there be a couple of versions that we could choose to make it easy/difficult/real as we want. Infact I am kind of surprised that squad didn't do the same with contracts. Sort of a missed point I feel.

Whelp, that is all I have got.

[ecat]

No one was bashing anyone.

Except you.

If the last sentence sounds a bit harsh that was not my intention. I'm just calling for a little perspective.

IMO beamed power as implimented is the least believable part of this mod. This doesn't stop me using it. Fractal made some interesting design choices with regards to the progress/reward path of this mod, they make things interesting. Whatever choices WaveFP makes I'm sure the fun will continue

[bonesbro]

I agree with Wave that gameplay is what matters as long as it's vaguely compatible with science. I also think that the time and expense and skill involved in setting up a microwave power network should result in some pretty decent rewards. IMO, the rocket nozzle should probably cost approximately the same as a regular engine (pretend the nontrivial cost is in generating the magnetic confinement and in materials/electronics that can tolerate the magnetic flux and stray energetic particle). You'll still benefit from cost savings on boosters and fuel. If you're not relying on beamed power, you're still going to spend massively less on fuel tanks and boosters, but you're buying the crazy expensive reactors instead.

I'm looking forward to designing ships that have a modular reactor section, so I can bring my ships home and leave the drive section in orbit to be refurbished to dock with a new craft. Will be an interesting design constraint that I haven't had to tackle before

[NeoAcario]

...finaly there is something those tens of millions of funds can be spent on.

Am I missing something in the mission system? I'm only on my 3rd science mission to Minmus (and only 18 K-Days in), and like my 7th or 8th to Mun, but I'm only just now about to break 10 million funds.

So what gives? Yes, my tech tree is maxed (no KSPI installed yet)...

~Steve

[SpaceGremlin]

From a gameplay balance perspective, it would probably be easier to keep the costs of the reactors high and the supporting equipment lower. That way it would be easier to adjust the cost of just the reactor if its over/under performing. If radiators or thermal nozzles are "overperforming" for their costs, that's not a problem. They're useless without reactors and if the reactors are priced right, everything will play well.

[Bishop149]

I was actually having basically this exact conversation with a coworker today (we both love ksp), and he was hitting on the same points. Repeatedly. With hand gestures. The entire point of beamed power, irl and in game, is to use expensive\complicated\heavy\fueled by rare resources nice and ensconced while you use propulsion systems which are cheap relative to chemical rockets out on your craft. If you think a 2.5M fission reactor + thermal nozzle combo should cost 1M FUNds, then the reactor should cost 999900, and the nozzle 100.

Must admit I agree here, make sense.

[Strainborm]

Does this build work with KSP 0.24? If not, is there any unofficial repacks?

[skeevy]

Does this build work with KSP 0.24? If not, is there any unofficial repacks?

There's an experimental version in WaveFunctionP's signature.

[Lightwarrior]

Am I missing something in the mission system? I'm only on my 3rd science mission to Minmus (and only 18 K-Days in), and like my 7th or 8th to Mun, but I'm only just now about to break 10 million funds.

So what gives? Yes, my tech tree is maxed (no KSPI installed yet)...

~Steve

I started new carrer, noticed that i can now get science from contracts which make sense (like flight testing components) without old land-click-return science, and started doing them. Then "explore planet ..." contrats, "transmit science data from ..." (which make satellites usefull) etc... I did no "manned" missions, and no missions with return&recovery. Just small cheap single-use probes. Now i still have few nodes to unlock and something like 50M credits. Enough to build something big with current interstellar prices i think....

[TomatoSoup]

Also "moving" all those complicated/expensive machinery to reactor part in KSPI may seem right what about situation when you use reactor with generator to generate power? This change will make power generation more expensive in KSPI, while nozzle+reactor price will not change.

What about the power generating units themselves? Make them cheaper as well. It doesn't make sense to have them contain the plasma-control equipment as well if the reactors already contain it. Plus, if you make both nozzle and generator cheaper, while only increasing the reactor's price for one of them, then you make the situation where making a dual-mode reactor (both power and thrust) is more economical!

But the joy of Interstellar is warping into the sun or Jool with a giant interstellar cruiser, which is equipped with "Antimatter and Fusion powered monstrosities"

I'm not arguing that! I just think you shouldn't be able to heave them on one-way journeys six times a week.

Edited July 23, 2014 by TomatoSoup

[sidfu]

wavefuntion u have the folder for WarpPlugin nammed warpplugin in newests exerpermental

[TechnicalK3rbal]

Anyone know how long till this will update?