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[WIP] Nert's Dev Thread - Current: such nuke, wow


Nertea

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*faints*

These are the best engines I've seen in a while! Can't wait! Though, wouldn't RS68 be better suited to a 2.5m engine, or is my idea of scaling a bit off?

Oh, it's kinda arbitrary. Basically canonically highest thrust engines went to 3.75m, midrange to 2.5m and small to 1.25m. There will be a RO-friendly version with reduced footprints, correct exhaust transforms, and correct scaling in the future.

Wow, just what we needed!!! High quality engines, so after all the cryogenic engines are you planning on doing the nuclear engines after you get the various aspects relating to them worked out??

Well, now I have to do some work on NFT, then I have to do some work on MkIV. But after that, yes. I'm rather tired of unwrapping pipes and turbopumps for a bit. I also learned a fair bit about engine flow doing this and would like to re-pipe the NTRs to reflect that.

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Kinda have to wait for a Firespitter update, actually, as I'm just tacking LH2/OX fuel modes onto the stock tanks for now. Pretty much ready to go otherwise.

I'm surprised on how a similar functionality isn't stock yet, especially since the LV-N now uses only LF.

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Kinda have to wait for a Firespitter update, actually, as I'm just tacking LH2/OX fuel modes onto the stock tanks for now. Pretty much ready to go otherwise.

Wait, there's someone working on 1.0-compatible Firespitter? Interesting, cuz the snjo has been AWOL for over a month and FS didn't even get a 0.90 update :/

Question about a 3.75m engine. Is the one that's not the RS68 based off the Vulcain from Ariane?

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Wait, there's someone working on 1.0-compatible Firespitter? Interesting, cuz the snjo has been AWOL for over a month and FS didn't even get a 0.90 update :/

Question about a 3.75m engine. Is the one that's not the RS68 based off the Vulcain from Ariane?

checkout RoverDude's firespitter version bundled with MKS 0.30, it should work with 1.0

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@Nertea, I have a question you might know the awnser to. Not about NFP but it is affiliated, as you made that gas core NTR ;)

Would it be possible: to make liquid fuel, or for NFP liquid hydrogen, to act like a heat conductor/coolant?

Especially for NTR type engines, where the fuel was also used as coolant.

Reason to ask is the current heat system and it unrealistic need for radiator additions in order to run a LV-N under thrust.

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There's no real need to model such a thing - you can just abstract it and set the engine heat production lower. Because that would be the end result anyway, and none of the heating/cooling is actually visible to the user.

I've made some tests and this is not true. Thanks to the new heat system you don't want to tweak the heat production (which is fixed and doesn't vary with the part temperature, which is the factor that determine when a steady state is reached) but the conductivity and the radiation constant in the .cfg. An engine as low conductivity since you don't want that heat to leave the engine up the stack (but if you want to give more option to the player this can be left unchanged and a separate part with low conductivity can be made) and an high radiation which abstracts both the fuel leaving the engine and blackbody radiation. If the parameters are correct the engine will get hotter and hotter, even in "hoverheat" range until the radiation flux balances the heat production. Heat production in the end only determines the kinetics of the process: the higher, the faster the part will reach the critical temperature. It's easy to make passive radiators too, they are the same but with high conductivity and no heat production. What's not possible to do is an active heat exchanger, which needs a custom module. I think it would be suited for NFT, a simple inline part that consumes EC and sucks heat from its neighbors. Attach passive radiators to it you've got yourself an active radiator :)

Hopefully this will be useful to decode the new thermal model, Nertea. If you need other tests just ask!

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Test release!

Please have a look and see if anything is wrong, Firespitter will say it's not compatible with 1.0, but things work just fine apparently.

Six engines to start, one lower stage and one upper stage for each size category. Generally I balanced LH2 engines to have lower TWR and higher prices than their LFO equivalents, but higher specific impulses (by ~40-70s). All stock tanks are patched to be switchable between LFO, LH2O, LF, O, or LH2 You also need to deal with lower fuel densities inherent in LH2. Techwise they come 1 node after their LFO equivalents as well.

MM, CRP and FS are bundled. License is my usual, CC-NC-SA-AT 4.0.

Will propagate to release forum in a day or two if there are no serious issues.

edit: looks like some extra TGA textures snuck in by accident, will adjust.

Edited by Nertea
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Test release!

Please have a look and see if anything is wrong, Firespitter will say it's not compatible with 1.0, but things work just fine apparently.

Six engines to start, one lower stage and one upper stage. Generally I balanced LH2 engines to have lower TWR and higher prices than their LFO equivalents, but higher specific impulses (by ~40-70s). Techwise they come 1 node after their LFO equivalents as well.

MM, CRP and FS are bundled. License is my usual, CC-NC-SA-AT 4.0.

Will propagate to release forum in a day or two if there are no serious issues.

edit: looks like some extra TGA textures snuck in by accident, will adjust.

:D

*hurries back to Sandbox save to redesign late-career launchers*

EDIT: Seems the FS fuel switching leaves default fuels in tank as well as whatever is added. Just accidentally launched a X200-32 with an unwanted 1440 liquid fuel in it.

EDIT THE SECOND: Both 3.75m engines and the lower stage 1.25m engine do not show up in the tech tree.

Edited by SufficientAnonymity
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:D

*hurries back to Sandbox save to redesign late-career launchers*

EDIT: Seems the FS fuel switching leaves default fuels in tank as well as whatever is added. Just accidentally launched a X200-32 with an unwanted 1440 liquid fuel in it.

EDIT THE SECOND: Both 3.75m engines and the lower stage 1.25m engine do not show up in the tech tree.

yah, confirming both bugs, FS fuel swtich bug occurs when you launch rocket

engines looks nice, very nice balancing, comparing similar designs I think those engines (at least vac ones) are very comparable to stock ones.

In an example below (2.5m poddle vs tunguska) you get a bit more initial TWR and reduction of total mass at the cost of a bit less dV and longer tanks needed:

ZGL0SMf.png

AC7LDwm.png

similar with 1.25m vac engines:

mVBC6aC.png

XA20Fv9.png

- - - Updated - - -

edit:

Did some quick comparison between atmo engines, seems that they are generally worse in terms of TWR, dV, price and tanks volume needed compared to stock.

So I think that vac engines might get you max maybe 3-4% more dV in vac stage (for the same mass without fairing; if you use it in total you'll be worse off since you need additional segments which weigh a lot so more mass for 1st stage).

Then looking at cryogenic atmospheric engines I have a feeling that they are much worse for 1st stage lifting than stock.

Edited by riocrokite
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Confirmed and fixed both bugs.

Will uptweak Isps about 10-15s based on that, that seem ok?

yah should be good, I feel that vac engines are generally too much hassle (bigger tanks) for possible gain. As for atmospheric engines, but I would uptweak slightly their thrust too.

Big thing lies as well in the heavier LH2/Ox tanks but I guess they have to be heavier than LOX for the same mass of propellant.

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Presenting HeatControl: A support plugin for NF Electrical and for anyone who likes their LV-Ns with less overheating.

Contains basically the universal radiators from NF Electrical, modified to work with the stock heat system. Putting this here for testing purposes, as heat balance is really fiddly. Do please test and comment, if you're keen. It's pretty stable so far, but if you see a bug, let me know. (source on my Git page, license CC-SA-AT-NC 4)

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