Mission Aeronautics - Explosives and Electrical Stuff

[N3X15]

RSD-100 Range Safety Device

Ever had a rocket fall apart in such a way that your expensive capsule was pinned helplessly to the top of it, with no way to stop this ride from Hell?

Mission Aeronautics says that\'s awesome, and it needs more explosions.

Behold, the RSD-100 Range Safety Device! Consisting of advanced toaster-in-a-jar-of-thermite technology, the Range Safety Device can quickly make short work of your runaway rockets and spent stages. How it works is the toaster ignites the thermite, quickly heating the attached object to 10,000 degrees Kerval, destroying it. As a bonus, we\'ve punched holes in the bottom of the can so it provides just enough thrust to fly off and explode a mere second later, giving your poorly-trained pilots a mesmerizing and distracting fireworks display! Oh, and we let the graphics designer loose on it, since he was chewing his keyboard out of boredom, so it also looks pretty!

http://youtu.be/3akbWkFL7og

tl;dr IT BLOWS STUFF UP.

DOWNLOAD for 0.14: http://ci.nexisonline.net/mirror/kerbal/MissonRSD-0.13.0.zip (Prefix is MISSION_)

Electrical API + Parts (WIP)

When I first got word back from Squad that the Plugin would be a part of KSP, one of the first things I envisioned was a common electrical distribution API. To that end, I have created a rudimentary electrical distribution API. The code is here (ElectricalGrid project).

It\'s far from finished (my cleanup of code probably broke things, and I haven\'t had much time to test). However, it\'s slowly coming together.

[Cepheus]

This is excellent. You might have finally solved the crisis of... either way, i\'ll be using this.

[Caesar15]

what did it do? Blow up the tank or something

[Cepheus]

Yes. They were solids, which overheated and exploded, taking out the tank with it.

[3Point3Ghz]

Love it. Can\'t wait to get it and blow stuff up. I mean, try it out. Yeah. My engineers believe it will be highly beneficial to our space program.

[Caesar15]

Yes. They were solids, which overheated and exploded, taking out the tank with it.

oh i get it it wll destroy anything underneath it so your command pod is free

[cardgame]

Turning safety devices into weaponry is looked upon with approval, no?

::: Put this device on top of a detachable nuclear-capable cruise missile (a few aeronautics will know what I speak of). Let it loose, let it fly, and detonate for airburst. :::

[Caesar15]

Turning safety devices into weaponry is looked upon with approval, no?

::: Put this device on top of a detachable nuclear-capable cruise missile (a few aeronautics will know what I speak of). Let it loose, let it fly, and detonate for airburst. :::

Like a shotgun in midair with 100000x the damadge

[N3X15]

Turning safety devices into weaponry is looked upon with approval, no?

::: Put this device on top of a detachable nuclear-capable cruise missile (a few aeronautics will know what I speak of). Let it loose, let it fly, and detonate for airburst. :::

Of course.

Uploading files and pics now.

[N3X15]

It\'s all there. Try it out and lemme know what I screwed up

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

I see some of my parts in your screenies. Thanks for using my mod

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

Not me, Jeb requested it

[MC3craze]

Decouplers are for pussies. Real men use these. 8)

[Commander Zoom]

Not quite Project Orion, but the next best thing.

(Great writeup, N3X15.)

[Volt]

These will be even better once abort/separate stages are implemented! Thanks for this!

[N3X15]

Well, here\'s the beginning of a plugin framework I\'m working on that allows users to tie into a central electrical grid. The grid itself is an external library, and then in my own module pack I have a few modules that make use of the ElectricalGrid library.

Power Distribution Node (PDN) - All electrical parts receive 'pings' from this that tell the part that it is supplied with the electricity it requested. Can only handle so many watts at a time, and I\'m adding a resistance value that slowly drains electricity as a function of heat and latent electrical resistance.

Solar Panel - (Currently using Probodobodyne\'s as placeholders, have some made in Blender, but having trouble unwrapping the UV correctly) Performs a light level check before producing power. Working on a deployable version.

Battery - (Again, using a probodobodyne placeholder) Can store electricity for a configurable amount of time, has a configurable discharge rate and a seperate recharge rate. (Recharging is a bit buggy atm)

Ion Drive - Provides thrust without needing fuel at all. However, needs a LOT of electricity - Default is 2.3KW, which is about 4 batteries and 3 lit solar panels. Still needs a bit of work.

I\'m not releasing this until Squad releases their posting guidelines, but a teaser\'s fine

[Awaras]

Reposting this from another Ion engine thread (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7847.msg114713#msg114713) in the interest of scientific accuracy of Ion engines.

My god, if this works as stated, it is awesome!! A great glimpse of things to come.

That said, no engine can work on electricity alone. Unless you count Sci-Fi high tech reactionless drives that are on par with FTL engines, they all need something to use as reaction mass. Do you think it would be possible to create an engine that needs both fuel AND electricity (with a low fuel burn rate of course)?

Ion engines use electricity to ionize and then accelerate atoms of xenon gas or even mercury, depending on type of engine. They are basically low power particle beam cannons firing to the rear of the ship. They need very small amounts of propellant relative to chemical engines but they still need SOMETHING... We still can\'t beat Newton\'s Third Law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Propellants

[N3X15]

Reposting this from another Ion engine thread (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=7847.msg114713#msg114713) in the interest of scientific accuracy of Ion engines.

Ugh. I guess I\'ve gotta add in a generic fuel system, too.

[Volt]

Ugh. I guess I\'ve gotta add in a generic fuel system, too.

I don\'t want to start this debate here, but really we don\'t need to be overly obsessive about realism here. We\'ve already overlooked some huge things in development such as the gravity of Kerbin being 1G despite its low mass, etc.

[Majiir]

Ugh. I guess I\'ve gotta add in a generic fuel system, too.

The interesting thing about ion engines is that they can consume all kinds of fuel, but the type of fuel used (and the power applied) changes the performance characteristics of the engine. (See VASIMR, especially the Variable Specific Impulse part.)

A generic fuel system would allow engines to consume Xenon and Helium alike, but it also gives us other options, like ejecting hydrazine or kerosene from liquid tanks.

I wouldn\'t sweat the precise details about what type of fuel to consume just yet. As long as it consumes some fuel, and the engine\'s thrust and specific impulse are in line, you\'ll have a balanced engine.

[Awaras]

I don\'t want to start this debate here, but really we don\'t need to be overly obsessive about realism here. We\'ve already overlooked some huge things in development such as the gravity of Kerbin being 1G despite its low mass, etc.

An \'ion engine\' that needs only solar power to work is basically an infinite fuel cheat part that would take away any challenge from the game.

[Guest]

Note, ion engines are usually very weak. I think it\'s not a cheat part if the power was low enough, also, you need to be careful not to get the sun obscured by anything or turn the panels away from it (RCS fuel isn\'t infinite), or you\'re dead in space.

[N3X15]

An \'ion engine\' that needs only solar power to work is basically an infinite fuel cheat part that would take away any challenge from the game.

Inverse square law.

[superscout]

I applaud your work! As far as 'you can\'t run an engine on electricity', I don\'t really care if we are violating another rule of physics. If you want realism, go play Orbiter. But couldn\'t you just make a ram-scoop(powered by your new electricity) and use that as a justification for creating fuel? (ram-scoop= coil that creates an immense electromagnetic field and pulls in free-floating ions in space, to be used for fuel or fusion)

[CAPFlyer]

An \'ion engine\' that needs only solar power to work is basically an infinite fuel cheat part that would take away any challenge from the game.

Not so. Once you get too far from light, the amount of power generated wouldn\'t be enough to continue powering the engine. Additionally, as your output thrust is very low for the amount of energy required, it will take a lot of very careful planning to ensure proper light gathering at both ends of your trip to provide enough power as your internal batteries will most likely not provide enough on their own and require at least some level of recharge to complete your acceleration and deceleration maneuvers. In fact, with Deep Space 1 and other Ion Drive powered probes in the real world, the issue has been less fuel and more battery capacity. As the launch vehicle constrains the size of the probe, it also restricts the size of the solar panels. To maximize the scientific payload, some loss in solar panel size was required to still make the launch and initial orbital velocity constraints, meaning that in all actuality, any true deep space probe (along the lines of the Voyager series) would run out of useful sunlight well before running out of fuel.