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[DEVTHREAD] Deep Space Exploration Vessels


Keep pulsed plasma mode?  

33 members have voted

  1. 1. Keep pulsed plasma mode?

    • Yes, I use it
      14
    • No, I don't use it
      2


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Hi Das, thanks for the feedback. :) It was great to visit your webcast. Seeing how others use the Supernova gives me good feedback on what needs to be improved. Like for instance the FusionPellets resource to represent the fusion fuel used by the engine. It makes sense to have, but how do you actually make the stuff? Well, the Fuel Refinery in Multipurpose Colony Modules lets you make them, but that requires MKS/OKS as well as Multipurpose Colony Modules. But with a karbonite variant going into stock, it makes sense to include something in the mod, so time permitting, next update will have a processing unit for making fusion pellets from ore, minerals, and water, It will make glykerol (used by the liquid droplet radiator) as well.

I actually do have plans to model the heat radiators from the Discovery II spacecraft. They will be the baseline radiators and for game play reasons won't require any glykerol coolant. But you'll need a dozen of them to cool the engine. Contrast that with the liquid droplet radiator, which slowly consumes glykerol, but you'll only need four of those to cool the Supernova.

For those who don't want the complexity of heat management, I'll have a debug menu to turn that game mechanic off.

Lastly, I'm working on a Near Future Construction-compatible octo-truss that holds fusion pellets and glykerol.

Edited by Angel-125
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Get the latest release here. Feedback appreciated!

0.3.6: Hot Fire Test

- Rebranded the mod as Deep Space Exploration Vessels

- Deprecated the Nuclear Aerospike engine

- Added the WBR-120M Graphene Radiator

- Added the FLM-1800 Multipurpose Storage Tank. This 1.875m tank fits inside the hollow octo-truss from Near Future Construction and can be radially attached. Right-click the tank to store a variety of different resources. Right-click to change the endcaps when in the editor.

- The Supernova now requires radiators to function properly. You can disable heat management for the engine by right-clicking the engine and accessing the debug window. (For a better heat management experience, check out the upcoming SystemHeat by Nertea.)

- The Supernova now requires 48,000 EC to start the reactor before the engine can be used. Right-click the part to start the reactor. The EC startup requirement can be disabled in the debug menu.

- The Supernova now has a debug menu. Right-click the part to access the menu. Pressing Debug Reset will remove any overheating, clear out the heat sink, shut off the reactor, and reset a few internal variables so the engine appears as if it just left the VAB/Hangar.

NOTE: Existing spacecraft built prior to 0.3.6 should not be affected by the changes but just in case, use the debug menu to disable heat management and the EC startup requirement.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To install the mod, DELETE the existing GameData/WildBlueIndustries/NuclearEngine folder before installing DSEV. Be sure to copy ALL the files provided into the GameData folder.

FYI: It would be a good idea for new spacecraft built with this version of the mod to stock up on SpareParts. Future revisions will include engine maintennance.

Prototype Kerbalized Discovery II:

b7l1He4.png

Next up will be a centrifuge that lets you attach parts to the spinning section, an arc jet RCS thruster, and some hexagonal truss segments based on those from the NASA paper.

New Multipurpose Storage Tank. My one-and likely only- 1.875m fuel/fusion pellets/whatever tank:

fRsJzH2.png

Edited by Angel-125
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Glad you like it. :) my plan going forward is to provide parts to build ships like Discovery II, NAUTILUS-X, Skylab II, Mars One, and the Deep Space Habitat.

The engine has a basic heat system that is intended to be disabled in favor of SystemHeat via MM configs. The radiators too, though I need some help to get them to point right with SystemHeat, as I have not built radiators/solar panels before and it was a real pain to get them functional.

My goal is to have the mod work standalone if desired but defer to the experts for improved play experience if the appropriate mod is installed. For instance, if you have Near Future Construction then MM configs hide the hex truss and associated hardware that I'm working on. Similarly, you won't need the nuclear reactor that will fit in a standard truss if you have Near Future Electrical. Careful UV mapping will ensure that the texture maps don't go to waste, as they're needed for parts that don't overlap.

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Glad you like it. :) my plan going forward is to provide parts to build ships like Discovery II, NAUTILUS-X, Skylab II, Mars One, and the Deep Space Habitat.

The engine has a basic heat system that is intended to be disabled in favor of SystemHeat via MM configs. The radiators too, though I need some help to get them to point right with SystemHeat, as I have not built radiators/solar panels before and it was a real pain to get them functional.

My goal is to have the mod work standalone if desired but defer to the experts for improved play experience if the appropriate mod is installed. For instance, if you have Near Future Construction then MM configs hide the hex truss and associated hardware that I'm working on. Similarly, you won't need the nuclear reactor that will fit in a standard truss if you have Near Future Electrical. Careful UV mapping will ensure that the texture maps don't go to waste, as they're needed for parts that don't overlap.

Indeed! I much like the radiators. Basically SystemHeat radiators hijack the Solar Panel module, so you build them as you would a solar panel (there are a few tutorials around), but aim the sun transform parallel to the radiator, instead of perpendicular to it. All done!

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Congratulations for this mod, is great!!!

Would this mod be compatible with Interstellar?

Not exactly. I designed it around Near Future Technologies and haven't played Interstellar in months. I'd have to find a version of Interstellar that is .90 compatible. I know there is Interstellar Lite but don't know if that is still active.

You'd have to create a MM patch to turn the Supernova into both a deuterium-tritium reactor and a nuclear thermal rocket and I'm not sure that is possuble in the same part. I think you could make it like the cone shaped fusion engine though. Once you do that, you'll need to make the radiators shed WasteHeat, but the radiator might need need a thermal animation- which I think SystemHeat needs too. My radiator doen't use an animation, I just set the temperature color directly.

@Nertea: Very cool. I Will play around with that and give it a try. :)

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Hey Angel, I saw that you said something about Nertea's upcoming SystemHeat mod, and, I searched around this thread and then goggled it, but I didn't find anything... do you think you could give me a link to where its hidden? That is, if your allowed to? Because it looks really interesting! I've got myself, currently, a modified KSPInterstellar mod so that it strips everything but the WasteHeat and the seismometer function (and the radiation feature because its hidden in the .dll plugin) because those are my two favorite features of the mod, especially when I have to worry about my early game space probes overheating before they get a chance to transmit all their stored data, and small battery compasity

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Hey Angel, I saw that you said something about Nertea's upcoming SystemHeat mod, and, I searched around this thread and then goggled it, but I didn't find anything... do you think you could give me a link to where its hidden? That is, if your allowed to? Because it looks really interesting! I've got myself, currently, a modified KSPInterstellar mod so that it strips everything but the WasteHeat and the seismometer function (and the radiation feature because its hidden in the .dll plugin) because those are my two favorite features of the mod, especially when I have to worry about my early game space probes overheating before they get a chance to transmit all their stored data, and small battery compasity

SystemHeat is Nertea's upcoming mod that is currently bundled with the dev version of Near Future Electrical. My understanding is that it's still in testing and likely will change when KSP 1.0 is released. I'm just starting to learn how it works and integrate DSEV's radiators and the Supernova, so I can't offer much help. I definitely have questions myself. :)

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SystemHeat is Nertea's upcoming mod that is currently bundled with the dev version of Near Future Electrical. My understanding is that it's still in testing and likely will change when KSP 1.0 is released. I'm just starting to learn how it works and integrate DSEV's radiators and the Supernova, so I can't offer much help. I definitely have questions myself. :)

ah! thanks man! I'm not quite ready to risk the dev version... so I'll just keep my modified KSPI for now!

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So, I totally Derp, whats the Centrifuge gunna do? It looks cool~ Makes me think of all the little probes I smash into the surface of a planet have a problem landing, leaving them with no engine and end up making them spin really really really really really [repeat seven times] fast, bounce across the surface until it has a catostrphic failure, worse that the engine blowing up, resulting in all the tiny pieces of the probe going flying off in every direction, raining down on the surface like sharp, deadly confetti! Someone needs to make a nigh indistrutible probe part that contains the science within it... that way people like me can bounce their probes everywhere until it runs out of juice...

As soon as I learn Blender and how to export the model so KSP likes it, I'll make myself a probe capable of being dropped from 20k above Duna's surface, and be able to smack into the surface like Jebidia Kermin land on the surface with nothing to slow itself down, then roll around into the different biomes and collect some science, then transmit it back before going kapoot!

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So, I totally Derp, whats the Centrifuge gunna do? It looks cool~ Makes me think of all the little probes I smash into the surface of a planet have a problem landing, leaving them with no engine and end up making them spin really really really really really [repeat seven times] fast, bounce across the surface until it has a catostrphic failure, worse that the engine blowing up, resulting in all the tiny pieces of the probe going flying off in every direction, raining down on the surface like sharp, deadly confetti! Someone needs to make a nigh indistrutible probe part that contains the science within it... that way people like me can bounce their probes everywhere until it runs out of juice...

As soon as I learn Blender and how to export the model so KSP likes it, I'll make myself a probe capable of being dropped from 20k above Duna's surface, and be able to smack into the surface like Jebidia Kermin land on the surface with nothing to slow itself down, then roll around into the different biomes and collect some science, then transmit it back before going kapoot!

Assuming I can figure out how to make it work (I'm studying configurable joints in unity), the centrifuge hub is designed to let you attach parts to the hub and make them spin. For example, on the Discovery II:

discovery2cTb.jpg

Notice the three spokes? The hub for those spokes is what I'm trying to create. Here's a look in KSP. This is a test rig but it demonstrates what I'm trying to achieve.

aNTJ8NF.png

Like with Infernal Robotics, what I want to do is attach parts to that hub and tell it how fast to spin. There will be a counter-rotating ring to help counter the torque as well. For me this is a step up from animating a continually rotating ring as it involves rotating any parts attached to the hub itself. I know it can be done as IR does it all the time, but I want to set up the hub to spin and then ignore it while it does its spinning. With IR, as far as I currently know, you have to keep pressing the rotate button...

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Unfortunately, making a hub that rotates while keeping the top and bottom parts fixed is presently beyond my experience. I tried various approaches and even found that IR has similar issues. What you can do in IR is attach a washer to the cupola, attach a hitchhicker to serve as a hub, attach a rotatron to the bottom of the hitchicker, and continue to build out the spacecraft. The problem is that the cupola will spin freely and will end up rotated differently from the rest of the body. You'd think that you could just rotate the cupola joint to match that of the main body, but it's not that simple. So for now the rotating hub is out while I continue researching configurable joints in Unity and how parts are attached in KSP.

On the plus side, last night I refactored the radiator code to work the way I want. It now uses the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation to handle heat management, and as a plus, it will handle heat from multiple sources. Expect to see a new release sometime tonight or tomorrow.

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Edit: Removed references to 0.3.7 as I just released 0.3.8. I wasn't expected to reach a breakthrough in getting the hub to work. Yes you need Infernal Robotics to use the hub... :)

Edited by Angel-125
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Get the latest release here!

- Added the Spindle, Spin Ring, and Counter Torque Ring based upon ZodiusInfuser/Sirkut's rotating space station hub.

- Added SpinHub plugin to gently accelerate/decelerate the hubs, provide context menu and Action Group support, and to prevent ship breakage when in timewarp.

This was so frustrating to do, it deserves a YouTube video:

NOTE: InfernalRobotics is required to use the centrifuge hub.

XdOCTYs.jpg

jjkxbTN.png

Edited by Angel-125
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i can't seem to figure out the spindle... the attach points are quite confusing. there are three, all of which are offset deeply into the spindles center, how should i attach it to other parts? also the hub and counter hubs don't sit well on the provided attach points... i think im missing something... :/

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