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[DEVTHREAD] Deep Space Exploration Vessels

Angelo Kerman

By Angelo Kerman
in KSP1 Mod Development

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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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Porkjet

Porkjet

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Oh that hydrogen beam is terribly ..... <---edit: really, KSP-forum?! This is a dirty word?! ugh...

I'm most curious about those 'nasa sound bites'. What would such an engine sound like?

Also, when you're working on the emissives, dunno if you've seen it or if its common knowledge but you don't necessarily have to use a greyscale texture for the emissive, if you use a color map you can display different heat temperatures in different colored glows, red->yellow->white

S0Z7Kiil.jpg

You can make a quite realistic heat animation by animating only the red channel up until about half of the anim time, then fade in green for the yellow glowing areas, (and then blue for white-glowing areas, if you have something that hot)

Edited by Porkjet
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Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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Oh that hydrogen beam is terribly ..... <---edit: really, KSP-forum?! This is a dirty word?! ugh...

I'm most curious about those 'nasa sound bites'. What would such an engine sound like?

Also, when you're working on the emissives, dunno if you've seen it or if its common knowledge but you don't necessarily have to use a greyscale texture for the emissive, if you use a color map you can display different heat temperatures in different colored glows, red->yellow->white

http://i.imgur.com/S0Z7Kiil.jpg

You can make a quite realistic heat animation by animating only the red channel up until about half of the anim time, then fade in green for the yellow glowing areas, (and then blue for white-glowing areas, if you have something that hot)

Oh, thank you for the tip! :) I will give that a try. I plan to revisit the aerospike once I've finished up on the Supernova. I want to make a radial baby nuke and a 2.5m bimodal engine (generates power when not in use) as well, and the heat map technique will definitely be helpful.

That engine design looks great! Squad really needs to hire you, the stuff you make looks stock.

I'm most curious about those 'nasa sound bites'. What would such an engine sound like?

Here is the site I found with the sounds I'm intending to use. I envision the pulsed plasma mode to sound like the SRBs lighting off. The Daedalus engine ignites 250 pellets per second, and I think the shuttle SRBs would capture that. I'll mix something from the STS-131 launch sound. Liquid fuel will sound like the Atlas, possibly the hydrogen mode as well (Supernova is designed to work with Near Future Propulsion). I want to add noises for the reactor itself. I found a clip of the shuttle APUs and will mix it with air circulation sounds from STS-125's cabin. Working on the engine sounds is my next task, then I'll build the liquid droplet radiator and add in heat management.

Speaking of which, here is the latest build. License is now CC BY-NC SA US 3.0. You can also find the latest on the original post.

Edited by Angel-125
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Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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new version is up! You can download it here or from the original post. I finally got sounds to work properly (figuring out how to change effect sounds when the propellant types changed was... interesting).

Here's the lowdown:

0.3.2: Improved plasma fusion flame effect. Added engine sounds. Code cleanup. Consolidated textures where possible; main textures are in the Textures folder while individual models have placeholders.

Next up: I'll be adding a couple of truss assemblies and then I'll work on the liquid droplet radiator.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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I've been job hunting and actually playing KSP, but I am still working on this mod. Below you can see the start of the liquid droplet radiator I'm working on. Now that I know how to create particle effects, you'll see particle streams in between the arms. The nuclear aerospike, radial-mounted nuclear engine and bi-modal engine that I'm working on as well won't need the radiator since they employ open-cycle cooling. But the Supernova is a hybrid open/closed cycle system so it needs the radiators. Once I finish this model, I'll add heat management to the fusion engine.

One of the drawbacks of the radiator is that you can lose kryofluid. Some is lost through evaporation, and some is lost when the vessel is under acceleration. You'll need some kryofluid tanks onboard to replenish supplies.

LDRWip1.jpg

Edited by Angel-125
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  • 2 weeks later...
Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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The fusion engine looks amazing. I think the aerospike nerva should be orange instead of blue, though. It just seems to fit better.

Thanks. I'm finishing up the Supernova, then will revisit the aerospike. The blue stripe is a Wild Blue Industries signature, but I can change that area to orange and add the blue stripe elsewhere.

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Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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Hey... I need that engine...

http://i.imgur.com/GVawiYL.png?1

Hey that's a nice ship! I'm dreaming up a mod that will make something like that after I finish the engines. I want to do a centrifuge hub that spins if I can figure out how to do that. I'm thinking something like what Infernal Robotics does, only you turn on the spin and turn it off again. You'd be able to put whatever you want on the ends.

Those engines look really nice. I'll be working on a Jool transfer vehicle soon, this may be just what I need. So how much of this is ready to be used?

Actually the engine is good to go right now. It lacks the engine heat mechanics, but if you don't care about that then it's no big deal. I just have to texture the liquid droplet radiator and add the particle effects, then code the module. I have another project I'm working on at the moment, but once that's done I'll switch back to the radiator and heat management and finish up the engine.

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  • 1 month later...
Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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The FusionPellets don't flow from the FusionPellets tank (WB-1700) to the Supernova. Is this by design or a bug?

Maybe you can use the Open Resource System (ORS) for your tanks and engine resources.

Likely a bug. I'm working on rolling parts of Multipurpose Colony Modules into MKS/OKS so I'll get to this later.

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Kolago

Kolago

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Quick CFG file for modularFuelTanks/ProceduralParts integration:

RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
   name = FusionPellets
   density = 0.001
   flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
   transfer = PUMP
   isTweakable = true
   cost = 15
}

@TANK_DEFINITION[Default]:NEEDS[modularFuelTanks]
{
    TANK
    {
        name = FusionPellets
        amount = 0.0
        maxAmount = 0.0
    }
}

density = 0.001 is from water and comes near the WB-1700 mass/volume ratio.

Edited by Kolago
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Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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Quick CFG File for modularFuelTanks/ProceduralParts integration:

RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
   name = FusionPellets
   density = 0.001
   flowMode = ALL_VESSEL
   transfer = PUMP
   isTweakable = true
   cost = 15
}

@TANK_DEFINITION[Default]:NEEDS[modularFuelTanks]
{
    TANK
    {
        name = FusionPellets
        amount = 0.0
        maxAmount = 0.0
    }
}

density = 0.001 is from Water and comes near the WB-1700 mass/volume ratio.

Looks good!

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  • 1 month later...
Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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Are you still working on this Angel-125? Because this is a pretty good mod, and I would love to see it updated and improved.

Yes, I'm still working on it. I've been busy with Multipurpose Colony Modules (I'm right in the middle of releasing the latest version), but I'll be switching gears later today and adding new improvements. In a nutshell:

- Normal mapping for the Supernova

- New mechanic: Heat. The Supernova generates Heat that must be radiated away by radiators.

- Damage mechanics: The engine's performance may degrade over time unless regular maintenance is performed.

- New radiator:The liquid droplet radiator is on hold in favor of a simpler design that will appear earlier in the tech tree.

These will take a bit, and I'll incorporate feedback if any, but that's the direction I plan on with the mod.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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At last I was able to work on Nuclear Engines! I've reworked the entire project directory to make it more maintainable and recompiled the mod for 0.9.0. No new parts yet but now I have a solid foundation to build with.

You can download the latest here.

Release Notes

0.3.5: Recompiled for 0.9.0 Beta. Added Modular Fuel Tanks config (thanks Kolago. :) ). Completely redesigned the mod's code to improve maintainability - I learned a LOT from Multipurpose Colony Modules!

- Supernova now has two modes: hydrogen mode and pulsed plasma mode. Hydrogen mode burns LiquidFuel as its propellant, unless you have Near Future Propulsion (NFP) installed. If you have NFP, then hydrogen mode burns LiquidHydrogen.

- Nuclear Aerospike now only burns LFO, but it offers superior thrust compared to the LV-N.

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Axelord FTW

Axelord FTW

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- Supernova now has two modes: hydrogen mode and pulsed plasma mode. Hydrogen mode burns LiquidFuel as its propellant, unless you have Near Future Propulsion (NFP) installed. If you have NFP, then hydrogen mode burns LiquidHydrogen.

Oooh, so this can come up as an end-of-the-line engine with NF?

I need to try this.

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Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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Oooh, so this can come up as an end-of-the-line engine with NF?

I need to try this.

Right, though Nert has some really cool designs in the works that could be end-game items. The Supernova is based on a design from a NASA study, so it kind of fits with NFP. In fact, I am currently working on an octotruss that holds fusion pellets and serves as a mounting point for the upcoming heat radiators.

Edited by Angel-125
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  • 2 weeks later...
sashan

sashan

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Can you make radiators KAS-mountable, as most of the people here already have lots of ships with the engines...

Oh, and including similar config for stock NERVA would be good. I've made my config using stock modules, works good and seems balanced. I may post it here.

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Angelo Kerman

Angelo Kerman

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Can you make radiators KAS-mountable, as most of the people here already have lots of ships with the engines...

Oh, and including similar config for stock NERVA would be good. I've made my config using stock modules, works good and seems balanced. I may post it here.

that sounds like a good plan. Out of curiosity, how many people use the nuclear aerospike? I am thinking of dropping it and just focusing on the Supernova. It was one of the first models I did for KSP but I don't think it's getting much use.

Edited by Angel-125
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  • 2 weeks later...
DasValdez

DasValdez

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Angel, thanks for stopping by KSPTV! I was seriously stoked when I saw you had updated for .90

I had been putting the balloon pellet tank inside the hollow truss from NFC, but it was slightly too big and clipped out a bit. Sizing that thing down to fit in the 2.5m form factor might be a good thing.

My big thing is heat generation and radiation. Having big radiators that dispose of wasteheat but are included in the WildBlue pack would save me from having to install a huge mod just to get rid of the heat. If the radiators matched the NASA paper visually that would be a bonus goal heh. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20050160960.pdf

I played with the aerospike, but I think at the time it was broken and I never went back to it.

Thanks again! It'll be another couple weeks before I get the ISRU refineries in place. I stream the DiscII Mission every Thursday starting at 10 PM EST, and would love to have you any time you can make it.

Cheers!

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