PeterDolan

Nice! Do you think it makes sense to introduce a new resource to represent capacitance? It's a little unrealistic to say that the existing batteries both hold charge very well (infinitely well, in fact) and can also discharge instantly. We could introduce capacitors which would be able to hold a huge amount of charge and discharge instantly, but rapidly lose charge if left alone. Then, you would need to include capacitors in the structure, and not just attach an interstellar mod reactor + generator. Ok, that makes sense. Let's leave collisions with the rails alone for now, then. We'll see if it starts to feel weird. I'm still just getting my feet wet with the programming in KSP, so I'm not sure if I can apply a force to a ship that's brought near (other than the existing docking port force), but I'll see if I can make that happen. I'd be happy to take a look, but I'm just getting my feet wet with KSP and don't know anything about unity scripting either, so no promises You're talking about part animation, right? It would be fun to be able to do that both for the wheels and for the mass driver, so by all means send it over!

Great, I added you to the github account. Let me know if you have any trouble, but please feel free to start updating the models and part files there. I highly recommend the github desktop software, which makes it really easy to copy the repository to your local machine. Then, you can edit the files right where they're downloaded, create a commit with your changes, and upload the commit back to github.

Yeah that was my original suspicion as well -- that recoil would make the whole thing just unmanageable -- but I just realized that I can disable the recoil for ships that are landed. Then, when your ship is in space, you could actually use this as a propulsion system, which is totally awesome!

That looks Awesome! Yeah, I was definitely thinking of building only the rails part. You would set up whatever else you need to generate megajoules separately, whether that's a reactor and generator or a remote power array, I think it makes sense for this project to just supply the kapow. I set up a github repository for this (now linked in my original post), so if you're comfortable with using that then just let me know your github account and I'll add you to the project. If not, dropping zip files in the thread is totally fine. It looks like the collision mesh for your draft part is only around the base -- is that a limitation of the modeling? Would it be possible to make the rails themselves also collide-able, so that it would be a challenge to reload it? Looking at pictures of mass drivers, it's important that the rails be stabilized against each-other. Basically, there's a huge force driving forward down the rails, but there's also some force pushing the rails apart. Some mass drivers have the rails inside a full enclosure -- basically a cannon's barrel. Others have rings providing structure along the rails. Can we add some structural elements stabilizing the rods? I really dig the awesome jagged bits, they make me think that they're there to stabilize the payload as it is shot out. Can we remove one of them, so that it gives the part an interesting asymmetry? Then it would make sense to angle it above the horizon with the jagged stabilizing bits "down" toward the surface, and it would make it easier to reload the driver if you had one open side. Thanks! We're off to the races!

Thanks for the thoughts! * Thanks for the note about reloading. I'll look into what's going on with that. I have a suspicion. * I was thinking about recoil force, yeah, but I didn't want to require people to go to extreme lengths to tether the driver to the surface of a planet. Thinking about it more, though, I think it makes sense to add recoil force whenever the ship it's attached to is not landed. What do you think? I've updated it to do that now, and it's cool to have recoil in space -- this means you can use it as a propulsion system, which is a totally legitimate use for them * I tried making it into a mega-docking port, but the programming is a bit tricky. In particular, I wouldn't be able to change the menu button's label -- "decouple" just isn't quite as exciting as "Activate Driver."

Yeah! I'd be happy to take a crack at whatever you're thinking about. Would you like to work with lo-fi on modeling and texturing? I think lo-fi has made a good start with the first model. I've uploaded all of this to github, so if you're comfortable working in that system then collaboration may be a bit easier. Dropping files in this thread is fine too, of course

Hey all, Building a mass driver on the mun has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while. I want to launch large Kethane tanks into orbit with a massive kick and a tiny circularization, where they will be intercepted by an orbital refinery. Today, I got around to doing something about it. Here's the repository in GitHub: https://github.com/pdwryst/KSPMassDriver Here's a recent copy for directly downloading: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0a7PNLYAdzQYThma05fWnd3NnM/edit?usp=sharing Allow me to paint a picture. Imagine a mass driver on the mun. It's a pair of long, thin, delicate rails attached to a massive capacitor and control system. Nearby sits a reactor and an electrical generator from interstellar, an attachment system cable snaking between them, providing megawatts of power. The driver itself sits on a rotating platform and a hinge from infernal robotics, so that it can be pointed in any direction. All of that is on a wide, stable base. Next to the mass driver is a utility crane with the kerbal attachment system. I keep thinking of the dockyard cranes that pick up containers off the beds of trucks and drive them around the yard. This crane is tall, wide, and on wheels. It picks up a newly-filled Kethane tank with a docking port, some RCS, and a probe body on the bottom. Wheeling it over to the mass driver, which has been pointed vertically at the sky, it's delicately maneuvered into position over the base of the driver, at which point the docking ports pull themselves together and lock the payload into place. The crane wheels away. In the silence of space the platform rotates to point due east, and the rails begin tilting down toward the horizon, coming to rest at just three or four degrees, barely enough to miss the rim of the nearby crater. 3... 2... 1... VVVvvvvp! AWAY THE TANK IS HURLED! A new orbit, Ap 143,236, Pe 5, on its way to circularization and orbital processing. I think that sounds totally awesome. You could also set up a very powerful one to fire retrograde along the mun's orbital trajectory, returning a package from the mun to the surface of kerbin without any propellants! Sweet. Excited? Good. Opinionated? Awesome! Let me know what you think! Here's how I've been thinking about the mass driver parts: * Large enough to be difficult to get to the mun, but not so large that they aren't built into the environment. * Realistic power consumption and dynamics. Consumes the megajoules resource from the interstellar mod, and produces a decent amount of waste heat on firing. * Reloadable. The point of contact with the payload should be a docking port, so that a payload can be loaded into the driver. * Space-constrained. A mass driver is essentially two long conductive rods between which the payload rests. When activated, the mass driver arcs current through the entire assembly, creating acceleration with the magnetic field. It should be a challenge to fit a payload in between those rods. * 1.5m, 2.75m, and 4m parts, to snugly fit 1.25m, 2.5m, and 3.75m vessels between the rails. * More advanced parts unlocked through the tech tree, including graphene capacitors and plasma rails (animations for this would be kick-ass) for higher energy discharges. So far, I have written the plugin code that will consume electric charge and kick an attached part with a large force based on some of the physical properties of the mass driver, specifically the length of and distance between the rails, the diameter of the rails, and the conductivity of the rails material. The conductivity of the rails is affected by the rails' temperature, so you would be advantaged by waiting for night time, and you would need to wait some time for the rails to cool down enough. Give it a try, let me know what you think! We need help with textures for the models that lo-fi has created!