FreeThinker

True that exactly how they work now, its exhaust pressure versus nozzle exit air pressure , as long as exhaust pressure wins, you got thust, otherwise you just heating up the air. Well, do allow smaller engines and lower power reactors to operate at higher atmospheric pressures, but given enough power, it doesn't matter

Yes, well its more like a universal power to thrust converter with configurable behavior. The plasma nozzle and thermal nozzle are technically the same thing with some altered config settings which are partially derived from the connected reactor, and chosen propellant , so when its connected to a gas core reactor it performs different than when connected to a molten salt reactor.

No, the blanket is not intended for the Discovery (which is mend for deep space exploration), but rather the MFC on the surface Planets or Moonm space station to power beamed power transmitters Well, you can report bugs either on the KSPIE Support thread, on the bugs discord chat or create a ticket in KSPIE GitHub What ever you like best

Ok, regarding neutron absorption I had the following Idea which is "VAB Beeding Blanket switching". Instead of using the blanket to breed tritium from Lithium6, it could be replaced by hydrogen to breed deuterium or Thorium to breed Uranium 233 or Depleted Uranium to Breed Plutonium.

Alright, but what about wasteheat, wouldn't D-He3 require hotter temperatures to fuse compared to D-T, also produce more wasteheat? Sorry for all the questions but it isn't often that I meet someone with more knowledge on fusion than me ;-)

Alright so core temperate scale with size exponent 2, How about magnet nozzle power cost, will also scale with fuelflow exponent 2?

What I also did is make the effective core temperature depend on the Fusion CP% percentage, meaning DT fusion would have lowest Isp and D-He3 would produce higher isp You mean the Hydrogen propellant would absorb neutrons and turn into Deuterium and Tritium? edit: Yes I figured a closed loop would be too heavy, that why I said it lacks a (closed cycle ) lithium blanket

In a way, This is already part of the engine, Lithium counts as a neutron absorbent propellant which when used as a propellant will gain extra energy from neutron absorbtion , which translates into a thrust bonus.

To reduce weight, I excluded the lithium breeding blanked (that is present in the Tokamak) and assumed only 50% of the neutrons would be available for thermal power. and limited it to Low Neutron fuel modes.

how much of the energy can you reasonably extract from a plasma exhaust? 0 to 10%, also at what efficiency? Love to but I figured the stuff would be too hard and dangerous to store. How should a degenerate matter storage container look like?

Yes but the diameter is 5m, similar to the MCF which I defined as the default minimum size. I made it that because these reactors inherently are very bulky. Yes, the more wasteheat is produced, the hotter the radiators get, the less efficient power production becomes. But you didn't answer my question which is "does doubling the thrust (by lowering isp from 12000s to 6000s) double or quadruple the power cost?"

Well I currently do not have power production on the Plasma nozzle (only on the Deadalus and Z-Pinch) but think it would be an interesting option.

To be clear, the KSPIE Discovery has diameter of 5m, or are you refering to its length?

Alright, so the MCR core temperture should based on reactor size and engine wasteheat should be based exponential on isp gear (where base would be gear 1). From a balance point of view would be perfect as it allows player to overdrive the engine for higher isp at the expanse of more mass for radiators. Lowering isp could be acieved at at the cost of higher power cost, but when halved would it double or quadruple?

Ok, I looked around and found this document https://www.oxfordneutronschool.org/2011/lectures/osns_stewart_polarised_2011.pdf It made me think, Would it be possible to polarize neutrons so we can partialy direct them with a polorized neutron mirror in a desired direction to create thrust?

Yes but apparently they still manage to apply some spin polarization in a fusion engine, perhaps there is still hope for meaningful Spin pol D-T fusion, perhaps not an engine but only for power production making it still very useful

ok But On the Wiki of Tri Alpha they mention Spin polarization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAE_Technologies

Well Tri Alpha Fusion get pretty close to having a controlled reaction

what if you could control the exact fusion molecules, for example crash He3 and D molecules at an exact power level on each-other and prevent D-D site reactions

Well there are those nasty D-D site reactions. Perhaps if you can do some clever tricks you can pull it off

what if we could temporaily shield the reaction chamber from magnetic fields, quicky spin polorize the fuel, create the fusion reaction and lift the magnetic field to redirect the charged particles and repeat. The fusion equivalent of a SLR

what about spin polorized D-He3, same problem?

Ok, so spin pol D-T won't work in a MCF, what about a Z-Pinch or ICF?

Useless you say, it still currently the easiest achievable fusion mode (until we master UDD fusion). Yes it highly neutronic but can be usefull at medium isp levels. ALso because it reacts so easily it will remain the most powerfull fusion fuel were maximum raw power output is required.

What would be the engine performance of spin pol D-T compaired to He3-He3-D?