Bolter

It must be a mod conflict then, as I was aware of the no fuel in the reactor situation, so I was adding Tritium and Deuterium to the craft. I just can't get my fusion reactors to consume liquid Deuterium at all. And yes, I have plenty of MJ to run the lasers on the Tokomak. Thanks for the head's up. I still have several mods from 0.23.5 that seemed to still work with 0.25. Perhaps one or more are causing a problem.

The fusion reactors are broken because there is no more "Deuterium" resource in 0.13, only "LqdDeutirium." Thus the Vista engine which runs on "LqdDeuterium" works, but the fusion engines run on solid Deuterium pellets, so you can't fuel them anymore. I even grabbed the [RESOURCE] section off a fusion reactor from a 0.12 save file and copied it into my 0.13 save file. The "Lithium" was gone, the Tritium was there OK, but the Deuterium had disappeared, so I figured that Fractal removed solid deuterium pellets from the DLL as you can no longer add it through save file editing. Just stick with the Vista until this release gets updated. I hope that helps, Bolter

Hello, I've seen some wonderful modeling on multiple command modules. Some of them, are eye-wateringly beautiful, but they fail to add any functionality with their looks alone. I would dearly love to see a command module that included, either internally, or in blisters/bays: -Communications antenna -RCS & monopropellant -Crew hatches that orient the kerbonaut according to the horizontal/vertical craft orientation -Multiple science experiments, like the B9 nosecones. -Consumables and life support storage, as well as improved rad hardness Lets face it, any aesthetic improvement achieved by the existing moded cockpits, is totally lost by the time that scientific instruments, RCS/mono, communications and docking has been added. Here's hopping that someone will see the potential and take-up the challenge. Bolter

The DT vista needs 2500 Megajoules regardless of throttle setting to operate. People that are seeing it start, then fizzle out should look at their resource bar to understand the issue. After you are placed on the pad you'll see your Megajoule resource bar start to increase. Once you've passed 2500 you have enough power to start the DT Vista. If after you start the engine you see the MJ resource bar decrease, then the engine will turn off when you go below 2500 MJ. What is happening is that the reactor and may look good on paper, but their efficiency is dependent on the thermal gradient set between the core temperature and the heat radiating capacity of your radiator setup. Sometimes it is impossible, because of space or weight, to put enough radiators to increase the efficiency to where you want it, and you have to live with some loss. It is also very important to select the correct size and mode for your generator. Using generators smaller than the reactor diameter may seem attractive to save weight, but they simply don't have the output to keep the MJ bar filled against a DT Vista firing. Better to use the same diameter generator, and ensure that it is set to the correct mode in the assembly building. KTEC if you're using core temperature, or direct conversion if you're using charged particles. Talking about charged particles, the magnetic nozzles require them exclusively. Megajoules are worthless to them. There are a very few generators that produce them, namely the upgraded Sethlands and Akulas, as well as the upgraded fusions running on He3 mode. He3 is now available for purchase in the assembly building for v525 per unit. To switch fuels, simply right click on the reactor in the assembly building, drag the current fuel bar down to zero, and increase the desired fuel bar while watching your funds disappear. A big mistake that some people make with magnetic nozzles is to put a direct conversion generator on the reactor. This is precisely the wrong thing to do, as the generator will convert charged particles to MJ, thus taking them away from your nozzles (if you need MJ out of the reactor use its thermal power in KTEC mode and leave the particles alone.) Finally, Magnetic nozzles have zero thrust in atmosphere, so they're not suitable for orbital launches. With that said, though, I'm seeing bugs with both the Fusion reactors and the magnetic nozzles themselves. The my fusion reactors are showing only Lithium as fuel since I upgraded to 0.13, and they don't seem to perform according to their stats. My magnetic nozzles show zero fuel flow with full charged particles and fuel lines into the nozzle and reactor well outside the atmosphere *shrug* However, the DT Vista works great so long as you don't use it to rendezvous/dock with manned craft. You can use it at the KSC as they seem to clear everyone out because your radiation safety interlock doesn't trigger there. Here's a picture of an SSTO built around the DT Vista engine as an example of a working configuration:

Use notepad, or any other text editor. Drop the code into it, then "save as" filename.cfg Make sure that you select "all file types" instead of "text" as that would give you filename.cfg.txt I hope that helps, Bolter

You're describing the custom tree problem that KSP [0.25] has with Interstellar [0.13] You can get your missing parts if you copy the code shown above, paste onto notepad, and save as <filename>.cfg You have to select "all file type" instead of "text" in the save interface, as otherwise you'll end up with <filename>.cfg.txt and that won't help. Put that config file in any folder inside your KSP install directory. It works on the KSP root, inside the Gamedata or WarpPlugin folders. It does not matter. You must delete or move out of the KSP install your TreeLoader folder located inside the GameData folder. Now, I've been reading a lot of posts about this fix not working, so there's definitively some confusion as to what to expect. I'll try to make things a bit clearer. The config file "fix" works as far as making the missing parts available throughout the nodes of the DEFAULT tree. You will not be seeing the custom nodes from the familiar Interstellar tech tree anymore. The parts, however, will be available. For example, the un-upgraded Tokomaks are on the "Experimental Rocketry" where only the Methane rocketry is found. The Alcubierre drives are now under "Experimental Science." The reactor upgrades are scattered through the materials and electric nodes. Many of you will be put off by the fact that you can get all the parts for about half of the science cost as before, but do not despair, as 0.25 comes with scalable difficulty so it is no problem at all to start a game with half science to compensate. Besides, the real issue is money to buy those components at the assembly buildings, as they're not cheap. With that said, though, there are still issues with the build even after getting around the tech tree problems. The magnetic nozzles are not working because of a zero fuel flow issue. No propellant enters the engines, even with fuel lines connected directly from a fuel tank to the engine itself. This is not a "no thrust" in atmosphere, or no charged particles issue. I have tested them way outside the magnetosphere even, and I get zero fuel flow with a full resource bar of charged particles and a fuel line plugged directly into the engine. The second issue I'm seeing is that the Alcubierre rings keep on blowing up when initiated. This may seem like an antimatter containment issue, but the fact that my command module gets instantly teleported well outside of the Kerbol solar system, minus the rest of the ship points to a different cause. Regardless, the game is eminently playable even without the use of mag nozzles or warp rings. I'm sure that Fractal or WaveFunction will correct the issues in the fullness of time. I hope that clarifies the "fix" for the tree issue, and the observed gameplay issues so far. Regards, Bolter

Howdy, Love that Titan! I wish B9 parts didn't crash my interstellar so badly. One day... The new Interstellar build changed engine and reactor performance significantly, so the KSS Intrepid exploration system needs a replacement. KSS Defiant Has the fuel and thrust to land and take off from Eve Here's a mission to the surface of Duna, Ike and Kerbin return from the pad without refueling Here it is with its exploration support module (launched separately, but can boost while docked to the Defiant.) It has a full reload of Liquid Fuel and Monopropellant, as well as living space. The module has a probe core, but its limited to RCS for mobility. Be carefull where you park it. The ship is built around the DT Vista engine. It consumes 2.5GW regardless of throttle setting, so it does need that 3.75m reactor and generator to operate. While the Vista has enough thrust to handle all airless bodies, it needs those eight turbojet nacelles to enhance its atmospheric performance to Eve return standards (deorbiting with 15Km/s dV showing.) Put the air-breathing engines on an action group so you can shut them off when they start running out of air, and restart them when you're through the fireball. Deploying and repacking the chutes on bodies with atmospheres saves lots of fuel. A note on its construction. A strut is required between the command pod and generator in order to cluster those material bays and goo canisters. Flat intakes and no radiators are required on the cockpit nacelle and its opposite counterpart because of the need to get the Kerbonaut back up the ladder, which is impossible with a tall intake. Also, fuel lines between the nacelles and the reactor are needed for docking port refueling. Enjoy! Bolter

I stand corrected. I just verified that you can indeed buy He3 at the assembly building for v525 per unit. I can also confirm that you can change reactor fuel types on the assembly building with the sliders now. I have not yet verified that you can refuel without EVA in flight, though. I'll have to make a ship for that. Antimatter seems to remain unavailable through the assembly buildings. I wish it was the other way around because one of the greatest challenges I ever had on the 23.5 interstellar version was getting He3 from Jool's atmo. Antimatter, one could always get from a collector in high orbit around Kerbin.

There are only two resources that can't be had from the Assembly Buildings: Antimatter and He-3 The only decent source of He-3 is the atmosphere of Jool (use and air scoop; the deeper the better.) To switch the fuel once you have collected enough He-3, shut down the reactor and let it cool completely. Then EVA and refuel the reactor with He-3. You'll need an empty appropriate container for the fuel currently in your reactor, and a container with He-3 ON your craft (docking makes you part of the craft.) I hope that helps, Bolter

The electric engines, both plasma and Attila's, have a max usable MJ rating at the very top of their detailed description on the Assembly Building parts list. You can see that their max MJ usage scales up with size. The next higher size is always slightly higher than 4x of the previous, so if you want to be able to use more MJ, use a bigger engine. As far as the thrust of electric engines, they have a conversion rating of x.xx kN per MJ listed for each type of fuel. Simply multiply the available MJ in the craft by the appropriate fuel type rate for your total thrust. You can easily see that the Attila's have a much higher thrust per unit MJ, but the plasmas have a much better ISP so you'll get much higher dV per unit fuel. The mission profile will dictate your engine needs, as 50k dV is useless when you can't complete your captures because you sail right out of the SOI before completing your burn. I got to say that the new magnetic nozzle engines are far superior to the rest of the electric engines. They run on charged particles, not MJ, so you have to have upgraded reactor technology to use them. Simply connect a reactor that doesn't have 0.00 charged particle ratio listed; no generator needed. Also, they have zero thrust in atmosphere, so you won't be getting into orbit with them. Sadly, they don't work with microwave receivers, as those collect MJ, not charged particles. I don't have any information about the different microwave receivers. I only ever use the "umbrella" type because being able to point the receiver regardless of craft orientation outweighs any omnidirectional efficiency the "barrel" types may offer (IMHO.) With that said, though, you'd imagine that the "barrel" types would be better for space planes that don't need the funky drag, and are bathed by microwaves if they're close to your MW transmitters. On the other hand, if you're far enough from your transmitter that the MW source looks like a point in space, then you'd think that being able to point the umbrella at that point would be better, as all receiver area is pointing at the source. I hope that helps, Bolter

Hi, No, Interstellar 0.13 still has the issue with the custom tree in 0.25 The fix is easy, thanks to UndercoverYankee (page 1190, post 11898.) Step one: Move or delete the TreeLoader folder in Gamedata out of the KSP folder Step Two: Download the file linked on the page/post above, and place it in you KSP root folder The progression will be different, as some parts will be on different nodes, but it's playable. I hope that helps, Bolter

Hello everyone, I haven't seen many ships for the Interstellar mod, so I figured I post my Jool-in-one craft for those that want to avoid multiple year-long missions to harvest all the science in the Jool SOI. This ship requires upgraded reactors, but you can get all the science you need from the Kerbin SOI if you focus on rockets, power plants and materials. The KSS Intrepid: It has the TWR and fuel to SSTO: Gets up there with enough fuel to make some of the closer planets by itself: This is the kind of dV you can get with a couple of liquid fuel tanks, though you want to take some LFO to refuel the lander: This is the refuel-able science lab lander for surface excursions to all the moons. It has one of each instrument tucked away in there: The only sketchy point of the mission is the landing on Tylo. Because of its high gravity and no atmosphere, you'll have to take the intrepid low and burn to 0-relative with the surface. Then you can detach the lander, get it clear, and boost back into LTO before you crash. You have to do it fast enough to get back to your lander so it doesn't crash. It only has about 1000m/s to land, as you'll need the other 3k to make it back to LTO. The Intrepid has a probe core on it, so you can take the ship to rendezvous with the lander even when there's no crew left onboard. A couple of points about the caring and feeding of the ship. It derives its main propulsion from a thermal rocket connected to an upgraded 3.75m Tokomak Fusion reactor. The green 2.5m Agilets fission plant is to power the lasers on the Tokomak. The fission reactor has enough fuel on-board for 480 days. It is highly recommended that you EVA to shut down/restart the fission reactor during the long inter-planetary coasting periods. Do remember to deploy the solar panels before your batteries run out, as you won't be able to restart the fission reactor with no power. The most important thing, however, is to always remember to shut down the tokomak after a burn. The reactor will power up automatically whenever you thrust up on the main engine, but it will NOT shut down automatically. If you leave it on for any length of time, it will overheat you ship very quickly. The radiators are only enough to dissipate the waste heat from the fission plant. The boards don't seem to let you upload files to a post, so PM if you want the ship files, or suggest a safe and free file hosting place and I'll edit the post with links. Enjoy, Bolter

It sounds like recovering a craft does not add the resources to the VAB, and that refueling vehicles is impractical at this time. Where can I edit my accrued AM into the VAB? Thanks for the help, Bolter

Hello, I have a couple of questions that I haven't been able to answer using the thread search function. Maybe someone can give me a definitive answer. 1- how do you transfer the collected/generated antimatter to where you want to use it? I've watched several youtube tutorials about antimatter collection/generation, but even Scott Manley fails to tell you what happens after. He simply lands his space plane and henceforth all his AM needs are fulfilled. How exactly is the AM from labs/collectors get to the reactors and tanks on the VAB? Do you simply recover a vessel that has AM on it, an it is added to the AM tanks in the VAB. Do you need to make a vehicle, like a fuel tanker, to take the AM from its collector/generator, then dock somehow with the craft you're trying to fuel? 2- Is the research in the science lab working correctly? At first it seemed promising, but after landing a lab both in Minmus and the Mun, I'm getting about 0.67 science a day from each. They are both fully powered >5MW, and they both have the lowest stupidity Kerbals that I could find crewing them. Looking at the table on the Interstellar wiki, Minmus and the Mun have a multiplier of 5 (landed) yet I can expect something like 240 science a YEAR from each. Even if I put labs and crews on Eloo/Moho which have the max multiplier of 40 (landed) you'd only get about 2k science a YEAR. At this levels of research, I don't find the lab to be useful at all in the research role. It would be way more useful if it told you which planet/biome you're missing which instrument data from. That way you could get the same 2k science in weeks at most instead of years. Thank you for any help, Bolter

Hello, I'm having trouble getting this mod to work. After I have rename the gamedata folder to_old and replace it with the one from the .zip, the game freezes on loading. It always does it when it is loading engines. This is the error portion from the ksp log file: [LOG 20:06:13.162] PartLoader: Compiling Part 'WarpPlugin/Parts/Electrical/WarpDrive/WarpDrive/WarpDrive' [LOG 20:06:13.174] PartLoader: Compiling Part 'WarpPlugin/Parts/Electrical/WarpDrive/WarpDrive2/WarpDrive2' [LOG 20:06:13.187] PartLoader: Compiling Part 'WarpPlugin/Parts/Electrical/WarpDrive/WarpDrive3/WarpDrive3' [LOG 20:06:13.200] PartLoader: Compiling Part 'WarpPlugin/Parts/Engines/AluminiumHybrid/part/AluminiumHybrid1' [ERR 20:06:13.201] PartCompiler: Cannot clone model 'Squad/Parts/Engine/solidBooster/model' as model does not exist [ERR 20:06:13.202] PartCompiler: Model was not compiled correctly [ERR 20:06:13.203] PartCompiler: Cannot compile model [ERR 20:06:13.204] PartCompiler: Cannot compile part [LOG 20:06:13.205] PartLoader: Compiling Part 'WarpPlugin/Parts/Engines/MPD/part0/smallerMPD' [LOG 20:06:13.222] LiquidFuel not found in resource database. Propellant Setup has failed. [EXC 20:06:13.226] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object I'm running steam 0.23.5 with KER 0.6.2.4 only Thanks for any help, Bolter

Thank you very much!

Hello, I've been trying to use the search function to find this answer, but I got tired of reading through dozens of posts without finding a straight answer. I even read about 20 pages of the 120+ page official mod forum thread without getting a yes or no answer. I've watched youtube videos that looked pre-0.24 that feature KE like functionality, but I'm not sure what mod it was. Could someone let me know if any version of KE works on 0.23.5? If not, is there another mod that offers payload mass, stage & stack dV/TWR figures for 0.23.5? Thanks!

Thanks for all the help! Bolter

Thanks for all the helpful replies folks! No kidding about the number of biomes on Mun and Minmus. I thought that there were only a handful on each, but evidently there's like 30 of them ;b Yes, I've been transmitting the high/low/surface/eva reports, as well as taking surface samples. What I'm not able to do, though, is take the reports out of the instruments and into the crew capsule. I remember seeing it done in some of the video tutorials, but when I try I get "this sample does not fit in the capsule" for the mini and goo. Is it a 23.5 thing or am I doing something wrong? I'll definitively try to send missions to the planets with lower dV requirement, but I'm 50 days into the career, and no planets are anywhere close to where they need to be for Hohmann transfers. I'll keep an eye on them while I keep milking the Mun and Minmus. I have one more question about seismometers. Do they work on their own, or do I have to land them at a spot and then slam something into the surface to get data? I just unlocked them last night, and I want to make sure I take junk to drop if theyre needed. Thank you for all the thoughtful and friendly answers. This community is amazing. Any other game forum and Godwin's law would have been in effect by now ;b Bolter

Howdy folks, I just picked KSP on Steam, and I'm playing in career mode. I'm avoiding 0.24 for the time being, as I don't want to pay for the rocket parts until I have a better handle on design efficiency. I've pretty much exhausted the science you can get in Kerbal, Minmus and the Mun (landing mini/goo at most biomes.) I'm left with having to look towards interplanetary missions without having nuclear engines yet. I think I may have made a mistake in prioritizing my research. I went mostly for science producers like the mini, thermometer, barometer and seismometer. I'm finding out, though, that the barometer and thermometer don't produce a lot of science in near Kerbal space. I'm regretting researching that way instead of going towards nuclear engines first. My question is how do you guys prioritize your research with an eye towards maximizing science acquisition? Also, can I mount unmanned exploration missions to the planets without nuclear engines, so I can salvage my career? Thanks for any help, Bolter