ChainiaC

...I get a little bit lonely...?

Actually, it's a laSer. This stands for Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Sorry for being pedantic

While I can totally see the merit in using Titan's hydrocarbons as the basis for organic chemistry, I simply fail to see the logic in using it as either fuel or propellant. Let me elaborate: - Fuel: You would need oxidizer. Yes you can get oxygen from splitting water ice, which is quite abundant, but then you would instantly get free hydrogen too in eactly the right fuel/oxidiser ratio, in short, instant HydroLox. So why use the hydrocarbons at all? - Propellant: Methane causes nasty sooting and gives mediocre ISP. Yes, Ammonia is better, but to synthesize that, you need nitrogen from Titan's atmosphere plus hydrogen, which... well... you could get from splitting ice as well. So no need for the hydrocarobons. And besides, if it's readily available high denisty, non reactive and easily storable propellant you need, just use plain old water. No need to descend into Titans gravity well and souposphere at all. I think the irony here is that hydrocaron lakes would be a highly valuable fuel source here on earth (if you disregard the issues the CO2 emissions from burning the stuff would cause), but rather useless as fuel on Titan.

But how do you *use* said methane fuel? Oxidize it? With what? Heat it? With what power source?

Theoretically, maybe, but personally I consider fusion power to be science fiction until proven otherwise. Fission power is a proven technology with the highest currently available power density. Hmm... maybe there's some fissionables on Io, or in rocky chunks of Callisto... or maybe one of the gas giants captured a rich metallic asteroid we don't yet know about...

Uranium and Thorium (unless we get fancy fusion power). Which, annoyingly, is mostly found in the inner solar system (because rock), but needed most in the outer solar system (because of the lack of solar power).

Actually... when I graduated art school, there was this special prize for the best work from the final graduation exhibit, and it went to a student who made a piece of, uhm... 'art' and put it on top of a column where no one could see it. So, yea. Art. *shrugs*

Soviet Topaz II reactor is about four meters in length and weighs just over one metric ton. Thats a lot smaller then a building. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor

I must admit that is beautiful! I'm still more a fan of nuclear electric, but I know that sending big reactors into space is not going to happen anytime soon and it is actually pretty neat that this engine uses fusion energy that has such low electric power requirement. Edit: Also I can see where Nertea probably got the inspiration for the Lithium tanks in NFP

VASIMR? Meh, I'd rather go with the more advanced, powerful and versatile ELF (electrodeless lorentz force) thruster myself.

Yup, I reported the same issue before. The fans simply do not draw power. Or maybe a minuscule amount. If I turn the draw way up to obscene levels in the config file, like thousands of EC worth, then the draw becomes a little noticeable. I logged a github issue about that.

Ah well, good to know it's not just me then. I do not have the high quality textures anymore either.

Awesome, thanks! I have used find and replace and changed HighEfficiencyFlight into efficientFlightSystems in the CTT patch file and sure enough that worked. So that is a good workaround until it is fixed.

I have just checked that. I am playing carreer, and you are correct. These parts are not present and neither is that tech node. There is a tech node called 'Efficient Flight Systems', but that one is empty. I suppose one could edit the tech prerequisite manually in the config file though, but yea, issue confirmed.

The fans... they're... spactacular! And also I have been looking for electric atmospheric VTOL engines for ages... and here. they. are. ! wow!

Great news! Thank you!

My experience is as follows: I'm busy building an USI base. I connected a couple of modules usin Flex-o-tubes (big USI KAS pipes basically). Working as intended. The whole colony counts as one big structure. However I updated to KSP 1.1.3, and the colony is still connected and all is fine... BUT I tried to connect a new module tonight and I was able to link up the Flex-o-tube, but it didn't do anything. That is, the pipe is visible, but the colony and the new module still show as two seperate vessels and I cannot transfer crew or resources or anything. Also, when I switch to another scene and switch back the tube is gone. However if I take a kerbal over on EVA there is still the option to 'unlink', so it turned into a kind of ghost tube. All very peculiar. This is not a complaint, just a reports. Maybe someone can make something of this.

I understand. I prefer the shortest possible engine for a lander all other things being equal. The problem here is that these engines are based off of real physics. In that case the longer the nozzle, the better the engine efficiency/ISP in vacuum. If you shorten the nozzle, it underexpands the exhaust and you lose more energy by gas being vented sideways providing no thrust to your vessel. So short nozzle automatically means less ISP I'm affraid. Maybe if there was a tiny size engine the nozzle could be long in relation to the engine but still be short in relation to the overall vessel or you could mount several of them radially to reduce the length of your lander. Oh yeah, and I am neither a rocket scientist nor a physicist, so what I explained might be wrong or oversimplified, but I read this forum, wikipedia and atomic rockets and I play KSP, so that's my sources

Hey there! I installed KSPRC and it looks beautiful and runs beautifully on my machine! Wow, it even seems to change the textures on some stock parts. This is really quite the compilation. I also love the Kerbal hairstyles. Anyway, I landed on Duna today, and it was glorious! Just one teeeny tiny oddity. Duna turned semi-transparant on the night side from orbit. I could see the skybox and sun through the planet. Not a showstopper for me by any means, but just thought I'd mention

Well, there is a patch available in the Kerbal Atomics download that makes the engines use LF I believe. I am not at home so I can not doublecheck. No switching yet though as far as I know.

Well you could build out the landing legs with trusses. You would have to do the same if you'd want to land with a stock LV-N. I have done that in the past. Or you could use the undeploy/deploy maneuver I described, or use infernal robotics, or use lithobraking technologies' enormous landing legs... many stock and mod options

I think I understand: landers. Last night I landed on Duna with a Chelyabinsk. I had to land very softly on the engine bell, quickly deactivate the engine so the lander didn't topple over, and then had it sit on it's lander legs. Taking off was the same but in reverse: Activate engine and burn like hell before I fall over. But that's ok, I understand the reason for the long nozzle. I'll happily deal with that in return for the ISP. Besides, thanks to deployable engines This nice workaround was possible. On a related note, I for one really like the extra realism and design consideration that comes with hydrogen boiloff. Great feature! I kept the hydrogen for the lander in the nuclear transfer vehicle's cryotanks for the journey and pumped it over when in Duna orbit.

FYI, the patched LV-N seems to work as intended regarding engine cooling. I completed a 14 minute burn without needing radiators.

Basically how long a kerbal can stand to be confined in a ship. Hab stacks for ships with more then one crewable part. The total amount of hab is then divided by the number of kerbals.

The near future propulsion electric engines used to be able to run on hydrogen, but this feature was removed for balance reasons. The screenshot is from an earlier version. Or so I believe, correct me if I'm wrong