[[APRIL FOOLS] The Empire Strikes Back: KSP2 Adopts Imperial Units]

As long as all the asteroids are measured in refrigerators and/or giraffes, I'm good.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/01/23/see-the-giraffe-sized-asteroid-found-on-saturday-whizz-scary-close-to-earth-on-thursday/?sh=72b8aadd2a41

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/03/17/asteroid-hits-earth/7079963001/#:~:text=Fridge-sized asteroid hit Earth 2 hours after,was first spotted%2C NASA says&text=An asteroid around the size,right before hitting our planet.

[KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread]

Side note: I'm super stoked to have my work included in KSPI- I've been playing with it for years and truly honored to have my first attempt at modding for KSP included in it.

And seeing people actually using it... Makes those nights and weekend learning Blender and all the tools worth it

 

[KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread]

On 5/27/2017 at 3:14 AM, Aghanim said:

Is Kerbstein == Epstein? If yes then this comes at the right time as I'm abusing VISTA to make Rocinante in KSP and fails... Now can you please add a RCS that can use water as propellant? Both arcject and resistojet RCS cannot use water as propellant

It's a nerfed Epstein - But the model is straight off the Rocinante

Independently, I'm working on an Expanse mod (would require KSPI-E) for those who wish to throw the concept of game balance out the window. 
 

[The New Colonial Alliance]

8 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Great model but according to the atomic rockets site and expanse wiki, the epstein drive should have an isp of 1100000s not 5200000s. What is your justification to make it almost 5 times as high?

Also note that if you add 99.8% water, its Isp would be reduced to less a lot less. Ideally, the water/fusion mix should be adjustable

I would recommend to lose the water and replace the Lithium6 and Deteurium by LithiumDeuterite aka  Dilithium (a new KSPI-E resource), which is the same but more compact and easy to store (no cryo store needed)

I would also advice the following engine specs:[snipped]

This would make the engine ideal for solar system travel. Once outside the solar system I would recommend switching to beam antimatter core propulsion which has an Isp of 20.000.000s, 40 time as high

Dilithium fuel makes sense! Originally I was going to try and model all the fuels that the Tri-Beam reactor can run off of, but in the spirit of KISS I'm fine whittling that down to just one.

Water is required for two reasons -

• Aneutronic fusion, specifically Deuterium–lithium-6, produces it's power primarily in the form of x-ray photons. You can either pass these through a large number of metal foils to create electricity or you need to absorb them with something to turn them into heat. In a hand-wavy physics way I'm going to guess this nearly magical engine does both - It collects some of the power output as electricity to power magnetic containment and the fusion process and some energy to throw material out the back of the rocket through a combination thermal & magnetic nozzle.
• Heat dissipation: This engine is, at its heart a 11 Terrawatt reactor! The best way to get rid of that ludicrous heat is to throw it away in the form of fast moving (hot) reaction mass. Basically the engine stays cool by using the kinetic energy of all that heat as exhaust moving at some fraction of the speed of light.

Water seems like a cheap material to meet that need. If it were to be a true magnetic/thermal rocket, there could be options for 'reaction mass types' but again, in the spirit of KISS we might as well make a proof of concept that just uses water first

As for the ISP figure. I'll be the first to admit that my math is probably off - But for a vessel with the specs of the Epstein 'yacht' I only get a final delta V of .06c if I plug in 0 5.2e6 as the ISP in the  atmosphereCurve of the .cfg file.

Might be an error in the Engineer Redux code, as this is what I'm using to see the max delta V.

Thanks for the feedback and interest everyone! 

[The New Colonial Alliance]

A few notes on the Engine -

Ludicrous ISP (5,200,000) - But this matches the performance figures given in the short story The Drive - http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/ , matched up with further details from Atomic Rockets website http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#epstein

Runs on "efficiency" - Just kidding - Fuel is 99.8% water, .1% Lithium6 and .1% Deuterium.

Requires power to start. Generates a modest amount of electricity when running (alternator module) but can also generate power when idle (reactor mode) Currently does not generate MJ

Works with tweakscale - Prefab sizes of 1.25m, 2.5m, 3.75m, 5m, 7.5m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 30m, 40m 

Here are some screenshots of the Epstein Engine (in its 2.5m size)  in action propelling a 'Yatcht' consisting of a 3 Kerbal pod with a ~1/3 vehicle mass fuel load. 



Note the total Delta V is roughly 6% c



Engine effects still need work.



Note - Note the 7 G thrust - Unlike other high ISP engines, this one is totally unbalanced as it also provides a high TWR



I'm still not totally happy with the texture maps, but it's a start.

[The New Colonial Alliance]

Hey all,

I'm the guy who's wrapping up work on the Epstein engine. But fair warning - This engine is designed to meet the specs of the Engines used in the Expanse series, which is a polite way of saying "It completely unbalances the game" 

As per the specs in the series: On a small ship (crew pod of 3) carrying a load of roughly 1/3 mass in fuel (99.8% water for propellant and .1% Lithium6 and .1% Deuterium for fusion) it's capable of roughly 7Gs acceleration and a total delta V of .06c (or 17,990,000 m/s)

Once you have that sort of tech... Who needs space planes? Heck, you can just hover in place for a few days using rocket power alone!

It's easy enough for me to Nerf this a bit, is all I'm saying