trekkie_

all of the life stuff has been keeping me busy lately, but I should have more time to work on modding now. to do list: create a smaller, weaker but unique version of the engine. fuel tank design determine how the fuel mechanics will work I'm also working on several other things, which includes a fully functional personal jetpack for kerbals, some port thruster designs, and some docking ports that are not only designed to look good but also make docking easier and more stable with 'male' and 'female' connections that act as a 'hook' to catch each other and interlock, for those times when you're close but just miss the target. it should work well for matching speeds for when you're whizzing by at 0.3m/s.

it will be, I just have to take a look at how they implemented it in order to make the changes. I'm not sure, but all you may need to do is just copy the file over to the gamedata's parts folder.

works with 0.20 just fine without any changes. the mod doesn't use any attachment nodes, and I already use a default scale factor of 1 in my work. seems to attach easily with the update too.

here's an example of something i was throwing around a week ago or so. most of the original wasn't saved, but it was basically exactly the same as the image except it didnt have the outer shell. I'm definitely not going to use these exact ones. I like the image though because it gives a chance to be used as a cap for the rear of the ship, with the rounded edges. i originally was thinking only along the lines of having the capability to stack on either end. and JeBuSBrian, I haven't missed your post, I will go over it soon.

actually, that's very similar to a few concepts I've been working on.

well you've got to take other things into account. for example, the stock LVN is I think 2~ tons and delivers 60 thrust. while the nacelle weighs 10 tons a piece (20 tons per 2). so each nacelle @ 1000 thrust would deliver a little under 20 times the thrust of a LVN but also weigh 5 times as much. or both together would weigh 10 times as much, while providing 20 times the thrust. for smaller ships, your suggestion wouldn't be a problem. but for a larger ship, it would still be painfully slow going even with the high ISP. as for the atmospheric part, keep in mind these engines weigh 20 tons together, which would be the minimal starting weight for balance. since most normal engines only deliver something like 5-15% payload weight to orbit, to put 20 tons of engines into orbit would require something around a 200+ tons ship, all fuel, devoted primarily just to getting the engines into space. that doesn't even include whatever those engines are attached to, so we're looking at something like a 350 ton ship or something, which is a lot of parts and a lot of weight. the whole point of the engine is to kind of cut down on necessary part count. it can be difficult finding the right balance without being woefully underpowered or overpowered. also take into account that someone might add multiples of these engines. so say someone designs an 8 nacelle engine with your recommendation, that would be 80 tons of engine for just 4000 thrust, not including the fuel or any other parts. even at a high ISP, the stock rockomax would provide 4500 thrust for 3 engines at 18 tons combined. its current ISP is something around 18 times the stock rockomax, but it would also weigh 4 times more. but do rest assured, I am testing and taking everything into consideration to find a sweet spot. keep in mind, many testers said it actually needed more power and ISP, and also keep in mind that one doesn't have to use full throttle...sometimes it can be nice to have that extra thrust there, when it's needed. if you think about it, it's a different kind of balancing than normal. also have other ideas. here's an example of what may be to come: kethane+fuel(small amount) to kilithium converter, the kilithium will act as a component similar to dilithium, and would be much like oxidizer. then tanks in the vab will be the antimatter. you would need both components in order to power your vessel, but the kilithium will run out much quicker. this would allow you to say, put one antimatter tank on the vessel that would last for say 50k or 100K dV, but the kilithium would last for something like 10K dv, so you would need more kilithium in order to keep going. just throwing around ideas off the top of my head. if anyone wants to come up with a config/plugin system themselves, and I approve of how it's handled, I'll include it in the mod and give equal credit to the author.

been doing som test runs, perhaps I might lower the engine to somewhere around 1000-1500 thrust a piece, but with a still high-isp. still contemplating if atmospheric ISP will remain the same or not.

there's tips for easier attachment in the "how to use" section of the download page. and yeah, I considered giving them a horrible atmospheric ISP, but then I remembered that warp nacelles bend space, which means whether you're in space or not, they should run exactly the same because it's all about warping space. then it just seemed really trivial to get something into space, if it's going to be powerful in space anyways....after all, most thrust is needed for take off, not space. I kept in mind that in order to visit every planet, you'll need about 28K vacuum delta-v. that doesn't include landing and taking off from all of them. couple that with escape velocity from the sun, getting into a close orbit around the sun and leaving it, or jool too, etc. so with all that in perspective, the engine isn't as overpowered as it first seems, it's not even the most powerful engine mod so far either.

thanks for the comment. last time I tested it, 720 units of fuel wouldn't get it out of kerbin's SOI. so larger tanks will definitely give it distance, but smaller individual tanks won't let it do too much. yes, they'll primarily need to be flown with mechjeb if you want any real precision with smaller ships, and are primarily meant to be used as standalone engines. obviously, they can't move at FTL speeds, so power was the only option suitable, after all a trek style engine wouldn't seem all that trekky if it couldn't do much better than the stock engines. I configured them with aesthetics in mind, especially with heavy loads. so things you would transport to other planets, like moon bases and loads of rovers, and other visually pleasing design options (think artsy mothership) should eat away at its thrust and fuel a bit more. the engine itself may eventually be updated with its own fuel and different thrust/ISP settings in the future. I mostly didn't do this so people could come up with their own design choices rather than slap on one or two or ten custom fuel tanks, and then have a bland ship made up of nothing but the engines, fuels tanks, and a command pod. I wanted people to be able to play around with the existing tank designs to create a variety of different looking ships, while leaving room for tons of non-functional design parts. I encourage people to fiddle around with the config themselves if they want a different feel to it.

that would actually be true of virtually all trek style warp nacelles and light sabres.

it's actually the KSP port that's the problem. Finally used a trick to get the upload to showup instantly, so everything's up and running. Don't forget to show your appreciation for modder's work and rate their uploads. It's sad to see thousands of downloads but no ratings.

could also be a problem with the format he is using. for example, formats like FBX and CAD make my models show up like this in unity, but if I use OBJ or 3DS, the problem isn't there at all.

ADVANCED RADIAL NACELLE ENGINE Specs -Thrust: 4000 -Universal ISP: 3000 -Weight: 10 tons -Runs on Standard Fuel (for now) -Glowing engine and throttle FX

try this, in the config where it says "name =", switch the name in the one with the texture you want, to the name of the other one in the other parts config. it may or may not work well.

did you use the new download link in the update mail? that fixes it.

lol the thought of an impulse drive being faster than a warp nacelle is funny, or is it that this darn warp drive is soo slow? hehe. but keep in mind, these are radial mounted. more engines = more thrust. so if I did a symmetry of 8, the ship gets an effective power of 32,000 thrust, which is 21 rockomax engines thrust wise...which is way beyond anything anyone would ever reasonably need. I didn't want to limit people to just 2 nacelle designs, and I didn't want throttle accident explosions with the default dual nacelles. I can just picture the users face.... "full throttle this baby!", *boom!*, "aww gay". I may be able to help you with some things, but no promises as I do this in my spare time and it's actually more time consuming than it would seem. really though, I think you should make the rest of it yourself since you would want something to match your engine design. anything I make would certainly be far more complex than the engine itself, which would be kind of unbalanced visually. It can be hard to follow someone else's vision, especially without completely replacing it with your own. I think I speak for all modelers when I say that what most modelers are looking for is someone to lighten the work load considerably or that can do things they can't themselves.

I do like that idea. it made me think of using regular fuel tanks, but having anti matter tanks to combine with them to make the actual fuel. I know I definitely want to stay away from single custom fuel tanks, because it does really limit people to specific design requirements, with the rest being aesthetic. converters are kind of pointless to me because it just adds an unnecessary middle man. to me it's like saying "ok you can have infinite fuel.....but you must wait for it", when people can simply time warp and get it rapidly, making the act almost mundane. this does work well for things like kethane though, because you must mine it, and the tanks are empty on launch. that would be more suitable for this engine I think. but the fuel would have to be VERY sparse in the solar system since it provides soo much power. this would require people to build normal engine ships in order to search for and obtain the fuel, which means they're going to have to tug at least 20 tons of engines around, or bring the fuel back to kerbins launch pad. of course, I wouldn't even know where to begin to make a plugin like the kethane mod, I'm just a modeler. but I did also think of making the engine primarily run on pure kethane; but that would require people to use the kethane mod. decisions decisions, but kethane does seem like the best bet, especially since it's a decently established fuel among mod users. but due to its abundance in the solar system, that's what makes kethane seem like a bad idea, especially since people would be limited to kethane tanks, again kind of destroying the versatility of design decisions. now if I could get it to run on multiple fuel types with their own ISP's, that would be a bit more appealing and versatile. this engine does make me wish the stock game had more resources and mining already.

these things are definitely meant to be flown with mechjeb if you want any type of precision control. the reason why atomic rockets exist is for fine control in vacuum of human controlled ships. since each engine has 4000 thrust, you're getting 8000 combined thrust with the dual nacelles at a 3000 isp. definitely not an infinite fuel configuration, but also a step up from stock engines and more along the lines of other engines like the zpinch fusion. for larger heavy ship though, it will have a bit finer control due to the weight. as for those who think there's a lack of distance to its fuel usage, try getting it into orbit with a separate stage or some fuel tanks you can jettison. keep in mind, the combined delta-v needed to go to all celestial bodies is around 28K if I recall my calculations correctly from the grand tour challenge. as it is right now, the thing has 22K dV with an orange tank and command pod. the initial settings delivered about 130K dv with 720 units of fuel, which I think is overkill since that's enough to go to every body multiple times on one tank. the reason why I limited its fuel, is because it would take the point of design decisions out of the equation entirely. I know there are some slight attachment issues; make sure once you select the part you press 'w' twice to rotate it properly. then keep moving it up and down from your command pod, rapidly clicking. eventually it'll stick to your command pod, THEN you can pull it off the command pod and it will stick more easily to fuel tanks. the smaller fuel tanks have more trouble than the larger ones. you're definitely getting credit for that one moardv. as for the front part, it is indeed an animation named warpglow2. not sure why the second one doesn't work though, the animation follows the same exact settings as the other and plays fine in unity3d, but not the game. but I have to also keep in mind that even though warpglow2 wasn't listed in the config, the effect still shows up in the game. so obviously warpglow2 is working, it's just not animating properly for some reason. ideally, I'd like the front to match the back, but I'm happy with the front always being on, because that glow looks nice when its dark. may even be good for helping find a mothership for docking with on the dark side of a planet. I don't use red, because red is a non visually pleasing color. although....I could tweak it so that at just a notch below full thrust, it turns red to signify overheating. I however, still have to setup the config properly so it overheats at that mark. currently, it's setup to not overheat at all. I don't think it would look good as a stackable engine, and would break with the theme of a star trek style nacelle. although I have thought of some similar designs that can be stacked rather than radial mounted. but those can be tricky because you have to make different sizes for different tanks. for example, if I made a 3m one, people would definitely be asking for a 1.5, 2, or 5m version. I just wanted a one size fits all engine, which is why I went radial. as for antimatter, yes ideally I'd want it to run on its own fuel, but I don't want to over complicate things with conversions and such. I also want people to be able to use existing tanks in their designs so they can get some diversity in them. imagine if I did add its own custom fuel tank that gave it 120k dv or even just 10kdv. no one would have any reason to bother with anything else design wise, because all you would need is to stack a couple of those fuel tanks and it'd be just as good as infinite fuel. if I made an entire themed ship, this wouldn't be soo much of a problem, but again, I want people to be able to play around with variety in design while still having to worry about fuel just a little. I'm surprised it had to be strutted, I had no problems at full thrust with zero struts. there will be other tweaks like reducing some of the specular shading so it's not soo bright in sunlight.

it's because all that energy is powering the glowy lights! I want people to have to use at least a few fuel tanks or stages to do things, with room for aesthetics, and the use of more than dual engine designs. I initially had it with 20K thrust and ISP a piece, and it would just blow up instantly if throttled past a certain point. If people really wanted it to be more scifi, they could easily go into the config, or one can be included as an alternative config with really cheaty settings. I recall having trouble with mechjeb when using other ultra high thrust engine mods, with disastrous effects.

little bit more engine porn. I'm thinking of just running it on regular fuel only so people can have more free will and challenge and variety in their designs. I wouldn't want to force people to stack a single fuel tank type in order to get enough delta-v, because after all, most of a ships makeup is fuel tanks, engines, and command pods. I think they could pretend the fuel is whatever they want it to be so far each engine weighs 10 tons, provides 4000 thrust and has an equal ISP of 3000. Those numbers aren't cemented though. the current size is probably going to be the final size. just big enough to make out the details, but not too big that it dwarfs smaller ships. emissives aren't working properly, so the engine glow is always-on. not so bad though. at some lighting angles, they look extra stunning.

yeah but that's still about as good as infinite fuel, just with some small hurdle to get it. don't forget, anti matter reactors produce electricity; so for electricity to be able to produce a power source that produces huge amounts of extra energy, would be a little backwards and over complicated. whether I run it on electric resources or antimatter, it'll still technically be running on electricity either way. the thing about electric generation though, is that once you're producing enough electricity per second, such an engine would run forever. take the ion engine for example, you can run the engines with enough electricity, but you'll eventually run out of xenon. that's where the balance comes in. the only way to make an engine remotely balanced is to have a finite amount of resources that can't be easily replaced. kethane is different in that it is mined, you have to work for the extra fuel. so it's the exception. it'd be nice to be able to mine anti matter, but I'm not a plugin maker.

there's at least two that i know of. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/4426-FTL-Drive-MK-I-%28MKII-Pictures-inside%29 http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-antimatter-rocket-pack-v0-3/ they were actually pretty fun when I used them, I mean it would be pretty breath taking to go from the launch pad to orbit in like 8 seconds in real life. the first one doesn't actually use anti matter as a fuel source, it just uses some standalone battery as fuel, it doesn't even register an output amount and can't be used to power anything else.

lol if only. it's actually possibly though. if you were able to use something like a script that makes hyperedit do things remotely. but people can already do that without the part, which would only trivialize its presence. I have contemplated having the fuel tank just being a simple high output electric generator. I remember there is an atomic battery mod that decays over time to the point where it will eventually be dead. i.e. you could time warp after thrusting and find half of your fuel reserves are gone because they decayed away with time.

I guess you could say it's an antimatter engine, but not a warp drive in the sense that it's not going to move you at FTL speeds. it's going to be more akin to the existing warp and FTL drives, hopefully a bit balanced. I'm still working out exactly how I want it to function. ideally, I'd like to have it used more for vacuum travel rather than to put things into orbit. I'm open to config suggestions. I kind of want it to not be able to get into orbit on its own except for very small minimalistic ships, i.e. itself, a fuel tank, and a command pod. but in space, I want it to be able to get some mileage. think of it like the atomic stock engine, but with more thrust to push heavier loads in a smaller timeframe. there might be two versions made. one that is cheaty and one that isn't. I'm thinking of basing the cheaty one on the ability to do maneuvers around the sun with relative ease, possibly even being able to escape the suns SOI with a couple of tanks. here's an example of katyj's antimatter engine configuration, my engine will be following something along these lines, or along the lines of the ftl drive created by nomad. both of those mods definitely are lacking in the model and texture design department if you've seen them. MODULE { name = ModuleEngines thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 800 heatProduction = 500 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.5 PROPELLANT { name = Antimatter ratio = 1 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = Matter ratio = 1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 2200 key = 1 310 } } fun fact: antimatter is powerful stuff in the real world, but the entirety of antimatter created by humanity could only power a light bulb for several minutes.

what have you been cobbling? I'm still hoping to make it compatible with warp mods and their fuel tanks,. I am working on a custom antimatter tank too, although that's proving more complex than the engine itself in terms of design. can't make it too simple or too complex, and can't have it feel out of place either. I probably go through at least several variations of something before I come up with the design I want. here's a sneak peek of what it looks like in-game so far. I decided to keep the rocket noises and exhaust effects just for the sake of people having queues for whether thrust is on or off, and the throttle intensity. for now it's just running on simple liquid fuel and the glowing parts are always on. if anyone has anything they think they can contribute or something they're working on that can be complimentary to the engine, speak up.