Tristavius

Interstellar is always an interesting balance. It often at first seems very overpowered but actually it's designed very well as it gives you some powerful technologies but makes you really work for them. Thermal turbojets can make Eve very, very easy and yes, they work on 'atmosphere' and Eve has a lot of that to work with. With a good amount of intakes you'll be able to produce some serious and nearly infinite power. Where the 'work' comes in is you'll need a good source of power for this to happen which means either deploying a few large heavy reactors into Eve orbit (and then using thermal receivers) or getting a good on-board power plant. Fission isn't likely work, Fusion I'm not sure but I'd guess it'll be hard. Antimatter would make life easy but then you need to be able to collect it in decent quantities and get it transferred to your craft.

Have now got to test, and so far loving it! Out of interest, the following... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/73621-B9-S2-Crew-Tank-IVAs-Mk2-2m-Crew-Tank-0-5-1-(2014-05-22) Would make for an interesting collaboration for IVAs!

On that's good to here, I loved B9 but stopped using a fair while ago. I tend to play long-running games (2 in the 15 months I've been playing) and I'm always very cautious when using modded parts, and even more cautious when a mod falls behind on the updates (even if it still technically works). Just having the author release a new minor patch just saying 'confirmed compatibility with new KSP patch' quickly after the release makes you feel confident that it is supported and will continue to be so. I stopped even tracking B9 after there was a few months of it still reading as the previous patch version but would welcome it's return whole heartedly. Mind you, a few more parts in this pack and I may not need it any more!

Looking great! Can't wait to try it out when I get home. Would like to re-iterate what some people have said, this would be a superb tie-in with Interstellar (water for one and possibly other elements too).

Superb! Been waiting on something like this for ages since B9 stopped being updated. Unfortunately I can't access dropbox (banned by the internet here) so will be a few days until I'm elsewhere and can try it out.

How do you do spoiler tags?

Wow, I've had an old copy of the dev version for ages, kinda thought that was going to be it but woah; that is a VERY, VERY complete package you have there now. Superb, can't wait to try it when I get home in a few weeks (can't get the download from here due to the site it's hosted on).

Ah, of course - should have thought of that really (too much work frying my brain right now). I only touched career mode briefly and wasn't really that interested, I much prefer KSP as a sandbox. Looking at the un-upgraded stats I can see exactly where they fit in compared to un-upgraded fusion. Guess they just look odd from a sandbox perspective, but then I guess there's even stock bits that do too - just part of the necessary structure for career.

Also, since we're here... What is the point in Akula/Sethlans reactors? I just can't work it out! The core temperature is pathetic, less than a third of the main Fission range so the use in thermal rockets is out. The MW outputs are also lower than the equivalent sized main range (though using both DC and KTEC generators can push them past UF4, though not ThF4 fission). The fuel is also harder to come by needing Ammonia or Nitrogen + Liquid Fuel (or Water to make Liquid fuel) to make the Ammonia which basically means a complicated process only possible on Kerbin and Laythe instead of every single planet. Throw in a much lower lifespan (less than 1/4 @ 100% in most cases) and a forced minimum power of 40% instead of 25% and I really can't figure out what the use is. They are a bit lighter, I'll give them that, but that can't REALLY justify it can it?

Ah, He3 seems to have become a bit of a debate! Maybe I shouldn't have gone on about cloud scooping! Well anyway, for my two cents on the issue... Well, I actually just wrote this paragraph slating why there would be He3 on Mun but then I went a did a bit of research and err, well, I guess you're right! The real world moon is supposed to have a bit, all be it in still very small concentrations. I still have concerns about this - Mun would make life just a little bit too easy in my opinion. Mun of course also doesn't have to be an exact analogue of our own, so maybe this idea would work but use it on other bodies. Maybe Tylo would be a perfect place to have some, still making He3 something of a challenge. I also think cloud harvesting is a brilliant fun engineering challenge (far different from yet another 'land a base on X and press extract') and thus should still be the best source of He3. Perhaps this is exactly what Fractal had in mind? The best way to make this more relevant is an quantity increase in Jool. 10x Would make large harvesters like my own able to fill a tank in 12 minutes instead of 120 - a good upgrade. It could even be increased further to allow for higher atmosphere dives to pull in small quantities and deep dives to rapidly fill many tanks. The bigger issue still remains - what the hell is the point of it in Fusion? The larger reactors become worthless and the smaller ones are well, small! By the time you have access to He3 you probably don't need every last Megawatt out of small reactors as you're probably already thinking big by then. It is useful in AIRs, which in turn are a fairly useful reactor but still, it could be a lot better.

Sounds like some good changes, nicely done! Am I the only one who can't download? Getting an SQL Connection Error after clicking the download button on the github page. (Entirely possible it's just me - I'm at sea and on a rather eccentric satellite connection).

Philotical, you're onto a superb and much needed idea here, though for me, personally, you are taking it a little too far. A system to recover non-VAB resources such as KSPI's Antimatter or He3 after landing them on Kerbin and then add them to a rocket on the launchpad would be a brilliant tool and would fill a big hole in those mods. I'm less interested however in a market place and credits and all the rest, especially with the contracts system coming up. It's still unclear (unless I've been missing some dev posts) how 'money' in KSP will work in the long term but creating a whole new system with one around the corner seems futile. I also wouldn't actually like to be able to say, sell Easy Resource A and buy Hard Resource B. Not sure about the collecting on other planets bit either, but I guess it's easy enough to simply not use that functionality if I don't want it - I guess it would be useful for people who use interplanetary construction mods and so on. In short, you're on to a winner, but keep it simple (or maybe release a basic and advanced version). Will be watching with great interest, keep up the good work

Anyone have a link to that inline collapsible alcubierre drive? (Sorry, I promise I have spent about 30 minutes searching and looking!)

Relays only provide line of sight, they do not strengthen the signal so to speak. A ship in orbit of Jool when Jool is at it's closest approach to Kerbin is able to pick up about 30% of Kerbin's power network per large receiver and only about 1% per medium receiver. Considering how awkward large receivers are to work with this is a major pain in the ass. Planets like Jool and Dres when on anything other than the closest alignment aren't going receive any significant kind of power even on a large receiver and the easier to place mediums are only going to provide okay power to the inner planets on close approach. There is of course an argument for building more power stations around other planets. I have about 400 GW on tap around Kerbin, and about 10 GW each at Duna and Jool currently and I'm planning on expanding the Jool grid to start operations on the 5 moons. Currently however any decent sized vessel beyond about Duna orbit really doesn't have any significant power to draw on so there will always be a need for self-contained vessels carrying their own reactors, and I would argue the AIR is a superb one for a large craft, providing good power and respectable ISP for thermal and decent power for plasma. Of course, to get the He3 costs 10's of 1000's of antimatter, which would provide an even better power source so yeah, He3 is still looking a bit mediocre really!

Bah, you guys have totally missed the spirit here! Forget tritium decay, I don't like to achieve anything by just time warping personally - if that's all it takes I may as well just enable it in the VAB and be done with it. That tiny bit in Jool's atmosphere is an engineering challenge that's quite different to what stock KSP provides. Yes interstellar gives resource harvesting on planets, but really landing a refinery isn't much different to landing a 'for-the-hell-of-it' base. Anyway, I too am very disappointed in the returns from He3 in fusion... as has been stated, the 2.5m is utterly useless and can't even power itself and the 3.75m isn't much better. The smaller two do make good use of it, but the gains between the incredibly easy Deuterium/Tritium fuel and difficult He3 are only measured in rather small numbers (about +30% on the 1.25m for example). In short, really not worth it. If the larger two didn't have the weird reductions then maybe for serious power stations the +~30% gain might be useful to some people, but even then, far easier just to add another reactor. What we have all forgotten, myself included however, is the Antimatter Initiated Reactor. Up until I returned some He3 to Kerbin today I haven't even been able to test it, and I get the feeling that's the case for a lot of people (a lot of info about it is missing online as well). Basically it uses 4 resources: Deuterium, He3, UN and Anti Matter. Deuterium comes with 500/500 and He3 must be provided as it starts with 0/500. Both are the 'main' fuel for the reactor and are consumed at the same rate. It took about 191 days @ 100% power to exhaust them (sorry, no qualitative figures yet, experiment results only). UN is provided at 20/20. In the 191 days this figure didn't even move. The wiki shows tiny, tiny amounts being used. The initial fuel will likely last many, many full cycles of the main fuel. Anti Matter isn't provided either and must be stored in a separate tank. In 191 days only 0.01 grams had been used, meaning even the tiny 1g bottle would last for many, many refuels of D/He3. So other than providing a tiny quantity of AntiMatter, it's basically a Deuterium/He3 reactor and it's really quite good. 44 GW is a really very nice chunk of power, better than any Fusion or Fission reactor. It can put most of this out as charge particles too to take advantage of direct conversion generators. The core temperature is a little lower than the larger fusion reactors but better than small fusion and all fission so should give decent thermal rocket ISP. The main selling point though is the vastly tonnage compared to similar performance reactors. Deuterium can also be scooped from Jool, allowing both to be refilled at once. Not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it yet... it might be the solution for a long-distance mothership that has to operate away from the power grid?

Yeah, He3 does seem very unbalanced currently, it's either an enormous investment in time waiting for tritium decay or enormous effort in cloud harvesting (and the energy cost is phenomenal using all that anti-mater). Considering the performance from a fusion reactor burning He3 really isn't that great it does sort of make the whole thing futile. But it's not about the He3, it's about the challenge! Still, He3 could use a re-examination I think... maybe a much greater quantity in Jool's atmosphere (even just moving that decimal place by one from 0.000137% to 0.00137% would make a big difference - that would mean 1000 an hour for a craft like this which is enough to power a generator for a good while. I'd be tempted to say make it even larger and make un-powered aerobraking dives a valid method for scooping a bit of it up. Perhaps add the current tiny quantity to another planet?

So, I promised ages back in two or three separate discussions on He3 extraction to post some pictures of how to get it from Jool. Well I finally went back to my cloud scoop and began getting some of the infrastructure in place to support it (prior to that it was a single use tool essentially). The most important thing it needed was an antimatter station as no other source of power has proven good enough for flight that deep in Jool's atmosphere. I launched the MKI collector below which came in two parts for easier launch and had it all set up but after I switched away I returned to find it a pile of debris drifting (rapidly) apart. I still don't know what happened but I'm assuming from the parts that were left it was an explosion of the AM tanks. It had more than enough power so my guess was maybe an issue with either the way the tug disconnected (decoupled rather than docking port) or the fast there were docking ports between the tanks and the reactor. Either way I then built the MkII as a single piece and it seems to be working beautifully. I have also now designed the MkIII which if it works will have an extra 35 collectors. The experimental scoop was then deployed to Jool and rendezvoused with the station and took on a good load of antimatter. It uses a thermal turbojet on liquid fuel for self propulsion in space. From there it simply descends into Jool's atmosphere, turning on the thermal turbojet (atmospheric) to power directly downwards as hard as it can. It then simply levels off at about 50 meters and starts scooping He3. The flight is so stable it usually only has an ascent/descent speed of +/-0.01m/s and can thus be left alone and checked on every 15 minutes or so. At the moment it scoops about 108 an hour. During yesterdays trial I took 28,000 antimatter which was enough for just shy of two hours flight, plus ascent and I still had about 5000 left in the tank. Making orbit is embarrassingly easy with antimatter... I just fly up at about 80° East on full throttle... this gets you most of the way out the atmosphere as it is and should even get an apoapsis above where you need. As you cross into the thinnest parts the thermal turbojet will start to overheat as it has no pre-coolers so you switch to liquid fuel for the rest of the ascent and completion of the orbit. When doing so the scoops can be set to Hydrogen, continually replenishing the tanks even in the thinnest whiff of atmosphere. By the time it makes a 500,000m orbit the small liquid fuel tank should still be over half full. So what next? Well I need a craft to shuttle between the scoop in low Jool orbit, the AM station higher up and my station around Laythe, bringing AM to the scoop and then carrying the He3 back to Laythe. Shouldn't be hard and will probably be plasma thruster powered, though it could also be refueled by the scoop and also run on thermal engines. After that I need to refine the scoop further - it's just a prototype really. I want the final one to have over 4x the scoops if possible so it can fill 400+ an hour. The problem is as it gets heavier it also gets slower which leads to each scoop being less efficient. At some stage I'm going to hit a wall where adding an extra scoop doesn't really increase what it can bring in per second. I may also get to the stage where it can't actually even fly that low down, or can't ascend so I'll just have to see if it's even possible to meet my objective.

Yeup! Jool ram scoop is the way to go! Meant to post a picture of mine before I left for holiday, will do so when I get back. In short, strap a LOAD of big intakes onto a craft (mine uses 16) and dive ALL the way down... 500m is a good altitude. Using a thermal jet engine running on atmosphere you should be able to thrust at 5000+ kn giving an awesomely fast speed of around 80m/s. Can fill a he3 tank in 40 mins or so and I can afk on mine for that time. Ascent is a three part process, just gun for space on atmosphere intake as long as it gives more thrust than liquid fuel before switching. When it's liquid time open all intakes to Hydrogen and even on a wisp of atmosphere the tanks will stay full. By the time the hydrogen isn't coming in, 90% + of the delta v has been spent, complete and circularize on the stored fuel. My ship uses a 2.5m antimatter reactor and 2.5m thermal turbojet which makes it easy; like REALLY easy. Would bet fusion would be possible but more challenging. Will post pictures when I get home, just 5 more countries to go!

Also: Bu Report The new 'throttle' on receivers is great, but I've immediately noticed that engines are still able to draw the full theoretical 100% power, even if I'm throttling it down much lower. While rather useful for the player it is of course also a little unbalanced. This behaviors was observed on a ship consisting of a 1.25m Plasma Thruster running on Quantum Vacuum with 3 of the smallest receivers (only 1 active).

Even more importantly, unless something has changed in this update, I don't believe relays actually relay Power, just line-of-sight. For example during Jool's closest approach to Kerbin, one of the large fold-out receivers is able to pick up about 30% of the power I'm outputting around Kerbin where as the mid-sized hexagonal one has dropped off to only around 1-2%. Now what I originally expected to happen was that a relay that's capable of receiving 30% would then relay that power to other craft in orbit of Jool but that is not the case. Three craft in orbit of Jool and blocked from Kerbin each with a different size of receiver show that the small antenna was picking up totally negligible power, the mid-sized hexagon was getting 2% or so and the large was getting 30%, despite all of them being connected to the relay. Make sense? Has anyone else been able to confirm this? Has there been any change?

That Sir, is awesome!

Congratulations on the new release, it sounds great - the new refinery especially will make resource harvesting a lot more viable I think! And thanks for the toolbar integration too! Won't be able to test it for a while as off for a months holiday! Probably too early to be asking this, but would love to see power input limiters for microwave receivers so our little probes aren't overloaded by the 400 GW power network available!

Beautiful work - one of the best interiors I've seen by far.

That looks so much better... I'd rather see lengthy tooltips that actually tell you something useful than the current system. Do you know if it's possible to edit the wiki? There is SOME good information in there but a lot missing as well, or there was from the perspective of someone new to the mod. Would happily spend some time adding to it.

[DELETED] Apologies, this was all caused by a typo - this thread can be removed.