db48x

Sure. You can compile the code by following the instructions at https://github.com/mockingbirdnest/Principia/blob/master/documentation/Setup.md.

I'm 40-odd pages behind the thread so you've probably already covered this, but at that power level the beam would have to be huge to avoid killing a bird. Arecebo is a ~1-2MW radio telescope with a 300-meter dish, and it occasionally kills birds.

A good read. You remind me that I need to get back in to Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics; I put it down because I really needed to set up the software environment and play with it.

What is the physical basis for such a drive?

The last time I checked, it came preconfigured to work correctly with KSP Interstellar, so you shouldn't need to manually configure it at all. Do you have the latest version? Look in GameData/BoulderCo/ActiveTextureManagementConfigs/WarpPlugin.cfg

Thanks for the details; I've just updated the wiki page.

My thoughts exactly. Also, someone else was complaining/mentioning that they have to use half a dozen small fusion reactors to power their Vista; I think that's just because Fractal_UK doesn't have models for the larger versions of that reactor. In spite of minor deficiencies such as that, KSP Interstellar is really fun.

Hmm, that is interesting. Right off the bat I notice that the two craft have different root parts. The "fresh built" version has a 375PureLiquidTank as it's root, while the "stripped" version has a computerCore instead. You might try building a version that starts with a computer core and see how it performs.

You've got two receivers on your craft. The expanding dish on top is for receiving microwaves and turning them into electricity, measured in megajoules. A thermal nozzle doesn't use electricity, it uses heat, so that receiver isn't going to do much for you. Perhaps you're just using it to power the probe core; not very aerodynamic, but perhaps it's lighter than some batteries and a solar panel or two. The other receiver receives microwaves but converts them to heat right away, which is what your thermal nozzle will draw from. Like all receivers, this one is directional. Because of its shape, it converts microwaves into heat most efficiently when the microwaves are coming in from the side. Since your reactor is in orbit and is above the craft, only a tiny amount of heat is created, thus the low thrust. (It's also in the shadow of your other receiver, but the mod doesn't model that.) Drive a reactor into the field a few km away from the pad so that you've got some power coming in from the side. You may also find it advantageous to put one out on the island with the alternate runway, or out in the ocean somewhere, to provide more power in the middle of your launch.

I bet you'll have to supply more details. It only detects impacts from active craft, so you already know where the impact happened...

Perhaps he wants the large reactor to use with a thermal nozzle, and wants a few kW of electricity to power the craft. Thermocouples are a perfectly logical way to go in this case. They've been brought up a couple of times in this thread, although Fractal_UK hasn't said either yes or no to them. He did point out that he has done some experiments in this direction; here's even some code left over that implements radioactive decay for RTGs: <https://github.com/FractalUK/KSPInterstellar/blob/master/FNPlugin/ModuleElementRadioactiveDecay.cs>.

Science is stored in your saved-game as a double-precision (I think, it might actually be single-precision) floating-point number. You'll often see numbers like 247.131438637816924 in there; it keeps track of the rounded-off bits at all times. Of course, it wouldn't matter how the total is stored if KSP Interstellar rounds it off before adding it to the total; luckily we can check the code pretty easily. A quick search reveals <https://github.com/FractalUK/KSPInterstellar/blob/def545fc24007fdbd0390ab667ba78a8f2f19d77/FNPlugin/ScienceModule.cs#L304-L305>, which looks like this: ResearchAndDevelopment.Instance.Science = ResearchAndDevelopment.Instance.Science + (float)science_awaiting_addition; ScreenMessages.PostScreenMessage(science_awaiting_addition.ToString("0") + " science has been added to the R&D centre.", 2.5f, ScreenMessageStyle.UPPER_CENTER); You can see that the first line adds the variable science_awaiting_addition, which is a float, to the global total science collected. The next line then displays the message, converting the numeric value into a string containing numerals which a human would interpret as a numeric value by calling ToString() on it. The ToString method is documented on MSDN <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/f71z6k0c%28v=vs.110%29.aspx> and further at <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/26etazsy%28v=vs.110%29.aspx>, but I'll summarize. The argument it takes describes in a schematic way how to format the value as a string of digits. The format string passed in is "0", which tells it to round the value off to an integer and make a string containing the numerals that represent that integer. I hope this answers your question.

Agreed. This mod needs it's own subforum.

It's a known problem, as you can see from the video. If you read back through the thread, you'll see some discussion of it, including possible solutions. Noone has tried them yet, however.

Sure, but it only has to radiate away a mere 70kW.

I've never had this happen. If you run out of charge, the antenna just waits until you get back to 10ec and sends the next packet. Once it's sent all of the packets you will have received all of the science points.

You must be out of graphics memory. This is a real classic though.

If anything deserves to be the end content of a game, it's antimatter and warp drives.

Antimatter is in milligrams (mg).

I think that only happens when you impact on a decoupler, and possibly then only when the decoupler is the root part. Something similar happened to me once; flipping the craft around solved it.

Shiny. Did you decide what to do about the potential part-count bloat?

I proposed radial-mount thermocouple modules to put on the reactors. Thermocouples are a lot less efficient than generators, so you'd lose total lifetime output, but they're light and double as radiators, so they should make for good probes. If you poke around the source code you might notice that there's an unused module for simulating simple passive decay of radioactive heat sources as well.

You can place them anywhere. Your scientists feed the landing coordinates into the calculations when they do the analysis, so you don't have to put them in any predefined locations either relative to the surface or relative to each other. On the other hand, the more sensors you have, the more data you can collect about each impact. Just put a seismometer on every probe you send, scatter them widely, and have lots of impactors.

Always bring a spare warp-drive; it really sucks to be stranded light-years from home and be forced to build an entirely new society and manufacturing base just to get back.

That's a slightly unphysical number. It's a wonder Minmus doesn't go supercritical just sitting there...