Starwaster

I think that must be the one but he explicitly mentioned that one separately at the very end. (BAD. NO SPEWING RADIOACTIVE PLUMES ALL OVER. BAD!) So, two different rockets. There's hypothetical designs that try to keep the molten core away from the chamber walls magnetically but we're a long ways from such a thing assuming that it can be done.

Thanks I'll check it out.

I always wake up to a spinning universe. Most unpleasant. Suggestion: Instead of two round portholes next to each other, how about 1 large (about the dimension of two side by side portholes) rectangular one with rounded bevelled edges. (so a soft rounded rectangle)

Just had a thought about this, in all the reading I've been doing on nuclear rockets the past few days, one of them actually had the propellant reaching maximum temperature just after it left the chamber... maybe that's how it's supposed to work?

I would swear that these came in a smooth topped version (no mounting point) Is my memory faulty? Or am I thinking of some part made by someone else?

OMG the geo-dome lights up. IT LIGHTS UP. Why is nobody talking about this???

Ok, did anyone take this guy up on his offer?

What do you mean?

I use them all the time. They're great for satellite orbital changes and I once sent a probe out around the sun

http://www.sarbian.com/sarbian/MechJeb2.dll Yeah, a few months back I downloaded a really nice looking nuclear interplanetary ship but it depended on having FOUR tanker ships docked with it. I was able to get it launched ok even though it was huge and even though I hadn't found Mechjeb yet... but I could not dock the damned things together. With Sarbian's 'force roll' option I tried again I got two tanker ships docked! It was tortuous because for some reason I got locked out of the RCS controls (a known bug I think but I'd never seen it before) so I couldn't take over the job. (I often get impatient and try to RCS thrust forward to speed things up or just outright take over the job) Too bad the combined ship parts were bringing KSP to a grinding halt. And also too bad that I play with Real Fuels now; the 'interplanetary' ship barely has enough Delta-V to de-orbit. So sad

When ialdaobath (sp?) is able to commit time to the mod again I'm sure he'll fix any issues that have been positively identified....

Or maybe Jeb takes one for the team by facing away from the direction they want to travel and opens up his helmet...

That's creating a new part or redefining the existing nuclearEngine to be something else which I wanted to stay away from. I understand about the need for different linings but to be quite frank I don't think that would be as much fun. Assuming as before that we end up with a game that allows for harvesting fuel from the environment in-situ. (I think we'll have to get there via mods though, I'm not sure I see the final KSP product going quite that far with resources, if we actually do get them) Edit: There is a way to switch in-flight: Hybrid engines. I haven't been able to make it work, I messed something up and the rocket ate all its nuclear fuel instantly on ignition. But it does let you switch between two different types. (exactly two, you can't specify multiples ) And I'm not sure you can actually configure it in the VAB.... (that is, it has to be set up in the part's CFG or via MM patch)

I think your last paragraph hits on it perfectly. Water as a propellant is really no more than a curiousity in KSP unless it actually becomes part of the game to the point that you can mine water (or ice) and actually use it as a resource for your ships. Also necessary things for it to become meaningful is that we need to have costs and budgets implemented. Then, when you're low on funds, your deep space mission is struggling and then it starts to get meaningful. But one thing that has to happen (game standpoint) is that we need to be able to reconfigure engines outside of the VAB. The NERVA has the advantage that you can realistically pump a wide variety of things in there that you couldn't do with a chemically fueled rocket. (at least I don't *THINK* you can just chuck water in there... that's not going to work) I've got a config that I'm playing with that I can share where I've already implemented quite a few propellants. Water's in there but the rocket isn't set up to allow it to be configured yet. (not hard to do, just haven't gotten to it). In fact I pasted it in a message a few pages back but that one is a bit broken. I saw the neofuel site, that's one of the sources I was investigating; that's where I saw the lower values in the 200 range for isp but I thought it was for a hotter reactor. I was reading up on it again and they're assuming a reactor of only 800K. I'm not sure why unless there's a performance hit for heating it up too much, which you alluded to above. Which runs counter to everything else I've read on the subject, which says you want to heat it up (your nuclear propellants) to the point that it disassociates into its lowest molecular weight gasses. (so, not even steam at that point).

Besides Sarbian's dll?

Actually the ISP I listed was assuming a reactor temperature of 3200k (solid core, NERVA style). If you have some data that says you can get a higher ISP with water than 400 I'm interested in seeing it but compared to other articles I've found it's a pretty generous rating. Mostly everything I've seen on the subject of using water as a propellant in a nuclear rocket cited an ISP of no higher than 200. It's just not a very efficient propellant at all. It's something you'd use in a pinch, say if you were landed on Mars and the mission plan required you to harvest your own fuels from the environment. Something you'd use because you COULD Not because it were desirable. Honestly I'm not sure how to go about calculating it from scratch myself but I trust the 412 number because I trust the source. Project Rho. There's a wealth of rocketry related information there and I find it to be generally reliable. Sometimes annoyingly so

And FAR doesn't help with that at all? Also, how about procedural fuel tanks?? They'd be resizable and dynamically changing their fuel capacity based on their size. The concept could be made to work really well with Modular Fuel Tanks where you can configure in the VAB what fuels or resources you want loaded up. Capacity would be m3 / 160.

And procedural fairings, too. Because it has a non-decoupling version that's a procedural fuselage.

Small 'patch' file for the above mentioned LF/OX tank mass issue. (only if you're using the 'Real Fuels' option) I've gone through everything else and didn't see anything glaringly obvious. I think LH2 should probably have some additional tank mass in the Cryogenic tank type but it's explicitly set to 0.0 so I was reluctant to touch it as I don't know what ialdabaoth's intention was. I did notice that the Fuselage tank type was also missing any tank fuel mass entries or basemass values. So it's basically just using a static dry mass based on the part mass. RealFuel_MissingTankMass_Fix.cfg Just put it somewhere in your modularfueltanks directory. Or actually I think it can even go anywhere in your GameData directory...

Yeah, who needs VAB!

I did this as a patch file instead of editing the originals, otherwise this would have been a change to realTankTypes.cfg @TANK[Cryogenic] { @TANK[LiquidFuel] { mass = 0.0005 } @TANK[Oxidizer] { mass = 0.0005 } } 1 three man command module + 1 big orange tank + 1 LV909 (LF/OX) mass (wet/dry) 52.29 / 8.66 DV 6472 (52min 38s) Brings it more in line with what the results that you saw with the KW (I think that was getting ~6800ish DV as that tank has a bit more capacity) (didn't check the mass ratio, busy busy busy) LF/LO2 might get a little love now... Delta-V 6664 LO2/LH2 meh Delta-V 5296 Can't do the LVN because it's modded right now Edit: Ooops LH2 and also doesn't have any extra tank mass in that tank. Not sure if that's intentional; maybe because the cryo tank already has some extra overhead factored in.... but you'd think it would at least match LO2 as it requires even more refrigeration. LO2 has tank mass: 0.000475

Edit side1.cfg Change the baseConeShape to: baseConeShape=0.1, 0, 0.7, 0.667

I think that's because the tank types are set different The big orange tank's fuel type is set to Cryogenics. The KW is set to Default. @PART[fuelTank3-2] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 6400 type = Cryogenic } } @PART[KW2mtankL4] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 7680 type = Default } } Then if you look in RealTankTypes.cfg Cryo basemass = 0.00015 Default basemass = 0.000125 Edit: Was going to do a lengthier post but I had to go watch 'Under the Dome' to watch the further adventures of Big Jim Rennie. Here's something interesting about the Cryogenics tank type: The orange tank (more precisely the Cryogenics tank type) is not assessing any extra tank overhead for LiquidFuel or Oxidizer. But the config file specifies extra mass for those fuel types. Not sure why but seems like basically the orange tank lets you use LF/OX at a mass discount. Tank should definitely be a bit more massive than 0.96 tons. Edit 2: This seemed awfully familiar but I couldn't place it. Had to go back a few pages. Apparently the realfuel tank config file is trying to modify non-existent lines when it should be inserting new lines. That tank should be at least 3 tons more massive when carrying liquid fuel & oxidizers. And it's netting Big Orange a bonus delta-v of 1357 m/s

Not liters... do you mean kiloliters perhaps? I'm not sure what sense to make of this... In any case, all fuel tanks affected by the mod have their part mass replaced by a basemass of (usually) 0.000125 kg * volume + another fuel specific tank mass for every different fuel the tank carries. (configurable per tank per fuel type) Edit: Except tanks that don't HAVE basemass specified... then they do look at the part file. (sorry, reading this from the source to get a better grip on how the mod is handling fuel tank mass)

It happens sometimes. Strange, but true. Well I could always do my Duna mission with the LV909s... but that's just wrong somehow. What you're saying also means that radius has to increase a lot more before my stated concerns become valid anyway. And our volume isn't even dependent on those factors anyway, we get it arbitrarily assigned from config files. But I think for the most part, those values do seem to be accurate if we make certain assumptions about what those values represent (i.e. 'kerbos'). So I think what's really bothering me about this is that we're using some arbitrary fictional unit of measurement (that is equal to about 160 cubic meters) and multiplying it by a known mass unit of measurement. I think it ought to be looked again.