Rampart

I'm wondering with the inclusion of fusion reactors if you want to reexamine how the different reactors produce thrust. For example, the nuke reactors plus thrust nozzles produce thrust by super heating a medium with the reactor and ejecting it out the back, but would doing so with a fusion or AM reactor be as efficient as ejecting the reaction plasma itself or a few micrograms of AM in a reaction chamber open on one end? Or is this what the thrust nozzles already emulate for the AM reactors and thermal power is just a nice way of keeping the reactants straight You'd almost want to add in a small need for liquid fuel for AM reactors, to represent the need for a reactant for the AM, adds complexity but realism. I'm curious as to how you're going to implement fusion reactors/engines, I can see them being really useful if the reactor only needs liquid fuel (assuming LF is hydrogen), would simply the supply chain quite a bit. Calculating how much dV a craft would have could get tricky.

Haven't tried the plasma on the upgraded AM yet, but I think the upgraded AM is more for the upgraded plasma than anything else. I had pointed out the large mass of the small nozzles to Fractal before, and his reply was basically for now they're not very useful cause they take on the attributes of the reactor like the large nozzle, so if they were 1/3 of the mass you could put on 3 and get 3 times the performance over the standard nozzle. I think he's working on making them procedural so we'll see how that goes, I'd love some small reactor powered probes. Biggest problem I have with the largest AM reactor was docking the blasted thing onto my warp ship in orbit cause lifting it from the ground in once piece was too much of a pain. The problem now is that I can use the engine at maybe 1/4 throttle before it crumples the ship around it I need to download the docking struts mod, maybe that would help. Having the reactors react a bit (ha!) to the demands placed on them would be fantastic, otherwise I'm toggling the AM reactor on and off a half dozen times during a relatively small burn.

You can build a ~1MW at Kerbin orbit solar power sat pretty easy with the stock biggest solar panels and the 8x8 open frames from the B9 Aerospace pack, works like a charm. I'm looking forward to how much they'll pump out in close solar orbit, I may not need reactors for my science labs soon. Also, be aware that the transmit/receive scientific data appears to only be a function of the labs. I'm building a new line of labs that are like 10 computer cores and 1 poor kerbin in a science lab with transmitter duty. I figure he's the failsafe if the AI cores go rogue.

I'm trying to mentally inventory what all can draw MJ: science labs, computer cores, warp drive, electric charge generation, air scoops. so as long as you can turn off the science cores (perhaps by locking their MJ tank? will test), the scoops aren't drawing useful atmosphere, and the warp drive is last on the list you can prioritize the warp drive by turning off everything else. That would be easiest to implement if you add a toggle to computer cores and pretty powerful. Maybe in the future a "deactivate current function" action group entry, binding all your stuff to that would allow quick switchover to warp drive charging, but honestly unless you have like 10+ labs/cores it shouldn't be a problem, personally I bind my scoops to an action button already so that's not a problem. Is there a good way to see the power breakdown, like in debug somewhere? the resource window is insufficient.

I should have tested before I wrote that, it appears if you lock the exotic matter tank on the 2.5m warp drive it stops drawing power, allowing you to run other things, and not a bad workaround, but hard to tell if power is being used properly. While setting manual power priorities might be beyond the current UI, maybe have a "make current item highest power priority" button on each MJ consuming item, and if it's not the current #1 it goes to it's normal place in the list. Adding that and putting warp drives to the bottom would be the most useful I think. I'll test plasma consumption vs warp drive consumption next, Jeb and the two brains just finished charging the warp drive and we're going cruising

Thanks! It's tough as I have to squeeze my playtime in between work, spouse, kiddo, and going back to school (again), so my reports may be erratic. That said, 4.2 is looking pretty solid. I've started abusing multiple docking ports around a large AM reactor with docked nuke reactors to get better performance out of the thermal nozzles without actually having any AM in any useful amounts. Besides that the only things I'm seeing so far are feature requests and possibly balance changes. A "potential science" sensor would be nice to go along with the magnetometer, also a means of turning off exotic matter production in the warp drive, as it is it still prioritizes the warp drive over all other demands on MJ production. I lucked out with two zero stupidity kerbals who are going on a tour of the solar system with Jeb to map out potential science creation once the warp drive charges up. After that it's a slowboat multiple science lab ship full of "volunteers" to the point of greatest science production. Fun!

I was able to reproduce something like this with a clean install, start new rocket, choose sci lab as first object, then add advanced SAS, computer core, 2.5m liquid fuel tank, 2.5m generator, 2.5 nuke reactor, thermal rocket nozzle, then I built a pretty standard mainsail asparagus under that. On launch, the sci lab stays put while the rocket tries to launch through it. I also posted two plasma thruster issues on the website but not sure if they're related as I had other mods running. The above is on a clean install however, I'll see about finding a way to post the log. EDIT: made a change, added a L2 Landing Can as the first object, then a sci module under that, then the rest the same, got this on staging: [Warning]: File 'C:/Users/Matt/Desktop/KSP_Clean/KSP_win/KSP_Data/../saves/default/WarpPlugin.cfg' does not exist [Exception]: NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Best thing is to build a small probe with some maneuvering around a magnetometer and launch it to all the planetary bodies, look for areas with high particle flux, that's the best AM collection areas. It will always start above the atmosphere, Kerbin for example it will be weak at first, then peak, then diminish again. Avoid polar orbits, stick to low inclination, at least for now. Also, Fractal, regarding the high mass of thermal rockets, I like the procedural idea, as otherwise using the nozzles for small reactors really isn't feasible, maybe if you can't get procedural working make several nozzles and make them paired to each size reactor?

You can also have an crew exit any craft by finding the crew hatch on the module. You either click or right click, I can't recall which, and that will bring up an list with all the kerbals inside as well as buttons to have them EVA. That's a stock feature btw, so it should work with any addon, not just this one.

I've seen MechJeb do funny things with burnout prevention and this mod, try toggling that. Also, make sure the thermal rocket is set to use LFO fuel and not liquid fuel, I think the default got switched to liquid this time around. Edit: I read what I just typed and missed something, liquid mode will burn fuel out of an LFO tank just fine, so yah I'm betting MJ wackyness. It also sounds like maybe your command pod lost power, but it sounds like a similar issue I had with MJ.

Common problems I see folks are having, regarding the AM functions, make sure your AM storage tank is adjacent to your science lab or collector otherwise the AM won't go into the tank when generated, or at least it didn't before. Also make sure your reactors and generators are adjacent. Also, for next patch, could you add an option to turn off the warp drive creation of exotic matter, or perhaps adjust resource allocation? Currently the warp drive takes precedence over any attached science labs so you effectively can't research/produce AM/refine UF6 until your warp drive is fully charged, and even then I'm not sure, it's still charging now

More bugs: upgraded plasma thruster doesn't appear to be working properly, it's drawing MJ but flames out due to lack of resources. I'll download your source and see if I can find something to compile it on, extra eyes never hurts

Liking the new release so far, just a few bugs As above, it seems like the tier 1 computer cores aren't quite 100% working. they store science but don't appear to generate any (I think this is intended), but do appear to consume MJ at 1MJ/s, and the retrofit button doesn't consume science and doesn't appear to change anything but the name. The upgraded core does not produce science at ground level and doesn't appear to consume more MJ either. As far as parts bugs, the large electrical gen (3.75) has the same mass as the next smaller size (2.5), the small and normal thermal exhaust nozzles have identical mass. The thrust and ISP of the 1.25 nuke reactor + nozzle feels too low compared to the stock nuclear engine which I imagine would be similar. Testing continues!

Looks like both Graphotron 2k and Telemachus are both a bust. That said, and this is coming from someone who hasn't really looked at the KSP API, I've noticed the other sensor parts have a Sensor = TEMP or somesuch, so I wonder if you could add a Sensor = MagField and that would allow compatibility with Telemachus at the least, and possibly Graphotron. If I have some spare time tonight (ha!), I'll look into the API some more. I figured that mag fields were currently only altitude based, and not also inclination based. making inclination matter would make it a bit tougher to locate the sweet spots. I typically start on a Molniya orbit and watch the sensor while in warp, and step it down to normal once I see the particle flux density d/dx changes direction and circularize as near there as possible. If after you circularized you watched another orbit and changed inclination as above with the Molniya orbit, I think that would still be fun and not insane Complicated magnetic fields are cool, complicated magnetic fields that you can't get a good orbit for would be frustrating, especially when the brute force method of reactors and science labs is always there.

In an effort to find the true best spots and altitudes for AM collection I tried to see if graphotron 2000 would pick up the magnetometer data. No luck. Next on the list to try is Telemachus. If that doesn't work maybe i'll dip my toes into modding and cobble something together Doesn't have to do much I imagine, if current flux levels are greater than last best then record the altitude, inclination, eccentricity. Maybe that computer in a computer mod, dcu16 I think it is, would work.

Incorporate into the microwave transmitters maybe, I mean you've already got a powerful beam, modulate it a bit and you've suddenly got digital data. Modeling packet loss from transmission could be done by modifying the transmission speed based on efficiency, to reflect lost packets that need to be re-transmitted.

Could you have the base science generated before accounting for kerbal stupidity visible somewhere? Maybe even another part like the magnetometer that detected "scientific novelty" or somesuch, though a line in the science lab would be ok. Its tough to consistantly get the same total stupidity level in all my probe science labs before deciding where to build a base. The ability to transmit science would be nifty, but if you don't go that route how about a "high redundancy data drive" that weighs as much as a sci lab but holds 4x the science for an energy cost.

The biggest problem I see with the super low thrust high isp engines is the inability to warp while thrusting. Hour long burns make it tough to squeeze in a game during lunch For those obsessed with craft longevity, I've discovered that you can put docking clamps between a nuke reactor and a turbine, so you can swap out the reactor when it runs out of uf6, after you recycle all the usable duf6 that is.

Love your mod btw, I'd like to vote to include those AM reactor models in the mod, the glow effect is particularly nice. Do you want bug reports now or after you release the next version? (hopefully soon!)