VaporTrail

I'm right there with you. I've just gotten a solar explorer (Sandbox, not carrer) with six Gigantors down to a Gigameter orbit and I'm still pulling only megawatt levels of power. In fact, I'm pulling less power from the panels than I could if I pointed my transceiver at Kerbin and pulled off my ~4-5 GW orbital reactor array by at least an order of magnitude. My plan was to drop twenty or so of these: into low(ish) Kerbol orbit with higher orbit relays and pull several GW of power to be funneled into the network. Not sure it's gonna happen.

Actually the Dimming Stars is adjustable, so you can find what you think is the best for you... I've raised mine quite a bit, and see the stars unless I happen to be staring directly at the sun. This is from a 1GM orbit of Kerbol. That bright elongated dot to the left of Kerbol is the Kerbin-Mun-Minmus system.

As for fixing the 100% problem, no... but I do have proposal and reasoning to allow a throttle. Basically in the "Power Management Window" there should be a UI element (% slider + MW/GW entry box) that allows you to set your power draw from the network. Assuming all your power sats/relays are talking to each other (honestly, is there any other way?), you just use transmit what portion you need at the intended target, if you have extra (say, you just HAVE to generate microwave power), you just fire it off into deep space at wide dispersion. Agile Phased Array transmitters should be capable of this. But in general, you'd only transmit the power the target wanted at the target. So you could say draw a few hundred kilowatts to keep a probe running, or draw the entire available network power (after all other active loads are taken care of), or even cancel all loads for emergency power to the current load. A (somewhat) simple example of this methodology. Lets say we have a 1 GW microwave transmission capable power sat. We have a manufacturing base on Mun that requires 10 MW continuous power, and a probe that's boosting for a Jool flyby on plasma thrusters. Your power network should be intelligent enough to transmit that 10MW end user power (which means it ramps up transmission at the production node to account for losses) to the Mun base, and send whatever's left to the probe. At the probe, the Power Management window might look like this: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Theoretical Maximum Power: 1.0 GW. Other Network Supply Requests: 10.0 MW {Details Button} ---> New list window [ Mun Base Request 10.0 MW {Edit Request} {Cancel Request} ] Supply Request Loss Corrections: 2.4 MW Theoretical Network Power Available: 987.6 MW Network Loss Percentage (local): 4.8% Network Power Request: (Slider) 0%-----------------* 100% Network Power Request: (entrybox) [948.096] MW / 948.096 MW Power Recieved: 913.26 MW ---------------------------------------------------------------- Clicking the Details Button would bring up a list of power requests, where you could cancel requests outright (say if you need immediate power to prevent a crash or missed encounter), or reset them using the same slider/entrybox type interface. On our example here, the notional receiver isn't aligned perfectly, so we've got a bit of loss due to that.

Got a mental issue that's been bugging me for a while now. How many people actually use the right hand button (instead of the left) for anything but rotatrons? I'd like to ask for a control code change for most of the parts, just to see how well it goes over. Lets say you have a hinge, (not the door hinge, the powered block hinge). Could we get the left button so it goes up (with respect to the logo on the hinge face) the right arrow button so it goes down (again with respect to the logo) and the middle button so that goes to the midpoint? Perhaps get that kind of functionality on all parts that aren't rotatrons (having the circle button return them to the original 0deg position is pretty intuitive). This includes the 90deg hinges. As it is, the circle button moves the 90deg hinge back to it's start point... when I'd like it to move to the midpoint. Getting the 90deg hinge back to it's start point is easy enough with the correct arrow button, so the circle button is redundant now. However, if it went to the midpoint like standard hinge, it'd be much more useful. Of course, if there's something in the works that supersedes this functionality, by all means continue.

Another possible alternate is to take a couple small engines that run off the same fuel you use for your plasma thruster and use those for the suicide burn/touchdown leg, especially if you use MechJeb. Mechjeb seems to handle standard rockets alot better than the plasma thrusters, simply because the fluctuating power of the plasma requires changes so often. I know there are some monoprop fueled engines somewhere that MechJeb can use... I just haven't seen them in a while.

Thanks for the mirror, i kept getting a medieval game MP4 video when I clicked on the download link.

Sort of a response to to the "looking for a plasma thruster recipe," sort of a "look what I managed," and sort of a question on "are you serious, it's that effin' powerful?" Here's a short video demonstrating the full power of this fully operational... plasma thruster. Basically you need a power source, in this case eight orbital reactors in high orbit contributing about 4GW of power total to the microwave network, through three lower orbit relays. (Yes, I hyper-edited the the orbits for long-term stability... beats the hell out of manually tweaking the orbits every couple of months of timewarp... but I learned how to get them into position the hard way first. Need a mod that allows high precision orbital positioning and upkeep without needing to edit the file directly...). This power is fed through three MW Receivers on IR hinges and pistons, in 3-fold symmetry, and one phased array receiver. The phased array becomes the relay proper once in position. Because of the high power throughput, you need heat radiators. In this case, three of the small versions. 100L of Monopropellant in the Stretchytank is sufficient to get to orbit as well as land (if necessary). Orbital maneuvers can be conducted on Quantum Vacuum. One 62.5cm Plasma Thruster provides enough thrust to get the entire assemblage to orbit, but you've gotta watch your power. Once you've got more than a GW of input power, you're capable of quite a bit more thrust than strictly necessary to get to orbit. Limiting thrust to 20 m/sec^2 accel gives you plenty of thrust to orbit. If the upgraded equipment wasn't as far up the tech tree as it is, this would be quite a bit OP.

Uh... isn't that the post Horseman quoted?

Bored and sick right now, so apologies if you've covered this already. So what you really need is a way to calculate at least a rough ground track of a satellite between two points in time given the orbital parameters and points in time? I know that problem's been looked at before. Tools for Satellite Ground Track and Coverage Analysis http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a286848.pdf Believe that this has the math you are referencing... and if I understand correctly, you can pretty much ignore anything that deals with an "oblate" body or perturbations... KSP isn't set up that way. Actually putting that math to use in the mod/game... that's beyond me at the moment.

Kethane's great as a mod base structure. Anything that gets Kethane (the resource) away from a miracle substance is a benefit. A shame that reusing the model for the detectors and tankage (even if they do need to be retextured for visual ID purposes) isn't possible. The scanner models and implementation were very slick.

Stable release? Clicky, vrrrrrrrrrrrr... ding.

I'm still working on going interplanetary, really. I've got a design for a scaleable solar sat that will (should) be able to turn out quite a bit of power even in Kerbin orbit. Of course, it's HUGE, but meh, Kerbals. I'm toying with the idea of scaling down the transcievers (both the deployable and the static, with transmission stats to match) so I can get some smaller and more streamlined designs, but I'm not a modder. The size I'd be shooting for is for the resized deployable to be the same rough size (and capability) as the normal static.

Well, it's a bit of a kludge, and it has a really nasty tendency to tumble immediately off the pad, but it flies. It flies like a housefly, (utterly random, even with mechjeb on the stick, and keeps trying to run into stuff). Still just putzing around with thermal based rockets. If I get serious about MW power, I'm going to have quite a few sats in orbit, probably with multiple terawatts available for whatever. I've got a few ideas for solar based orbital power farms, but it just takes so MUCH solar to run a microwave transmitter that nuke reactors are probably going to be easier.

Thats what I'm missing then. Knew about the directionality of the electrical based recievers... wasn't aware of the limitations on the thermals. Hm. Gave me an idea though... Be back with another cap in a bit.

No. Like I've said, I've integrated the reactors and transmitters directly into the launch pad by attaching them to the launch clamps... Let me grab a screen cap, easier to show than explain... Here we go. As you can see, I've got a minimum of 13GW at a range of less than two kilometers... (upon launch). Highest this particular arrangement has made it is 1839m or thereabouts before falling back.

Out of curiosity, I'm experimenting with a microwave lifter design... but my test lifter doesn't go very far. Basically I build the launch clamps with control pods, reactors (theoretical output in the gigawatt range), and MW Xceivers (pointing straight up), and the lifter has a thermal reciever. Immediately off the pad I don't have much of a problem, but at about 500m the recieved power seems to drop off pretty sharply. I make about 1500m max altitude before falling back toward the pad. It's not fuel, as the engine continues to burn all the way back down (and thrust starts building back up). Is power transmission in atmosphere actually gimped to that level? Or is there something I'm missing?

Not until just before I came back to check the thread... Thanks for posting. I did find it, just took me far too long. Hmm... Perhaps a crew manifest thing that occupies the same general area as the "crew cams" might be useful. That way you have a similar functionality in a familliar spot... But that's a job for a modder.

Ok... Kerbalesque question: How do I get a Kerbal out of the flat hab? Built a small reactor management hab for a ground based reactor, Bob hooked it up to the reactor, got on board, and now refuses to exit. The normal method I use is the EVA button on the crew cam pic, and that doesn't appear... What am I missing to get Bob back on the job of hooking up the stuff I need him to for my Power farm?

Saw this, thought "Gimmie". Saw the warning, thought "aww... now I have to wait." Saw the images, thought "Well, video at moderate timewarp (100x or 1000x) would be perfect! You see the pretty lights go by... " [edit] At least with sats... And a quick googling of "Kerbal FSM" keeps giving me "Flight Safety Manual" or "Fuel Storage Module" references. That help any?

I vonder vere Guenter Vendt...

Thanks... I'm assuming the "open on load" is an unavoidable symptom of this behavior? At least I know now.

Not sure if this issue has been reported or not... haven't seen it yet. Experimenting (early stages yet) with solar powered microwave powersats in sandbox, and I'm getting odd behavior from the small receiver (the one that looks like a foldable dish antenna, not the phased array x-ceiver). First issue is that I see these appear on-load as "open" and immediately close. This (I believe) caused one of my sats to tumble on-load in orbit. Second is that I get no reaction (opening animation expected) from activating that same receiver. Still trying to figure out if it's just me, or if there really is an issue here.

Had a random thought... any idea what it would take to make the small cans grab-and-attach-able with KAS? Perhaps even storable in the KAS containers? Or are they going to be too big? The thought was "what would it take to build a Hexcan commsat in orbit?"

I've been in the habit of putting parachutes on my SRBs for quite some time... Radial chutes near the bottom of the booster, activated on seperation. It helps a little with seperation (pop, yoink...), if positioned correctly, and generally prevents them from slamming down too hard. Also, I've started setting my MechJeb launch guide for a 40% gravity turn @ 1000m. Generally that starts dropping SRBs far enough downrange that they're not a threat to the launch facilities. Chuting larger boosters is a more daunting proposition... most of the time my designs wind up disintegrating on chute full deployment. I'd like to have more control over debris' chutes after seperation. Immediate deployment might not be ideal, and deployment at reentry after a suborbital trip might not be either. Perhaps a version with setable drogue/ full deployment altitudes?

Thing is, the design I've got has an optimum attitude for sun exposure to all panels, for maximum sunlight to energy, basically aft end at Kerbol. Best I've got so far is targeting Moho and orienting it like that. Not optimum, but best I can do right now. Remotetech allows antenna pointing at the Sun, but that's it so far...