Northstar1989

Do the stars produce usable light? As in, can you run solar panels off them? I know this was an issue a long time ago when the first packs adding new stars started coming out, and I was wondering if it ever got fixed...

Just to be clear, I'm using Crzyrndm's forked version he talked about here. https://github.com/Crzyrndm/B9-PWings-Fork I guess I should raise this issue on GitHub? I know this specific issue was a onown issue of one of the procedural wings mods a long time ago, so either it's a recurring bug (re-introduced by an update) or it was never fixed... Regards, Northstar

Anyone? I must not be the only one to have noticed this issue. Can somebody confirm they are also experiencing it with the 1.2.2 fork?

Just wanted to remind everybody of this post. Please use Starwaster's recompiled DLL. Who knows, it might solve an issue or two! Regards, Northstar

So... as some reading this thread may know (I hope somebody reads this), O created a Mass Driver Mod for KSP a while ago, and recently got it updated for 1.2.2 and even expanded its scope: Which got me thinking- a spacecraft designed to carry crew to Low Earth Orbit from a mid-sized Mass Driver (let's say one that can shoot craft above the atmosphere, but with less horizontal velocity than something like the StarTram Gen 2 design) actually shares a lot in common with an Interceptor Ship designed to rendezvous with a Cycler... For one, both craft need a fairly high Thrust:Weight Ratio with a vacuim-optimized engine and a good chunk of Delta-V, but not enough to justify a second stage and the complexity/cost it adds. A Mass Driver launched capsule needs to circularize its orbit when it ascends above the atmosphere, but it will still probably carry a reasonable chunk of velocity with it from the Mass Driver launch (StarTram requires less than 1 km/s to circularize, a less powerful, more economical Mass Driver might require 3-4 km/s to circularize if I were to guess...) An Interceptor Ship needs to reach a fairly high-speed interplanetary trajectory, but probably would still only comprise a single stage... Another commanality is the need to deal with fairly large amounts of heat- the Mass Driver fired capsule during its ascent, where it starts out at high-hypersonic velocities in the lower atmosphere (the 2nd Gen version of StarTram has an insane scheme for extending the firing tube into the upper atmosphere, but I'm assuming most actual, practical man-rated designs would look like their Gen 1 design- with a tube originating a bit underground and climbing/boring up the side of a mountain to fire near the peak...) an Interceptor Ship during Mars re-entry after detaching from the Cycler Ship (using the Interceptor Ship for this purpose would be simpler than having a dedicated lander, although a bit less mass-efficient) Both craft need to be very compact in their design, and would optimally not be designed to support humans for a long period of time, but instead carry a crew of humans and perishable cargo a short distance very mass-efficiently (the Mass Driver capsule because unmanned vessels can be accelerated through the Mass Driver at much higher g-forces, and thus can be fired from a seperate, shorter, and much cheaper Mass Driver like the Star Tram Gen 1 design- or alternatively be fired from the same Mass Driver at a much higher velocity, and thus require less Delta-V to reach otbit) where they would meet up with unmanned craft to hold the crew long-term. And finally, both craft need to be capable of docking and loading/unloading its crew and cargo, including fuel. A Mass Driver capsule because the entire architecture of a Mass Driver system relies on firing lots of small spacecraft very frequently, to limit the size and power of the Mass Driver needed to accelerate spacecraft to a suborbiral trajectory, and amortize the costs of the Mass Driver over many launches (so an ideal Mass Driver capsule would probably only carry one or two people- just like an ideal Interceptor Ship approach would be that of a "swarm of ants"- both to allow launch of the Interceptors on smaller rockets, and to provide an abort-mode if one Interceptor should experience a failure and require rescue before reaching the Cycler Ship...) an Interceptor Ship, well, because docking with the Cycler Ship is its entire purpose. Neither ship type would work well as an all-inclusive design that carries out its entire mission without needing to ever dock with another spacecraft. So, all of this leaves me wondering- would there by synergy between the two technologies? (Mass Drivers and Interceptor Ships) I can certainly imagine engineers designing a rocket that meets the operational requirements of both missions. And in some ways, the requirements on a Mass Driver capsule are actually harsher (higher atmospheric heating, higher g-tolerances required from the structure, potentially greater Delta-V requirements, and more need for reliability: as engine-failure on a suborbital trajectory means smashing into the ground or burning up during re-entry before you have time to attempt any fixes to the problem) At the very least I would think that a Mass Driver launch system could make ALL space exploration more affordable and provide a cheap way to launch the pieces of a Cycler Ship in many modules (a Cycler Ship would look a lot like a space station in design and construction, as the ability to accelerate it to its orbit with ion engines neans that it would experience VERY low g-forces after each piece reaches Low Earth Orbit. In fact there's theoretically nothing stopping you from strapping an ion propulsion stsge to the International Space Station and using *IT* as a Cycler Ship...) In a best-case scenario a capsule designed to carry crew to LEO with a Mass Driver would also make an ideal Interceptor: although admittedly so would something like the Orion Capsule... In fact, all this me an idea- what if NASA tried to go to Mars with nothing but what they had in the next 10-12 years? I mean what if they *LITERALLY* evacuated the ISS of all crew, strapped a VASIMR or large cluster of existing ion engines to it and accelerated it to an Aldrin Cycler Orbit over the course of a few years (including maybe some gravity-assists from the Moon and Earth), and then used an Orion or a modified Red Dragon (SpaceX's coming Mars capsule) as an Interceptor Ship to rendezvous with it the next time it passed by Earth? (the Red Dragon, at least, should have enough fuel to orbit Mars and then return to Earth- the Orion would probably have to limit itself to establishing orbit and then docking with a return-vessel waiting around Mars: perhaps one of the Orion variants NASA was looking at using for a Mars flyby sent unmanned via a transfer-stage so it had enough fuel to return to Earth...) A silly idea I'm sure (what would be the point? This seems like it would be a waste of the ISS), but amusing to imagine nonetheless... Anyways, to return to my discussion from before- I can imagine a lot of potential synergies between Mass Drivers and Cycler Ships. Not the LEAST of which would be to someday in the distant future be able to set up a Mass Driver powerful enough to send an Interceptor Ship on an escape trajectory (or at LEAST a very high suborbital trajectory with an apoapsis close to the Moon...) in the general direction of the Cycler Ship when it swings by Earth... Anyways, try not to hate on my insane, crazy-big ideas here. At least I KNOW these are crazy, nutso ideas compared to anything I suggested before (like classical Cycler Ships, which are an idea that goes all the way back to before Buzz Aldrin- and are actually in many ways EASIER to implement as a mission-architecture to get to Mars than something like the Mars "Constellation" misdion plan, for instance, with its many more highly-specialized vessels and longer Mars transfer-times for the crew...) Regards, Northstar

I considered that possibility, but that would lead to excessively-complex models. The current model is far more intricate than it needs to be, on a texture/collider basis, in addition to not looking anything like it should (a Mass Driver should be a sealed tube- the current model has gaps between the parts... It also uses copper coils instead of aluminum ones, and the coils are oriented perpendicular to the central cavity in discrete bundles instead of wrapping around the circumference in a continuous layer like they should...) I'm looking for a model that uses fewer vertices (the physical triangles that make up a model's colliders) and angles and instead forms more of a continuous tube... Welding the models, unlike extending them, doesn't accomplish that (if only it were so simple as just using the technique Beale showed above! The main problem is I need to texture the model, and THAT I don't have the artistic talent to come up with textures for, or apply them in a pleasing pattern...) Regards, Northstar

I only intend to use one length of model in the end- but I want to test out a couple different lengths. There is no need to have the ability to adjust individual part length when the Mass Drivers are built to fire sequentially as a payload passes through a stack of them, allowing control over tube length by adjusting the number of parts- and for a realistic physics simulation and correct part performance the stack needs to be divided into multiple parts, not one single super-long part (so the extreme ends of the stack are not accelerating payloads currently in the middle, for instance). However I am finding that the current length is too small as players (including myself) are often forced to stack 16-34 of the things to achieve the desired length, and are inhibited by part-count from building even longer tubes than that. A 8x length part would easily allow players to build tubes as long as 80 of the current parts with just 10 parts, for instance... A longer part is inherently a tradeoff of physics-realism for lower part-count. But if the parts are longer but still of limited length, players will (hopefully) simply build longer tubes and use just as many parts. Regards, Northstar

Version 1.3.2 is now live. The only change was moving the Mass Driver parts back in the tech tree, however (from Advanced Construction- a 90 Science node- to the 1000 Science node "Experimental Electrics", which they now share with RTG's). Also, I would like to once again remind readers I am looking for somebody to create a longer part model for this mod to replace the current ring-parts. This is a great opportunity to determine the future appearance of the mod! I would prefer something that looks a little more, well, airtight- with sections fitting closely against one another- as the mass driver is assumed to contain a vacuum inside its central tube like with the StarTram design and operates on rails (no drag) even inside the atmosphere... Also, I've received some comments that I could just make the changes myself. I'd like to remind people that I am not the only one to use this mod, though, and my visual artistic sense is... questionable at best. It would be much better for everyone involved if somebody else created the model instead. The basic requirements are having at least the same internal diameter, a longer length, and having some sort of marking providing polarity (one end of the part does not look like the other from the outside) to allow players to determine firing-direction when one of these things is being fired in outer space, parallel to the ground on Minmus' flats, etc. Regards, Northstar

This response is unwanted and less-than-helpful. I am happy with simple geometries and textures, but that doesn't mean it should be completely without any finesse whatsoever. My artistic skills are not *nearly* up to the task ( I'm the kind of person who can barely draw stick-figures)- which is why I'm soliciting models made by others... Please refrain from replying in this thread (if you really must respond, send a PM) if you are not going to offer a model or directly refer me to somebody who can- this thread needs to be kept short and focused, and should not be taken further off-topic. Regards, Northstar

Version 1.3.1 is now LIVE and set as the default download on SpaceDock! Get it now: https://spacedock.info/mod/1227/Netherdyne Mass Driver Mod [Official] As well as the promised larger Mass Driver rings (which I have bug-tested and found to work as-intended, accelerating payloads to high enough velocities to soar dozens of kilometers high with a tall enough Mass Driver stack...) this version also includes a readme with directions on how to use the mod and descriptions of known issues! Also, don't forget, I'm looking for somebody to generate a longer model of the 2.5 meter ring (which I will then re-scale for all the other parts) to replace the current part model entirely! The new model should be hollow and passable on the inside even when the Mass Driver is not firing (just like the current model's colliders allow for), and should ideally have at least 5-6 and possibly as much as 12 times the length:diameter ratio while maintaining the same internal diameter as the current model... Hope to see some great work from you guys on these lines soon, and don't forget to check out the new update of the mod! Regards, Northstar

I am looking for somebody willing to generate me a NEW, LONGER functional hollow ring part model (as in a .Mu file and associated textures) for my Netherdyne Mass Driver Mod! Before anyone says hollow ring parts are impossible, take a look at the mod, and know that I am currently using hollow ring models, and they work. I am just looking for somebody to generate me a part model that is LONGER that I can replace the current model with. Note that the model NEEDS TO BE RE-SCALEABLE as the latest version of the mod includes re-scaled parts from 0.625 meters all the way up to 5 meters, each using an identical copy of the same base model- but with a different "rescaleFactor =" value in its part config. I am looking for somebody to generate me three models- one with 4-5 times the length of the current 2.5 meter internal diameter model (that is, it can comfortably fit a 2.5 meter part within its internal cavity- the exact internal diameter is a bit over 2.8 meters I think), one with 7-8 times the length, and a third with 11-12 times the length. All must have AT LEAST the same usable internal dimensions as the current model- that is one can fit a part of the same width (although slightly larger internal diameter than the current model is acceptable). I aim to test each model and see what the practical limits are for how long/powerful of a tube part I can use for the mass drivers, and still have the networking function work correctly (I know already at least a 2-fold increase in length will cause absolutely no issues, from the 5 meter part being 2x as long as the 2.5 meter version). If they ALL work correctly, I will use one of the two longer models and abandon the other two. Repeating, simple geometries and textures for the model are not only accepted, but suggested. Take a look at the current part model, and know that I find it unnecessarily complex. A simple, thick hollow tube with a texture made to look like Aluminum (*NOT* Copper coils, which is what the current mod erroneously shows- even though the only existing mass driver designs for StarTeam use Aluminum coils, possibly due to their high mass:strength ratio and the ability to readily obtain large amounts of Aluminum on the Moon...) covering the entire interior would be the preferred basic model design... Please ONLY respond if you are able to provide such a part. This is NOT a thread for discussing what you think of the mod, saying such part models are impossible (they're not, the mod currently uses a model with ring-shaped colliders and it works fine), etc. Please ONLY respond in regards to offering to make such a model, pointing me in the direction of somebody you know who can do so for me, etc. Regards, Northstar

The force settings are a lot more powerful than you saw, probably because you ran out of power (although it could be a bug you experienced). Though if you're impatient for more powerful mass drivers, try out the 5 meter ones in the 3.0 Experimental Build on SpaceDock... I just managed to launch a streamlined, 56 ton rocket I built using Procedural Parts (because the stock interstage adapters are far too blunt to use as nosecones- which is why my payload flipped before...) 7.8 km up in the air with nothing but 17 of the 5 meter Mass Drivers (1 Master and 16 slaves). The larger ones don't actually exert any more force than a tube of the same length built out of smaller mass drivers (ezcept the 0.6w5 meter ones), but you can build much longer tubes out of fewer parts with them, which is greatly beneficial... Speaking of longer tubes, if somebody can create me a hollow tube model that is longer than the ones I am using right now (let's say 4 or 5 times longer to start, but I'd like to eventually advance it up to at least 7 or 8 times longer, maybe up to 12), but with the same diameters for the internal hollow spaces, I can try and get it working as a replacement to the current model- so you can create longer tubes with fewer parts. The force per unit length would remain the same, but each individual part would exert more force due to its longer length... This should allow you to obtain higher speeds with the same number of parts, without sacrificing realism... Regards, Northstar

I just tested with the exact same 32-1 Mass Driver setup, using the 2.5 meter drivers, and a C7 fueled adapter with a Rockomax-32 below it. The payload made it 6.4 km up in the air (and it definitely would have been further if it hadn't flipped around to travel blunt-end first for some reason. This is with stock aerodynamics, after all... As for the lag" that's actually because the vessel goes on rails while it's accelerating through the mass driver itself (note this only happens once when the mass drivers have sufficient energy to fire- but it gets very jittery if they don't, as individual drivers might still fire midway through ascent as the batteries recharge). That pause is the game taking the vessel on and off rails (it's supposed to represent an evacuated tube in a vacuum, regardless of the model not looking like it's sealed, which is why aero drag would be inappropriate) Regards, Northstar

Alright, the mass drivers seem to working as expected with o e small hiccup... When networking a tube of Mass Drivers, RED IS THE FIRING DIRECTION. That is, attaching them in the normal" orientation will cause them to work as expected. However when using a single *UNNETWORKED* Mass Driver (that is, just the Master part on.its own with no Network Units attached) BLACK IS UP. For some reason you have to reverse the polarity of the Master unit (which is the teal bug) only when it operates on its own. I haven't figured out why yet... Make sure you are orienting the Mass Driver slave units correctly (see above) With just 6 slaved units I've already been able to throw 1.25 meter ore tanks a good few kilometers up in the air just in testing with the new X11 (which has half the force duration per-unit). EDIT: Also, MAKE SURE you have enough batteries attached to the Mass Driver stack itself. They consume a MASSIVE amount of energy (as in I use 16 of the 490 EC radial batteries just for a stack of 17 of the 1.25 metet Mass Drivers and it drains a good 20% of the Ec storage). I would recommend firing a "dumb" payload up like a full ore tank and sticking with the mass driver stack itself during testing to ensure that you aren't running out of Ec during firing...

Alright, the Experimental Build with the new diameter Mass Drivers is now up! Note that the old 1.2.2 version is still set as the DEFAULT version to download from Spacedock until I can confirm this update works as intended (no testing done yet!) To download it, you will HAVE TO go into the "Changelog" tab of SpaceDock and manually download it, it will *NOT* act as the default download you get from hitting the "Download" button on the mod front page. No idea if non-default builds even show up on CKAN (as I don't personally use it) either... Regards, Northstar

Also, you guys can forget what I said before about the force falling off with increasing diameter of the coils- due to the way the strength of the magnetic field lines actually INCREASE as you move towards the edges of the tube (at any diameter), this may not actually be the case. I've decided to just keep force:length ratio the same for all sizes as a simplifying assumption and to make the parts easier to test to ensure they are working properly (technically the force remains the same- the force DURATION for each part is what will change in accordance with size...) I have also decided to reduce the 0.625 meter version (yes there's a 0.625 meter mass driver coming out!) of the mass driver's force by 1/4th beyond the effects of merely scaling down its length, as the ability to accelerate a payload with 2x the density of the StarTram's intended 40 ton, 13 meter long, 2.5 meter diameter payload (interestingly this yields a density not much lower than that of RP-1, which means StarTram probably anticipated use of Kero/LOX or even SRB's for orbital circularization in order to reduce the volume of the spacecraft and this minimize atmospheric friction...) at 480 g's is not only a little overpowered- it's impractical in real life. At those g-forces any payload would collapse like a tin can or rip itself apart due to the gradients in force between the center of the tube and its walls (not simulated in KSP). Thus I have enhanced both realism and balance by assuming a nearly 1:16 reduction in coil thickness for the 0.625 meter driver vs. the reference 2.5 meter mass driver instead of a 1:4 reduction- and a proportionate 1:4 reduction in maximum force at the center of the smaller coil (realistically, this would be due to a proportional 1:16 decrease in current, and a resultant decrease in the strength of the magnetic field...) I have also made the smaller mass drivers slightly heavier than would be expected based on coil-thickness and size, and the larger ones slightly lighter. This is as larger mass drivers would realistically require proportionally less insulation (due to the Square-Cube Law), electronics (which would increase in proportion to coil-length, but not thickness), and structural reinforcement (larger coils produce far less force on the payload relative to their own mass, and thus experience greatly reduced acceleration due to recoil) to operate. I made this factor quite strong (the 5 meter Mass Drivers are nearly 10% lighter than you would expect based on their 8x larger volume) though- and may have somewhat exceeded the degree of this effect in real life, as I don't know how important these effects would realistically be (the mass-savings on insulation due to Square-Cube Law are significant, as these would be very high-current, heavily-insulated lines: but the most important factor would actually be the greatly reduced recoil and reduced need for structural reinforcement...) Regards, Northstar

Ohhhh boy, I've got a treat for you guys! I decided it would be worthwhile to create larger (and smaller!) versions of the Mass Driver after all. These will be released as independent parts so they will have their own tech nodes, descriptions, and unlock costs (of these 3, only setting tech limits on size is possible in TweakScale) as well as being specifically tested for issues at each size class. I can't promise I'll have this done immediately, but I'm working on it! Regards, Northstar

A new model? How will it differ from the old one?

Does this fork of Bac9's work (a mod in its own right now) fix the issue from B9's Proc Wings where, in stock aerodynamics, the wings would act as if their Lift was located at the center if the attachment-point of the wings, no matter how far back the wings were swept? This led to all sorts of issues with designs with highly-swept wings that SHOULD be stable being anything but- as the aerodynamics were all jacked up (the Center of Mass of the wings, however, *DID* shift back with wong-sweep, leading to the nonsensical result that sweeping the wongs of a previously-stable straight-wing plane could actually make it LESS stable rather than more- particularly when the wings contained fuel...) Regards, Northstar

The problem with that is that mathematics of Mass Drivers actually favor smaller diameters. Due to the way the Biot-Savart Law works, a Mass Driver coil with the same length, coil thickness, current, and twice the radius only experiences half the magnetic field strength in the center despite being twice as massive and requiring twice the electrical power to operate: https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Physics_equations/Magnetic_field_calculations https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Biot–Savart_law&oldid=581674678 Basically the strength of magnetic fields fall off with 1/r^2 whereas the circumference of a circle only increases according to C=2*pi*r. Note that you *COULD* squeeze a bit more force out of a mass driver with a star-shaped driver rather than circular ring, and by increasing the thickness of the coils (if you doubled the coil wall thickness you could pass twice the current through due to only experiencing half the resistance- indeed thicker coils are necessary to maintain the same rate of electricity consumption per unit length), but then at that point you have a mass driver that masses a bit more than 4x (as increasing the wall thickness means the outer part of the wall is even FURTHER from the center) as much for the exact same Force per unit-length... I *AM* thinking of creating a scaled-down version designed for 1.25 meter payloads. A 1:2 scale part would only weigh 1.25 tons per 1 meter long section (vs. 10 tons per 2 meter long section, as it would have half the circumference, half the length, and half the coil thickness) and each individual Mass Driver segment would produce half the force of its 2.5 meter diameter cousin (each ring would also only be half as long- so you'd be able to use 2x as many coil segments for the exact same total track-length) for half the per-coil electricity consumption (the coil acts on the payload for half the distance, and so imparts half as many Joules of energy...) 2.5 Meter Diameter Mass Driver: - 2 meter long segments - 10,000 kg per segment - 1471 kN max Force per segment - 10 Ec/kN energy consumption 1.25 Meter Mass Driver: - 1 meter long segments - 1250 kg per segment - 750 kN max Force per segment (slightly more Force per unit length as coils have non-negligible thickness) - 10 Ec/kN energy consumption As you can see, going SMALLER is more mass-efficient, and allows a substantially higher rate of acceleration of your payload (which has 1/4th the cross-sectional area but is exposed to slightly HIGHER force per unit of coil length). Let's look at a theoretical Mass Driver optimized for 0.625 meter payloads, shall we? 0.625 Meter Mass Driver: - 0.5 meter long segments - 156.2 kg per segment - 382 kN max Force per segment (as before, coils have non-negligible thickness) - 10 Ec/kN energy consumption Note one more thing here- a 4:1 increase in Force:Mass ratio does *NOT* equal a 4x increase in exit-velocity for the payload. As the payload accelerates through the Mass Driver it picks up velocity, and thus passes through each segment more quickly. For instance a payload passes through a 40 meter length of Mass Driver coil in only 2x the time it takes to pass through a 10 meter length, and thus only receives half the velocity in keeping with E = 1/2*m*v^2. You expend 4x the energy to impart 2x the exit velocity- which is the same reason why electric thrusters have such anemic Thrust despite having exit-velocities measured in the 10,000's of meters/second... So, I suppose it *WOULD* be possible to impart TweakScale compatibility (and in fact I was thinking of releasing a series of re-sized parts with the mod using the "rescaleFactor" line in the part configs- that works for creating scaled-up and scaled-down parts, right?), but I warn against scaling the Mass Drivers up and expecting the same performance... Even setting aside mass concerns for a moment, the Force imparted by scaled-up Mass Driver coils per unit length should fall off as the Mass Drivers have a non-negligible thickness (I eyeballed the rate at which this happens, by the way, but I'm pretty sure it's actually HIGHER than this. Calculus is required to actually create a correct formula for this...) Note also that I haven't bothered with messing at all with the ratio of length to coil-thickness in any of these calculations. Coils with a better thickness:length ratio require less electrical energy to impart the same Force to the payload, as they lose relatively less energy to wire resistance- but the Mass Driver parts we work with all assume the same rate of energy-loss in the coils (a 100% efficient Mass Driver requires less electricity than a 90% effocient one, for instance- we don't mess with efficiency at all) for mathematical simplicity's sake, with little regards to realism (also as I don't actually KNOW exactly how efficient Mass Driver coils actually are at turning electricity into force in real life, and everything in KSP is nonsensical when it comes to electricity-consumption anyways...) Regards, Northstar P.S. Any serious discussion of energy-efficiency in KSP begs the question: WHAT IS A UNIT OF EC EQUAL TO? If each Ec represents a kW, our Mass Drivers are only 20% efficient (providing 1 kN over the length of 2 meters for 1 second for each 10 kW). If it represents 200 Watts they are 100% efficient and need to be slightly nerfed. If it represents 100 Watts they are 200% efficient and need to have their Ec/kN ratio more than doubled... Current figures for Ec consumption were selected for simplicity, but may be completely wrong based on what a single Ec represents... P.P.S. I realize, in hindsight, that I may have gotten a little carried away here. Mass-efficiency probably isn't an issue of all that much concern for most players, who will only use the Mass Drivers on the ground on Kerbin. And, if you're Scott Manley (and yes I know I'm talking about you in the third person here Scott- most players probably don't realize that Illectro is your forum account) and decide to launch one of these things to the Mun, then you're probably just doing it for sheer awesomeness factor rather than because it's a particularly mass-efficient way to return payloads from the Mun to Kerbin (the MOST mass-efficient way of doing this in KSP would be to build a long tube of Mass Drivers from locally mined Ore on the Mun using ExtraPlanetary Launchpads. Mass Driver coils are one of the few things we could REALISTICALLY produce on Luna in real life, as they are basically just long electrified coils of Aluminum, and the Lunar regolith is literally MADE of Aluminum Oxides in many places... The solar panels, electronics, and energy-storage devices required to operate such a device would not be trivial to produce via Lunar manufacturing though, and would most likely need to be imported from Earth and assembled onto the coils by skilled technicians...)

Github is a *tool* for managing collaborations- and not one I ever objected to either, so I don't know why you're soapboxing about this when I was addressing rspeed. Using it doesn't change the basic fact of whether people are working together or seperately on different release branches of a mod... That remains to be seen. I hope not. Like I said, I find it works better and is easier to keep track of when people work together rather seperately. Regards, Northstar

This is still the most relevant thread to this topic- and a topic still worth discussing. So rather than create a duplicate thread, I'm going to try to revive it... Does anyone have any thoughts about Cycler Ships? Have there been any attempts to create one in KSP? I'm thinking this guy might be a good one to do it, as he already LOVES his gravity-assists: Regards, Northstar

Your editable version??? What is it exactly that ypu want changed that requires you to start an entirely new version? I generally like to try to avoid the balkanization (fragmentation) of mods. It would be better to have you come in with whatever changes you want on the main project than to start your own branch. That way, I can advise you on any issues pertaining to realism, keep you focused on KISS, and maybe even help with some changes now and then. On the other hand, having somebody to bounce ideas off of is likely to make both our ideas better. I extend you the same offer I made before- come in on the mod development and you should have more or less a free hand (and credit as a co-author), so long as you always prioritize realism first and foremost as the best way to obtain balance and believeability, and try not to get carried away with feature-bloat. Regards, Northstar

Well this is embarrassing! It appears I only upgraded the node size from 2 to 3 on the network version of the part, and not the "master" part! Which struck me as kind of odd that I was even doing this in the first place, because I had upgraded the node size YEARS ago (back in 2014 to be precise) as well as reduced the part mass from 25 to 10 (which some examinations of images of 25-ton coils of Aluminum, and how much that really was, convinced me was the right move- for balance AND realism reasons) and made several other adjustments... @FreeThinker it APPEARS that something about the recompile reverted the Mass Driver back to its original stats, causing me to have to go about re-balancing it all over again! Do you have any idea what might have caused the config to revert back to an earlier form like this, @FreeThinker? Anyhow, after some careful consideration I decided to return the Mass Driver back to its mass of 10 tons I used from 2014 on instead of 24 or 25 tons, and made sure to increase the node and part strength again to reduce the chances of the mass driver ripping itself apart! Struts may still prove beneficial for extremely long stacks, however! The upshot is this- another update! Check out SpaceDock for version 1.2.1 just as soon as I can get it uploaded! which is now uploaded! Regards, Northstar

You can get the latest official version (which includes the fixes to the colliders/textures as well as re-balanced parts) here: https://spacedock.info/mod/1227/Netherdyne Mass Driver Mod [Official] The version FreeThinker included in the Dropbox link is something slightly different- a fork created by @ArlonLS a while back that included some changes to the basic system for lining up payloads for the mass driver, as well as changes to the power of the mass drivers to make them less powerful, as I understand it. I never really got a clear picture of exactly what changes he made, and he never followed up on my invitations either here or by private message to simply become a co-author of the mod: on the condition that he maintain part-balance to be based on real-world data as closely as possible (so if he could find some reason the figures for StarTram were unrealistic, or as it turned out happened I did some of my math wrong, most notably by forgetting to account for vessel-length, and made the mass drivers 10x more powerful than they were supposed to be- then he could use corrected numbers!) Having never used, inspected, or even seen in action his fork of the mod I can't personally vouch for it- although now that FreeThinker has updated it for 1.2.2 I suppose I might as well take a look at it soon- especially since FreeThinker requested it... Regards, Northstar