Northstar1989

FreeThinker, I'm an ardent supporter of most of your ideas- but we need to be careful not to "punish". Threadsinger was right before- we risk alienating our players by doing so. I think players can decide from a roleplaying perspective how to justify controversial technologies if they really want. I've used Orion Nuclear Pulse rockets in KSP before, for instance- and it's enough of a challenge to figure out how to get one of those far enough off the pad that it doesn't vaporize the Luanchpad in a miniature thermonuclear explosion without having to worry about a Science penalty for the radiation release on top of that... To all the veteran KSP-Interstellar players out there watching from the sidelines, I can promise you we really haven't changed that much in KSP-Interstellar in the direction of added difficulty. FreeThinker did add a Soot mechanic for Methane- but we also buffed Ammonia's Thrust and ISP to more efficient levels that essentially replace the performance of Methane in the original version. And I will be watching and trying to temper FreeThinker's slightly-masochistic streak in future updates to make sure we don't end up with too many more things like Soot (which as is I can already understand might turn some players off...) For everything we made harder (Methane, for example) we made something else easier (you can now collect unlimited amounts of propellant from orbit using Propulsive Fluid Accumulators, for instance...) I suggest loading up KSP-I Extended and giving it a try! Just remember that engineering-limitations on engines are nothing new to KSP-Interstellar: reactors have always run out of fuel, solar power satellites would already overheat, and the Vista engine KILLS anything within a couple kilometers downrange of its engine when firing... Regards, Northstar - - - Updated - - - FreeThinker, Responding to your PM here since your inbox is full: Yeah, I can take a look at the numbers somewhere down the line- but there are no good figures for Meth/LOX because it's never actually been done before in real life... (There's no reason it couldn't have- but Nuclear Thermal Rockets haven't gotten any actual use in reality yet, so...) I'd like to get to that list of ISRU reactions I posted before first. We still have what, 6 or 7 reactions left to go? The new SootFactor mechanic should actually prove *highly* useful for the one allowing Solid Oxide CO2 electrolysis! (conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen and soot/graphite) Regards, Northstar

After assembling the full Munar-1 mission vehicle (not shown) the transfer to Munar orbit was carried out: I had actually hoped to perform the transfer with a periapsis kick, but it appears I had begun my transfer too early for this to work- the Muna would have been well past position by the time my transfer orbit could have carried the Munar-1 vessel out that far if I had waited for it to swing around an elliptical orbit before completing the transfer... Thereafter, the recovery of remaining upper-stages still in orbit went smoothly: The capture-burn at the Mun went smoothly: After which I performed plenty of !SCIENCE! in Low Kerbin Orbit (bonus-points to anyone who recognized what other gaming-community that phrase comes from...) And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for! The first LANDING of this Career Save: This wasn't my most fuel-efficient landing ever, but it was a success- and left me with more than enough fuel to get back into Munar orbit. But before I did return to orbit, I took the time to do a little !SCIENCE! Among the achievements, these 5 Kerbals were the first to set foot on the Mun in more than 60 years! (or the first ever in this save) All 5 of them took turns walking around a little on the Mun, despite the lack of scientific necessity for so many Kerbals to descend from the lander to the surface... The ascent and rendezvous+docking with the tug went just as smoothly, perhaps more so... Then came the return-trip to Kerbin: As planned, the Mun Lander carried the Kerbals to Low Kerbin Orbit (with a propulsive-assisted aerobrake into orbit) but did not return to Kerbin's surface. Instead, it transferred four of the five Kerbals over to a specialized lightweight re-entry vehicle which featured little more than a de-orbit engine, a parachute, a fuel tank to act as heat-shield and protect the Kerbals, a probe core, and 4 External Command Seats... (one Kerbal will remain in orbit to accompany a future mission before returning to Kerbin) The re-entry vehicle then carried the four lucky Kerbals brave enough to endure the terror of riding a fuel tank down through about 30 seconds of peak 200+ degree re-entry temperatures on their side of the heat-shield (lucky their suits are probably highly-insulated and actively-cooled like real astronaut suits!) Not for the squeamish or the faint-of-heart to be sure. But all my Kerbonauts survived the experience, and while I'm sure they probably all had heat-exhaustion, possibly even a few first or second-degree burns where the heat of their command seats managed to penetrate through the thick insulation of their space-suits (which I can only assume were built partially with this particular set of environmental conditions in mind, as this is the first major manned space mission in more than 60 years for my Kerbals...), they're all alive, and THAT'S what's important here... Oh, and I saved what would probably be the real-life equivalent of millions upon millions of dollars by using such a bare-bones re-entry vehicle, some of which savings I'm sure would probably go to compensate the Kerbals for their discomfort, and the rest of which will go to future space missions! Notes to self about the Re-Entry Vehicle design (just to remind you guys I'm not infalliable- this brilliant design actually only barely worked) - The fuel tank capacity was highly excessive, and served to increase the re-entry temperatures (which *barely* remained within materials limitations on the side of the craft exposed to compression-heating, and led to the loss of 3 struts to the heat) by increasing the ballistic coefficient of the craft during re-entry. Make sure to use a lighter fuel tank next time... - Make sure to not deploy the parachute until very late in the re-entry. "Simulations" (quickloaded attempts) indicated that deploying the parachute too early would cause the vessel to flip around- exposing the less heat-tolerant side of the vessel to significant re-entry heating, and on average killing 2 of the 4 Kerbals on-board via incineration (I can only assume the other 2 would have been badly-injured, as heat levels apparently reached 50% lethality if the vessel was spun around too early...) Reducing the fuel-tank size should help make low deployment safer by reducing the terminal velocity... - Strut the probe core to the main fuel tank next time. The structural stresses placed on it during parachute-deployment were sufficient to break both it and the engine off the vessel during even the successful re-entries (although, again, reducing main fuel tank size should help reduce the speed and thus stresses during parachute-deployment...) Regards, Northstar

OOC: OK guys, I know there's been a bit of a gap since my last post, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you... Northstar Kerman looked through the reports of the past week. The Munar-1 mission had certainly been making a lot of progress! First, there was the launch of the Supplementary Fuel Module: This vehicle had launched and rendezvoused with the Control Module and Fuel Module #1, then docked to form a continuous vessel... Shortly after that, the manned Lander Module had launched to orbit! It had been another launch with launch-stage recovery, and that had went smoothly: The upper stages were designed for recovery as well (although significantly further down-range). The recovery of the first portion of the upper stage went well: However looking over the accounting department's records for the recovery of the second upper stage (which was little more than a fuel tank and a spent fairing with a parachute attached) Northstar couldn't help but notice that the space program had spent more funding on the recovery-systems than the estimated value of the recovered components! Financial considerations aside, recovery of both upper stages had went smoothly- as had the circularization of the Lander's orbit under its own engine power... After reaching orbit, the Lander Module then proceeded to rendezvous and dock with the Engine Module ("Tug"), and attach a solar panel to a prepared electrical conduit on the vessel as planned- with only a slight hiccup in the Kerbal engineer initially fastening the solar panel to the wrong part of the craft... OOC: I know there is no such thing as a prepared electrical conduit in KSP- but I had to rationalize this somehow from an in-character perspective! Regards, Northstar

Caribou, the forces aren't instantaneous. The mass driver exerts force on the spacecraft as long as it is passing through the ring sections. The thing is that most of the ring sections are very short, so they don't exert force for a very long period of time... There are calculations that can be run to predict exit velocity based on the mass of a craft and the force exerted on it (and the distance those forces are exerted over). The thing is that actually re-designing the interface to allow players to see the predicted exit velocity is something that's a bit over my head from a coding perspective... I work with one modder (FreeThinker) who might have the expertise to do this. I'll try and ask him again if he might be interested in helping me refine this mod. Let's be very clear though- the length of the mass driver, the force exerted over each distance-segment, and the mass of the craft are the only variables you control in the equation. The exit-velocity of the craft is dependent on these: you can't get a higher or lower exit velocity without changing one or more of them while still respecting physics. Regards, Northstar

The data we're using already comes from atomic Rockets, no? So their predictions already include those adjustments for us, as well as the effects of Hydrogen Bonding- no need to change anything there. The following was supposed to be an edit of the previous post, but the KSP Forums were down last night... Not at all. The exhaust gasses ultimately formed are the only thing that matters, not the way the fuel is stored. The exhaust gasses are a 1:2 mixture of Nitrogen and Hydrogen. The gas-mixture is lighter than the the exhaust-gasses you get from Meth/LOX, but lighter than from ammonia. The ISP multiplier needs to be over 0.5 but less than 0.64- I'll calculate an exact value below... EDIT: See below- the correct initial ISP multiplier is 0.412 before applying the Thrust multiplier. That's optimistic for the Thrustmultiplier- but your starting ISP is too low in the first place... That's probably about right for the final effective ISP, but the Thrust/MW is going to be too high this way... I think it's just the toxicity issue- and the fact that people are afraid of the "nuclear" part of "Nuclear Thermal Hydrazine Rocket". The stability of Hydrazine isn't really much of an issue as long as you keep it cold and separated from the atmosphere- in fact it's much easier to store than Hydrogen... The people in the know are concerned about the toxicity (but know the radiation is not really as big a risk as it's made out to be), whereas the ignorant masses are extremely fearful of radioactivity but don't realize just how dangerous Hydrazine is... It's a bad combination of radiation and toxicity that makes people on both sides of the knowledge-barrier shy away from it as a fuel... The radiation wouldn't carry very far- and the radiation wouldn't be too bad for a nuclear reactor that had never operated before. However the Hydrazine would have me, excuse my language, ....ting my pants. That stuff is absorbed right through the skin- you don't even have to BREATHE it. Get a gram of the stuff on your skin, and you're dead within a day... Regards, Northstar - - - Updated - - - OK, so regarding Hydrazine's ISP before accounting for the energy released from the decay reaction... (13 GW for a 1 ton/second Thermal Rocket) Nitrogen has a base ISP multiplier of 0.3273 Hydrogen has a base ISP of 1.0 The mass-ratio of the propellants in the exhaust is 28.0134 : 4.03176 (approximately 7:1) So, you can get the mass-weighted base ISP as follows: [(.3273 * 28.0134) + 1 * 4.03176] / 32.04516 = 0.412 So, the base ISP multiplier should be 0.412 before you apply the Thrust multiplier (and with it an increase in effective ISP...) I'm glad I actually bothered to do out the numbers here, because while my approximations are usually correct in a general sense (i.e. 0.25 was far too low) they can often be off in relative values (i.e. it's NOT higher than 0.5) Now what about the Thrust multiplier? - - - Updated - - - OK, so I'm going to compare the relative amounts of energy you get from combusting Hydrogen and Oxygen at 3000 K vs. breaking down Hydrazine at that temperature, to give a better idea of the approximate range the Thrust multiplier should fall into... Enthalpies of Formation: Steam: -241.826 kJ/mol Hydrazine: -50.6 kJ/mol Entropies of Formation: Steam: 188.7 J/mol*K Hydrazine: -121.2 J/mol*K When it comes to performing the inverse reaction (breaking down Hydrazine) a NEGATIVE value is favorable for that inverse reaction, but for the formation-reactions (i.e. combustion of Hydro/LOX) a POSITIVE value is favorable. Anyways... Energy released at 3000 K: Hydrazine-breakdown: 50.6 kJ/mol + (121.2 J/mol*K * 3000 K) = 50.6 kJ/mol + 363600 J/mol = 50.6 kJ/mol + 363.6 kJ/mol = 414.2 kJ/mol (note that Hydrazine-breakdown requires reversing the signs of the entropy and enthalpy for formation, or taking the absolute value of the energy consumed during the formation reaction- which is technically what I did before...) Steam-formation: -241.826 kJ/mol + (188.7 J/mol*K * 3000 K) = 566100 J/mol - 241.826 kJ/mol = 566.1 kJ/mol - 241.826 kJ/mol = 324.274 kJ/mol (note that the Enthalpy of Formation actually REDUCES the energy released- made up for by the high Standard Molar Entropy...) So, the formation of steam only releases a bit over 3/4ths the energy of Hydrazine-breakdown on a per-mole basis: but it concentrates that energy into 56.25% of the mass, leading to a more energetic reaction on a per-kg basis... [(18 / 32) = 0.5625 --> 56.25%] However, the base ISP for Water is 47.14% that of Hydrogen alone, whereas the base ISP should only be 41.2% that of Hydrogen with Hydrazine, like we discussed before... This means that the same amount of energy into the same mass of propellant will add less to the Thrust produced than with Hydrazine... Taking ALL of this together, we get the following calculations for the Thrust multiplier... First, we find the relative energy released per kg of propellant for Hydro/LOX (the portion that reacts) compared to Hydrazine: (324.274 / 414.2) / 0.5625 = 1.3918 However, a realistic LOX-augmented NTR only reacts approximately half of its Hydrogen with Oxygen. This reduces the relative energy released per kg of propellants flowing through the NTR as follows: 1.3918 * (18/20) = 1.2526 This is as only approximately 90% of the fuel-mass flowing through a LOX-Augmented NTR in Hydro/LOX mode reacts. That is, if you pass 20 kg through in a second, 16 tons of it will be Oxygen that reacts, 2 tons will be Hydrogen that reacts, and 2 tons will be Hydrogen that remains unreacted... And then we find the relative increase in Thrust of Hydro/LOX vs. Hydrazine based on the base ISP and using the following equations: Power = 1/2 Thrust * Exhaust Velocity --> Thrust = 2 * Power / Exhaust Velocity 2 * 1.2526 / 0.4714 = 5.315 2 * 1 / 0.412 = 4.854 (note that the raw values above are completely meaningless, except as a relative standard of comparison) Thus, the Thrust multiplier for Hydrazine should be 91.34% (4.854 / 5.315 = 0.9134) that for Hydro/LOX, or 1.977 * 0.9134 = 1.806 The values for steam (gaseous H2[//sub]O) come from the following table, by the way: http://www.mrbigler.com/misc/energy-of-formation.PDF Conclusions: - The base ISP multiplier for Hydrazine in a Thermal Rocket should be 0.412 - The Thrust multiplier for Hydrazine in a Thermal Rocket should be 1.806 - The effective ISP of a Hydrazine Thermal Rocket is 74.4% (0.412 * 1.806 = 0.744) that of Hydrogen alone, at a significantly higher Thrust/MW... Regards, Northstar

Not at all. The exhaust gasses ultimately formed are the only thing that matters, not the way the fuel is stored. The exhaust gasses are a 1:2 mixture of Nitrogen and Hydrogen. The gas-mixture is lighter than the the exhaust-gasses you get from Meth/LOX, but lighter than from ammonia. The ISP multiplier needs to be over 0.5 but less than 0.64- I'll calculate an exact value below... EDIT: See below- the correct initial ISP multiplier is 0.412 before applying the Thrust multiplier. That's optimistic for the Thrustmultiplier- but your starting ISP is too low in the first place... That's probably about right for the final effective ISP, but the Thrust/MW is going to be too high this way... I think it's just the toxicity issue- and the fact that people are afraid of the "nuclear" part of "Nuclear Thermal Hydrazine Rocket". The stability of Hydrazine isn't really much of an issue as long as you keep it cold and separated from the atmosphere- in fact it's much easier to store than Hydrogen... The people in the know are concerned about the toxicity (but know the radiation is not really as big a risk as it's made out to be), whereas the ignorant masses are extremely fearful of radioactivity but don't realize just how dangerous Hydrazine is... It's a bad combination of radiation and toxicity that makes people on both sides of the knowledge-barrier shy away from it as a fuel... The radiation wouldn't carry very far- and the radiation wouldn't be too bad for a nuclear reactor that had never operated before. However the Hydrazine would have me, excuse my language, ....ting my pants. That stuff is absorbed right through the skin- you don't even have to BREATHE it. Get a gram of the stuff on your skin, and you're dead within a day... Regards, Northstar - - - Updated - - - OK, so regarding Hydrazine's ISP before accounting for the energy released from the decay reaction... (13 GW for a 1 ton/second Thermal Rocket) Nitrogen has a base ISP multiplier of 0.3273 Hydrogen has a base ISP of 1.0 The mass-ratio of the propellants in the exhaust is 28.0134 : 4.03176 (approximately 7:1) So, you can get the mass-weighted base ISP as follows: [(.3273 * 28.0134) + 1 * 4.03176] / 32.04516 = 0.412 So, the base ISP multiplier should be 0.412 before you apply the Thrust multiplier (and with it an increase in effective ISP...) I'm glad I actually bothered to do out the numbers here, because while my approximations are usually correct in a general sense (i.e. 0.25 was far too low) they can often be off in relative values (i.e. it's NOT higher than 0.5) Now what about the Thrust multiplier? - - - Updated - - - OK, so I'm going to compare the relative amounts of energy you get from combusting Hydrogen and Oxygen at 3000 K vs. breaking down Hydrazine at that temperature, to give a better idea of the approximate range the Thrust multiplier should fall into... Enthalpies of Formation: Steam: -241.826 kJ/mol Hydrazine: -50.6 kJ/mol Entropies of Formation: Steam: 188.7 J/mol*K Hydrazine: -121.2 J/mol*K When it comes to performing the inverse reactions ( The values for steam (gaseous H2[//sub]O) come from the following table: http://www.mrbigler.com/misc/energy-of-formation.PDF Regards, Northstar

I hope you don't mind my asking- which post did you describe this method in again? You saw my comment on the price of ArgonGas needing attention, right? Personally, it is one of the resources I am most concerned about- as it is the second most abundant resource after Carbon Dioxide on Duna/Mars (2% of the atmosphere by volume), and thus is one of the resources players are most likely to launch with a full tank of and then refuel in the field in practice... Regards, Northstar

OK, so a starting-point here is to figure out how many kN/s the Hydrazine-decay reaction would add to a 1 metric ton/second Thermal Rocket operating at 3000 K before you even consider the Thrust from the nuclear reactor... (this is a VERY high mass flow rate for a Thermal Rocket, by the way- equating to a volumetric fuel-flow rate through the turbopump of around 1000/1.021 = 979.432 liters/second given Hydrazine's density of 1.021 kg/liter at STP...) Before we begin, a reminder about units: 1 kiloNewton (kN) = 1000 kg*m/s2 1 kiloJoule (kJ) = 1000 kg*m2s2 1 kiloWatt (kW) = 1000 kg*m2s3 So, a kiloJoule equals a kiloWatt * second, and a kiloWatt equals a kiloNewton * m/s... (1 kJ = 1 kW*s, 1 kW = 1 kN*m/s) Anyways, you get 12.9255 MW/kg*s from the Hydrazine-decay reaction at 3000 K... This could lead to a variety of Thrust levels depending on the Exhaust Velocity in accordance with the following equation: Power = 1/2 Thrust * Exhaust Velocity At an Exhaust Velocity of 9806.65 m/s (1000 seconds ISP) you get 659.02 kN of extra Thrust with a 100% efficient 1000 kg/s Hydrazine Thermal Rocket... At an Exhaust Velocity of 6864.655 m/s (700 seconds ISP) you get 945.45 kN of extra Thrust with a 100% efficient 1000 kg/s Hydrazine Thermal Rocket... At an Exhaust Velocity of 4903.325 m/s (500 seconds ISP) you get 1318.03 kN of extra Thrust with a 100% efficient 1000 kg/s Hydrazine Thermal Rocket... Notice I made a point of saying this is with a 100% efficient Thermal Rocket. Real thermal rockets are likely to only be 70-80% efficient, so your ACTUAL thrust-gains are likely to be as follows (assuming 75% efficiency) 1000 seconds: 494.265 kN extra Thrust 700 seconds: 709.0875 kN extra Thrust 500 seconds: 988.5225 kN extra Thrust Now *those* numbers seem a little more reasonable... However what of the reactor-power required to get the Hydrazine to 3000 K in the first place? Well, here's where I'm going to leave the door open to you guys- could somebody actually find the Specific Heat Capacity of Hydrazine for me? I searched and searched and searched, but I couldn't find a good metric measurement of the specific heat capacity anywhere- just a couple measurements in imperial units (btu of heat?) that I wasn't very sure of the reliability of anyways... The basic principle from here is that 100% of the heat to reach 3000 Kelvin in the first place has to come from the nuclear reactor. This is made more complex by the fact that the Hydrazine starts as a liquid, then turns into a gas, and THEN dissociates into Nitrogen and Hydrogen gas... So, I will need both the liquid and vapor Specific Heat Capacity values for Hydrazine... Just a note, the energy required to heat a ton of Hydrazine to 3000 K should probably be quite a bit greater than the energy obtained from its decomposition. It is the relative value of the two that will tell us how much extra Thrust we get from the decomposition of Hydrazine, however... Regards, Northstar

OK, sometimes it pays to check your assumptions before you stick your foot in your mouth... The Gibbs Free Energy of Formation of Hydrazine is positive 149.2 kJ/mol at 289 K (15.85 C) and 1 atm, which means energy is actually released when it breaks down (I should have figured this from the performance of Hydrazine-based RCS thrusters, actually...) http://www2.ucdsb.on.ca/tiss/stretton/database/inorganic_thermo.htm The Enthalpy (50.6 kJ/mol) and Entropy (121.2 J/mol*K) are both positive as well, which means that the reaction is spontaneous under all reaction conditions (unlike, say, the formation of Ammonia- which has a negative Enthalpy but a positive Entropy- meaning that its formation will be spontaneous at low temperatures but its decay will be spontaneous at high temperatures, and that the decay of Ammonia is Endothermic and will actually somewhat reduce the exhaust temperature- albeit accompanied by a large increase in the exhaust-pressure that leads to an increase in the total usable exhaust-energy...) and as the increase in Entropy is due to an increase in the number of gas molecules will always increase both the temperature AND pressure of the exhaust stream... This means that Hydrazine will actually perform BETTER than a corresponding mixture of Hydrogen and Nitrogen- leading to a higher total Thrust for the same fuel-flow (and thus better ISP than a 2:1 mixture of Hydrogen and Nitrogen...) How much better? Well, Hydrazine has an Enthalpy of formation of 50.6 kJ/mol, and an Entropy of 121.2 J/mol*K, meaning that you will get a Gibbs Free Energy for Hydrazine-decay at 3000 K (in the operating-range of a typical fission Nuclear Thermal Rocket) of: -50.6 kJ/mol + (-121.2 J/mol*K * 3000 K) = -50.6 kJ/mol - 363600 J/mol = -50.6 kJ/mol - 363.6 kJ/mol = -414.2 kJ/mol Notice that this is quite a bit more energy than you got at 289 K, due to the positive Entropy of formation of Hydrazine... Hydrazine has a molar mass of 32.0452 g/mol, meaning you will get (414.2 kJ/mol) / 32.0452 g/mol = 12.9255 kJ/g or MW/kg from Hydrazine-decay at 3000 Kelvin... This means that an engine passing 1 metric ton of Hydrazine a second will gain almost 13 GW of extra exhaust energy just from the Hydrazine-decay reaction! More calculations will be needed to determine how much of an increase in Thrust/MW of reactor power and Thrust/kg of fuel this would actually represent for our Nuclear Thermal Rockets, with their current Thrust/MW and ISP's for other fuels... Regards, Northstar

Most of the Hydrazine would disintegrate, yes. The key word is "most". Hydrazine is so highly toxic that even the tiny amount that didn't get broken down by the reactor would be enough to make the launch site toxic to breathe near for days afterwards.. Of course, the Russians launch hypergolic rockets powered by only slightly less toxic Hydrazine-derivatives (MMH and/or UDMH plus NTO as an oxidizer) all the time, and they manage not to kill off too many people from the toxicity... So I guess it wouldn't be quite as much of a regulatory nightmare as I made it out to be... Still, you wouldn't catch me within a mile of that launch site without at least a respirator mask handy. Nuclear rockets don't make me nervous (most radiation-exposure from a launch accident would be short-lived before personnel evacuated and highly localized to the area)- Hydrazine rockets on the other hand, now THOSE make me nervous, and much more rightfully so with their cloud of highly toxic GAS that will form after a launch accident... (The flash point of Hydrazine is only 91 degrees Celsius, and it can explode at any temperature over 4.7 degrees Celsius- so any nuclear rocket accident is easily going to release a giant boiling cloud of Hydrazine-enriched Ammonia, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen- the last of which will combust with atmospheric Oxygen, making the accident even worse... The LC50 is just 747 mg/m3 in rats, meaning if you get exposed to less than a gram of the stuff you have a more than 50% chance of dying- and a Hydrazine Thermal Rocket would have several metric TONS of Hydrazine onboard at a bare minimum...) The ISP can be calculated from the final mixture of the exhaust-gasses (two-thirds Hydrogen and one-third Nitrogen) with an adjustment to the exhaust velocity from the energy consumed by the reaction to break down the Hydrazine. Essentially forget that you ever had Hydrazine present in the first place and just treat it as a slightly weaker Nitrogen + Hydrogen thermal rocket... (the main advantage of Hydrazine being that it's a much more efficient means of storing the same fuel mass of Nitrogen and Hydrogen in that ratio) Regards, Northstar

The mass drivers accelerate at a certain force. There is no way to have a known duration for the acceleration, because a lighter craft will pass through the mass-driver faster than a heavier craft at the same power-setting... The maximum force is based on the real life StarTram gen-1 designs. It equates to a force of about 30 g's on a 40 ton craft at maximum power. The actual maximum force value would be 11,767.98 kN/s if I went for 100% realism, so I already rounded down a little for simplicity... (and because it's always best to round conservatively in case a real life figure is over-optimistic) As a rule of thumb, for each g your craft is under it will accelerate at a bit less than 10 m/s each second. So, to figure out the approximate acceleration your craft will be under, divide the force on the craft by the mass of the craft and then again by 10 to get the approximate number of g's. The only way to figure out the duration of the acceleration is to get out a ruler (I suggest using a ProceduralParts tank as one) and measure the exact height of your mass driver stack, and then punch some numbers based on the mass of the craft and the power-setting on the mass driver. I can't abandon real-life physics (or KSP physics, for that matter) of how a body acts under acceleration in order to get a consistent duration of acceleration- and tying the power level to the mass of the craft would prevent players from having any control over the final exit-velocity of the craft or rate of acceleration (unmanned craft can put up with a lot more g's than manned craft with Deadly ReEntry installed- which will kill crew if g-forces become excessive, for instance...) by tweaking the power-level. Regards, Northstar

Wait, add one more important resource-cost to the list that's way off... ArgonGas. (the costs of Neon and Krypton are also way off- but these aren't used yet...) Argon currently sells for $5000/ton ($0.5/ 100 grams pure) in its gaseous form: http://www.chemicool.com/elements/argon.html Right now, we have it priced at 0.85 Funds/unit in the CRP working document ($477.5 million 1965 US dollars/ton at 561798 units/ton!) An accurate price would be $5000 2015 dollars per ton ($673.92 1965 USD/ton), which equates to 0.00000120227 Funds/unit in KSP (at 560538 units/ton). ArgonGas is a resource currently curated by NearFuture, but shared by KSP-Interstellar. @Nertea Is there any way we can get this cost fixed? Regards, Northstar

Also, my internet was down for a couple days, and I was very busy before that, but the KSP-I resource costs look good with two major exceptions. Lithium and LqdAmmonia costs are currently off. As I understand it, currently 1 Fund = $1000 1965 dollars? Currently, Lithium trades for $5000-7000 per ton (no clarification if those were metric or imperial tons either...) The prices are going up, but not THAT sharply that it should cost $224.8 million per metric ton... (the current CRP cost- at 120 Funds/unit and 1872.7 units/ton) Using this inflation calculator, $6K/ton in 2014 dollars (when that price was listed) equates to about $800/ton in 1965 dollars, or about 0.8 Funds/ton in KSP- which equates to 0.0004272 Funds/unit. Ammonia is even cheaper- current prices in Central Illinois (where I reside- actually this report comes from where I went to grad school) are $717 per ton of Anhydrous Ammonia (the form of Ammonia we want the price of here). It can be assumed it would be similarly cheap anywhere there was a large demand for it (like for a space program using it for Thermal Rocket launch-stages) due to economies of scale... Currently in CRP, LqdAmmonia is priced at $600 per liter in 1965 dollars (0.6 Funds/unit)- which equates to $4451/liter and $6.34 million/ton in 2015 dollars! A correct price would be about $100/ton in 1965 dollars ($717/ton in 2015 dollars --> $96.64/ton in 1965 dollars). So, 0.09664 Funds/ton- or 0.00006785 Funds/unit in KSP. For reference, LqdNitrogen is currently priced at 0.000824 Funds/unit. Corrections to both these prices are sorely needed, as both are currently off by more than 4 orders of magnitude... KSP-I Extended generally aims for realistic pricing, and it shares LqdAmmonia with RealFuels, which is even more focused on having realistic pricing. EDIT: Math-fail: fixed the numbers... Regards, Northstar

You *COULD* use Hydrazine (monopropellant) in a thermal rocket- but it's EXTREMELY toxic (much worse than a little radioactivity!), so its use in this capacity would have to be altogether banned within the atmosphere- is there even a way to implement this is KSP? Also, the list of resource-abundances I posted before seems to be mostly correct- except for the abundances given for Jool/Jupiter... See the following post for an updated table of elemental abundances for Jupiter: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91998-0-90-Community-Resource-Pack-0-3-3-2015-01-27?p=1799834&viewfull=1#post1799834 I still need to figure out what kind of Ammonia and Methane abundances that corresponds to, but the other resources found on Jool/Jupiter (noble gasses, Nitrogen, etc.) should be relatively intuitive from that... Most of the resources should be considerably less abundant for Jool than in the first list I posted, but LqdHelium/Helium-4 (and by connection Helium-3, which remains in the same ratio to Helium-4) gets a substantial increase of about 2% total volume abundance (from 13.6 to 15.7%) Will post an updated/corrected list soon... Regards, Northstar

If we assume that the ratios are indeed relative to the Sun, we got the follow abundances as a first pass: [B]Elemental[/B] volume-abundance by percent He/H 15.7% Ne/H 0.00246% Ar/H 0.00181% Kr/H 8.694 E -7 % Xe/H 8.736 E -8 % C/H 0.105% N/H 0.04% (8 barr) O/H 0.049% (19 barr, upper limit) P/H 3.06 E -5 % S/H 0.004% This is only a first pass. It doesn't account for Hydrogen-compounds containing more than two Hydrogen atoms, such as Ammonia, Methane, etc. Nor that Hydrogen does not comprise 100% of Jupiter or the Sun... Note that all the values are obtained by multiplying the values in the first and second columns, and then multiplying by 2 for all noble gasses (since Hydrogen is a diatomic molecule, and all noble gasses are monoatomic). Once again, the ratios given were not mass ratios, they were raw elemental abundances, and they were not percentages- they were raw ratios (so a value of 0.5 is 50%, for instance) so the table you posted is not at all accurate. Regards, Northstar

The abundance ratios were already relative to Hydrogen- just look at the leftmost column of the table. They're a little off as I use them because Hydrogen doesn't comprise 100% of Jupiter (or the Sun's) mass and some of it is tied up in Hydrogen-compounds like Ammonia and Hydrogen Sulfide, but molecular Hydrogen does comprise the vast majority of Jupiter's atmosphere so they're not THAT far off... They're not mass-ratios, they're elemental abundance ratios. Literally the ratios of the number of atoms of each. Argon actually remains almost entirely uncreacted as monoatomic gas, so its abundance by volume should actually be much higher than in that table. Once again, remember this is based on a pretty wide range of altitudes though. Jupiter actually has a significant amount of water, for instance, but almost none of it reaches the upper atmosphere thanks to the tropopause on Jupiter... Tthe atmosphere of Jupiter varies greatly by altitude. Some of these ratios come from atmospheric pressures as high as 19 barr (19 times Earth sea level!), one of the ratios for Oxygen for instance, whereas many sources arbitrarily define Jupiter's atmosphere as starting at 1 atm of pressure... Argon is likely much more abundant lower in Jupiter's atmosphere rather than higher up... Regards, Northstar

@e-dog OK, so here I present the revised tech-limits: PROCFAIRINGS_MINDIAMETER { start = 1 precisionEngineering = 0.4 sandbox = 0.1 } PROCFAIRINGS_MAXDIAMETER { start = 1.5 aerodynamicSystems = 4 heavyAerodynamics = 12 experimentalAerodynamics = 30 sandbox = 50 } PROCROCKET_MINDIAMETER { start = 1 precisionEngineering = 0.4 sandbox = 0.1 } PROCROCKET_MAXDIAMETER { start = 1.5 advConstruction = 4 veryHeavyRocketry = 12 experimentalRocketry = 30 sandbox = 50 } //----------------------------------------------------------------------- // Dummy parts to represent Procedural Fairings upgrades in the tech tree PART { name = pf_tech_fairing04m TechRequired = precisionEngineering description = Allows fairings and plates to be made as small as 0.4m. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/baseModel } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar1989 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } PART { name = pf_tech_fairing4m TechRequired = aerodynamicSystems description = Allows fairing bases up to 4m size. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/baseModel } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar1989 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } PART { name = pf_tech_fairing12m TechRequired = heavyAerodynamics description = Allows fairing bases up to 12m size. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/baseModel } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar1989 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } PART { name = pf_tech_fairing30m TechRequired = experimentalAerodynamics description = Allows fairing bases up to 30m size. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/baseModel } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar189 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } PART { name = pf_tech_rocket4m TechRequired = advConstruction description = Allows thrust plates up to 4m size. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/thrustPlate } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar1989 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } PART { name = pf_tech_rocket12m TechRequired = veryHeavyRocketry description = Allows thrust plates up to 12m size. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/thrustPlate } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar1989 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } PART { name = pf_tech_rocket30m TechRequired = experimentalRocketry description = Allows thrust plates up to 30m size. MODEL { model = ProceduralFairings/thrustPlate } title = Procedural Fairings Upgrade module = Part author = Starstrider42 (config), Northstar1989 (config), e-dog (model) entryCost = 0 cost = 0 category = none manufacturer = Keramzit Engineering } Changelog: - Implemented new, less restrictive size-restrictions for fairings and thrust-plates. + Thrust plates and fairings up to 4 meters (rather than 3 meters) in diameter are now available before the end of the (stock) tech-tree. + Minimum size of fairings and thrust-plates with Precision Engineering reduced from 0.5 meters to 0.4 meters (if players can find a way to build a probe small enough to fit into a 400 cm fairing in stock, they should be able to build the fairing! Also, such small probes are easily possible with Procedural Parts + Tweakscale, and in real life...) + At the end of the stock tech tree, players can build fairings and thrust-plates up to 12 meters in diameter (only going to really be used with Procedural Parts, but why not?! This is the tech-level of Space Launch System, and exceeds Saturn V by several generations- and Saturn V was 10 meters!) + With Experimental Rocketry and Experimental Aerodynamics, players can build rockets up to 30 meters in diameter (previously 10 meters at this tech-level, and 50 in Sandbox- so was already only going to be used by players with Procedural Parts installed... Allows replicas of some of the extremely large rockets proposed in real life like Sea Dragon- experimental but undoubtedly feasible concepts that were never built- quite fitting for the name of the tech nodes...) - Added new dummy-part for Thrust Plate upgrade at Advanced Construction (upgrade was already coded, but had no dummy-part) - Re-named all dummy-parts to reflect new size-restrictions (so fairing dummy-part at Aerodynamics is now called "4 meter fairings" instead of "3 meter fairings") - Added my own name to the authors-list for the dummy-parts Regards, Northstar

So it seems to be the case... I actually had to go and download (but not install) KW Rocketry just to check this fact... I had forgotten just how overly-restrictive KW Rocketry is sometimes, and how it tends to force a certain play-style on you... (unlike NovaPunch2, which tends to provide a lot more flexibility- especially if you go and install RealFuels and an engine-config for it so that each engine has multiple possible fuel-modes...) We're not talking about using KW (or Novapunch2 for that matter) fairings. They're a lot less convenient, and can't do a lot of things as easily as Procedural Fairings can, like interstages (which is where the current diameter-limits become particularly annoying- I'm usually not trying to lift a 3.75 meter payload to orbit, I'm trying to encompass a 3.75 meter engine inside an interstage fairing at the tech-level of Heavier Rocketry!) And at the tech-level that Procedural Fairings allows 6 meter fairings, not only has NovaPunch2 given players 5 meter engines, Procedural Parts has already lifted all restrictions on rocket-sizes (at Meta-Materials) and they're being used to try and encompass 10 and 12 meter diameter interstages! (using the radial attachment ports or Cubic Octagonal Struts for makeshift clusters of 3.75 and 5 meter engines...) I have no idea what you're saying here, and I don't see why you would use KW Rocektry fairings at all when you have Procedural Fairings installed. Delete the fairings folders from KW Rocketry and save your poor computer some RAM when running KSP! The point of the change to the tech-limits is to not unduly penalize players who use NovaPunch2 and decide to delete the NovaPunch2 fairings and play with Procedural Fairings instead... Or, alternatively, you can play with Procedural Parts and build a mighty engine-cluster 3.75 meters in diameter under a 4 meter Procedural Parts fuel tank using old tricks to rocket construction like Cubic Octagonal Strut thrust-plates at this tech-level... (which become feasible with Composites- which is a 300 Science node...) Besides, this is Kerbal! It seems you're not familiar with the motto "Build it Bigger!" It's what they did in real life up through at least 1970 (Saturn V wasn't even the largest rocket designed, Sea Dragon would have been 23 meters in diameter!) and what we're going back to again with the Space Launch System! (albeit this time with a Hydro/LOX SRB-assisted launch stage, instead of a big Kero/LOX one like with Saturn V...) In the end, though, it boils down to this- having less restrictive limits of what you can do in Career Mode doesn't force you to do anything. Having limits which forbid certain (might I add more realistic- KSP rockets are far too small for their tech-level compared to real life...) gameplay options does, on the other hand... Speaking of which, surely you must agree that, if nothing else, the final tech-limits in Career Mode when you've unlocked the entire tech tree are too restrictive in the current version of Procedural Parts... It restricts you to 10 meter rockets as a maximum size! With limits like that, how are you ever supposed to build an in-game analog of Sea Dragon (23 meters) or the Mars Colonial Transport Vehicle (15 meter) designs?! That's basically taking the unrealistic and hard-to-stomach standpoint that what was accomplished historically is the best that we could have or ever will hope to accomplish, and the most that was feasible with past technology or is possible even today- which simply isn't true. Which is why I'm glad e-dog has given me his blessing (by PM) to write up a new tech-limits file, although he warned me (quite accurately as it appears) that I would have to put up with everyone's complaints about the new tech-limits, rather than it being his fault any longer... Regards, Northstar

"Gesundheit" is a word that means "Good Health". Hence the "Gesundheit Institute" founded by the real life Patch Adams (an extremely lovely man who I've have the opportunity to actually meet... Unusually for a doctor, he likes to give people hugs, but otherwise he's nothing like the Disney-fied version played by Robin Williams- I mean he wears a polka-dot CLOWN SUIT everywhere he goes... OK, maybes he's a *bit* like the Disney-fied version played by Robin Williams... ) Regards, Northstar

Indeed. In my rush to get to the resources that actually currently have some use in KSP-I (Plutonium is a resource not yet actually used by any part in KSP-Interstellar) it seems I did not do this resource justice with my research (the entire list has taken me over 5 hours to compile by this point, so you can't blame me for making a few errors in the research here and there... I basically skimmed over the fissile fuels to get to the other stuff...) Regards, Northstar - - - Updated - - - Awesome! Glad to have your support! Note that I went back and edited in an entry for Water (along with all its known locations- aside from asteroids, which I don't touch on at all as KSP-I has never previously had an asteroid-mining feature...), and the bits about Nitrogen and Methane-ice on Eeloo/Pluto since you quoted my message... Now, I'll just have to go back and brush up on my research on nuclear fuels a little more... What parts need correction besides the Plu-238 bit and the replacing of UF4 bits I messed up before? I assume you still want to keep ThF4 since it's a unique fuel to KSP-Interstellar and has both different performance-characteristics and abundances than Uranium? Regards, Northstar

That seems over-reactive, even for humans. Certainly for Kerbals! The fact is, the atmosphere of a planet is so BIG that the loss of a single rocket's nuclear reactor in the upper atmosphere isn't going to make a significant difference to ordinary citizens' radiation-exposure levels... Much less than that of all the nuclear weapons surface-testing that occurred on Earth in real life to be sure. I mean, come on, they were going to build Project Orion at one point, and that was basically just a pogo-stick that rode a series of nuclear detonations to orbit! (for VERY high ISP and immense payload-capacity I might add, far beyond even the Thermal Rockets in this mod...) Anyways, keep an eye out for my next post (probably just an update when you see it)- I'm going to be re-posting a list of resources found in CRP that should be harvestable in KSP-Interstellar Extended, as well as where and their relative abundances, that I drew up for RoverDude because he was asking you for it (and given that it took me over 4 hours to do the research for this list, I *really* don't think you would have wanted to draw this up yourself, with all the code you're probably still dying to write up... Of course, this kind of thing, hitting the books and doing research, making hard decisions about how to represent something where it is ambiguous, is what I'm best at...) Regards, Northstar - - - Updated - - - The following CRP resources should be harvestable in KSP-Interstellar Extended. I have provided some abundance-data for reference, based on the Sol system- they should be useful for determining actual harvest-rates with ORS (which allows us to code in atmospheric abundances as fractions/percentages...), but I have no idea how useful they will actually be for ReoverDude if he decides to attempt to draw up extraction-code for some of these using Regolith like he seemed to want to do... UF4 (In randomly-distributed Uranium deposits. At least I *think* the deposits are random. Some planets/moons have more Uranium than others, but Eve/Kerbin/Duna should all have similar ratios of Uranium and Thorium, like Venus/Earth/Mars.) ThF4 (In randomly-distributed Thorium deposits. Thorium tends to be much more common overall than Uranium, at least in real life and KSP-I...) Plutonium-238 (In randomly-distributed deposits. Should be considerably more rare than Uranium...) Fluorine/LqdFluorine (Should be present at 0.004 ppm in atmosphere of Eve, like HF is on Venus. Rich in Eve's oceans, at least 5-10% abundance, because there are no oceans on Venus and we need more fluorine-sources... Will be used for ISRU production of UF4 and ThF4 in future releases of KSP-I Extended.) NeonGas (Should be present at 0.1946% the abundance of Argon on Duna/Kerbin, like on Mars/Earth. So 18.18 ppm in the atmosphere on Kerbin/Earth, 40 ppm on Duna. There should also be trace levels of Neon in the Munar/Ike regolith due to solar wind. 7 ppm on Eve/Venus. Should not be found on Laythe if it is like Titan. Based on the composition of Jupiter's upper atmosphere, .10% of the atmosphere in the accessible layers of Jool...) ArgonGas (2% of the atmosphere of Duna, 0.934% of the atmosphere of Kerbin. 0.00435% of the atmosphere of Laythe- assuming its atmosphere is like Titan's. 2.5% of the atmosphere of Jool, based on the composition of Jupiter. 70 ppm on Eve/Venus.) KryptonGas (1.14 ppm on Kerbin, like on Earth according to multiple sources. Present on Mars at same relative abundance compared to other noble gasses- so 2.14 ppm on Duna due to relatively higher noble-gas content on Mars/Duna. Based on Jupiter's atmospheric-composition, 2.7% of the atmosphere on Jool) LqdHelium (Represents Helium-4 rather than Helium-3. 5.24 ppm in the atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth according to multiple sources. 1.1 ppm on Duna, like on Mars. 12 ppm on Eve/Venus. 13.6% of the *accessible* layers on Jool/Jupiter, though abundance in the lower layers is much lower... Present at up to 28 ppm in the soil/regolith of the Mun wherever Helium-3 is found, at the same relative concentration to other Helium-4/Helium-3 co-deposits... Ike has no real-life analog, so place it at up to 45 ppm in Ike soil/regolith, once again in co-deposits at a constant ratio to the Helium-3 concentration...) Helium-3 (Can be bred from Tritium, but can also be mined on the Mun/Moon- at 50 parts per billion content in the most concentrated patches of regolith, so a *VERY* slow rate of surface-mining... Similar for Ike, which is basically a lot like a copy of our Moon around Duna, and has no real-life analog- but let's make it 80 ppb to make it a bit more rewarding... Present in 1:10000 ratio to Helium-4 in atmosphere of Jupiter, so at 13.6 parts per *million* total concentration in Jool's atmosphere... Would be much richer still in Saturn and Neptune-analogs, if either are ever added to KSP...) LqdHydrogen (0.55 ppm on Kerbin/Earth- but should be much higher at upper edge of atmosphere. 86.4% of the atmosphere on Jool/Jupiter. 2,000 ppm on Laythe/Titan. LqdNitrogen (Nitrogen comprises 78.084% of the atmosphere on Kerbin/Earth. 1.9% on Duna/Mars. 3.5% on Eve/Venus. 77.4% on Laythe- to allow a fraction for Oxygen, which is obviously not present on Titan- which is 98.4% Nitrogen... 0.6% of the atmosphere on Jool/Jupiter after accounting for 3% in form of Ammonia...) LqdCO2 (0.04% of the atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth. 95.9% on Duna/Mars. 96.5% on Eve/Venus. 0.1% on Laythe to give a Kerbin-like mix, but higher due to high coincidence of both Oxygen and Methane...) LqdMethane (0.000179% of the atmosphere on Kerbin/Earth. 4.9% in Laythe/Titan lower atmosphere, but 1.4% in the upper atmosphere. .009% of the atmosphere on Jool/Jupiter.) LqdAmmonia (Found as substantial ice-clouds on Jupiter as has too high a freezing-point to be present as a liquid or gas- but could simulate as 3% effective atmospheric abundance, comprising the vast majority of Jool/Jupiter's 3.6% Nitrogen elemental mass-fraction in the upper layers of its atmosphere. Richly present as Ammonia-ice and Ammonia-hydrates in soil of Titan, Ammonia-hydrates possibly comprising as much as 50% of entire planetary solid mass, with Ammonia comprising up to 8% of that mass, so should be richly present in oceans of Laythe at abundance of 5-8% by mass. Similarly, should be found as main component of oceans on Eve- as is most likely molecule to be found in liquid form at such high temperatures and pressures, so 70-80% total abundance in Eve's oceans.) LqdOxygen (20.946% of atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth. 0.14% of atmosphere of Duna/Mars. 20% atmospheric composition on Laythe to reflect KSP facts, even though not present on Titan. Indirectly produced from Alumina in Mun/Ike regolith, but not directly extracted.) Alumina (present in patches on Mun and Ike- where can be extracted and converted into Aluminum+LqdOxygen by a separate reaction...) Lithium (can be extracted from oceans of Eve, Kerbin, and Laythe at low abundance of about 0.18 mg/L based on abundance in Earth's oceans. Should be present as mineable patches on Kerbin- like on Earth- where it can be used for in-field refueling. Present on Mars, but unknown if mineable deposits are present- so let's add a small number of mineable deposits at random locations on Duna... Useful in both bulk amounts that can be obtained through surface-mining for propulsion, and trace amounts easily obtained from seawater for breeding Tritium...) Deuterium (Should be present at a 1 in 6400 ratio of the Hydrogen-mass of Kerbin's oceans- the equivalent of a 17.36 ppm concentration of a resource if it were found in isolation rather than as part of Heavy Water. I suggest a 18 ppm concentration in Laythe's oceans, and a 23 ppm concentration in Eve's oceans, to reflect high Ammonia-concentrations in these obviously-fictional oceans, and that Ammonia actually has a higher hydrogen-fraction than Water, and Deuterium can form NDH2 as well as HDO...) I hope all this was of help. I told RoverDude you would probably approve of my list and suggested abundances, so it would be great if you made sure to swing by the CRP thread to leave a comment on it... Also, feel free to point out any resources that I might have missed, additional locations that they might be extracted at, or corrections you feel are necessary to the resource-abundances (which were kind of a rush-job as due to the shear number of resources on the list I could not afford to spend long making sure each abundance was 100% accurate to real life- although I did my best to base my numbers on the real-world data as best I could understand it in a hurry...) EDIT: Already realized one I forgot! Water! It should be present on Kerbin (obviously) in both the atmosphere and oceans (which can be assumed to be effectively 100% water), on Duna (in mineable deposits in the soil), in craters near the poles of the Mun and possibly Ike (which is more similar to the Moon/Mun than any real celestial body), as approximately 30% of the volume of Eve's oceans and 92% of the volume of Laythe's oceans (the rest being Ammonia for both Eve and Laythe), pretty much everywhere on the surface of Vall- which is an iceball moon, and near the poles of Moho (yes, you read that right- Moho! In real life Mercury has confirmed ice-deposits in permanently-shaded parts of its poles much like the Moon...) Finally, Minmus is assumed to be composed of some sort of water-ice mixed with salt or dirt in KSP-Interstellar: and in current versions of KSP-Interstellar the entire flats are assumed to be basically frozen lakebeds with low concentrations of Water that can be harvested from them... EDIT #2: I also forgot completely about Eeloo and Dres when making this list- sad, sad little rocky planets... Or not so sad, actually! Eeloo, as a Pluto-analog, should be pretty much MADE out of ice. And not just water-ice either. Also nitrogen-ice and methane-ice, due to the EXTREMELY cold temperatures. Which means, there should be mineable surface-deposits of Water, LqdNitrogen, AND LqdMethane pretty much everywhere on Eeloo. As for Dres, it's a Ceres-analog, and we don't know much about Ceres yet, but we do know it's a rocky-iceball. That is, it contains more rock than ice, but it does contain substantial amounts of water-ice, which is of course another source of WATER! Regards, Northstar

He asked me to double-check the costs and densities one last time for him before he ratifies. I am currently in the process of doing that... Ummm, no it wasn't? For ISRU reasons (specifically, that UF4 is made with Fluorine, whereas EnrichedUranium is just plain old Uranium) didn't we decide to leave it as it was? What chemical formula and isotope-mix does that represent again? How does it differ from UF4 and Uranium Nitride? I can answer that one for you (FreeThinker can correct me if I missed one, of course). I take it you're drawing up Regolith configs for every CRP resource used by KSP-I that is harvestable? The following CRP resources should be harvestable in KSP-Interstellar Extended. I have provided some abundance-data for reference, based on the Sol system- no idea if this will be useful for determining actual harvest-rates with Regolith like it is with ORS... (which allows us to code in atmospheric abundances as fractions...) UF4 (In randomly-distributed Uranium deposits. At least I *think* the deposits are random. Some planets/moons have more Uranium than others, but Eve/Kerbin/Duna should all have similar ratios of Uranium and Thorium, like Venus/Earth/Mars, and in KSP-I we assume that pretty much all the planets/moons have at least SOME Uranium and Thorium, although the concentrations and number of deposits may vary...) ThF4 (In randomly-distributed Thorium deposits. Thorium tends to be much more common overall than Uranium, at least in real life and KSP-I... Should be more abundant that Uranium through the solar system in KSP-I...) Plutonium-238 (In randomly-distributed deposits. Should be considerably more rare than Uranium, but once again probably found on all planets/moons, even if there is only a single mineable deposit with a low concentration on a given planet/moon...) Fluorine/LqdFluorine (Should be present at 0.004 ppm in atmosphere of Eve, like HF is on Venus. Rich in Eve's oceans, at least 5-10% abundance, because there are no oceans on Venus and we need more fluorine-sources... Will be used for ISRU production of UF4 and ThF4 in future releases of KSP-I Extended.) NeonGas (Should be present at 0.1946% the abundance of Argon on Duna/Kerbin, like on Mars/Earth. So 18.18 ppm in the atmosphere on Kerbin/Earth, 40 ppm on Duna. There should also be trace levels of Neon in the Munar/Ike regolith due to solar wind. 7 ppm on Eve/Venus. Should not be found on Laythe if it is like Titan. Based on the composition of Jupiter's upper atmosphere, .10% of the atmosphere in the accessible layers of Jool...) ArgonGas (2% of the atmosphere of Duna, 0.934% of the atmosphere of Kerbin. 0.00435% of the atmosphere of Laythe- assuming its atmosphere is like Titan's. 2.5% of the atmosphere of Jool, based on the composition of Jupiter. 70 ppm on Eve/Venus.) KryptonGas (1.14 ppm on Kerbin, like on Earth according to multiple sources. Present on Mars at same relative abundance compared to other noble gasses- so 2.14 ppm on Duna due to relatively higher noble-gas content on Mars/Duna. Based on Jupiter's atmospheric-composition, 2.7% of the atmosphere on Jool) LqdHelium (Represents Helium-4 rather than Helium-3. 5.24 ppm in the atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth according to multiple sources. 1.1 ppm on Duna, like on Mars. 12 ppm on Eve/Venus. 13.6% of the *accessible* layers on Jool/Jupiter, though abundance in the lower layers is much lower... Present at up to 28 ppm in the soil/regolith of the Mun wherever Helium-3 is found, at the same relative concentration to other Helium-4/Helium-3 co-deposits... Ike has no real-life analog, so place it at up to 45 ppm in Ike soil/regolith, once again in co-deposits at a constant ratio to the Helium-3 concentration...) Helium-3 (Can be bred from Tritium, but can also be mined on the Mun/Moon- at 50 parts per billion content in the most concentrated patches of regolith, so a *VERY* slow rate of surface-mining... Similar for Ike, which is basically a lot like a copy of our Moon around Duna, and has no real-life analog- but let's make it 80 ppb to make it a bit more rewarding... Present in 1:10000 ratio to Helium-4 in atmosphere of Jupiter, so at 13.6 parts per *million* total concentration in Jool's atmosphere... Would be much richer still in Saturn and Neptune-analogs, if either are ever added to KSP...) LqdHydrogen (0.55 ppm on Kerbin/Earth- but should be much higher at upper edge of atmosphere. 86.4% of the atmosphere on Jool/Jupiter. 2,000 ppm on Laythe/Titan. LqdNitrogen (Nitrogen comprises 78.084% of the atmosphere on Kerbin/Earth. 1.9% on Duna/Mars. 3.5% on Eve/Venus. 77.4% on Laythe- to allow a fraction for Oxygen, which is obviously not present on Titan- which is 98.4% Nitrogen... 0.6% of the atmosphere on Jool/Jupiter after accounting for 3% in form of Ammonia... Eeloo is exceptional in that its real-life analog, Pluto, is cold enough to host deposits of Nitrogen-ice which should be a mineable ISRU resource as well.) LqdCO2 (0.04% of the atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth. 95.9% on Duna/Mars. 96.5% on Eve/Venus. 0.1% on Laythe to give a Kerbin-like mix, but higher due to high coincidence of both Oxygen and Methane...) LqdMethane (0.000179% of the atmosphere on Kerbin/Earth. 4.9% in Laythe/Titan lower atmosphere, but 1.4% in the upper atmosphere. .009% of the atmosphere on Jool/Jupiter. Should be found as solid deposits in the soil of Eeloo, much like Pluto's Methane-ice.) LqdAmmonia (Found as substantial ice-clouds on Jupiter as has too high a freezing-point to be present as a liquid or gas- but could simulate as 3% effective atmospheric abundance, comprising the vast majority of Jool/Jupiter's 3.6% Nitrogen elemental mass-fraction in the upper layers of its atmosphere. Richly present as Ammonia-ice and Ammonia-hydrates in soil of Titan, Ammonia-hydrates possibly comprising as much as 50% of entire planetary solid mass, with Ammonia comprising up to 8% of that mass, so should be richly present in oceans of Laythe at abundance of 5-8% by mass. Similarly, should be found as main component of oceans on Eve- as is most likely molecule to be found in liquid form at such high temperatures and pressures, so 70-80% total abundance in Eve's oceans.) LqdOxygen (20.946% of atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth. 0.14% of atmosphere of Duna/Mars. 20% atmospheric composition on Laythe to reflect KSP facts, even though not present on Titan. Indirectly produced from Alumina in Mun/Ike regolith, but not directly extracted.) Alumina (present in patches on Mun and Ike- where can be extracted and converted into Aluminum+LqdOxygen by a separate reaction...) Lithium (can be extracted from oceans of Eve, Kerbin, and Laythe at low abundance of about 0.18 mg/L based on abundance in Earth's oceans. Should be present as mineable patches on Kerbin- like on Earth- where it can be used for in-field refueling. Present on Mars, but unknown if mineable deposits are present- so let's add a small number of mineable deposits at random locations on Duna... Useful in both bulk amounts that can be obtained through surface-mining for propulsion, and trace amounts easily obtained from seawater for breeding Tritium...) Deuterium (Should be present at a 1 in 6400 ratio of the Hydrogen-mass of Kerbin's oceans- the equivalent of a 17.36 ppm concentration of a resource if it were found in isolation rather than as part of Heavy Water. I suggest a 18 ppm concentration in Laythe's oceans, and a 23 ppm concentration in Eve's oceans, to reflect high Ammonia-concentrations in these obviously-fictional oceans, and that Ammonia actually has a higher hydrogen-fraction than Water, and Deuterium can form NDH2 as well as HDO...) Water (Assumed to comprise 100% of Kerbin's oceans, 30% of Eve's oceans, and 92% of Laythe's oceans- the rest being Ammonia. Should be present in the atmosphere of Kerbin/Earth at 0.25% abundance by mass, in the atmosphere of Jool/Jupiter at unknown concentrations- very low in the upper atmosphere but rapidly increasing with depth, and in the atmosphere of Laythe- which we can balance at 0.20% to make it relatively Kerbin-like... Water is also present as ICE in shaded crates near the poles of Moho/Mercury, the Mun/Moon, and probably Ike as well- which has no real analogs but has a topography most similar to the Moon. It also should unquestionably be present over the entire surface of Vall- which KSP-I assumes to be an iceball moon much like Europa, and in extremely common deposits on Eeloo and Dres covering perhaps half to a third of their surface- as their closest real life analogs Pluto and Ceres are both thought to be rocky iceballs comprised of 30-70% water-ice by mass...) I hope all this was of help. I am sure FreeThinker will be more than happy to verify my list and my suggested abundances if you have any doubts about my qualifications to draw up this list for him (I am one of the co-developers on KSP-I Extended, but FreeThinker is the lead developer...) and I will make sure he know to swing by here to leave a comment on it. EDIT: Already realized one I forgot! Water! It should be present on Kerbin (obviously) in both the atmosphere and oceans (which can be assumed to be effectively 100% water), on Duna (in mineable deposits in the soil), in craters near the poles of the Mun and possibly Ike (which is more similar to the Moon/Mun than any real celestial body), as approximately 30% of the volume of Eve's oceans and 92% of the volume of Laythe's oceans (the rest being Ammonia for both Eve and Laythe), pretty much everywhere on the surface of Vall- which is an iceball moon, and near the poles of Moho (yes, you read that right- Moho! In real life Mercury has confirmed ice-deposits in permanently-shaded parts of its poles much like the Moon...) Finally, Minmus is assumed to be composed of some sort of water-ice mixed with salt or dirt in KSP-Interstellar: and in current versions of KSP-Interstellar the entire flats are assumed to be basically frozen lakebeds with low concentrations of Water that can be harvested from them... I also forgot completely about Eeloo and Dres when making this list- sad, sad little rocky planets... Or not so sad, actually! Eeloo, as a Pluto-analog, should be pretty much MADE out of ice. And not just water-ice either. Also nitrogen-ice and methane-ice, due to the EXTREMELY cold temperatures. Which means, there should be mineable surface-deposits of Water, LqdNitrogen, AND LqdMethane pretty much everywhere on Eeloo. As for Dres, it's a Ceres-analog, and we don't know much about Ceres yet, but we do know it's a rocky-iceball with likely more water than all of Earth. That is, it contains more rock than ice, but it does contain substantial amounts of water-ice (which in fact is thought to permeate all the way through the core), which is of course another source of WATER! EDIT #2: Fission fuels! I probably ought to provide a bit more data on how abundant other planets should be besides Eve/Kerbin/Duna. For the meantime, I would assume that it is pretty much equally common on the other bodies until I can get more accurate data. I do know that it is much easier to get at on planetoids that never fully differentiated/stratified, for instance, than it is on Venus/Earth/Mars, and that planets/moons with no tectonic activity (currently pretty much everywhere besides Kerbin, possibly Moho- from solar tidal effects, and maybe Laythe, Vall, or Tylo from tidal-effects with Jool) are much harder to mine for fissiles than those that have it... Also, I would assume that certain planetary systems were endowed with more fissile materials than others- although all ended up with at least SOME... Regards, Northstar

You may have a point... I didn't think of that when I suggested using LOX to clear the soot-deposits... We wouldn't want to dissolve the fuel-rods and exhaust them out (potentially into Kerbin orbit or the atmosphere) now, would we? Regards, Northstar

@e-dog Hi, It's a great mod you've got here- and has been a must-have (along with FAR, RealFuels, DRE, RSS 64K, and Procedural Parts) for my KSP installs for some time now! However, the tech-limits are currently much too restrictive. For instance, it's impossible to build fairings larger than 3 meters in diameter when you have Heavier Rocketry- at which point mods like NovaPunch2 and (if I'm not mistaken- I don't currently play with it) KW Rocketry already have 3.75 meter fuel tanks and engines available... This is a huge issue for me as I tend to use a lot of interstage fairings for the control equipment (reaction wheels, batteries, etc.) for Space-X style launch stage recoveries! I would like to see a new set of tech-limits that are a bit looser: with large enough diameters allowed that I can at least build interstage fairings for the largest NovaPunch2/ KW Rocketry size-class of engines available at any given tech-level. Something similar to the following re-balance I proposed for Procedural Parts so that I could at least stack appropriately-sized procedural fuel tanks on top of my NovaPunch/ KW Rocketry engines, and which OtherBarry approved of using in future versions of Procedural Parts by Private Message: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/106975-0-90-Procedural-Parts-Parts-the-way-you-want-em-v1-0-Jan-11?p=1779472&viewfull=1#post1779472 Hey, yeah, saw them, they look fine. I'm rather busy IRL atm, so I really don't have the time for PP. If you want to submit a pull request on github, I'll happily accept that, otherwise I'm on holidays from easter friday, so I plan on getting to tech limits and Karbonite support done then. Basically, I would like to be able to build Procedural Fairings with bases at least the same diameter as the ones in Procedural Parts for a given tech-level... This is especially important for players like me who use RealFuels and Real Solar System (6.4x scale in my case), because I need extremely large rockets just to get small payloads to orbit with the higher Delta-V requirements and reduced fuel-density... While I'm at it, I would also very much like to relax the max diameter a bit once players unlock Experimental Rocketry (which is an extra node beyond the stock tech tree anyways- and certainly represents slightly futuristic technology). Currently the fairings and thrust plates are limited to 10 meters- the same base diameter as the Saturn V in real life. However, Saturn V was 1960's technology, and substantially larger rockets were proposed that could have been built even back then (Sea Dragon, for instance- a design which was validated by NASA engineers and could have been built if there had been any mission requiring such a large payload- was 23 meters in diameter at the base...) In Sandbox fairings and thrust plates go up to 50 meters in diameter, and I would like to see them go up to 25 or 30 meters in diameter in Career Mode (so I can build Sea Dragon sized rockets in Career Mode- which will still be insanely expensive) instead of being limited to 10 meters max... If the tech-limits earlier in the tree were loosened like I suggest (so players can at least build interstage fairings wide enough for their largest Novapunch2 or KW Rocketry launch-stages), than having a higher limit at the end of the tree would help maintain a sense of continuous progress. It would also help prevent Procedural Fairings from being as much of a limiting-factor on the maximum size of procedural rockets once players have unlocked the whole tech tree- Procedural Parts already removes all size restrictions once players unlock Meta-Materials... e-dog, if you'd like, I could write up a new tech-limits file for Procedural Fairings just like I did for Procedural Parts. Would that be helpful? Also, one last issue- the fairing bases (particularly for the Interstage Fairings) don't currently scale in a manner that would be very mass-efficient for rocket design. Rather than scaling mostly in two dimensions, with at most a small increase in height with increasing width, they seem to scale at or close to a simple linear scale-up of the base in all directions. The result is that when you use very wide fairing bases (say the 50 meter bases that are possible in Sandbox) you even up with very, very tall fairing bases as well. This is unrealistic (the thing that really matters in determining is the ratio of base height to total fairing height- a 2 meter tall fairing shouldn't magically require twice as tall a base just because you increased the diameter from 3 meters to 6 meters...) and drives up the physical size of the bases (and if I'm not mistaken the mass and cost as well) with the cube of the diameter instead of at or close to the square of the diameter as would be realistic... Also, taller bases means you require a taller fairing just to clear the base at all, which adds additional mass and cost to the rocket beyond the increased mass/cost of the fairing relative to the diameter. I would like to eventually see this issue fixed if it's possible so that fairing bases remain of an approximately constant height (perhaps with a *slight* increase in height with increasing diameter) and scale in two dimensions instead of three... The sooner this could be implemented, the better- but I understand if due to the complexity of coding/modeling something like this you didn't want to tackle it for quite a while... I wanted to make sure you were aware of the issue- and encourage you to fix it sooner rather than later... Regards, Northstar P.S. Feel free to let me know here, or by Private Message, if you would like to have me draw up a new set of tech-limits. Please let me know any concerns you have I didn't address here with these proposed changes, or if there are any other information you desire, etc. If nothing else, please let me know if and why, if you decide not to do anything about the currently over-restrictive Career Mode tech-limits...

Hey, ummm, so I noticed that the density of LqdMethane got pushed back down from 448 kg/m3 (the density at -180 C) to 425.61 kg/m3 (the density at the boiling-point) *after* the previous value was listed as ratified... I thought values were supposed to be locked-in after ratification? Did I miss something? Obviously I have no authority to control LqdMethane, as it is listed as a RealFuels resource (despite Methane first seeing use in KSP-I long before RealFuels, with the KSP-I Meth/LOX chemical rocket engine and Methane and Meth/LOX Thermal Rocket fuel-modes, dating back to at least 0.22, it now sees some minor use in RealFuels+Stockalike as well thanks to the "SpaceY" mod that it provides Meth/LOX engine-configs for...), but I was rather happy to see it at a more practical density/temperature (as -180 C is a more practical temperature when you're storing it alongside LOX than must be at least -184 C to remain liquid, and would have to be around -198 C to obtain the density currently used for LOX in RealFuels or on the Saturn V/ Shuttle EFT in real life...) and disappointed to see it changed to a density corresponding to a less practical/realistic temperature... So, the question remains- why was the density of LqdMethane changed *after* it was ratified at the 448 kg/m3 value? Regards, Northstar - - - Updated - - - Also, what's with the 717 kg/m3 gaseous Methane resource? Is that for BioMass compatibility? Why is it listed under RealFuels? Because there's nothing real about that density of Methane as a gas- you simply cannot compress Methane to that density before it liquifies (and even then you would have to cool it until it solidified to have any chance of getting a density that high...) Regards, Northstar