Northstar1989

Raptor831 I hate to bug, but I'm trying to follow up and make sure things are being taken care of from many different angles... Did Dreadicon send you any engine configs for the KSP-Interstellar engines that need MM patches in order to work with RealFuels? These engines are: the Meth/LOX chemical engine I mentioned earlier, the Aluminum-Oxygen Hybrid Rocket, and the DT-Vista propulsion system. All of them need resource name changes in order to work with RealFuels at all. The Meth/LOX engine (and possibly also the Al-Hybrid Rocket) need TWR/ISP fixes in order to follow real-world TWR/ISP like the other engines in your engine config do... Regards, Northstar

@Dreadicon It appears upon more careful perusal that there are several resource definitions that were present in the old KSP-I/RealFuels integration file ("KSPI_MFS") that are no longer present in your version, and need to be replicated. Specifically, I noticed the Kerbin/Laythe atmospheric resource definitions to change the gatherable resources from "Oxidizer" to "LqdOxygen" were missing. The code looks like this: @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[LaytheOxygen] { @resourceName = LqdOxygen } The atmospheric resource definition is different than the resource name, changing one won't change the other- as one is changing things externally to ORS, and the other is changing it internally, as I understand it. So this line of code (as well as the similar ones for Kerbin, Duna, etc.) will need to be replicated in the new config. You had the right idea with these *NEW* resource fixes in the new config, the same thing just needs to be repeated with the old ones that were fixed previously... (as the old config was thrown out entirely) //Resource Definition updates @OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[*]:HAS[#resourceName[Ammonia]]:NEEDS[WarpPlugin&RealFuels]:AFTER[RealFuels] { @resourceName = LqdAmmonia } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[*]:HAS[#resourceName[Ammonia]]:NEEDS[WarpPlugin&RealFuels]:AFTER[RealFuels] { @resourceName = LqdAmmonia } @OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[*]:HAS[#resourceName[H2Peroxide]]:NEEDS[WarpPlugin&RealFuels]:AFTER[RealFuels] { @resourceName = HTP } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[*]:HAS[#resourceName[H2Peroxide]]:NEEDS[WarpPlugin&RealFuels]:AFTER[RealFuels] { @resourceName = HTP The older definitions need to be added back into the new integration config (and the updated version sent to NathanKell/Regex) since the old config was thrown out entirely. In fact, I recommend going through the old config (I have copied in the entire code below so you wouldn't have trouble finding it) and making sure *every single function* it had is replicated in the new config. @PART[AluminiumHybrid1] { @MODULE[ModuleEngines] { @PROPELLANT[Oxidizer] { @name = LqdOxygen @ratio = 4.05 } } @RESOURCE[Oxidizer] { @name = LqdOxygen @amount = 1543 @maxAmount = 1543 } } @PART[FNMethaneEngine] { @MODULE[ModuleEngines] { @PROPELLANT[LqdMethane] { @ratio = 0.443 } @PROPELLANT[Oxidizer] { @name = LqdOxygen @ratio = 0.557 } } } @PART[vista] { @MODULE[ModuleEngines] { @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel] { @name = LqdHydrogen @ratio = 20 } } } @PART[FNMethaneTank3-2] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 6400 type = Cryogenic TANK { name = LqdHydrogen amount = 0 maxAmount = 0 } TANK { name = LqdMethane amount = full maxAmount = 23.95% } } } @PART[FNMethaneTank3-1] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 3200 type = Cryogenic TANK { name = LqdHydrogen amount = 0 maxAmount = 0 } TANK { name = LqdMethane amount = full maxAmount = 23.95% } } } @PART[25PureLiquidTank] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 3200 type = Default } } @PART[375PureLiquidTank] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 54200 type = Default } } @BASIC_NTR_PROPELLANT[Hydrolox] { @guiName = Hydrolox @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel] { @name = LqdHydrogen @ratio = 0.73 } @PROPELLANT[Oxidizer] { @name = LqdOxygen @ratio = 0.27 @DrawGauge = False } } @BASIC_NTR_PROPELLANT[Hydrogen] { @guiName = LqdHydrogen @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel] { @name = LqdHydrogen } } @BASIC_ELECTRIC_PROPELLANT[Hydrogen] { @guiName = LqdHydrogen @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel] { @name = LqdHydrogen } } @WARP_PLUGIN_SETTINGS { @HydrogenResourceName = LqdHydrogen @OxygenResourceName = LqdOxygen } @BASIC_ELECTRIC_PROPELLANT[Hydrogen] { @guiName = LqdHydrogen @PROPELLANT[LiquidFuel] { @name = LqdHydrogen } } //atmospheric @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[KerbinOxygen] { @resourceName = LqdOxygen } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[DunaOxygen] { @resourceName = LqdOxygen } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[LaytheOxygen] { @resourceName = LqdOxygen } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[KerbinHydrogen] { @resourceName = LqdHydrogen } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[JoolHydrogen] { @resourceName = LqdHydrogen } @ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[JoolAmmonia] { @resourceName = LqdAmmonia } //oceanic @OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[EveWater] { //@resourceName = water resource } @OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[KerbinWater] { //@resourceName = water resource } @OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[LaytheWater] { //@resourceName = water resource } @OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[LaytheAmmonia] { @resourceName = LqdAmmonia } So far, I can see that Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Methane resource definition MM patches need to be included in the new config. (Oxygen and Hydrogen were present previously, but there was never a fix for Methane- which is present in very low but directly gatherable concentrations in the atmospheres of Kerbin and Duna...) The DT-Vista engine resource-consumption fix (LiquidFuel --> LiquidH2) also should be updated to use the name "LiquidH2" rather than "LiquidHydrogen", and included in either the "Stockalike" engine config integration file or the base RealFuels integration config file, depending on how NathanKell feels about it persisting in the base mod's integration config... (I doubt anyone will ever try and change its TWR or ISP to match reality, since it doesn't exist yet in reality- so leaving it in the base config is probably safer than with the Al-Hybrid or Meth/LOX engine parts...) I'll try and help you find any other missing pieces, of course. Regards, Northstar

Well apparently there's at least ONE mod (see Edit #2), but I do remember there being quite a few more out there- so keep your eyes out for them... Regards, Northstar

@DYJ Hey, I was wondering if you were aware of Dreadicon's desire to try and do the coding himself to add wet wings and wings with solar panels on the upper surface to this mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/94267-Dread-Industries-Unlimited-%28Potential-Project-Poll-Posted!%29?p=1501396&viewfull=1#post1501396 It seems, if you can't/won't do the coding yourself, he's willing to do it for you. He has some experiencing coding with KSP (enough to have his own dev thread, which that link/quote goes to a post on), and I've seen some of his work first-hand when working with him on a RealFuels/KSP-Interstellar integration config, so I have little doubt he's up to the task... So, what are the chances you could go and work with him, and we could finally see these much-desired features become a part of the mod!? Regards, Northstar

Back in 1959 the idea was first seriously proposed to set up a Propulsive Fluid Accumulator satellite at the edge of Earth's atmosphere, to gather Oxygen and use it for propulsion on missions deeper out in space (useful for LH2/LOX of Kerosene/LOX systems). The LOX would be periodically carried by the satellite (once full) to a propellant depot in a higher orbit (where it would experience far less drag), and then the satellite would return to further LOX-collection: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propulsive_fluid_accumulator It was an excellent idea, but a little before its time, and more importantly, the original design required an onboard nuclear reactor to meet the vessel's extensive power demands (cooling/compressing Oxygen to liquid form, keeping capture Oxygen cool, and running a Nitrogen plasma thruster being the main ones...) The other technology that was missing at the time, besides space-capable nuclear reactors (which the Russians first deployed not all that many years later with their TOPAZ satellites), was nitrogen-electric propulsion. However now, in the modern day, this is finally also becoming a reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicon_Double_Layer_Thruster So, all the necessary technologies finally exist! (There are also plenty of designs out there for orbital propellant depots- the main reason they haven't been built is because there hasn't been seen as being a demand for them- as all the fuel to fill them would still haven to be launched aboard tankers, and the total launch mass would actually *increase*.) And, for those too scared to put a nuclear reactor in orbit, as unreasonable as I think those fears might be, there's always Microwave Beamed Power, which is an equally viable (and safer+cheaper) alternative to power the satellite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_transmission#Microwave_power_transmission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power#Electromagnetic_radiation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/02/escape-dynamics-and-microwave-power.html The power-transmission equipment could equally well be placed on the ground or in space (beaming from solar-power satellites in higher orbits if in space). Although ground-based infrastructure would obviously be cheaper, space-based transmitters could transmit in much shorter wavelengths that penetrate poorly through Earth's atmosphere, but carry better over distances and require smaller receivers on the Propulsive Fluid Accumulator satellite... One could even beam power from Earth via long-wavelength microwaves, then convert them to short-wavelength beams at relays above Earth's atmosphere, to transmit the power back down to the Propulsive Fluid Accumulator at the edge of the atmosphere- although such a system involves multiple transmission losses... So, there are a variety of options to power the satellite (onboard nuclear, ground-based microwaves, space-based microwaves, or a hybrid system of some sort), and even is a system to propel to the satellite using Nitrogen skimmed from the atmosphere! The question is, then, not so much why this hasn't been done in real life (remember, the necessary nitrogen plasma-thrusters are still in the final stages of testing, Beamed Power to spacecraft is still considered a novel idea despite its relative simplicity and long history going back to Tsiolkovsky, and political willpower to put a nuclear reactor in orbit for any reason is lacking), but more how do we go about changing that? And also, why hasn't anyone doe it in KSP yet!? All the necessary components now exist: KSP-Interstellar has high-powered plasma thrusters with realistic ISP and thrust-energy relationships- and there is now an "extension" config that allows plasma thrusters to use Nitrogen (and Atmospheric Scoops to operate *just* outside the edge of atmosphere so you can use time warp- an idea which was proposed by me and graciously accepted...), RealFuels already has a Nitrogen resource which could be used, Interstellar already has Atmospheric Scoops capable of collecting said Nitrogen (and LOX/Oxidizer for a fuel depot- which is the whole point of the Propulsive Fluid Accumulator), and Karbonite even has code to allow its native parts to scoop atmospheric resources from *just above* the atmosphere (so players don't have to set up a 65 x 65 km "orbit", and only be able to operate the satellite at 4x time-warp: they can set up a 72 x 72 km orbit instead and still scoop resources using the Karbonite code) which might be able to be adapted to KSP-Interstellar... Join me in installing the KSP-Interstellar 0.90 port "extension" config, and giving this a try. And ask/pressure Fractal_UK to integrate the extension config into his main version, whenever he comes back from his current long leave... And, of course, feel free to discuss the science/politics/etc. behind all this- that's why this thread is here! Regards, Northstar

Nahhh, please don't increase the fuel costs. I appreciate having realistically-low fuel costs (in real life, fuel only equals 0.3% of launch costs for a space-X Kero/LOX rocket, according to Elon Musk- and I want it to be that way in "Stockalike" Real Fuels as well). The engine costs also already seem fine. What needs changing? Raptor831, if you want to CHANGE something, I suggest going and fixing up the resource names and TWR/ISP of the KSP-Interstellar Meth/LOX engine. Apparently, Dreadicon already sent NathanKell a pull request with the latest Ksp-Interstellar/RealFuels integration config we (well, mostly Dreadicon) designed, but it shouldn't include resource or TWR/ISP fixes for the Meth/LOX engine when it gets integrated into RealFuels, as I understand it (NathanKell, am I reading you correctly on how it's going to look when integrated into RealFuels?) So there needs to be a file for each engine config, including this one, that adjusts the names of the Resources consumed by the engine (this fix was in the *old* integration config- I still have it installed, so send me a PM if you can't find it), and there should also be TWR/ISP fixes for it, as I mentioned before. If you're looking for MORE to do, still, I'm trying to get FractalUK to add Nitrogen as a propellant for the KSP-Interstellar plasma thrusters. Considering it's the only plasma thruster type remotely close to real-world utilization, it would make sense for him to have it in that mod. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicon_Double_Layer_Thruster For him to add it, KSP-Interstellar would have to add a new "Nitrogen" resource. However, RealFuels already includes a Nitrogen resource- so perhaps a MM patch could be used to add it as a fuel-mode for the plasma thruster, similar to the way MM patches are already used to fix the changes to resource name for Hydrogen that RealFuels implements (Hydrogen is already one of the fuels used by KSP-Interstellar plasma thrusters). FracalUK already has a nice simple algorithm figured out for the ISP/thrust values of each plasma thruster propellant- based off molecular mass and E = 1/2 m v*v. He just assumes all propellants are given equal energy per molecule (with an "efficiency" factor modifying the final thrust vs. heat production), and bases the ISP and thrust/MJ accordingly. So it shouldn't be too hard to figure out the right thrust and ISP values for adding Nitrogen plasma thrusters to his mod (with a MM patch active when RealFuel is installed) based off the molecular mass of N2... I want this because Nitrogen-electric propulsion (coupled with Nitrogen RCS- which is already in RealFuels as I understand it?) would make it perfectly possible to build a Propulsive Fluid Accumulator system in Kerbin's upper atmosphere using the KSP-Interstellar Atmospheric Scoops... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propulsive_fluid_accumulator The beauty of it is, all the other components necessary to build one are already there in KSP-Interstellar and RealFuels! (high-powered plasma thrusters with a realistic thrust-energy relationship capable of operating on multi-Megawatt power levels, Atmospheric Scoops, a realistic LOX resource, a Nitrogen resource, and space-capable particle bed nuclear reactors similar in design to the ones used in Project Timberwind). And even though my Kerbals are perfectly willing to set up a nuclear-powered (solar panels produce too little power and too much drag) Propulsive Fluid Accumulator satellite just inside the edge of Kerbin's atmosphere, I could just as well make use of Microwave Beamed Power from ground-based nuclear reactors or orbital Solar Power Satellites to power it instead! (this strategy would work just as well in real life- if fact, NASA is *already* experimenting with Microwave Beamed Power on the ground- maybe they could be convinced to see the benefits for a Propulsive Fluid Accumulator satellite using ground-based power transmitters in real life...) Regards, Northstar

@FractalUK Adding to the list of things I've noticed so far that need fixing in KSP-Interstellar (current list: 100% of beamed power available being turned into WasteHeat rather than Reception limiting WasteHeat production, and the Meth/LOX engine having too low of an ISP and TWR compared to its real-world counterpart) are two more that deal specifically with the atmosphere of Kerbin. Namely, there's not much we can do with Nitrogen. Despite Nitrogen being abundantly available in Kerbin's atmosphere, it doesn't appear that we can perform something as simple as the Haber Process to produce our own Ammonia, and thus eventually, Monopropellant from it (this could be useful for a variety of reasons...), and we cannot use the Nitrogen as a plasma thruster propellant, despite this being perhaps the single closest design of plasma thruster to actually seeing real-life utilization: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicon_Double_Layer_Thruster I would very much like to be able to perform BOTH of these functions (the Haber Process, and using Nitrogen as a plasma thruster propellant). Ideally, WITHOUT having to land on the surface of Kerbin, so I can build something like a Propulsive Fluid Accumulator for Ammonia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propulsive_fluid_accumulator Using Nitrogen as a plasma thruster propellant would actually make it feasible to maintain a 60 km x 60 km "orbit" on Kerbin to collect Oxygen (and possibly also surplus Nitrogen) for a fuel depot, using Nitrogen from the upper atmosphere in a plasma thruster to counteract drag... (Thermal Tubojets don't operate at such high speeds, and if they did would have too low of an ISP to counteract the drag produced by even just their intakes at those speeds...) Speaking of which, it would also GREATLY be appreciated if you allowed Atmospheric Scoops and ISRU refineries (utilizing gas resources) to work *JUST OUTSIDE* of the atmospheres- like is ALREADY implemented in the Karbonite mod- so we could accumulate atmospheric gasses at a slow-rate in time-warp without having to babysit a plane or rocket flying at 4x physics warp in order to run an atmospheric scoop, which can get EXTREMELY annoying... Doing so would also open the door to allowing these atmospheric-accumulators to work when the craft is unloaded- much like Tritium Breeding (and nuclear fuel decay) currently does; and Antimatter Collection, ISRU mining/refining operations, and Science Labs all *should* (and do, to various degrees of effectiveness, depending on the current version and bugs...) Regards, Northstar

Didn't FractalUK recently add in the Haber Process, after I extensively bugged him to add it in, so that we could produce Ammonia on Kerbin? Or was that just my imagination? (now I'm going to have to go load up an ISRU reactor on the pad, and see if it's got the Haber Process listed anywhere...) If not... see my next post. Regards, Northstar

@Dreadicon Howdy! I'm currently trying to get TaranisElsu (the creator/maintainer of TAC Life Support) to add the capability to electrolyze WasteWater (urine) into the Water Splitter/Electrolysis recycler part already in his mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667-0-25-TAC-Life-Support-v0-10-1-10Oct-No-Win64-Support?p=1503269#post1503269 But, I was wondering if, maybe you couldn't find a way to add this functionality through MM patches yourself? In real life, water electrolysis units work perfectly well on urine as well, and are getting looked at being used to treat human waste water before returning it to the environment, among other applications... http://www.ohio.edu/engineering/ceer/research/urea.cfm http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920586112000739 The reaction looks like this: CO(NH2)2 + H2O -----> N2 + 3H2 + CO2 The products are Nitrogen (RealFuels already contains a Nitrogen resource!), CO2, and H2 gas. All of these resources already exist in RealFuels+TACLS, and all of them actually have uses! (Nitrogen can be used as RCS propellent in RealFuels, CO2 can be recycled to obtain O2 or Methane+Water, and H2 can be used as fuel or in a Sabatier Reaction) So adding this reaction onto the existing part (the electrolysis unit wouldn't need any modifications- in real life it works with any pair of standard electrodes and current passed through urine) would be a simple, easy task that could turn a currently useless resource (WasteWater) into a useful one (Water/KSP-Interstellar LqdWater) without any inefficiency/waste! (TACLS Water Purifiers recycle WasteWater into Water, but turn the mass of the urea into Waste) You know how you were talking about recycling CO2 into methane and using it in RCS before? Well this is actually a lot more efficient! Methane is actually more useful as a primary rocket propellant (in a RealFuels "Stockalike" NERVA, a KSP-Interstellar NTR, or a Meth/LOX Interstellar chemical rocket) than as RCS fuel, but Nitrogen doesn't have any alternative uses! (unless you're talking about experimental Nitrogen-based plasma thrusters) Regards, Northstar

@TaranisElsu Dreadicon is currently working on an integration config for TAC Life Support and RealFuels mod (progress can be found over on his dev thread)- so you can use Methane from TAC Life Support Sabatier Reactors in your NERVA rockets! (or RCS- and with KSP-Interstellar installed, also in Meth/LOX chemical rockets) Methane is of course an important fuel being looked at for use in real life (this isn't by any means new- over 30 years ago the Soviets concluded that they could get the best performance possible out of conventional chemical rockets with Meth/LOX Full Flow Staged Combustion rocket engines- although actual implementation of this idea had to wait until Space-X and their recent design work on the "Raptor" heavy-lift engine...) and is one of the primary possible fuels for a NERVA or Timberwind-style nuclear thermal rocket (the other commonly-considered fuels being Liquid Hydrogen, Ammonia, and plain old Water) Anyways, I just thought you might be interested to hear about that. Now, on to more important stuff... I was wondering why the Water Splitter/Electrolysis recycler cannot also be used to recycle WasteWater. In real life, electrolysis is quite operable on human urine- and is being used to experimentally treat human wastewater before discharge into the environment (electrolysis of a water-urea solution produces Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Carbon Dioxide gasses). The Carbon Dioxide produced can easily be dealt with by the systems already in place to filter CO2 out of a spacecraft's breathing air, and the Nitrogen actually makes a useful buffer gas for the astronauts- and it's not as if you have to lift extra mass up this way to obtain it (composing the majority of Earth's atmosphere as it is, but spacecraft tend to contain far less Nitrogen in their breathing air mostly to save on mass...) Links for proof: http://www.ohio.edu/engineering/ceer/research/urea.cfm http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920586112000739 Hydrogen is also a useful gas for rocketry, so RealFuels could have a field-day with changing the Water Splitter/Electrolysis unit to produce LiquidH2 instead of Waste if you enabled it to have a WasteWater-recycling functionality... Regards, Northstar

So, you're building a Stanford Torus. Have you seen this mod? It *MIGHT* help. Regards, Northstar

Where can we find releases of this awesome work? I don't see links anywhere on this thread for it! I particularly want the magnetic accelerators (in fact, would it be possible to release just that as a separate mod?), though the habitation rings look cool too... (I will have use for the accelerators MUCH sooner than the hab rings, though- and I'm not currently playing with Kethane, Karbonite, or Extraplanetary Launchpads- which seem integral to the function of some of your parts...) Regards, Northstar

I've come across *several* rail-gun mods on the KSP Forums over the year-plus I've been playing this game (since July 2013), but unfortunately I can't seem to find any of them again now that I want to set one of them up on the Mun or Minmus as part of a reusable ISRU infrastructure, and on Kerbin to benefit from the reduced Delta-V costs... (and in both cases, to see how awesome real-life plans for magnetic launch-assist systems would be) I invite players to list all the rail-gun mods they can find on the forums here. EDIT: Going back I was able to find *ONE* of the magnetic-accelerator/rail-gun containing mods I stumbled across earlier: although I can't seem to find a release link for it anywhere on the [WIP] thread... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/82008-WIP-0-3-Torus-spacestations?p=1459950&viewfull=1#post1459950 EDIT #2: Found the most recent release of the Stanford Torus mod (which includes a mass accelerator) on CurseForge. Apparently the forum thread just hasn't been updated in quite a while, but the mod author has continued updating on Curse... http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/221761-stanford-torus-0-5 Regards, Northstar

I wish some of you had watched my Twitch broadcast last night! I didn't have any viewers, but for those of you wanting to catch a glimpse of the latest gameplay, here are the available parts of it: My recording started before this, but the first part's video is missing due to an error with the Chicago Twitch sever... (the closest one to me geographically) The main event of the recording is the capture of my Kerbin Return Stage around the Mun (which originally serves as the transfer stage for my Munar Free Return Probe), although you also get to see an attempted launch of my Mun Mission rocket that didn't go so well... The main events were these, though. First, I captured the transfer stage of the Munar Free Return Probe into a low Munar orbit- where it will act as the return-stage for the Munar Mission's command capsule: Then came some minor preparations for the eventual Mun mission... (namely separating the used science module from the Munar transfer stage and accepting a couple contracts) And the recovery of the Munar Free Return Probe followed: Finally, after accepting a few more contracts (only some of which are shown), and some launchpad parts-testing so as to get more interesting contracts and science points (not shown), I had enough Science to purchase a couple more tech nodes: I now both gravity scanners and accelerometers (which can only be used for Impactor experiments with KSP-Interstellar installed), as well as Magnetometers and Gas/Liquid Chromatographs, IR Telescopes, and KSP-Interstellar Science Laboratories (which slowly produce Science when off-world and supplied with 5 MW of power...) I also now have access to the refinery parts for KSP-Interstellar's ISRU system- although actual ISRU infrastructure will have to wait for, at the very least, bigger solar panels (with the Large Electrics tech node- and possibly also with installation of the updated version of the Multipanels mod for truly huge static solar panels...) Next up, launch of my Munar CSM/LEM, and probably also a stock Mobile Laboratory... (so that I can re-use the lander) Regards, Northstar

I assume you're playing with the horrible stock aero instead of FAR? (or even NEAR- which isn't half as good, as it cuts a lot of good stuff like body-lift) Because what you just said is COMPLETELY invalid when playing with FAR, where drag is related to shape and size, not mass. You completely missed my point... It's not a plane if it's an air-breathing rocket. IF you just have a tiny, tiny payload, and intake, and a jet engine, with almost no wing area, what you basically have is an air-breathing rocket, not a plane. The measure of a plane is if you cut the thrust, would it drop out of the sky like a brick? If the answer to that question is "Yes", then it's a rocket, not a plane (although even some wingless rockets can have decent gliding capabilities in FAR due to body-lift...) And air-breathing rockets that can make orbit are COMPLETELY unrealistic (unless you're talking air *augmented*, rather than air-breathing, rockets), as what basically equates to their velocity curves (tough there is no such thing in real life) completely disallow it. Currently, jets have far too generous of a velocity curve, and orbital velocity is far too low (Kerbin has too small of a radius), which adds up to jets being able to take you almost all the way to orbit with a rocket- which is completely unrealistic. Also, the jets have far too high of a TWR- many jets can barely lift their own weight in real life... (even military fighter jets barely have a TWR of 1 at optimal altitude AND speed) Regards, Northstar

Howdy Dreadicon. Always good to hear from you. Awesome! So it included all the things we were talking about before? Adding LqdWater wherever Kerosene can be held. Fixing the various NTR reactions, fuel densities, etc.? The Al-Hybrid and DT Vista might be fine. TBH, I think NathanKell was more reacting against the Meth/LOX engine being in there, after I pointed out all the potential problems it could have being in both the "Stockalike" engine config and the main RealFuels mod... You need to at least make sure the Meth/LOX engine config goes to Raptor831 instead of the main RealFuels mod though- which may even mean sending a pull request to NathanKell w/o it- as otherwise it could create issues when trying to fix the Meth/LOX engine TWR and ISP in the "Stockalike" engine config (and perhaps the other ones, if those engine configs play nice with Interstellar...) Each person contributes what they can, and does what they're good at. For instance, I'm good at being really persistent, and sometimes quite charismatic when I need to be- which makes me a great political organizer. Which is why I'm volunteering with a political campaign IRL (now if only I could get a moment to talk to the potential-Congresswoman about the importance of the space program w/o my pesky supervisor breathing down my neck like a jackal- he doesn't value or understand space exploration at all...) That would be absolutely AWESOME. Both would be EXTREMELY useful for my attempts to build for the Flying Duna challenge, which I keep hoping to get around to... I'm not sure what you're actually talking about with "full water functionality". Haven't you already added the ability to hold water to most RealFuels tanks? I'm a big fan of the merged refinery parts myself- for a very simple reason. There are LIMITS on the number of parts my RAM and patience when scrolling through the part catalog can handle. I'd MUCH rather have a wider selection of useful parts related to PROPULSION, AERODYNAMICS, and LANDING, than 20 different parts all related to ISRU. I think Squad agrees- which is why the new Resources system will be very simple (even a little so for my tastes- and they certainly won't include multiple new resources and realistic reaction names). However they can't even be convinced to switch over to procedural fuel tanks or wings, even though it would DRASTICALLY bring down part-counts in the catalog, so I really don't know what to say... Have fun with KSP. Personally, I've spent so much time on the forums (and simply too tired to play) that I haven't really had much time to play KSP myself. And when I finally did get some hours in tonight, my game decided to crash! Darn it! Have fun exploring! Regards, Northstar

Wet wings would be awesome! @Starwashed I wasn't aware of the difficulties in Uranium extraction, Starwasher, although the ways to extract nuclear fuels offworld always seemed to be the questionable ones to me... But there's no oversimplification that goes into the Sabatier or Anthaquinone Reactions being able to take place in very small units. Rate of reaction is another matter entirely, but the KSP-Interstellar refineries actually work at quite a slow pace (it will take MONTHS in time-warp to fill a large rocket). And, I have to remind you, whenever we're talking scale, everything in KSP is 50% scale. so if it's 2.5 meters in Interstellar, it's 5 meters in real life. In a 5 meter refinery you can EASILY fit a decent-sized Sabatier. If a unit to serve a handful of astronauts (and by the way, even that unit could produce a rather substantial volume of methane over the course of a few months, if provided with enough CO2/H2O and electricity- the unit on the ISS only operates at a *fraction* of its rated capacity...) is only the size of a *mini* fridge (not a full-sized fridge, let's get this straight), then one taking up, say, a third of the volume of a 5 meter refinery, could work a lot faster. And in KSP-Interstellar, size DOES matter. You usually need either a 3.75 meter refinery or two 2.5 meter refineries to meet really high fuel demands... @Dreadicon It's Hard Science Fiction alright, but the hard Scifi of today is often the scientific commonplace of tomorrow. Especially when what's in KSP-Interstellar goes beyond merely plausible- most of this stuff has been the subject of extensive engineering studies PROVING its viability- and there are just certain missing materials or devices that we need to wait to be developed, but are sure will one day be around. The exception to this, of course, is the warp drive- but even NASA took that seriously enough to decide to encourage the scientists who were looking into it with a little conceptual art... I don't play with mods like the 4-piece shuttles by the way. I often spend hours in the VAB/SPH as well. But for the sake of my poor old CPU, merging 9 or 10 different pieces of SMALL ISRU equipment into a single refinery part is probably a good idea. And like I said, FractalUK has given some thought to possibly making it tweakable in the future as to what the loud-out is of a given ISRU refinery... By the way, shoot me a PM- what's the status of that integration config? We need to make sure the MM engine part patches are kicked over to Raptor831 in the "Stockalike" engine config (not just the Raptor engine- which I still want to fix the TWR and ISP for- but also the Aluminum Hybrid Rocket and DT-Vista, which AFAIK only need their resource names changed), whereas the fuels stuff goes to NathanKell/Regex for addition to the main thread. And, what was it you were talking about regarding the conversion rates for Ammonia? Regards, Northstar

While I still struggle to try and get Squad's notice with my TwitchTV broadcasts (Rowsdower asked for a link to my Twitch profile a while back, and I haven't heard anything from him or Squad about it since...) the question remains- how do I get more viewers aside from making it to KSP-TV? I watch tons of other threads swamped with viewers, yet mine seems to struggle to pick up even one or two... I guess my fault is in not advertising it enough. Do I need to start doing shameless plugs? Does anyone have any ideas My Twitch profile, by the way, in case YOU actually want to watch it at some point: http://www.twitch.tv/northstar1989 There's actually an archived video you can find on my profile of a part of my latest Mun Mission. Watch the most recent longer ones entitled "Northstar Plays KSP!" not the super-short ones (for some reason, they are duplicate archives of just the first minute or two of audio of the functional broadcasts) or the one entitled "Technical Difficulties" (this is literally what it sounds like- the Chicago Twitch server is currently messed up, at least for broadcasts coming from my area, and I was struggling to try and get it to broadcast my video as well as audio... Eventually I just switched to the Dallas server, which ended all my problems.) Regards, Northstar

Nobody has to ARGUE for those now- Squad's announced they're gonna be stock baby! Chooochooo, Hype Train full steam ahead! Regards, Northstar

All screenshots, explanations for how things went, etc., can be found on the main thread in Fan Works. EDIT: Also, I've decided to engage in a Kerbin polar expedition as well, so as to fulfill some contracts before my Mun landing (in the hopes of possibly unlocking more contracts that will reward me for my Mun landing- such as a parts-test of the lander engine). I'm currently working on a mothership-style suborbital mission- keep a lookout for posts on that in the near future. Regards, Northstar

May I remind you that all the functions *could* realistically fit into a 5-meter diameter ISRU refinery (not a 2.5 meter one, but remember, KSP parts are 50% or less real-world scale...) Regards, Northstar

@numerobis Is there a reason you have: T = jets.turbojet.thrust(v) * 1000 Note the emphasis on the *1000. That would, it appears at first glance, lead to a calculation where the turbojets perform 1000 times better than in KSP. As for all those talking about the RAPIER vs. Turbojet, remember this- the higher your TWR, the less TIME it will take your spaceplane to break atmosphere and make orbit, and the less time you spend fighting gravity. When you start your burn-to-orbit, you can switch your decativated RAPIER engines to rocket mode to get a LOT more thrust than if you left them inactive or used trubojets (remember, near altitude ceiling you can only run one jet at full thrust without intake spam...) I'm also going to completely ignore all this bit about getting an apoapsis outside the atmosphere with just turbojets, because that's not actually possible without either (a) SERIOUS intake-spam (by the way, if you have 9 intakes and 3 engines, it's still intake spam if you shut down 2 of the engines but none of the intakes) or ( an EXTREMELY small payload relative to the thrust, in which case what you have isn't a plane anymore (it probably can't even land like a plane), it's an air-breathing rocket... Jet engines are OP'd enough in KSP as is (due to ridiculous TWR values, the improper inclusion of IntakeAir in ISP calculations, the lack of compression-heating, and overly-generous speed and altitude curves), please stop abusing them further by hooking up 12 or 15 intakes to a single jet engine. I'd play with Advanced Jet Engines and laugh at you all, except that mod goes too far by nerfing most of the stock jet engines down to 1970's tech-levels (excepting the RAPIER, the only way to get a MODERN jet engine level of performance with AJE is to install a mod like B9 Aerospace- which AJE assumes to have modern engine performance levels for many of the jets... I wish it would just institute "tech levels" like the "Stockalike" RealFuels engine config.) Regards, Northstar

Wait, so Kerbals no longer auto-equip things to their backs (and can no longer mount many things on their backs at all?) Whaaa, this means no more Kerbal paradrops using the stock radial parachutes! And completely breaks The Kerbal Skydiving Challenge I created! Regards, Northstar

@Dreadicon It doesn't appear NathanKell has done anything with the config yet (did you send it to him?), so if you haven't sent it to him yet (or even if you have) there should still be plenty of time to institute any other fixes (like more accurate Ammonia conversion- though no idea what you meant by that before, as RealFuels already has a version of Ammonia with realistic density, and the config *should* replace the Interstellar Ammonia with the RealFuel version...) An, of course, I'd still like to see somebody kick a fix for the Raptor Engine over to Raptor831 in the "Stockalike" engine config. NathanKell also doesn't want code for the DT-Vista or Aluminum-Hybrid engine in the base RealFuels mod any more, as far as I can tell (and I agree, it really doesn't belong there), so you'll need to kick those fixes from the main config to the one you send Raptor831 as well (the fixes were already implemented in the old/outdated config, they just need to be preserved/ carried over) Regards, Northstar

@Raptor831 OK, just don't forget about the Interstellar Meth/LOX engine. If you set the ISP values to those of the Raptor, and adjust the TWR to 120 by reducing the engine mass (the predictions by Space-X are slightly more optimistic than this in terms of TWR, but actual engines with a TWR of 120 have been designed by the Soviets before- so it's a good conservative # to go with...) it should be relatively easy to fix... It's not available until Experimental Rocketry (the final, mod-only node of rocketry), so there's no need to add even more advanced tech-levels: and it's already head-and-shoulders above most of the other chemical rocket engines with those real-world stats... The ISP values again: ASL ISP 321 s VAC ISP 380 s Note that the real-world variant produces a LOT more thrust than the Interstellar version (1425 kN), and is the same diameter (2.5 meters), so if you want to go *really* realistic, you'll use the following thrust values as well as adjusting engine-mass (currently 3.5 metric tons). That would make the engine a lot more useful as a heavy-lifter, which is what it's designed for... ASL Thrust 6900 kN VAC Thrust 8200 kN FractalUK probably should have made it a 1.25 meter engine if he wanted to stick with 1425 kN of thrust, for realistic balance... (even though that would have been *VERY* high thrust for a 1.25 meter engine in Stock KSP) The real-world Raptor engine is designed to operate at extremely high chamber pressures and using a more advanced fuel cycle (full-flow staged combustion) than any other engine currently in use (in fact, only 2 engines have ever been successfully tested with this cycle- although neither saw use beyond the test-stand on actual rockets), which is a big part of why its thrust is so high for its size... Regards, Northstar EDIT: I'm trying to get Dreadicon to design such a MM patch for this, since I have no idea how to go about it myself. But if you were able to design it instead, that would be awesome too. As long as it gets done- that's what matters.