metalpoetza

I had that problem at first (though I thought it was unique to 64-bit linux systems) - try scaling down your texture resolution. In my case it was running out of RAM loading textures (this mod has a LOT of big textures).

The only other "guide" like thing beside the WIKI and this forum is my KSPStoryMissions pack for this mod - which is nearly finished, as we speak I am working on the final mission-set around the Alcubierre Drive - it should guide you through how the various parts fit together and what goes with what fairly well (based on my own slow and painful discoveries).

Yep - it's unlocked at the same time as the magnetometer - look for the Gamma Ray Spectrometer under science.

And time for another pre-release of the KSPI missions for KSPStoryMissions pack. This is the final pre-release - the pack will go into beta once I finish missions for the only outstanding part: the alcubiere drive. In the meantime this update adds several new mission sets covering virtually every part up to antimatter reactors. Warning: this product contains higher than RDA levels of antimatter puns. Possible side effects include: your cat getting microwaved, your spouse leaving you for your lawyer and your house turning 90 degrees through 4-dimensional space so that it has no depth but if you walk into the kitchen you travel 2 days back in time.

Hi guys. Progressing along nicely - sorry there hasn't been another pre-release lately as I'm burning hard to finish the first beta before I go back to work tomorrow (and I'm close). I'm now on to the first antimatter powered rocket test drive mission. I got a lovely mission planned for showing it's use and connecting with the collectors placed in previous missions. The ship refuels from a science-lab factory on the launch-pad, which should be JUST enough to power the launch and a visit to the Kerbal collector sitting at 700km orbit, where it can then refuel for a trip to the Jool collector. Could somebody give me near-enough estimates on how much antimatter you would need for the various stages (assume the ship is very light and uses a small 62.5m fusion reactor+generator to power the containment device so antimatter is ONLY used for burning the rocket) - so I can give the user an indication of how much he needs to collect from the slow science lab before take-off, how much at least he would need to get from Kerbal collector and how much he'll need to fetch at Jool to make it back ? Right now my test ship (full mass including liquid fuel: 13 tonnes) has 19 units. The wiki states 1000 units is enough for a short mission but gives no idea how to define "short" here - would a visit to the nearby orbital collector be at the END of that scale or so close to the beginning that say 100 units can do that part of the mission ? Regards A.J.

I've begun implementing the mission set as we discussed here - doing some fairly simple missions showing the differences between the three fuel modes on small unmanned craft. DT was easy enough, He3 is simple - run a plasma thruster on it, but what has me stumped is how to showcase D/He3 - so it's a little less fuel and a little more electricity... what would you do with that practically ? I could use an example of a use for it to showcase.

All true, and I understood the context of your comment. That being said - the WIKI states that KSPI follows the inverse square law with solar panels and that two gigantors at a 500Mm orbit around Kerbol should give an output greater than an upgraded 3.75m fission reactor + 3.75m generator - and this could be used to generate a microwave transmission generator. I assume from this (though I haven't confirm this) that despite solar panels not producing MJ as a resource, the microwave transmitter would use the electrical charge and a receiver would in fact gain MJ. Has anybody tested this ? It would be an awesome mission to create though quite advanced since it takes massive delta-V to get into low Kerbol orbit. If you drag a generator or a mass of fuel along to do it with and then set up a solar power plant... well yes, it would work but it seems terribly inelegant to me. Update: I fired up my sandbox, set a satelite with 4 gigantors and a deployable transciever into low Kerbol orbit and fired everything up (I used hyperedit since I was just testing a theory) - then set a small ship nearby - it had no fuel whatsoever, just a whack of recievers and a plasma engine. I verified that the recievers were building up MJ even though the sending ship didn't have any - and the plasma thruster fired just fine.

That's actually quite easy to code - if I can get decent estimates on what the real times would be for something to qualify as Brachistochrone on those - since KSPStoryMissions allow you to set timelimits on completing objectives, I could then set objective from Kerbal orbit to say Mun orbit within a timelimit just a tiny bit over the Brachistochrone (to allow some margin for human error) and let players use these engines to try and achieve it.

I used rather more primitive designs to do that - each relay had an LV-919 attached to an LT-800 tank That said I have already got a basic microwave network mission based on your guide - maybe if you can give me some help (since I haven't the foggiest idea how to do it) a really cool one would be a follow up using fusion/DT engine (can you use a DT engine with a fusion reactor ? I can't quite tell from the wiki and haven't really tried) to expand that into a Kerbol network that will let you use plasma engines interplanetary - even if perhaps initially just for the inner planets ? Based on the wiki though - the best way to do that would be to use solar panels on your generators, which rather rules out fusion (see my dillema) ? I could see value in this approach - there is an earlier mission (much earlier) to set up a tritium breeding factory - I'm not even sure how you would produce deuterium and He3 yet but building missions to create a complete fusion refuelling factory could be quite cool. Then perhaps follow up missions using the reactors for different jobs to show each fuel mode at it's best. That sounds like a cool mission set - about 6 missions in all probably.

I need a little help guys -I've unlocked the fusion reactors and the DT-Engine now - and they look like awesome technology but I'm struggling to come up with a nice mission to really showcase their abilities and teach users about them. I would love some suggestions/ideas ? How do you use yours ? What do you use them for ?

Yes, you have to add somewhere to store the things you're gathering. For my test I added a standard LT400 fuel tank, used the tweakable option to empty it out - and the scoop (set for oxygen) filled it up with oxidizer - and did so even when I was braked on the runway.

...well if you want to do it the right way... Now why didn't I think of that, I had engineer redux on all my vessels !

Since I wrote the mission-set based on that guide just earlier today I can answer some of these questions from fresh memories: -The reactors fluctuating: sorry, I can't speak about this one, haven't had that. -Network connection state: this threw me for a loop as well at first, turns out you can ONLY see connection states from RECEIVERS - neither relays nor transmitters will show as connected to anything else. However if you send up anything with a receiver it should tell you everything it's able to connect to. For a quick test, if you change the mode of one of your network satelites to receive you can verify that it can see at least part of the rest. -What I did was this: 1) place the first relay at 1000km orbit, this is high enough to give you a decent margin of error which helps a lot. 2) launch the second relay to a low (75Km) orbit, go to map view mode, set the first relay as your target. Now expand create a maneuver node somewhere on your orbit doing pure prograde until your new orbit will intersect relay 1's orbit. The map will show you and intersect marker indicating where relay1 will be at the time you arrive (this assumes your relay placement takes only a few seconds to circularize at high orbit btw). 120 degrees = 360/3 - in other words you want that target-position indicator about 1/3 of the way around it's orbit from where your apoapsis will be. If it's not there, you can try altering it a bit if it's close, else look where it is (this gives you an idea of the relative speed of relay1) and place a new maneuvre node based on this until your intersection puts your apoapsis 1/3rd of an orbit from relay 1. 3) Do the maneuver and circularize at the apoapsis, your first two relays should now be quite close to 120 degrees apart (it certainly was close enough in my case to work). 4) Finally the hardest one is relay3 - because this must be exactly halfway between the other two (i.e. covering another 1/3rd of the orbit) - launch to low orbit like before. Unfortunately you cannot target two nodes at once so you can only see where ONE will be at intersect, but if you look at the distance between them - and work on the basis that they move at the same speed, you can fairly accurately work out where the other will be and place your maneuvre accordingly. I found that for me the right spot was almost exactly between the two nodes on the wrong side of the orbit (i.e. the short part between them) but I can't say this will hold for others. Once you have your spot, execute maneuver and circularize at apoapsis.

Just to mention it here as well - I have been working hard at building a full scale set of KSPtoryMissions around the KSP_Interstellar mod - and it's nearing completion (I expect to have it in beta by tonight or tomorrow). It doesn't cover EVERY part but it covers most of them and tries to give players missions that teach them how the parts work and fit together and what they can do with them. I know this mission pack is out of scope for the main KSPStoryMissions target audience but I'm sure some people may benefit from it anyway - it's basically the closest thing to a beginners guide there is for KSPI and it's a fun learn-by-doing one. https://github.com/ajventer/ksp_stuff/releases/tag/0.0.9

That's why I was asking as it turns out - my idea is completely impossible. Solar panels do not, apparently, produce MegaJoules and thus cannot power a thruster even if you do get it close to the sun (which I finally managed). Though if I understand the WIKI right, hooking a microwave transmitter up to a solar powered satelite will allow the receivers to get megajoules from it. Odd little quirk that - it means in theory if you hook up a solar satelite with a receiver right in front of a transmitter you may actually be able to power a plasma thruster (very weakly most likely considering losses in that circular process).

Since we're discussing feature requests - I have a major one. Right now KSPStoryMissions leaves you at a rather dead end in an open solar system once you finish your available missions and unlocked the tech tree. KSP in career mode rather does the same - but since it's not budgeted it's not as big an impact to feel as you can still openly explore doing stuff afterward - you just don't get new parts. But with StoryMissions adding a budget - that limits what you can do once the tech-tree is unlocked, no way to fund further exploration or missions unless you write a quest for them each time, which is a big burden to put on ordinary players. But what if the budget and science system could be linked ? I don't know how feasible this would be but imagine a part, unlocked at the very end of the tech tree - which allows you to trade science points for cash in your budget. This would provide not only motivation to keep playing - but the means to do so at the same time, go explore, do science, gain points - and use them to pay for the mission ?

BTW - I was wrong in my earlier guess: atmospheric scoops *only* require power, not motion, to function. I built a test space plane to try them out and confirmed I could harvest oxygen into oxidizer while standing on the runway with the brakes applied.

Drat... okay, tried to test my little idea - turns out as soon as I you leave Kerbin's SOI you are also disconnected from the microwave network - even if you're still quite close to it. Unless I'm just too far and maybe just need more relays further out ?

You have to time accelerate: a lot. Tritium breeding in real time doesn't work due to a glitch in KSP's resource generation system.

I have an idea for a follow-up to the microwave network mission based on what's mentioned in the Microwave Power Transmission section of the wiki - Presumably it should be possible to build a satellite with a plasma thruster using microwave power from the existing Kerbin network to get into a solar orbit with a fairly close periapses, the satellite would be equipped with gigantor solar panels - once at periapses these can provide the power to circularize the orbit there - and now it can become a beaming power generator instead. I have a few questions though: 1) Considering the transcievers can act as receivers - would it be possible to do it with just a transciever acting as a receiver when leaving Kerbin and a transmitter after arriving ? 2) Would it require relays ? If so - at what approximate orbit should these be placed ? Can a similar design (minus the solar panels) function for this ? Obviously at the moment it would still be limited by the lower power of the un-upgraded plasma thrusters but if this is doable then a network constructed even now could power later upgraded plasma thrusters throughout the Kerbol solar system ? Update: Question 3: If you deactivate a microwave receiver when you're not thrusting - and your electrical charge runs out - can you reactivate it ? Basically - do they require electrical charge to activate ?

Yet another KSPStoryMissions for KSPI update: https://github.com/ajventer/ksp_stuff/releases/tag/0.0.9 This one adds a new mission pack: Your friendly neighbourhood microwave network. This mission pack contains 8 new missions based directly on RadHazzard's awesome guide on the wiki to constructing a basic microwave network for a plasma craft. The first three missions constructs and places orbital power generators with microwave transmitters, then three more missions guides the player in creating a relay network using transceivers and finally mission number 8 guides the player in constructing a plasma+microwave powered craft capable of many Mun trips without refuelling. I want to give a personal note of thanks to RadHazzard for the guide he added, this mission pack literally follows it almost to the letter (even the parts choices for the test craft is based on his suggestions) and without that guide I would probably have spent many days trying to figure out how this stuff really works by myself. With his guide however, I was able to not only construct a working microwave network but write a comprehensive mission-pack around it in record time. On a side note: tomorrow is the last day of my holiday, as of Tuesday I'm essentially back at work full-time (which in my world means 10+ hours a day) so my rate of development on this pack will be going down substantially after tomorrow. On the upside: I won't be spamming the forum so much

Between the WIKI and this forum it's actually fairly well covered - and getting better, I'm completely new to it and documenting my experiences by writing KSPStoryMissions around the parts as they become available - and on those few occasions when I couldn't find what I needed in the WIKI or here - somebody was always ready to answer the question. It does however require some reading up to figure out how the parts work together and what the best ways to use them are.

New pre-release of the KSP_Interstellar mission pack for KSPStoryMissions: https://github.com/ajventer/ksp_stuff/releases/tag/0.0.8 This update adds two new mission packs: Charley and the Tritium factory (rank 13): Over a three-part mission-set the player constructs a tritium breeding factory, science lab and ISRU at KSC itself - the science lab can be used to generate science points or get some early antimatter production going or whatever else the player needs. The entire setup is dockable to allow for fuel transfers to waiting-to-launch vehicles etc. This is essentially an introductory mission to show how to use the science lab, ISRU and and tritium breeding. KNOWN ISSUE: There is a bug in the current version of KSPStoryMissions that causes it to (regularly) fail to recognize docking objectives as being completed on surface installations. This made the missions impossible to complete, in order to resolve this the missions do not at this stage actually require docking the parts together - merely that they be placed at KSC - however docking them together is highly recommended (using a remote resource system like Lazor is not very effective in this scenario as actinides cannot be transferred making fuel reprocessing impossible). Science is my lady (rank 14): This is a 4-part mission pack built around deploying science labs at progressively harder locations (based on the multiplier scores from the KSP_Interstellar wiki). The first mission requires the player to land one on the Mun, then on Ike. The third mission places one in orbit around Jool and the final mission requires landing one on Moho. Note that the final mission here is very, very tough - but it also has a very high reward. I haven't managed to successfully complete it myself yet - but it's been sufficiently tested to confirm it doesn't have (significant) bugs - it's just bloody hard Over-all the budgets for these missions are much higher than average but this is because they require significant crew recruitment which needs to be funded out of that budget as well.

I'm no expert and I'm sure others can give you more detailed answers but for a start my understanding is that atmospheric intakes will only work on ships which are moving at fairly high velocity (i.e. on a space plane or something). So you may need to build a small space-plane to go with your base which uses atmospheric intakes to collect the materials and then deliver them to the base and dock with it to transfer ?

I have a question regarding the ISRU - the wiki says you need somewhere to store depleted fuels in order to do nuclear fuel reprocessing - but it gives no indication of what this may be ? None of the containers I can see seems to match that description - so I have no real idea what sort of thing I need to attach to it for this to work ? When I just hooked one up via docking ports to a running tritium breeding reactor and enabled it, it seemed to be working (though I didn't timewarp to check if the results were accurate). Any hints please ? Update: I noticed that there is a 0 counted "depleted fuel" entry on the UF4 cannister - if I were to attach one of these and empty the UF4 value - would that hold depleted fuels ? Nevermind - I tried it for myself and it does seem that this is how it works.