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That's all well and good, and duly noted. What I was wondering wasn't how the Thrust for a Thermal Rocket is determined, but how to increase the power of a reactor. If I take a Fission reactor -> Thermal Rocket -> Burn suspended on the pad I notice that the Power % of my reactor never increases. It simply stays at it's default minimum operating %. Yet if it did increase I would have more thrust from the thermal rocket. Supposedly the reactor increases power depending on the demand, yet apparently a thermal rocket does not constitute demand. So I was wondering if there's something I'm missing, and if not how would I go about increasing the Power % of the reactor?

I had this question answered in part a few pages back. What ways are there to increase the power % on nuclear reactors? Apparently this is done automatically as power needs increase, but what if you want to throttle the reactor up in order to burn a thermal rocket? I don't see any increase when I simply turn the engine on, it stays at it's default % and never increases.

I am indeed. I understand the minimum part but I didn't understand the auto throttling. It's something I suspected but try as I might I can't get the power to go above 40%. Granted all I did was put a Thermal Rocket under the reactor but the goal is to get that % up so the reactor gets hotter -> thermal rocket gets more thrust. So far though I can have the thing run for days and not only do I lose all my E charge eventually for some strange reason (despite having very little active) I can't get the reactor to go beyond 40% even with the rocket on full throttle.

Is there a way to moderate the amount of Power a Nuclear reactor generates? Mine always sits at "Active:40%". Other than upgrades, will I ever see it go above "40%?" and is there a way to say.. bring it to 30%?

So has anyone tried to use FAR and Interstellar? I've tried to put a L Phase Array Transceiver into orbit, and I have a feeling that FAR is making it really hard to do so. That is to say, I launch and I quickly lose control. I suspect it has something to do with the unfolded surface being counted in FAR and making my craft not aerodynamic. I'd put the thing in a fairing but it's just too large.

Much obliged, ty.

So on a tangent note, I have a question about power generation: 1 KW = 1 ElectricCharge/S a 1.25 Plasma Thruster (highest thrust fuel source) ~ 0.1 kN/MW A Gigantor Solar Array produces 18 KW The multiplier for being on top of the sun in Kerbal = 10x Thus ~180 KW near the sun for each array. 2 GW of power nets you ~ 25 kN of thrust w/ liquid fuel, or so the wiki tells me. So from that, that comes out to ~11k Gigantors required? Yet at the same time the resource page for Interstellar says 2 Gigantors can match a 1.25 unupgraded Nuclear Reactor near the sun. Would someone correct my math for me? Thanks

Yes I do actually plan to have 2 different satellite types for a microwave array. That being said I also need one that generates power, transmits, and relays because those are my power generators and I want those to be able to relay through each other. So... do I have to use 2 transceivers, or can I get away w/ 1 on relay?

I actually did take a look at the guide and the wiki. While they're great resources they don't seem very clear on either of these specific setups. I could do a test with two objects but I thought I'd ask here in case someone knew the answer offhand. Specifically I'd like to set up a Com-sat network(via Remotetech2) with each com able to also relay power. The com part is irrelevant, but the issue is just I'm not sure if I need two transceivers or not. I'd like to just turn them on, set them to some setting then be hands off and trust they do what they need to do. Here's the general plan: 1) Launch some large power generating arrays in some sort of orbit (probably 1/2 dozen into elliptic) around the sun. 2) Have any of those arrays be capable of transmitting/relaying power generated to satellites/objects around Kerbin. 3) Use this power to reduce the mass of other satellite launches to other celestial bodies. I've thought of using Nucelar power but I don't have the tech to do it efficiently yet and am not interested in launching them again and again then redoing their orbits as they slowly run out of fuel. I considered synchronous orbits but no matter how precise I try to do it I eventually get drift, so I'll overcompensate with some elliptical orbits and call it a day. So... Now I have a Satellite generating power, it needs to: 1) Transmit power to other satellites 2) Take power from other satellites and relay it to other satellites and add it's own with it. 3) Do 1-2 without any input from me after toggling the appropriate initial setting. That's why I asked if I needed two transceivers or if I could just do it with one. EDIT: As an addendum, I notice that 1MW = 1k e-charge/s. So... it takes like.. 167 thousand Gigantor Solar Panels to equal 1 3.75M Reactor? Thanks in advance

This may be a little offtopic, but I've been playing with the microwave transceivers and am a bit confused. Lets say I have a transceiver network. I notice that Transceivers have a Relay/Transmit/Receive option. If I have a ship and it produces power but I'd also like it to receive power, do I need 2 Transceivers or can I just use 1 and set it to "Relay"? -- Does relay add power the ship itself produces during relay, or do I need Relay + Transmit and thus 2 Transceivers? -- Can relay be used in part as Receive? Lets say I have a ship with 10 power consumption set to Relay and 20 units come in. Do 10 units go out? If I have a ship dependent on Microwave power but also want to use it to Relay at the same time do I then need 2 Transceivers? Thanks in advance

Hello there, I've been setting up Sat nets for a while, and recently I decided to venture to the mun and throw 4 sats in random orbits there. I ended up with: The detachable satellites have Communitron 16s. Anyways... fast forward to the execution stage and here's what happens: -Achieve Munar orbit -> Detach satellite -> No connection error on detached satellite I'm maybe 100m away from the parent, each child satellite has a probe core & fully extended Communitron 16. The parent satellite has the same. So... yeah, dunno what's going on here, any ideas?

Ah yeah for some reason I wasn't paying attention and lost the quote. I suppose this is the appropriate answer but my criticism was actually that I didn't understand why the entry level Nuclear tech had the nozzles included in the first place because of how awful they are. If they're going to be that bad you'd think that it'd simply be given to you in upgraded form further down the line. I didn't consider electricity generation, although was aware of the use with thermal turbojets, those were surprisingly useful for what they did. Either way, those uses are fair I guess, I just felt a bit cheated to dump all the science I had just obtained to get what I got.

Yeah I dunno. As a simple test. I tried: Small amount of LFO -> 1.25 Reactor -> 1.25 Nozzle Essentially the smallest amount of weight possible. With the entry level tech in Nuclear Engines that got me an amazing 13.6kN of thrust and drained my fuel in a relatively short amount of time. The weight was large and it was by far the worst TWR/Isp of all forms of propulsion. Either I'm missing something or there's just no reason to even have them there in the first place. If they're going to be that bad why not just remove then from that tier and give us the upgraded ones straight up later? Those are orders of magnitude better and people seem to have success with them.

Pardon the interjection, I've been dicking around with Interstellar in career mode and researched the first tier Nuclear Tech recently. Looking at the given ISP formulas and then the reactor temperature, as well as doing some simple testing on the launch pad, I don't understand what circumstances would convince anyone to use a Reactor + Thermal Rocket Nozzle. They appear to be by far the worst form of TWR/ISP available. Has anyone been able to make the first tier Nuclear Tech viable? If so, how? (This would be the un-upgraded Nuclear Reactors + Nozzles of various sizes)