LiLFA (Lithium Lorenz Force Accelerator) and extras

[Squiggsy]

Hi all, I am relatively new to modding but have been getting stuck in an making models and re-learning photoshop for textures, I have only been doing this for less than a month but have decided to start a slow process of developing a set of LiLFA's and some bonus energy generation items which will be necessary to reliably power them.

To start with here is a link to a bit of information about LiLFA's in real life, they are essentially a Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster which uses vaporised liquid Lithium as a propellant, they provide a LOT more thrust than an Ion thruster but at the cost of a huge amount more energy usage, and a very slightly lower specific impulse (4077)

Here are my current parts. they run off (and store) the resource LiquidLithium (had to rename to remove conflict with KSPI's Lithium resource) and ElectricCharge. There are two identical but resized Lithium storage tanks (I may or may not make them different for different size I have not yet decided) and a 1.25m and 0.625m engine (I think the 1.25m model will be final probably but i will improve on the texture, i think im going to alter both the model and texture of the 0.625m with time)

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the things I need to do with these models are:

• improve textures and normals
  
• add custom particle FX - complete!
  
• add fairing for 1.25m engine - complete!
  
• add emissives (didn't work on the 0.625 for some reason even though I've never had trouble with it before, need to go back and look where I have gone wrong)
  

other things I need to do overall:

• add Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) - complete!
  
• look at how to make resources continue to deplete while away from ship
  
• possibly add a Tokamak fusion generator
  
• 2.5m and 3.75m LiLFA's
  
• maybe add some concentrating solar panel arrays, bulkier, thicker, heavier, but produce a lot more energy
  
• balancing the engines to make them fit their real life specs with respect to the kerbal universe (scaled at the same proportions of real life ion thruster- ingame ion thruster, and then altered a bit because if I did this they would be OP and require a silly amount of power)
  

Since this is my first time doing something like this is am all ears to suggestions and advice, things might change around quite a lot and there are a few things I am toying with the idea of doing which might require me to delve into plugin making, I also am open to advice about integration with other common mods (especially tech tree integration mods) because I have no idea about how to do such a thing.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Squiggsy

[RoverDude]

Nice stuff! Have rep!

(side note, if you use CRP you can just use the same Lithium as KSPI (and I believe NFT may have some things that uses it down the road as well).

[Squiggsy]

thank you! means a lot

ohhh really? but does CRP allow you to have the same resource with different densities? I just found that KSPI's Lithium was amazingly heavy, although it doesnt really make much difference since once thrust and ISP are set the fuel usage will vary with resource density accordingly i suppose. It's going to take me a while to ballance everything properly though so i should make a decision on resource now and stick to it i guess

[KillAshley]

This looks great so far dude, this will probably be added to my core modset when it releases.

[Squiggsy]

thanks for the support! I think the plan at the moment is to get all the parts done to a level I am happy with, do a parts pack release and then look into plugins for things like using the ASRG's plutonium or the Tokamaks deuterium/tritium while away from the ship for a later update since i have never coded with python before and haven't coded at all in a decent while.

[Gaalidas]

You can code plugins in python? Wow, shows how much I know about plugin making. I always assumed C# (or is it D-flat?) was the standard.

[Squiggsy]

I must admit I don't actually know if it is used I just keep seeing python mentioned both in the forum and around things to do with unity so I assumed, as soon as I saw your post i looked it up and I can't actually find any evidence to support my assumption and the more i look into it the more it seems like you are indeed correct and its C#. this is the extent of my lack of knowledge on the subject right now haha

[Nertea]

Haha, funny, I have a model of this in an untextured state sitting on my drive. Nice work there .

CRP lithium is not super heavy, but I'm not sure if KSPI is using the common density definition yet. Regardless, it represents solid lithium so it'll be a tiny bit heavier per unit mass, though this shouldn't be a dealbreaker.

[Squiggsy]

oh cool, to be honest i just did a quick mental calculation and it seemed quite off, but I may have been the one who was quite off, as I said I need to sit down and have a proper look through balancing everything soon anyway, see how much should fit into each tank and how much in the engines (since they have some limited storage in the upper section) and work out definite thrust values that are realistic enough but still workable within the game.

and I thought there must be someone who had at least started on making one since they are a brilliant concept, have you done a ASRG as well? Haven't seen one around but it interested me, mostly because I wanted to make radioisotopic generator that actually used some resource since the idea of endless free energy doesnt sit well with me really

[Squiggsy]

oh yeah and i didn't register the username earlier but RoverDude you do awesome stuff and congrats on your SRB model being included in 1.0 stock, read it in the devnote tuesdays on tumblr the other day

[Squiggsy]

if I can just point people this-a-way http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115898-emissive-problems-in-unity-ModuleAnimateHeat-not-working, I have no idea what is going on here I'm sure these emissives should be working but they just don't seem to want to..

[riocrokite]

good stuff, keep up good work!

[RoverDude]

oh yeah and i didn't register the username earlier but RoverDude you do awesome stuff and congrats on your SRB model being included in 1.0 stock, read it in the devnote tuesdays on tumblr the other day

Thanks

It's been an extremely hectic few months

[Squiggsy]

Thanks

It's been an extremely hectic few months

yeah i bet, nice to see Squad recognising good modders and incorporating their work i have to say

good stuff, keep up good work!

thank you!

UPDATE: I have got particle effects partially working, they still remain pointing downwards when the ship turns though haven't quite figured out why, attempted to make it look as much like the real thing in the LiLFA firing photos but Imgur is giving me an error on every picture i try to upload so I can't update the album yet

[Squiggsy]

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got it fully working now might have to swap out the texture because i think the slight blockiness on the edges is caused by the texture being cut off by the edges of the canvas in photoshop, but happy with the colours and intensity/size of the flame now, might tweak it slightly (might make 2 fx, one intense orange/white right at the engine then make the red/pink a much fainter/more translucent glow) but it's pretty much there, so happy, it's taken me hours of frustration and then suddenly it all just came together

Edited April 19, 2015 by Squiggsy

[KillAshley]

looks awesome dude, good you got the emissions sorted! Loving the red glow

[Squiggsy]

thanks now to figure out what in the world i'm doing wrong with the heat emissives, im so sure i've got everything spot on, emissives have never given me too much grief before (although i've never done any for engines) but they just don't seem to want to play ball.

I should also mention that although all these images are of it flying in the atmosphere that's only because they are set up like this for testing currently, pretty sure in the release they will be terrible in atmosphere

[Squiggsy]

changed it to make it look more like the image i am basing it off from the firing photos:

done with particle FX for today, aside from maybe reducing the pink and increasing the red, and reducing the overall size of the pink/red bit.

Starting work on ASRG model now, already making good progress liking how it's turning out

sorry i am updating this for every little thing! just want to document my progress so i can see how much has been done to motivate me if i start to go "i just can't be bothered" which i have a habit of doing, but i refuse to for this project.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Squiggsy

[JeffreyCor]

This looks very interesting! I'll be looking forward to this

[KillAshley]

sorry i am updating this for every little thing! just want to document my progress so i can see how much has been done to motivate me if i start to go "i just can't be bothered" which i have a habit of doing, but i refuse to for this project.

Don't worry about it dude, i like reading the updates and seeing how it's coming along. This mod has my attention, and will most likely be added to my standard modset I use, so these updates keep me very interested. keep us informed !

[Squiggsy]

ah thanks man that really means a lot! In that case....:

sneak peek at the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator I'm working on, and its housing (for nice inline storage) just finished the model last night, unwrapped it this morning and am going to texture it today and depending on how long it takes tomorrow as well. this thing should produce about 4-6x the energy of an RTG but weigh a lot more and possibly consume a resource if i can get it to consume it while away from the ship, will enable you to power a LiLFA at very low throttle consistantly while a long way from the sun without the huge weight of a tokamak fusion generator ( andsince i wont be making a 62.5cm or 1.25m version of those because that would just be OP, these will be useful for probes)

based on this image of the intended design of the real life ASRG:

Edited April 20, 2015 by Squiggsy

[KillAshley]

...and possibly consume a resource if i can get it to consume it while away from the ship...

could background processing help?

[Squiggsy]

could background processing help?

yes! thank you so much I was looking for that yesterday for ages and I couldn't remember what it was called and failed completely at finding it, will still need to do a bit of coding but this will make it a whole lot more manageable. although looking at it im not 100% sure it will work since it says

"BP also allows mods to indicate that some mod-specific resource should be handled in the background, and then any ModuleGenerator or ModuleDeployableSolarPanel that produces that resource (with no resource consumed) will produce it in the background."

but it does go on to say

Additionally, any ModuleCommand that consumes that resource will consume it in the background.

so i'm sure it's workable for my needs.

edit: actually yes i wasn't thinking properly (its still early here) just the fact that it will consume a resource in the background is enough that it will be spot on what i'm looking for

thanks again!

Edited April 20, 2015 by Squiggsy

[KillAshley]

finally all that time ghosting forums has paid off glad i could help dude! keep up the good work and keep us posted!

[Squiggsy]

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Took a little lithium powered probe to minmus to test how balanced it was/ see what drain rates of plutonium_238 were like for the new ASRG. I'm really happy with how it looks!

everything definitely needs some balancing still, the lil 62.5cm LiLFA gives some incredible acceleration in a tiny probe like that, although it does drain the electric charge pretty quickly! still needs slightly more energy input and i think needs to weigh more too. I'm please with how all the parts look together though!