[1.3.0] Solaris Hypernautics v0.5.5- latest virtual particle technology!

[Drelam]

Alright, I'll see if I can make a suitable 3.25m engine that uses virtual particles as a final tier engine. Any other requests for the upcoming updates guys?

I forgot something, it's nothing game breaking or something, but would it be possible to give the KannaeDrives (cruise mode) some (low) sound?

It doesn't have to be something loud like a Mainsail sound, but some feedback to notice that it is active would be appreciated.

(a low sci fi like sound would be nice).

A bigger (more volume) version of the virtual particles tank would be also welcome (maybe a longer model?)

Like the old Kerbal guide for spacefaring says: bigger is always better (also known as "moar boostas!")

Some random ideas:

- How about creating a really huge interplanetary drive based on the virtual particle technology?

(maybe something in between a alcubierre drive and standard accelation engine?)

- A Vtol engine which gets more powerful the closer it gets to the surface. (IDK if that's possibe)

The idea is a engine which can lift even super heavy ships about 10 meters or so, but not higher.

- A system of energy generation based on space dust.

A heavy generator that runs on space dust (+a little ore for ex.) which can produce high (excessive) amounts of electricity but also produces a lot of heat and is really heavy (very heavy!). With space dust collectors the generator could basicly run indefinitely if there's also a little ore present (or something else, maybe karbonite, maybe?).

- You could also introduce a new resource that needs to be refined first and made to plasma later, to power some of the big engines i mentioned.

(There's also the option to do something with virtual particles, like making them supercharged or something like that)

[Carbonjvd]

Probably the biggest change in the current update, besides the reactor balancing, is the addition of Asteroid Cities mod to Solaris Hypernautics. Currently I'm working to adapt all the parts to this mod, but it'll take some time to achieve. So for now I've adapted the 2.5m Refinery from Asteroid Cities into the new Virtugenic Refinery! This new refinery functions like a scaled Dust Processing Unit, but instead of having a Xenon gas extractor secondary function, this one converts dust into virtual particles. This variation of the virtugenic series produces far more particles, but at the cost of resources beyond just power. Hopefully this new part can provide adequate virtual particle generation! The other part added in this update was Dust Collector Ring, which for all intents and purposes is a heavily scaled up inline Dust Accumulator. Same function with the same mechanics, just more powerful and inline. To address the issue of reactors consuming ore faster than can be produced via accumulators and dust processors, all reactor-type parts have had their efficiency's increased by a factor of 10. This should hopefully make them reliable over longer missions and make vessel truely self-sufficient. A few parts were moved around the tech tree to make room for the new parts. And of course a few tweaks here and there.

Thanks for all the downloads and enjoy the mod guys and gals!

[Carbonjvd]

A smaller update, just to keep things fresh! Included is one new part, the Solar Wind Panel! It passively collects the solar wind as dust to help fuel missions, though like a normal solar panel it needs constant sunlight to work. Near the Sun it'll definitely outdo's normal dust accumulators, but farther out or at night, these are fairly useless! However unlike normal solar panels, these are reinforced and won't break under drag! The only other change was a minor tweak to the normal dust accumulator. Have fun with the new Solar Wind Panels everyone!

[Probus]

This looks great! I am going to put it on my list of mods to include in the Engineering Tech Tree (ETT).

[Kielm]

Looks interesting - does it have Community Tech Tree compatibility?

[buzzlight]

Awesome mode! BUT I cannot make an useful rocket!! I am very confuse between the dust and the engines. I put the electric charge generator, liquid/oxy tank, dust container and the CX-2500 all this gave me 1.6 TWR and I still cannot get it from the ground... :S

[Mekan1k]

just to let you know, the nuclear RCS conflicts with another mod- it has a part also called "heavyrcs", so if the name in the CFG is changed to, say, "heavynukercs" instead, it prevents the people who run into this problem from experiencing unwilling part replacement issues.

[Carbonjvd]

Awesome mode! BUT I cannot make an useful rocket!! I am very confuse between the dust and the engines. I put the electric charge generator, liquid/oxy tank, dust container and the CX-2500 all this gave me 1.6 TWR and I still cannot get it from the ground... :S

The CX-2500 is a Catalytic Engine, so its a dual function part, one part engine, one part drill for all intents and purposes. In its Atmospheric Filter mode it DOES NOT produce any thrust, negative or otherwise. In that mode its NOT AN ENGINE, so please don't treat it in that mode as one. You have no idea how many people get that part confused...

just to let you know, the nuclear RCS conflicts with another mod- it has a part also called "heavyrcs", so if the name in the CFG is changed to, say, "heavynukercs" instead, it prevents the people who run into this problem from experiencing unwilling part replacement issues.

That definitely sounds like an issue. In the next update I'll change it to something less conflicting.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Carbonjvd

[Carbonjvd]

So we have a new update for the mod guys! First thing I'd like to say is that this update is in fact a SAVE BREAKER. If you wish to not have your vessels and saves you've work so hard to be broken, please follow these instructions:

DISCLAIMER: This is modifying craft files, so any changes made were your own, this is just a guide to fix craft files in between updates. Thus you are 100% liable for anything that you do here on out, you've been warned!

0. Make sure your in the Kerbal Space Program/saves/ folder to start off with

1. Choose a saved profile and open up the saved vessels folders, SPH and VAB

2. Go through each vessel you may have used the Thermal RCS Thruster and open the craft file with Notepad

3. Click "Replace" and set to replace "HeavyRcs" with "nukeRcs"

4. Click "Replace All" and save the file

5. Make sure all vessels updated accordingly

Now that that's taken care of, off to the actually fun stuff, what's new! Earlier it was brought to my attention, special thanks to Mekan1K, that the Thermal RCS Thruster had the same id as a part from another mod. To that end I changed it to "nukeRcs", so I hope nobody has a mod that name either... Besides the name change I've introduced two new 3.75m engines for some serious rocketing around the Solar System! The first is based on the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket by Dr. Zubrin that uses a continuous nuclear explosion contained in propellant water, thus I present the Zubrin Nuclear Drive! It has a fairly ridiculous amount of thrust with a good ISP, but at the same time it uses both Ore and Liquid Fuel to power it. The other drive is meant a little more "Rule of Cool" vs realistic, but whatever. This other drive is the Micropulsed Magnetic Drive that uses vast amounts of virtual particles and a built-in magnetic charge for a huge burst of speed. This is meant as a cross between the normal Kannae drives and the true ftl Warp drives. To help facilitate the control of the engine as an acceleration unit instead of a cruise unit, the engine requires a magnetic charge to function and can only regenerate it at a very slow rate, almost 6 hours in-game time for a full recharge. Both engines are in need of balancing, so feedback and suggestions are welcome! And as always requests and cool ideas for future updates is encouraged! Have a good weekend everyone!!!

[Glaran K'erman]

Great! By the way throw "Command Module" up there in the poll....

[BioRoots]

why iam getting this for the magnetic drive

[Drelam]

Interesting new engines.

I'm looking forward to give them a try!

EDIT:

After a couple of hours of tinkering, i have difficulties to see the point of the new "Micropulsed Magnetic Drive" to be honest.

Their fixed DV doesn't make them very attractive to use and i fail to see any area of application for them. It'd be a bit different if there where some kind of devices which could store amounts of magnetic charge which the engine could have access to.

The new "Solar Wind Panel" are a nice addition and have already proven to be very useful.

The "Zurbin Nuclear Drive" is awesomely powerful, i assume that's their point, right?

Edited August 9, 2015 by Drelam

[Carbonjvd]

The Micropulsed Magnetic Drive is definitely the one that's given me the most trouble. It tends to auto-activate at launch, figure it has something to do with it holding a magnetic charge. I'll go back to drawing board for it, I'm thinking of using xenon gas vs magnetic charge as its limiting factor. I envisioned the Micropulsed Magnetic Drive as something that gives a quick boost of acceleration once in a long while, like a more realistic warp drive type engine. The Solar Wind Panels are very helpful, but become nearly useless out passed Jool. Gotta balance it out somehow! And the Zubrin Nuclear Drive, the new star engine of Solaris Hypernautics! Awesomely powerful is their point 100%, . I'll be trying to make a new update today or tomorrow to fix up the new parts, any other suggestions to work on?

[Drelam]

Aside from changing the "Micropulsed Magnetic Drive", i think many people could use a big Liquid fuel tank.

I don't want to dwell on the "Micropulsed Magnetic Drive" subject too much or annoy you with it, i actually think that you're on the right direction with it. Maybe you could add some magnetic charge storage (not refillable on VAB/SPH) and a seperate device which specially creates magnetic charge for the magnetic drive engine. This would make it a whole different propulsion system, instead of "just" a booster-like engine. (Idk if that's your plan, so forget it if it's nonsense. )

Btw, the "Micropulsed Magnetic Drive" model looks really nice!

Something different:

I'm not a programmer so idk if that's nonsense or not, but if you want to go the Sci-Fi route, why not create a device which does reduce the ships mass?

(The more power you pump in, the lighter the ship gets. Activatable at an altitude of 500km+) Of course that's just a wild idea and every hardcore KSP player would frown upon it, lol.

[Carbonjvd]

Did a good number of fixes on the new parts, mostly making the Micropulsed Magnetic Drive actually playable. Fixed the pixel issue with the particles and rebuilt the magnetic charging system, to make it friendlier. Now the engine won't fire at launch, the ability to toggle the magnetic charging is gone, so its always on. The engine now is more stable and actually practical. It functions like a 3.75m Kannae Drive on Oversurge but uses a self-recharging supply of magnetic charge to limit the duration of bursts. At full power you get 3.9 seconds of acceleration and have a 90 second recharge cycle. Now the delta V is no longer fixed, but recharges itself overtime. It still requires a very large amount of virtual particles to use for full duration. A test vessel about 750 tons had a total delta V of 600m/s using 3 Micropulsed Magnetic Drives and had enough virtual particles for at least 3-4 back to back burns. Hopefully that makes it practical enough for gameplay. The Zubrin Nuclear Drive and Indominus Plasma Engine were also rebalanced to one another so both engines are still useful and one doesn't completely overshadow the other. Have fun with the hot fix update guys!

[Vist]

Hi everybody just a quick question :"> will the particle or dust collectors still continue to collect even if am focused on another ship or doing stuff back at KSC?

Thanks in advance.

[Chasewithlasers]

Man I love this mod. I cant post it now (tomorrow possibly), but the small quark engines are really fun to play with, and I'm currently trying to perfect personal/small cargo transports (so far I have a mun/minmus heavy hovership). This is easily one of my favorite mods, keep up the good work.

But there's something I'm concerned about: isnt it a little OP for the virtual particle-only engines to have the same ISP/thrust in atmospheres? Along with a ....load of fixed solar panels (and perhaps a Near Future Electrical capacitor.......), I'm almost completing a single-kerbal kannae transport vehicle (missile) that could easily get from KSP to orbit. Which is fun and all, but makes me wonder it it's balanced.

[Carbonjvd]

@Vist Not sure yet, but it should function like anyother normal resource part.

@Chasewithlasers The virtual particle engines were based off of the EM drive / Cannae drive which both work regardless of their medium. Simply put their ISP is the same no matter in atmosphere or not. Balance wise, its meant to be a bit OP but still keeps things fun! Full disclosure, I'm eyeballing just about all the figures for parts... XD

[Gatrnerd]

Just to ask, is this compatible with Outer Planets Mod? This seems pretty attractive to me, but my only concern is that I won't be able to gather dust from Sarnus (which makes no logical sense as it's got rings), Urlum, Neidon, Plock nor their moons.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Shinji-The-Kerbonaut

[Carbonjvd]

@Shinji The dust collection mechanism in my mod uses either sunlight as solar wind to get dust, or work through their magnetic charge get dust regardless of atmosphere. So if you can power it or has sunlight, you can get dust!

[Guest]

Hi Carbonjvd. The mod is great and I use many part in all new ship i make.

Do you think it could be possible to get dust in the background? I mean, not only when I am flying the ship but when i'm flying others. I need dust to recharge my ship "vp" tank and the process is very, very slow.... I know this is a general issue of the game with electric batts i have the hope that it will fixed in future versions. Currently I have flying 44 ships and is frustrating when after a lot of time you return to one of them only to see that is resource empty.

thanks

[DonOctavio]

I found that the Zubrin engine is a bit out of balance.

In the description in game and on the first page it says that it should "compete" with the Indominous, but it is massively over powered.

600units of fuel and 540 of ore will give me 17k of delta v with 19 twr, while the same 600units of fuel on the indominous will give me 4.5k delta v and 5.4 twr. The Indominous looks right, but the Zubrin is very far off the mark, it can send anything anywhere!

[Jimbodiah]

How does the retro-thruster work? I set the magnetic charging and do a re-entry, but don't see anything that I don't see on a normal engine; engine and fuel tank still start to overheat upon re-entry...

Edited November 9, 2015 by Jimbodiah
zpeling

[Jimbodiah]

Anybody out there except the crickets? :sticktongue:

[Jimbodiah]

Is this mod dead?