Request - More uses for hydrogen

[ruiluth]

After playing with Nertea's fantastic Kerbal Atomics and Cyogenic Engines, I have fallen in love with liquid hydrogen as a power source and I find myself wanting more. And of course Nertea is busy maintaining more amazing mods than I would think is possible, so I've been wondering (hoping) if there are any other mods which expand his selection of LH2 engines and tanks. Of course there is KSP Interstellar but that is very complicated and I don't really need everything it add, although I can't say I've looked into it very deeply.

If there aren't any extensions, how difficult would it be to make some myself? I don't know how to make 3d models and import them into Unity but I figure I could probably make MM configs for existing models, maybe from other mods that I don't use. If so, does anyone have suggestions for this? Suitable models and/or configs?

 

[Shadowmage]

SSTU has quite a few LH2/Ox engines (Hydrolox), a full set of tanks to go with them... and lots of other stuff

(Warning, SSTU uses the real density/volume of LH2... which you'll find is half-as dense as Kerbal Atomics/Cryo Engines uses).

 

RoverDude's FTT mod also used to incorporate some LH2 atomic motors, though its been a looong time since I've played with them (0.90 or so):

 

I'm not aware of any others, but there likely are at least a few more semi-realism oriented mods out there.  You might try checking the RealismOverhaul 'recommended' and 'suggested' mods list, combined with the RealismOverhaul patches, you could likely get a few more LH2 using mods.

And, in the end, nearly any engine (stock or mod provided) can be converted to LH2/Hydrolox through ModuleManager patches.

[CobaltWolf]

Bluedog Design Bureau has WIP configs to convert appropriate engines over when Cryogenic Engines is installed, notably the RL10 variants (in progress) and the J2 (not yet in game). Something to have on your radar I guess?

 

Edited June 15, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[wasml]

While MM patches can take a bit of getting use to there are plenty of examples and documentation. Once you understand what you need to do you can do a lot. I would recommend playing with it - you'll probably find yourself fixing some of those out of date part mods that you don't want to give up, correcting things you think are balanced wrong, or adding functionality to parts - all without diving into c# or 3D modeling. Well worth getting familiar with MM.

[Streetwind]

Near Future Propulsion used to have LH2 modes on some of its electric engines. They were removed for game balance reasons - not because the engines were OP or anything, but rather because the tanks were impossible to balance. Due to dry mass differences between stock liquid fuel and stock xenon, if you can believe it    Ah, game design, it never gets old...

But if you don't care so much about balance (or want to wait for KSP v1.2, which likely fixes this), I could help you restore those modes. It's not hard - once you decide what kind of Isp ranges you want for which engines, my master spreadsheet will tell you what kind of thrust that affords you, and then it's just MM config writing.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Streetwind

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

Near Future Propulsion used to have LH2 modes on some of its electric engines. They were removed for game balance reasons - not because the engines were OP or anything, but rather because the tanks were impossible to balance. Due to dry mass differences between stock liquid fuel and stock xenon, if you can believe it    Ah, game design, it never gets old...

But if you don't care so much about balance (or want to wait for KSP v1.2, which likely fixes this), I could help you restore those modes. It's not hard - once you decide what kind of Isp ranges you want for which engines, my master spreadsheet will tell you what kind of thrust that affords you, and then it's just MM config writing.

Out of curiosity, do you only balance between thrust and ISP? Does weight, cost etc not factor in?

[Streetwind]

It does factor in a lot, of course. Thing is, when adding another propellant mode to an engine, those numbers are all defined already. Just because you switch propellant type doesn't suddenly change how much the engine weighs, after all. Between different modes, only thrust and specific impulse change. Even electricity consumption remains the same, as that is basically the capability of the engine to shunt energy into whatever matter passes through it, and not a property of the propellant itself.

[CobaltWolf]

10 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

It does factor in a lot, of course. Thing is, when adding another propellant mode to an engine, those numbers are all defined already. Just because you switch propellant type doesn't suddenly change how much the engine weighs, after all. Between different modes, only thrust and specific impulse change. Even electricity consumption remains the same, as that is basically the capability of the engine to shunt energy into whatever matter passes through it, and not a property of the propellant itself.

Ah, I misread your post. Or rather, missed that you were referring specifically to adding modes to engines.