[1.12.x] Near Future Technologies (September 6)

[JadeOfMaar]

42 minutes ago, NHunter said:

speaking of which... VASIMRs seem to have some (at least in whatever version of them I had in my 1.6 GPP install) some weird interaction with TweakScale: their size changed but neither thrust nor EC nor argon/xenon consumption seemed to be affected.

The VASIMR has an engine module plugin (behind the Isp slider control). Tweakscale is rightfully unable to deal with it, I guess.

[juanml82]

3 hours ago, Streetwind said:

0.6 is huge for electric propulsion. You can land on Moho with that! Some of my chemical engine spacecraft have less. All of my LV-N spacecraft have less.

...Do we need to nerf the Colossus?

I thought I had enough of this when I made an mk2 rover/lander with a full science loadout which had over 5,000 dV and could land in all low gravity moons. It had a garnet nuclear reactor and a bunch of the GW3 (I think) argon thrusters.

I'm now trying to stick to a personal rule of "No NFP nuclear-electric landers" - they are just too overpowered.

[Streetwind]

Oh, right, I just remembered something.

@Chakkoty@juanml82 and everyone else who might have thought that "the thrust on these is too high/too low" or "they should be more/less fuel efficient", or even "they use too much/too little EC"... did you know that the mod has you covered out of the box?

It's a little-known feature, but inside the Patches subdirectory in the NF Propulsion mod folder, there is a tweak patch that lets you change these things. And the best thing? You need to know nothing about how to write Module Manager patches, or how the custom engine modules of NFP work under the hood, or how utterly weird the interaction between Isp and fuel mixture becomes when one of the propellants is massless... and so on. All you need to do is adjust one (or more) of three provided multipliers, and save the file. Fully documented, completely reversible, arbitrarily combinable, breaks nothing if removed later-on, maintains the mod's pre-set balance between its engines.

So if 0.6 TWR ain't enough? Crank up that thrust multiplier, and enjoy! Or halve the power draw, so you can mount two engines per reactor. Or whatever floats your space-boat.

Note: the patch was written a while ago, Module Manager has changed a bit over time, and almost nobody knows the patch exists or uses it. It is possible (though not likely) that something may be broken. If you do use the file, I would greatly appreciate if you could report back here whether or not you get the expected ingame behavior. If it's broken, I'll fix it.

[juanml82]

2 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Oh, right, I just remembered something.

@Chakkoty@juanml82 and everyone else who might have thought that "the thrust on these is too high/too low" or "they should be more/less fuel efficient", or even "they use too much/too little EC"... did you know that the mod has you covered out of the box?

It's a little-known feature, but inside the Patches subdirectory in the NF Propulsion mod folder, there is a tweak patch that lets you change these things. And the best thing? You need to know nothing about how to write Module Manager patches, or how the custom engine modules of NFP work under the hood, or how utterly weird the interaction between Isp and fuel mixture becomes when one of the propellants is massless... and so on. All you need to do is adjust one (or more) of three provided multipliers, and save the file. Fully documented, completely reversible, arbitrarily combinable, breaks nothing if removed later-on, maintains the mod's pre-set balance between its engines.

So if 0.6 TWR ain't enough? Crank up that thrust multiplier, and enjoy! Or halve the power draw, so you can mount two engines per reactor. Or whatever floats your space-boat.

Note: the patch was written a while ago, Module Manager has changed a bit over time, and almost nobody knows the patch exists or uses it. It is possible (though not likely) that something may be broken. If you do use the file, I would greatly appreciate if you could report back here whether or not you get the expected ingame behavior. If it's broken, I'll fix it.

Thanks. I had checked the extras folder at some time but didn't know about that patch. In any case, I'm not complaining - I don't like the long burn times of the Nerv so I'm happy with the high isp/reasonably high thrust engines of this mod. I just talk myself against using them as landers

[Chakkoty]

@Nertea @Streetwind I optimized. Here's the result.

Spoiler

I unintentionally made it look like a weird mushroom Kerbazord.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Chakkoty

[Streetwind]

Well dang. Now I have a picture I can point at whenever someone complains that electric engine burns take too long 

It looks like you still have a few excess units of monoprop on board, by the way, which you could optimize away.

How are you planning to launch it? Or will it be constructed in orbit?

[Chakkoty]

@Streetwind It will be constructed in orbit using multi-welding Konstruction! ports. My ISV-1 made it to the moon and back with fuel to spare (I still plan to optimize for more dV, as the ISV-2 is supposed to go to Duna and beyond), but electricity is a problem.

This one uses a fission generator (2000 EC/s), so it can run both VASIMRs at half throttle indefinitely or at full power for about 50 seconds (capacitors and battery). I'll have to see if I can find an efiiciency setting that maximizes dV.

There will be a little weight added still - two landers docked at the port and starboard docking ports as this thing will never leave orbit.

And yeah, that monopropellant gotta go. I use LF/O heavy RCS thrusters as anything else would take ages and lots of fuel to move this thing

Edit: Goddammit I forgot supplied and fertilizer. I play in Sandbox mode because I'm all about building (just gave up trying to dock/rndv after half an hour and just let MechJeb have a go at it), but I need SOME realism in form of rudimentary life support. Can't have those fancy hydroponic modules go to waste!

Edited December 16, 2019 by Chakkoty

[Chakkoty]

I want to use the NF Launch Vehicles engines with the Methalox patch (for dat Immershun) and I was wondering if anyone has the fuel values for Liquid Methane & Oxidizer tanks. Can I just use my regular lift vessels?

I checked the .cfg files (again) and since the Methalox patch increases Isp as well, I should TECHNICALLY kinda get the same Delta-V, right?

EDIT: @Nertea @Streetwind So if LFOX has 1 unit per volume (LF and OX having the same density in the game for simplicity I suppose) and MOX has 2.5 units per volume, does that mean it occupies 2.5 times the volume as LFOX? So for the 1800 LFOX fuel tank it would have...calculation noises...720 units instead of 1800 and would need a tank that holds...more calculation noises...29,500 units for the same mass? Did I get my math right?

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Chakkoty

[Streetwind]

I must admit that I've never paid attention to methalox stuff, so can't help you there, I'm afraid.

However, you could look at the ModularFuels patch that the mod ships. It lists all the design-intended internal tank volumes. Means you don't have to calculate or guesstimate them by yourself.

One thing to keep in mind is that, while liquid methane is definitely a lot less dense than kerosene, it also requires comparatively more oxidizer to fully burn. Meaning, methalox engines run a more oxidizer-heavy fuel mixture, which in turn means that the tank split is shifted in favor of more liquid oxygen and less liquid methane. Since liquid oxygen is actually denser than kerosene, favoring the oxidizer counterbalances the lower methane density, and the total required methalox tank volume increase over kerolox end up smaller than you think it would be.

At least, it works that way IRL. KSP LiquidFuel/Oxidizer isn't really kerolox, it acts more like a hypergolic fuel when considering its density, Isp, and engine behavior. So I'm not sure how Nertea's methalox numbers compare.

[Nertea]

12 hours ago, Chakkoty said:

I want to use the NF Launch Vehicles engines with the Methalox patch (for dat Immershun) and I was wondering if anyone has the fuel values for Liquid Methane & Oxidizer tanks. Can I just use my regular lift vessels?

I checked the .cfg files (again) and since the Methalox patch increases Isp as well, I should TECHNICALLY kinda get the same Delta-V, right?

EDIT: @Nertea @Streetwind So if LFOX has 1 unit per volume (LF and OX having the same density in the game for simplicity I suppose) and MOX has 2.5 units per volume, does that mean it occupies 2.5 times the volume as LFOX? So for the 1800 LFOX fuel tank it would have...calculation noises...720 units instead of 1800 and would need a tank that holds...more calculation noises...29,500 units for the same mass? Did I get my math right?

 

Just install CryoTanks. With that and the ML optional patch you will get methalox in all your lift tanks. 

[Chakkoty]

12 hours ago, Nertea said:

Just install CryoTanks. With that and the ML optional patch you will get methalox in all your lift tanks. 

Done! Works like a charm, as always. o7

15 hours ago, Streetwind said:

One thing to keep in mind is that, while liquid methane is definitely a lot less dense than kerosene, it also requires comparatively more oxidizer to fully burn. Meaning, methalox engines run a more oxidizer-heavy fuel mixture, which in turn means that the tank split is shifted in favor of more liquid oxygen and less liquid methane. Since liquid oxygen is actually denser than kerosene, favoring the oxidizer counterbalances the lower methane density, and the total required methalox tank volume increase over kerolox end up smaller than you think it would be.

At least, it works that way IRL. KSP LiquidFuel/Oxidizer isn't really kerolox, it acts more like a hypergolic fuel when considering its density, Isp, and engine behavior. So I'm not sure how Nertea's methalox numbers compare.

It's 3 parts liquid methane and 1 part liquid oxygen - 1.875 units per volume LqdMethane, 0.625 units per volume Oxidizer.

Since KSP doesn't really deal with volume, I use whatever values I can get from the files. COULD boot up the game and look it up, but where's the fun in that?

The LFOX tank type has a tankMass = 0.000625 and LMOx has a tankMass = 0.000490377. It's already the combined "density" of methane and oxidizer, so I just need to calculate the multiplier:

0.000490377 / 0.000625 = 0.7846032

So I just multiply the LFOX fuel mass of any applicable tank (Rockomax Jumbo-64 has 36 tons full, 4 tons dry, so 32 tons of LFOX) with that:

32.0 t * 0.7846032 = 25,1073024‬ t of LMOX. Theoretically.

 

Also, using the formula you gave me for calculating the ffuel flow of (electric) engines, the 25-1 BE-4 equivalent (2600 kN thrust, 328 Isp surface level) uses approximately 808 kg of fuel per second, or 202 units. So the Jumbo-64 tank would last for approximately 31 seconds at full throttle. Same values if U use 6400 units of fuel and the 202 units per second.

So they are more fuel-hungry (or rather, have less fuel mass per volume) than LFOX, but have a better TWR with fuel density taken into account.

...I just really like doing the math. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Streetwind]

6 hours ago, Chakkoty said:

...I just really like doing the math. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep liking the doing of the math. If there hadn't been people who liked doing the math, we'd still be living in mud huts, wearing furs!

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Streetwind

[Lisias]

On 12/13/2019 at 2:41 PM, NHunter said:

speaking of which... VASIMRs seem to have some (at least in whatever version of them I had in my 1.6 GPP install) some weird interaction with TweakScale: their size changed but neither thrust nor EC nor argon/xenon consumption seemed to be affected.

I'ts a wild guess, but I think this part needs a EXPONENT for it. It probably have a custom module that TweakScale does not knows about, and so the "stock" exponent only works on the known modules.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Lisias
tyop! Surprised?

[Nertea]

Oh hi guys. 

This was supposed to be a Christmas present, and then an NY present, but let's welcome the newest addition to the NF family, Near Future eXploration!

Full album

This pack contains a set of parts to help enhance and improve the KSP probe experience, particularly in the later game with larger probes. You will find:

• More Probe Cores: A set of eight new probe cores in medium (1.25m) and larger (1.875m) sizes. 
• Probe Bus Parts:  Cargo bay-like parts that match the footprints of most probe cores (stock and NFX). Useful for storing batteries, fuel and the like
• Probe Fuel Tanks: New multi-fuel probe tanks in stack and radial sizes that are in the vein of the stock Dumpling and Baguette
• More Direct and Relay Antennae: More antennae that seamlessly fit into the KSP CommNet system to fill in missing ranges and add more interesting options.
• Reflector Antennae: A new type of antenna that does nothing on its own, but instead bounces signal from another antenna to amplify its range. Point antenna at a deployed reflector to recieve the bonus. Available in many sizes. 
• Small Probe Parts: A few small probe parts (battery, reaction wheel) to fill out the probe range

You can get it via the usual places. Curse will be a while I assume. CKAN will be in a bit. Please note KSP 1.8+ only!

 

Detailed feature list:

• Initial release
• Added 8 new probe cores
  • Probodobodyne RND: 0.625m cylindrical probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne DSK: 1.25m cylindrical probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne CYL: 1.875m cylindrical probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne REKT: medium square probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne SQR: large square probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne STP: medum octagonal probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne CHFR: large octagonal probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
  • Probodobodyne PLTO: large tetrahedral probe core. Metal, Gold Foil, and Silver Foil variants.
• Added probe buses - hollow structures
  • ADPT-A: 0.625 to 1.25m cylindrical adapter bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • ADPT-B: 1.25m to 1.875m cylindrical adapter bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • OKTO: OKTO footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • QBE: QBE footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • HECS: HECS footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • HECS2 : HECS2 footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • RND: RND footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • DSK: DSK footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • CYL: CYL footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • REKT: REKT footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • SQR: SQR footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • STP: STP footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • CHFR: CHFR footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
  • PLTO: PLTO footprint bus. Metal, Gold Foil, Silver Foil and Skeletal surfaces.
• Added probe-styled multipurpose fuel tanks
  • MLT-R2 Multipurpose Fuel Tank: Tiny radial probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-10 Multipurpose Fuel Tank Cluster: Tiny stack probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-R10 Multipurpose Fuel Tank: Small short radial probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-R20 Multipurpose Fuel Tank: Small medium radial probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-R40 Multipurpose Fuel Tank: Small long radial probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-240 Multipurpose Fuel Tank Cluster: 1.875m-ish short probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-120 Multipurpose Fuel Tank Cluster: 1.875m-ish medium probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
  • MLT-60 Multipurpose Fuel Tank Cluster: 1.875m-ish long probe fuel tank: stores LFO, Mono, Xenon by default
• Added small satellite/lander parts
  • Micro CMG: tiny reaction wheel
  • LT-9 Nano Landing Leg: tiny landing leg
  • Z-25 Rechargeable Battery: tiny battery
• Added new direct antennae
  • F-DA Relay Antenna Feed: Feeder antenna for reflectors
  • DR-1 High Gain Antenna: Small, high speed antenna
  • DR-3 Deployable High Gain Antenna: Small, high speed antenna
  • D-2 Spot Antenna: Static high power antenna
  • D-50 Spot Antenna: Static high power antenna with better range
  • AX-4 Pointable Helical Antenna: Tiny rover antenna, low power, low range
  • AX-5 Aerial Micro Antenna: Rover antenna, low power, medium range
  • AX-30 High Gain Antenna: Rover antenna, low power, good range
• Added new relay antennae
  • F-RA Relay Antenna Feed: Feeder antenna for reflectors
  • RA-00-2 Micro-Relay Antenna: Tiny relay for early in system comms
  • RA-0-8 Relay Antenna: Large deployable relay
  • RA-5B Advanced Relay Antenna: Larger deployable relay
  • RA-X1 Phased Relay Antenna: Phased array antenna - high data rate, high power
  • RA-X2 Phased Relay Antenna: Phased array antenna - high data rate, high power
  • RA-X3 Phased Relay Antenna: Phased array antenna - high data rate, high power
  • PH-1 Phased Array Antenna Element: build your own phased array - poor performance alone, but combines well
  • PH-2 Phased Array Antenna Element: build your own phased array - poor performance alone, but combines well
  • PH-3 Phased Array Antenna Element: build your own phased array - poor performance alone, but combines well
• Added new reflector antenna type: Does nothing without another antenna to buff
  • Buffs antennas pointed at the dish
  • Most antennas can be buffed but some are better than others (Feeder types are best)
  • DR-1 Dish Reflector: Small dish reflector
  • DR-2 Medium Dish Reflector: large dish reflector
  • DR-3 Dish Reflector Array: cluster of dish reflectors
  • DR-50 Large Dish Reflector: large mesh reflector
  • DR-100 Giant Dish Reflector: really big dish reflector
  • DR-2000 Dish Reflector Array: oh boy oh boy big reflector

Edited January 7, 2020 by Nertea

[zer0Kerbal]

21 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Oh hi guys. 

Congrats! oh what a present!

[NHunter]

39 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Buffs antennas pointed at the dish

Will antennas added by other mods work with reflector dishes, or they are only for NFX/maybe stock antennas?

 

And, of course, congratulations on release!

Edited January 7, 2020 by NHunter

[Nertea]

36 minutes ago, NHunter said:

Will antennas added by other mods work with reflector dishes, or they are only for NFX/maybe stock antennas?

 

And, of course, congratulations on release!

Stock, Restock+ and NFX only out of the box, but compatibility can be added fairly easily with a patch.

[Jognt]

@Nertea thank you, thank you, thank you!!

[Shamus6200]

23 minutes ago, Jognt said:

@Nertea thank you, thank you, thank you!!

x2!

Nertea, sincere appreciation for all of you hard work here. Thank you so much sir.

[biohazard15]

Question: would NFExploration work with 1.7.3 (assuming I'm using 1.7.3 dependencies)?

[Nertea]

3 hours ago, biohazard15 said:

Question: would NFExploration work with 1.7.3 (assuming I'm using 1.7.3 dependencies)?

Nope, sorry. See post:

11 hours ago, Nertea said:

Please note KSP 1.8+ only

 

Also, for extra credit, check out how much stupid time I wasted animating the mesh antennae. Note that these mechanisms are accurate!

https://gfycat.com/welltodoneatbufeo

 

https://gfycat.com/grimyhideousbluebreastedkookaburra

 

[DrKartoffelsalat]

Once more, fantastic release, thank you very much for all the work and efford you have put into all these mods that take this game to the next level!

[AlienFX]

I play in the first half of the "career". Installed eXploration, a lot of interesting things. But not everything is available. Now I'm creating small research drones to visit the moons.

In my personal opinion, the idea of a reflector for an antenna is interesting. But for small drones is not suitable. Directional antennas themselves with too short range and high power consumption. The reflector helps but it is heavy and bulky. This option is quite acceptable for large interplanetary spacecraft. The Communotron 16 and DTS-M1 stock antennas remain preferable for small drones.

I would like small economical (albeit not fast) long-range antennas for light drones, with options for flying in the atmosphere. Or no worse than stock parts.

On tests, I noticed that closing the reflector will not affect the signal level.

Strange, the “Micro CMG” mass is the same as the "Small Inline Reaction Wheel" and useful properties less than 5 times.

I use mods Near Future, the game with them is interesting. Many thanks for their creation, support and development.

-----

One more wish:
The marking of the unmanned command module can be used to understand where which side is.
In the editor, they are labeled south by default. This defines the back wall of the module.
I don’t know how other modules are, but RND's marking is clearly not so, can it be rotated so that it is the same?

Edited January 7, 2020 by AlienFX

[DrKartoffelsalat]

@Nertea

 

Did you intend to connect these as a piston? Seems a bit broken

 

https://imgur.com/a/sPT4qkX

Edited January 7, 2020 by DrKartoffelsalat

[caipi]

4 minutes ago, DrKartoffelsalat said:

Did you intend to connect these as a piston? Seems a bit broken

https://imgur.com/a/sPT4qkX

Well, it does say "rekt" on the side... Sorry, couldn't resist