KAL 9000 Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 I've been working on fuel tanker designs as well. So far, so good! They only ship chemical fuels right now tho... working on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 27, 2017 Author Share Posted May 27, 2017 @FreeThinker The Kerbstein drive is in KSPI-E? As for mass, why would I drop the tanks? I don't want the ships to be one time use vehicles, but I may think of it. Also, why not accelerate faster than 0.1g? That's partially why I wanted the Kerbstein drive, so that I could accelerate the ship under high g to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Well, I'll work on the motherships spine and engines in the meantime, I hope other mods are updated soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, The-Doctor said: As for mass, why would I drop the tanks? I don't want the ships to be one time use vehicles, but I may think of it. Also, why not accelerate faster than 0.1g? To explain why this important, you first have to understand we want to go fast. We want to go fast because it will increase the chance of success of our colonization mission. Let say we want to colonize Trappist-1, which is 39 light year away, which means we want to get there at a decent portion of the seed of light. Now our antimatter beam power ship has a maximum specific impulse of 20.000.000s or exhaust speed of 196.200.000 m/s which is about 65.4% of the speed of light. For an interstellar colony mission you first speed up, drift and then slow down, which effectively mean your deltaV cost is twice your maximum speed. Now let’s assume the mass ratio of our antimatter vessel during interstellar travel is 3 (75% wet mass to 25% dry mass). This means the available deltaV is natural log 3 times exhaust velocity = 1,0986 * 196.200.000 = 215.545.320 m/s. Now since we need to both speed up and slow down, we have to divide it by 2 to get our maximum planned speed which is 107.772.660 m/s or 35.9% the speed of light, which assuming it takes no time to speed up or slow down, it would take about 109 years, or 4 generation of colonist to reach our destination. Of course it will take a lot longer to speed up and slow down but those calculations are more complex. The point is that in order to achieve this mass ratio, we need to minimize the mass of our antimatter storage tank to a minimum. Which is very difficult because antimatter has a very low density (10% density of Frozen Hydrogen). To achieve any high mass ratios (8:1) we need to suspend the antimatter with minimum amount of force, which a minimum amount of cooling. This means the tanks can only operate in deep space at very low temperatures (<50K) and low acceleration (< 1 m/s) Of course we still need to transport the antimatter from Earth, which means you need antimatter tanks need that can sustain the geforces and the heat of the atmosphere during launch. This means the mass of these tanks needs to be much heavier than the mass of antimatter tanks optimized for deep space. After the interstellar vessel has reach <50K temperature, we can safely transfer the antimatter from the launch anti antimatter tanks to the interstellar tanks and the former can be disposed of as drop tanks 2 hours ago, The-Doctor said: @FreeThinkerThat's partially why I wanted the Kerbstein drive, so that I could accelerate the ship under high g to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Well, I'll work on the motherships spine and engines in the meantime, I hope other mods are updated soon The Kerbstein drive will be very useful but mainly for solar system maneuvers, first to get our vessel up to interstellar speed 30 km/s and after slowing down, for extra celestial planet insertion, another 30 km/s. Between that you want to use your interstellar propulsion, which is going to be your antimatter drive. Despite the high amount of power it produces (and it unavoidable wasteheat). it trust, and therefore acceleration will be very low. But given several years, this should be enough to reach very high speeds. Edited May 27, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 (edited) Notice that besides practical reason, there might also be environmental reason to use Kerbstein engines instead of beam antimatter core propulsion when leaving earth orbit because of the insane amount of high energy gamma grays emitted, which should be enough to sterilize the home planet, because it would have to spiral out of the planet zone of influence for several days Edited May 27, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 27, 2017 Share Posted May 27, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, The-Doctor said: @FreeThinker The Kerbstein drive is in KSPI-E? Yes, the Kerpstein (a.k.a. Epstein drive) is essentialy a minaiturized deadalus engine. I decided to base the Kerbstein on the Rocinante specs: The final specs for the 5m diameter a-neutron proton-Lithium7 (Lithiumhydride) fusion engine are a mass of 50 ton and a trust of 3700 kN at a specific impuls of 500.000 seconds or 1.8c and a fusion Q factor of 1000 (requiring 11 GigaWatt power which can be generated by a Tri Alpha a-neutronic fusion power reactor) Edited May 27, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 I'm ready to focus on building the motherships, one prototype, can you send me a list of the parts to use in a private message? @FreeThinker We'll have time to make the ship and the other parts, we still need a miner manufacturer, plus we gotta wait for the other mods to update to 1.3, such as RSS Constellations before we can launch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 (edited) On 20-5-2017 at 2:35 AM, The-Doctor said: This might sound strange but how did you achieve to make it so big? Edited May 28, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 3 minutes ago, FreeThinker said: This might sound strange but how did you achieve to make it so big? Tweakscale and hanger extender, I edited the code in hanger extender to make it larger. Can you send me the list of parts needed to make the engines? I'm gonna try working on it now. The structural parts are still a bit of an issue as they pass through each other, I could overcome that by rotating etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 I've been doing some testing, the stock HubMax works perfectly, better than I expected. Only issue is the ship rotates, but that can be fixed with RCS and reaction wheels. It's looking great. There are 4 engines because, in Interstellar space, the ship can't flip to burn, it would expose it to dangerous particles, so it has 2 engines placed in the opposite direction, this also enables them to act as back up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 Ship spinning is still a problem, I added in 2 Reaction wheels, but with engines on, it still spins, gonna have to figure out what's causing it, think up a solution. Who knew interstellar colonization would be this hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 (edited) @The-Doctor If you woried about space dust you should also feat you engine getting destoyed by dust, therefore I suggest you use the trick employed by the venture star, which is to have 2 engines with their exhaust slight curved away from the middle of the ship .. combine this with infernal robotic pivot and you could turn the ship using only 2 engine, which saves a lot of mass. Edited May 28, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 7 minutes ago, FreeThinker said: @The-Doctor If you woried about space dust you should also feat you engine getting destoyed by dust, therefore I suggest you use the trick employed by the venture star, which is to have 2 engines with their exhaust slight curved away from the middle of the ship .. combine this with infernal robotic pivot and you could turn the ship using only 2 engine, which saves a lot of mass. I don't think that would be much of a problem, infernal robotics would be just another mod to fulfill one job, I added in 4 engines, 2 that are aligned in the opposite direction and curved slightly away. Can you give me the names of the fuel tanks needed for the kerbstien as well as which radiators? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 (edited) 5 minutes ago, The-Doctor said: I don't think that would be much of a problem, infernal robotics would be just another mod to fulfill one job, I added in 4 engines, 2 that are aligned in the opposite direction and curved slightly away. Can you give me the names of the fuel tanks needed for the kerbstien as well as which radiators? Great, this will truly be a realistic innovative design, the only thing we are missing is a good dust shield to go on the front. For the Kerbstein engine you need a IFS/KSPI Cargo container, which you need to switch to LithiumDeuterite (for 1.2.2) or LithiumHydrade (for 1.3) Edited May 28, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 (edited) @The-Doctor For clarification, I has something like this in mind Notice I only require 4 engines. You want to minimize the number of engines because of the benefit of a scale. the larger something is scaled up, the lower it relative mass Edited May 29, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 Looks dangerous, I opted not to have drop tanks due to them wobbling and exploding Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 8 minutes ago, The-Doctor said: Looks dangerous, I opted not to have drop tanks due to them wobbling and exploding You don't have to attached them radialy, with this this engine setup you could use stackable drop tanks, which don't suffer from any wobbling. Simply you put then under your 4 engine block and drop them once you are in deep space and can transfer the antimatter safely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 what's the names of those parts? I'll see to it Stability it a major issue Opted for a larger rear, the rear is 15x, the forward is 10x, works well, just keeps slowly spinning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 6 minutes ago, The-Doctor said: what's the names of those parts? I'll see to it THe main parts relevant here are Beam Antimatter Reactor, which provide the main power source Thermal Electric Generators directly connect to the reactor Magnetic nozzle connected to the reactor which redirect the charged particles into the desired direction Powered Hinge from Infernal robotics to pivot the engine from accelerating to decelerating in a 70 degree angle Kerbstein engine for planetary maneuvers IFS Cargo Container to stole the fuel for the Kerbstein Drive Antimatter Containment Device Compact (which stored solid antimatter suspended the center of the tank) IFS Cryogenic tank to store Hydrogen which is needed to convert the antimatter into charged particles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 20 minutes ago, FreeThinker said: You don't have to attached them radialy, with this this engine setup you could use stackable drop tanks, which don't suffer from any wobbling. Simply you put then under your 4 engine block and drop them once you are in deep space and can transfer the antimatter safely I made a few changes, took out the two engines on top and one of the hubs and merged them, so it just has one pair of 4 engines, plus I added in radiators, it looks morel like the ISV Venture Star now, just that, the Radial Interstellar Fuel Tank's X11 serve no purpose, if you could configure them to can hold the fuel for the Kerbstein drive as well as antimatter, that would really help a lot, that way, I would have 2 of them holding the fuel for the kersbstein drive and 2 holding the antimatter, making a total of 4 of them, just like the ISV Venture Star Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 15 minutes ago, FreeThinker said: THe main parts relevant here are Beam Antimatter Reactor, which provide the main power source Thermal Electric Generators directly connect to the reactor Magnetic nozzle connected to the reactor which redirect the charged particles into the desired direction Powered Hinge from Infernal robotics to pivot the engine from accelerating to decelerating in a 70 degree angle Kerbstein engine for planetary maneuvers IFS Cargo Container to stole the fuel for the Kerbstein Drive Antimatter Containment Device Compact (which stored solid antimatter suspended the center of the tank) IFS Cryogenic tank to store Hydrogen which is needed to convert the antimatter into charged particles Does the magnetic nozzle have to be directly connected to the reactor? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 (edited) 8 hours ago, The-Doctor said: Does the magnetic nozzle have to be directly connected to the reactor? Technically no, but it minimizes power consumption, which is going to be huge (you will barely have enough to run at minimum throttle (max isp), so you are advised to connect them directly Edited May 29, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 4 minutes ago, FreeThinker said: Technically no, but it minimizes power consumption, which is going to be huge (you will bare have enough to run at minimum throttle (max isp), so you are advised to connect them directly I think I'm interested in the pivot now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeThinker Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 (edited) 55 minutes ago, The-Doctor said: I made a few changes, took out the two engines on top and one of the hubs and merged them, so it just has one pair of 4 engines, plus I added in radiators, it looks morel like the ISV Venture Star now, just that, the Radial Interstellar Fuel Tank's X11 serve no purpose, if you could configure them to can hold the fuel for the Kerbstein drive as well as antimatter, that would really help a lot, that way, I would have 2 of them holding the fuel for the kersbstein drive and 2 holding the antimatter, making a total of 4 of them, just like the ISV Venture Star I know you don't want to hear this but that kind of radiator setup is not going to cut it because it would be too heavy and inefficient as it would self radiate . Instead you want you radiators to be able to get very hot (3700K), very light and radiate its waste-heat outward, something that look more like this. The radiators you see are graphene static truss radiators (as they have their own truss ) they minimize footprint and mass while maximizing effective radiative power Notice you need about 3000 m2 for a a single 2.5M 720 GW antimatter reactor. A realistic design this is based on is the antimatter beam core frisbee design. which is a 700 KM long ship Edited May 28, 2017 by FreeThinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 So far not bad, but I doubt it will be enough, I still got an overheat after a while, but it was holding up very well. My main issue remains, it slowly spins, it needs control How do you start an unintentional interstellar war? By launching a ship all in black of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Doctor Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 I think I need to reassess the entire design, rather than have mounted engines on the sides, I should probably go with one long streamlined design, reduce the ship size, among other things. The magnetic nozzle takes a long while to get up to speed, I should opt for a pointy design, one massive kerbstein engine at the back, with the antimatter reactor to provide power, remove the magnetic nozzle etc, reduce complexity, length, scale etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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