KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Nerd1000]

Speaking of interoperability, KSPI extended does not play nice with realism overhaul. KSPI can't find a module in the RO air intakes and spams the debug log with errors, which slows the Space Centre view to 1 frame per second. They seem to work okay in other parts of the game though.

[kerbiloid]

As there are XenonGas, Fluorine and ISRU Refinery, maybe this is applicable in KSPI too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_tetrafluoride

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_hexafluoride

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071225220059AA7Og2X

Density 4 t/m3, solid, melting at 350-400 K.

Of course, too expensive to have a practical application in real world.

[FreeThinker]

As there are XenonGas, Fluorine and ISRU Refinery, maybe this is applicable in KSPI too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_tetrafluoride

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_hexafluoride

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071225220059AA7Og2X

Density 4 t/m3, solid, melting at 350-400 K.

Of course, too expensive to have a practical application in real world.

Fortunatly, cost is much less an issue in KSP

Intresting stuff, it has very high density, and all stuff could be used for propulsion. It would allow super dense tanks, combided with Water would be converted into Xenon, HydrogenFloride and Oxygen. The Floride could potentialy be used as a super performance high tech version of Oxygen, allowing even better thrust and Isp.

Edited September 16, 2015 by FreeThinker

[Bishop149]

I think we should make a little contest with the coolest picture of a vessel which showcases KSPI parts.

I made this thread, partly with this in mind, partly just as a pictures thread.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/134414-KSP-I-Craft-showcase

[Trolllception]

Speaking of interoperability, KSPI extended does not play nice with realism overhaul. KSPI can't find a module in the RO air intakes and spams the debug log with errors, which slows the Space Centre view to 1 frame per second. They seem to work okay in other parts of the game though.

This would be fantastic to get fixed. I've been playing alot of RSS/RP-0/RO recently and the fact that KSPI breaks the mod is a bit disappointing. Then again I haven't progressed past 1958 yet in my career so KSPI tech would be a looooong way out.

Somebody wanted "coolest pic of a KSPI ship"? I might be able to do something like that. That warp tug of mine? It's not exactly subtle, but it's far from ugly.

http://i.imgur.com/K86WHM5.png

Cool looking design. Is there any part clipping going on though? I can't tell exactly from that angle. Never thought to put air intakes like that on a rocket. Always felt a bit... cheaty.

[MatterBeam]

Speaking of interoperability, KSPI extended does not play nice with realism overhaul. KSPI can't find a module in the RO air intakes and spams the debug log with errors, which slows the Space Centre view to 1 frame per second. They seem to work okay in other parts of the game though.

That seems to be a problem specific to Advanced Jet Engine, part of the recommended mods for RO. It can be deleted.

[SciMan]

Cool looking design. Is there any part clipping going on though? I can't tell exactly from that angle. Never thought to put air intakes like that on a rocket. Always felt a bit... cheaty.

I kind of had to clip parts to make it look like a single ship, instead of a bundle of tanks. It also makes it easier to right click on parts of the ship that would require it (Plasma thrusters, atmospheric scoops, intakes, etc).

Also, found another duplication in my MKS Logistics Hub patch.

Some other patch is putting the LqdHydrogen resource in that list.

Fixed patch:

@PART[MKS_LogisticsHub]:NEEDS[KolonyTools]:FOR[WarpPlugin]
{
    @MODULE[MKSLcentral]
    {
        @ManagedResources ^= :$:,Aluminium,KryptonGas,NeonGas,Lithium,LqdAmmonia,LqdDeuterium,LqdHe3,LqdHelium,LqdTritium,LqdNitrogen,UraniumNitride,LqdOxygen,LqdMethane,Hydrazine,LqdCO2,LqdCO,HTP,Hexaborane
    }
}

While we're on the topic of resource transport, I have 2 issues with the KSPI ISRU converters.

The KSPI ISRU converters should have 1-unit "buffer" tanks for the resources that it converts things between. Most of the time I'm only trying to make a single resource from certain feedstocks, so having to attach tanks for all the resources in-between doesn't make sense when the converters would already have pipes between them.

Also, why can't the KSPI ISRU converters run more than one reaction at a time?

Each reaction would require a different set of equipment anyways, and not having to put tiny tanks of a bunch of different resources on a ship would help massively with part counts.

Here's an example (and the worst offender I've found so far): Hydrazine (N2H4).

Creating Hydrazine from Hydrogen and Nitrogen is a huge pain in the butt.

It needs 4 reactions and 7 resources total. That's not the problem, complexity and/or realism is OK with me.

The problem is that the conversion process requires 4 converters and 7 tanks.

That's 11 parts, and it doesn't even include power generation or resource harvesting parts.

Resources:

LqdHydrogen, LqdOxygen, Water, LqdNitrogen, LqdAmmonia, HTP, Hydrazine

It doesn't matter if those first 6 resources only have storage of 1 unit on the ship, the process still works at the same continuous rate.

It does need a starting supply of LqdOxygen, but that just circulates in a loop of 3 reactions.

Reactions:

Water Electrolysis - Water in, LqdHydrogen+LqdOxygen out

Anthraquinone Process - LqdHydrogen + LqdOxygen in, HTP out

Haber Process - LqdHydrogen + LqdNitrogen in, LqdAmmonia out

Peroxide Process - HTP + LqdAmmonia in, Hydrazine+Monopropellant+Water out

Because ALL of these reactions must be occuring at the same time for a continuous output of Hydrazine, it would be very nice if I could run more than one ISRU reaction at the same time.

I can handle adding buffer tanks to the ISRU converters with a MM patch.

Edited September 16, 2015 by SciMan

[gate]

Hi, i have some issues that can't understand, can you chek it?

1. When i update KSP IE to from 1.4.6 to 1.4.11 or 1.5.1 i have seen that all information about reactor in information window is gone... Pic below explane the situation. Overwrite 1.4.6 again fixes this problem, but in 1.4.11 and higher versions it doesn't work clear - no info about reactors. KSP V.1.0.4

http://i.imgur.com/j2BFdvl.jpg

2. turbojets don't work symmetricaly, there is huge difference between turbojets units at full throttle, but no difference when throttle is in intermediate position.

3. Reactors distribute power between each other, it allow made many "empty" reactor units with turbojets, and shotdown all reactors except one. And this one reactor will produce power for all turbojets, all of them will work and produce thrust. But there is impossible to make all reactors worknig because from p.2. - at high power and full throttle jets will produce different thrusts.

http://i.imgur.com/gz4lx4M.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/m6S9mMU.jpg

In clear 1.0.4 with 1.5.1 KSPIE all this 3 issues appeared too.

[gate]

Hi, i have 3 issues from KSIPI when i updated it from 1.4.6 to 1.4.11 and 1.5.1. his issues work and with clear 1.0.4. KSP version.

1. In 1.4.11 and higher i can't see information about reactor in infromation window (rigth clik on reactor unit)

in 1.4.6 it all works fine:

http://i.imgur.com/j2BFdvl.jpg

2. Many reactors and thermal trubojets work nonsymmetrycaly and

3. Many turbojets could be powered from one reactor with other shutdowned, thermal power could be distributed between many thermoojet units.

http://i.imgur.com/m6S9mMU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gz4lx4M.jpg

[FreeThinker]

Often times, the most suble changes are best. Take for instance the following

This is nothing but a stock plane with it's engines replaced by 2 nuclear ramjets, each capable 900 MW thermal jet and propellant propulsion. It can easily fly to the edge of space, enter orbit, travel to the mun and back and land on KSP again, or somewhere in a desert ...

Edited September 16, 2015 by FreeThinker

[Sahadara]

Just out of curiosity, is there some scientific reason or explanation as to why KSPI-E's energy resource, Megajoules, is separate from stock electricity? Or is it just for gameplay reasons? It kinda bugs me that they're supposed to represent the same thing but aren't the same unit.

[FreeThinker]

There are both realism and gameplay reason to keep them separate. For one, it prevent starvation of vital systems when systems that require many (Giga) amount of power. Also it would give big problems durring timewarp as some systems also need to function during high time warp. Take for instance the power to maintain of a Fusion reactor, which requires 400 MW = 400.0000 ElectircCharge. speed up timewarp an you need 10.000 times that. Megajoule also allows me to get more realistic behavior of the power. In contrast to ElectricCharge which is stored in batteries, Megajoule is not stored and need to be generated to exist. Once you switch of the generators, it will disappear in a matter of seconds

[Nansuchao]

FreeThinker, don't you have overheating issues with Shock Cone Intakes attached to the Nuclear Ramjet? In my install, with DRE, often they burn.

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.5.2 for Kerbal Space Program 1.0.4

Released on 2015-09-16

• Added support for MKS Logistics Hub
  
• Added build passive 60 KW Alternator to Nuclear Turbojet and Nuclear Lightbulb which will provide some power to the vessel.
  
• Reduce Mass Nuclear Turbojet from 8 to 6 ton
  
• Increased Power Nuclear Turbojet to 400 MW, 600 MW, 900 MW
  
• Made Nuclear Turbojet available with nuclear propulsion, and all subsequent power upgraded are unlocked with nuclear propulsion technologies
  
• Renamed Nuclear Turbojet to Direct Cycle Nuclear Ramjet
  
• Normalized Thrust bonus of non LFO propellants, making LFO modes like Hydrolox more interesting
  
• Reduced Mass Interstellar Fuel Tanks for LqdHydrogen
  
• Hidden some redundant field right click menu fields
  
• Reduced thrust bonus Thermal nozzle/turbojet (from 150% to 125%)
  
• Fixed Issie not all fusion modes being available for Magnetic confinement Fusion
  

Edited September 17, 2015 by FreeThinker

[Nerd1000]

That seems to be a problem specific to Advanced Jet Engine, part of the recommended mods for RO. It can be deleted.

I actually kind of like AJE (though it seems to have issues with remotetech as well). Do you reckon I could fix the problem by adding the required module to the intakes using a ModuleManager patch?

[Profit-]

Version 1.5.2 for Kerbal Space Program 1.0.4

Released on 2015-09-16

• Added support for MKS Logistics Hub
  
• Reduce Mass Nuclear Turbojet from 8 to 6 ton
  
• Increased Power Nuclear Turbojet to 400 MW, 600 MW, 900 MW
  
• Made Nuclear Turbojet available with nuclear propulsion, and all subsequent power upgraded are unlocked with nuclear propulsion technologies
  
• Renamed Nuclear Turbojet to Direct Cycle Nuclear Ramjet
  
• Normalized Thrust bonus of non LFO propellants, making LFO modes like Hydrolox more interesting
  
• Reduced Mass Interstellar Fuel Tanks for LqdHydrogen
  
• Hidden some redundant field right click menu fields
  
• Reduced thrust bonus Thermal nozzle/turbojet (from 150% to 125%)
  
• Fixed Issie not all fusion modes being available for Magnetic confinement Fusion
  

All sounds awesome =)

[ss8913]

we're still going to get the 0.10c mode for the warp drives, right? That hasn't been cancelled?

[Northstar1989]

Hey FreeThinker, haven't disappeared- just been getting used to a new job, and applying to the Air Force ("Space Operations" is one of my specialization preferences, BOOYAH).

Also, a question/comment I noticed I think I can respond to:

Also the scoops power requirements seem a little on the high side to me, now I don't know the real world power requirements involved in sucking in atmosphere, separating the gases and turning them to liquid but it seems odd to me that it's higher than any of the ISRU reactions and just over half what it takes to mine and refine uranium ore.

It's possible that all the ISRU type reactions power requirements might requires some thought / re-balancing, if realism in the goal.

The most power-expensive part of the process is running the pumps- you need *VERY* powerful vacuum pumps in order to concentrate atmosphere at the ridiculously low concentrations it is found in traveling through the Thermospshere. The designs proposed in the 1960's (off which this is based) also included very powerful centrifugal chambers as well to help concentrate the gasses in some versions... The cooling of those gasses from literally hotter than lava (hence why they call it the Thermosphere- the sparse gasses there are VERY hot) to cryogenically-cold temperatures isn't cheap in terms of power either, although most of the power requirements there are due to the inefficiency of available cooling unit designs in the 1960's (the actual mass flow rate of the collected gasses is so low they don't significantly heat up the cooler as they are cooled...) which may have improved somewhat since then...

All of these processes could probably be redesigned for greater efficiency- keep in mind current performance is an eyeballed approximation to try and mimic the performance of 1960's designs for propulsive fluid accumulators, and we don't even have hard numbers on a lot of the power requirements... If you could find any (or better yet, updated figures using 2010's or 2020's-tech) that would be GREATLY appreciated.

Regards,

Northstar

Edited September 17, 2015 by Northstar1989

[FreeThinker]

Like always, the numbers are missing or very hard to find and even harder to integrate, but over the months of working on KSPI, I have leaned to respect the numbers cooked up Fractal. They might not be accurate, but they might be game balancing reasons to maintain them. The atmospheric accumulator currenly have a liniear relationship between power and perfornace. The more power you put into it, the more it will produce. Most likely this doesn't scale so well. I can imagine that at a certain point not matter how much power you going to put into it, you aint going to collect more resource and only produce WasteHeat. The high power cost might simply a way to preventing you from reaching this point in the first place. Of cource this goes well untill you start getting very powerfull power systems. Note that the atmospheric concentration I asume to be above the atmosphere are probably way too high. A week ago I spoke with someone from NASA and he told me it requires years to accumulate any signifiant amount of resource this way. And that it's simply cheaper to use conventional methods than to try to collect any resource in space. Of cource he assumed having only acces to power generated from solar power, but still it's something to think about. Noticethat a few release back, I made the accumulator function with any High Isp engine, this allows you to collect resource with antimatter reactor. It would probably a major waste of antimatter, but it would still work.

- - - Updated - - -

we're still going to get the 0.10c mode for the warp drives, right? That hasn't been cancelled?

Yes, hopefully I can find some time during the weekend.

- - - Updated - - -

FreeThinker, don't you have overheating issues with Shock Cone Intakes attached to the Nuclear Ramjet? In my install, with DRE, often they burn.

No but DRE might have altered some part heat variables which I rely on. I made the whole Nuclear Rawjet act as a big intake cooler. If DRE changes these, the cooling might not function correctly, causing the shock cone to overheat. Edited September 17, 2015 by FreeThinker

[Bishop149]

Hi I have identified a few minor issues:

Firstly the nosecone tank is behaving weirdly. . . . it seems to get fixated on containing a particular resource and switches back to it even if you change it to something else.

It's even done it post launch when the tanks was actually full! I swapped water for some hydrogen!

The image below might shed some light, the right click for the nosecone tank looks different to the regular one beneath it, it seems to think it contains two things.

Secondly I lost the ISRU menu, tis blank! Ship contains multiple ISRU modules, issue applied to all of them.

No a big issue, it came back after I restarted the game (although switching scene might also have fixed it, didn't check) and I'm not sure what caused it. . . . this was a ship that was docking and undocking a lot to ships that also contained multiple ISRU modules (new MkIII refinery, taking the resources of the old ones before I de-orbit them) so it might be something to do with that?

As a side note the menus system doesn't seem to like multiple ISRU units, you can only have one units menu open at a time . . . . try and open more and they kind stack up but won't open until you close the current one.

Edit: Should note that I haven't applied the latest update yet.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Bishop149

[FreeThinker]

mmm, looks like some kind Gui refreshing issue because there is only one field for displaying Tank name. It might be related to some error somewhere else..

- - - Updated - - -

Hey FreeThinker, haven't disappeared- just been getting used to a new job, and applying to the Air Force ("Space Operations" is one of my specialization preferences, BOOYAH).

Good to hear you have found a good job where can do the stuff you like.

Meanwhile I continue my quest for improved Realsim. Notice I made some modification to the Reactor Table List. I have given the pebble bed it's rightfull (Timberwind 75) 1.5 MW/ 1 kg spec which you originaly proposed. Now I want to add the DUMBO which has even more power with an insane T/W ratio. It would make a very powerfull nuclear booster. Now comes the hard part, how would it perform for power generation (thermal efficency) and what would be it's minimum utilisation? I suspect due to the propellant radiation contemination, you need a closed loop with heat exchanger to prevent contaminating the generator. Secondly, I suspect it's kind of hard to control this beast. I suspect the reactor is either active or not at all. In order to stop it, you might need to flood it with a substance that stop/minimise fission. Another big potential issue is refueling the beast, from what I understand it's very hard to do in the field. Anyway, I would like to hear your expertese.

Edited September 17, 2015 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

Hmm it looks like table with reactors and thermal engines are bit outdated.

In game 2.5m reactors with second upgrade and hydrogen powered thermal turbojet have different resulting ISP'S:

Also it seems to have small glitches when calculating thrust.

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[FreeThinker]

The 3th upgrade isn't actualy shown, only the initial and upgraded version, not the final version.

Edited September 17, 2015 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

The 3th upgrade isn't actualy show, only the initial and upgraded version, not the final version.

[FreeThinker]

Ah so I would have to fire these in space to see how much thrust they produce?