KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Profit-]

1 hour ago, Threadsinger said:

Apologies, I forgot to mention, thanks for the video!

You are welcome.  Did any of the latest things I recommended work for you.    I am really hopeful d-he3 mode will fix ya

[FreeThinker]

On 25-1-2016 at 1:38 AM, Profit- said:

*EDIT*

I did some testing, option 1 certainly looks like is what is happening.   I have a video where you can see the reaction starve (I used D-D because I think my tech level is higher and D-T does not starve for me) 

https://youtu.be/zlcL41VNxRY

What seems to happen is that you produce slightly too little charged particles, and therefore electric power to maintain D-D Fusion. One wat to solve is to also connect the rector to a thermal electric generator. The disadvantage is higher mass and lower maximum output but D-D fusion is a cheaper and cleaner than D-T fusion.

Edited January 26, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Profit-]

9 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

What seems to happen is that you produce slightly too little charged particles, and therefore electric power to maintain D-D Fusion. One wat to solve is to also connect the rector to a thermal electric generator. The disadvantage is higher mass and lower maximum output but D-D fusion is a cheaper and cleaner than D-T fusion.

That video was designed for illustrative purposes.   I purposefully gimped the reaction because my tech level was too high in order to show a fusion reaction stalling and how it would look. 

[FreeThinker]

On 20-1-2016 at 2:03 PM, raxo2222 said:

There should be prestige costs if you crash it on Kerbin depending on mass and kind of fuel

Crashing on Kerbin with an antimatter reactors should not be such a big deal I think in comparison with HTP or Nuclear Fallout, all you realy get is a big gamma flash and heat, no permanent poisoning or radaition.

But I do like the idea linking Antimatter somehow with prestige.

Originally, Antimatter could not be bought in the VAB. It was considered an elite resource which could only be made, it's essentialy a power storage mechanism, not a power generation mechanism.

Currently, it can be bought in the VAB at a very high cost. This seems fair untill you start harvesting the stuff in space and bring it back to Kerbin at which point the KSP economy balance staret to break down.

One solution I have been thinking of compensating this, is by radicly reduce the cost Antimatter and instead make it cost prestige. Of cource,stock KSP does not support presige cost for resource and therefore whe have to implement some externa mechanism. One method I can think of is make the resource itself unjusable, but I could be adjusted by some interface, a slider or edit field. It would tell you the cost in prestige it would cost and if you had sufficent amount of prestige, capping when too little. This would suddenly make all that prestige a premium commodity, even help to motivate player to collect as much as they can.Now to make it all work well, you also need to get a prestige refund when you bring back any amount of prestige back to KTC. This mean if you crash an antimatter vehical, you effectvely lose you Prestige because it can no longer be refunded.

Edited January 27, 2016 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

Hmm also what about huge (>100 MW) thermal radiation and aerodynamic effects? Shouldn't big hot radiators induce turbulence/drag?

I have 1.25 plasma/thermal spaceplane running on antimatter. When running on plasma mode radiators heat to mid 2000's Kelvins.

Also I'm using said big radiator as wings - I need THAT big to cool off 2.1m antimatter reactor (it produces slightly more energy, than 2.5 plasma engine can consume).

I think hot air should increase drag and heat up things behind radiator. Also you shouldn't fly close to surface - I don't think brief exposure to GWs of thermal radiation is save for anything :p.

 

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Hmm also what about huge (>100 MW) thermal radiation and aerodynamic effects? Shouldn't big hot radiators induce turbulence/drag?

I have 1.25 plasma/thermal spaceplane running on antimatter. When running on plasma mode radiators heat to mid 2000's Kelvins.

Also I'm using said big radiator as wings - I need THAT big to cool off 2.1m antimatter reactor (it produces slightly more energy, than 2.5 plasma engine can consume).

I think hot air should increase drag and heat up things behind radiator. Also you shouldn't fly close to surface - I don't think brief exposure to GWs of thermal radiation is save for anything :p.

 

The Big Flat radiator does kind of look like a wing right?. I have been toying with the idea to add a version/ option to make it act like a true wing, generating lift. This would be awesime for any SSTO with powerfull KSPI reactors.

[Profit-]

5 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

I think hot air should increase drag and heat up things behind radiator. Also you shouldn't fly close to surface - I don't think brief exposure to GWs of thermal radiation is save for anything :p.

You should see my EPL+CivPop+KSPI-E Shipyard.   It has an empty weight of 50,000ish tons and a full weight of around half a million tons.  I had to change the tweakscale limits on the KSPI parts to even get it off the ground on minimus.  It has 4 pump fusion reactors that each produce 1.7ish terrawatts of power for basic station-keeping and 2 main reactors producing 26 terrawatts of power together. (The average power use from all sources, including auto's and ships and the like is 15 terrawatts for all of humanity)  I often wondered what the physics were from my unfolded radiators and if they would work correctly at that size.  (when the 6 radiators are unfolded the ship has a diameter of a little more than half a kilometer.) 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Profit-

[raxo2222]

3 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

The Big Flat radiator does kind of look like a wing right?. I have been toying with the idea to add a version/ option to make it act like a true wing, generating lift. This would be awesime for any SSTO with powerfull KSPI reactors.

It acts like true wing with FAR. And all I did was to add wings on front to make it less drag and be more resistant of it and add control surface behind it.

 

36 minutes ago, Profit- said:

You should see my EPL+CivPop+KSPI-E Shipyard.   It has an empty weight of 50,000ish tons and a full weight of around half a million tons.  I had to change the tweakscale limits on the KSPI parts to even get it off the ground on minimus.  It has 4 pump fusion reactors that each produce 1.7ish terrawatts of power for basic station-keeping and 2 main reactors producing 26 terrawatts of power together. (The average power use from all sources, including auto's and ships and the like is 15 terrawatts for all of humanity)  I often wondered what the physics were from my unfolded radiators and if they would work correctly at that size.  (when the 6 radiators are unfolded the ship has a diameter of a little more than half a kilometer.) 

Screnshot link pls o.o

 

Edit: here are screenshots of my large spaceship. It is aerodynamically unwieldy though.

Engine Shine mod goes crazy though - it thinks i'm firing mainsails xd

I used mechjeb limiter to limit engines, so dynamic pressure wont exceed one atmosphere lol.

Edited January 27, 2016 by raxo2222

[Nansuchao]

39 minutes ago, Profit- said:

You should see my EPL+CivPop+KSPI-E Shipyard.   It has an empty weight of 50,000ish tons and a full weight of around half a million tons.  I had to change the tweakscale limits on the KSPI parts to even get it off the ground on minimus.  It has 4 pump fusion reactors that each produce 1.7ish terrawatts of power for basic station-keeping and 2 main reactors producing 26 terrawatts of power together. (The average power use from all sources, including auto's and ships and the like is 15 terrawatts for all of humanity)  I often wondered what the physics were from my unfolded radiators and if they would work correctly at that size.  (when the 6 radiators are unfolded the ship has a diameter of a little more than half a kilometer.) 

What the use for such mostruosity? I'm really curious

 

15 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

It acts like true wing with FAR. And all I did was to add wings on front to make it less drag and be more resistant of it and add control surface behind it.

 

Screnshot link pls o.o

 

Edit: here are screenshots of my large spaceship. It is aerodynamically unwieldy though.

Engine Shine mod goes crazy though - it thinks i'm firing mainsails xd

You can have better take off moving the rear landing gears a little more near the CoM, and a better control using slighty bigger control surfaces on the wings.

[Profit-]

36 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Screnshot link pls o.o

[zilfondel]

One question: any thoughts on adding a nuclear salt-water rocket?

Its one of the few realistic near-term torch-ship class engines, aside from Orion.  Interestingly, it was conceptualized by Robert Zubrin.

info:

Exhaust Velocity	78,480 m/s
Specific Impulse	8,000 s
Thrust	8,696,900 N

Fuel	Fission: Uranium Tetrabromide
Reactor	Gas Core Open-Cycle

links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_salt-water_rocket

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#id--Nuclear_Thermal--Gas_Core--Open_Cycle--Nuclear_Salt_Water

Edited January 27, 2016 by zilfondel

[Profit-]

I am at work now but when I get back from work I will make a video of it. 

(side note I really hate the forums editor.  It would not let me finish the post before this)

Edited January 27, 2016 by Profit-

[FreeThinker]

Impressive, I read somewhere that is a brik flies fast enough, it start to generate lift. I guess the same applies here, it should perform well at high speed, but can you also land on a runway with it?

But what about stock? I guess it  won't work here

Perhaps we can improve it with a LiftingSurface. Mode

Could you add the folowing code to the LargeRadiator and find some usefull numbers:

	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleLiftingSurface
		useInternalDragModel = True
		deflectionLiftCoeff = 7.8		// 27,41m^2
		dragAtMaxAoA = 0.6
		dragAtMinAoA = 0.0
	}

Note the above values are for a FAT-455 Aeroplane Main Wing. I guess we need to increase deflectionLiftCoeff based on the total surface area.

Edited January 27, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Profit-]

1 hour ago, Nansuchao said:

What the use for such mostruosity? I'm really curious

I make Civilian Population space colonies...  The largest one was self supporting and produced landers which could start colonies and with EPL and civ-pop it would grow in-situ.  

This shipyard version has that same capability now, but it does not have warp capabilities due to its size.    I do have a picture of the civ pop warp ship.  Notice the orange fuel tanks are full size.   This was made by my little shipyard (8K ton dry weight).   (yes, that is a particle accelerator tweakscaled to be huge..  I heard they would be needed for antimatter and these ships actually used AM. )


This colony ship actually has a bunch of issues though... The radiators not being large enough are the chief one.  The second is there is no real metal storage on it so the building material you can carry is very limited.  Also the Anti-matter reactor uses way too much antimatter (the ship has about a 15 Kilogram storage for AM but even with it's 32 antimatter collectors it takes a significant time over jool to fill them)  and finally the maneuvering engine is super under powered (even without the heat issues)   and it takes ages to do an orbital insertion after a warp.    The new shipyard fixes all of these except it lacks warp, and it can make these ships all day long.. (I think it can do around 100 of these ships before going back to minmus to resupply.)

(Really forum!?!? I cannot add quotes to a message I am editing!???)

Edited January 27, 2016 by Profit-

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, zilfondel said:

One question: any thoughts on adding a nuclear salt-water rocket?

Its one of the few realistic near-term torch-ship class engines, aside from Orion.  Interestingly, it was conceptualized by Robert Zubrin.

info:

Exhaust Velocity	78,480 m/s
Specific Impulse	8,000 s
Thrust	8,696,900 N

Fuel	Fission: Uranium Tetrabromide
Reactor	Gas Core Open-Cycle

links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_salt-water_rocket

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#id--Nuclear_Thermal--Gas_Core--Open_Cycle--Nuclear_Salt_Water

According to Atomic Rocket source, 6,728 s would be the upper limit, but practically I would not go higher than 3000 s as the temperature involved will melt the nozzle when higher. The only way to get higher Isp is with Magnetic nozzles, but this cannot be used with NSWR due to the super high pressures involved. Your biggest problem will be keeping your nozzles cooled, it would therefore require very efficient cooling and a lare amount of radiator to get rid of the waste heat.

Edited January 27, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nansuchao]

@Profit- what KSP version are you using? I saw that Civilian Population doesn't work in 1.0.5

[Profit-]

36 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

@Profit- what KSP version are you using? I saw that Civilian Population doesn't work in 1.0.5

I think you should look at the last post in the Civ-pop thread. 

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/111815-104civilian-population-1751-update-101215/&do=findComment&comment=2378077   

That picture though is from 1.04

Edited January 27, 2016 by Profit-

[Profit-]

As promised, Here is a picture and the video tour of my shipyard (with appropriate music for the start of it since KSP sounds are not working today for me)

Video -> 
https://youtu.be/JfZPYcyCyIw

Image -> 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Profit-

[ABZB]

My reactors are suddenly not generating any power... Also, the Power window (the lighning bolt menu) says that my DC power requirements are 0 (they aren't). I noticed that I am getting debug spam of the following type (taken from the output_log file):

ArgumentException: An element with the same key already exists in the dictionary.
  at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[Part,OpenResourceSystem.ORSPropellantControl].Add (.Part key, OpenResourceSystem.ORSPropellantControl value) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part,ORSPropellantControl] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector, System.Func`2 elementSelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSHelper.fixedRequestResource (.Part part, System.String resourcename, Double resource_amount, ResourceFlowMode flow) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSHelper.fixedRequestResource (.Part part, System.String resourcename, Double resource_amount) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSResourceManager.update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSResourceSuppliableModule.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FNPlugin.InterstellarReactor.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FNPlugin.InterstellarFissionMSRGC.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Part.ModulesOnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Part.FixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

 

 

Is it possible that there is some ORS bug that is causing the power issues noted on the last few pages?

 

Or maybe there is some .cfg file that got duplicated, or is being duplicated by some other, relatively common mod?

Edited January 28, 2016 by ABZB

[Profit-]

4 minutes ago, ABZB said:

My reactors are suddenly not generating any power... Also, the Power window (the lighning bolt menu) says that my DC power requirements are 0 (they aren't). I noticed that I am getting debug spam of the following type (taken from the output_log file):

ArgumentException: An element with the same key already exists in the dictionary.
  at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[Part,OpenResourceSystem.ORSPropellantControl].Add (.Part key, OpenResourceSystem.ORSPropellantControl value) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part,ORSPropellantControl] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector, System.Func`2 elementSelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSHelper.fixedRequestResource (.Part part, System.String resourcename, Double resource_amount, ResourceFlowMode flow) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSHelper.fixedRequestResource (.Part part, System.String resourcename, Double resource_amount) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSResourceManager.update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSResourceSuppliableModule.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FNPlugin.InterstellarReactor.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FNPlugin.InterstellarFissionMSRGC.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Part.ModulesOnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Part.FixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

 

 

Is it possible that there is some ORS bug that is causing the power issues noted on the last few pages?

 

Or maybe there is some .cfg file that got duplicated, or is being duplicated by some other, relatively common mod?

Because my reactors are still producing power and I am using the latest version, I have to assume this is a conflict or a corruption issue. 

[raxo2222]

My 0.625m fuselage drone powered by GWs of microwave power and running on atmospheric mode can fly 40 km high and 2 km/s fast!

I'm using RSS, so I have bigger planets.

Thermal drone weights 1419 kg. Yes, less than 1.5 ton.

 

Plasma powered drone would fly higher and faster, due to waaay higher ISP though, even though it would be bit heavier.

0.625m plasma engine when landed has 7 kN of power and isp of 125 at full thrust. TSFC was at 320g/kN*s

Max thrust is 30 kN, but I have to lower it, as engine is getting starved, when climbing.

Can we have automatic limiter for plasma engines, when they run out of atmosphere?

So basically Thrust Limiter would go down to keep up with demand for atmospheric propulsion supply,

It acts much better up in atmosphere:

 

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, ABZB said:

My reactors are suddenly not generating any power... Also, the Power window (the lighning bolt menu) says that my DC power requirements are 0 (they aren't). I noticed that I am getting debug spam of the following type (taken from the output_log file):

ArgumentException: An element with the same key already exists in the dictionary.
  at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[Part,OpenResourceSystem.ORSPropellantControl].Add (.Part key, OpenResourceSystem.ORSPropellantControl value) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part,ORSPropellantControl] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector, System.Func`2 elementSelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector, IEqualityComparer`1 comparer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToDictionary[ORSPropellantControl,Part] (IEnumerable`1 source, System.Func`2 keySelector) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSHelper.fixedRequestResource (.Part part, System.String resourcename, Double resource_amount, ResourceFlowMode flow) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSHelper.fixedRequestResource (.Part part, System.String resourcename, Double resource_amount) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSResourceManager.update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at OpenResourceSystem.ORSResourceSuppliableModule.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FNPlugin.InterstellarReactor.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at FNPlugin.InterstellarFissionMSRGC.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Part.ModulesOnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Part.FixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

 

 

Is it possible that there is some ORS bug that is causing the power issues noted on the last few pages?

 

Or maybe there is some .cfg file that got duplicated, or is being duplicated by some other, relatively common mod?

There are not any source code change since the last version, so we can rule out that. Last time II saw this problem it has something to do with resources ... perhaps something is missing or incorrectly defined

[raxo2222]

I made it lighter and with more air intakes. All it needs is some fireproof protection. I bet it could fly off Mars using atmosphere

Can we have some skin max temp modifier to all parts, when researched certain technology?

Radiators can be 3500 K hot, so why not use same materials for other parts, so they could survive up to 2500-3000 K skin temperature?

 

Here is Icarus getting burned - it is deadly ascent.

 

 

[Profit-]

yeah.. that friction is killer...  That and getting a craft to survive 15000g acceleration.

 

[raxo2222]

28 minutes ago, Profit- said:

yeah.. that friction is killer...  That and getting a craft to survive 15000g acceleration.

 

15000g is what I get from 0.625m thermal nozzle connected to microwave receiver, that produces several TWs of power

Here is 1.25 atmospheric jet - all its using is atmosphere for propulsion.

I left atmosphere and entered orbit - almost with Pe of 80km.

*Jeb what do you mean by being in space for hours, it cant propel itself here*

*KSC, these plasma engines are ultra efficient*

It can run fine up to eighty km up, higher it is starving even at max efficiency.