KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Rushligh]

1 hour ago, Mine_Turtle said:

The problem is this engine generates too much internal heat(not wasteheat), more than thermal nozzle+any reactor setup. So the next adjacent part gets overheated. I use inline radiator as an insulator to separate rest of the craft from the engine as it has a high internal temp limit(higher than precooler). 

that's what i mean. speed = thermal heat. radiators disperse ehat but in order to do that they have to attract heat, therefor becoming very hot. as such, adjacent parts become hotter FASTER.

in the case of atmospheric exit you want to NOT user thermal engines to exceed 1800 m/s, do NOT try an escape angle of less than 30 degrees.

on re-entry you want LESS than 2500 mps and between 40-70 degrees angle. less than 40 and you'll be esposed to to much atmosphere burn but no air resistance, therefor making you hotter but not slowing you down. you also run the risk of skipping off the atmosphere back into space. to harsh an angle and you'll hit the air to hard and not have enough time to snow.

you're best bet is to hit it at 45degrees and retro thrust from 72,000m as hard as possible untill you either get under 1000 m/s or start to see flames (then turn your ship the right way!). again, kerbaloons can help with re-entry because they act as retro-thrust AND drogue shoots.

2 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Apparently ladders and precooler exploded from heat. I kept pith of 30 degrees with autopilot.

I have RSS, so I was descending earth. AP - 270 km. (best place for mothership - it can refuel QSR and produce hydrazine - hydrogen is most abundant here), PE - 30 km. 0 inclination - equator orbit.

Speed was around 7500 m/s when reached 100 km altitude.

Edit: I kinda survived reentry, but antimatter explosions, and hydrazine/radiation contamination in middle of pacific ocean won't be forgotten.

My ship just kinda melted in few points in between 20 - 60 km.

>7500 m/s

RETRO-THRUST DAMNIT, RETRO-THRUST!

that's WAY to fast for an ssto with the kind of fancy equipment kspi's got.

[Nansuchao]

In RSS with FAR retro-thrust isn't the best option. In order to re-enter with an SSTO in RSS, you need a much higher PE, like 50 km, re-enter with an AoA of 90 degrees and slow down as much as possible in high atmo.

[Rushligh]

3 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

In RSS with FAR retro-thrust isn't the best option. In order to re-enter with an SSTO in RSS, you need a much higher PE, like 50 km, re-enter with an AoA of 90 degrees and slow down as much as possible in high atmo.

i mean retro-thrust before you hit air. between 75,000 and 65,000. i don't bother installing forward facing thrusters, i just reverse my vessel, show down, then turn arround in time; from there kerbaloons and any kind of drogue deployment is best. in my case i can have my whole vessel on a 90 degree angle to the decent trajectory.

[dlrk]

The quantum singularity reactor seems a bit sci-fi/fantasy for KSPI.

[ss8913]

If your SSTO are also VTOL (I suggest low profile ATILLA engines for VTOL) you can do a reentry by selecting SVEL+ +90 degrees in MJ2 or point to the orbit-normal indicator manually during re-entry and fire your VTOL engines to slow down.  If you get down to 900 m/s total surface velocity by the time you hit 55km of altitude, you can just turn off the autopilot, point the craft into the wind, lock your speedbrakes on and ride it out.  Works even for very heavy craft (over 1000t) if they're aerodynamically stable.  I use FAR+DRE with heat settings at 120% and even so this method produces a very reliable safe re-entry method.  Full procedure:

1. Position a circular orbit at 80-100km over the middle of the bay in the desert up-range from KSC
2. Burn retrograde until your (stock) intended landing point is about 50km downrange from KSC
3. Turn SVEL+90 degrees pitch as mentioned above and start your retro burn at 70km or just above
4.  Kill thrust when total surface velocity vector is 800-900 m/s
5. Ride it down on your speedbrakes - good time to change your engines over to IntakeAtm including your RCS thrusters, although most spaceplanes can glide in from here without thrust.
6. Land on the runway - heavy SSTO or anything with a delta wing and no flaps will generally require an approach speed *at least* 250kts EAS (125 m/s at sea level but stock velocity measurements are pretty useless for approach speeds, install FAR and set your airspeed measurements to knots EAS - now you have realistic airspeed values that you can actually use).  Some of the really heavy stuff needs to be at 300-350kts but good luck getting a safe landing at that speed - anything I design which is that heavy, I use pitch and VTOL engines to slow down and land on the VTOL engines.
7. *** NOTE *** - Wheels are broken in 1.1.x; you almost for sure will need parachutes to stop before the end of the runway.  RealChute + 4 radial chutes + Kevlar material + triple-chute mode == safe stop even for very heavy craft.

[Mine_Turtle]

13 hours ago, Rushligh said:

 

15 hours ago, Mine_Turtle said:

The problem is this engine generates too much internal heat(not wasteheat), more than thermal nozzle+any reactor setup. So the next adjacent part gets overheated. I use inline radiator as an insulator to separate rest of the craft from the engine as it has a high internal temp limit(higher than precooler). 

that's what i mean. speed = thermal heat. radiators disperse ehat but in order to do that they have to attract heat, therefor becoming very hot. as such, adjacent parts become hotter FASTER.

in the case of atmospheric exit you want to NOT user thermal engines to exceed 1800 m/s, do NOT try an escape angle of less than 30 degrees.

on re-entry you want LESS than 2500 mps and between 40-70 degrees angle. less than 40 and you'll be esposed to to much atmosphere burn but no air resistance, therefor making you hotter but not slowing you down. you also run the risk of skipping off the atmosphere back into space. to harsh an angle and you'll hit the air to hard and not have enough time to snow.

you're best bet is to hit it at 45degrees and retro thrust from 72,000m as hard as possible untill you either get under 1000 m/s or start to see flames (then turn your ship the right way!). again, kerbaloons can help with re-entry because they act as retro-thrust AND drogue shoots.

 

Have a look at this image: http://imgur.com/3l14NYL

Notice the internal flux on the engine: it is 2MW. With subsonic speed and dense atmo to cool everything via convection. And throttle at 5%. Engine still overheats and destroys plane.

Does this look normal to you? I am not even attempting atmo exit and going into orbit, I am trying to achieve a stable level flight with subsonic speed, however with this engine it is not possible. Again similar setup with separate reactor and thermal nozzle(which IS exactly the same thing) does not have overheating problem.

 

[raxo2222]

11 hours ago, dlrk said:

The quantum singularity reactor seems a bit sci-fi/fantasy for KSPI.

Storing 1 kg of antimatter, quantum vacuum engine and warp drive are bit sci-fi too, but we are on 22nd/23rd century territory here.

We don't even have fission or fusion rockets now - that is sci-fi as of now too.

 

 

 

 

[dlrk]

Fission rockets were tested and proved to be feasible in the 70s, and we know fusion is possible.

[raxo2222]

48 minutes ago, dlrk said:

Fission rockets were tested and proved to be feasible in the 70s, and we know fusion is possible.

I know that, I should mean that whole mod is hard scifi - possible tech, that doesn't exist yet/isn't used.

Edited May 22, 2016 by raxo2222

[dlrk]

Yes, but I googled Quantum SIngularity Drive, and that isn't hard sci fi

[raxo2222]

52 minutes ago, dlrk said:

Yes, but I googled Quantum SIngularity Drive, and that isn't hard sci fi

Its just black hole reactor.

[gajbooks]

I would like to report an issue. The resistojet RCS, when initially placed, doesn't have a selected fuel, which causes really bad things to happen like null pointers and major crashes. The properties also don't sync to symmetry. The Arcjets don't work at all, even slightly. (No, I'm not incompetent, the resistojets are exactly the same and work fine. Use a bit too much power if anything.)

I'm also not sure if this is an issue, but Hydrazine has a stupid amount of Delta V with the nuclear lightbulb (I haven't tested anything else, yet). I see that it's crazy expensive for career, but it's imbalanced totally for sandbox. 20000+ m/s from one half-length tank and four double-scale spherical tanks. This weighs over 100 tons. I was bored so I sent it to another star. It'll be there in 8000 years and the reactor will be dead, but it'll be there (Until it falls back to Kerbol in several thousand more years).

1 hour ago, raxo2222 said:

Its just black hole reactor.

You say that so casually. Just watch out for black hole aliens that infect your reactor core like they did for those Romulans.

I didn't want to merge that reply for a very good reason, KSP forum.

Edited May 22, 2016 by gajbooks

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.8.19 for Kerbal Space Program 1.1.2

Released on 2016-05-22

• Quantum Singularity Reactor maximum power can now be adjust during operation
• Quantum Singularity Reactor produces small amount of antimatter when used
• Fixed Reactor Power leaching (which caused reactor unbalances and unnecessary overheating)
• Fixed Generator getting to high when not resized with latest Tweakscale version
• Doubled mass Quantum Singularity Reactor and increasd cost by 50%
• Removed Quantum Singularity Reactor ability to be used with Magnetic Nozzle
• Solid Core Reactor upgrade is limited to Advanced Nuclear Propulsion
• Lowered tech requirement Magnetized Target Fusion (a.k.a. OMEGA)
• Increased tech requirement Particle Bed Reactor to High Energy Nuclear Power
• Fixed Gimbal issues on Lightbulp and Launch Nozzle

Edited May 23, 2016 by FreeThinker

[SciMan]

8 hours ago, dlrk said:

Yes, but I googled Quantum SIngularity Drive, and that isn't hard sci fi

Google must have missed this.

The whole Orions Arm website is filled with hard sci-fi. If there's a physical law that outright prevents something, it's not on that site.
You will find a few kinds of "warp drive" on the site if you browse, but you won't find one (or anything else) that can go FTL.
You also won't find anything that allows anything to travel backwards in time, or perpetual motion machines outside of a virtual reality environment (called a "virch") running on computers that exist in the physical universe.

The stuff that appears to be magic is called "Clarktech" on that site, after Arthur C. Clark's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
And then the article will explain exactly how it's possible to create the "magical" effect WITHOUT violating known laws of physics.

All the numbers for the spaceship propulsion stuff on that site match up with predictions based on known laws of physics.
The interstellar ships even need physical shielding to protect them while traveling thru the interstellar medium at relativistic speeds, as the kinetic impact energy of a 1 gram micrometeroid on a ship that's traveling at 3/4 the speed of light is roughly the same as 11 kilotons of TNT.

[Flakorama]

I'm trying to build something using a TORY thermal ramjet, only to get a flame-out on the runway and kill my engine. I have an atm scoop installed in the nose but doesn't seem to do anything, no contextual menu pops up when I click on it. I've watched a few tutorials but the parts and menues look so different from this mod I've installed from this very post. Am I missing something?

Edited May 23, 2016 by Flakorama

[okder]

@FreeThinker(another) bug with TORY thermal ramjet (KspiNuclearRamjet), that ThermalNozzleController's  buildInPrecoolers = 1 is not working, i.e.  it's overheats at 1350 m/s, even if craft has additional precoolers with intakes, if as workaround if you do buildInPrecoolers = 0 and remove builtin intake of KspiNuclearRamjet, then it works properly (with external precooler and intake).

also please remove changes to other oxygen breathing thrusters, which become dependent on precoolers with KSPi (actually more correctly make specific precooler for KSPi and add specific properties (such as using energy for cooling air, as usually precooler do use (pre)cooled fuel engine fuel for cooling air))

 

[SciMan]

• Quantum Singularity Reactor maximum power can now be adjust during operation
• Quantum Singularity Reactor produces small amount of antimatter when used

Cool, that makes the QSR faster to start when you need it (start at low power then adjust to needed power level). And it means you can make antimatter if you can't harvest it, and you don't have to buy so much of it.

• Doubled mass Quantum Singularity Reactor
• Removed Quantum Singularity Reactor ability to be used with Magnetic Nozzle

I understand the mass increase (it was certainly too light for the power output). However, why would you prevent it from working with a magnetic nozzle?

I'm not going to argue that a QSR+Magnetic Nozzle makes it possible to send a ship to any orbit in the stock solar system. It can, but that misses the design point that I was proposing the QSR to fill.

However, that's like using a crop-duster aircraft to kill a single gnat. It's not overpowered, you didn't have a big enough job for it to be worth using. In KSP terms, it's like using a LV-N to get a single Mk1 capsule to the Mun. Does that make the LV-N overpowered, even in Sandbox mode?

I think the QSR doesn't cost enough in Career mode. It's supposed to be massively powerful and cheap to operate. The trade-offs are that it can't go to small diameters, and it costs more than ANY other reactor in its size.

This reactor is supposed to be the main reactor of a massive mothership or cargo ship. Mass of 50t and cost of 25 million funds for a 3.75m diameter seems like a reasonable balance point for that purpose, and it discourages building "small" ships with it. Mass and cost are the balancing factors to use, NOT arbitrary limits on what engines it works with. There's only so many engine types to limit it to.

I'm probably biased about this due to "I suggested it and now it's not acting like I intended it to", but here goes anyways.
To me, a reactor that outputs ChargedParticles but can't be used with an engine that requires ChargedParticles basically screams "Because {Arbitrary Game Balancing Factor}", instead of "Because {insert reasonable physics-based explanation}".

This was supposed to be an end-game "I just want to get stuff done" reactor.
Not a "I need to micromanage this thing and it cant use X and it's gotta have Y and this and that and an arm and a leg...." reactor.
Half the reason I use Antimatter reactors so much is because they're simpler to use than a Fusion reactor and more powerful than a Fission reactor. Plus, they throttle better.

I basically wanted the QSR to be a more powerful Antimatter reactor that ran on LqdHydrogen fuel. What I feel like I got was a Rube Goldberg machine of a reactor.

In a mod that is based largely on nuclear and theoretical physics, a limitation that doesn't come from the laws of physics (known, proven, or proposed) stands out like one of those cellphone towers that's supposed to look like an evergreen tree.

Edited May 23, 2016 by SciMan

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, SciMan said:

• Quantum Singularity Reactor maximum power can now be adjust during operation
• Quantum Singularity Reactor produces small amount of antimatter when used

Cool, that makes the QSR faster to start when you need it (start at low power then adjust to needed power level). And it means you can make antimatter if you can't harvest it, and you don't have to buy so much of it.

 

Yes, the engine can now throtle like other reactors but the  minimum utilisation is fixed to 10% of maximum output. This means that at 10% output, the minimum utilisation is 100% while at 50% output minimum utilisation is 50%. Notice the same feature is also avialble in the Magnetised Inertial Fusion Reactor, which is now avialble as one of the first fusion power reactors.

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, SciMan said:

Removed Quantum Singularity Reactor ability to be used with Magnetic Nozzle

I understand the mass increase (it was certainly too light for the power output). However, why would you prevent it from working with a magnetic nozzle?

I'm not going to argue that a QSR+Magnetic Nozzle makes it possible to send a ship to any orbit in the stock solar system. It can, but that misses the design point that I was proposing the QSR to fill.

The reasoning is that that it's much harder control the charged particles escaping from the event horison of a singularity then from other energy sources. The charged particles can speed up to near light speed when they circularise the event horison. Because it's so hard  to control and therefore effectivly convert the charged particles into energy we need to integrate the direct energy converter with the reactor, where the converter completly surround the singulaity. You can my analogies with disel trains . Initialy they directly transfered their raw machenical kenetic power directly to the wheels, which put use stress on them, later diesel trains first converted whe mechanical power into electric which then could be efficiently  distribyed much for over multiple wheels resulting in over much better performance.

Edited May 23, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, SciMan said:

I think the QSR doesn't cost enough in Career mode. It's supposed to be massively powerful and cheap to operate. The trade-offs are that it can't go to small diameters, and it costs more than ANY other reactor in its size.

This reactor is supposed to be the main reactor of a massive mothership or cargo ship. Mass of 50t and cost of 25 million funds for a 3.75m diameter seems like a reasonable balance point for that purpose, and it discourages building "small" ships with it. Mass and cost are the balancing factors to use, NOT arbitrary limits on what engines it works with. There's only so many engine types to limit it to.

I think you have a point regarding it's cost. At maximum output, the 3.75m reactor is exactly 8 times as powerfull as the 2.5m antimatter reactor (at 3 milion) which uses expansive fuel but is most flexable. The quantum singulaity is the the opposite in this regard as is fuel is the cheapest but is the least flexible.Purely based on power it is worth 8 times (= 24 milion) as much as the antimatter reactor but it's inflexability justifies a 1/3 discount resulting in 16 milion price tag

Regarding the mass , 50t would have been resonlable mass for the reactor only, but the QSR includes both a direct energy converter and thermal energy converter, which increased it mass by about 25%. An over mass 64t therefore looks very sharp, especialy if you considered equivalant mass in antimatter reactor power.

Edited May 23, 2016 by FreeThinker

[okder]

more bugs: magneto inertial fusion engine works without containment power provided (but with warning message about it), it does not provide thermal power to generator, but generates it (thermal power) (i think efficiency  could be very low, but still thermal generator should give some power), there is no lithium tank(in low part of research tree) for it.

did not test with direct conversion generator.

 

 

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, okder said:

more bugs: magneto inertial fusion engine works without containment power provided (but with warning message about it), it does not provide thermal power to generator, but generates it (thermal power) (i think efficiency  could be very low, but still thermal generator should give some power), there is no lithium tank(in low part of research tree) for it.

 

Good find (+ 1 rep). notice that is still consumes power if the power is available, I consider it a minor issue for now. It;s just that the fusion is still succesfull if insufficient power found.

Edited May 23, 2016 by FreeThinker

[TheTaleteller]

After this video, i think we need a "Dark Energy Reactor". Two mind blowers from it:

a) there is a negative pressure in vacuum space

b) conservation of energy does not apply to an expanding relativistic universe *wtf*

 

[Genomaniac]

Not sure if a new bug as I haven't done much with kerbal for the last few weeks but the latest interstellar update won't let me load a few of my ships/bases running on a Mk1 molten salt reactor.

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, TheTaleteller said:

After this video, i think we need a "Dark Energy Reactor". Two mind blowers from it:

a) there is a negative pressure in vacuum space

b) conservation of energy does not apply to an expanding relativistic universe *wtf*

 

Could you think of any hypotherical way we could extract significant amounts power from dark energy?

Edited May 23, 2016 by FreeThinker