KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[raxo2222]

39 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Do realize that VASMIR  is sceduled for a realism fix, although it is possible to accelerate ions in an atmosphere, trying do the same with plasma is going to get you in trouble in terms of efficiency. Expect massive overheating issues and terrible performance VASMIR  in lower atmosphere,

I'm using VASMIR only in upper atmosphere/space, so no harm done

In my SSTO I activate VASMIR, when it reaches 60 - 70 km on Earth, so pressure is very tiny, on that altitude deployable radiator deploys itself, as dynamic pressure falls below 1 kpa.

39 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I do question why in the world you need such huge ships for, are you trying to create an interstellar ark or something?

I want to create ship, that can do grand tour in RSS and doesn't slow down much, when SSTO docks to it.

BTW it would nice to have thrust during time warp, because 4 m/s is pretty slow

It uses quantum vacuum engines to thrust.

 

Edited June 5, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, raxo2222 said:

I'm using VASMIR only in upper atmosphere/space, so no harm done

In my SSTO I activate VASMIR, when it reaches 60 - 70 km on Earth, so pressure is very tiny, on that altitude deployable radiator deploys itself, as dynamic pressure falls below 1 kpa.

I want to create ship, that can do grand tour in RSS and doesn't slow down much, when SSTO docks to it.

BTW it would nice to have thrust during time warp, because 4 m/s is pretty slow

It uses quantum vacuum engines to thrust.

Well one Idea I have is to introduce a new engine which would be the ultimate in propulsion technology. It would be able be to accelerate charged particle up to to the speed of light, making the particle a lot more massive and therefore generate more effective thrust and effective Isp. Normally you need an particle accelerator the reach those speeds but what if you could compress it to a linear engine the size of mainsail using some advanced space folding compression techniques? You would end up creating something very similar to an Impulse engine

If you can build warpdrives which can compress and extract space, you should be able to create this kind of engine.

Edit: In game terms, it would first require a charged particle capable reactor, which then can get accelerated by the subspace field coils to lightspeed, effectively improving both Isp and effective thrust by a large factor. This would effectively turbo charged particle propulsion.

Edit2: I always found it a bit odd that in the end game, you are still somehow using 21 centuary propulsion methods, like Vasimir, on the ship capable of moving faster than multiple times the speed of light. Most of the time, you will still use the old fashioned Newtonian propulsion engines to get where you want. So why not use that subspace field coils for something more than  faster than light travel to get to other stars

 

Edited June 5, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nansuchao]

@raxo2222 I'm really curious. Can you please share some picture of this ship?

[raxo2222]

1 hour ago, Nansuchao said:

@raxo2222 I'm really curious. Can you please share some picture of this ship?

There is SSTO

VASMIR and Thermal Ramjet is 1.875m and thermal turbojet is 2.5m,

Main AM reactor is 2.5m

And mothership.

antimatter engine and molten salt is 0.625 m, vacuum plasma is 2.5 m, antimatter container - 5m, radiators - 25m or something.

 

Edited June 5, 2016 by raxo2222

[Nansuchao]

@raxo2222 Beautiful, congratulations!

 

@FreeThinker with the last update I have an issue with the Magnetised Target Fusion Reactor (Omega). With a full unlocked tech tree, in the last update it just provide less than 1 GW of power. I have nothing from Near Future installed. Any suggestion?

[nablabla]

Hi, not shure if it is intendet, but when using the thermal nozzle scaled down to 1.25m it overheats very very very fast.

the issue that the scram jet does not thrust at all seems to be fixed, thanks.

Edited June 6, 2016 by nablabla

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

@raxo2222 Beautiful, congratulations!

 

@FreeThinker with the last update I have an issue with the Magnetised Target Fusion Reactor (Omega). With a full unlocked tech tree, in the last update it just provide less than 1 GW of power. I have nothing from Near Future installed. Any suggestion?

Seems to me it works as intended. 3 GW * 0.945 * 0.4 * 0.865 = 0.98 GW. Magnetized Target Fusion is not very good at generating charged particles. The biggest advantage is it relatively compact engine  and potentialy cheap fuel with in pure deterium mode. A Magnetic Confinement Fusion engine would allow you to use all charged particles more effectively generating more net power and less wasteheat

Edited June 6, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

4 hours ago, nablabla said:

Hi, not shure if it is intendet, but when using the thermal nozzle scaled down to 1.25m it overheats very very very fast.

the issue that the scram jet does not thrust at all seems to be fixed, thanks.

I dont see any precooler on your vessel. Without a precooer the engine will indeed overheat when flying at high speed

Edited June 6, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Mine_Turtle]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I dont see any precooler on your vessel. Without a precooer the engine will indeed overheat when flying at high speed

Except his vessel is almost standing still. As I have told you it's the problem how heat production is calculated. Specifically, fuel flow as divider in the formula.

I have created a new pull request to address this issue. It is for 1.8.24 version(no code for new version on github) but the changes are small and should be easy to merge.

Basically, I have changed the heat calculation formula according to my recent post:

heatProduction = baseHeatProduction * (engineHeatFuelThreshold * engineHeatFuelAdjustment) / max_fuel_flow_rate / Mathf.Pow(_maxISP, engineHeatProductionExponent) *engineAirHeatProductioConst*airflowHeatModifier

If you find heat generation too high or low you can adjust following parameters:

• baseHeatProduction - static heat generation, defined in cfg file of the part
• engineHeatFuelThreshold - fuel flow threshold, determines when fuel flow effect is active
• engineHeatFuelAdjustment - specifies multiplier for heat production when fuel flow effect is active. This is similar to previous parameter  engineHeatProductionMultiplier
• engineAirHeatProductioConst - constant that determines the intensity of air heating. 

I have run some tests with nuclear turbojet as well thermal turbojet(flying in atmo using different fuels) and heat production seems to be fine(not too low and not too high), but further testing might be needed.

 

 

I also want to create some patches to incorporate lithium and aluminium mining with conventional and UKS drills as well add them to community resource pack, so deposits of those resources can be seen using radars and SCANsat.

 

Negative heat production is also possible. So it should be possible to generate heal as well as cool parts only through heat production without setting part temp directly. How about adding special cooling liquid to radiators to provide cooling bost at the expense of limited resource.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Mine_Turtle

[raxo2222]

I posted earlier oceanic resource defs for RSS @FreeThinker

OCEANIC_RESOURCE_PACK_DEFINITION_KSPI
{
name = KSPI_OceanicPack
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EveWater
    guiName = Water
    celestialBodyName = Eve
    abundance = 0.9783
    resourceName = Water
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EveSodium
    guiName = Sodium
    celestialBodyName = Eve
    abundance = 0.0094
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EveChlorine
    guiName = Chlorine
    celestialBodyName = Eve
    abundance = 0.0078
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EveMagnesium
    guiName = Magnesium
    celestialBodyName = Eve
    abundance = 0.003436
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EveLithium
    guiName = Lithium
    celestialBodyName = Eve
    abundance = 0.000000093
    resourceName = Lithium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EveUF4
    guiName = Uranium
    celestialBodyName = Eve
    abundance = 0.000003
    resourceName = EnrichedUranium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinWater
    guiName = Water
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.9666
    resourceName = Water
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinChlorine
    guiName = Chlorine
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.0194
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinSodium
    guiName = Sodium
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.0108
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinMagnesium
    guiName = Magnesium
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.001292
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinSulphur
    guiName = Sulphur
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.00091
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinCalcium
    guiName = Calcium
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.0004
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinPotassium
    guiName = Potassium
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.0004
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinLithium
    guiName = Lithium
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.00000017
    resourceName = Lithium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = KerbinUF4
    guiName = Uranium
    celestialBodyName = Kerbin
    abundance = 0.000000003
    resourceName = EnrichedUranium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthWater
    guiName = Water
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.9666
    resourceName = Water
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthChlorine
    guiName = Chlorine
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.0194
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthSodium
    guiName = Sodium
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.0108
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthMagnesium
    guiName = Magnesium
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.001292
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthSulphur
    guiName = Sulphur
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.00091
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthCalcium
    guiName = Calcium
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.0004
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthPotassium
    guiName = Potassium
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.0004
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthLithium
    guiName = Lithium
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.00000017
    resourceName = Lithium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = EarthUF4
    guiName = Uranium
    celestialBodyName = Earth
    abundance = 0.000000003
    resourceName = EnrichedUranium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = TitanMethane
    guiName = Methane
    celestialBodyName = Titan
    abundance = 0.1
    resourceName = LqdMethane
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = TitanNitrogen
    guiName = Nitrogen
    celestialBodyName = Titan
    abundance = 0.00001
    resourceName = LqdNitrogen
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = TitanArgon
    guiName = Argon
    celestialBodyName = Titan
    abundance = 0.000001
    resourceName = ArgonGas
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheWater
    guiName = Water
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.8435
    resourceName = Water
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheAmmonia
    guiName = Ammonia
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.11567
    resourceName = LqdAmmonia
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheChlorine
    guiName = Chlorine
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.02346
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheSodium
    guiName = Sodium
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.0152
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheMagnesium
    guiName = Magnesium
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.001177
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheLithium
    guiName = Lithium
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.000000237
    resourceName = Lithium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = LaytheUF4
    guiName = Uranium
    celestialBodyName = Laythe
    abundance = 0.000000001
    resourceName = EnrichedUranium
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = TektoMethane
    guiName = Methane
    celestialBodyName = Tekto
    abundance = 0.744
    resourceName = LqdMethane
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = TektoAmmonia
    guiName = Ammonia
    celestialBodyName = Tekto
    abundance = 0.032
    resourceName = LqdAmmonia
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = TektoWater
    guiName = Water
    celestialBodyName = Tekto
    abundance = 0.025
    resourceName = Water
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = SlateMethane
    guiName = Methane
    celestialBodyName = Slate
    abundance = 0.144
    resourceName = LqdMethane
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = SlateAmmonia
    guiName = Ammonia
    celestialBodyName = Slate
    abundance = 0.032
    resourceName = LqdAmmonia
}
OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
    name = SlateWater
    guiName = Water
    celestialBodyName = Slate
    abundance = .80
    resourceName = Water
}

}

[raxo2222]

55 minutes ago, Mine_Turtle said:

I also want to create some patches to incorporate lithium and aluminium mining with conventional and UKS drills as well add them to community resource pack, so deposits of those resources can be seen using radars and SCANsat.

Not only lithium/aluminum

Everything in ISRU Refinery Window should be in stock ISRU, and everything in ISRU Refinery 3.75m should be accessible by stock/uks drills (water, ammonia, lithium, alumina, uranium and thorium).

There is too much hassle to add RSS definitions of land resources for long abandoned ORS.

As for ocean... maybe we could add pump or make drills/atmospheric scoops pump oceans at certain tech.

Edited June 6, 2016 by raxo2222

[Mine_Turtle]

18 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Not only lithium/aluminum

Everything in ISRU Refinery Window should be in stock ISRU, and everything in ISRU Refinery 3.75m should be accessible by stock/uks drills (water, ammonia, lithium, alumina, uranium and thorium).

There is too much hassle to add RSS definitions of land resources for long abandoned ORS.

As for ocean... maybe we could add pump or make drills/atmospheric scoops pump oceans at certain tech.

I had a quick look at CRP and it seems KSPI resources are defined. However, config files are missing for them. So, it should be easy to create a config for them. I am going to do it this week.

 

[raxo2222]

1 hour ago, Mine_Turtle said:

I had a quick look at CRP and it seems KSPI resources are defined. However, config files are missing for them. So, it should be easy to create a config for them. I am going to do it this week.

 

And after this we could put to sleep both KSPI ISRU by stripping them from all modules and hiding them from public view. In description it could be written: This legacy part has been scrapped, please use stock ISRU.

UNRELATED: there is mothership with procedural modular fuel tanks (set up is for hydrazine) (they are kinda broken - cooling doesn't work

These tanks have all liquids and gases, that you can find in atmosphere.

You can extract oxygen/hydrogen if atmosphere has water/methane/CO/CO2.

 

Edited June 6, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, raxo2222 said:

Not only lithium/aluminum

Everything in ISRU Refinery Window should be in stock ISRU, and everything in ISRU Refinery 3.75m should be accessible by stock/uks drills (water, ammonia, lithium, alumina, uranium and thorium).

There is too much hassle to add RSS definitions of land resources for long abandoned ORS.

As for ocean... maybe we could add pump or make drills/atmospheric scoops pump oceans at certain tech.

the KSPI Isru operations with single interface is done better than Stock. I also have plans to improve it further. What needs to be replaced is the surface mining operations which can be better performed with stock resource part modules. atmosphere and sea resource collectors are still superior to anything stock can offer

Edited June 6, 2016 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

18 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

the KSPI Isru operations with single interface is done better than Stock. I also have plans to improve it further. What beeds to be replaced is the surface mining operations which can be better performed with stock resource parts. atmosphere and sea resource collectors are still superior to anything stock can offer

Hmmm so 3.75m isru can be scrapped.

Can we have resalable 2.5m ISRU? Bigger ISRU would perform reactions faster, and you could run 2 or more reactions simultaneously in single ISRU.

Also tiny resource tanks being part of ISRU (just like in QSR) would be very useful.

They could hold 10 different resources just like in that screenshot:

We could also have tanks for solids: aluminum, lithium, uranium and thorium for drills.

Edited June 6, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

12 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Hmmm so 3.75m isru can be scrapped.

Can we have resalable 2.5m ISRU

 

Yes I would like to replace the old reactor like large ISRU refinery by a retretured rescalable version of the stock ISRU refinery 

18 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

 

Also tiny resource tanks being part of ISRU (just like in QSR) would be very useful.

They could hold 10 different resources just like in that screenshot:

Instead of fixed resource tank I rather prefer switchable fuel tanks.

[raxo2222]

12 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes I would like to replace the old reactor like large ISRU refinery by a retretured rescalable version of the stock ISRU refinery 

Instead of fixed resource tank I rather prefer switchable fuel tanks.

I meant integrated resource tanks just like in most of reactors.

Edited June 6, 2016 by raxo2222

[EleSigma]

17 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well one Idea I have is to introduce a new engine which would be the ultimate in propulsion technology. It would be able be to accelerate charged particle up to to the speed of light, making the particle a lot more massive and therefore generate more effective thrust and effective Isp. Normally you need an particle accelerator the reach those speeds but what if you could compress it to a linear engine the size of mainsail using some advanced space folding compression techniques? You would end up creating something very similar to an Impulse engine

If you can build warpdrives which can compress and extract space, you should be able to create this kind of engine.

Edit: In game terms, it would first require a charged particle capable reactor, which then can get accelerated by the subspace field coils to lightspeed, effectively improving both Isp and effective thrust by a large factor. This would effectively turbo charged particle propulsion.

Edit2: I always found it a bit odd that in the end game, you are still somehow using 21 centuary propulsion methods, like Vasimir, on the ship capable of moving faster than multiple times the speed of light. Most of the time, you will still use the old fashioned Newtonian propulsion engines to get where you want. So why not use that subspace field coils for something more than  faster than light travel to get to other stars

 

The only issue I see with this is that with the deadly re-entry mod installed, G-forces are going to be insane speeding up and slowing down from trans light-speed. The poor Kerbals will be stains on the wall of their capsule before they even know it. Where as the Alcubierre folds space-time to cut & paste a ship from one spot to the next with no change in its momentum and acceleration, this engine, uses acceleration to get places and needs deceleration to slow down. I was thinking that the engine could have togglable modes, one for atmospheric flight, which would give you enough thrust to fly around and leave most atmospheres in the Kerbal Solar System, a sub-flight mode for space and short distance interplanetary travel (can get to most interplanetary locations in a short period of time), and a trans-light speed mode for long distance interplanetary and interstellar flight.

A suggestion I have is that there also be some engines to bridge the 21st century tech with the warp drives and impulse engine.

Maybe some more efficient cryogenic fueled engines and atmospheric/ramjet engines? With lower thrust than their predecessors but still with enough thrust to get off Kerbin if used right, but much better fuel efficiency. I guess an engine that would represent a more streamlined, tougher structurally and easier to assemble version of the older models. Not cheaper though due to materials used, and career balance.

Edited June 6, 2016 by EleSigma

[SciMan]

@FreeThinker

Personally I think we should intentionally avoid Star-Trek terminology. Warp drives have a basis in science, "subspace" anything, does not. The word "subspace" in this context is technobabble.

Also, if you replace the word "subspace" with the phrase "superconducting magnetic" in the above diagram, the whole thing turns into a magnetic nozzle powered by multiple D-D fusion reactors.

A better thing to include IMO would be to make that Daedalus engine bell model a functional part using the DT-Vista engine modules. They're both fusion pulse drives, so this makes a lot of sense.

A change to that code would be much appreciated. The DT-Vista and Daedalus engines should be able to use many different reactions including pure antimatter, antimatter-catalyzed fusion, and the many "standard" fusion reactions. Obviously, they would not use the QSR reactions.

The Daedalus engine would have much higher thrust and somewhat higher ISP than the Vista, basically it would be the DT-Vista's "big brother".

 

On another note, KSPI-E still needs an engine suitable for a torch ship. I know what you're going to say, and I disagree with it.

The current reactors and engine nozzles can not be assembled into a torch drive.

Not even the antimatter reactor with a magnetic nozzle. That combination has the specific impulse required. What it's missing is THRUST.

Once again, because I think my meaning has been getting lost somewhere.

The problem with trying to make a torch drive with KSPI-E reactors and engine nozzles is that they lack THRUST.

What is this, an engine for interstellar ants? The specific impulse is fine, but it's missing the ability to move large payloads at high accelerations.

 

A torch drive has 2 qualities. In order of importance, extremely high thrust, and high efficiency. The first one is massively more important.

For an example of what I think a true torch drive is, I'll state the stats of the 5m Karborundum torch drive from RoverDude's Karbonite Plus mod.

That engine puts out 187,500 kilonewtons of thrust at 12,000 seconds ISP.

The 3m one puts out 37,500 kilonewtons of thrust at 10,000 seconds ISP

According to the Atomic Rockets website:

Quote

What is the definition of a torchship? Well, it is kind of vague. It more or less boils down to "unreasonably powerful."

 

Why would someone need something that powerful?

What if someone doesn't want to use warp drives on cargo ships, but they still want the stuff to get there before KSP 1.2 is released? Warp drives should not have a monopoly on relatively rapid travel to very distant planets or other stars.

What if someone wants to move around a large class-D or any Class-E asteroid? How are they going to get enough thrust to move around the 800-2000 tons of mass those have? This task takes a lot of thrust no matter what the specific impulse may be. Using a magnetic nozzle would take a long time, probably months of in-game time.

What if someone has several thousand tons of material they need to move to another distant planet? Even if this is bulk propellants they shouldn't have to be stuck with taking months of in-game time to move it around with a magnetic nozzle, and the amount of warp drives needed to do that would be prohibitively expensive. At this payload level, thermal nozzles don't have the specific impulse.

[Nansuchao]

@SciMan in the past Vista was a good engine for a torch-like ship. Back in 1.0, when Vista had the old ISP system I was able to bring a massive SSTO back from Eve in 23 days accellerating for hours and hours at 10% of thrust.

[SciMan]

@Nansuchao

Torches like I'm thinking of would be able to do that in 5 days or less without making use of the ability to thrust while in timewarp.

Probably less than a day if you did thrust while in timewarp. Even at opposition. Not quite as fast as a warp drive, but pretty dang close.

It's like comparing a firecracker to an atomic bomb.

Torch drives have exhaust power levels (and therefore thrust levels) that are quite silly compared to "normal" propulsion systems.

So far KSPI-E only has "normal" propulsion systems. I'm not asking for a normal propulsion system.

 

A nuclear salt water rocket is the most primitive technology that I can think of that classes as a torch drive.

The Orion drive comes close, but it doesn't quite measure up.

Edited June 6, 2016 by SciMan

[Zamolxes77]

Spent 6 hours making a nuclear TUG with solid core atomic engines, at 1st aerobrake, the folding radiators come off, disintegrate into 204 debris which I cannot terminate and remove from the game, bringing the whole game to a crawl. Suggestions ?

[Nansuchao]

9 minutes ago, SciMan said:

Torches like I'm thinking of would be able to do that in 5 days or less without making use of thrust-while-timewarping.

Probably less than a day if you did thrust while in timewarp.

It's like comparing a firecracker to an atomic bomb.

I know what you're talking about, it's just that I had not so much patience and the game didn't allow to thrust on TimeWarp. Just giving an example. With that engine you could.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Nansuchao

[Txzeenath]

22 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Although it is very easy to do this, the reason I 'm reluctant is because of balance concerns due to scale factor that increase faster than exponent 3. By default Tweakscale only allows a fixed growth scale , when resizing. Then properties scale faster than exponent 3, the part become effectively more powerful  for the mass it requires. Now you could argue to change the growth scale to 3, but this would disproportionate unbalance shrinked parts, like nuclear power reactors. The only exception to this problem would be part which are already wary large to begin with like Magnetically Confined Fusion reactors or the QSR.

 

Primarily the engines I would like to see scalable. A couple QSR/AM reactors isn't too bad, but having 24 or so plasma engines + thrust plates is a bit irritating. While scaling the engines to 10m+ might be slightly imbalanced, it is counteracted a bit by the power requirements, and the mass of most of these engines are already negligible for TWR they're capable of.

Currently i'm using a couple of the HX HPD engines supplied power from KSPI-E reactors, simply because I can't scale up the engines enough.

An idea for flexibility I also had was maybe a "Negative Mass Generator", depending how hard it is to scale the mass of parts on the fly. Only problem is finding a plausible theory on how it works. Thinking of mass as "curving" space, negative mass would curve it the opposing direction. But seeing as it breaks almost everything in physics mathematically, it wouldn't really work (besides maybe theoretical negative matter).

[SciMan]

I'm still of the opinion that the DT-Vista isn't powerful enough to qualify as a torch drive.

However, the only thing it's missing is thrust.

 

Now that we have the ability to get large amounts of power, I agree that the plasma thrusters need to be able to be scaled to larger sizes to consume that power without high part counts.

Edited June 6, 2016 by SciMan