KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[nablabla]

5 hours ago, Txzeenath said:

Part of that you can see by looking at the info tab on the part. If it requires MW/MJ, you need generators. If it requires heat, you need to attach it to a high temperature reactor, or a microwave thermal receiver (I believe charged particles can also be converted to heat, but I can't recall).

I think the same as Drelam. Also the infos in the game are often too short or do not contain the very viable information (e.g. the IR Antenna does not say anything about liquid helium). I think the easiest way to improve this mod and make it an option for more players is to improve on the descriptions. I do not have the knowledge to help here, I run into the same problems. Additionally the fact that there are so many outdated sources of information makes it even worse.

[FreeThinker]

On Monday, June 06, 2016 at 7:03 PM, Liquid5n0w said:

I must be missing something with regards to power production for microwave networks.  I have put up a moltensalt reactor and a gas core reactor.  I was under the impression generator efficiency was decided by the source temp vs the rad temp, but the gas core reactor with a core them of 30,000k is getting quite bad efficiency when I load it with radiators.  I am only getting 15% eff, but I was expecting something along the lines of 50% especially with the generator upgrade.  What am I doing wrong?

Due to the extreme high temperature, Gas core reactors can only run in thermal electric mode, which is a lot less efficient. The Gad core reactor offer high thrust combined with a relatively High Isp. They should be ideal for manned missions in the inner solar system.

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

@FreeThinker I'm trying to write a simple guide to the Interstellar Extended engines. I have already covered the built-in reactor engines, the thermal engines and now it's the time of the electric engines. I know very well the old Interstellar engines, D-T Vista, Plasma, Magnetic Nozzle and the Vasmir, but I need some info from you regarding the Tokamak engines and the new Magnetic Confinement engine, I'm not sure to know hot to have the best from them still.

the Tokamak is in many respect similar to the Magnetic Confinement Fusion reactor except for the Integrated Magnetic Nozzle. The Tokamak Magnetic has 2 uniques features which differentiate it from the Seperate Magnetic noozle which is its ability to use any non oxidising basic element as a propellant including Argon and Nitrogen. Also it can use lithium in open cycle mode which allow high neutronic fusion to convert neutrons into effective propulsion. This effectivly allows the engine to produce relatively high amounts of thrust with a high Isp. The disadvantage is that the reactor can only be connected to either a thermal generator or direct energy converter.

Edited June 7, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Bishop149]

Just a heads up.

Myself and another user have both discovered a conflict between KSP-IE and KIS, oulined over in the KIS thread.

Basically you can't put solar panels in KIS containers, doing so triggers an NRE. I'm guessing this is due to the modification of the stock solar panels to add the wasteheat mechanic.

[Drelam]

11 hours ago, Txzeenath said:

Part of that you can see by looking at the info tab on the part. If it requires MW/MJ, you need generators. If it requires heat, you need to attach it to a high temperature reactor, or a microwave thermal receiver (I believe charged particles can also be converted to heat, but I can't recall).

 

ATILLA is an electric engine, so your best combo IMO would be a reactor with high charged particle output, a charged particle electric generator, some radiators, and your engine.

One of the problems i have is, how are the various componets supposed to be attached to each other?

I have noticed that some parts (engines/generators/reactors) sometimes need to be attached directly to each other, while it sometimes doesn't matter at all. I find this very difficult when constructing, since i haven't found any clear rule for it. So i need to use trial and error which gets pretty annoying after a while, especially when testing an engine that only works in space.

Also Mechjeb Delta-V display doesn't work properly or not at all depending on the used parts, which makes it even more difficult to build something in a reasonable manner. (shooting the whole thing into space just to see how Delta -V changes over and over completely dries out the fun of playing KSP. )

Maybe i'm doing something completely wrong, i don't know.

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, Bishop149 said:

Just a heads up.

Myself and another user have both discovered a conflict between KSP-IE and KIS, oulined over in the KIS thread.

Basically you can't put solar panels in KIS containers, doing so triggers an NRE. I'm guessing this is due to the modification of the stock solar panels to add the wasteheat mechanic.

Well the solar panel wasteheat mechanic was removed because it was replaced by stock heat mechanic. What might cause the NRE is the solar panel mega joule mechanic which converts the power generated by the solar grnerator into small amounts of megajoule. This mechanic monitors the panel on active power produced and might get confused if it suddenly dissapears.

Edited June 8, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

44 minutes ago, Drelam said:

One of the problems i have is, how are the various componets supposed to be attached to each other?

I have noticed that some parts (engines/generators/reactors) sometimes need to be attached directly to each other, while it sometimes doesn't matter at all. I find this very difficult when constructing, since i haven't found any clear rule for it. So i need to use trial and error which gets pretty annoying after a while, especially when testing an engine that only works in space.

 

Well the general rule is that they need to be connected directly by stack nodes but there are exceptions.

* Electric engines don't need to connected to particular parts at all except the vessel itself. 

* Magnetic noozle engines can be 10 parts from the reactor by syack nodes and 1 part radially. Do note that transportation cost electric power.

* Thermal noozle engines can be 10 parts ftom the tractor and 1 part radialy however the longer the distance the more power is lost. Note that some teactortots like the molten salt are better capable of transfering theit heat than others.

[raxo2222]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Due to the extreme high temperature, Gas core reactors can only run in thermal electric mode, which is a lot less efficient. The Gad core reactor offer high thrust combined with a relatively High Isp. They should be ideal for manned missions in the inner solar system.

I think you said same thing 3 times

oops, ran out of coffee? (read whole page 227 too:p)

Not meant to be rude, but I just noticed it.

8 hours ago, SciMan said:

@FreeThinker

I think the idea to add tiny "buffer tank" resource storage for the resources the KSPI ISRU takes as input or output is a good idea, and I have several reasons.

Currently, anything that uses a KSPI ISRU is going to need a bunch of tanks to hold the "middle step" resources.
These tanks serve no purpose other than buffering the resources between different ISRU processes.
In other words, these tanks are basically the plumbing from one ISRU process to another.

These tanks don't have to be very large. In fact, large tanks for intermediate products add dry mass to the entire system for no real benefit.
Small tanks of 1, 10, or 100 units per resource would be more than enough. The tanks don't need to store a "useful" amount of anything, they just have to exist.

Most of the time, the player has no use for the intermediate products of the refining process used to get from source materials to the resource they want.

In that photo, you yourself are using tanks that contain 5 resources each.
I can't make tanks like that with KSPI-E. Neither can anyone else without downloading another mod besides the ones included in KSPI-E.
We have to use 11 individual parts to do what you did in 3.

The proposal is to cut that down to ONE part. This is an easy task, I'm already writing a MM patch for it for myself.

I said that bit earlier, but in shorter way

MFT is but buggy for now - doesn't support cryogenic tanks.

 

@FreeThinker

What about making MFT tanks actually having proper mass ratios?

If I use procedural fuel tank and fill it with hydrogen, then I get mass ratio of 1:2 or so.

[phoenix_ca]

9 hours ago, SciMan said:

@FreeThinker

I think the idea to add tiny "buffer tank" resource storage for the resources the KSPI ISRU takes as input or output is a good idea, and I have several reasons.

Currently, anything that uses a KSPI ISRU is going to need a bunch of tanks to hold the "middle step" resources.
These tanks serve no purpose other than buffering the resources between different ISRU processes.
In other words, these tanks are basically the plumbing from one ISRU process to another.

These tanks don't have to be very large. In fact, large tanks for intermediate products add dry mass to the entire system for no real benefit.
Small tanks of 1, 10, or 100 units per resource would be more than enough. The tanks don't need to store a "useful" amount of anything, they just have to exist.

Most of the time, the player has no use for the intermediate products of the refining process used to get from source materials to the resource they want.

In that photo, you yourself are using tanks that contain 5 resources each.
I can't make tanks like that with KSPI-E. Neither can anyone else without downloading another mod besides the ones included in KSPI-E.
We have to use 11 individual parts to do what you did in 3.

The proposal is to cut that down to ONE part. This is an easy task, I'm already writing a MM patch for it for myself.

Mind sharing that patch? Sounds like a great addition, but I've been so out-of-the-loop for a while I wouldn't trust that I know all the parts that need it.

[FreeThinker]

 

1 hour ago, raxo2222 said:

I think you said same thing 3 times

Sorry I can't help it, my phone browser forces me to repost it every time

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

 

 

@FreeThinker

What about making MFT tanks actually having proper mass ratios?

If I use procedural fuel tank and fill it with hydrogen, then I get mass ratio of 1:2 or so.

 

I feel MFT falls outside my scope but if anyone would post some MM scipt which correct the bad mass ratio I would add it to the patch folder

[raxo2222]

5 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

 

Sorry I can't help it, my phone browser forces me to repost it every time

Ah stupid phone

There is error with reactor lifetime:

All reactors, that have products show lifetime of 0 days and increases, as products are stored.

Only Antimatter reactor is unaffected by this, and shows correct lifetime. It seems like lifetime calculator picks products not fuels in its calculations.

This bug was here as long as I remember, wonder why no one reported it.

 

 

[Bishop149]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well the solar panel wasteheat mechanic was removed because it was replaced by stock heat mechanic. What might cause the NRE is the solar panel mega joule mechanic which converts the power generated by the solar grnerator into small amounts of megajoule. This mechanic monitors the panel on active power produced and might get confused if it suddenly dissapears.

Not to worry, a workaround patch for KIS has already been uploaded. Seems to resolve the issue.

[raxo2222]

Exception Detector is throwing NRE's with any warp drive while in VAB/SPH:

FNPlugin.AlcubierreDrive.FixedUpdate

Also reactor lifetime needs to be fixed.

 

If someone is making MFT path for procedural parts, then you have to take SMURFF for account - SMURFF adjusts all tanks/engine mass and fuel ratios  to realish values.

Edit:

I created example one unit ISRU buffer with procedural parts and MFT.

 

It could be as well as integral ISRU part.

I could make it contain one unit of ore/liquid fuel/oxidizer/monopropellant, it would be  only slightly bigger.

Edit: Someone needs to make MFT patches for procedual tank so you can add following resources:

Aluminum, Alumina (Al₂O₃), Helium 3, and stock Ore

Also drill should have tiny buffer for ore, thorium, uranium, lithium, aluminum and water - you can find these on surface of moons.planets/asteroids.

 

Edited June 8, 2016 by raxo2222

[Drelam]

8 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well the general rule is that they need to be connected directly by stack nodes but there are exceptions.

* Electric engines don't need to connected to particular parts at all except the vessel itself. 

* Magnetic noozle engines can be 10 parts from the reactor by syack nodes and 1 part radially. Do note that transportation cost electric power.

* Thermal noozle engines can be 10 parts ftom the tractor and 1 part radialy however the longer the distance the more power is lost. Note that some teactortots like the molten salt are better capable of transfering theit heat than others.

Thanks for the help.

Very appreciated!

[NeverEnoughFuel!!]

Hello, just one short question, what nodes in tech tree should I research in order to upgrade wraparound radiator to 600 - ish Megawatts version? I searched high and low but all I could find is to research experimental electrics on the wiki pages, but that didn't help... they are still at 25 Megawatts i.e. basic version...

[AlbaUK]

Game hanging on boot @ tweakableantimatterreactor 

any ideas ??

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, AlbaUK said:

Game hanging on boot @ tweakableantimatterreactor 

any ideas ??

Sounds like you didn't install correctly. Please make sure you put Warpplugin in GameData. 

13 hours ago, NeverEnoughFuel!! said:

Hello, just one short question, what nodes in tech tree should I research in order to upgrade wraparound radiator to 600 - ish Megawatts version? I searched high and low but all I could find is to research experimental electrics on the wiki pages, but that didn't help... they are still at 25 Megawatts i.e. basic version...

Almost all KSPI-E radiators are unlocked with the heat control tech nodes. 

[Liquid5n0w]

On 6/7/2016 at 5:45 PM, FreeThinker said:

Due to the extreme high temperature, Gas core reactors can only run in thermal electric mode, which is a lot less efficient. The Gad core reactor offer high thrust combined with a relatively High Isp. They should be ideal for manned missions in the inner solar system.

@FreeThinker

I know that I am using thermal electric mode, but because the core temp is so much higher the efficiency should be much higher as well. I was expecting about 45% overall efficiency, but I'm getting 15%.  How am I supposed to generate 1GW of power with an efficiency so low? 

Second problem is that the efficiency number for the molten salt of 10% seems extremely low. I'm wondering if the upgrade to solid state thermal electric generators is working.  Or if I'm missing something about heat radiators.  

EDIT:  Correction, I'm getting ~4% efficiency with the molten salt, and about 11% with the gas core reactor.  These numbers are insanely low.  

I am using hyper edit to turn up and down the waste heat amount on the power station, and the efficiency of the thermal electric generator stays at 11% no matter how low or high.  I'm guessing it's bugged.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Liquid5n0w

[Liquid5n0w]

On 6/7/2016 at 0:12 PM, Nansuchao said:

@FreeThinker I'm trying to write a simple guide to the Interstellar Extended engines. I have already covered the built-in reactor engines, the thermal engines and now it's the time of the electric engines. I know very well the old Interstellar engines, D-T Vista, Plasma, Magnetic Nozzle and the Vasmir, but I need some info from you regarding the Tokamak engines and the new Magnetic Confinement engine, I'm not sure to know hot to have the best from them still.

@Nansuchao

I would love to read that guide, seems very useful.  Is it available yet? Maybe I could read a draft and give you some feedback. 

[Nansuchao]

30 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

@Nansuchao

I would love to read that guide, seems very useful.  Is it available yet? Maybe I could read a draft and give you some feedback. 

I'll send it to you by PM in few minutes. Feedback will be very appreciated.

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, Liquid5n0w said:

@FreeThinker

I know that I am using thermal electric mode, but because the core temp is so much higher the efficiency should be much higher as well. I was expecting about 45% overall efficiency, but I'm getting 15%.  How am I supposed to generate 1GW of power with an efficiency so low? 

Second problem is that the efficiency number for the molten salt of 10% seems extremely low. I'm wondering if the upgrade to solid state thermal electric generators is working.  Or if I'm missing something about heat radiators.  

EDIT:  Correction, I'm getting ~4% efficiency with the molten salt, and about 11% with the gas core reactor.  These numbers are insanely low.  

I am using hyper edit to turn up and down the waste heat amount on the power station, and the efficiency of the thermal electric generator stays at 11% no matter how low or high.  I'm guessing it's bugged.

What is important to realize is that for electric power production it very much pays to invest in the amount of radiators and reseaching more advanced radiators and electric power advances. Graphite radiators have the advantage that they can reach higher maximum temperature and higher emissivity. Also it pays a lot it you focus on reactor types that generate charged particles because they can be converted directly into energy and their efficency doesn't depend on the amount of radiators. That is why a reactor as the Magnetic Confinement Reactor despite producing less raw power/ mass as the Gas core reactor and requiring power to operate it generates a lot more electric power especially in D-He3 mode where 94.5% of the fusion products are charged particles which are converted at 86% into electric power.

Edited June 9, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

What is important to realize is that for electric power production it very much pays to invest in the amount of radiators and reseaching more advanced radiators. Grafite radiators have the advantage that they can reach higher maximum temperature and higher emissivity. Also it pays a lot it you focus on reactor types that generate charged particles because they can be converted directly into energy and their efficency doesn't depend on the amount of radiators. That is why a reactor as the Magnetic Confinement Reactor despite producing less raw power/ mass as the Gas core reactor and requiring power to operate it generates a lot more electric power especially in D-He3 mode where 94.5% of the fusion products are charged particles which are converted at 86% into electric power.

What about the efficiency of the thermal generator not changing when waste heat goes up or down, it's always stuck at 11%, unlike the molten electric which varies between ~50% with no waste heat at ~5% with almost full waste heat?

[Demeter]

Thanks for a great mod.

It is so confusing that brings a lot of fun into the game.

One of the items is all these propellant types - I read *.cfg and understood nothing.

I had to extract part of C# codebase today and run it against Closed Cycle Gas Core Engine Mk1 to understand how it will work in space

Here are the results, I might have missed something but more-or-less it matches in game observations of Thrust and ISP I get.

Fuel	ISP Mult	Thr Mult	ISP	Thrust	ISP*Thr	Decomposition
LqdHydrogen	1	1	1865.34	251.47	469077
Diborane	0.763	1	1423.25	329.58	469074
LqdHelium	0.79	1	1473.62	318.31	469068
LqdMethane	0.761819	2.652031	1421.05	875.4	1243987	Y
Hydrazine	0.744	1.403	1387.81	474.2	658099
LiquidFuel	0.7	1	1305.74	359.24	469074
Lithium	0.577	1	1076.3	435.82	469073
LqdAmmonia	0.6303	1.416	1175.72	564.93	664199
Hydrolox	0.6289	2	1173.11	799.7	938136
Methalox	0.538008	2.152031	1003.57	1005.86	1009451	Y
LFO	0.417	1.4	777.85	844.25	656699
Kerosene	0.417188	2.40601	778.2	1450.25	1128585	Y
Water	0.471412	1.914378	879.34	1021.19	897973	Y
LqdCO2	0.4085	1.2071	761.99	743.07	566211
LqdCO	0.3273	1	610.53	768.3	469070
LqdNitrogen	0.3273	1	610.53	768.3	469070
Argon	0.22222	1	414.52	1131.6	469070
XenonGas	0.1234	1	230.18	2037.84	469070

 

This table shows that there is nothing better then LqdMethane for ClosedCycle Thermal Nozzle. (about same for Nuclear Jets).

Is it what is expected by Interstellars authors? 

Am I alone who thinks that thrust/ISP mechanics overcompilcated?

 

 

 

[Profit-]

15 minutes ago, Demeter said:

Thanks for a great mod.

It is so confusing that brings a lot of fun into the game.

One of the items is all these propellant types - I read *.cfg and understood nothing.

I had to extract part of C# codebase today and run it against Closed Cycle Gas Core Engine Mk1 to understand how it will work in space

Here are the results, I might have missed something but more-or-less it matches in game observations of Thrust and ISP I get.

Fuel	ISP Mult	Thr Mult	ISP	Thrust	ISP*Thr	Decomposition
LqdHydrogen	1	1	1865.34	251.47	469077
Diborane	0.763	1	1423.25	329.58	469074
LqdHelium	0.79	1	1473.62	318.31	469068
LqdMethane	0.761819	2.652031	1421.05	875.4	1243987	Y
Hydrazine	0.744	1.403	1387.81	474.2	658099
LiquidFuel	0.7	1	1305.74	359.24	469074
Lithium	0.577	1	1076.3	435.82	469073
LqdAmmonia	0.6303	1.416	1175.72	564.93	664199
Hydrolox	0.6289	2	1173.11	799.7	938136
Methalox	0.538008	2.152031	1003.57	1005.86	1009451	Y
LFO	0.417	1.4	777.85	844.25	656699
Kerosene	0.417188	2.40601	778.2	1450.25	1128585	Y
Water	0.471412	1.914378	879.34	1021.19	897973	Y
LqdCO2	0.4085	1.2071	761.99	743.07	566211
LqdCO	0.3273	1	610.53	768.3	469070
LqdNitrogen	0.3273	1	610.53	768.3	469070
Argon	0.22222	1	414.52	1131.6	469070
XenonGas	0.1234	1	230.18	2037.84	469070

 

This table shows that there is nothing better then LqdMethane for ClosedCycle Thermal Nozzle. (about same for Nuclear Jets).

Is it what is expected by Interstellars authors? 

Am I alone who thinks that thrust/ISP mechanics overcompilcated?

 

 

 

Looks accurate, we have known this for a long time.   The LqdNitrogen ends up being my go to reaction thrust though because I can gather it while launching, start off with 0% and reach orbit with 90% of my fuel tanks full. 

Real life tends to be complicated, they are fairly accurate compared to real life.  So... No, not overly complicated. 

 

Edited June 9, 2016 by Profit-