KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[FreeThinker]

20 hours ago, ss8913 said:

Also following up to our previous thread on the warp drives - under *any* circumstances that gravity causes *any* slowdown of warp, instant craft destruction.  Any body, any craft, any attempt.  As soon as you get close enough to a gravity well to necessitate a reduction in speed, *boom*.  Doesn't matter if it's 2.5c to 1.0c or 0.100c to 0.063c .. just the mere act of slowing down through gravity is fatal.  Slowing down manually is fine however, and all other aspects of the warp drive function as expected.

There might be some other mod active which causes this effect as I certainly haven't intended this drastic effect nor have I changed anything recently. Could anyone else verify if they reproduce the effect? It would also help I you could find out from what version the problem is introduced

Edited June 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[ss8913]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

There might be some other mod active which causes this effect as I centainly haven't untended this deastic effect nor have I changed anything recently. Could anyone else verify if they reproduce the effect? It would also help I you could find out from what version the problem is introduced

it's been happening to me in all versions I've used since 1.1.x came out.  Others' mileage may vary.  It worked OK back in 1.0.5.  Sorry I can't be more specific about it -- Oh - one mod I'm using now that I wasn't in 1.0.5 is Deadly ReEntry.  That does weird things sometimes, let me see if temporarily disabling that, fixes it...

Edited June 10, 2016 by ss8913

[Liquid5n0w]

21 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

The point is high Isp with relatively high thrust propulsion with relativly low mass and dimentions. For electric propulsion it is simply not optimised. The magnetic confinement fusion reactor will perform better in this role as it is able to breed charged particles and convert directly into electric power.

What about using the open cycle generator has a power station for microwave transmission when attached to a thermal generator?  thats where I'm getting the bug where it's stuck at 11% efficiency.

[Nansuchao]

15 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

There might be some other mod active which causes this effect as I centainly haven't untended this deastic effect nor have I changed anything recently. Could anyone else verify if they reproduce the effect? It would also help I you could find out from what version the problem is introduced

I used the Warp Drive for the first time after a long time two versions ago and it worked perfectly. I used the feature of the auto shut off to be closer to the target planet and never my ship was destroyed.

I used the Foldable WarpDrive just for accuracy.

[Txzeenath]

2 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

It seems like not upgraded thermal generator.

Thermal generation efficiency is cut in half for open gas core.

IMO, the part that makes it kinda confusing/misleading, is that it displays the "_totalEff" variable, which is the efficiency of both the thermal source as well as the generator. It seems to make perfect sense in the code just by the variable names and such, but ingame it's not really clear what you're looking at.

 

If both parts show an efficiency, I'd expect each to reflect the efficiency of that singular part. Which I think is what caused @Liquid5n0w confusion.

Spoiler

Current display:

carnotEff = 1.0f - coldBathTemp / hotBathTemp;
_totalEff = carnotEff * pCarnotEff * attachedThermalSource.ThermalEnergyEfficiency;

~
~

float percentOutputPower = (float)(_totalEff * 100.0);
OverallEfficiency = percentOutputPower.ToString("0.00") + "%";

 

Expected display (rough):

carnotEff = 1.0f - coldBathTemp / hotBathTemp;
_totalEff = carnotEff * pCarnotEff * attachedThermalSource.ThermalEnergyEfficiency;

~
~

float percentOutputPower = (float)(carnotEff * pCarnotEff * 100.0); //Provide current efficiency of carnot cycle
OverallEfficiency = percentOutputPower.ToString("0.00") + "%";

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2016 by Txzeenath

[Bishop149]

So is it basically impossible to run any kind of nuclear atmospheric engine without the pre-cooler?

I've been having a good old play around with nuclear planes, and if I'm super super SUPER careful I might make it 20 km or so before things start over heating and exploding.

[Nansuchao]

50 minutes ago, Bishop149 said:

So is it basically impossible to run any kind of nuclear atmospheric engine without the pre-cooler?

I've been having a good old play around with nuclear planes, and if I'm super super SUPER careful I might make it 20 km or so before things start over heating and exploding.

Usually at 20 km you can switch to closed cycle, you're high enough. With Far, usually I switch at 13/14 km.

[FreeThinker]

17 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

I used the Warp Drive for the first time after a long time two versions ago and it worked perfectly. I used the feature of the auto shut off to be closer to the target planet and never my ship was destroyed.

I used the Foldable WarpDrive just for accuracy.

This kind of confirms my expectations. When changing speed during warp, there are short spikes in Gee-force. Normally this shouldn't be a big problem but there might be mods (like Deadly reentry) which convert this spike into deadly effects to your Kerbals and Vessel causing the vessel blowing up.

Edited June 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nansuchao]

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

This kind of confirms my expectations. When changing speed during warp, there are short spikes in Gee-force. Normally this shouldn't be a big problem but there might be mods (like Deadly reentry) which convert this spike into deadly effects to your Kerbals and Vessel causing the vessel blowing up.

Right, KSP has some weird G forces applied for no apparent reason. Few months ago I helped Ser in his G-Force mod and we saw that going Eva put something like 400G to the Kerbal sometimes.

[raxo2222]

2 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

Right, KSP has some weird G forces applied for no apparent reason. Few months ago I helped Ser in his G-Force mod and we saw that going Eva put something like 400G to the Kerbal sometimes.

so stock ksp bug, that Deadly Reentry makes it apparent.

Wonder if stock bugfixes mod could add bugfix for high g-forces.

 

Also there is weird rotation bug, when going at high warp speed. Workaround would be to completly disable rotation during warp.

Edited June 11, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

52 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

so stock ksp bug, that Deadly Reentry makes it apparent.

Wonder if stock bugfixes mod could add bugfix for high g-forces.

 

Also there is weird rotation bug, when going at high warp speed. Workaround would be to completly disable rotation during warp.

rotation bug?

59 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

so stock ksp bug, that Deadly Reentry makes it apparent.

Indeed, one more way Deadly Reentry mods kills KSPI-E players.

[raxo2222]

59 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

rotation bug?

Indeed, one more way Deadly Reentry mods kills KSPI-E players.

This one happens, if you have KJR and mech jeb on. It is weaker when only one of these mods is present.

Ship starts to randomly rotating when warping over 63 C and it is stronger the faster you are going.

Without Mech Jeb, KJR and Deadly reentry ship still gets random wobbles, when going over 63 C, but at least doesn't rotate.

Now I try minimal mods - everything from KSPI, GC monitor (only shows memory), KRASH (sim mod that allows me to start almost everywhere I want) and RSS (makes real solar system).

Here is test ship - KSPI only present on that ship. http://www81.zippyshare.com/v/XDLBXTSh/file.html

It contains 5m heavy warp drive for highest power/mass ratio, 2m antimatter reactor/antimatter tank and KSPIE core.

Edited June 11, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.8.26 for Kerbal Space Program 1.1.2

Released on 2016-06-11

• Re balanced thermal engine overheating
• Added 2 new global config settings EngineHeatProduction and AirflowHeatMult which control overheating
• Vessels with radially attached reactors and nozzles perform with even thrust
• Replaced old ISRU part model by new tweakable IRSU part module using stock ISRU model
• added small resource capacities to ISRU model
• unlocking metaMaterials allows Graphite radiators to have an emissiveConstant higher than 1
• Added ability to configure stock radiator functionality in VAB
• Radiator surface area is now derived from KSP Model

[Eskandare]

I've been having trouble with the warp engines. I built an ssto with one bu no matter what combination of reactor and generator or combination of reactors, when I try to charge it it says not enough MW. 

[FreeThinker]

On 11-6-2016 at 6:34 PM, Eskandare said:

I've been having trouble with the warp engines. I built an ssto with one bu no matter what combination of reactor and generator or combination of reactors, when I try to charge it it says not enough MW. 

 

The speed of light itself requires the least amount energy. Traveling faster or slower requires more power. However speed is influenced by a large degree by the curvature of space, in other words, gravity. It means that the higher the gravity pull of any heavily body, the lower the maximum speed possible for a finite amount of power requirement. This effectively means that when a vessel is in a low Kerbin orbit, where the pull of gravity is significant, the maximum warp speed is very low. And since traveling slower than the speed of light requires more power, it means that it will be hard or impossible to generate enough power. To  get around it, you need to bring your vessel further away from the gravity source or install more warp drive power.

 

 

Warp Power is achieved by any of the 3 warpdrives in KSP, The Light Warp Engine, the Foldable Warp Engine and the Heavy Warp Engine. The amount of warp power is directly dependent on the mass of the warp drive. Warp drives also stack linear, which means it will not matter if you use 24 ton of light warp drives or a single large warp drive.

Edited June 13, 2016 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

33 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Version 1.8.26 for Kerbal Space Program 1.1.2

Released on 2016-06-11

• Re balanced thermal engine overheating
• Added 2 new global config settings EngineHeatProduction and AirflowHeatMult which control overheating
• Vessels with radially attached reactors and nozzles perform with even thrust
• Replaced old ISRU part model by new tweakable IRSU part module using stock ISRU model
• added small resource capacities to ISRU model
• unlocking metaMaterials allows Graphite radiators to have an emissiveConstant higher than 1
• Added ability to configure stock radiator functionality in VAB
• Radiator surface area is now derived from KSP Model

What physics would allow graphite radiators  to have emissivity constant above 1?

[FreeThinker]

15 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

What physics would allow graphite radiators  to have emissivity constant above 1?

let me look that up

On 13-3-2015 at 8:11 AM, Northstar1989 said:

One last but major note about Graphene radiators- they are currently too weak compared to real life. I discussed this with Fractal_UK, but back then I didn't have the science I did now...

Currently, radiators are based on an assumed thermal emissivity of approximately 0.90-0.95, according to a conversation I had with Fractal_UK a while back. Which is great, except that one of the advantages of graphene, besides being able to operate at higher temperatures than other materials (hence the higher radiator temperature-limit in KSP-I) is that it has a thermal emissivity that can reach 0.99, or even, with nano-engineered "biased emissivity" actually EXCEED a thermal emissivity of 1.0 (which is the value for a theoretically perfect blackbody).

See, for instance, this scientific article by an MIT researcher who looks into using such nano-engineered Graphene for improved thermoelectric systems (which research, more likely than not, would be used in space programs- as this is the only place where such expensive nano-engineering of Graphene is really worth the extra cost and effort for the improved performance...)

http://www.mit.edu/~soljacic/near-field-TPV_OE.pdf

Regards,

Northstar

Edit: see also https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1004/1004.0369.pdf

Edited June 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

@FreeThinker there is small bug with new ISRU - there is no HTP resource tank in it

Also I can't rescale it.

Edited June 11, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

38 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

@FreeThinker there is small bug with new ISRU - there is no HTP resource tank in it

Also I can't rescale it.

Alright, I will fix it in next version

[raxo2222]

Can we have ability fo fuse Helium 4 into other elements?

Edited June 11, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

23 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Can we have ability fo fuse Helium 4 into other elements?

Yes, one of the first level of particle accelerator modes, will be Tritium-Helium4 fusion, which creates Lithium + Neutron. It's kind of the reverse of Lithium Neutron Capture. Higher tech level particle accelerator will be able to do it with Deuterium instead

Edited June 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

6 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes, one of the first level of particle accelerator modes, will be Tritium-Helium4 fusion, which creates Lithium + Neutron. It's kind of the reverse of Lithium Neutron Capture. Higher tech level particle accelerator will be able to do it with Deuterium instead

I meant for energy production for fusion reactors/engines.

[Nansuchao]

7 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes, one of the first level of particle accelerator modes, will be Tritium-Helium4 fusion, which creates Lithium + Neutron. It's kind of the reverse of Lithium Neutron Capture. Higher tech level particle accelerator will be able to do it with Deuterium instead

Wait a sec. Are you saying that the Particle Accelerator works again?

[FreeThinker]

28 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

Wait a sec. Are you saying that the Particle Accelerator works again?

Yes it does. After 1.1 is became alive again

Edited June 11, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Profit-]

I know I have said this before, but this mod makes me so happy.   It allows me to see what the human race would be capable of if we could just throw off our irrational fear of nuclear power.