KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Titan 3000]

So out of curiosity, are the omega and molten salt reactors supposed to not have surface attachment points anymore? If find that change not listed and odd.

[FreeThinker]

16 minutes ago, Titan 3000 said:

So out of curiosity, are the omega and molten salt reactors supposed to not have surface attachment points anymore? If find that change not listed and odd.

I see now there is bug in the attachment rules, I will fix it for next patch

[Titan 3000]

I was doing some research on the Daedalus engine from real life and I think your specs are way, way under performing in terms of thrust. in The original design the 40 m wide second stage of the original project had a thrust of  663,000 Newtons of thrust. I may be wrong but yours seems to be a 10 m wide engine bell. I'm not sure how the calculations would actually go to figure out how much the thrust would be with yours with this as a comparison. I don't mean to pick on you for your decisions but I just wanted to see what you though about it. On top of all this there is the Kerbalization in size to consider in realistically (at least in KSP) calculate performance.

It also had en exhaust velocity of 9210000 m/s, not sure how that relates to modeled behavior but it may be useful.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Titan 3000

[FreeThinker]

8 hours ago, Titan 3000 said:

I was doing some research on the Daedalus engine from real life and I think your specs are way, way under performing in terms of thrust. in The original design the 40 m wide second stage of the original project had a thrust of  663,000 Newtons of thrust. I may be wrong but yours seems to be a 10 m wide engine bell. I'm not sure how the calculations would actually go to figure out how much the thrust would be with yours with this as a comparison. I don't mean to pick on you for your decisions but I just wanted to see what you though about it. On top of all this there is the Kerbalization in size to consider in realistically (at least in KSP) calculate performance.

It also had en exhaust velocity of 9210000 m/s, not sure how that relates to modeled behavior but it may be useful.

Intresting. I'm always happy to explain my stats so let me explain how I calculated the stats for the KSPI Daedalus. 

First I determined the Full Daedalus Engine Mass to be 3500 ton  (54000 ton total mass  - 50000t propellant mass (dry+wet) - 500 Science  Equipment mass) . The nozzle diameter is about 100m and our nozzle is about 10m, so our nozzle has about 1/100 the exit surface area of the True Deadalus. I scaled the thust and mass accordingly,  So 3500 ton /100 = 35 ton and  7,540,kN divide by 100 and you end up with 75.4 kN .

What is important to understand that I wanted to preserve the same Thrust to Mass ratio in the KSPI-E Daedalus as in the full sized Daedalus and accourding to my caluclation a 35 ton engine with 75.4kN  has the same thrust to mass ratio as the original 3500 ton engine  with 7540 kN

So what does your reseach suggests?

Edit:

I seem to have made a mistake of forgetting that the 3500 ton mass includes some sort of power generation (it is unclear to me which) but it definatly must have be a significant part of the overal mass. Let's asume 500 ton. so the remaining engine would be 3000 ton.

Instead of using a scale factor of 1/100, we could use a scale factor of 1/50, then the mass of our engine would be 60 ton and engine thrust would  be 158 kN

 

Edit2 : found another artivle with some intresting stats on the Deadalus at http://astronomy-by-kyle.blogspot.nl/2013/06/project-daedalus-possibility-or-hubris.html , perhaps we can  indeed double the amount of power output for the same amount of mass.

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

Oh, for those that wonder if 500 ton for power production is a lot, you should realize something about the massive amount of power involved.

7540000 newton  @ 10600000 m/s would be equvalent to to  7540000 newton *  10600000 m/s  * 0.5 =  7992400000000 Joule = 3996.2 Giga Joule of power every second!

Now assuming the most efficient fusion we can imagine with a Q factor of 600, and 100% efficient magnetic nozzle and 100% efficient electric gun  we need at least  6.65 Gigawatt of Electric power generate the Fusion in the first place. Of cource nothing is 100% effieint, so true power requirment will be a multitude of that.

Edit, funny thing is that no one mention anything about the amount of power required to create this amount of fusion power, nor does anyone mention about the huge amount of wasteheat generated, unless the engine nozzle is somehow ablative, the nozle should mrlt in a matter of seconds

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Nansuchao]

I found a possible bug with the Graphite SemiFoldable Radiator that is from 1.1.2 to the current version but it seems that no one had reported yet.

If you launch a ship with those radiators attached, they works correctly, but if you switch to that ship after a scene change, they assume a weird position, causing also sometimes phantom forces that are annoying for orbital ships, really dangerous for landed ships. More than that, you can just deploy those radiator, not retract anymore. You'll see the issue in a barebone install with just KSPI-E and Hyperedit (for testing purpose) installed.

Spoiler

Here's my output log, if it helps in this case: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kcstdu0jhh7ry92/output_log.txt?dl=0

Edited July 12, 2016 by Nansuchao

[Gatos]

hey I'm having trouble with the Nuclear engines, they seem to generate electricity even though their internal reactors are shutdown.
you could build a whole ship without thinking about batteries or power generators (the one that go on the nuclear reactors).
I've had this problem through out several updates.

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.9.6 for Kerbal Space Program 1.1.3

Released on 2016-07-12

• Improved Texture Daedalus Fusion Engine (Thanks to @silversliver)
• Improved Performance Daedalus Fusion Engine
• Added Global Setting SecondsInDay
• Improved GUI reactor control screen
• Fixed Tweakscaling Daedalus and Microwave Transmitter/Receiver
• Fixed a bug of Black Screen after switching
• Fixed off screen Tritium breeding/Lithium consumption
• Fixed issue lithium drying up in reactor causing performance degradation despite reserve
• Fixed Bug where Shutdown reactor would still generate electric charge

Edited July 13, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Titan 3000]

16 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Edit2 : found another artivle with some intresting stats on the Deadalus at http://astronomy-by-kyle.blogspot.nl/2013/06/project-daedalus-possibility-or-hubris.html , perhaps we can  indeed double the amount of power output for the same amount of mass.

 

The stats look like they were copied right out of the Wikipedia page page but I wouldn't trust it myself. The author refers to deuterium as antimatter. Anyone who plays this mod knows very well that that is not true.

Thanks for the reply and Glad I could be of help.

[123nick]

hey i think there is bug with your patches for the MKS reactors, the calculatedMass = false; , and it stops ksp from loading, so i changed it too calculatedMass = false (no semicolon), but it still doesent load correctly, although it fixed the boolean error that showed up. anyways, heres what i looks like loading up 1.9.6 with the most recent MKS reactors:  

and ksp.log: https://gist.github.com/b936b82ce884f8485b9c6fe6257b6c8b 

[FreeThinker]

6 hours ago, Titan 3000 said:

The stats look like they were copied right out of the Wikipedia page page but I wouldn't trust it myself. The author refers to deuterium as antimatter. Anyone who plays this mod knows very well that that is not true.

Thanks for the reply and Glad I could be of help.

True but there is something realy special going on during inertial fusion between deuterium and helium3 which isn't the case with magnetic confinement fusion which is, the helium3 actually absorbes most of the neutron from deuterium-deuterium side reactions. As a result it produces a lot less neutron which otherwise would have been a big problem.

Edited July 13, 2016 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, 123nick said:

hey i think there is bug with your patches for the MKS reactors, the calculatedMass = false; , and it stops ksp from loading, so i changed it too calculatedMass = false (no semicolon), but it still doesent load correctly, although it fixed the boolean error that showed up. anyways, heres what i looks like loading up 1.9.6 with the most recent MKS reactors:  

and ksp.log: https://gist.github.com/b936b82ce884f8485b9c6fe6257b6c8b 

I don't think the ; can cause kSP not to load, the line will be ignored making it fallback to default behavior , which is f false. In other words, nothing changes.

I do want to figure out what is going wrong because I have MKS installed and everything loads as it should. There must be something else which is causing the problem

[123nick]

10 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I don't think the ; can cause kSP not to load, the line will be ignored making it fallback to default behavior , which is f false. In other words, nothing changes.

I do want to figure out what is going wrong because I have MKS installed and everything loads as it should. There must be something else which is causing the problem

i have FAR and other mods installed, and the rest of the UKS mods. also, this: 

is the mod that adds the reactors and kontainers, MKS just has it packaged with itself.

 

here is a rough modlist: https://gist.github.com/321nick/bc9fecf3abfa5c4ba1bef5f6c26f3d16  

[raxo2222]

10 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Version 1.9.6 for Kerbal Space Program 1.1.3

Released on 2016-07-12

• Implored Texture Daedalus Fusion Engine (Thanks to @silversliver)
• Improved Performance Daedalus Fusion Engine
• Added Global Setting SecondsInDay
• Improved GUI reactor control screen
• Fixed Tweakscaling Daedalus and Microwave Transmitter/Receiver
• Fixed a bug of Black Screen after switching
• Fixed off screen Tritium breeding/Lithium consumption
• Fixed issue lithium drying up in reactor causing performance degradation despite reserve
• Fixed Bug where Shutdown reactor would still generate electric charge

Texture of Daedalus is buggy - part of is completely transparent.

Also engine still has 75 kN of thrust at 3.75m size.

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, raxo2222 said:

Texture of Daedalus is buggy - part of is completely transparent.

Transparrent? this is new ..

 

1 minute ago, raxo2222 said:

Also engine still has 75 kN of thrust at 3.75m size.

Well upgraded (with exostic reactions) it produces 150 kN, its mass is slightly reduced (32 ton instead of 38 ton) and less wasteheat is produced (because most neutrons are absorbed by Helium3)

Edited July 13, 2016 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

52 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Transparrent? this is new ..

 

Well upgraded (with exostic reactions) it produces 150 kN, its mass is slightly reduced (32 ton instead of 38 ton) and less wasteheat is produced (because most neutrons are absorbed by Helium3)

I actually tested it now. It seems you could make Sample Return Mission to Pluto and back with it under one year - or even 4 months. Just add small probe to it.

Dusty plasma can work for decades if you supply it with enough fuel.

 

 

There is texture bug:

On unrelated note reactors core gets absurdly cold with extreme reactor embrittlement.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

4 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

I actually tested it now. It seems you could make Sample Return Mission to Pluto and back with it under one year - or even 4 months. Just add small probe to it.

150 kN might not sound much untill you hit time acceleration. Although the Deadalus can get you on an escapte trajectory within a day, navigating to a injection trajectory can be extrmely chalanging. Perhaps the solar navigation tool can help here.

4 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Dusty plasma can work for decades if you supply it with enough fuel.

Eventhough you technically have enough fuel to last a decade, neutron embrittlement would become a serious issue with this engine

Edited July 13, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Shikashi]

Hey ehm, great mod! However, I can't find the solar sail in the editor, at no place. That was like a wasted 1000 science points :T

[FreeThinker]

10 minutes ago, Shikashi said:

Hey ehm, great mod! However, I can't find the solar sail in the editor, at no place. That was like a wasted 1000 science points :T

Please download

Which includes the a improved version of KSPI solar sail

[Shikashi]

Oohh gotta try that, thanks >.<

[Shikashi]

Haha thanks it works!

[raxo2222]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Please download

Which includes the a improved version of KSPI solar sail

Hmm perfect mod to compliment PersistentRotation

I think these mods should be automatically recommended if not required, when you install KSPI.

On unrelated note reactor core falls too low when reactor embrittlement reactor reaches high levels.

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, raxo2222 said:

Hmm perfect mod to compliment PersistentRotation

I think these mods should be automatically recommended if not required, when you install KSPI.

On unrelated note reactor core falls too low when reactor embrittlement reactor reaches high levels.

Yes, I will fix it for next Version, thanks for reminding me

[raxo2222]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes, I will fix it for next Version, thanks for reminding me

Also resource lifetime is shown in Kerbal years or something - I had 60 tons of Lithium6 for Lithium6 fusion, reactor GUI said it would over 500 years (reactor was on 100% power production,  as I attached microwave transmitter to it), but after 15 ingame years (I use RSS, so its Earth year), it said there were reserves for 300 years.

 

Edit: Tested Antimatter reactor on 100% usage - while Alternative Resource Panel says antimatter will be used up in 9 days, reactor GUI says antimatter will be used up in 36 days.

It seems like reactor GUI times are in Kerbin days.

 

On unrelated note, can be microwave parts, and umbrella radiator resizable to 10 or even 20 meters?

Antimatter and QSR can produce huge amount of energy.

 

Edit: what is working substance in radiators?

It seems like they work in range of 4 - 3700 kelvins.

Shouldn't radiators have minimum temperature to not freeze? Or parts of radiators shut down, when there is low power demand?

Also persistent thrust doesn't seem to work with thermal engines.

Edited July 13, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, raxo2222 said:

Also resource lifetime is shown in Kerbal years or something - I had 60 tons of Lithium6 for Lithium6 fusion, reactor GUI said it would over 500 years (reactor was on 100% power production,  as I attached microwave transmitter to it), but after 15 ingame years (I use RSS, so its Earth year), it said there were reserves for 300 years.

mmm, by default it uses Kerbin day (6 hours), to change to earth day,  it you need to multipling the SecondsInDay in the warpplugin setting file by 4. I suggest you create some Module Manage Script which  almultiplies it by 4 it when RSS is installed. If succesfull please post in this forum and I will include it as a patch.

Edited July 13, 2016 by FreeThinker