KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[raxo2222]

Color of radiators still badly scales.

Spoiler

 

 

[FreeThinker]

2 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Color of radiators still badly scales.

  Hide contents

 

 

Alright, then what did you expect?

[raxo2222]

5 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Alright, then what did you expect?

Radiator should be barely visible at 700 K

Red at 1000 K

Red-Orange ar 2000 K

Orange-Yellow at 3000 K

Yellow at 4000 K

White with yellow tint at 4400 K.

 

[FreeThinker]

12 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Radiator should be barely visible at 700 K

Red at 1000 K

Red-Orange ar 2000 K

Orange-Yellow at 3000 K

Yellow at 4000 K

White with yellow tint at 4400 K.

 

mm, I'm currently using a formula  but it very hard to make it right, instead, we should use float cures

I guess this would be a good representation

Hey, would you like to help me?

I need 4 floatcurves, red, green, blue and brightness, don't worry about in and out tangets

input would be a factor ranging from 0 to 1 which represents 800K to 4400K

Edited September 24, 2018 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

10 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

mm, I'm currently using a formula  but it very hard to make it right, instead, we should use float cures

Hey, would you like to help me?

I need 4 floatcurves, red, green, blue and brightness, don't worry about in and out tangets

input would be a factor ranging from 0 to 1 which represents 800K to 4400K

Couldn't find those.

By the way radiator temperature change rate is unaffected by time warp - that is they cool down in real time no matter if you use time warp.

Use xray beam producer and fusion reactor with buildin charged particles generator.

Use small radiator so cooling rate would be slow.

 

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, raxo2222 said:

Couldn't find those.

 

Don't worry, all I need is a single picture which matches temperatures and color, the above color map picture should do fine

[FreeThinker]

@raxo2222 What do you think of the new stock wasteheat balance? I tied to balance it based on isp and power output, where high thrust engine and using high isp propellant would experience more heating. Please report any illogical overheating/underheating

[raxo2222]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

@raxo2222 What do you think of the new stock wasteheat balance? I tied to balance it based on isp and power output, where high thrust engine and using high isp propellant would experience more heating. Please report any illogical overheating/underheating

2.5m thermal turbojets connected to thermal fusion reactor exploded from overheating.

[FreeThinker]

 

 

@raxo2222 I also looking for feedback on the Ion engine integration. by adding thrust upgrades,  I have tried squaring a circle which seems impossible to do. The fundamental problem is that ion engines have fundamental maximum thrust limitations, at best they can be made lighter, making the overall thrust/mass ratio better. 

3 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

2.5m thermal turbojets connected to thermal fusion reactor exploded from overheating.

exactly which one.

[raxo2222]

25 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

@raxo2222

exactly which one.

Normal one.

As for fusion reactor it was Magnetized Target Fusion Reactor

Graphene radiators still can have over 3000 K at 25 kPa.

Edited September 24, 2018 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Graphene radiators still can have over 3000 K at 25 kPa.

 

 

Well at 25 kPa I would expect a max temperature of 2800K which is pretty close.

Perhaps we need a cube root function instead of a square root.

oxidationModifier = Math.Pow((vessel.staticPressurekPa * 10 + vessel.dynamicPressurekPa), 1d/3d) * 0.1;

@ 25 kPa, max temperature would be 2384 K

a Fourth Root would result in a max temperature of 2137K @ 25 kPa

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

57 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

 

Well at 25 kPa I would expect a max temperature of 2800K which is pretty close.

Perhaps we need a cube root function instead of a square root.

oxidationModifier = Math.Pow((vessel.staticPressurekPa * 10 + vessel.dynamicPressurekPa), 1d/3d) * 0.1;

@ 25 kPa, max temperature would be 2384 K

a Fourth Root would result in a max temperature of 2137K @ 25 kPa

 

Cube root sounds good enough.

But fourth root might be more realistic.

[FreeThinker]

31 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Cube root sounds good enough.

But fourth root might be more realistic.

1

Interesting, why is that?

[raxo2222]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Interesting, why is that?

2x hotter object emits 16x more energy.

I'm not sure if reactivity rises like that with temperature though.

 

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by raxo2222

[Ephemerid]

There is a problem with the nuclear engine NERVA. The thrust is not instant, increasing or decreasing the thrust takes a lot of time to happen. For example, when i power up the engine, the effect of it follows 8 or more seconds behind. Am i doing something wrong or is this a bug / future? 

Thank you.

[FreeThinker]

52 minutes ago, Ephemerid said:

There is a problem with the nuclear engine NERVA. The thrust is not instant, increasing or decreasing the thrust takes a lot of time to happen. For example, when i power up the engine, the effect of it follows 8 or more seconds behind. Am i doing something wrong or is this a bug / future? 

Thank you.

This not a bug but a realism feature. Solid Core reactor require time to spool up a down.

This is one fact of reality that stock KSP teaches you wrong.

Edited September 24, 2018 by FreeThinker

[Titan 3001]

On 9/20/2018 at 12:09 AM, FreeThinker said:

Next release will reintroduce the "Discovery" Magnetic Confinement Fusion Rocket

It will be unlocked at Advanced Fusion Rockets, at the same tech level (2250 sci) as the Open Cycle Nuclear Gas Core Engine.

@FreeThinker I have a request that the "Discovery" Magnetic Confinement Fusion Rocket can function as both a magnetic nozzle and a plasma nozzle. This way the Discovery has a unique role among the parts in KSPI extended. Also if you are up for a challenge you could implement a third option which atomic rockets calls Dual Mode, here is what Atomic Rockets says about each mode: 

• Pure fusion rockets use just the plasma thermal energy, and just the fusion products as reaction mass. The neutron and bremsstrahlung radiation energy is considered to be waste.
  This mode has the highest exhaust velocity/specific impulse and the lowest thrust/propellant mass flow of the three fusion engine types.
   
• Fusion afterburners use just the plasma thermal energy, but adds extra cold reaction mass to be heated by plasma energy. Again neutron and bremsstrahlung are wasted.
   
• Dual-mode use the neutron and bremsstrahlung radiation energy to heat a blanket of cold reaction mass which thrusts out of separate conventional exhaust nozzles. In addition a Dual-mode can switch into Pure Fusion mode.
  This mode has the highest thrust/propellant mass flow and the lowest exhaust velocity/specific impulse.

The pure fusion rockets is modeled by the magnetic nozzle, the Fusion afterburners are modeled by the plasma nozzle, the third would be be more akin to a really good solid core NTR. Would have all three come out the same nozzle with different exhaust types. The ISP would be around 1,000 sec. and there is calculation for how much thrust it would provide from atomic rockets 

the harvesting mode engine will create thrust of 1 newton per 7,000 watts of neutron + bremsstrahlung power

The latter is more of a cool but rather extraneous idea but giving the Discovery to be both a Magnetic and plasma nozzle would prevent it from being redundant.

A cool concept that deserves a place in KSPI extended is the Nuclear Thermal Turbo Rocket. This mode for both the Thermal turbojet and Ramjet nozzles would function on the idea of heating a fuel (like liquid hydrogen) in the reactor which would then be mixed with intake air (not atmospheric intake because the hydrogen has to combust with oxygen) and would combine with the oxygen in the air and heat it which would be the propellant. This would have the unique function of producing a fairly high thrust and ISP on the launchpad. It would reduce the amount of reaction mass used in the beginning of the launch to, at most, 16% of what is coming out the nozzle. Once it is out of most of the atmosphere then it could switch to NTR mode. Here is link to the presentation.

like to hear back from you.

[whitespacekilla]

23 minutes ago, Ephemerid said:

There is a problem with the nuclear engine NERVA. The thrust is not instant, increasing or decreasing the thrust takes a lot of time to happen. For example, when i power up the engine, the effect of it follows 8 or more seconds behind. Am i doing something wrong or is this a bug / future? 

Thank you.

Note: FT beat me to this response.

It's a feature. It's actually based on a stock feature that no stock engines use. Many of the KSPIE engines work that way. Adds additional challenge to take advantage of the thrust/isp/megajoules or electricity they produce and realism. Doesn't make a huge difference on long burns and just requires a little experience with the engine for short burns. Bigger challenge is how long it takes to halt thrust at the end of a burn, you can shut down the engine manually and eliminate this, though.

While I don't mind the concept, I don't like how the stock formula works (it calculates change in thrust based on a constant fractional capacity of the engine for change from current to desired, so small desired changes take as long as large ones which is silly). Spinning down is therefore even worse, especially because I'm probably just feathering the throttle at that point and yet it still seems to carry over for a relatively long time (doesn't "spin down" from feathering the throttle like I'd expect). You can also just break the realism by shutting the engine down and not suffer this effect at all. Seems like spin down could use some work (which is unsurprising because while it's a stock mechanic, I don't know of any stock parts it's enabled for...).

If you want to modify it with a modulemanager patch, the variable is `reactorSpeedMult`. The unit is "inverse seconds" (although there's a tech bonus that AFAICT divides by ~10 if it's unupgraded) and the highest and lowest I've seen are 10 (MIF) and .25 (NERVA/LANTR). The code has a lot of constants that are oddly defined and/or could be reduced, but if I'm reading correctly, the unupgraded NERVA (reactorSpeedMult = .25) takes 40 seconds to reach desired thrust. MIF takes 1 second.

@FreeThinker I noticed that there is a .2 base acceleration and a .4 base deceleration. There is also a constant "5" being multiplied in. I think it would probably make sense to eliminate the constant and set the base acceleration to 1. You could then eliminate that variable entirely. The deceleration is then just a multiple of the acceleration. It's currently 2 but, because stock KSP thrust acceleration/deceleration is such a crap formula (it should use the engine's warm up / cool down capacity from current to *full/no throttle*, not between current and desired) maybe a higher deceleration multiple is necessary (4-10x?).

[FreeThinker]

9 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Normal one.

As for fusion reactor it was Magnetized Target Fusion Reactor

Well I was able to run it for 2 minutes without any radiators at full capacity in sandbox mod

It got very hot but but hot enough to make it explode.

[raxo2222]

5 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well I was able to run it for 2 minutes without any radiators at full capacity in sandbox mod

It got very hot but but hot enough to make it explode.

Maybe Deadly Reentry lowered max temp of thermal turbojet too much.

I was doing test on surface.

Edited September 24, 2018 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

12 minutes ago, raxo2222 said:

Maybe Deadly Reentry lowered max temp of thermal turbojet too much.

I was doing test on surface.

Well on the surface it should not be any problem at all. I didn't get hotter then 2519K

However, there was a problem with D-T fusion not beeing available, I have fixed that already in this picture

Edited September 24, 2018 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

8 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well on the surface it should not be any problem at all. I didn't get hotter then 2519K

However, there was a problem with D-T fusion not beeing available, I have fixed that already in this picture

I think thermal turbojets were using antimatter initiated reactor too, here is my craft:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/69sk61jhjnm0s1i/A Spaceplane.craft?dl=0

 

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Pretty much every thermal engine I hook up to my mk3 receiver is detonating on formerly functional craft. Even using compressed air. Don't even have to give it a lot of power, just a few hundred kilonewtons and BOOM.

Added precoolers, still boom.

Added titanium heat vectors, still boom.

Rolling back to prior version.

Might I suggest if we're going to use stock heat radiation that it apply to all radiators as well so that all radiators are stock radiators. Heat is heat.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Maelstrom Vortex

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom Vortex said:

Pretty much every thermal engine I hook up to my mk3 receiver is detonating on formerly functional craft. Even using compressed air. Don't even have to give it a lot of power, just a few hundred kilonewtons and BOOM.

1

I think the problem here is a mismatch between thermal management tech level and thermal receiver power. For the next release, I will reduce engine heat production to half and make the maximum temperature of the thermal nozzle static.

Edited September 25, 2018 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

15 hours ago, Titan 3001 said:

@FreeThinker I have a request that the "Discovery" Magnetic Confinement Fusion Rocket can function as both a magnetic nozzle and a plasma nozzle. This way the Discovery has a unique role among the parts in KSPI extended.

 

True, but it would also make it significantly better than the current stand-alone magnetic or plasma nozzle. To compensate I could add isp throttling to standard plasma and disable the discovery magnetic nozzle isp throttling. This way every type of engine still has its edge.

Edited September 25, 2018 by FreeThinker