KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.11.3 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.1

Released on 2016-11-21

• Fixed version number
• Added ability to act as Data Transmission to Phased Array
• Balanced Data Transmission capability of KSPI parts

Edited November 21, 2016 by FreeThinker

[SciMan]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Version 1.11.3 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.1

Released on 2016-11-21

• Fixed version number
• Added ability to act as Data Transmission to Phased Array
• Balanced Data Transmission capability of KSPI parts

Wish it hadn't taken me so long to update my previous post, I put a lot of thought in to my answer to you about the antennas.

Long story short:

• All antennas should be combinable for data transmission if they are combinable for power transmission. (Remove data antenna module from these parts, and remove them from the stock "communications" category (reduces clutter in that category).
• Only antennas that can transmit power (when connected to a beam generator) should be able to transmit data (antennaType = DIRECT).
• Only antennas that can both transmit and receive power should be able to relay data (antennaType = RELAY).

These changes resulted in a grand total of 8 power transmission antennas in KSPI being suitable for use as data transmitters.

Of those 8, only 4 are suitable for being used as data relays.

All 8 of these antennas are combinable with any other combinable data antenna.

Long story Long:

2 hours ago, SciMan said:

@FreeThinker

Regarding the antenna stuff, all the stats look fine as far as range, energy draw, and transmission speed, but the other settings need some work, and some antennas shouldn't have any data communications module at all:

Firstly:

All KSPI antennas with a data transmitter part module should have "antennaCombinable =" set to TRUE.

As noted previously, this setting is only "FALSE" inside the part configs of command pods and probe cores. This is because the antenna that is built in to command pod and probe core parts (it's part of their config) CAN NOT TRANSMIT.
It can only receive a control signal from KSC (or a manned craft with the appropriate parts).
Just so we're clear, I'm talking about the antenna that you are using if you don't ever put any antennas on your craft.

The laws of physics state that if an antenna can be combined with others for power transmission, it can be combined with others for communication as well. An antenna only acts based on Power and Frequency, not "Information content".

Basically:

• A "power AND data" antenna will factor in to both power AND data transmission calculations.
• A "data only" antenna won't factor in to power transmission calculations (can't transmit/relay data).
• A "power only" antenna won't factor in to data transmission calculations (can't transmit/relay power).

 

 

Secondly (with 3 sub-parts):

The choices for which parts are "RELAY" antennas and which parts are "DIRECT" antennas are a bit messed up in places.

Since the table in your post was rather limited in scope, I'll just rebuild the entire thing from scratch (but only for this one stat):

 

Only antennas that can transmit AND receive power should be set to "RELAY".
By this criteria, these parts should be "Relay" antennas:

• "Multi Bandwidth Rectenna Dish Transceiver (Large)" (part name "FELA")
• "Multi Bandwidth Rectenna Dish Transceiver (Large)" (part name "BT2502")
• "Deployable Microwave Phased Array Relay Recieverer" (part name "KspiPhasedArray1") // really should be "transceiver"
• "Microwave Phased Array Transceiver" (part name "KspiMicrowaveArray")

Parts which can only transmit should be set to DIRECT.
By this criteria, these parts should be "Transmit Only" antennas:

• "Shielded Diode Laser Beam Transmitter" (part name "BT2501")
• "DT-L-IR-1 Laser Beam Transmitter" (part name "Laser_IR")
• "Diode Infrared Beamed Power Laser" (part name "LaserTransmitter")
• "Microwave Transducer DT-MW-TD-32x" (part name "MicroWaveTransducer2")

Parts which can only receive should not have a moduleDataTransmitter at all.
By this criteria, these antenna parts should not have any data transmitter part module:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

• "Radial Thermal Dish Receiver" (part name " ")
• "Folding Thermal Dish Receiver Gold" (part name "FoldingThermalDish")
• "Oversized Microwave Infrared Thermal Receiver" (part name " ")
• "Circular Rectenna Receiver" (part name "CircularRectennaReceiver")
• "Circular Solar Photovoltaic Cells" (part name "CircularSolarPhotovoltaicReceiver")
• "Circular Thermophotovoltaic Receivers" (part name "CircularThermophotovoltaicReceiver")
• "Duel Mode Thermal/Rectenna Receiver (Inline)" (part name "KspiInlinePhasedArray") // should be "Dual mode..."
• "Microwave Infrared Rectenna (Receiver)" (part name "DeployableMicrowaveInfraredRectenna")
• "Shielded Multi Bandwidth Rectenna" (part name "MicrowaveRectenna2")
• "Microwave Thermal Receiver" (part name "microwaveThermalEnergyReceiverM")
• "MTPRmk2" (part name "MicrowaveThermalRecieverMk2")
• "Oversized Aluminium Thermal Dish Receiver (Inline)" (part name "OversizedAluminiumThermalReceiverDish")
• "Oversized Aluminium Thermal Dish Receiver (Head)" (part name "OversizedAluminiumThermalReceiverDishEnd")
• "Oversized Gold Thermal Dish Receiver (Inline)" (part name "KspieSIGINT")
• "Oversized Gold Thermal Dish Receiverer (Head)" (part name "KspieSIGINT.End")
• "Pivoted Infrared Mirror" (part name "PivotedInfraredMirror")
• "Pivoted Light Mirror" (part name "PivotedLightMirror")
• "Folded Radial Rectenna Receiver" (part name "MicroWaveR_Radial")
• "Radial Gold Thermal Dish Reciever" (part name "ThermalReceiverDish") // should be "... Receiver"
• "Radial Aluminium Thermal Dish Receiver" (part name "RadialAluminiumThermalDish")
• "Duel Mode Thermal Sphere Receiver" (part name "microwaveSphereReceiver") // should be "Dual mode..."
• "Duel Mode Thermal/Rectenna Receiver (Nose)" (part name "KspiSpherePhasedArray") // should be "Dual mode..."
• "Duel Mode Wrapped Thermal Reciever" (part name "MW_Thermal_R_I_D") // should be "Dual mode..."

The end result of all 3 of these criteria is that there are only 8 power antennas in KSPI that should be able to transmit science data.

Of those, 4 should be set to RELAY, and 4 should be set to DIRECT.

ANY other antenna part in KSPI should not have any sort of data transmitter module on it at all. This is because it can't put out any kind of signal.
No output signal = no transmitter = no data transmitter module.

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by SciMan

[raxo2222]

Does bigger transmitter aperture mean, that on one hand energy beam won't spread out that fast, but on other hand receivers should be larger too?

What is complete math for that, so we can calculate receivers aperture size?

Lets say I have two transmitters, both of them have same wavelength L, but one has aperture of T1 = 1m and other has T2 = 10 meters.

Over some distance X you'll need receivers R1 (linked to transmitter T1) = 2m and R2 (linked to transmitter T2) = 11m, is that right?

If yes, then I would need bigass relay (aperture of 100 meters) to transmit, and even more bigass relay to receive power (aperture of 300 meters I guess :p) for example at Jupiter (for example for sustaining fusion reactor at Jupiters moon).

Both of them would have to work on extreme ultraviolet.

 

[raxo2222]

It seems like Microwave Thermal Receiver doesn't work - it can't propel thermal ramjet.

http://imgur.com/a/xmDVd

I have 2 beam producers, that produce around 200 GW of beamed power. one on geostationary orbit above spaceport and another on island around 30 kilometers away.

They both produce beam in long infrared bandwidth.

Edited November 22, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

18 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Does bigger transmitter aperture mean, that on one hand energy beam won't spread out that fast, but on other hand receivers should be larger too?

Bigger transmitter aperture help mitigate energy beam spread out yes, and depending on the distance you require a larger diameter receiver to get a larger perecentage or most of the trasmitted beamed power

Edited November 22, 2016 by FreeThinker

[markinturamb]

Changes:

• Moved Plasma Nozzle as Thermal Engine
• Peeble Bed produces Electricity
• Dusty Plasma produces Charged Particles
• Tri Alpha only produces Electricity
• MHD Generator receives Charged Particles
• Added more details about Relay Network

Will try to keep updated as more detailed guides becomes available

[FreeThinker]

@markinturamb Excelent work!

Say, I wonder if you can make more graphical representations which help players make consious choices.

One particular graphic I would like to see are the engines, particularly their effective Isp ranges and thrust ranges. I think we could put it in some 2 dimentional graph. 

Edited November 23, 2016 by FreeThinker

[markinturamb]

That's actually what I was planning to do next, for engines and reactors. I assume I need to put in the info regarding isp and thrust (or power output and durability in the case of the reactors) for each fuel type. Is there any other thing that I should also look out for, that influenciates these numbers? 

[Eleusis La Arwall]

The modular Gas Core Fission Reactor:

@markinturamb That is a very usefull overview you made there. I'd like to have this cheat-sheet available ingame (maybe KSPedia entry or a KIS-handbook-item). Are you planning for something like this?

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, markinturamb said:

That's actually what I was planning to do next, for engines and reactors. I assume I need to put in the info regarding isp and thrust (or power output and durability in the case of the reactors) for each fuel type. Is there any other thing that I should also look out for, that influenciates these numbers? 

Isp and Thrust are the most important, a 3th I can think of is it flexibility and type of propellants (), which depending on the mission can be imported for the succes of the intended mission.

4th and 5th are Technology and cost, which should not be underestimated durring campaign.

Edited November 23, 2016 by FreeThinker

[MrSirRecon]

Evening,

I'm stuck with how to get my microwave relays to work. I have a network of three in geostationary orbit around Kerbin and they are using the Deployable Microwave Phase Array. They can receive power just fine. But as soon as I turn them into Relay mode they just cease to function and nothing happens. They don't even say that a single relay is connected to another, or that any of them are connected to my generators on the ground. 

I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong? Or if this is too vague, what I can do to clarify it.

[SciMan]

I was going thru the config for the QSR recently (loving the new model BTW), and I noticed something odd:

Even tho it's a 5m part, the reactor and generator modules inside it all say "radius = 3.75".

I guess it's "okay" to leave it like that even if it's not "correct", as the QSR can't connect to anything else.

When I proposed the whole QSR concept, I had envisioned it being the core reactor of an orbital mothership, capable of powering a warp drive AND capable of powering a magnetic nozzle or plasma nozzle (would have said "thermal nozzle" at the time, as plasma nozzles hadn't been added yet).

The current QSR powers a warp drive just fine. What's missing is the ability to use it directly for thrust.

With the current restrictions on the QSR, I guess that means I need a Quantum Singularity Thruster.

This would be a QSR that has an integrated Magnetic Nozzle.

As this would be an improvement on the regular QSR, I propose two new tech nodes to house it and possible upgrades.

• Black Hole Theory (Unlocks QSR)
• Quantum Gravitational Theory (Unlocks Quantum Singularity Thruster, upgrades QSR core temperature, power output, allows QSR to use thermal, plasma, and magnetic nozzles)
• Dark Energy Manipulation (Upgrades Quantum Singularity Thruster core temperature and power output)

These tech nodes would require both "Ultra High Energy Physics" and "Unified Field Theory" to unlock the first one, and they would be in series.

 

By the way, I'm loving how the new Gas Core reactor model is coming along!

[FreeThinker]

here is a nice picture of a new Thermal Receiver made by Ragnark:

Notice it is a auto pivoting 50 x 50 m full spectrum thermal receiver with an integrated thermal electric generator. It can be used for either thermal propulsion or generate power for electric propulsion

 

 

[Kenken244]

but how will you thrust with your COM that off center? D:

[blake1217]

my game keeps get stuck loading at this warpplugin/parts/electrical/antimatterreactor/antimatterreactor/twealableantimatterreactor is there a way to fix this

never mind I fixed it

Edited November 25, 2016 by blake1217

[Nansuchao]

4 hours ago, Kenken244 said:

but how will you thrust with your COM that off center? D:

Just put two of them or add some SAS. If the thrust is low enough you'll have no issues.

[markinturamb]

20 hours ago, Eleusis La Arwall said:

@markinturamb That is a very usefull overview you made there. I'd like to have this cheat-sheet available ingame (maybe KSPedia entry or a KIS-handbook-item). Are you planning for something like this?

Not until now I wasn't  However I have no clue on how to do this, but @FreeThinker is free to do whatever he wants with it. I just did it trying to understand this mod myself, and thought I might as well share it. 

18 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Isp and Thrust are the most important, a 3th I can think of is it flexibility and type of propellants (), which depending on the mission can be imported for the succes of the intended mission.

4th and 5th are Technology and cost, which should not be underestimated durring campaign.

Ok so it turned out to be more complicated that I thought (as anything in this mod ) because the isp and thrust change in a non-linear way according to the power input. I will probably have to make graphs on excel, and get images out of that. So I came up with two possible ideas for us to discuss on:

• In the first, I'd use whatever formula you use in the mod to make the graph, hoping that only one formula would sort it all out, with me just needing to change fuel and engine variables within it (which I bet it's too much to hope for, I bet it is more complicated than that  )
• In the second, I'd just get a few sample values from power input and stick with those, I wouldn't even need formulas, I could just look it up ingame
• I could also make it all an excel file instead of an image, where the player edit variables like fuel and power input, but I don't think it would work ingame as @Eleusis La Arwall suggested

 

ps.: Just noticed that you put the old version of the cheat-sheet in the OP

Edited November 24, 2016 by markinturamb

[FreeThinker]

@markinturamb I think you we one the wrong track getting hopelessly lost in complexity, I propose we first take one step back and create a one dimentional graph first, the Isp ranges of each engine. Note it doesn't need to precise, a precision of +/-100s is high enough. THe goal is to give player a rough idea of what Isp ranges are possible. Take for instance the Vista, which has an Isp range of of 15500 to 27000 . Xreate a simple 2D table  and put Vista on the Y axis and Isp on x-axis (might need to be logoritmic)

 

Engine
Deadalus								_
Visa					_

 

@markinturamb I think you we one the wrong track getting hopelessly lost in complexity, I propose we first take one step back and create a one dimentional graph first, the Isp ranges of each engine. Note it doesn't need to precise, a precision of +/-100s is high enough. THe goal is to give player a rough idea of what Isp ranges are possible. Take for instance the Vista, which has an Isp range of of 15500 to 27000 . Xreate a simple 2D table  and put Vista on the Y axis and Isp on x-axis (might need to be logoritmic)

 

Engine
Deadalus								_
Visa					_

 

[markinturamb]

@FreeThinker That could help people visualize what engine has best isp, but might not be practical to help building your ship if you have to consider other variables like fuel and power I'm afraid. I'm having a hard time myself to understand what else (if anything) can alter the isp apart from fuel type, upgrades and atmosphere... I noticed the Vista can be manually adjusted, but what about the others?

And I'd like to put the MW range in which each engine works as well, even if only as a side note so people know what reactor they need, and how much power they can transmit to or from that ship, for example, without jeopardizing the engine thrust funcionality. Let's say a ship needs 200kN to safely land, how much power that engine need to achieve that? And the change in power affects thrust in a linear way or geometrically?

For now, I came up with this:

 

On an unrelated note, I noticed while testing with the reactors that I made some mistakes regarding Electricity generation, with some producing ElectricCharge but not MJ (which could cause confusion), and some not producing neither. Will test more later and update again the connections graph.

[FreeThinker]

48 minutes ago, markinturamb said:

On an unrelated note, I noticed while testing with the reactors that I made some mistakes regarding Electricity generation, with some producing ElectricCharge but not MJ (which could cause confusion), and some not producing neither. Will test more later and update again the connections graph.

Weird, Are you sure it was an interstellar reactor? always make sure it has acces to the right type of fuel and the vessel is equiped with radiators and if needed with the right kind of genrators in the correct way.

[markinturamb]

7 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Weird, Are you sure it was an interstellar reactor? always make sure it has acces to the right type of fuel and the vessel is equiped with radiators and if needed with the right kind of genrators in the correct way.

Tests made with a probe (half emptied of EC), radiators, and:

• Molten salt - KSPI window from tool bar doesn't open, but recharges the probe EC. If I put a gyrotron and a transducer, the window opens but shows 0MW (works ok if with a MHD generator, 780MW)
• Peeble Bed - same thing (1.24GW with MHD)
• Dusty Plasma - same thing, except it doesn't recharges the probe (720MW with MHD)
• Antimatter Initiated (with an antimatter tank) - same thing, doesn't charge probe (15.17GW with MHD)
• Plasma Beam Core Antimatter (with an antimatter tank) - same thing, doesn't charge probe (37.1GW with MHD)
• Magnetized Target Fusion (with a capacitor to start it up) - same thing, doesn't charge probe (1.75GW with MHD)
• Spherical Tokamak - KSPI window opens, with 0MW and doesn't recharge probe (810MW with MHD)
• Tri-Alpha - 2.16GW by itself
• Magnetic Confinement Fusion - 8.65GW by itself
• Quantum singularity (with capacitor and in orbit to start it up) - 266GW by itself

Let me know if this is the intended behaviour so I can edit the image or not

[FreeThinker]

@markinturamb not sure how you test and why basic reactor like the Molten Salt are not working properly.

Could you create a screendump showing this:

[markinturamb]

I didn't really do anything, just loaded the ship and checked the MW and EC values

Tested on KSP 1.2.1, KSPI 1.11.3, with KER, KAS, KIS, IR, Trajectories, and visual mods.

 

Reactor by itself (like I said, no KSPI window)

Spoiler

Reactor+Transmitter

Spoiler

Reactor+generator+transmitter

Spoiler

 

[raxo2222]

It seems like there is extreme disagreement between reactor window and resource window when it comes to resource longevity.

 

Edit: On unrelated note it seems only proton - boron and He3 fusion modes are only truly aneutronic fusion modes.

Edited November 24, 2016 by raxo2222

[FreeThinker]

1 MW Solar Panel, standard Building block for dyson swarm

3 hours ago, raxo2222 said:

Edit: On unrelated note it seems only proton - boron and He3 fusion modes are only truly aneutronic fusion modes.

True

4 hours ago, markinturamb said:

Reactor by itself (like I said, no KSPI window)
 

That is correct behavior, it only shows it there is at least one megajoule  power producing part (generator connected to reactor or receiver or solar panel).

Edited November 25, 2016 by FreeThinker