KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[ss8913]

12 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I just noticed CTT is finally updated, that should mean KSPI-E should become available on CKAN again

unfortunately CKAN thinks 1.11.5 is current, not 1.11.14 -- nevermind, this was due to a bug in CKAN which I think was fixed with the latest update.  if your CKAN wants to install the old version, exit out, update CKAN, and try again, and you'll get the right version.

Edited January 2, 2017 by ss8913

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, ss8913 said:

unfortunately CKAN thinks 1.11.5 is current, not 1.11.14 -- nevermind, this was due to a bug in CKAN which I think was fixed with the latest update.  if your CKAN wants to install the old version, exit out, update CKAN, and try again, and you'll get the right version.

Were can I find more about this bug?

[Einarr]

On the subject of reactor embrittlement. I have a long duration science vessel that was designed to gather All The Science! from the Mun and Minmus. It's conventional (though uses mod parts) for the most part. However, my power source is a 0.625m MSR and associated thermal generator. I did not send any Lithium6 up with the reactor initially as I was not planning on breeding tritium with it (also hadn't unlocked tritium tanks yet). I've noticed that the embrittlement has gone up a bit and decided to send up one of my tankers with a tweakscale reduced Lithium tank (down to 25% of normal size IIRC). However, the resource the tank contains is not the Lithium6 that the MSR has internal storage for. I did end up reconfiguring a regular fuel tank to carry a bit of Lithium6 and delivered it, transferred it to the MSR, etc.

I want to ensure I sent up the correct resource to reduce the embrittlement rate. Should I have used the Lithium from the Lithium tank instead (I should be able to attach such a tank to the science vessel with KAS/KIS) instead of the Lithium6 that the MSR has internal storage for?

[The Destroyer]

@FreeThinker So, testing out the new build, the reactors seem stable at timewarp, the only thing that's unstable is when you change time warp. For most reactors, it's a tiny issue, but for antimatter reactors it can cost a decent amount of antimatter

[FreeThinker]

49 minutes ago, The Destroyer said:

@FreeThinker So, testing out the new build, the reactors seem stable at timewarp, the only thing that's unstable is when you change time warp. For most reactors, it's a tiny issue, but for antimatter reactors it can cost a decent amount of antimatter

 

 

 

Interesting, what was your test setup? Exactly when does it occur and what were the conditions in terms of power usage ...

Edited January 2, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Einarr said:

I want to ensure I sent up the correct resource to reduce the embrittlement rate. Should I have used the Lithium from the Lithium tank instead (I should be able to attach such a tank to the science vessel with KAS/KIS) instead of the Lithium6 that the MSR has internal storage for?

 

 

 

Understand that for MSR which mainly produce soft/slow neutrons, tritium breeding with Lithium-6 is purely optional, and does not negatively influence performance nor influences neutron embrittlement

Edited January 2, 2017 by FreeThinker

[zanie420]

Hmmmm.... my solar station seems not to be transmitting power unless it is the active vessel. Seems like the transmitter is not activated until I fly the ship? My relays are not connecting when I switch to them, however they do seem to have charged up on mega-joules while I had the station active.... what am I missing?

[FreeThinker]

21 minutes ago, zanie420 said:

Hmmmm.... my solar station seems not to be transmitting power unless it is the active vessel. Seems like the transmitter is not activated until I fly the ship? My relays are not connecting when I switch to them, however they do seem to have charged up on mega-joules while I had the station active.... what am I missing?

 

Could you give a more detailed description of your solar station.

[zanie420]

It's your craft sir! From the file you provided earlier in this thread. I had it working before, when we identified the bug with wavelengths

Edited January 2, 2017 by zanie420

[FreeThinker]

43 minutes ago, zanie420 said:

It's your craft sir! From the file you provided earlier in this thread. I had it working before, when we identified the bug with wavelengths

 

 

Are you sure there is a line of sight between your power station and your receiver? Kerbol is very big ...

Also note the selected wavelength should result result in a Huge spotsize for any receiver at Kerbin orbit

Edited January 2, 2017 by FreeThinker

[zanie420]

5 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Are you sure there is a line of sight between your power station and your receiver? Kerbol is very big ...

I am certain

[zanie420]

43 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Are you sure there is a line of sight between your power station and your receiver? Kerbol is very big ...

Also note the selected wavelength should result result in a Huge spotsize for any receiver at Kerbin orbit

I thought huge spotsize was a good thing.... correct?

[The Destroyer]

10 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Interesting, what was your test setup? Exactly when does it occur and what were the conditions in terms of power usage ...

Whenever you switch time warp times (e.g 10x to 100x) the reactor momentarily consumes more antimatter, then once it reaches 100x it stabilizes. Power usage was minimal, only to run life support

 

[Siama]

Is it possible to make Methane (CH4) from C+LOX+LH2 using this mod? How to burn C in O2 to get CO2 for Sabatier processing?
 

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Siama said:

Is it possible to make Methane (CH4) from C+LOX+LH2 using this mod? How to burn C in O2 to get CO2 for Sabatier processing?
 

currently not because you are missing CO2, but technically you should be able create CO2 from burning Carbon in Oxygen. I will see If we can add it...

Edited January 2, 2017 by FreeThinker

[ricree]

Edit: Of course now that I make a post asking for help, it seems to be actually working now.

 

 

I've been trying to set up an IR power network with no luck, especially when it comes to the double pivoted parts.  I'm fairly sure that my transmitter is working correctly, since I can get power with the "all wavelength" receivers like the inline thermal. But when I try to use the pivoted rectenna, I get nothing. I've double checked the transmitter, and it is definitely set to infrared.

 

This is also true of the relay parts. I have the pivoted or mirrors on a relay sat, but always get 0 connected even with perfect line of sight.

 

Any idea what I'm doing wrong here?

Edited January 2, 2017 by ricree

[zanie420]

@Freethinker this is perplexing me. I know I have transmitted power with this setup before. Each time I switch to the relays, they are full on mega-joules, but start to slowly dwindle to nothing. But I can switch to another focus, then back to that relay quickly and it is fully charged again. No matter what wavelength I try, I cannot get a receiver to connect. I notice that at the top of my screen, each time I switch vessels, it is saying Activating Transmitter or Microwave Receiver activates.... as if they were not active while not focused on?

edit: I decided to see if I designed my relays incorrectly, and I had forgotten radiators. However this didn't really solve the issue of no connection. I decided to build a new relay out of completely different parts. On the launchpad, with the sun in view, I am able to receive power with the folding gold dish, as opposed to the transceiver arrays and transducer I have in orbit within line of sight of the transmitter. I am suspecting that the computer core, which I used as the root part on my existing relays, is sucking away the mega-joules....

Edited January 3, 2017 by zanie420

[Jason_25]

I have just returned to KSP and have been having waste heat troubles and this is not the first time.

1a. Thermal turbojets create a lot of heat in atmosphere mode only
1b. They should not according to physics, the waste heat management page on the wiki itself and past versions.

2a. Plasma rockets create a huge amount of heat always which is not proportional to their thrust
2b. They also throttle up additional unconnected antimatter reactors for added heat production but no added thrust or isp
2c. The description claims it is not rated for atmospheric use but does work in atmosphere but produces terrible heat in a fighter sized vehicle

3. Same problem as Nansuchao with VASIMIR and ATTILA as well with intense overheating.  The waste heat is already brutal enough so we definitely don't need another thing adding even more restrictions.

The overall added emphasis on waste heat mechanics has been an issue since development was taken over from fractal uk.  This has added an unfortunate slant to what was a great mod.  It tends to exclude many creative designs and generally requires a huge ugly rocket type vehicle to house all the heatsinks.  I can say that the changes to this mod are partly what caused me to quit playing KSP in the first place.

It is easy enough for me to just imagine that all the parts have integrated cooling already and just leave it at that.  We don't plumb the hydraulic systems manually do we? 

I realize there is a cheat option for heat now and I may take advantage of that but I would like to post my designs and I don't want to be the cheater person because I chose to construct an attractive and compact space vehicle.

Seriously, please no more of this heat madness.

 

[The Destroyer]

@FreeThinker After some testing, with the plasma beam core antimatter reactor, it seems that switching to 1000x will consume 1000 antimatter, switching to 10000x will consume 10k antimatter, and 100,000x I guess 100k antimatter, because it dropped to zero and died. 

 

One other thing. With the antimatter reactor, when I throttle down the magnetic nozzle ISP would increase. However, now that I've hooked it up to an antimatter initiated reactor, even if I throttle down the thrust remains the same, as is ISP :-/

[gajbooks]

3 hours ago, Jason_25 said:

I have just returned to KSP and have been having waste heat troubles and this is not the first time.

1a. Thermal turbojets create a lot of heat in atmosphere mode only
1b. They should not according to physics, the waste heat management page on the wiki itself and past versions.

2a. Plasma rockets create a huge amount of heat always which is not proportional to their thrust
2b. They also throttle up additional unconnected antimatter reactors for added heat production but no added thrust or isp
2c. The description claims it is not rated for atmospheric use but does work in atmosphere but produces terrible heat in a fighter sized vehicle

3. Same problem as Nansuchao with VASIMIR and ATTILA as well with intense overheating.  The waste heat is already brutal enough so we definitely don't need another thing adding even more restrictions.

The overall added emphasis on waste heat mechanics has been an issue since development was taken over from fractal uk.  This has added an unfortunate slant to what was a great mod.  It tends to exclude many creative designs and generally requires a huge ugly rocket type vehicle to house all the heatsinks.  I can say that the changes to this mod are partly what caused me to quit playing KSP in the first place.

It is easy enough for me to just imagine that all the parts have integrated cooling already and just leave it at that.  We don't plumb the hydraulic systems manually do we? 

I realize there is a cheat option for heat now and I may take advantage of that but I would like to post my designs and I don't want to be the cheater person because I chose to construct an attractive and compact space vehicle.

Seriously, please no more of this heat madness.

 

I completely agree. Radiators should be needed, but only in proportion to the vehicle. As in, you shouldn't be able to get away with a few tiny little radiators for your giant interstellar ship, but you don't need 200 tons either. I find the heat-based power limits on generators to be silly as well (Despite this being realistic). Reactors overheating and shutting down is a good mechanic, but engine efficiency being affected by the amount of radiators you have is silly too.

 

On a side note, the EM engine does some rather odd things when used in timewarp. Changing the time warp setting to go faster results in a massive thrust boost until the number has finished scrolling to the new time setting. This may be a mod interaction, so don't go searching too hard if you can't find it. (TimeControl mod)

As a general suggestion, I would rather have minor issues and usability fixed for the time being, rather than having the focus being on beamed power and other new features. Like the game sometimes crashing when I right click resistojets, radiators flying off, tweakscale working differently in opposite directions, mechjeb giving wrong information in regards to thrust due to this, and other things like lag that I blame on radiators and the mod despite having no basis for it besides the fact that stock parts run faster. It's also physics/game logic lag, and a 500 part stock ship launching through atmosphere has less lag than a 400 one in orbit.

Edited January 3, 2017 by gajbooks

[ss8913]

23 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Were can I find more about this bug?

I'm not sure if it's reported or not, but it's something I've noticed... if you try to install mods and something goes wrong, the whole thing goes.. wonky, until you completely exit and restart (and sometimes update) CKAN.  This has been going on for a while but it's very intermittent and generally surprises me when it happens because of its low frequency.

1 hour ago, gajbooks said:

I completely agree. Radiators should be needed, but only in proportion to the vehicle. As in, you shouldn't be able to get away with a few tiny little radiators for your giant interstellar ship, but you don't need 200 tons either. I find the heat-based power limits on generators to be silly as well (Despite this being realistic). Reactors overheating and shutting down is a good mechanic, but engine efficiency being affected by the amount of radiators you have is silly too.

 

On a side note, the EM engine does some rather odd things when used in timewarp. Changing the time warp setting to go faster results in a massive thrust boost until the number has finished scrolling to the new time setting. This may be a mod interaction, so don't go searching too hard if you can't find it. (TimeControl mod)

As a general suggestion, I would rather have minor issues and usability fixed for the time being, rather than having the focus being on beamed power and other new features. Like the game sometimes crashing when I right click resistojets, radiators flying off, tweakscale working differently in opposite directions, mechjeb giving wrong information in regards to thrust due to this, and other things like lag that I blame on radiators and the mod despite having no basis for it besides the fact that stock parts run faster. It's also physics/game logic lag, and a 500 part stock ship launching through atmosphere has less lag than a 400 one in orbit.

I've noticed heat issues with ATILLA as well, specifically in atmosphere mode.  I can get a VTOL craft to hover on atmospheric-powered ATILLAs... and notice the required throttle creep up and up and up until it can no longer maintain altitude; and this happens when the wasteheat % of total is around 20-25% or so, nowhere near an actual overheat.  On closed-cycle mode such as hydrazine, I observe the same behavior, but it takes so long to occur that it does not negatively affect the craft's VTOL performance in this fuel mode.  This happens even when the thermal helper in the SPH shows all the numbers in the green.

[falcoon]

Hi there. First of all i'd like to say this mod is a beast. Keep up this most awesome work 

But... there always is a but...  It lacks proper tutorial. I know there is github-wiki, but it's very general, with many outdated informations. The same with ingame part description, like generators for example - also outdated - description says one, putting part on lunchpad shows sth very different. Not to mention the window that shows up after right-clicking dish/transiever... so many info there and no idea what to do with it 

I started to follow up with discussion in this topic and it clarified many things, but still have tons of questions.

Sth very basic for the beginning. I found an info somewhere (here or at wiki) that a relay satelite doesn't require beam power generator. Just a Microwave Phased Array Transiever or two dishes (and some support stuff ofc). I don't know why, but i can't do it. I tried lots of configurations, and nothing worked. If one of the dishes or Array Transiever is not connected directly to a Gyrotron, button "activate relay" just won't show up. What am I missing? or it should work this way?

[Aghanim]

Is it possible to weaponize the diode infrared laser turret? It certainly looks like a laser turret capable of destroying something

[MisterFister]

@FreeThinker I love this mod and I am very grateful that you and others maintain it.

I note two typos in your OP for this thread.

First, after the "

ISRU atmospheric scoop" header, inside the spoiler tag with Planet / Mun Atmospheric composition, the column header for oxygen gas is missing.  We see the 2 subscript, but not the "O".

Second, after the ISRU section, the next header should likely refer to "Interstellar Fuel Tanks," but it instead reads "Interstella."

I have no programming knowledge, but I have copyediting experience, so please know that I post this out of nothing but a desire to contribute however I can.

Edited January 3, 2017 by MisterFister

[FreeThinker]

17 hours ago, The Destroyer said:

Whenever you switch time warp times (e.g 10x to 100x) the reactor momentarily consumes more antimatter, then once it reaches 100x it stabilizes. Power usage was minimal, only to run life support

 

Great looking vessel. I would love to see more picture

I have fixed the power stability problem when switching and idle

A surprising side effect is that antimatter last a lot longer when idle