KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[FreeThinker]

5 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

Yes, but at that level there are better choices. The Closed Cycle is a great engine.

The Closed Cycle is more versatile engine, but it's Isp , thermal and effective electric power are all inferior the the open cycle gas core. If you want an engine with high amount of power for transferring large vessels using either thermal or electric propulsion, the Gas Core is ideal.

Edited January 30, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

@FreeThinker I'm starting to use the Plasma Nozzle, but the fuels seems very limited, only H2 or N2?  Why so limited, am I missing from technology I would need?

[FreeThinker]

5 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

@FreeThinker I'm starting to use the Plasma Nozzle, but the fuels seems very limited, only H2 or N2?  Why so limited, am I missing from technology I would need?

Because of the extreme heat, It is limited to non oxidizing mono atomic propellants

 

Edited January 30, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

3 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Because of the extreme heat, It is limited to non oxidizing mono atomic propellants

 

What happened to the nobel gasses? Are they chopped liver?  What stopping me from pumping xenon through it?

Thinking about it, I assume it would be hugely inefficient because of the limit to 5m/s/s, other engines do high accel better.

[FreeThinker]

3 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

What happened to the nobel gasses? Are they chopped liver?  What stopping me from pumping xenon through it?

Thinking about it, I assume it would be hugely inefficient because of the limit to 5m/s/s, other engines do high accel better.

They should be usable if you have unlocked "Specialized Fuel Storage"

Edit: now you mentioned it, LqdArgon is missing ..

Edited January 30, 2017 by FreeThinker

[ss8913]

@FreeThinker I have 2 questions:

 

1. The really really huge dish antenna that can be used as both a comm array and as a MW transceiver.. it looks cool but it's super super bad on framerates, even within the VAB/SPH it bogs it down horribly... could we perhaps get a less.. intense.. model for this part?
2. reading the first page, it appears that for thermal propulsion the tokamak is better than the plasma beam antimatter reactor since it has a higher core temp... true/false ? (true/false as in, will it give me better thrust/isp with the same thermal engine compared to the plasma beam antimatter reactor?)

[FreeThinker]

1 Yes the Huge is quite complex it is actually light reflective if texture replaced is installed.

2 Yes, the tokamak has higher core temperature for the purpose of plasma propulsion.

[ss8913]

Just now, FreeThinker said:

1 Yes the Huge is quite complex it is actually light reflective if texture replaced is installed.

2 Yes, the tokamak has higher core temperature for the purpose of plasma propulsion.

so.. what can we do about that model?  I have a fairly decent computer and that part is unusable for me.

[FreeThinker]

14 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

so.. what can we do about that model?  I have a fairly decent computer and that part is unusable for me.

I don't see the problem, perhaps you should uninstall texture replacer

[ss8913]

2 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I don't see the problem, perhaps you should uninstall texture replacer

I'll try that.

[FreeThinker]

On 28-1-2017 at 7:18 PM, Aaron Also said:

Dyson Swarm

So, I have been messing around in my sandbox save with the new beamed power parts. While it can be a bit confusing I think I have the basics down.

 

 

 

Exactly what was so confusing? perhaps I can improve it

On 28-1-2017 at 7:18 PM, Aaron Also said:

I was able to have 5 transmitters on the vessel all working in the infrared spectrum. They would transmit a total 250MW giving me around a 50% utilization of the current power production. My power sats at Kerbin function the same at 50% utilization. How can I improve this?

 

 

3

Besides using bigger transmitter and receiver, not much. In the future I hope to implement relay refocusing, which means the signal will look for relay stations to refocus the signal, allowing you to place relays between your transmitter and final destination, allowing you to use longer wavelenth which will be more efficient.

Edited January 31, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

On 28-1-2017 at 7:18 PM, Aaron Also said:

So I got to thinking how feasible it would be to build a Dyson Swarm, how much power could it produce and what could be done with that power. Even just a few of these satellites would easily make up for the deficiencies of using NFT with KSPIE. Although the logistics of getting them there in a career or science campaign without hyper edit would be extremely complex, though not impossible. 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Being able to construct a Dyson swarm is actually the whole goal behind these solar power parts. The trick is to minimize the vessel footprint of high emissive parts while maximizing solar collector surface area towards the sun with low emissivity

Something that looks like this

Notice the vessel is largely in the shadow of the low emissive solar collector, which focuses 99% of all energy on molten salt heat receiver. The high emissive radiator has a minimum footprint toward the sun and get rid of any system heat.

Notice the wrapped thermal receiver function as a huge radiator with minimal footprint exposure to the sun, this ensures it will lose more waste heat than it absorbs heat energy from the sun

Also Notice the engine is in the middle of the ship, exactly where the center of mass is located, this allows you to accelerate the entire ship sideways, allowing it to get in a very low orbit of Sun. If this ship would make the mistake turning, increasing its footprint, it will be destroyed in a matter of seconds.

Edited February 1, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Being able to construct a Dyson swarm is actually the whole goal behind these solar power parts. The trick is to minimize the vessel footprint of high emissive parts while maximizing maximize solar collector surface area towards the sun with low emissivity

Something that looks like this

Notice the vessel is largely in the shadow of the low emissive solar collect, which focuses 99% of all energy on molten salt heat receiver. The high emissive radiator has a minimum footprint toward the sun and get rid of any system heat.

Notice the wrapped thermal receiver function as a huge radiator with minimal footprint exposure to the sun, this ensures it wile lose more waste heat than it absorbs heat energy from the sun

Also Notice the engine is in the middle of the ship, exactly where the center of mass is located, this allows you to accelerate the entire ship sideways, allowing it to get in a very low orbit of sun. If this ship would make the mistake turning, increasing its footprint, it will be destroyed in a matter of seconds.

Awesome ship, I've been thinking about making something like that.  How did you get it to a low orbit, just a plasma thruster and hydrogen and time? Why not make the dish bigger as you are making 83GW but only transmitting 50GW? Which after the 30% eff comes out as a 15GW far ultraviolet laser.

[FreeThinker]

33 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

Awesome ship, I've been thinking about making something like that.  How did you get it to a low orbit, just a plasma thruster and hydrogen and time? Why not make the dish bigger as you are making 83GW but only transmitting 50GW? Which after the 30% eff comes out as a 15GW far ultraviolet laser.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes the dish should have been bigger.

The solar collector receives 233 GW in solar flux (the sun is a thermal nuclear fusion reactor producing flux which cannot be controlled), which converted at 35.87% to Electric Power, which translates in 83.8 GW in  potential power. From this only 50 GW is actualy used to be converted into electric power, because that the upper limit of the transmitter.

The Final Wall to Beam power is only 15 GW due to the low efficiency in Far ultraviolet

SThe ship could be constructed using 2 sperate launches, 1 for Solar Receiver + Radiator and another for transmitter dish + beam generator

Edited January 31, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

I'm curious as to how to calculate spot size given a distance, wavelength and aperture when using microwave power.

I understand that when distance goes up I either need to use a lower wavelength or bigger aperture, but I'd like to be able to calculate it before I get out there.

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, Liquid5n0w said:

I'm curious as to how to calculate spot size given a distance, wavelength and aperture when using microwave power.

I understand that when distance goes up I either need to use a lower wavelength or bigger aperture, but I'd like to be able to calculate it before I get out there.

Spot size = distance-to-spot * wavelength / (aperture diameter)

[entropy--]

@FreeThinker: I just installed KSPI-E: It's wonderful. Congrats on the amazing depth and gameplay awesomeness!

I am wondering however, if the unlocking of the parts on the tech tree might be slightly off. For example:

• Fusion reactors, which are tremendously powerful (and don't exist at all in real life yet), are on the same tier with mid-range electrical engines, which have been lab-tested in real life.
• The VASMIR engine, which again has been lab-tested in real life, is on the same tech with a magnetic nozzle that feeds of charged particles apparently has order-of-magnitude better performance.

This both feels a bit odd, and makes for very cookie-cutter gameplay choices.

Is there any plan to update where parts sit on the tech tree? If I contribute a proposal, can we talk about it? I came to look at this wanting to create four tech tree config "tiers" for how far out KSPI-E (and some of the other mods I use) extend parts into the "future", as related to current tech:

1. Up to Near Future: stuff that currently works in labs or is close to (e.g., electric engines, basic nuclear reactors)
2. Medium Future: stuff that has papers talking about how to build it (e.g., gas-core nuclear reactors, maybe fusion)
3. Far Future: stuff that probably works, but we don't know how to build  (e.g., antimatter stuff, the more advanced fusion stuff).
4. Maybe Zone: Things like warp drives, singularity generators, etc.

Edited February 1, 2017 by entropy--

[FreeThinker]

@entropy-- Good suggestions.

I agree with you the part unlocking isn't ideal. The fact of the matter is that I have to work inside the confines of the Community Tech Tree (CTT). Note that although Fusion tech is unlocked at a relative low cost, to make it effective you need to research a whole collection of other technodes including high tech electric nodes, radiators and storage. New players often complain that the Fusion Reactor produce much less net gain than they expected because of all the inefficiencies. KSPI-E makes use of the concept of upgrates, which mean part gradualy become better after specific tech nodes are unlocked.

Regarding the magnetic nozzle, this part is useless unless you have unlocked Fusion on Fission Fragment Reactor . But I agree I do now have some room now after the introduction of a higher level plasma propulsion tech node, meaning I can increase the tech requirement to the Far Future tech node.

Edited February 1, 2017 by FreeThinker

[entropy--]

9 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

@entropy-- Good suggestions.

I agree with you the part unlocking isn't ideal. The fact of the matter is that I have to work inside the confines of the Community Tech Tree (CTT). Note that although Fusion tech is unlocked at a relative low cost, to make it effective you need to research a whole collection of other technodes including high tech electric nodes, radiators and storage. Similarly, the magnetic nozzle part is useless unless you have unlocked Fusion on Fission Fragment Reactor. But I think I do have some room now after the introduction of a higher level plasma propulsion tech node, meaning I can increase the tech requirment.

Got it; with that in mind, fusion makes sense from a progression / science cost perspective. And I guess with a tweak in the plasma / electrical propulsion branch, that part would be solved.

Then, to make sense of those tiers I was talking about, all that is missing is to visually align CTT techs slightly differently (without changing cost or parents or parts on the tech tree nodes). I'll make a patch like that for myself, and then perhaps propose it to the CTT folks  

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, entropy-- said:

Is there any plan to update where parts sit on the tech tree? If I contribute a proposal, can we talk about it? I came to look at this wanting to create four tech tree config "tiers" for how far out KSPI-E (and some of the other mods I use) extend parts into the "future", as related to current tech:

1. Up to Near Future: stuff that currently works in labs or is close to (e.g., electric engines, basic nuclear reactors)
2. Medium Future: stuff that has papers talking about how to build it (e.g., gas-core nuclear reactors, maybe fusion)
3. Far Future: stuff that probably works, but we don't know how to build  (e.g., antimatter stuff, the more advanced fusion stuff).
4. Maybe Zone: Things like warp drives, singularity generators, etc.

I regulary update where parts are in the tech tree, just last update I moved the themral nozzle to the Experiemental Rockets, making the end tech rocketry technodes important again and moved propelant unlocking to storage tech, making them more rewarding. 

Regarding tech nodes my general philosophy is to evenly balance technodes preventing a single branch to become too rewarding. The biggest offender is the electric branch, which often unlocks a lot of parts.

In general terms, I already try to follow the 4 tier technode system , where the most speculative/futuristic technologies are placed higher in the tech tree.If you think this isn't the case I would like to hear your agruments

Edited February 1, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

I think that the mass ratio on the X8 tank needs a look, it seems to be much better then all of the other tanks all the time.

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, Liquid5n0w said:

I think that the mass ratio on the X8 tank needs a look, it seems to be much better then all of the other tanks all the time.

weird, it should be the other way around, and be one of the worst

Edited February 1, 2017 by FreeThinker

[entropy--]

9 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Regarding tech nodes my general philosophy is to evenly balance technodes preventing a single branch to become too rewarding. The biggest offender is the electric branch, which often unlocks a lot of parts.

In general terms, I already try to follow the 4 tier technode system , where the most speculative/futuristic technologies are placed higher in the tech tree.If you think this isn't the case I would like to hear your arguments

Indeed, I did get the feeling that there is balanced tiering (mostly). I will post my take on a "Near Future" tech "boundary" across the tree once I get back to my desktop. It's basically a vertical line across the tech tree, except the electrical propulsion part. Here my confusion started with the VASIMR: in real life, it's getting ready to fly, but it's unlocked quite to the right of the tree, after some techs that are much more remote (e.g., compact, ship-capable fusion reactors - we don't even know how to build energy-profitable earth-locked fusion reactors).

Also, I might be wrong (still new to KSPI-E), but my feeling is that the VASIMR gets super-awesome only once you get really powerful reactors, so you can feed it zounds of power. Before that, it's good, but not overpowered, so it could be unlocked earlier without balance issues.

[Liquid5n0w]

Also, I just realized while resizing a rectenna that shouldn't the costs get higher the smaller it is?  Other parts too should have miniaturization cost rather than savings.  For example I find myself shrinking the Timberwind a lot and it really drops in cost when I do that.  Maybe the cost should just stay the same instead of increasing?

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, entropy-- said:

Also, I might be wrong (still new to KSPI-E), but my feeling is that the VASIMR gets super-awesome only once you get really powerful reactors, so you can feed it zounds of power. Before that, it's good, but not overpowered, so it could be unlocked earlier without balance issues.

Obvious you haven't been around very long. KSPI-E recently has gained the ability of persistant thust, which especialy combined the Vasmir becomes almost too good if you know how to use it right. The Vasimir has a maximum Isp of almost 30000s  just adding a small nuclear reactor will be enough to get you anywhere in RSS solar sytem and back by simply accelerating the vessel in timewarp. This is one of the main reasons why I keep the Vasimir so high in the techtree. Also note the Vasimir that is currently developed is in the first stage of  development. The technology hasn't matured yet like the Hall and Ion thruster have. It will be quite some time before they will actualy use it in a mission becayse it has minimum poper requirment wgich can only be used effectivly with more than 200 KW, which is hard to achieve using only solar power or RTG

Edited February 1, 2017 by FreeThinker