KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[Aaron Also]

11 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well technically the phased array is a collection of many microwave transmitters, each capable of receiving and generating a specific microwave signal. The consequence is that the power is limited. To transmit large amount of power you will need larger (scaled up) phased arrays.

There are also game balance reasons, without the gyrotron requirement they have an edge of other transmitters, their range and power is kind of limited compared to the other transmitters.

Well I have 12 sats with phased arrays and unneeded gyrotrons in orbit. Guess my next cluster wont need that part, after all. 

The second layer of my swarm will upgrade from phased arrays to I think the shielded transmitter, it seems more efficient which becomes more important the further out  the swarm is. 

[FreeThinker]

28 minutes ago, Aaron Also said:

Well I have 12 sats with phased arrays and unneeded gyrotrons in orbit. Guess my next cluster wont need that part, after all. 

The second layer of my swarm will upgrade from phased arrays to I think the shielded transmitter, it seems more efficient which becomes more important the further out  the swarm is. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would advice against using phased array in anything except as power sat launch boosters in low orbit. Due to microwave long wavelength, their range is limited to a few hundred of kilometers (1000 KM at best with oversized deployable phased array). Properly used, you wait until a power sat with phased array would start to fly over, launch a microwave thermal rocket or microwave rectenna receiver all the way into orbit with optimal reception. Ideally you put 2 phased array on a power satellite, one to relay existing beamed signals and another to transmit it own power. In the future this might be combined in a single part ..

Edited February 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, ss8913 said:

I could, yes.. that... almost works.  By the time I add in the giant hyperdrive which weighs 1600t by itself, and enough vista fuel to give the entire resultant craft ~14k dV, i'm up over 6000 tons total.  antimatter/hydrazine/plasma nozzle at that weight I can get much more dV and much more thrust both.
Also, regarding the cesium thing - I see the storage module listed twice in my parts list, one that can hold cesium and regolith, one that cannot, and the part name is the same.  Also the plasma nozzle doesn't have cesium as an available propellant type in the VAB.  Looking forward to that update, want to see how that fuel performs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note that in terms of power, nothing is more powerful than the Vista which is technically a very powerful open cycle inertial fusion reactor. In terms of raw power it surpasses even the antimatter reactors. Still the antimatter have the capability to be used with more flexible propellants and capable of generating more thrust and possibly higher Isp.

If used smartly, you could use a single antimatter reactor to feed 3 types of nozzles; a magnetic nozzle, plasma nozzle and turbojet/ramjet nozzle.

The turbojet would be used in atmosphere flight, the plasma nozzle to get into orbit and the magnetic nozzle for orbital transfer or interstellar travel

Edited February 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

On 5-2-2017 at 4:16 AM, Liquid5n0w said:

I've been launching with ATILLA thrusters and just had a thought.  Why is there no 'battery' for waste heat in KSPI?  Something that would allow me to use high power ATILLA in bursts but then radiate the heat away after launch or after the burn, rather than carrying around heavy rads?  A book I've been reading recently (Vorpal Blade) they converted a sub to a space ship using a drive they found, and to deal with waste heat they have big rods of glass they melt to hold their waste heat, then they rest the ship and "chill" to clear their stored heat.

 

Technically that what the wasteheat resourece already is, a buffer to store wasteheat. All electric engines already have such a buffer, which is increased automatically with higher mass.

[ss8913]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Note that in terms of power, nothing is more powerful than the Vista which is technically a very powerful open cycle inertial fusion reactor. In terms of raw power it surpasses even the antimatter reactors. Still the antimatter have the capability to be used with more flexible propellants and capable of generating more thrust and possibly higher Isp.

If used smartly, you could use a single antimatter reactor to feed 3 types of nozzles; a magnetic nozzle, plasma nozzle and turbojet/ramjet nozzle.

The turbojet would be used in atmosphere flight, the plasma nozzle to get into orbit and the magnetic nozzle for orbital transfer or interstellar travel

How?  the reactor has to be directly attached to all of those nozzles, and to any electric generators, and radial attachment doesn't seem to count (tried that).
Come to think of it... if the heavy warp drives weren't quite so aggressive on their weight scaling, that'd solve a lot of the problems... should a 10m heavy drive really weigh 1600t ?  That seems like ... a lot.

[FreeThinker]

24 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

How?  the reactor has to be directly attached to all of those nozzles, and to any electric generators, and radial attachment doesn't seem to count (tried that).

 

At least the thermal nozzle and plasma nozzle should be able to connect radialy 3 parts away from the reactor. Perhaps this is no longer the case. I need to verify or fix it.

 

24 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

Come to think of it... if the heavy warp drives weren't quite so aggressive on their weight scaling, that'd solve a lot of the problems... should a 10m heavy drive really weigh 1600t ?  That seems like ... a lot.

 

 

 

1

For your information, minimum warp drive power to enter hyperspace is 1/10 of total vessel mass. What dimension the hyperdrive has does not matter, only its cumulative mass does, which means they stack. Meaning, you could use 2 "light" hyperdrives scaled to 20m diameter to get the desired result

Edited February 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

Technically that what the wasteheat resourece already is, a buffer to store wasteheat. All electric engines already have such a buffer, which is increased automatically with higher mass.

I was thinking a part that has way more waste heat per mass then any other part, and only does that.  It would do nothing for any steady state usage, but for burst usage of heat it would allow a lower mass total because light radiators would get rid of the heat in downtime.

[Aaron Also]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I would advice against using phased array in anything except as power sat launch boosters in low orbit. Due to microwave long wavelength, their range is limited to a few hundred of kilometers (1000 KM at best with oversized deployable phased array). Properly used, you wait until a power sat with phased array would start to fly over, launch a microwave thermal rocket or microwave rectenna receiver all the way into orbit with optimal reception. Ideally you put 2 phased array on a power satellite, one to relay existing beamed signals and another to transmit it own power. In the future this might be combined in a single part ..

This would explain why I'm only getting 4 megawatts of power from 180 megawatts worth of satellites in LKO; they are in ~7.5Mm orbits. Each has 2 large phased arrays, both transmitting. Will relays improve this? Or do I really need to update my transmitters for best results?

[Liquid5n0w]

26 minutes ago, Aaron Also said:

This would explain why I'm only getting 4 megawatts of power from 180 megawatts worth of satellites in LKO; they are in ~7.5Mm orbits. Each has 2 large phased arrays, both transmitting. Will relays improve this? Or do I really need to update my transmitters for best results?

Relays do make this better as I believe the spot size is only use from the nearest relay(with good facing and isn't obstructed etc).

[FreeThinker]

53 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

Relays do make this better as I believe the spot size is only use from the nearest relay(with good facing and isn't obstructed etc).

Unfortunately no, only if there is NO direct line of sight, so it "might" improve it (when it is behind a celestial body), but it is not guaranteed. Technically, currently, if there is a direct line of sight, it will use it. I still need to add some optimization code which forces it to use relays if they are faster. 

Edited February 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

3 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Unfortunately no, only if there is NO direct line of sight, so it "might" improve it (when it is behind a celestial body), but it is not guaranteed. Technically, currently, if there is a direct line of sight, it will use it. I still need to add some optimization code which forces it to use relays if they are faster. 

So as things are right now, if I have my generator in low orbit making infrared, then a relay sending ultraviolet, when far away I'll only get UV if my powerplant is behind the kerbin?

[FreeThinker]

18 minutes ago, Liquid5n0w said:

So as things are right now, if I have my generator in low orbit making infrared, then a relay sending ultraviolet, when far away I'll only get UV if my powerplant is behind the kerbin?

No, a transmitter in relay will only relay a beamed power transmission in the wavelength it was able to receive and relay. This means infrared signal will not magically shift to UV spectrum. Technically all what a relay does is to allow a signal to look behind a celestial body and change the effective distance, which might get shorter or longer depending on the distance between receiver and relay. Note that relaying is currenlty lossless but once the relay signal becomes smarter it will have to pay a tax.....

Edited February 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Liquid5n0w]

27 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

No, a transmitter in relay will only relay a beamed power transmission in the wavelength it was able to receive and relay. This means infrared signal will not magically shift to UV spectrum. Technically all what a relay does is to allow a signal to look behind a celestial body and change the effective distance, which might get shorter or longer depending on the distance between receiver and relay. Note that relaying is currenlty lossless but once the relay signal becomes smarter it will have to pay a tax.....

So if my relay can receive and send in all frequencies, if I set the receive to infrared, then the send to ultraviolet it will only send in infrared?  I didn't dig into it, but I don't think that is how my network is behaving.

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Liquid5n0w said:

So if my relay can receive and send in all frequencies, if I set the receive to infrared, then the send to ultraviolet it will only send in infrared?  I didn't dig into it, but I don't think that is how my network is behaving.

I guess you mean receive in infrared, but Yes. If it doesn't, it an exploit, but you could consider it a temporary compensation until relay path-finding is implemented.

[ss8913]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

At least the thermal nozzle and plasma nozzle should be able to connect radialy 3 parts away from the reactor. Perhaps this is no longer the case. I need to verify or fix it.

 

For your information, minimum warp drive power to enter hyperspace is 1/10 of total vessel mass. What dimension the hyperdrive has does not matter, only its cumulative mass does, which means they stack. Meaning, you could use 2 "light" hyperdrives scaled to 20m diameter to get the desired result

I'll see if that saves some weight, thanks.  I'm dealing with *interstellar* journeys here of 5+ terameters and I need to be able to go fairly high warp, since FTL + timewarp still seems to cause parts to fall off;  I'm still experimenting with some of the debug options to determine a workaround to that.  I developed a survey craft last night that is actually capable of 40.00c and around 2g of sublight acceleration, but it weighs *six thousand metric tons* and only has about 50k dV in total with full fuel.  If I can save some weight, obviously dV and thrust wins can be had.  Unfortunately the only payload this is carrying is a couple of kerbals, some supplies, and SCANsat equipment to map the exoplanets.  If I wanted to bring along some kind of dropship... well, maybe the aforementioned weight savings on the light alcubierre drive will help.  If there is interest in the .craft file I will upload it.

[FreeThinker]

28 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

I'll see if that saves some weight, thanks.  I'm dealing with *interstellar* journeys here of 5+ terameters and I need to be able to go fairly high warp, since FTL + timewarp still seems to cause parts to fall off;  I'm still experimenting with some of the debug options to determine a workaround to that.  I developed a survey craft last night that is actually capable of 40.00c and around 2g of sublight acceleration, but it weighs *six thousand metric tons* and only has about 50k dV in total with full fuel.  If I can save some weight, obviously dV and thrust wins can be had.  Unfortunately the only payload this is carrying is a couple of kerbals, some supplies, and SCANsat equipment to map the exoplanets.  If I wanted to bring along some kind of dropship... well, maybe the aforementioned weight savings on the light alcubierre drive will help.  If there is interest in the .craft file I will upload it.

50k dV? What kind of reactor, engine and propellant configuration do you use. You do understand how to use acceleration durring timewarp right?

Edited February 6, 2017 by FreeThinker

[EvilGeorge]

Well, ss8913 said that he had some troubles with acceleration under timewarp - ship exploding, parts moving out of alignment and jumping back etc. So I guess that's why they're looking for a workaround through sheer speed/power. I would say it's a mod conflict and advise perhaps updating mods, but transfering saves between versions can be treacherous...

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.12.5 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.2

Released on 2017-02-07

• Updated CRP to 0.6.6
• Added Sodium as electric propellant
• Added Sodium and Caesium to Solid storage tank

[ss8913]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

50k dV? What kind of reactor, engine and propellant configuration do you use. You do understand how to use acceleration durring timewarp right?

I'm using FTL drives.  acceleration under timewarp isn't an issue for me.  The issue with parts falling off is using FTL + timewarp, which is kind of different.  As long as I keep the timewarp at or below 100x it seems to be fine, though.  I'm trying with 'unbreakable joints' and 'no crash damage' to see if that helps.

I'm using hydrazine + antimatter reactors + plasma nozzles for the sublight drive.  The 6000t craft I referenced can actually launch vertically using the 8 5.0m plasma nozzles on hydrazine from the surface, so it is a true SSTO and does not have to be built in space (although it could be).

Suggestion though, @FreeThinker - would be nice if the antimatter reactors could attach radially to a generator (and have them work together), and/or allow the antimatter reactor to scale up as big as the charged particle generator can scale.  Not a huge deal but it'd be convenient

[ss8913]

5 hours ago, ss8913 said:

I'll see if that saves some weight, thanks.  I'm dealing with *interstellar* journeys here of 5+ terameters and I need to be able to go fairly high warp, since FTL + timewarp still seems to cause parts to fall off;  I'm still experimenting with some of the debug options to determine a workaround to that.  I developed a survey craft last night that is actually capable of 40.00c and around 2g of sublight acceleration, but it weighs *six thousand metric tons* and only has about 50k dV in total with full fuel.  If I can save some weight, obviously dV and thrust wins can be had.  Unfortunately the only payload this is carrying is a couple of kerbals, some supplies, and SCANsat equipment to map the exoplanets.  If I wanted to bring along some kind of dropship... well, maybe the aforementioned weight savings on the light alcubierre drive will help.  If there is interest in the .craft file I will upload it.

so, tried using 2 light hyperdrives scaled to 20m as you suggested, @FreeThinker - the light and folding only scale up to 5m though   I'll try using.. more of them.

update: Gonna need at least a few of these.  5.0m light hyperdrives can haul 640t each.  Also, cesium is not an available propellant for the ATILLA electric thrusters - intentional?  Last night I additionally read that cesium is liquid at room temperature; therefore shouldn't the standard interstellar tanks be able to hold it?

Edited February 7, 2017 by ss8913

[ss8913]

Just noticed something else.. atilla and resistojet RCS can't use atmospheric propellant anymore?

[Aaron Also]

Ok so all this has caused me to rethink my approach. Honestly, thats is what brings me the most reward from KSP; accomplishing engineering challenges. The space flight exploration, and all is great, but for me building the best craft for a specific mission is just as much fun. 

So, now Im leaning more toward power stations on Kerbin that broadcast in microwave. Relay and power stations at 2500Km, all Ka Band. Large deployable phased array transmitters. Another layer of power stations at 7500Km, but with D band microwave and shielded transmitters. 

Now, my next layer would be at 22,500Km and Im thinking microwave might be getting a bit weak for this distance. Im considering either near IR or perhaps green lasers to cover the rest of Kerbin's SOI.

Ideally to finish the swarm properly the final layer out past Minmus, is really the most important. The goal would be to recieve all the laser and microwave power possible and retransmit that at the smallest wavelength possible. 

Then I will move onto the Sun! 

It might be this weekend before I get to make progress on orbit placing. I will take pics of my sat designs and orbital parameters to have posted by weeks end. I hope all this helps others that are new or mystified by beamed power. It is surely helping me. 

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, ss8913 said:

@FreeThinker Last night I additionally read that cesium is liquid at room temperature; therefore shouldn't the standard interstellar tanks be able to hold it?

Actually room temperature is just below melting point of Caesium which is at 28.5C Besides that, the Liquid tank is mostly for cryogenic liquids, to keep them cool, also when getting closer to the sun.

[infernosblade]

A small suggestion:  would be nice if you @FreeThinkercan update to (Dev version of KJR (Ferram4) https://github.com/ferram4/Kerbal-Joint-Reinforcement ) in the package, otherwise Infernal Robotics would break 

keep up the good work, much love<3

[FreeThinker]

31 minutes ago, infernosblade said:

A small suggestion:  would be nice if you @FreeThinkercan update to (Dev version of KJR (Ferram4) https://github.com/ferram4/Kerbal-Joint-Reinforcement ) in the package, otherwise Infernal Robotics would break

Oh, why would that be? And where to find the binary?

Edited February 7, 2017 by FreeThinker