KSP Interstellar Extended Continued Development Thread

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.12.13 for Kerbal Space Program 1.2.2

Released on 2017-03-22

• Added Fluorite Mining, Scanning and Processing into Fluorine
• Added Ability of Fuel Processing to use Enriched Uranium to replace Depleted Fuel or produce Fluorine when missing.
• Added Attach Node to Laser Transmitter allowing it easy radially attachment
• Fixed Vista compatibility with Near Future and Tweakscale
• Balance: Replaced ISRU chemical LqdOxygen by Oxygen
• Balance: Magnetic Confinement Reactor Lithium Blanket replaced by Lithium6
• Balance: Reduced power output Fission Fragment Reactor power output by 25%
• Balance: Reduced power output Tri Alpha power output by 25%
• Balance: Increased high core temperature to Fission Fragment Reactor, allowing usage with Plasma Engine produce higher Isp

 

 

[Jumberlack]

On 3/15/2017 at 6:10 AM, FreeThinker said:

This is what electric propulsion is for. You generate power somewhere on your ship, convert unto a universal medium that can be transported everywhere on your ship and use it a your location you desire. But this will of cource introduce large conversion losses. Usually the easiest way to achieve what you want is simply to add 2 radial thermal engines, not too far away from the reactor. In your case, near the belly.Ssimply radial attach any fuel tank and connect your thermal nozzle to it.

So what's the word on atmosphere breathing electric jet engines?

[FreeThinker]

14 hours ago, Energywelder said:

I'm hoping for some help with my power network. I've lofted 6 pebble bed reactors into space, megajoules says they're making ~2MW. But none of them seem to be able to connect eachother. I have the diode array on each sat, so they should be able to transmit, and on each sat I have 2 receivers (which I made sure were on) whose description says they should be able to receive any wavelength. 

 

Transmitter: Diode Laser Array (Beam Producer) set for long infrared

Receivers: Circular Thermophotovoltaic Receivers.

 

 

Could you make a screen dump with the transmitter and beam producer in view?

[Rehpic]

@FreeThinker since I updated to 1.12.12 I'm seeing a problem with stock radiator. I have a USI MKS reactor with stock radiators and the cooling works fine in the atmosphere (KSC Launchpad) but in space or landed on an airless moon the radiators don't seem to work and the reactor overheats. I see you made a change to FNRadiator.cs in 1.12.12 which isn't explained in the posted patch notes, but does seem to involve adding atmospheric details to radiators. Can you explain what this change does, and do you think it might be responsible for the symptoms I'm seeing?

Thanks.

 

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, Rehpic said:

@FreeThinker since I updated to 1.12.12 I'm seeing a problem with stock radiator. I have a USI MKS reactor with stock radiators and the cooling works fine in the atmosphere (KSC Launchpad) but in space or landed on an airless moon the radiators don't seem to work and the reactor overheats. I see you made a change to FNRadiator.cs in 1.12.12 which isn't explained in the posted patch notes, but does seem to involve adding atmospheric details to radiators. Can you explain what this change does, and do you think it might be responsible for the symptoms I'm seeing?

Thanks.

 

Graphene radiators should work at 100% in space and at only 25%capacity in the atmosphere. If it doesn't it is a bug

[Rehpic]

8 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Graphene radiators should work at 100% in space and at only 25%capacity in the atmosphere. If it doesn't it is a bug

I replaced the stock radiators with the Large Folding Graphene Radiators and they have the same problem. Reactor is cooled properly on the KSP launch pad, but overheats in orbit.

[Energywelder]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Could you make a screen dump with the transmitter and beam producer in view?

I sure would love to, but my browser isn't letting me paste pictures into the box, how do I do that first?

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, Rehpic said:

I replaced the stock radiators with the Large Folding Graphene Radiators and they have the same problem. Reactor is cooled properly on the KSP launch pad, but overheats in orbit.

Lol it is exactly the other way as it supposed to. Thanks now I know how to fix it

Edited March 23, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Energywelder]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Could you make a screen dump with the transmitter and beam producer in view?

I sure would love to, but for some reason I am unable to attach pictures to one of these posts, could you tell me how to do that first?

[Nansuchao]

1 hour ago, Energywelder said:

I sure would love to, but for some reason I am unable to attach pictures to one of these posts, could you tell me how to do that first?

Load the pics on Imgur and share the links here.

[Energywelder]

12 minutes ago, Nansuchao said:

Load the pics on Imgur and share the links here.

Here is link, tagging @FreeThinker

 

[Energywelder]

My problem is this, beam producer is this, but it doesn't seem to be producing any beam, I've tested several other receivers. Also, posting the link seems to be bugging the message box, so it's imgur.com/ and then a/PdiJl

@FreeThinker

@Nansuchao

[ss8913]

On 3/23/2017 at 0:48 AM, Jumberlack said:

So what's the word on atmosphere breathing electric jet engines?

I too am waiting for this.. I used to use ATILLA on atmospheric mode quite extensively, and that has been removed without a replacement   the thermal turbojets kind of work but they take a long time to cycle up/down which makes hovering an issue of chasing the throttle a LOT... in closed cycle mode they don't do this, which I suppose makes sense... but I'm also curious as to why in atmospheric mode they cycle DOWN more slowly than they cycle UP.  You'd think that closing the throttle would restrict airflow over the reactor and it wouldn't need to cycle down since without any intake airflow it doesn't matter how fast the N2 turbine (if it has one) is spinning since there's no input mass to eject, right?

 

So I suppose @FreeThinker I kind of combined two issues in that paragraph.. lol.

[iontom]

Are there any mods out there for metallic hydrogen that would work well with this? A huge problem for doing Interstellar trips in Kerbal is that you can't really make your ships big enough without a lot of staging. And that makes maneuvers into a real drag.

A metallic hydrogen to gas converter/reactor would significantly decrease the amount of storage volume needed and make maneuvers a lot nicer. You would have extra heat to deal with, and an additional energy source, but that's good news if you're powering say a habitat ring.

[juanml82]

Is there any up to date tutorial regarding power networks? I think my previous attempt failed because the generator stopped to transmit whenever I switch away from it.

So I've built another and put it in orbit instead of the ground (with hyperedit, to test)

It has a fission reactor directly connected to the electric generator - and it is producing electrical power. Then a gyrotron is connected directly to the electric generator. Then the transceiver goes straight to the gyrotron, I click on "activate transmitter" and yet it remains as "input power offline"

[Jumberlack]

@ss8913 Yeah I mean I can think of two different ways to do it, one with a big electric motor powering a ducted fan like a high bypass turbofan, and one way with some sort of electric arc plasma ramjet for the high speed atmosphere runs. The former doesn't feel very interstellary but I can definitetely see the latter having a place in this mod. @FreeThinker if I made a model for something like this would you consider balancing and adding it?

[FreeThinker]

15 hours ago, ss8913 said:

I too am waiting for this.. I used to use ATILLA on atmospheric mode quite extensively, and that has been removed without a replacement @FreeThinker 

Have you tried the compressed Air mode, all that is needed is a compressed gas tank which air collection activated

Edited March 25, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

15 hours ago, Energywelder said:

My problem is this, beam producer is this, but it doesn't seem to be producing any beam, I've tested several other receivers. Also, posting the link seems to be bugging the message box, so it's imgur.com/ and then a/PdiJl

@FreeThinker

@Nansuchao

That just the beam producer, what you also need is a beam transmitter. It need to be  connected with the beam producer. The Beam producer generates the beam of electro magnetic waves which is then focused by a beam transmitter into a focused beam which can be transmited over long distances. An exception to this are parts that have integrated beam producers, like the Laser Transmitter turret which can be attached radially

Edited March 25, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

8 hours ago, Jumberlack said:

@ss8913  mod. @FreeThinker if I made a model for something like this would you consider balancing and adding it?

Yes

[Hypercosmic]

Is it possible to just delete the alcubierre drive from the rest of the engines? I don't like it.

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, Hypercosmic said:

Is it possible to just delete the alcubierre drive from the rest of the engines? I don't like it.

Yes you you can, it is not used for anything except FTL

Edited March 25, 2017 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

Because of the confusion of the Beamed power transmission, I made some improvement to the interface.

Let's setup an satelate for relay, which requires either 1 mirror or 2 dishes.

Notice that only one transmitter is actually connected to a beam generator, the other is not. Still even when not connected to a beam generator, it is still useful for relay or receiving beamed power

Note that one side it linked for relay and the other transmitter is ready for relay

This happens after the second transmitter has relay activated

I hope this will reduce the confusion. Any suggestions are welcome.

Edited March 25, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Gavalanche]

I'm having catastrophic failures with the alcubierre drives. I've tried the light and heavy drives, using only stock and kspi parts, and  being entirely out of Kerbin orbit to minimize gravity well effects, but my ships always disintegrate as soon as warp drive is initiated. The failure message is always that the control part exceeded it's maximum G force limit. I've tried different control modules, and the result is always the same. This makes no sense to me since the drive is suppose to 'fold space' instead of accelerating the ship. It looks like the game won't stop describing the ships translation as an instantaneous massive jump in acceleration. Is this a known bug that I can fix?

[FreeThinker]

32 minutes ago, Gavalanche said:

I'm having catastrophic failures with the alcubierre drives. I've tried the light and heavy drives, using only stock and kspi parts, and  being entirely out of Kerbin orbit to minimize gravity well effects, but my ships always disintegrate as soon as warp drive is initiated. The failure message is always that the control part exceeded it's maximum G force limit. I've tried different control modules, and the result is always the same. This makes no sense to me since the drive is suppose to 'fold space' instead of accelerating the ship. It looks like the game won't stop describing the ships translation as an instantaneous massive jump in acceleration. Is this a known bug that I can fix?

Yes it's a know error but I looked around and found a fix which should temporarily disable g-force effects when entering, leaving or changing warp speed

[Gavalanche]

13 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes it's a know error but I looked around and found a fix which should temporarily disable g-force effects when entering, leaving or changing warp speed

Link to the fix?