Electric Engines

[Triston777]

So I know about how you can run rockets and such on Monopropellent and fuel like Liquid and Solid...

But my question is why do we only have ONE Electric engine and it's power output to cost is so low to the point where I couldn't move faster than 25 km/s with 20 on board my 8 ton plane?

Nextly why is the mods ones not much better? They don't do much better at all...

 

Furthermore a purely electric engine like EX the mod with the ram engines where one runs solely on electricity and wind would be nice and appreciated. Like it's a game space program, can't we like have utilization in-game to make our own version of a part in sandbox mode only?(E.X. IF I go to the science and development area just to do this and be able to create my own parts off of presets and modded parts? Just so I could at least make a workable usable electric plane and change what it's fuel intake is, weight, what fuel it needs, what it's output is and so on... That's an option I really want in KSP).

 

If the development team won't make it then could someone who can make mods do some of this??? I want to run some planes and/or rockets on either solar and electric power only or some with monopropellent only too. Or a mixture.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

That's what other engines are for. Each engine has a place in the balance of the game, the Dawn is supposed to be low power, high efficiency. It's meant for very small space probes.

There are of course real reasons as well, ion engines are extremely underpowered in real life, even more so than in KSP.

If you want to make electric powered planes, perhaps you'd be interested in some of the mods that add electric powered propellers? Or I guess you could use Tweakscale to make bigger Dawn engines? Heck, you can go into the config.ini and change the Dawn's thrust yourself if you really want.

 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[NSEP]

You mean electric propellor engines right?

I would like to use one when exploring Duna, Eve or even Jool. I think its an interesting addition to the game.

[Corona688]

On 11/25/2017 at 1:12 PM, Triston777 said:

But my question is why do we only have ONE Electric engine and it's power output to cost is so low to the point where I couldn't move faster than 25 km/s with 20 on board my 8 ton plane?

The Dawn is a space engine with 100 kilowatts of power output.  The problem is hooking it to an 8-ton payload -- and also the not-being-in-space part.  When it's not in space you get the unaided thrust of a bunch of pressurized xenon tanks.  Also, xenon tanks are heavy.

Electric wheels do a lot more, if you consider them engines.

Quote

Nextly why is the mods ones not much better? They don't do much better at all.

Mods tend to be made with excessive realism in mind -- that or no realism in mind.  Electricity is also the hardest thing to balance because it never was balanced in the first place.

For aircraft, jet engines are so good it's hard for anything to compete anyway.  Is an electric engine really better than a turbojet in any way besides being electric?

Quote

Like it's a game space program, can't we like have utilization in-game to make our own version of a part in sandbox mode only?

Engines are just text and data files, you can copy and paste and edit the text to your heart's content.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Corona688

[Triston777]

10 hours ago, Corona688 said:

The Dawn is a space engine with 100 kilowatts of power output.  The problem is hooking it to an 8-ton payload -- and also the not-being-in-space part.  When it's not in space you get the unaided thrust of a bunch of pressurized xenon tanks.  Also, xenon tanks are heavy.

Electric wheels do a lot more, if you consider them engines.

Mods tend to be made with excessive realism in mind -- that or no realism in mind.  Electricity is also the hardest thing to balance because it never was balanced in the first place.

For aircraft, jet engines are so good it's hard for anything to compete anyway.  Is an electric engine really better than a turbojet in any way besides being electric?

Engines are just text and data files, you can copy and paste and edit the text to your heart's content.

True it never began balanced anyways. But more than one electric engine type would be nice.

[Spricigo]

8 hours ago, Triston777 said:

True it never began balanced anyways. But more than one electric engine type would be nice.

I suggest to disregard the Dawn in your request for more eletric engines. Because I don't think you want more Ion engines, with similar low thurst density and extremely vacuum optimised.

Also, there's a mod for that, In fact several mods. And If the mod have any resemblance of balance the eletric engines will have some limitations to not make all other kind of engines obsolete.

 

[KerikBalm]

On 11/25/2017 at 8:12 PM, Triston777 said:

But my question is why do we only have ONE Electric engine and it's power output to cost is so low to the point where I couldn't move faster than 25 km/s with 20 on board my 8 ton plane?

Nextly why is the mods ones not much better? They don't do much better at all...

...

If the development team won't make it then could someone who can make mods do some of this??? I want to run some planes and/or rockets on either solar and electric power only or some with monopropellent only too. Or a mixture.

I'm going to assume that you mean 25 m/s, not km/sec. On top of that... I'm going to assume that you mostly want electric fans for use in the atmosphere. If you want "electric rockets" that still use a propellant (like Xenon), then you should check out the near future propulsion mod.

For electric motors to fly planes in the atmosphere, firespitter seems to be pretty popular. Also consider "AtomicAge" which adds more nuclear propulsion, including a nuclear-thermal turbojet that allows unlimited flight in atmospheres.

Its also really easy to mod for yourself

On 11/28/2017 at 6:38 PM, Corona688 said:

For aircraft, jet engines are so good it's hard for anything to compete anyway.  Is an electric engine really better than a turbojet in any way besides being electric?

Engines are just text and data files, you can copy and paste and edit the text to your heart's content.

Well for aircraft, jets don't compete at all on Eve and Duna, nor on mod planets like Tekto.

And yes, it is really easy to edit by text.

So what you need for indefinite propulsion in an atmosphere is to have an intake that produces a resource with mass in an atmosphere, and an engine that uses that resource.

IntakeAir has mass, but if your intake produces it then other jets will work using it. I (and others) use a resource called "IntakeAtm" which is added by the community resource pack. You can just add it yourself by duplicating the IntakeAir entry and renaming one to IntakeAtm. Its just to make a new resource that has mass and isn't used by other engines.

Now for the intake that produces it: just change "checkForOxygen = true" to "checkForOxygen = false". - At the same time you should change the resource produced from "resourceName = IntakeAir" to "resourceName = IntakeAtm"

Now duplicate a jet engine and rename it to whatever you want (change both the name, and title field, at least). Change the IntakeAir entry to IntakeAtm. Next set ignore for Isp to false, or just delete that line completely. Change the LiquidFuel entry to ElectricCharge.

The motor will then consume electric charge and IntakeAtm (you need IntakeAtm, as its the only resource with mass, and the engine must use a resource with mass for the Isp calculations. You can supply the electric charge however you want, and the intake will supply the Intake Atm.

At that ratio of intakeAtm to ElectricCharge though, it will not use much EC at all - play with the ratios as you want. You can also change its mass, and even size using the rescale factor line.

Here is a slightly edited .cfg for my "electric fan"

Spoiler

PART
{
    name = Efan
    module = Part
    author = Porkjet&KerikBalm
    MODEL
    {
        model = PlanetaryMotors/AirElectric/turboFanSize2 // if you want to use this, I recommend just using the goliath directory, since I modified this a bit)
    }
    rescaleFactor = 0.5 // this rescales a 2.5m engine to a 1.25m size, but does nothing to mass,thrust,etc
    node_stack_top = 0.0, 2.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 2
    node_attach = 0.0, -2.5, -1.2, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1
    CoMOffset = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
    TechRequired = heavyAerodynamics
    entryCost = 15000
    cost = 2600
    category = Engine
    subcategory = 0
    title = E-125 "Rotor" Electric Fan
    manufacturer = C7 Aerospace Division
    description = An electric fan for operation in gas or liquid fluids without requiring fuel or oxidizer. While not requiring fuel or an oxidizer, this fan requires a substantial supply of electricity, which may be supplied by a variety of sources, including fuel and oxidizer consuming cells.
    attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0
    mass = 1.0
    // heatConductivity = 0.06 // half default
    skinInternalConductionMult = 4.0
    emissiveConstant = 0.8 // engine nozzles are good at radiating.
    dragModelType = default
    maximum_drag = 0.2
    minimum_drag = 0.2
    angularDrag = 2
    crashTolerance = 7
    maxTemp = 2000 // = 3600
    bulkheadProfiles = size1, srf
    tags = aircraft (goliath jet plane propuls reverse
    
    // Do this first, so the engine gets the resultant air.
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleResourceIntake
        resourceName = IntakeAtm
        checkForOxygen = false
        area = 0.0008
        intakeSpeed = 30
        intakeTransformName = Intake
        occludeNode = top
        machCurve
        {
            key = 1 1 0 0
            key = 1.5 0.9 -0.4312553 -0.4312553
            key = 2.5 0.45 -0.5275364 -0.5275364
            key = 3.5 0.1 0 0
        }
    }
    
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleEnginesFX
        engineID = Cruise
        thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform
        exhaustDamage = False
        ignitionThreshold = 0.1
        minThrust = 0
        maxThrust = 20
        heatProduction = 100
        useEngineResponseTime = True
        engineAccelerationSpeed = 0.45
        engineDecelerationSpeed = 0.75
        //fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.74
        flameoutEffectName = flameout
        powerEffectName = running_thrust
        engageEffectName = engage
        disengageEffectName = disengage
        spoolEffectName = running_turbine
        engineSpoolIdle = 0.001
        engineSpoolTime = 1.0
        EngineType = Turbine
        exhaustDamageMultiplier = 2
        PROPELLANT
        {
            name = ElectricCharge
            ratio = 2.5   // I could also make this 16.7 and the intakeAtm entry be 1, its the ratio that matters
            DrawGauge = True
        }
        PROPELLANT
        {
            name = IntakeAtm
            ratio = 0.15
        }
        atmosphereCurve
        {
            key = 0 480 0 0 // this is just to balance out the overall consumption of Intake Atm
        }
        // Jet params
        atmChangeFlow = True
        useVelCurve = True
        useAtmCurve = True
        flameoutBar = 0.02
        machLimit = 0.75
        machHeatMult = 40
        velCurve
        {
            key = 0 1 -0.1543096 -0.1543096
            key = 0.61 0.89 0 0
            key = 1.0 0 -3.278422 -3.278422  // this places a hard mach 1.0 limit for the engine, it produces 0 thrust at mach 1
        }
        atmCurve
        {
            key = 0 0 0 0
            key = 0.072 0.085 1.172947 1.172947
            key = 0.337 0.37 0.98425 0.98425
            key = 1 1 1.179067 1.179067
        }
    }

    RESOURCE
    {
        name = IntakeAtm
        amount = 0.85
        maxAmount = 0.85
    }
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleAnimateHeat
        ThermalAnim = TF2Heat
    }
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleAnimateGeneric
        animationName = TF2ThrustReverser
        startEventGUIName = Reverse Thrust
        endEventGUIName = Forward Thrust
        actionGUIName = Toggle Thrust Reverser
        layer = 1
    }
    MODULE
    {
        name = FXModuleAnimateThrottle
        animationName = TF2FanSpin
        responseSpeed = 0.05
        layer = 2
        dependOnEngineState = True
        dependOnThrottle = True
        weightOnOperational = True
        affectTime = false
        baseAnimSpeed = 0.01        // base + (throttle setting * multiplier)
        baseAnimSpeedMult = 100
        playInEditor = False
        animWrapMode = 2      //    Default = 0    Once = 1        Clamp = 1    Loop = 2        PingPong = 4    ClampForever = 8
    }
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleJettison
        jettisonName = Fairing
        bottomNodeName = top
        checkBottomNode = true
        isFairing = False
        jettisonedObjectMass = 0.1
        jettisonForce = 5
        jettisonDirection = 0 0 -1
    }

    MODULE
    {
        name = FlagDecal
        textureQuadName = FLAG
    }
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = ElectricCharge // to give it a built in battery, so its a 1 part system of battery, motor, and intake
        amount = 1000
        maxAmount = 1000
        isTweakable = false
        hideFlow = true
    }
    MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleSurfaceFX
        thrustProviderModuleIndex = 1
        fxMax = 0.5
        maxDistance = 20
        falloff = 2
        thrustTransformName = smokePoint
    }
    EFFECTS
    {        
        running_thrust
        {            
            AUDIO
            {
                channel = Ship
                clip = sound_jet_deep
                volume = 0.0 0.0
                volume = 0.05 0.4
                volume = 1.0 1.0
                pitch = 0.0 0.6
                pitch = 1.0 1.0
                loop = true
            }                    
        }
        running_turbine
        {
            AUDIO
            {
                channel = Ship
                clip = sound_jet_low
                volume = 0.0 0.0
                volume = 0.05 0.7
                volume = 1.0 1.0
                pitch = 0.0 0.4
                pitch = 0.05 0.5
                pitch = 1.0 1.0
                loop = true
            }
        }
        engage
        {
            AUDIO
            {
                channel = Ship
                clip = sound_vent_medium
                volume = 1.0
                pitch = 2.0
                loop = false
            }
        }
        disengage
        {
            AUDIO
            {
                channel = Ship
                clip = sound_vent_soft
                volume = 1.0
                pitch = 2.0
                loop = false
            }
        }
        flameout
        {
            PREFAB_PARTICLE
            {
                prefabName = fx_exhaustSparks_flameout_2
                transformName = smokePoint
                oneShot = true
            }
            AUDIO
            {
                channel = Ship
                clip = sound_explosion_low
                volume = 1.0
                pitch = 2.0
                loop = false
            }
        }
    }
}
 

You can also use this strategy to make other types of motors. I've made myself an electric fan for atmospheric flight, electric propellors for use only in the water (using IntakeLqd from the community resource pack), and "jets" that work without oyxgen (actually intended to be ram-rockets/ air-turborockets/Air augmented rockets). My first attempt at visually distinguishing them made them color coded (green for electric atmopheric, blue for electric water propulsion, brownish red for air augmented rockets/turborockets)

before I color coded:

(two resource intakes, because that version also produces IntakeAir *if* there is oxygen)

Spoiler

 

 

 

Spoiler

I have since toned down the green and blue colors

Spoiler

Air augmented rockets... color isn't too bad:

Sub propulsion:

The atmospheric electric fans still work in the water though (the water versions that I made produce more thrust so things can go faster in water, and use less electricity to produce that thrust)

Spoiler

Early on, I used the "old" basic jet engine model for my electric engines

Spoiler