[1.9+] Thor Tech v0.9.6.8 ~ [Aug 07, 2020]

[JadeOfMaar]

Deep Sky
presents

Thor Tech!
A suite of electrical propulsion systems and complementary parts, both old-school and sci-fi, for your early-game and late-game airplane/spaceplane needs. A great addition to your part inventory if you love to mix spaceplanes and planet packs.

Forget LiquidFuel and solar panels (while flying).  Thor Tech brings:

• Propfan and turbofan engines that work in all atmosphere.
• Inline windmill turbines (early-game) that enable planes to charge as long as they are moving fast enough.
• Nuclear reactors and a radiator fit for long-term use on aircrafts.
• Inline battery stacks to help save a little on part count.
• Air verniers, very powerful
• Intakes that can feed the thirstiest of jet engines and even harvest atmospheric resources
• "SupraLOX" hybrid plasma LFO engine. Mk2 and 1.25m available
• Two all-new cockpits (very unfinished, I didn't make them but I plan to finish them, with help from @DeltaDizzy).
• Pressure tanks that hold various gaseous propellants
• Shieldnir: electromagnetic forcefield nosecones. They protect most parts and do not need to be at the front of the plane to be effective.

(Deep Sky Core required for some of these parts)

Thor Tech also brings end-game WarpJet™ engines as seen in OPT Legacy, but with more neutral performance slopes and Boost/Burst Mode! 

All engines are very effective at sea level on Eve (and Tellumo of GPP, in screenshots below).

         

 

Thor Tech is licensed CC-BY-SA and builds upon: 

 Which was licensed MIT.

Thanks to @Galileo for the whole idea for this mod and @Stone Blue for picking the mod name out of a host of names I suggested.

DOWNLOAD v0.9.6.x :: GitHub :: SpaceDock

GET DEEP SKY CORE :: GitHub :: SpaceDock

Requires:

• B9 Part Switch for pressure tanks resource switching
• Community Resource Pack for non-stock propellants
• Kerbal Actuators by Angel-125 for fan blades to animate (Not included or is disabled; It's a bit bugged right now)

Known issues:

• Intakes don't work on planets that don't have Oxygen? Delete all of Community Resource Pack's localization files except English to fix this.
• Cockpits don't have transparent glass.

Edited December 29, 2020 by JadeOfMaar

[SamBelanger]

GG!!

[JadeOfMaar]

Finally, a test of a large aircraft on this mod, on a Duna-like world. The point was how high can I hover? The Ascendant VTOL engine is secretly able to sustain an airship at the edge of space (granted you can somehow meet its demands there). Maybe I make its Isp curve static again. I could have hovered higher but didn't think to install more intakes. The air RCS is also quite demanding in this situation too.

The engine is purposely OP (except that it flames out at mach 1.5) so remember to drag down the throttle limit if you're only using this on Kerbin or Laythe, or otherwise watch your speed while trying to use it.  I may nerf or rebalance it a bit in the next release but its purpose is obviously to save part count and provide ample VTOL power.

Back on Kerbin Gael, I was a little surprised that the 1.25m engine pushes well....It'll overheat though, as it's straining to push the plane's mass.

[JadeOfMaar]

Incoming update. Fixing some engine issues and about to introduce a 1.25m aerospike just as good as the Mk2 aerospike (since most craft are not made in Mk2 form). It will come in only this size by default but Tweakscale users will have free reign with it. It will have gimbal too. The gimbal won't animate but it will still work.

Side note: There's already a 1.25m hybrid plasma engine in The Spice, but it's a heavy lifter and about 20% less efficient.

Edited December 16, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[TheProtagonists]

Finally one step closer to my completely self sufficient VTOL spaceship!

EDIT: SPACESHIP SPACESHIP SPACESHIP

Edited December 17, 2017 by TheProtagonists

[JadeOfMaar]

11 minutes ago, TheProtagonists said:

spaceship!

[eddiew]

Naturally I am now using this because THOR.

And mk2.

And non-oxygen atmospheres.

...how high can these get you from the surface of Venus?

[JadeOfMaar]

Release 0.8.5

Changelog

• Featuring the 1.25m hybrid plasma aerospike
• grouped aerospikes into own folder
• placed common atmosphere harvester parts behind a part upgrade lock
• retuned 3m vtol engine (mainly nerfed but its perf curve is less steep)
• fixed error in 3m vtol intake
• fixed scale on propfan engines
• updated engine sounds
• added Burst Mode upgrade
• retuned Burst Mode storage and consumption

DOWNLOAD

 

23 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Naturally I am now using this because THOR.

And mk2.

And non-oxygen atmospheres.

...how high can these get you from the surface of Venus?

They're not tested to be able to get you from the surface of Venus......... But the WarpJet engines will operate at any velocity, air pressure and altitude as long as the intakes can feed them well. They'll even work in vacuum if you close the intakes and store some IntakeAtm before flameout.

Also, warning, the Japier class engines are pretty draggy (despite that their thrust compensates for it).

[eddiew]

2 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

They're not tested to be able to get you from the surface of Venus......... But the WarpJet engines will operate at any velocity, air pressure and altitude as long as the intakes can feed them well. They'll even work in vacuum if you close the intakes and store some IntakeAtm before flameout.

Might need to find out before giving up on SSRSS game ¬_¬  Doohan wants her rover back.

Edited December 17, 2017 by eddiew

[JadeOfMaar]

@eddiew Hmm. You might want to include the 3m VTOL engine in your rescue craft. It's really strong and will operate under Mach 1.5 at any altitude/pressure.

[eddiew]

1 minute ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@eddiew Hmm. You might want to include the 3m VTOL engine in your rescue craft. It's really strong and will operate under Mach 1.5 at any altitude/pressure.

Sounds like it could get me to the 1 ATM pressure zone Doddle from there!

[Tynton]

10/10

would burn my way into space again

[Lord_inter]

Dude, SWEEEEEEEET

[sorgan71]

Why did you name it thor?

[DAL59]

With this mod, tweakscale, and 

I could make a helicarrier.

[JadeOfMaar]

7 hours ago, sorgan71 said:

Why did you name it thor?

The theme is high involvement with electricity (without stepping far at all into the realms of realism and highly complicated gameplay). The parts produce and consume lots of it, and are partially intended to make heavy airborne craft easier to design and operate.

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

I could make a helicarrier.

 That's right.

[RobFalcon]

Oooo.....  This could be a perfect solution for an amphibious rover design I've been working on!  Been looking to keep it fully electric, for maximum range, and so it's already got a nuclear reactor aboard.

Grabbing now!

[Tokageroh]

You've been featured by KottabosGames on youtube. Congrats.

I do have a suggestion to this mod, and thats its lack of functionality with stored power from the near future electrical mod that has a resource under the same name. The game even shows them as the same resource. But your engines will only consume the ones that they store within themselves.

[JadeOfMaar]

3 hours ago, Tokageroh said:

I do have a suggestion to this mod, and thats its lack of functionality with stored power from the near future electrical mod that has a resource under the same name. The game even shows them as the same resource. But your engines will only consume the ones that they store within themselves.

That's how it works in Near Future Electrical, and was partially inspired by it. StoredCharge is the reserve power in a capacitor and is non-transferable, and I want the Burst Mode of the engines to have a fixed maximum runtime to not be overly OP and take away from the rest of the mod.

There's a part upgrade now that raises the charge rate (and thrust) but you'll have to turn on upgrades in sandbox or unlock it in RnD in career/science mode.

Edited December 27, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[Kerbinstein]

Many thanks for the mod! Actually I saw it on Kottabos' channel and it looks awesome

By the way, a question: Is it on CKAN yet? I manage/get all my mods from there and it would be nice if you could add it there as well (also more users will see it).

Thanks!

[Fireheart318]

Can you please give the Spitfire (and other cockpits) placeholder IVAs and hatches? Just something from the stock game would work. Maybe the IVA from the Mk1 Cockpit for the Spitfire and the Mk1 Command Pod, Mk1 Lander Can, or Mk2 Lander can for the Voyager Inline Cockpit. It's difficult to know if I have a kerbal in the ship and makes it hard to transfer crew. Also, in the one day I've had the mod, the Spitfire cockpit has become my favorite part in KSP. Stock or otherwise. Finally, little baby planes are possible!

I meant for this to be just one or two sentences long but clearly that goal's gone out the window. I love how the beginning of each part starts with 'DS'. It groups them all together and makes it easy to search for them. Also, radial cockpits and batteries are awesome. I'd like the Voyager Inline Cockpit to be radially attachable as well and a 0.625m Ram Air Turbine and 2.5, 1.25, and 0.625m variants of the Ascendant and Razor VTOL engines would be great as well.

It doesn't quite fit with the mod, but maybe tiny landing gear and landing legs for the Spitfire?

Edited December 27, 2017 by Fireheart318

[JadeOfMaar]

19 hours ago, Kerbinstein said:

Many thanks for the mod! Actually I saw it on Kottabos' channel and it looks awesome

By the way, a question: Is it on CKAN yet? I manage/get all my mods from there and it would be nice if you could add it there as well (also more users will see it).

Thanks!

I'm glad you're happy. But no, it's not on CKAN. I'll see about it with the next release.

8 hours ago, Fireheart318 said:

Can you please give the Spitfire (and other cockpits) placeholder IVAs and hatches? Just something from the stock game would work. Maybe the IVA from the Mk1 Cockpit for the Spitfire and the Mk1 Command Pod, Mk1 Lander Can, or Mk2 Lander can for the Voyager Inline Cockpit. It's difficult to know if I have a kerbal in the ship and makes it hard to transfer crew. Also, in the one day I've had the mod, the Spitfire cockpit has become my favorite part in KSP. Stock or otherwise. Finally, little baby planes are possible!

I meant for this to be just one or two sentences long but clearly that goal's gone out the window. I love how the beginning of each part starts with 'DS'. It groups them all together and makes it easy to search for them. Also, radial cockpits and batteries are awesome. I'd like the Voyager Inline Cockpit to be radially attachable as well and a 0.625m Ram Air Turbine and 2.5, 1.25, and 0.625m variants of the Ascendant and Razor VTOL engines would be great as well.

It doesn't quite fit with the mod, but maybe tiny landing gear and landing legs for the Spitfire?

I'm glad you're satisfied.  

Thanks for pointing out the IVA issue. The cockpits have IVAs but their glasses aren't transparent and HUD elements are few so the IVAs themselves are worthless except for seeing that someone is in there and the Mk2 has a few RPM windows (so I recommend HullCam VDS along with RPM). Turns out the Spitfire Cockpit has a hatch (against my fears, but only that one, not the Mk2).

I've made the 0.625m Ram Air Turbine, 1.25m Ascendant engine and 2.5m Razor but there won't be any more sizes of anything and the small Ascendant engine will be weak. WarpJet engines need to have a cavity of sufficient length in order to be powerful, and I'm relying on Tweakscale to fill any gaps in.

I cannot include any wheels, sorry. You'll have to install Kerbal Foundries (which is all about wheels/gear and a wheel plugin) or Airplane Plus (No-Derivs license but covers FS plane part needs in great style) for more options for wheels.

Edited December 28, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[Fireheart318]

10 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Thanks for pointing out the IVA issue. The cockpits have IVAs but their glasses aren't transparent and HUD elements are few so the IVAs themselves are worthless except for seeing that someone is in there and the Mk2 has a few RPM windows (so I recommend HullCam VDS along with RPM). Turns out the Spitfire Cockpit has a hatch (against my fears, but only that one, not the Mk2).

Could they be improved in the future?

Edited December 28, 2017 by Fireheart318
Cut down the example bit

[JadeOfMaar]

4 hours ago, Fireheart318 said:

Could they be improved in the future?

Yes, it's very possible. I plan to do so.

[JadeOfMaar]

I revised the Burst Mode system and took some test flights on Eve. It now handles a "BurstPower" resource with permissive resource flow unlike StoredCharge, and includes discreet supercharger parts (using the radial parachute model) so BurstPower flow can stack and Burst Mode itself can run as long as desired. Now, I realize I only accounted for Eve's atmosphere pressure but not its gravity, making the Japiers and the Ascendant engine much weaker than I expected at Eve sea level.

Spoiler

I've also made some test crafts featuring the requested parts: 2.5m Razor, 1.25m Ascendant, and 0.625m RAT, and additional parts: a Mk2 reactor. Those turned out pretty well.

Spoiler