KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[BlackMoons]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I don't understand, the default conversion from EC to MJ is already 1:1000

then why is it when I have some 500EC solar panels in orbit, they show 0.002MJ beam power?

And when I receive power, even 1MJ seems to refill 50,000EC of battery before I can blink.

MFC Spherical tokamak also starts as 5m but can't be scaled down below 7.5m at the start.

<edit> Solar panels where from near future power. Apparently 40EC from Giantor XL*2 solar arrays turns into 1.6KW transmitted.

 

Edited July 14, 2017 by BlackMoons

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, BlackMoons said:

Am I producing or consuming lithium in this screenshot?

Seems to be producing but hard to convert.

Also it seems power output depends directly on lithium storage, even in "Cold Deuterium-Deuterium" mode. Interesting that it breeds its own lithium (from deuterium?) and requires it as a product, but shouldn't it not be affected by it in "Cold Deuterium-Deuterium" mode?

 

 

What happens here is that it uses the Deuterium in LiD6 for fusion and the Lithium is used to convert Neutrons into Heat. The waste products are Helium, radioactive Tritium and excess Lithium6. Also because you run the D-D fusion cold, the Helium3 produced will not reactor with Deuterium effectively creating a surplus amount of Helium-3, which can be very useful

Edited July 14, 2017 by FreeThinker

[BlackMoons]

So if I run it off Deuterium it will consume lithium separately instead of produce it?

[Loren Pechtel]

54 minutes ago, BlackMoons said:

Also, whats the difference between Deuterium and Lithiumdeuteride? the reactors seem to run on either the same and consider both "Deuterium reserves"?

Deuterium is heavy hydrogen.  A gas unless you keep it very, very cold.

Lithium Deuteride is a molecule made up of Lithium + Deuterium.  It's a solid at room temperature.

The latter is vastly easier to store which is very valuable in a spacecraft, even though you're giving up 2/3 of the mass.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Loren Pechtel

[FreeThinker]

20 minutes ago, BlackMoons said:

So if I run it off Deuterium it will consume lithium separately instead of produce it?

A fusion reactor that produces a lot of neutrons, requires lithium to convert the neutrons into heat (which can be used to power the generators).  So yes, then it will consume lithium. Note that the power output is directly related to the amount of lithium available in the reactor. If you start to run out of lithium, the reactor starts to produce less heat.

Edited July 14, 2017 by FreeThinker

[BlackMoons]

Ahh I get why I thought EC conversion was messed up, apparently some dishes come with up to 400MJ charge right from the start, and only turn that MJ into EC when you first turn them on.

Oddly enough, Even though it says im getting 1.58KW transmitted at the solar sender, my receiver says 0.037MJ and I get about 37EC/second.

So I think the 'Wall to Beam power' and 'Direct solar power' are reading incorrectly.

5 minutes ago, Loren Pechtel said:

Deuterium is heavy hydrogen.  A gas unless you keep it very, very cold.

Lithium Deuteride is a molecule made up of Lithium + Deuterium.  It's a solid at room temperature.

The latter is vastly easier to store which is very valuable in a spacecraft, even though you're giving up 2/3 of the mass.

Ahhh ok awesome! Now I need to find what IRSU lets me make it

Found the tanks that let me store gasious and liquid deuterium. Good stuff! I love all these storage/fuel options! I can fuel this with gas, liquid, or solid, Yes!

5 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

A fusion reactor that produces larges amount of neutron, reqeures lithium to convert the neutron in to heat.  So yes, then it will consume lithium. Note that the power output is directly related to the amount of lithium available in the reactor. If you start to run out of lithium, the reactor start to produce less heat.

OK yes this mod is 100x cooler then Near Futures electric's reactors. I am loving the implications the tech tree brings.

[BlackMoons]

Tested with 2x630EC/second panels. Sender dish says 1.67KW Wall to beam power, sometimes flickering to 16~22kw for one frame. Wall to beam power clearly messed for solar.

Receiver got power power (nearly 1000EC/second) and reports nearly 1MW power. So that is all good, its just the transmission side thats messed.

(PS, these tests done in a clean 1.3 install with just KSPI installed)

Edited July 14, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

What is the point of Magnetohydrodynamic Electric Generator?

Testing with MFC Spherical Tokamak Reactor (10GW total power, 8GW thermal 2GW charged particle)
2.447GW heat per rad (2) and 4.543GW to beam with Magnetohydrodynamic Electric Generator

2.488GW of heat per rad (2) and 4.461GW to beam with Thermal Electric Generator.

(About 600MW went to running the fusion reactor)

(Fully upgraded thermal electric generator, though no upgrades for magnetohydrodynamic yet)

Did a test in sandbox mode with fully upgraded tech incase it got better later:

2.518GW heat and 4.966GW beam power (Most of that due to less fusion maintenance energy required)

Are thermal generators currently using 'Charged particle' power?

thermal generators seem to let the reactor die however when you switch to a charged particle only fusion mode.

Magnetohydrodynamic Electric Generator would cause the reactor to oscillate at 60% output on 'nearly pure charged particle' output modes.

Charged particle generator on one end, and thermal on the other, lets me get 5.547GW out of the same 10GW generator (5.611GW with Magnetohydrodynamic), with up to 6.9GW (7.0 with Magnetohydrodynamic) transmitted in 'mainly charged particle' modes, ie Deuterium-lithium6 (Where the Magnetohydrodynamic alone would output like 2GW due to its osillation and inefficiency) (0.9GW per rad (2) heat output with that setup btw!)

So overall the Magnetohydrodynamic seems only like, 1~2% better unless your counting on the fact it does not let fusion reactors stall as you switch to charged particle only fusion modes?

[BlackMoons]

Is the Magneto Inertial Fusion Engine supposed to only be good for 17.0KN in a 2.5M (stock) form factor? Seems a little low for 800KW+ of power. (Also, once you change fusion modes in it, you can't change back)

(No upgrades for it yet, but the parts listing says 40KN so im wondering what Im doing wrong. Also can't connect a thermal generator to it, it just says no reactor)

 

Does it ignore most thermal output and only used charged particles directly? Do I need better fusion modes for the full 40KN?

Edited July 14, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Can't seem to get 'Ocean extraction' to work. (tested in 1.3 with just KSPi installed)

Got it to work once but now it seems to refuse to let me engage it no matter where I land around KSC.

None of the IRSU refinerys want to let me engage ocean extraction.

I would really rather extract heavy water via IRSU converters and convert that to deuterium then use the science lab (requires kerbals)

PS The regular orange drills seem to be able to pick up 'Intakelqd' but not 'water'

Can't figure out what to do with intake liquid.

<edit> lol, apparently water is a 'resource' that is only in certain areas, including not always in.. the ocean. in fact rarely in the ocean if you check scansat.

But even when I land somewhere that has 'water' you can drill, I still can't do Ocean Extraction.

 

Basically, for effective deuterium mining, I feel I need the following components:

Something to turn water into heavy water.

Something to filter Intake Liquid into water.

And/or Ocean extraction at least working effectively. Or some clue as to why I can't get it to enable.

Edited July 14, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Reprocessing nuclear fuel from a molten salt reactor gives no results, just removes actinides buildup. Bug? Wiki says it should give you back 80% fuel + some sort of depleted product?

Also can't reprocess fuel from containers. (So not sure why the default storage type for the radioactive container is actinides if you can't move them and can't do anything with them)

[Sweetie bot]

On 2017/6/18 at 6:13 AM, FreeThinker said:

Notice you can actually create a very efficient SSTW (Single stage to warp) with using Kerbstein, Antimatter Reactor and Turbojet

First we assent to 30 km using only atmosphere

At 30 kilometer we switch to hydrazine

At 40 kilometer we disable the engine running on hydrazine and activate  only the Kerbein

Fight gravity and slowly get into orbit

 

Once in orbit, charge the Warpdrive and fly away

This vessel can reach 60c, still 90% fueled

It possible to create a SSTW with only base on fusion even a fission?

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, Sweetie bot said:

It possible to create a SSTW with only base on fusion even a fission?

Sure but it would be significantly harder.

[Arivald Ha'gel]

It seems that "ISRU Processor Large" have incorrect "Refinery Type". It should have a "Refinery Type" of 13 (1 ISRU Processor + 4 ISRU Electrolyzer + 8 ISRU Converter). That would be due to it's description: "A refinery capable of mining resources, performing electrolysis and reprocessing nuclear fuels", and due to it's weight: 6t (which is smaller than that of "small" processor 3t + electrolyzer 2t + converter 3t). Unless Large ISRU should be of totally different type...

Anyone?

[BlackMoons]

KSPI Cryogenic Tank can't store water, It can store 'liquid water' but that does not seem to get properly converted to/from water for things like TAC life support or other things that produce/consume water.

Also, it would be nice if they could store 'IntakeLqd' (iv found a few 1000 storage of it required to harvest it at high timewarp without things shutting down on you)

[BlackMoons]

Could you add a fuel switch option on the lithium tanks to store lithium 6 or lithium 7?

Right now there is only 1 tank in the entire game that will store lithium-6 (those radial mounted cylinders)

Edited July 15, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Found that "interstellar Liquid FuelTank (of various sizes)" can store water. that is good.

Sadly, while it can store Deuterium + HE3, it can't store just deuterium? Could you add that?

The nose tanks support just Deuterium.

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, BlackMoons said:

Found that "interstellar Liquid FuelTank (of various sizes)" can store water. that is good.

Sadly, while it can store Deuterium + HE3, it can't store just deuterium? Could you add that?

The nose tanks support just Deuterium.

There are cryogenic tanks which contain a switchable single resource with label, it includes deuterium

[BlackMoons]

Yea, it just seems weird that a tank that can have Deuterium + HE3 can't have just Deuterium.

[BlackMoons]

How does one scan for florite? I can drill for it, but there is no listing for it in scansat or the stock instrument:

 

PS: Shielded Diode Laser Beam Transmitter also becomes negative mass when scaled up. And Diode Infrared Beamed Power laser.

Edited July 15, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Please add a reason to use larger nozzles.

Right now, the smallest thermal launch nozzle can support inf power, requires less min power to produce thrust, weighs less, costs less.

Right now the only reason to use bigger ones then 0.6m is it looks funny.

It also appears the "Inline Thermal Receiver Mk1" (Black tube) is not limited by its 'maximum thermal power', although that is somewhat less of an issue due to beam size making bigger receivers worthwhile, it still is an issue  because heat not used for thrust turns into waste heat and will quickly overheat ships not designed to handle it when in high power networks.

Thermal receivers should likely have a max energy cap, and the reception control should be based on that max so we can turn down max thermal reception to match thermal dissipation of a craft, instead of how it currently sets reception based on a percent of max available power(?)

It would be super amazing if nozzles and electric generators could auto throttle reception of attached thermal receivers to prevent massive waste heat production but I guess that is asking for too much. (Im thinking it would behave much like attaching a nozzle onto a nuclear power plant)

Edited July 16, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Graphene Medium deployable rad performs worse in orbit then regular rads when you don't have any upgrades, by a factor of nearly 4

I can understand it working worse in atmospheres because it would burn up due to oxygen/whatever at temps above 1200k, but shouldn't they be an upgrade for in space, even before you get tech upgrades for them? This one is clearly much worse.

 

also, there is only 2 graphene tech upgrades, yet the parts all list up to MK5. Oddly enough the max temp and dissipation seems to correspond to MK3.

Also, there is no upgrade techs for stock rads, yet they start at mk3 as well and list 3 upgrade levels as well.

Edited July 16, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Fuel tank dry/wet mass is all over the place. Stock Xenon mass is 1:3

for KSPI Cryo tanks, its 1:40.8 (When set to xenon)

For Universal Pressurized Gas tank, its 1:20

for IFS Universal Pressurized Gas tank, its 1:8

For Intersteller Radial Gas tank, its 1:8

For Intersteller Liquid Fuel tanks, its 1:8.5~9 for almost everything, except:

Hydrogen 1:5.3 (Acceptable)

LFO: 1:4.2 (Why way below stock 1:8?)

Liquid Fuel: Also 1:4.2 (And no oxidiser only option?)

For the 'xenon' gas option given to stock fuel tanks, its 1:1.3

For the hydrolox option, its also 1:8 (Seems too high for something that requires liquid hydrogen?)

If I rebalance some of these fuel tanks, Would you accept the changes into intersteller for the next version?

Edited July 16, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Just had my thermal launch nozzle die on me. Was working fine, switched to liquid fuel, was still working fine.. then thrust just went to 0.1KN

Note that Requested heat is only 0.4MJ yet available input power is 2000MJ? (PS: I still don't have any of the upgrades for Ramjet performance). Nozzle scale was 2.5m and so was the thermal receiver.

Edited July 16, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Happened again. Split 1st stage off from 2nd stage, go to map view to switch back to 2nd stage, engine dead.

http://i.imgur.com/tfQ3I9B.jpg

Oddity is, this time when I throttle up, the thrust starts increasing a little to like 10kn for 1/2 a second, then jumps to 0 and ISP starts skyrocketing. And im not producing any waste heat this time. More power available then last time but not even the 0.1KN thrust.

Also, switching away from that vehicle and then back to it again, and the engine works once more like normal and produces a couple 100KN.

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by BlackMoons