KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[BlackMoons]

11 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Currently not, but Its actually a really simple reaction, just make hydrogen react with lithium. I will add it to the ISRU producer part

Can we have LithiumDituride manufacture as well?

PS: Test Atmosphere on the IRSU Processor does nothing on kerbin.

Edited July 21, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

How is a Magnetohydrodynamic generator any better then a stock thermal generator? It seems bigger, heavyer, more costly, yet same efficiency, hot bath temp, etc? It says its a direct conversion generator in its description but It doesn't seem to actually want to convert charged particles.

[Abstract_Kerman]

On 7/20/2017 at 7:33 AM, FreeThinker said:

If it's locking throttle, disable them and you should be able to use your throttle again

How do I use the kerbstein drive

[BlackMoons]

1 hour ago, Abstract_Kerman said:

How do I use the kerbstein drive

Description of engine gives hints:

"While this engine utilizes anuetronic fusion it does still produce a large amount of gamma rays, so beware when thrusting near other ships and unprotected kerbals. Also note that in order to achieve inertial fusion, it can only operate in vacuum of space."

Edited July 22, 2017 by BlackMoons

[Saurenath]

Thanks for the suggestion, however the IXS magnetic fusion reactor supposedly has an integrated direct energy conversion reactor to deal with the charged particles and the thermal reactor i attached directly to the backend of the is giving me 12 mw of power. its rated for 23 gw. I have 100 graphene radiator skin wrapper x2, 8 medium extendable active graphene radiators, 8 large extendable graphene radiators, 10 small extendable graphene radiators, and an inline convection radiator. there is a 3.75M FISSION reactor, two 2.75M fission reactors directly attached to the IXS as well. Based on my calculations, I should be well under the heat curve to have an efficient fusion reaction, the integrated charged particle generator should be providing full power when using He3 and the thermal reactor plus integrated direct energy should be giving me 85ish percent power with deuterium-tritium reaction.

 

What am I doing wrong here?

 

I have screenshots indicating the max power rating at 12.8 mw for the IXS MAGNETIC FUSION REACTOR from the 'reactor system interface' and again the reactor is rated for 23gw of thermal power. The attached thermal generator is only providing 627.298KW, with a max power rating of 58.5MW on the thermal generator. The actual IXS fusion reactor is providing 214.536 KW. I can get more power from solar...again, I am curious how I can get the rated power of these generators or if my game is completely broken.

I cant attach the screenshots as I dont have a webpage or a URL but seriously, how is this thing rated for 23 GIGAWATTS if the maximum power i can get out of it is .1627 GW with a thermal reactor, an integrated direct energy conversion reactor, and three fission reactors attached to prime the pump?

 

SO: i figured out what the issue was: I had a conflict with near future electrical. I deleted a couple patch files and am now starting to get decent power from the reactor. I found the fix here:

 

Thanks again for the help.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Saurenath
Figured it out

[ArmchairPhysicist]

I feel kind of stupid asking this, but I need help.  

I need some help understanding why the ATILA thruster is useful. I recently unlocked it in my career game, put a test probe in space with about 35k units of xenon. When I fired the engine I got about 10 seconds of burn and those 35k units of xenon vanished.  I only got 1-1.5k dv out of it. 

My ion ships can get exponentially better range off of that much gas, so I'm wondering if I'm using the thruster incorrectly. 

Many help is appreciated 

 

Edit. Same question with the pure plasma and vasimr engines, I get better performance with the stock ions, so I must be doing it wrong

Edited July 22, 2017 by ArmchairPhysicist

[FreeThinker]

3 hours ago, BlackMoons said:

How is a Magnetohydrodynamic generator any better then a stock thermal generator? It seems bigger, heavyer, more costly, yet same efficiency, hot bath temp, etc? It says its a direct conversion generator in its description but It doesn't seem to actually want to convert charged particles.

It main intended use is with very high temperature reactor, or as an intermediate before direct conversion generator are not invented yet.Currently it only benefits the the OPen Cycle Nuclear Gas Core Reactor where you can use the temperature of  the reactor as the hoth bath temperature, which will translate into very high efficiency even with radiators near maximum temperature

[BlackMoons]

3 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

It main intended use is with very high temperature reactor, or as an intermediate before direct conversion generator are not invented yet.Currently it only benefits the the OPen Cycle Nuclear Gas Core Reactor where you can use the temperature of  the reactor as the hoth bath temperature, which will translate into very high efficiency even with radiators near maximum temperature

Ahhh. how come it does not benefit any of the other reactors with high core temps? I did notice by accident connecting it to a thermal receiver it had a 4400k hot bath temp.

I can totally dig a higher hot bath temp thermal generator! I would really love if it worked at say 4000k+ for any nuclear reactor that gets that hot.

Edited July 22, 2017 by BlackMoons

[FreeThinker]

14 minutes ago, BlackMoons said:

Ahhh. how come it does not benefit any of the other reactors with high core temps? I did notice by accident connecting it to a thermal receiver it had a 4400k hot bath temp.

It's a bit in a development limbo and never got around to fully implement it, good thing you remind me, I will add it to some reactors where it should work with, like the Nuclear Gas Core Fission Fragment reactor where the plasma can react very high temperatures

Edited July 22, 2017 by FreeThinker

[BlackMoons]

10 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

It's a bit in a development limbo and never got around to fully implement it, good thing you remind me, I will add it to some reactors where it should work with, like the Nuclear Gas Core Fission Fragment reactor where the plasma can react very high temperatures

Add a note to the description of something too while your at it if it only works with some reactors. Would be nice if it worked with the 16000k fission engines too. (MFC spherical, Stellarator).

Right now I haven't even researched the open gas core because of its gravity limitation. Didn't look like an attractive engine for power generation or thrust. usable with the MHD could however change that.

[FreeThinker]

24 minutes ago, BlackMoons said:

Add a note to the description of something too while your at it if it only works with some reactors. Would be nice if it worked with the 16000k fission engines too. (MFC spherical, Stellarator).

Right now I haven't even researched the open gas core because of its gravity limitation. Didn't look like an attractive engine for power generation or thrust. usable with the MHD could however change that.

For the MCF and Stellerator I'm not sure but I'm considering to allow it for the Magnetised Target Fusion to benefit form the MHD because there is a idea for a Plasma Jet Magneto Inertial propulsion that it would allow the MTF  to create  plasma up to 180000 K

Simply adding the following to the reactor of the Magnetised Target Fusion should do the trick:

coreTemperatureMk1 = 3300
coreTemperatureMk2 = 40000
coreTemperatureMk3 = 180000
supportMHD = true

This would potential make this reactor a lot more useful both for power production as for plasma propulsion after  Advanced and Exotic Fusion are unlocked

Edited July 22, 2017 by FreeThinker

[BlackMoons]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes I'm considering to sallow it for the Magnetised Target Fusion which there is some speculative design that it would allow plasma up to 180000 K

Simply adding the following should do the trick:

coreTemperatureMk1 = 3300
coreTemperatureMk2 = 40000
coreTemperatureMk3 = 180000
supportMHD = true

This would potential make this reactor a lot more useful both for power production as for plasma propulsion

I actually like having some cooler cores, because you can't get high thrust with a really hot core right now. (What I wouldn't do for a core temp slider! Or a max temp slider on the nozzles?)

And by high thrust I mean like 0.5TWR after you add on all your other stuff.

Once you get to 800ISP or so, getting around kerbin is realllyy easy and I would rather have more thrust.

The Timberwind for example while lower ISP, just rules the Light Bulb engine for thrust because of its much lower core temp. (Timberwind IIRC like 1000KN on liquid fuel, even though its VAB specs say 310KN. >1TWR on kerbin from my tests, even though its VAB specs say it can't be used in atmo)

 

[ArmchairPhysicist]

TBH I've never used the timberwind. It's too big with too little isp.

Maybe I would use it if I was dead set on a big middle stage atomic rocket, but in these cases I just mount a bunch of nukes radially. 

[BlackMoons]

I notice you get new fission types, I checked the datafiles and only found 'TechLevel = X' in your ReactorFuels.cfg

what are the tech levels that unlock new fission fuel types?

5 minutes ago, ArmchairPhysicist said:

TBH I've never used the timberwind. It's too big with too little isp.

Maybe I would use it if I was dead set on a big middle stage atomic rocket, but in these cases I just mount a bunch of nukes radially. 

IMO its pretty good, especially after you upgrade it. Think mainsail good. Downside im finding is only a couple 100 days worth of power if you want to use its reactor to keep your LH2 cool! Bring another reactor or only use its power generation for low power stuff...

[FreeThinker]

14 minutes ago, BlackMoons said:

I actually like having some cooler cores, because you can't get high thrust with a really hot core right now. (What I wouldn't do for a core temp slider! Or a max temp slider on the nozzles?)

I'm considering something like this on the thermal/plasma engines, which technically already does it to some degree when the Isp get's higher than 3000s, there is no real reason why this could be lower except it might put too much strain on the engine

6 minutes ago, BlackMoons said:

what are the tech levels that unlock new fission fuel types?

Those are linked to the actual upgrade techs of a reactor, which mean if a reactor can upgrade to tech level 3, it can use the fusion modes with tech-level 3 requirement

Edited July 22, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Abstract_Kerman]

2 hours ago, BlackMoons said:

Description of engine gives hints:

"While this engine utilizes anuetronic fusion it does still produce a large amount of gamma rays, so beware when thrusting near other ships and unprotected kerbals. Also note that in order to achieve inertial fusion, it can only operate in vacuum of space."

I disabled the radiation safety had a giant radiator array turned on infinite propellant and electricity. But when I activated the engine it locked my throttle. And what hold tritium hybrid. And I was in an 86 km orbit around kerbin.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Abstract_Kerman

[ArmchairPhysicist]

How exactly is your kerbstine not working? 

[BlackMoons]

The Cargo Container is the only thing that holds LithiumHydride. (the white cylinder with grey bands on top/bottom, Specialized Fuel Storage Tech)

[BlackMoons]

Does anything use ColliderHeliumDeuterium fuel type yet?

Seems like such a nice way to get rid of excess helium.. Though I guess it makes decent reaction mass too.

Edited July 23, 2017 by BlackMoons

[Saurenath]

Upon further testing i cannot get microwave power to work, as it has become clear my 23gw reactor cannot power the 15gw engine if on the same craft, as 4gw is the maximum power i can realize from the IXS Magnetic Containment Fusion Reactor. In all honesty, is it possible to use the Kerbstein and Albuirrie engines without alt f12? I cannot get the power on a single craft and I cant get more than 10 GW of microwave transmission. Whats the secret, please help me.

[BlackMoons]

"IRSU Converter" Haber Process function does not use/recongize liquid nitrogen or liquid hydrogen from intersteller fuel tanks and won't fill liquid ammonia tanks either. They will from cryotanks but only when the liquid/gas slider is not set to '0'

Using the refrigeration IRSU can convert, But you still need a hydrogen, nitrogen and ammonia gas tank somewhere or the Haber process won't be usable with just liquid tanks.

Also this:

It used all my ammonia (spelling error on menu?) and UF4 in the blink of an eye and produced 10,000 units (max of my storage) of UN from 400 units of UF4, since it didn't stop making UN even when I ran outta everything else.

Seems a little broken.

Edited July 23, 2017 by BlackMoons

[BlackMoons]

Saurenath: From what I can tell, right off the bat you have to use the proper charged particle fusion modes, and most of these seem to only output 50% as much power as regular, except maybe the HE3 modes? I havent profiled everything quite yet.

Then unless you upgrade it, the charged particle gen is still only 70% efficent

so your 23GW reactor outputs 11GW in charged particle mode, and that results in 7.7GW power, and another GW or two is being eaten maintaining the fusion mode...

Awnser: Scale the reactor up another notch. Make it a 100GW reactor and you'll get enough power out. Though then even more power is being used to maintain the fusion reaction and expect the idle heat generation to be fierce untill you get that 90% charged generator efficiency. And even then.

PS: Thermal generators just overheat in space for mass power production, they work wonders on planets with atmospheres and convection rads, but other then to power cryostats, life support, comms, drills, refinerys, etc, your not going to find they make enough.

I have nuclear generators on KSC beaming power through the atmosphere, works really well with IR near spectrum. Microwave falls off so quick.

Edited July 23, 2017 by BlackMoons

[Saurenath]

Thanks Blackmoons. Seems like i have the thing on the right mode as im getting exactly 50%. I suppose i gotta figure out near spectrum vs nuclear as i cant just strap a kerbstein to a big fn reactor and make it go. Thanks again for the help, this fusion crap is frustrating as hell especially after putting in 600 plus hours for the science to test it out.

Pretty close to wiping the kspi install and giving up on the mod to be honest, all its added for me is frustration at this point as fusion (the only part of the mod i wanted) is confusing beyond all else.

I had a ship on the mun on a ps4 in 20 hours, ive put 100 into figuring out fusion and all i get is mediocre power and nonfunctional beams. Seems more like a broken game than anything at this point.

 

[Saurenath]

CAREFUL WITH MICROWAVE POWER, CHECK OUT BLACKMOONS EXPLANATIONS, SPOT ON.

Edited July 23, 2017 by Saurenath
I AM A DONKEY

[Vanamonde]

21 minutes ago, Saurenath said:

[snip]

Seems to be working for other people. How about providing some detailed info to help debugging?