KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[Ciro1983811]

22 hours ago, Eleusis La Arwall said:

At the beginning they should just hold 2 liquids (a fuel and an oxidizer), hence the name Cryogenic DUAL Tank. All other tanks are simply not designed to hold 2 liquids at the same time. Later on I realized that 2 liquids are mostly used by launcher-stages and the tanks would have to look kinda aerodynamic, what lead to the current design.

After a bit of playing around, I have to admit that it bothers me not to have the option to switch the CDT to Methane only (I mostly fly with MethaLOx launcher and Methane upper stage(s)). Problem is if we now put a setup for each liquid on the CDT, the CT has no real purpose anymore. Also I don't wanna have 30 setups on these tanks to browse through every time.

I suggest we add the common fuels as setup to the CDT.

• LFO
• MethaLOx
• HydroLOx
• HydroOxi
• LiquidFuel
• Methane
• Hydrogen

If requested we could also add

• Kerosene
• Ammonia
• Hydrazine
• "Exotic" fuels (CO, B2H6,...)

The oxidizers, noble gases and fusion-fuel shall remain exclusive to the CT.

Discussion/feedback/suggestions are welcome!

 

Also hydrogen peroxide (htp) is missing from all CT but the radial spherical one.

I use to produce it from hydrogen and oxygen with antraquinone process, than I made ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, and finally hydrazine with htp and ammonia ... secondary product is water, that I electrolyze to give me more hydrogen and oxygen for htp production.... high thrust fuel from just common  gases!

Edited September 1, 2017 by Ciro1983811

[Eleusis La Arwall]

5 hours ago, Hacki said:

Oh sure, its not really an issue. You just look at it and instinctively go "what.. ?" 

Perhaps a few words on it in the part description... Not the first time kerbal engineers have invented physics-bending hardware. 

I'm glad you brought this up and we can talk about it because I'm not 100% sure that this is all correct. I'm always open for better solutions.

... and it won't be the last time!

4 hours ago, Ciro1983811 said:

Also hydrogen peroxide (htp) is missing from all CT but the radial spherical one.

I use to produce it from hydrogen and oxygen with antraquinone process, than I made ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, and finally hydrazine with htp and ammonia ... secondary product is weather, that I electrolyze to give me more hydrogen and oxygen for htp production.... high thrust fuel from just gases!

Will be added.

[Nansuchao]

@FreeThinker what about a (semifictional) Super Condenser? In the end game, it would allow to store some more fuel in a tank by making it more pressurized or denser. I ask this cause, if you use the stock solar system and so the stock rockets dimensions, the better propellant, LqdHydrogen, is mostly pointless. I mean that I have to build massive ships just to fit a couple of km/s of DeltaV in a probe.

[tomf]

The resistojet RCS parts onlt seem to work of gases, rather than the liquified gases that everything else uses. Is that deliberate? I can't find any parts that will store the hydrogen gas they require.

[Khalkion]

9 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

@FreeThinker what about a (semifictional) Super Condenser? In the end game, it would allow to store some more fuel in a tank by making it more pressurized or denser. I ask this cause, if you use the stock solar system and so the stock rockets dimensions, the better propellant, LqdHydrogen, is mostly pointless. I mean that I have to build massive ships just to fit a couple of km/s of DeltaV in a probe.

Hydrogen tanks are very light and have good wet to dry mass ratio. And even if we do not take into account the reality there are goood balance reasons to preserve hydrogen volumes. Hydrogen has the best isp, if you make it more dense, you will eventually make all other propellants pointless. But right now hydrogen has its own niche, since it provides the best isp, while forcing you to be more creative in designs (and using those cool big radial spherical tanks). You can always use more dense fuels and have more delta-v in the same volume, but then you will face mass issues. So it's balanced around mass, volume, isp and thrust(and may be something else I'm missing). You can't get all at once.

By the way, KSPI provides so much trust and ISP in different ways, that launching even full interplanetary missions in one launch on hydrogen is way easier than stock liquid fuel ships. Right now in my carreer game I have 3 pretty simple power satelites at KSO (based on molten salt reactors and very big dishes in long infrared, I'm at the beggining of KSPI techs) wich allows me to send 350t to LKO of almost any shape with just 60k credits (and it consists of only about 10-15 parts and weights less than 900t including payload, so launch pad doesn't explode). And it is just the beggining of KSPI-E. Further in the technology tree we are waiting for even more unimaginable power.

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, tomf said:

The resistojet RCS parts onlt seem to work of gases, rather than the liquified gases that everything else uses. Is that deliberate?

The reason  RCS only works with Gasses or Monopropellants is that it must be able to use it as a rcs propellant when unpowered ( by MegaJoules). Only High pressurized gasses and mono-propellant are suitable for this.

10 hours ago, tomf said:

 I can't find any parts that will store the hydrogen gas they require.

There are several parts that can store a multitude of gasses that can be switched

• IFS Pressurized Gas Tank
• Inflatable Storage Tank
• Hex Segment Tank
• Universal Presurized Gas Tank Wegde

Most of the ISRU patrts also have a small small storage capacity which can be switched

Edited September 2, 2017 by FreeThinker

[ss8913]

On 8/31/2017 at 10:51 AM, FreeThinker said:

they can be attached both in stack and radially

@FreeThinker this problem seems to go deeper.. I can't launch any craft with the RV tanks, and it appears that some of the other tanks like the nosecone tank, etc, also are showing as 'locked'.  I can load the craft in VAB/SPH but I can't launch them... and I don't see any analogous parts to a lot of the missing ones.  I suppose it's good that existing craft launched don't break, but.. I can't even find these other parts that you're referring to, I don't see any of the interstellar fuel tanks anymore *at all* in the fuel tank menu under the KSPIE filter.  My log shows them being loaded successfully, and they do show up on older designs but... do you have a mapping for old part to new analogues so I at least know what to look for?  I've been searching for fuel tanks for like 20 minutes now and I'm very very confused.

[FreeThinker]

18 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

@FreeThinker this problem seems to go deeper.. I can't launch any craft with the RV tanks, and it appears that some of the other tanks like the nosecone tank, etc, also are showing as 'locked'.  I can load the craft in VAB/SPH but I can't launch them... and I don't see any analogous parts to a lot of the missing ones.  I suppose it's good that existing craft launched don't break, but.. I can't even find these other parts that you're referring to, I don't see any of the interstellar fuel tanks anymore *at all* in the fuel tank menu under the KSPIE filter.  My log shows them being loaded successfully, and they do show up on older designs but... do you have a mapping for old part to new analogues so I at least know what to look for?  I've been searching for fuel tanks for like 20 minutes now and I'm very very confused.

Are you using the KSPI filter extension menu?

 

As you can see all tanks are visible

Edited September 2, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Khalkion]

Done some more playing with my beam network. Found two superusefull functions: autoactivation of reciever with throttling up and a way to restrict reciever to only fractions of network power. My current network provides 30 GW of power and my passenger 100t SSTO are destroyed by heat, air and dynamic pressures if running it with full power of the network. So limiting the reception rate is super usefull. However I'm thinking about third function, but I'm not sure whether it would be too cheaty. Something like thermal throttling at 95% of waste heat, or may be even complete shutdown? Most of reactors have throttling down according to requested power. But if I understand correctly thermal recievers don't have such function. And if I forget to disable reciever after throttling down to 0% or just spend too much time at low levels of throttle there will be explosions here and there... Of course I have some radiators onboard, but they are not needed if I running engine at full power, I keep them only for cooling down at orbit between maneuvers because last 10-20 m/s are done with only few % of throttle and so wasteheat are building superfast during these last seconds.

Or may be there is some way of binding something like reception rate of reciever (but not it, since it's very usefull for universal network) directly to throttle level of the engine, so that reciever produces full power at 100%, but throttles down with engine.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Khalkion
another idea

[BlackMoons]

My biggest problem with thermal power is the fact that if you leave a receiver on and accidentally let waste heat build up, there is really no good way to get rid of it in a (real world time) hurry.

due to the way waste heat scales up during timewarp, using timewarp does not seem to increase how fast you get rid of heat in real world time at all, so it takes minutes of just leaving KSP to run on its own to get heat levels down.

Having a receiver reception scale based on desired throttle would be awesome.

[ss8913]

@FreeThinker I believe I've solved my other issues... but... haven't done ISRU in a while, thought I'd try it again... water electrolysis requires "LqdWater" but the atmospheric extractors in both the all-in-one ISRU and the radial scoops, pull in "Water" which it considers to be different, since 'start water electrolysis' says "Missing LqdWater" when I have plenty of "Water.

I do have UKS and CRP installed.. everything is up to date including KSPIE and everything else.

This used to work the last time I tried it.. not sure what changed or when... and I can't find a way to convert Water to LqdWater, or any way to extract lqdwater from the air or ground...?

[FreeThinker]

26 minutes ago, ss8913 said:

@FreeThinker I believe I've solved my other issues... but... haven't done ISRU in a while, thought I'd try it again... water electrolysis requires "LqdWater" but the atmospheric extractors in both the all-in-one ISRU and the radial scoops, pull in "Water" which it considers to be different, since 'start water electrolysis' says "Missing LqdWater" when I have plenty of "Water.

I do have UKS and CRP installed.. everything is up to date including KSPIE and everything else.

This used to work the last time I tried it.. not sure what changed or when... and I can't find a way to convert Water to LqdWater, or any way to extract lqdwater from the air or ground...?

The IFS Cryogenic tank has a Water to LqdWater converter, I will add it to all tanks that can contain water

[ss8913]

1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

The IFS Cryogenic tank has a Water to LqdWater converter, I will add it to all tanks that can contain water

OK, thanks

however, why does water (or hydrazine for that m atter) need to be stored cryogenically?  isn't that just wasting power to supercool things that aare already liquids at room temp?  Or am I on the wrong track science-wise here?

[FreeThinker]

15 hours ago, ss8913 said:

OK, thanks

however, why does water (or hydrazine for that m atter) need to be stored cryogenically?  isn't that just wasting power to supercool things that aare already liquids at room temp?  Or am I on the wrong track science-wise here?

Well space is bigger than Kerbins/Earth orbit you know, some places are a lot hotter or colder. What do you think what happans to water in orbit of Eve/Venus? Is boils away!! I treat all liqiod the same, the have a boiling point as which point it start to disapear or you need to actively prevent from doing it. In Kerbin/Earth Orbit you don't have to spend any power, it only start to require power if the liquid needs to be cooled to prevent it from boiling away.

Edited September 4, 2017 by FreeThinker

[raxo2222]

30 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well space is bigger than Kerbins/Earth orbit you know, some places are a lot hotter or colder. What do you think what happans to water in orbit of Eve/Venus? Is boils away!! I treat all liqiod the same, the have a boiling point as which point it start to disapear or you need to actively prevent fromdoing it. Inn Kerbin/Earth Orbit you don't have to spend any power, it only start to reqire power if the liquid needs to be cooled to prevent it from boiling away.

What about Hydrazine/liquid fuel/oxidizer/kerozene then?

They will start boiling too for example when being only at 0.1 AU from sun or being deeply in Venus/giant gas atmosphere.

Hydrazine boils at 114 celsius, so you could set boiling temps at 100 - 200 for these resources I mentioned above.

Edited September 3, 2017 by raxo2222

[Catbus]

I'm trying to use the Tory on an interplanetary craft for the first time, and I'm totally stumped. It says it's rated for vacuum (300 kN thrust), but I can't figure out how to get it to function out of atmosphere, even though the KSPI intro says I'm supposed to be able to use it in vacuum "by changing propellant." Is there some propellant I should be using with it other than enriched uranium?

[ss8913]

39 minutes ago, Catbus said:

I'm trying to use the Tory on an interplanetary craft for the first time, and I'm totally stumped. It says it's rated for vacuum (300 kN thrust), but I can't figure out how to get it to function out of atmosphere, even though the KSPI intro says I'm supposed to be able to use it in vacuum "by changing propellant." Is there some propellant I should be using with it other than enriched uranium?

Nuclear engines operate by running some kind of ejection mass over a hot reactor, which turns that ejection mass into some kind of plasma(?) which is superheated enough to produce thrust.  The reactor runs on enriched uranium to produce the heat, but the propellant (ejection mass) must be there.  In atmosphere, it uses the actual air for this.  In space, you need to provide something.  I suggest hydrazine.

[LofiTobi]

Sorry, but i had a bug which caused that all my 22 satellites had no Kerbnet access. I don't know why  http://imgur.com/a/anaJ2 .
After i uninstall KSP interstellar extended, Interstellar Fuel Switch (-Core), my satellites have Kerbnet access again.

[Khalkion]

10 hours ago, Catbus said:

I'm trying to use the Tory on an interplanetary craft for the first time, and I'm totally stumped. It says it's rated for vacuum (300 kN thrust), but I can't figure out how to get it to function out of atmosphere, even though the KSPI intro says I'm supposed to be able to use it in vacuum "by changing propellant." Is there some propellant I should be using with it other than enriched uranium?

When you first unlock TORY (and Nuclear Turbojet later on), you get just the atmospheric modes. For using in the vacuum you have to unlock further tech nodes: Improved Nuclear Propulsion for TORY and High Efficiency Nuclear Propulsion for Nuclear Turbojet. These nodes unlock other propellants for appropriate engines. And after you unlock them you will be able to build fancy sstos with using just them. Hovewer it's not always practical since even after unlocking techs they are not very good at precise orbital maneuvering as they have pretty slow reaction to throttle, so consider to bring some rcs with you for final fine adjustments.

550t and 2x2.5 Nuclear Turbojet. It even can take off in vertical mode from Kerbin if needed. These 34t monsters (engines) provide quite a punch and surely are overkill for this "small" ssto. But it's destination is Serran (from New Horisons) with only 0.6 atm, so I think some reserve is ok.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Khalkion

[Catbus]

15 hours ago, ss8913 said:

Nuclear engines operate by running some kind of ejection mass over a hot reactor, which turns that ejection mass into some kind of plasma(?) which is superheated enough to produce thrust.  The reactor runs on enriched uranium to produce the heat, but the propellant (ejection mass) must be there.  In atmosphere, it uses the actual air for this.  In space, you need to provide something.  I suggest hydrazine.

What is hydrazine? Is that the plain liquid fuel normally used by jet engines and the Nerv?

ETA: Never mind, I found out how to fill a tank with hydrazine. But when I circulate through the Tory's propellant choices, these are the only choices it gives me: atmospheric (ramjet), hydrogen, liquid fuel, water, CO₂, CO, nitrogen and compressed air. Hydrazine doesn't appear to be an option.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Catbus

[Khalkion]

Other propellants are hiden behind Fuel Systems tech branch. For Hydrazine it is Exotic Fuel Storage.

Somewhere on the first page of this topic there is a table with different propellants, their properties and tech requirements. It may be slighty outdated, but can point to the right direction of investigations.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Khalkion

[ss8913]

15 hours ago, Catbus said:

What is hydrazine? Is that the plain liquid fuel normally used by jet engines and the Nerv?

ETA: Never mind, I found out how to fill a tank with hydrazine. But when I circulate through the Tory's propellant choices, these are the only choices it gives me: atmospheric (ramjet), hydrogen, liquid fuel, water, CO₂, CO, nitrogen and compressed air. Hydrazine doesn't appear to be an option.

You may have to get higher in the tech tree to unlock it.  LiquidFuel is probably the best choice among the ones you have available now.  Note that you don't need oxidizer since you're not burning it... it's just mass.  Which is why water is an option

[Catbus]

Yep. I used liquid fuel, and it worked like a dream!

I was surprised that ammonia and methane weren't more effective, though, based on their I_sp and thrust multipliers. I thought they'd be better than liquid fuel, but nope.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Catbus

[Khalkion]

They are. They provide way more thrust than liquid fuel, but are not as effective per volume(they are less dense) and slightly less efficient per mass. So you can use less engines for the same twr and depends on you current setup that free mass from fewer engines can provide both more delta-v and thrust at the same time compared to liquid fuel setups (when masses are the same).

[Hacki]

Tweakscaling the direct cycle nuclear turbojet engine causes some funny stuff... The hitbox? dragbox? is larger than the actual engine, which causes problems when you try to attach RCS blocks to or near the engines - they'll act like they are inside an object and wont fire. 

What the larger engine looks like:

 

What KSP and FAR think the object looks like: