KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[Khalkion]

Is there any way of showing thess purple things without FAR? I have no problem with using rcs placed on 2.5 turbojet. But I'm playing without FAR.

Also I have some mod for showing colliding boxes - and colliding box is ok for scaled engines.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Khalkion

[Maelstrom Vortex]

6 hours ago, Catbus said:

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.

There's an unseen variable in KSP that always has ticked me off.. Energy density. You will rarely beat Monoprop for highest energy density with LOX a close second.

On a second note..
 

Are any of you experiencing miniscule thrust with the VESTA engine?

Edited September 5, 2017 by Maelstrom Vortex

[Hacki]

2 hours ago, Khalkion said:

Is there any way of showing thess purple things without FAR?

 

Dont think so, but this does indeed appear to be a problem with FAR. I dont think its something FAR needs to fix though, as it only affects this particular part. So it has to be something about that part thats odd? 

[FreeThinker]

17 hours ago, Hacki said:

 

Dont think so, but this does indeed appear to be a problem with FAR. I dont think its something FAR needs to fix though, as it only affects this particular part. So it has to be something about that part thats odd? 

If there is one part can go wrong, there are probably more and there will be more.

[pp3d]

Perhaps already addressed elsewhere and it's just a curiosity question. Per the documentation, why does the peroxide process yield oxygen as a byproduct when one would expect water along with hydrazine?

 

 

 

[FreeThinker]

18 hours ago, pp3d said:

Perhaps already addressed elsewhere and it's just a curiosity question. Per the documentation, why does the peroxide process yield oxygen as a byproduct when one would expect water along with hydrazine?

 

That would indeed be strange. Exactly what KSPI documentation claims that Peroxide process produces Oxygen?

Edited September 7, 2017 by FreeThinker

[wendel]

These radiators are really weak. I don't see the point of having them at all. To bring the plasma beam core antimatter reactor into the green requires 3 inline titanium convectors and 50 stock thermal control systems.

Am I missing something? The best radiators I see are the stock ones. I would need to install hundreds of your best just to get this reactor in the yellow. As it stands, 50 stock large radiators lags like crazy. I would have thought you'd provide some means of cooling these parts without resorting to spamming stock radiators.

[Sweetie bot]

How about a  Multifunction Chemical/Resistance/Waste Heat  Rocket that can use muti fuel and swith? Like hydrazine (250s), HTP(140s),  H2 (in cold gas, 270s).   And it Can be boosted by Resistance  to 3000K.  

 

perhaps it can use wasetheat , Core Temp decide on Cold bath on TEG ?

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, wendel said:

These radiators are really weak. I don't see the point of having them at all. To bring the plasma beam core antimatter reactor into the green requires 3 inline titanium convectors and 50 stock thermal control systems.

Am I missing something? The best radiators I see are the stock ones. I would need to install hundreds of your best just to get this reactor in the yellow. As it stands, 50 stock large radiators lags like crazy. I would have thought you'd provide some means of cooling these parts without resorting to spamming stock radiators.

Yes you are,  for Antimatter reactor, connecting them to a charged particle reactor with enough radiators to preventing the reactor from melting is enough to maximize their usage in most cases.

How much radiators do you need? enough to dissipate  about 5% of 36 Gigawatt of heat +  10 of 34 Gigawah = 1.75 GW + 3.5 GW = 5.25 GW

This can be dissipated with 2 Large Folding Radiators

 

Edited September 7, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Sweetie bot]

Why most Reactor are lack of durability? Like Molten Salt reactor  that Power start decline just in 5 hour on full power! Why their are become so weak now?

[wendel]

12 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes you are,  for Antimatter reactor, connecting them to a charged particle reactor with enough radiators to preventing the reactor from melting is enough to maximize their usage in most cases.

How much radiators do you need? enough to dissipate  about 5% of 36 Gigawatt of heat +  10 of 34 Gigawah = 1.75 GW + 3.5 GW = 5.25 GW

This can be dissipated with 2 Large Folding Radiators

 

The Helper indicates that the antimatter reactor outputs 720 GW of heat. I want to utilize the entirety of that power, so I must bring 720 units worth of cooling to bear on this setup. I found that there is a Dragon power transmitter capable of dissipating over 100 GW, so with 4 of those and an inline radiator, I can completely nullify the waste heat from the antimatter reactor.

 

I don't understand where your numbers are coming from. 5%? Why build such an expensive reactor if you're only utilizing 5% of it's power? Perhaps I'm looking at his all wrong?

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, wendel said:

I don't understand where your numbers are coming from. 5%? Why build such an expensive reactor if you're only utilizing 5% of it's power? Perhaps I'm looking at his all wrong?

2

The beam core antimatter reactor can only run at 100% power when using antimatter directly for propulsion (with magnetic nozzle). That is it primary purpose. It can also be used for electric power generation or thermal propulsion but only at 5% because the core would otherwise melt. 5% of 720 Gigawatt is a still by far the most powerful reactor (except SQR but it has other limitations)

Edited September 8, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Khalkion]

16 hours ago, Sweetie bot said:

Why most Reactor are lack of durability? Like Molten Salt reactor  that Power start decline just in 5 hour on full power! Why their are become so weak now?

Try to bring KSPI-E science lab or ISRU Converter with you. As the molten salt reactor description states these modules can reprocess actinides and prolong the lifecycle of the reactor. And it actually works

PS It also works with TORY and Nuclear turbojet. And later on reactors are more forgiveable. For example the next one you probably get - pebble bed reactor, doesn't really care about depleted fuel inside. But you still can reprocess it with mentioned above modules.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Khalkion

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, Khalkion said:

PS It also works with TORY and Nuclear turbojet. And later on reactors are more forgiveable. For example the next one you probably get - pebble bed reactor, doesn't really care about depleted fuel inside. But you still can reprocess it with mentioned above modules.

3

Lol, Technically you should only be able to reproduce liquid fuel reactors. Solid core reactors first needs to be  stopped and cooled down to be processable

I will fix this exploit when I'm going to overhaul the LiquidFuelNuclearReactor

Edited September 8, 2017 by FreeThinker

[wendel]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

The beam core antimatter reactor can only run at 100% power when using antimatter directly for propulsion (with magnetic nozzle). That is it primary purpose. It can also be used for electric power generation or thermal propulsion but only at 5% because the core would otherwise melt. 5% of 720 Gigawatt is a still by far the most powerful reactor (except SQR but it has other limitations)

I'm going by what the game and your helper window are telling me, and neither mentions a 5% limit. Just read the original post and your wiki on the reactor, and neither state there is a limit. The helper app indicated 720 GW worth of waste heat. I don't see this in your descriptions either. You state here the core can produce 5% of it's rated 36 GW of power, but the game says it produces 360 GW of thermal energy. I don't know what to go by now. Why does the helper state there is 720 GW of heat, the engine description in the game state's there is 360 GW of thermal power, but you state it's 36, but only 5% of that 36? Am about to uninstall. There are other warp drive mods that I'm sure have better info.

[d1str4ct3d]

Is anyone else getting mass power loss with the latest update?

e.g. I'm on career mode, only got the first two sets of solar panels. So a probes with solar panels and with 400EC go into darkside of Kerbin and suddenly a 30MW power drain appears and the EC is wiped out. (These probes were find on the last version of interstellar, in fact I've reverted back to it as it was annoying me so much). Once the probe is back in sunlight the 30MW power drain (this shows up in the KSPI megajoules display) slowly disappears and the EC build back up again.

Happens on crafts saved before I moved to the latest update and on newly created ones? I've fully removed and reinstall interstellar too before going back to the previous version.

It's probably just a me thing, normally is when I have issues, but thought I'd ask.

[FreeThinker]

54 minutes ago, wendel said:

I'm going by what the game and your helper window are telling me, and neither mentions a 5% limit. Just read the original post and your wiki on the reactor, and neither state there is a limit. The helper app indicated 720 GW worth of waste heat. I don't see this in your descriptions either. You state here the core can produce 5% of it's rated 36 GW of power, but the game says it produces 360 GW of thermal energy. I don't know what to go by now. Why does the helper state there is 720 GW of heat, the engine description in the game state's there is 360 GW of thermal power, but you state it's 36, but only 5% of that 36? Am about to uninstall. There are other warp drive mods that I'm sure have better info.

I agree with you this information should have been clear in the info screen, but I hope you understand that 36 GW is very powerful as well and a 720 GW would simply too high for anything but direct magnetic propulsion

Edited September 8, 2017 by FreeThinker

[Khalkion]

I'm not sure, but it looks like Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer has some problems with it. In cfg it has  MODULE    {name = ModuleScienceExperiment  experimentID = gasChromotographyMassSpectrometryExperiment} but there is no actual definition for this science experiment in GameData\WarpPlugin\Resources\ScienceDefs.cfg or anywhere else in WarpPlugin. So we can't run it as science, only use for looking up atmospheric composition (in pop up window) with MODULE   {name = FNMassSpectrometer}. Therefore, I believe that there either should not be a ModuleScienceExperiment, or there must be a definition for it ...

[Rc0n]

I am positive that this question has been answered many a time... But I just cannot seem to get the relays for my microwave network to connect to the transmitter, nor will they even connect to each other to form a network. I understand (I think) that they require energy themselves to operate, so I have two stock "Gigantor" panels and two RTGs on the craft. But still no luck. 

If anyone could either correct the knowledge that I have or the problem itself, or even a link to where I will be able to find the solution, then I would greatly appreciate that.

[aaronsta1]

12 hours ago, Rc0n said:

I am positive that this question has been answered many a time... But I just cannot seem to get the relays for my microwave network to connect to the transmitter, nor will they even connect to each other to form a network. I understand (I think) that they require energy themselves to operate, so I have two stock "Gigantor" panels and two RTGs on the craft. But still no luck. 

If anyone could either correct the knowledge that I have or the problem itself, or even a link to where I will be able to find the solution, then I would greatly appreciate that.

there is very little documentation on microwave beam network and what i can find is out of date.. some of the things ive noticed..

you only can have ONE relay antenna.. it looks like it should work, but the game wont use the craft if it has more than one. so if you are making 2 or more for symmetry, dont.. 

it doesnt matter the size of the relay antenna.. just the transmitting antenna.. its not the size of the antenna, 100t or 50t or whatever.. its the size of the part.. 2.5, 3.75, 5, and such that lets you transmit more power... 

relay satellites  need power to control them.. but once you switch away from them it just sits idle. so just use the small phased array, and set it to relay with a probe core and a solar panel.. 

transmitting satellites need power.. lots of it.. you will get HALF the power from the reactor in electricity.. you need a reactor, a thermal generator and a phased array and LOTS of radiators.. dont use the if its green its ok.. cause thats just for the reactor.. the thermal is what you are trying to keep down to less than 500 for full power.... as the thermal generator makes waste heat it produces less power. 

what i did was use size 5 fusion reactors, and a couple size 2.5 salt reactors (bonus is they make tritium to fuel the fusion), to get the fusion started ( you need like 3gw of power for each reactor to keep it running).. all with their own thermal generator.. keep in mind that when you stack reactors they cant share a generator.. and they cant touch more than one. so you need to make them like G-R-R-G-G-R i also used a few large size graphene radiators (its better to use the scale and make them large instead of use many smaller ones)... with a large size phased array on top, this satellite will be huge..  

Edited September 10, 2017 by aaronsta1

[Khalkion]

Here is my low tech network. I got 3 these stations at KSO. Together they provide around 30 GW of power at the surface of Kerbin. They are working in Long Infrared to be able to penetrate atmosphere. However long infared has quite long wavelength, so I have to use big dishes because I wanted to place this stations at KSO, so the power for launches would be constant at any time. Big dishes have bigger aperture and with big aperture you can achieve smaller spot-size at longer distances. That's why I didn't use laser turret, but  big dishes + diode laser array (beam generator). I have 3 dishes because this particular ones are not able to mirror (this fact is written in description of different transcievers, if they can mirror, you don't need 2 for relay, one will be enough). So 2 for relay (one is set "Link for Relay" and the other is set "Activate Relay", to be able to activate relay you first need to link the first one) and the third one for actual transmission of power generated onboard. Why I didn't use one big generation station and 2 simple relays is because of masses of launches. These stations weight around 500t each, and I had to assemble them at LKO from pieces (4 launches: reactor+generator, 2 sets of trusses with radiators and dishes+propulsion). Also I have ISRU converter onboard, because without it Molten Salt Reactors would almost die in days at full power. And the rest is radiators to achieve the desired efficiency of the generator.

I'm not sure that this setup is optimal, but it works and serve me quite well for the purporse I want: thermal launches from the surface of Kerbin + initial orbit maneuvres. Provided power is enough for launching over 350t to LKO with quite huge margin for errors.

Edited September 10, 2017 by Khalkion

[Nansuchao]

46 minutes ago, Khalkion said:

Here is my low tech network. I got 3 these stations at KSO. Together they provide around 30 GW of power at the surface of Kerbin. They are working in Long Infrared to be able to penetrate atmosphere. However long infared has quite long wavelength, so I have to use big dishes because I wanted to place this stations at KSO, so the power for launches would be constant at any time. Big dishes have bigger aperture and with big aperture you can achieve smaller spot-size at longer distances. That's why I didn't use laser turret, but  big dishes + diode laser array (beam generator). I have 3 dishes because this particular ones are not able to mirror (this fact is written in description of different transcievers, if they can mirror, you don't need 2 for relay, one will be enough). So 2 for relay (one is set "Link for Relay" and the other is set "Activate Relay", to be able to activate relay you first need to link the first one) and the third one for actual transmission of power generated onboard. Why I didn't use one big generation station and 2 simple relays is because of masses of launches. These stations weight around 500t each, and I had to assemble them at LKO from pieces (4 launches: reactor+generator, 2 sets of trusses with radiators and dishes+propulsion). Also I have ISRU converter onboard, because without it Molten Salt Reactors would almost die in days at full power. And the rest is radiators to achieve the desired efficiency of the generator.

Why do you have a relay on your transmitter ship?

[Khalkion]

Just now, Nansuchao said:

Why do you have a relay on your transmitter ship?

I have 3 stations in network around the Kerbin. I need to relay power from the other two stations, that are not in the line of sight of the launchpad (on the other side of Kerbin). So with relays I have 30 GW anywhere on Kerbin, and without relays it would be only 10-15 GW, depends on how to position stations.

[FreeThinker]

7 minutes ago, Khalkion said:

I have 3 stations in network around the Kerbin. I need to relay power from the other two stations, that are not in the line of sight of the launchpad (on the other side of Kerbin). So with relays I have 30 GW anywhere on Kerbin, and without relays it would be only 10-15 GW, depends on how to position stations.

Interesting. Is this a campaign game?

[Khalkion]

Yep, I'm playing carreer with Interstellar(and about ~80 mods else) for may be 2 months now?.. Am I wrong and I don't actually need the relays?