KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[jhook777]

Episode 3 featuring warp mechanics near a super large gravity well. And other cool stuff. 

 

Next episode will be warp techniques to establish mapping (polar) orbits. After that, we downgrade the tech tree and show some low-tech thermal rockets and turbojets!

Enjoy!

[FuzzyG]

I have been working on the optimum configuration of mods with strained results given the fact that I have about between 231 and 246 or so mods that I wanted to implement. However, I wanted to explore the Alcubierra Warp System in further detail but ran into a CKAN conflict with IXSWarpShipOS. Not to be discouraged, I found and subsequently downloaded your recent 1.24.0 version of KSPIE; but it requires clarification in terms of folder naming convention.

For instance, 1.23.9 utilizes the folder "InterstellarHybridRocketry" whereas 1.24.0 utilizes the folder "InterstellarFuelSwitch." However, you already defined said switch/folder name under your version 3.12.1.5. Given these facts at hand, my best assumption would be to copy the contents of 1.24.0 into the 1.23.9 folder thus avoiding the CKAN conflict because I would be manually installing 1.24.0 into the necessary folder accordingly without further ado. 

EDITED: Upon closer examination, I noticed that the naming convention for 1.24.0 corresponds correctly with 3.12.1.5. Therefore it will be there where the files will go as necessary. No time like the present to see if the latter holds true. 

Cheers,
~G

Edited October 20, 2019 by FuzzyG
closer examination discovered I may be wrong on first assumption of where files should go...

[jhook777]

Episode four covering how to polar orbit with the warp drive for mapping purposes:

Next video up will be thermal rocket things with MSR's and maybe some lasers (going to jump down the tech tree and show it from an un-upgraded point of view).

[FreeThinker]

13 hours ago, FuzzyG said:

I have been working on the optimum configuration of mods with strained results given the fact that I have about between 231 and 246 or so mods that I wanted to implement. However, I wanted to explore the Alcubierra Warp System in further detail but ran into a CKAN conflict with IXSWarpShipOS. Not to be discouraged, I found and subsequently downloaded your recent 1.24.0 version of KSPIE; but it requires clarification in terms of folder naming convention.

For instance, 1.23.9 utilizes the folder "InterstellarHybridRocketry" whereas 1.24.0 utilizes the folder "InterstellarFuelSwitch." However, you already defined said switch/folder name under your version 3.12.1.5. Given these facts at hand, my best assumption would be to copy the contents of 1.24.0 into the 1.23.9 folder thus avoiding the CKAN conflict because I would be manually installing 1.24.0 into the necessary folder accordingly without further ado. 

EDITED: Upon closer examination, I noticed that the naming convention for 1.24.0 corresponds correctly with 3.12.1.5. Therefore it will be there where the files will go as necessary. No time like the present to see if the latter holds true. 

Cheers,
~G

1.24  is a BETA of KSPIE compiled against KSP 1.8. It will remain a beta untill one of the main dependancies Tweakscale is updated to KSP 1.8

[Marjammer]

3 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

1.24  is a BETA of KSPIE compiled against KSP 1.8. It will remain a beta untill one of the main dependancies Tweakscale is updated to KSP 1.8

Thanks for the update. The break while everything is getting sorted out is giving me a chance to focus on other projects...like homework. 

[jhook777]

A pre-warp civilization was discovered. Technology was shared. The transmission has been intercepted and presented here for your educational benefaction... or some such. Enjoy!

 

ps: not sure if it shows up blurry in the preview for everyone but it's actually clear on the youtubes. I'll get time stamps on it in the morning to make it easier to navigate.

[FreeThinker]

On 10/24/2019 at 8:13 AM, jhook777 said:

A pre-warp civilization was discovered. Technology was shared. The transmission has been intercepted and presented here for your educational benefaction... or some such. Enjoy!

 

ps: not sure if it shows up blurry in the preview for everyone but it's actually clear on the youtubes. I'll get time stamps on it in the morning to make it easier to navigate.

When using electric engines, you need 2 things, radiators and patience. More radiators will improve the reactor electic power efficiency but once your radiators become as hot at the reactor core temperature, the reactors starts to put out less power. Notice surface radiators are significanly lighter than deployable radiators, therefore it might be a good strategy to use them on all available surfaces

Edited October 25, 2019 by FreeThinker

[BTAxis]

I'm using KSPI-E together with Cryo Tanks, and it appears that KSPI-E causes that mod's cooling/boiloff mechanic to break. It otherwise functions fine though, so it's only a small issue. Even so, is there some way to get it to work with KSPI-E?

[tomf]

What does air combustion failed mean on a magnetic nozzle?

[FreeThinker]

10 hours ago, tomf said:

What does air combustion failed mean on a magnetic nozzle?

I don't that combination will work, you should replace the magnetic nozzle with a plasma nozzle and it should work

[tomf]

15 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I don't that combination will work, you should replace the magnetic nozzle with a plasma nozzle and it should work

I'm looking to go interstellar so I'm looking for the ISP. I thought that what was required for the magnetic nozzle was a reactor that produces charged particles and a supply of Hydrogen fuel?

[FreeThinker]

39 minutes ago, tomf said:

I'm looking to go interstellar so I'm looking for the ISP. I thought that what was required for the magnetic nozzle was a reactor that produces charged particles and a supply of Hydrogen fuel?

Yes, magnetic nozzle is potentialy gives the highest Isp but only with a reactor that produces charged particles. The Plasma Jet Magneto Fusion reactor uses it propellant to fuse the fusion fuel which when ignited will imidiatly thermalize any charged particles into the dense plasma. As a result this type of reactor only produces high tempemperature plasma which produces high isp, but not at the level of pure fusion exhaust.

Edited October 27, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Astraph]

Something's wrong with my radiators again.

I got some science from my last mission, researched Graphene radiators, alongside a Molten Salt Reactor upgrade... And it all just stopped working.

Long story short, when I decide to test my new design (using the KRASH mod to put it into orbit to test vacuum heat management), half the radiators pop due to overheating the second game loads, and the rest just burns - they have reentry effects on and are engulfed with flames. I checked the readouts - and they are all just WRONG. Lemme use screenshots to explain:

Radiators show 0 KW being radiated, despite of their status. I loaded the ship on Gael to check if maybe there's something wrong with atmospheric convection - but nah. Also, in atmosphere the radiators don't even get hot, despire literally nothing changing in terms of thermal readout. Take note there is no Waste Heat produced at all as well. The reactor is reduced to 0.625m with TweakScale with Thermal Electric Generator attached directly to it.

KSPI readouts for reference. I admit I have no idea what is wrong here - I suspect launch clamps might have something to do with the ship not melting, but I'm not really sure. I can't really roll the craft out without the clamps, as in its current state the legs just collapse under its weight ^^'

Finally, in-VAB readout. Numbers are in yellow, true, but I am running the reactor at 10% power anyway (I just want it as backup for long nights on tidally locked moons and in low orbit), so I reckoned things should be working just fine... Apparently they don't.

A few bonus notes, just in case:

• Ships I had launched earlier work just fine. I tested my orbital propellant depot, powered by a 2.5m reactor and cooled with stock radiators - things worked fine, panels dumped WasteHeat as they should.
• I also tried swapping some radiators for stock ones - the issue persisted. What I didn't try, though, was getting rid of all Graphene radiators and replacing them with stock ones.
• I'm running KSP 1.4.5

Let me know if I should post screenshots of other situations/configurations.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Astraph

[jhook777]

How to antigravity to Mun:

00:00 intro and build
04:40 pre-launch tests
06:40 launch window
07:55 transfer
10:55 prepare for flyby
14:20 prepare for impact
15:57 flyby and return
18:20 atmosphering (loss of two non-essential parts)
20:53 landing

 

[FreeThinker]

15 hours ago, Astraph said:

A few bonus notes, just in case:

• Ships I had launched earlier work just fine. I tested my orbital propellant depot, powered by a 2.5m reactor and cooled with stock radiators - things worked fine, panels dumped WasteHeat as they should.
• I also tried swapping some radiators for stock ones - the issue persisted. What I didn't try, though, was getting rid of all Graphene radiators and replacing them with stock ones.
• I'm running KSP 1.4.5

Let me know if I should post screenshots of other situations/configurations.

It appears the 2 nuclear engine are not staged, yet they do provide electric power and consume waseheat.

Exactly in what version did it work correctly and what version did it get broken?

Edited October 30, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Astraph]

Before anything - I loaded my craft and started stripping radiators all the way to wrappers around the reactor (which worked fine in my previous designs) - nothing. WasteHeat change is a nice, round 0 and 0 KW power is being radiated via wrappers.

I tried installing the latest 1.4.5-compatible version of KSP-I you have linked in the release thread (TBH I was still using the one I downloaded via CKAN back in July 2018...). I already see Module Manager is WAY more up-to-date than mine (mine was 3.0.7), but the upgrade didn't help either. The only actual change I see is making all my designs obsolete, as it moved the Thermal Power Generator up the tree...  But at least I have a replacement part, so that's something..

Anyway, here are the other radiator configs I used previously and which work fine upon loading:

Space station, using stock radiators in vacuum:

Non-zero WasteHeat amount, radiators radiating KW into space with no issue

Niven habitat with graphite radiators and wrappers (I apologize for nightime screenshot):

Here radiators emit 0 KW, but WasteHeat production looks legit. Niven has a Duna-like atmosphere, no idea if convection would cause those effects.

My current design - back to Gael, all radiators safe from reactor-mounted wrappers removed:

WasteHeat production is 0, radiators radiate 0 KW, radiator temperature is 0K (!).

EDIT: Oh, also noticed that after upgrade I can no longer use HTP as NERVA propellant.Oh yeah, sounds like a complete redesign anyway!

Edited October 31, 2019 by Astraph

[jhook777]

Ok, so this isn't really a tutorial, per say. Unless you find yourself needing a tutorial on how to clear asteroids using antimatter. If that's the case, here you go. Enjoy!

Made with KSP 1.7.3 and the latest KSPIE for that version. Upgraded to 1.8.1 after this video.

 

[FreeThinker]

On 10/30/2019 at 12:23 AM, Astraph said:

Something's wrong with my radiators again.

I got some science from my last mission, researched Graphene radiators, alongside a Molten Salt Reactor upgrade... And it all just stopped working.

Long story short, when I decide to test my new design (using the KRASH mod to put it into orbit to test vacuum heat management), half the radiators pop due to overheating the second game loads, and the rest just burns - they have reentry effects on and are engulfed with flames. I checked the readouts - and they are all just WRONG. Lemme use screenshots to explain:

Radiators show 0 KW being radiated, despite of their status. I loaded the ship on Gael to check if maybe there's something wrong with atmospheric convection - but nah. Also, in atmosphere the radiators don't even get hot, despire literally nothing changing in terms of thermal readout. Take note there is no Waste Heat produced at all as well. The reactor is reduced to 0.625m with TweakScale with Thermal Electric Generator attached directly to it.

KSPI readouts for reference. I admit I have no idea what is wrong here - I suspect launch clamps might have something to do with the ship not melting, but I'm not really sure. I can't really roll the craft out without the clamps, as in its current state the legs just collapse under its weight ^^'

 

Notice there is a treshhold value of accumulated wasteheat before the radiators will actualy start to radiate heat and it appears you simply produce too little washeat to exceed the treshhold

[FreeThinker]

8 hours ago, Astraph said:

Before anything - I loaded my craft and started stripping radiators all the way to wrappers around the reactor (which worked fine in my previous designs) - nothing. WasteHeat change is a nice, round 0 and 0 KW power is

Space station, using stock radiators in vacuum:

Non-zero WasteHeat amount, radiators radiating KW into space with no issue

Niven habitat with graphite radiators and wrappers (I apologize for nightime screenshot):

Here radiators emit 0 KW, but WasteHeat production looks legit. Niven has a Duna-like atmosphere, no idea if convection would cause those effects.

My current design - back to Gael, all radiators safe from reactor-mounted wrappers removed:

WasteHeat production is 0, radiators radiate 0 KW, radiator temperature is 0K (!).

EDIT: Oh, also noticed that after upgrade I can no longer use HTP as NERVA propellant.Oh yeah, sounds like a complete redesign anyway!

Notice there is a hidden amount of wasteheat reduction which scales lineary with vessel mass and not visible in Wasteheat Management DIsplay. This is done to allow vessels without radiators to operate continiously with small amount wasteheat produced by electric devices (like electric engines, ISRU and mining drilles) powered by solar power or RTS. Usualy you won't notice this effect unless you combine  small reactor wth a large vessel.

Edited October 31, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Astraph]

Oh! Good to know that. But, if that's WAD, then we still have one issue that started my whole thread here...

Here's my ship, put in orbit using KRASH. Literally the second the simulation kicks in, wrappers around the reactor explode (F3 readout shows 3352/2698 K temperature at the moment of meltdown), and wrapper radiators start burning. They don't get destroyed (though when I tried to rememdy this by putting more radiators, some of them melted down upon entering simulation anyway).

Quote

Notice there is a hidden amount of wasteheat reduction which scales lineary with vessel mass and not visible in Wasteheat Management DIsplay.

Well, that'd make sense, taking into account a fully loaded ship is >400 tons and it's powered by a 0.625m Molten Salt... (And by 'sense' I mean the heat management algorythm going mad and somehow glitching the radiators in this situation) What confuses me though is the VAB power readout:

it's all in red, with 588 MW produced and 58 MW dispearsed. As I said, I initially tried to fix it by adding more wrappers - but even when I brought radiator resting remperature well below 2000 K, the burning effect persisted and random wrappers went poof the second I loaded the ship.

I just made a test - slapped a 2.5m Molten Salt reactor with an electric generator on top of the ship and launched it. In-atmosphere, there was some Waste Heat prodution, but other wise things worked well. In-orbit, both Radiator Temperature and Power Radiated readouts show some positive values - but wrappers still explode and burning effect persists.

Here are the readouts for the additional 2.5m reactor variant. I'm frankly at a loss what is causing this effect and how it might affect my ship during long-term flights. Especially since, from what I see, NERVAs no longer use HTP - so I either need to redesign propulsion to incorporate Thermal Nozzles (which means slapping two more reactors onto the ship), or try to somehow design a compact hydrogen/helium fuel tank that would still give me enough dV...

[Marjammer]

Thank you for updating for 1.80+. I look forward to continuing my Kerbal's voyage to the planets.

[SoRobby]

Using KSP 1.8.1 and am getting a warning using the mod. Installed mod via ckan (not sure if that is problematic or not).

Warning: 2 warnings related to GameData/WarpPlugin/Parts/Engines/NERVA/NERVA.cfg

[Turbo Ben]

Hi all, I'm having an odd problem with jet engines overheating. I've heard that this mod affects heat related to jet engines, so thought I'd ask here, but honestly, I don't know where to start.

I've had the problem arise in 2 different situations. The easiest to explain is aerobraking an SSTO which has a turbofan engine and 2 reactor fed thermal aerospikes. All is fine while performing the aerobrake, but as soon as I leave the atmosphere at the end of the brake, the turbo fan engine immediately overheats and explodes. I've managed to get around this by simply not aerobraking.

The second is much more complicated and can't be avoided. I have a massive craft that I'm taking to Jool. It is made up of about 7 different craft all docked together, with 8 satelites and 5 rovers. I'm taking the SSTO along to explore Laythe. I'm using 3 open cycle gas core engines to get me to Jool (a 2 hour burn lol). Problem is, after the 2 hour burn, the second I shut down the engines, again the turbo fan on my SSTO instantly overheats and explodes. If I go back to a save during the burn, the engine explodes on loading before I can do anything. I've changed the max temp of the engine in the cfg file which stops it exploding, but it still glows bright yellow. Using the heat maps from the console, I can see the engine gets to over 2000 degrees. The heat map shows the entire vessel in red except for the turbo fan engine, which is glowing bright yellow/white. Even with the open cycle engines shut down, the temp keeps on rising. I'm watching it now go to nearly 3000 degrees with no signs of cooling down. It's getting so hot that even the parts around it are getting close to their thermal limit.

I've also just noticed if I time warp to a certain level, the engine cools off to about 210 degrees and stays there. As soon as I throttle up the open cycle engines, it jumps up to 800 degrees. The heat map shows it being the only part that does this. If I throttle down the nukes, the temp drops straight back down to 210.

I'm running KSP 1.7.3 and KSPIE 1.23.9. I haven't upgraded to KSP 1.8 yet as not all the mods have updates. KSPIE is the only parts mod installed, though I did download some recomendations such as heat control when I installed it. Most of my other mods are visual enhancements and a planet pack.

Thanks

[FreeThinker]

@Turbo Ben Yes, ModuleSabreHeating is added rapier.cfg to simulate the effect of superheated atmosphere causing the engines to lose there air cooling ability . This can be countered by added precooler to your intakes which will cool the superheated air before its used by the engines

The overheating of your Turbojet after 2 hour open cycle gas core burn sound like a weird stock issue. Are you sure the engines are turbojets are shut down?

Edit: looked into the code and notice that there was a possibility the engine would oveheat instead of shutting down, which is the intended behaviour. Also it should never happen in space. I will release an update with a fix soon

Edited November 10, 2019 by FreeThinker

[fragtzack]

KSPIE mod breaks the dV calculations for the stock NERVA engine using the stock dV calculator in the VAB and also breaks the same calculations in engineer redux. Also breaks the same dV calculations for the  LANTR nuke engine from Missing history mod. 

Interesting enough, the Beacon Heavy Nuclear engine from Missing History mod dV calculations still work. 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by fragtzack