KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[SpaceX]

A quick note; I initially thought my install was missing some of the tanks that used to be in the interstellar mod; reading further back it seems this was intentional and cited as an attempt to reign in the part count. I will say that I do miss those tanks (all the variants that used to be included). I understand there are solutions now within the hex IFS stuff, but miss the solutions that were possible without having to use those.

I absolutely love this mod (always have and always will), and love the fact that it causes me to put just as much time (if not more) into testing things as I do actually using them on various missions. While there has been some conversation around thinking about reintroducing them, I have to say that I'd certainly welcome that. 

 

- EDIT** Turns out ckan didn't install everything included/needed for the mod, which explains why I was missing so many things in my save. Removing it and installing it manually has now resolved those issues. Apologies...I feel rather dumb.

 

As always, thanks for everything you continue to do for this mod/community!

 

A loyal fan,

OzzyInSpace

Edited February 27, 2019 by SpaceX

[pp3d]

5 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes, there are multiple reasons for this. For one, the CloseCycle is technically a high-pressure oven made from glass. Its main concerns are instabilities in pressure and heat absorption from infrared light. Any complex performance mixtures like Hydrazine, which create additional pressure prematurely which would blow up the reactor. They are best used to solid nuclear engines which are a lot more resilient against pressure spikes. Secondly even if the above would not be a concern, the advantage in isp and thrust decreases as core temperature increases, so it's not really worth the risks as the gains are marginal. Thirdly, even without Hydrazine, its still an extremely powerful engine, exceeding all stock performance engines. Its forces you to put a little more thought into your space voyage planning as Hydrazine is mainly mended to boost solid core / pebble-bed performance.

thanks for your reply... at this point... which engines specifically in KSPI-E can use hydrazine? the CloseCycle engine is indeed one of the best - if not the best - i have historically used since the early stages of this mod and heavily relied on the ISRU processes that produce hydrazine precisely for that purpose. Removing Hydrazine and ammonia from the propellant list will require some adjustment on my gameplay. 

And... if there is time --- is there a way to modify the propellant list for each engine just by hacking the config files or this will require recompiling.

[FreeThinker]

 

13 hours ago, pp3d said:

thanks for your reply... at this point... which engines specifically in KSPI-E can use hydrazine? the CloseCycle engine is indeed one of the best - if not the best - i have historically used since the early stages of this mod and heavily relied on the ISRU processes that produce hydrazine precisely for that purpose. Removing Hydrazine and ammonia from the propellant list will require some adjustment on my gameplay. 

And... if there is time --- is there a way to modify the propellant list for each engine just by hacking the config files or this will require recompiling.

No recompiling required. Simply changing the part config file will be enough to change any new or existing engine. Change supportedPropellantAtoms to 442 and supportedPropellantTypes to 495  to accept any molecular type except LFO

Edited February 28, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pp3d]

Followup on a different topic. I am having a hard time understanding the gameplay in regards to the Positron Antimatter Reactor. 

There are no containers that you can fill up with positrons --- besides the limited amount (1.0) of the positronium ring. Which is gone in a second if you a attach a thermal or a plasma nozzle. 

Which leaves the 'Diamagnetic Antimatter Container' which can produce - at least per documentation - positrons from some kind of reaction between 'Antimatter' and 'Antihydrogen' (anti-protons). As to why the need to keep antimatter and antiprotons as separate fields is beyond me as there is no gameplay that will utilize any other anti-matter elements. But I digress... the question is: how do you mine/collect Anti-hydrogen or is there a reactor that produces it as a byproduct? You can create anti-hydrogen again in the diamagnetic antimatter container from positrons and antimatter --- but that defeats the purpose in regards to powering up the Positron Antimatter reactor. I am sure I am missing something... ergo the question... 

If there is a thread that discusses this already can someone post it?

 

 

[pp3d]

I see the Free Electron Laser as the means to produce positrons and the electrostatic particle trap as an alternative to the positronium ring. I will look into those. 

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, pp3d said:

Followup on a different topic. I am having a hard time understanding the gameplay in regards to the Positron Antimatter Reactor. 

There are no containers that you can fill up with positrons --- besides the limited amount (1.0) of the positronium ring. Which is gone in a second if you a attach a thermal or a plasma nozzle.

The capacity of Positronium storage ring indeed currently way to low and doesn't scale with tech. The idea was to use Positronium as a way to store Positron in a containment ring, but I never fully finished it.

Instead I suggest you use the Positron Bose Einstein Condensate storage device which when fully upgraded has enough capacity to power a positron reactor for a few hours

Edited March 1, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pp3d]

indeed .. that's what i am doing at this point... ( i saw the positron bose einstein containment  earlier but i thought it was the antimatter containment from earlier versions).  What is the production rate of positrons by the free electron laser and any idea how would this scales if one reduces the size of the laser by let's say 50%? 

Reason that I am asking is that I have 2 of these lasers reduced in size  (to the smallest I could get it) -- but they can not keep up with the reactor.

2 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

The capacity of Positronium storage ring indeed currently way to low and doesn't scale with tech. The idea was to use Positronium as a way to store Positron in a containment ring, but I never fully finished it.

Instead I suggest you use the Positron Bose Einstein Condensate storage device which when fully upgraded has enough capacity to power a positron reactor for a few hours

I see the Free Electron Laser as the means to produce positrons and the electrostatic particle trap as an alternative to the positronium ring. I will look into those. 

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, pp3d said:

indeed .. that's what i am doing at this point... ( i saw the positron bose einstein containment  earlier but i thought it was the antimatter containment from earlier versions).  What is the production rate of positrons by the free electron laser and any idea how would this scales if one reduces the size of the laser by let's say 50%?

The production isn't that high. The general idea is that you use an power source to fabricate positrons and store them in some kind of container which you then use in short burst for high power propulsion. A good use-case would be to fit  your multi mission mothership with a Free Electron Laser which would either be used to feed a beam power network or produce positron to feed a SSTO or VTOL landing craft equipped with a positron reactor. Remember, antimatter is not a power source but rather a power storage device allowing superior performance for short periods of time.

Edited March 2, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pp3d]

4 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

The production isn't that high. The general idea is state you use an power source to fabricate positrons stored in some kind of container which you then use in short burst for propulsion. A good use-case would be to fit  your multi mission mothership with a Free Electron Laser which would either be used feed a beam power network or produce positron to feed a SSTO or VTOL landing craft equipped with a positron reactor. Remember, positron is not a power source but rather a power storage device allowing superior performance for short periods of time.

Yeah....i was thinking about it during my drive back from work and I reached the same conclusion above... I'll use the Positron antimatter reactor to power up a nozzle for propulsion -- then shut it down and use a free electron laser for replenishing the positrons. it will require a secondary reactor for that... probably a thermal power one so it use the same thermal generator as the positron reactor. This is probably for the development thread, but one can extract positrons from cosmic rays. So just like you harvest solar wind or hydrogen, you can harvest cosmic rays and push them through a scintillator to get a cascade that will yield a bunch of neutrinos, gamma rays and muons---- the last two will produce short lived e-e+ pairs. A strong enough magnetic field can separate them before annihilation. I am not aware of any engineering design that you can draw from, like the free elector laser which looks inspired out of the linear accelerators at SLAC and their laser research. In fact i was just reading about how they used PW lasers to do produce positron-electron pairs. 

In regards to the game play... hauling around the full size laser is a problem as it would take two to a have semblance of symmetry.... they make sense as beamed power emitters on the ground or orbit .... so I am not sure if this goes beyond just fooling around with the mod... but it's worth putting together a design. In-lining the laser will make the ship too long to use an FTL drive other than the Interstellar one.. I tend to use roverdude's drives that have a finite warp bubble. They are simpler to use but it restricts the length of the ship. 

Anyway... thanks so much for your replies... they were super useful. I missed quite a lot of development on this since I have been playing 1.2.2 and I was just curious what's the deal with later versions on both the stock game and the newer mods. 

 

[FreeThinker]

23 minutes ago, pp3d said:

This is probably for the development thread, but one can extract positrons from cosmic rays. So just like you harvest solar wind or hydrogen, you can harvest cosmic rays and push them through a scintillator to get a cascade that will yield a bunch of neutrinos, gamma rays and muons---- the last two will produce short lived e-e+ pairs. A strong enough magnetic field can separate them before annihilation.

Sounds interesting but it seems it would be even bulkier than are a Free Electron Laser.  I can think of 2 alternatives for positron production which are pair production from a high gamma source, like from a high gamma fusion reaction  or by using a cyclotron, which we already use for antimatter production but could also be used for positron production (at a lower efficiency than a Free Electron Laser).

[pp3d]

CNO-cycle based fusion reactors will produce copious amounts of e+. However, the problem in those reactors is the high density plasma... it's extremely difficult to separate the e+ before they annihilate due to the small free path... For the sake of the game play... you can repurpose a fusion reactor to burn fuse carbon/oxygen... and have a resource bar in that reactor that traps positrons... 

 

[DoubleUU]

I'm trying to get a power relay network set up and I'm having some difficulty.  I've done lots of testing with all of the various transceivers and relays and none of them seem to want to connect.  Only the pure receivers seem to be working.  For example, the "Duel" Mode Thermal Sphere Receiver can receive Ka band MW power from my kerbin power transmitter but not one of the transceivers can receive.  They show 0/2 satellits connected no matter how close to the transmitter they are.  I put the Duel Mode (in electric mode) on the same craft as a Phased Array Transceiver (the one that looks sort of like the Duel) and put both in the receive mode.  The Duel sees 1/2 and the PAT sees 0/2.  I've triple verified that everything is set to Ka band MW too.  I'm really stumped.  I was able to get the DragonTek Inline Wrapped Phase Array to see a satellite for a brief second in relay mode but it was either my eyes playing tricks on me or a something I'm doing wrong because it was gone before the array finished unwrapping.  Any advice would be appreciated.

As a side note, maybe someone can just tell me what specific set up of power generators/transmitters/receivers/relays has worked for them.  I'm happy to not reinvent the wheel.  Most of the guides I've found are really dated or so poorly done they aren't really feasible for an advanced career playthrough IMO.

Thanks!

 

Edit:  Disregard... the way my screen was I didn't see that there was a bandwidth setting for receiving AND for transmitting.  Duh.

Edited March 2, 2019 by DoubleUU
I'm an idiot.

[mbaryu]

Regarding the Thermal Turbojet, I think there's a couple ways kspi playability could improve playability.

1) I understand that the design of the turbojet is unsuited to reducing fuels like LiquidFuel, however there are a few components that are often used in the same craft as a thermal turbojet which can't support a variety of thermal turbojet fuels.  In particular mk2 and mk3 (and Nertea's mk4) spaceplane hulls and the precooler.  The only thermal turbojet fuel I seem to be able to select is CO2.  To help gameplay could these be added to IFS for helium?

2) <pie in the sky feature request> When building spaceplanes attaching some of the reactors to the back to make a single-engine craft results in excessively long (and heavy) tail sections.  To solve this, I usually clip the reactor into the spaceplane hull and leave the fuel tank empty, but it would be really cool if some of the spaceplane tail-section-hull pieces could have a reactor version.

Thanks for a great mod and for teaching us a little about rocketry!

[bratimm]

On 2/26/2019 at 4:08 PM, tmbomber said:

I just got up to building my beamed power network and ran into this same issue.
I tried replacing my WarpPlugin directory in gamedata with the one from 1.20.5, but my relays are still not relaying.

bratimm, did you revert the WarpPlugin directory alone? or did you remove and install everything that's in the 1.20.5 zip file?

I only reverted the "WarpPlugin" Folder, i didnt change anything else.

[FreeThinker]

11 hours ago, pp3d said:

CNO-cycle based fusion reactors will produce copious amounts of e+. However, the problem in those reactors is the high density plasma... it's extremely difficult to separate the e+ before they annihilate due to the small free path... For the sake of the game play... you can repurpose a fusion reactor to burn fuse carbon/oxygen... and have a resource bar in that reactor that traps positrons...

the CNO cycle is mainly a catalist fusion reaction which convert Hydrogen into Helium using Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen. Its not actuary burning the Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen

regarding your idea of using solar wind to produce positron (using a magnetic scoop) do you have any indication it has enough energy to do so?

Edited March 2, 2019 by FreeThinker

[pp3d]

7 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

the CNO cycle is mainly a catalist fusion reaction which convert Hydrogen into Helium using Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen. Its not actuary burning the Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen

regarding your idea of using solar wind to produce positron (using a magnetic scoop) do you have any indication it has enough energy to do so?

The CNO cycle conserves the initial number of carbon atoms in the end, but burns C in the sense of converting it to N. So yeah, the term burn is not precise for nucleosynthesis so thanks for setting the record straight here. Since N->O channel is relatively slow compared to the rest, a CNO based reactor will have mix of all heavier elements even if you start with just carbon. I do take back the 'copious' amounts of positrons as that number is not different than the p-p cycle. I was thinking of secondary pair production from the gamma rays although most of the energy is lost to neutrinos. 

The idea behind the solar wind is to harvest protons and force the weak force reaction p+p -> d + e(+) + v in a ring. Byproducts of that will be positrons and deuterium. As to the energies of those, the typical energy of protons in sun's solar wind is sub-MeV... about 10-100 KeV. Harvesting those will require spending energy in accelerating to MeV scales in order for the reaction above to happen. However, there are solar energetic particle streams from the sun, typically transient flows emanating from CME events or super-alvenic shockwaves which will accelerate those protons to typical energies of 4-10 MeV or greater. These have sufficient energy. 

My other idea is to directly harvest positrons from cosmic rays. Here is a reference for it https://ams.nasa.gov/Documents/AMS_Publications/PhysRevLett.113.121101.pdf where about 5-10% of the fraction in the cosmic ray detections are in positrons. 

Edited March 2, 2019 by pp3d

[Teravus]

I was having trouble with the Beamed Power Relays so I built the mod from source and added Debug messages and a test scenario save.   It seems like the part reader may not be reading all of the relay information. 

In InterstellarBeamedPowerHelper, the call to  the ComputeFacingFactor returns zero for the relay.   Also, the transmitter SupportedTransmitWavelengths dictionary is empty.    Since the part files have minimumWavelength/maximumWavelength in the BandwidthConverter section...  and  minimumRelayWavelenght[sic] and a maximumRelayWavelenght[sic] in the MicrowavePowerTransmitter section...   it simply may not be being populated by the part reader.

In my case, I tried with the deploy-able phased array(deployablePhasedArray) (1 Transmitter 1 Receiver) in the Ka band and the phased array sphere(SpherePhasedArray) as the relay.    I also tried with the thermal receiver.  The ReceiverType is showing up as zero (which the older code said was the default route)

FreeThinker, If you are still interested in working on the beamed power relays....  The thing that makes the most sense to look at, based on the above dictionaries being empty and the defaults showing up, is whatever would normally populate the SupportedTransmitWavelengths dictionary.   

The Transmitter, relay and receiver are all different vehicles,   The receiver vehicle is perpendicular to the transmitter and in line with the relay vehicle.   The relay vehicle is in line of sight with both the transmitter and receiver vehicle.   If I force a nonzero FacingFactor (in the code), make sure the relay is active, then select the transmitter antenna and open the Power Receiver Interface on the transmitter, it shows 1(unloaded) relay connected.   But...    when I select the receiver, it shows 0 relays connected and, there's no difference in produced power.

Hopfully that research is helpful.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Teravus
Tested one more time just to double check.

[FreeThinker]

@Travis Notice there were some mistakes in some beamed power config which are now corrected in the master but not yet released.

Edited March 4, 2019 by FreeThinker

[YeetSpaceProgram]

I have a question. Is there a way to mine liquid hydrogen using isru parts? It’s basically impossible in a career file to run a fusion drive without going broke. The hydrogen tanks take up a good five times the volume of other liquid fuels to get the same dv and there’s no cost effective way to send hydrogen into orbit.

[FreeThinker]

Well there are many ways to get hydrogen cost effective into space. The most basic method is to build a SSTO tanker using either stock engines or KSPIE parts which initially include  nuclear turbo and ramjet, molten salt and pebble bed and eventually fusion and positron antimatter power reactor. If you think that is too much work, you could use atmospheric scoop to collect hydrogen at the edge of space, particle scoop to collect hydrogen from the inosphere and eventual a magnetic scoop to collect hydrogen from the solar wind or interstellar space. Alternative you can go to the moon to collect regolith which can be converted into hydrogen. For higher concentration find a crater on the polar muns to collect water which can be converted to hydrogen using ISRU electrolizers.

[mbaryu]

9 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Alternative you can go to the moon to collect regolith which can be converted into hydrogen. For higher concentration find a crater on the polar muns to collect water which can be converted to hydrogen using ISRU electrolizers.

I tried this a while back (not recently) and had problems with it because the non-basic ISRU's would not work when the craft was not in focus.  On Laythe that was not a big deal, but on Mun and Minmus hydrogen separation took a really long time, so focus would need to remain on the outpost for extended durations.

[wkwied]

Here's an odd one. I'm not sure if this is the most accurate topic to post it at, but might anyone be able to share a 'grand tour' ship that uses this mod? My ideal preference, would be one that uses both the warp drive and does not. I tried to mirror a build with what I've seen online, but I just can't get it down to work. Never enough power to run the warp drive. And I can't figure out how to make a self sustaining non-ftl ship either... without eventually running out of stuff.

 

Mod is super complicated, but I'm still at a loss

 

Thanks!

[jhook777]

5 hours ago, wkwied said:

Here's an odd one. I'm not sure if this is the most accurate topic to post it at, but might anyone be able to share a 'grand tour' ship that uses this mod? My ideal preference, would be one that uses both the warp drive and does not. I tried to mirror a build with what I've seen online, but I just can't get it down to work. Never enough power to run the warp drive. And I can't figure out how to make a self sustaining non-ftl ship either... without eventually running out of stuff.

 

Mod is super complicated, but I'm still at a loss

 

Thanks!

Hi! I don't know if I can help on "self sustaining" but I find find the tri-alpha fusion reactor at 5 meters paired with the 2.5m heavy warp drive gives tons of options and longevity. I usually use a Kerbstein fusion engine for sublight on on such a vessel with about 2600 or so lithium hydride for fuel (this also feeds the tri-alpha if that becomes necessary). Slap about 23 radiators for just under 16 GW of thermal management.  Since I use  TAC LS I stick about 9 years of life support for one kerbal, and then crew it with 4 (2 pilots, engineer and a scientist) just for kicks. You could easily  swap out crew and life support for an all-in-one ISRU thingy that can process spodumene (for the lithium) and hydrates (for water) then electrolyse (for hydrogen) then make (lithium hydride) fusion pellets (all-in-one indeed!).  Then you need only meet up with a tanker once in a while or, since you have about 70000dv with that setup (sublight) and something like 30x warp strength, just add weight by connecting a small lander capable of landing on, say, minmus or similar, for the occasional refuel. 

 

I should mention that since the one I built weighs in at 183,000 kilograms turning in warp usually results in explosions. 

Edited March 11, 2019 by jhook777
added 'splosion warning

[wkwied]

25 minutes ago, jhook777 said:

Hi! I don't know if I can help on "self sustaining" but I find find the tri-alpha fusion reactor at 5 meters paired with the 2.5m heavy warp drive gives tons of options and longevity. I usually use a Kerbstein fusion engine for sublight on on such a vessel with about 2600 or so lithium hydride for fuel (this also feeds the tri-alpha if that becomes necessary). Slap about 23 radiators for just under 16 GW of thermal management.  Since I use  TAC LS I stick about 9 years of life support for one kerbal, and then crew it with 4 (2 pilots, engineer and a scientist) just for kicks. You could easily  swap out crew and life support for an all-in-one ISRU thingy that can process spodumene (for the lithium) and hydrates (for water) then electrolyse (for hydrogen) then make (lithium hydride) fusion pellets (all-in-one indeed!).  Then you need only meet up with a tanker once in a while or, since you have about 70000dv with that setup (sublight) and something like 30x warp strength, just add weight by connecting a small lander capable of landing on, say, minmus or similar, for the occasional refuel. 

Would you, bu chance, be able to provide an example craft file?

Here is what I've done..

MK1 command pod, Graphene Umbrella radiator, 5m charged particle generator, 5m tri alpha reactor, 3.5m light warp drive. Added some extra blanket radiators to make heat green...

When I try to charge the drive, I receive the error 'not enough power to make stable warp field' and 'reactor fission can not be guaranteed...'

 

I really need something that works to look at... or I have a mod conflict, which I don't think may be the case

[jhook777]

I can but I use a lot of other mods. I might mistakenly include a part from a mod you might not have installed. Oh! and the tri-alpha has a built in generator. No need to attach a genny. Make sure you add lots of radiators. I use 16GW worth for the 2.5m drive. the 3.5 will need even more. Keep enough batteries to start the fusion reactor without need of another power source (other than RTGs for emergency power in the event of fusion loss). I think lithium7 proton fusion has a low ignition energy requirement?? This is all assuming sandbox with the 'all upgrades applied in sandbox' button checked.  

 

I went Kerbstein engine > scaled up ASAS ring > iHal > 5m tri-alpha > unneccessary fuel tanks (for looks and because cargo transport) > life support > 2.5m Alc. drive > copula module. Then I radially attached 3 fuel tanks of lithium hydride (625ish units each, these detached somehow without damaging the rest of the vessel, mission control is still investigating). Then I placed a bunch of radiators in strategic and pretty positions until I had more thermal management than thermal production. About 16GW worth, or 23 individual radiators. If you build up too much waste heat, your drive won't charge and your reactor won't be efficient. This means you'll slowly lose max power until you can't charge your drive anymore. Spam the heat sinks! After that I still had dV and warp ratio so I added some crew quarters and science! 

 

Im thinking you might have better success with no CP genny and the 2.5m warp drive. Maybe up the mass of your vessel a hair to help with heat dissipation? Also, gravity matters. Much easier to warp when you are far from a gravity well (planet) than when in LKO.

 

PS. It is reasonable to assume, however, that if your drive charges to full for 1.00C on the launchpad, it will do the same in space if thermal management is enough. I am by no means an expert or anything so I could be wrong about the the spamming of the radiators. I see you added till you were in the green. I usually go about a bit above. For instance the tri-alpha (in my game, ymmv, produces about 13GJ of power and I use 16GW of heat sink. This keeps power from dropping (too much) as heat builds.

Edited March 11, 2019 by jhook777
added ps