KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[Snoman314]

14 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

The wiki info is indeed a bit outdated. Have you tried inert propellants (like Helium, Argon) or other oxidizing propellants (like Compressed Air, CO2, Water)? It cannot use reducing propellants because the thermal heat exchanger is protected by an anti-oxidizing coating which would dissolve in seconds with any reducing propellant like Hydrogen, Hydrazine.

 

 

Huh OK. I tried with liquid fuel, LFO, hydrogen, Lox, methane and methalox I think it was. Had no clue the chemistry of the propellant would have any bearing on things whatsoever. 

I'll try a non reducing propellant when I get home. 

2 hours ago, Jumberlack said:

You may have some tech nodes which need to be unlocked, have you tried it in sandbox mode? Alternatively I think your propellant options may be limited by the reactor type upon which the thermal turbojet is attached, but I'm not 100% sure.

I was specifically in Sandbox mode, trying to figure out how this mod works through trial and error. 

[Snoman314]

OK, I just tried both the Thermal Turbojet and Thermal Ramjet, on a craft that had Xenon, Liquid Nitrogen, Liquid Helium and Liquid Water on board. I could still only switch these thermal nozzles between Atmospheric and IntakeAir/Hydrogen modes.

Edit: Never mind I just realised that I didn't have cross-feed enabled on the tanks I added. Yeah it's working fine for the other propellants. Thanks for your help.

[Snoman314]

OK, this leads me to my next problem: None of the fuel tanks I have to build my spaceplane out of can carry KSPI fuels, like Liquid Nitrogen, or water, or whatever. 

What do you guys do in this situation? Cryostats inside a cargo bay? Edit the files to add KSPI tank functionality to other tanks? I'll take any suggestions! 

[Drtyhppy2]

4 hours ago, Snoman314 said:

OK, this leads me to my next problem: None of the fuel tanks I have to build my spaceplane out of can carry KSPI fuels, like Liquid Nitrogen, or water, or whatever. 

What do you guys do in this situation? Cryostats inside a cargo bay? Edit the files to add KSPI tank functionality to other tanks? I'll take any suggestions! 

I’ve used both those solutions on thermal turbo/ramjet powered spaceplanes I’ve built. However, if you’re using B9 spaceplane parts, I can tell you that adding fuels to its tank switcher is a major pain and required editing 3 different files. If you’re using stock or mk2 expansion tanks, IFS should patch KSPI fuels as options for those tanks. 

I also strongly recommend using HTP as the internal fuel for the thermal turbojet. Then, personally I add a timber wind scaled to 1.25m running on liquid fuel for orbital maneuvering. 

Hope that helped at least a little. 

Edited April 24, 2019 by Drtyhppy2

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, Snoman314 said:

OK, this leads me to my next problem: None of the fuel tanks I have to build my spaceplane out of can carry KSPI fuels, like Liquid Nitrogen, or water, or whatever.

 

Exactly what parts are missing KSPIE fuels?

[Snoman314]

3 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Exactly what parts are missing KSPIE fuels?

Dang, just saw your message, and I don't have time to go back and get the exact part names. I have a spaceplane built with Mk2 parts, plus B9PW wings with internal tanks.

 

But in other news, I was playing with the atmospheric resource harvester thing. It seems to be only capable of collecting drinking water, not liquid water? Is this on purpose? why is there a difference between LqdWater and regular Water? 

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, Snoman314 said:

But in other news, I was playing with the atmospheric resource harvester thing. It seems to be only capable of collecting drinking water, not liquid water? Is this on purpose? why is there a difference between LqdWater and regular Water? 

Liquid Water and Drinking water can be converted into each other. Liquid Water represent a more raw kind of bulk water resource which is intended for propulsion. Water (aka drinking water)  always have been known as essential life support resource, keeping your Kerbals alive. The reason they are separate resources has to do with the fact that you  don't  want to accidentally mix them up by for example exhaust them as a propellant which would kill your Kerbals after a day if your are in space or non terrestrial celestial body, and we don't want that do we?

[Snoman314]

6 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Liquid Water and Drinking water can be converted into each other. Liquid Water represent a more raw kind of bulk water resource which is intended for propulsion. Water (aka drinking water)  always have been known as essential life support resource, keeping your Kerbals alive. The reason they are separate resources has to do with the fact that you  don't  want to accidentally mix them up by for example exhaust them as a propellant which would kill your Kerbals after a day if your are in space or non terrestrial celestial body, and we don't want that do we?

OK, that makes a lot of sense about preventing using the drinking water as propellant. It took me a minute, but I've now spotted how to convert between the two.

 

12 hours ago, Snoman314 said:

Dang, just saw your message, and I don't have time to go back and get the exact part names. I have a spaceplane built with Mk2 parts, plus B9PW wings with internal tanks.

I was going to go back and be more specific about which parts, but looking at it now, it's literally every single fuel tank that isn't from this mod. 

 

Edit: OK, acting on a hunch (I was wondering why you would ask me "Exactly what parts are missing KSPIE fuels?"), I removed the Cryo Tanks mod, and voila! KSPI style fuel options for all fuel tanks!

Edited April 25, 2019 by Snoman314

[PeakReasonance]

Hello,

I`ve been trying to get a beamed power network going and I`ve been having some troubles. I`ve got to the part where I have a microwave transmitter on the ground set up producing power and a relay at 90km. I`m just trying to test a connection to a ship on the pad but even though the receiver sees the relay network the receiver is not drawing power from it. Is there something simple that I`m missing here? Any pointers would be appreciated! Thanks! 

Spoiler

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by PeakReasonance

[Drtyhppy2]

25 minutes ago, PeakReasonance said:

Hello,

I`ve been trying to get a beamed power network going and I`ve been having some troubles. I`ve got to the part where I have a microwave transmitter on the ground set up producing power and a relay at 90km. I`m just trying to test a connection to a ship on the pad but even though the receiver sees the relay network the receiver is not drawing power from it. Is there something simple that I`m missing here? Any pointers would be appreciated! Thanks! 

  Hide contents

 

As far as I know, beamed power relays haven’t been working for several versions of KSPI-E. You’ve just got to have line of sight between transmitter and receiver right now. Which is a shame as I’ve been wanting to set up an infrared power network around Kerbin’s SOI myself. It’s so useful for launching spaceplanes amongst many other things.

[Omeran]

I recently acquired the quantum gravity tech node, and the quantum singularity reactor, and I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing anything - the actual challenge is to cool it, right?
I noticed that even at the default 5% reactor power it excesses an insane (even Kerbal terms!) amount of wasteheat, so I can only imagine fulfilling its full potential by building (in space) a very large cooling structure (e.g. using scaled-up graphene blanket radiators).

Is there a better way?

[FreeThinker]

On 4/28/2019 at 9:50 PM, Omeran said:

I recently acquired the quantum gravity tech node, and the quantum singularity reactor, and I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing anything - the actual challenge is to cool it, right?
I noticed that even at the default 5% reactor power it excesses an insane (even Kerbal terms!) amount of wasteheat, so I can only imagine fulfilling its full potential by building (in space) a very large cooling structure (e.g. using scaled-up graphene blanket radiators).

Is there a better way?

Nope you are pretty much spot on.  The QSR is the ultimate mass to power converter, providing a lot of power at the expense of creating a lot of wasteheat. Notice if you combine it with a Magnetic scoop you create an infinite source of fuel and when combined with a magnetic nozzle you create an infinite amount of deltaV allowing you to do a grand tour of the universe ad infinitum.

 

.

Edited May 3, 2019 by FreeThinker

[wkwied]

Has the z-pinch engine been changed with the new update? I can now use the new fuels with it, however if I try to use nitrogen once again, I'm only getting at max 70 kn of thrust at the runway.

 

The Z Pinch areospike engine doesn't seem to be effected by this. Additionally, it can use nitrogen and act as both an atmospheric and vacuum engine. The regular Z Pinch seems to be broken

 

Here is the areospike with nitrogen and atmos, and the normal z pinch on nitrogen and ASL.... I'm guessing that the normal one is not intended to be used in an atmosphere anymore? Or a bug?

Edited May 1, 2019 by wkwied

[jhook777]

Daedalus engine overview and singularity reactor, by popular demand! 

 

[FreeThinker]

11 hours ago, wkwied said:

Has the z-pinch engine been changed with the new update? I can now use the new fuels with it, however if I try to use nitrogen once again, I'm only getting at max 70 kn of thrust at the runway.

Yes, it has been overhoaled where every propellant has different characteristics. Nitrogen is a mono atomic propellant which is most suitable for vacuum high isp propulsion with magnetic nozzle. This means that propulsion in the atmosphere using  Nitrogen is simply bad. The Airospike has better atmospheric performance thanks to it airospike but it cannot use reducing high performance thermal propellant like hydrolox, hydrazine and methane which are the propellant you want to use in the atmosphere with the Z-Pinch Engine

Edited May 1, 2019 by FreeThinker

[wkwied]

All right. So I think I'll have to mess around with a thermal nozzle now that the zpinch is not good for atmos and I find the areospike zpinch to be unweildly.

[FreeThinker]

2 hours ago, wkwied said:

All right. So I think I'll have to mess around with a thermal nozzle now that the zpinch is not good for atmos and I find the areospike zpinch to be unweildly.

zpinch engine can perform realy well in atmosphere, but you need to use thermal propellant, like methane, hydrazine or ammonia which all benefit from thrust and isp bonuses.

Edited May 1, 2019 by FreeThinker

[wkwied]

I'm hoping you could help. Since trying to update my SSTO I have been having trouble.

 

If I use the normal zpinch, I can use methane in atmos, however Kerbal (or Eve) do not have sufficient amounts for me to extract it and remain in flight.

I've tried to use the areospike zpinch, and I'm able to get off the ground, and into orbit with a combination of air breathing and nitrogen extraction, however upon reentry I don't seem to have the ability to switch it back to air breathing. It only says flame out, even when I'm well within the atmosphere.

Additionally, I seem to lose control much much easier than on the previous update. I'm not sure what has changed, but when I had the folding drive (and was in that part, less aerodynamic) I was entirely in control in Kerbal at all speeds.

Here is my craft; https://kerbalx.com/the-jxjvrq/Zpinch-Plane-34

[FreeThinker]

12 hours ago, wkwied said:

I've tried to use the areospike zpinch, and I'm able to get off the ground, and into orbit with a combination of air breathing and nitrogen extraction, however upon reentry I don't seem to have the ability to switch it back to air breathing. It only says flame out, even when I'm well within the atmospher.

5

It appears the propellant switcher doesn't take into account reentry.  I will look into it

12 hours ago, wkwied said:

Additionally, I seem to lose control much much easier than on the previous update. I'm not sure what has changed, but when I had the folding drive (and was in that part, less aerodynamic) I was entirely in control in Kerbal at all speeds.

 

The most likely reason is that the reaction wheel isn't as strong as they used to be. In the last patch, I modified to warp drive reaction wheels to only be active during warp,  and will proportionally scale with mass allowing even the biggest vessels to turn during warp. So my suggestion would be to add stronger reaction wheels or rcs.

Edited May 3, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Omeran]

I'm getting "too dense atmosphere" message on the magnetic nozzle when at 150Km above Kerbin. Is that correct?

Also, I'd really appreciate a solution to the "DC electrical system going crazy" problem (how can I help?)

 

Edited May 4, 2019 by Omeran

[Diamondcutter54]

I keep getting this message on version 1.7

"KSp Interstellar is unable to detect files requires for proper functioning. Please make sure this mod has been installed to [Base KSP directory]/GameData/WarpPlugin."

The files are in my GameData folder and I have no idea what files are missing.

[AstralWither]

how do I calculate the energy needed for warp?

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, Omeran said:

I'm getting "too dense atmosphere" message on the magnetic nozzle when at 150Km above Kerbin. Is that correct?

Also, I'd really appreciate a solution to the "DC electrical system going crazy" problem (how can I help?)

 

This usually happens when insite a atmosphere, but it doesn't have to be. I would have to know more before I can say what might go wrong. Possble reson might include mismatch between nozzle and reactor, overheating or other detrimental effects.

45 minutes ago, AstralWither said:

how do I calculate the energy needed for warp?

If you open the warp engine UI, it ell you the power cost for 1c, which is the minimum amount of power you need to use the warp engine. To lower this number, increase the amount of warp engine mass.

3 hours ago, Diamondcutter54 said:

I keep getting this message on version 1.7

"KSp Interstellar is unable to detect files requires for proper functioning. Please make sure this mod has been installed to [Base KSP directory]/GameData/WarpPlugin."

The files are in my GameData folder and I have no idea what files are missing.

This message is displayed when it cannot find or read WarpPluginSettings.cfg at "Kerbal Space Program\GameData\WarpPlugin" folder. Most likely you installed it on the wrong location

Edited May 4, 2019 by FreeThinker

[Omeran]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

This usually happens when insite a atmosphere, but it doesn't have to be. I would have to know more before I can say what might go wrong. Possble reson might include mismatch between nozzle and reactor, overheating or other detrimental effects.

I connected it to a quantum singularity reactor with adequate cooling. got it to a sub-orbital course with AP at 150Km and was hoping to circularize using the plasma nozzle.
Sadly, that didn't work too well, so I had to use more conventional means, but I finally got the QSR to work in low Kerbin orbit, and collect hydrogen from the atmonsphere, so that's fun. Next job is to turn it into a death ray beamed power generator so I might be able to make more interesting launches...

Oh, btw, I used a tiny positronium electrostatic ring to power a small positron antimatter reactor to jumpstart the QSR. When I decoupled them I got a message about the positronium ring going to explode, but I got to say I was kinda disappointed that nothing happened when the countdown reached 0. Maybe I should see what happens with more positrons? (I noticed the QSR generates them, so that's cool).
 

[FreeThinker]

24 minutes ago, Omeran said:

I connected it to a quantum singularity reactor with adequate cooling. got it to a sub-orbital course with AP at 150Km and was hoping to circularize using the plasma nozzle.

it suppose to be working with a magnetic nozzle but appears to be broken right now. I'm looking in it

Edited May 4, 2019 by FreeThinker