KSP Interstellar Extended Support Thread

[Fairin]

Spoiler

8 hours ago, samooo2 said:

Yeah, the documentation is a mess. There's a chart for ISRU resource flow on the first page of this thread, nothing in-game.

I recommend you start with stuff from the first ISRU tech node and not the All-In-One, it's less overwhelming that way. That leaves you with:

1. universal drill - for everything (except asteroids?)

and 4 ISRU units:

1. processor - turns drill output into usable resources

2. converter - handles nuclear fission fuel creation/reprocessing, and some advanced resource conversions around Carbon and Nitrogen

3. electrolyzer - breaks down molecules (time to get out your chemistry book)

4. refrigerator - conversion between liquid/gas

Each unit has a small amount of storage for the resources it works with.

 

It would also be easier to start with another, simpler product. Pebblebed fuel (Uranium nitride) is maybe the most complex one out there. You'd go like this:

1.

Flourite (Universal drill) -> Flourine (processor) -> Lqd.Flourine(refrigerator/cryo tank)

Uraninite(Universal drill) -> Enriched Uranium(processor)

Nitratine(Universal drill) -> Nitrogen(processor)

Hydrates(Universal drill) ->Lqd.Water(processor) -> Hydrogen(electrolyzer)

2.

Enriched Uranium + Liquid Flourine -> Uranium Flouride(converter)

Nitrogen + Hydrogen -> Ammonia(converter)

3.

Uranium Flouride + Ammonia -> Uranium Nitride(converter)

 

On top of that you need a bunch of resource containers, since nothing stores primary drill resources(4) or radioactive mid-products(4) and some processes can't agree on using liquid or gas variants.

 

 

 

so yeah my universal drills read " intake liquid " thought they were for water / ocean extraction. gonna create some and give my engineers something to do on site and give them ago, see knew i was missin the first step somewhere... thanks > : ) Samooo2

 

doesnt help that i have like 30 drills to pick from... stupid mod addiction..

Edited January 31, 2018 by Fairin

[FreeThinker]

36 minutes ago, Fairin said:

  Hide contents

timberwind + thermal generator + obscene radiators ran it for a few minutes to get the heat stable - nearly 4gw of thermal power to electricty for my electric thrusters.

 

 

mm, that not how it supposed to work, the build in generator is supposed to prevent other generators to connect to it, but clearly that mechanism got broken somehow

[Fairin]

4 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

mm, that not how it supposed to work, the build in generator is supposed to prevent other generators to connect to it, but clearly that mechanism got broken somehow

doh, nerf inc! duck and cover!

you can also turn the timberwind around - shut down the engine and use a different thermal thruster > : ) although it gives the same thrust/isp.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited January 31, 2018 by Fairin

[zanjiin]

I tried to use thermal nozzle and upgraded malten salt reactor for a Mun lander but the problem is that thrust control is too sluggish because reactor takes time to raise the temp inside when the thrust is increased and cool down when thrust is lowered. It seems that reactor only heats up when the power is used for something. Is it possible to make malten salt to keep max temperature for the time I need to maneuvre? . I tried to attach thermoelectric generetor but it was of no use.

Edited February 1, 2018 by zanjiin

[Fairin]

5 hours ago, zanjiin said:

I tried to use thermal nozzle and upgraded malten salt reactor for a Mun lander but the problem is that thrust control is too sluggish because reactor takes time to raise the temp inside when the thrust is increased and cool down when thrust is lowered. It seems that reactor only heats up when the power is used for something. Is it possible to make malten salt to keep max temperature for the time I need to maneuvre? . I tried to attach thermoelectric generetor but it was of no use.

molten salt is more of a long term energy generator than thrusting reactor - for my early tech landers i use an array of the candles, 8 on the back of a 1.25meter small craft. i find the standalone engines (open cycle / timberwind) to be really good at being lander engines as well if you can get used to building structures around them - i tend to stuff the majority of the timberwind in a cargo bay.

 

but to answer your question i think you can attach a laser or microwave generator .. then profit?

[zanjiin]

1 hour ago, Fairin said:

molten salt is more of a long term energy generator than thrusting reactor - for my early tech landers i use an array of the candles, 8 on the back of a 1.25meter small craft. i find the standalone engines (open cycle / timberwind) to be really good at being lander engines as well if you can get used to building structures around them - i tend to stuff the majority of the timberwind in a cargo bay.

 

but to answer your question i think you can attach a laser or microwave generator .. then profit?

Well, I did make a microwave network for take offs from Kerbin with termal nozzle. But the design seems as an overkill a huge malten salt reactor at the KSC a couple more of the same size around kerbin and a a stack of reacors at the 850 km orbit with relays to get energy from everywhere. But I'm not sure I've done it efficiently. I do not know exactly how the relay/ transmition should be properly configured so I just put the largest foldable transmitters and that seems to work. In the end I dont feel that this thing is how it should be. I've spent several a couple of days VAB and using Hyperedit to check out if these things function at all and that eats away the interest, seems like you are cheating or something. 

To the point with MSR, the idea was to get the engine working with that reactor as the first step to more efficient though cumbersome engines. And it makes no sense for me that a reactor tries to adjust to every change of thrust and cant just keep at maximum. I mean its job is to produce as much heat as it can and it should not care is it used at all or not. 

[Charon Moloch]

I have been ignoring this thread for a long time, how do you make positrons in ksp interstellar extended?

[FreeThinker]

7 minutes ago, Charon Moloch said:

I have been ignoring this thread for a long time, how do you make positrons in ksp interstellar extended?

the stand alone Free Electron Laser (FEL) which is also used for beamed power

[Charon Moloch]

23 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

the stand alone Free Electron Laser (FEL) which is also used for beamed power

hmmm, I'm using ksp interstellar extended 1.16.7, and I keep testing the laser emitter, but I don't know how to make it work

[FreeThinker]

1 minute ago, Charon Moloch said:

hmmm, I'm using ksp interstellar extended 1.16.7, and I keep testing the laser emitter, but I don't know how to make it work

 

use the other FEL, the version that is used to create any beam except x-ray

[protochicken]

I have been looking for the last few days trying to find a way to generate positrons for the positron reactor.  I tried the penning traps, AM generators, collectors, basically anything that seemed like it might generate any kind of AM.  I am able to generate antimatter easily enough, but positrons as a distinct resource seem to be evading me.  Am I missing something?  I like the power/cost ratio of the positron reactors, but cannot make a self-sustaining ship right now.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[deloreanfan]

Hi all, this is my first post on these forums.

 

I seem to have discovered a bug that I think has been mentioned by a couple people already scattered around. Something involving solar panels and this mod is messing up power consumption. I have tested this on a rig that has a reactor and a solar panel. When the Panel is not active, it creates and consumes no power, but when it is deployed, it seems to require as much power as it produces, and it yields a net zero result. I first discovered this when I launched my solar farm. It shouldve had the capacity of something like 3GW of beamed power, yet was producing something like 7 KW of beamed power, the rest all being required by the "DC Electrical System"

Album https://imgur.com/a/Z1vcz will appear when post is submitted

Album https://imgur.com/a/WiZVJ will appear when post is submitted

 

I guess for now I'll stick with nuclear only until this is resolved. Or, if I did something wrong and I made a dumb, please let me know.

 

Thanks

[Fairin]

pulling my fur out tryin to figure out why my thermal engines refuse to take hydrazine - spent the entire day getting the science together to finish up some older tech, now i just have fusion techs - antimatter techs, and some other bits and pieces to go 2000 research points and above, front page says exotic nuclear propulsion. which unlocks hydrazine and water. my rockets can use water. but not the other, its driving me up the wall.

 

the bonus side effect is i found 3 researches to upgrade my thermal rockets in my "spaceplane" tree, so it feels like my pebblebeds got much, much stronger . stupid upgrades need to be clearer.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Fairin

[zanjiin]

@FreeThinker Sorry for bothering, but the question remains is it possible to make Malten Salt Generator to produce maximum heat when it is power is not consumed by anything?

[Temeriki]

On 2/2/2018 at 6:34 AM, zanjiin said:

@FreeThinker Sorry for bothering, but the question remains is it possible to make Malten Salt Generator to produce maximum heat when it is power is not consumed by anything?

Pretty much all of the reactors have a throttling spoolup, you could put a microwave transmitter on the rig and use that to keep the power production up and shut it down before flying, heat production = power production, so keeping the heat up means your burning fuel for no reason.  But in all honesty your better off using different reactors, the power to mass and spool up time on the MSR is kinda garbage.

I do have a question about the MSR though, I see its refuelable now?  Does that mean without a kerbal on board I can move the waste out and more fuel in, or would I still need a kerbal for that, or can I only move more fuel in and it continues to get poisoned?  Working on a super long range probe mission to OPM planets, being able to refuel on site would let me extend the mission significantly.

[Arivald Ha'gel]

6 minutes ago, Temeriki said:

Pretty much all of the reactors have a throttling spoolup, you could put a microwave transmitter on the rig and use that to keep the power production up and shut it down before flying, heat production = power production, so keeping the heat up means your burning fuel for no reason.  But in all honesty your better off using different reactors, the power to mass and spool up time on the MSR is kinda garbage.

I do have a question about the MSR though, I see its refuelable now?  Does that mean without a kerbal on board I can move the waste out and more fuel in, or would I still need a kerbal for that, or can I only move more fuel in and it continues to get poisoned?  Working on a super long range probe mission to OPM planets, being able to refuel on site would let me extend the mission significantly.

You can use Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing (either on Sci Lab, or using ISRU), that will clear up neutron poisons and create Uranium/DepletedFuel. However for refuelling Kerbal is needed IMHO.

[zanjiin]

45 minutes ago, Temeriki said:

Pretty much all of the reactors have a throttling spoolup, you could put a microwave transmitter on the rig and use that to keep the power production up and shut it down before flying, heat production = power production, so keeping the heat up means your burning fuel for no reason.  But in all honesty your better off using different reactors, the power to mass and spool up time on the MSR is kinda garbage.

I do have a question about the MSR though, I see its refuelable now?  Does that mean without a kerbal on board I can move the waste out and more fuel in, or would I still need a kerbal for that, or can I only move more fuel in and it continues to get poisoned?  Working on a super long range probe mission to OPM planets, being able to refuel on site would let me extend the mission significantly.

Yes, I could do with better reactors or use microwave transmitters for better efficiency but that's not the point. The point is that upgraded MSR can give enough thrust for a cumbersome mun lander with quite a reserve of delta V to hop around the Mun doing field science contracts and other silly things. The drawback of MSR powered lander is that is very heavy and once put to maximum output should produce lots of extraheat that I have to deal with. But it is just spools up and goes down at any change of thrust. That doesnt make any sense. So the idea is that when i have to land the craft or to hop around to navigation points I put it at max capacity have good thrust reaction time (low TWR though) but have to be aware of the heat that builds up. When I finished with maneuvrers I put MSR back to resting state to cool down. Indeed there might be higher reactor fuel consuption, but that will be enough for tens if not hundreds of missions.

 

Again I dont want to use more efficient technologies yet. I'm trying to slowly build up infrastructure and slowly progress to more advanced technologies.

 

P.S. I changed in cfg file the a "speed" parameter of MSR that decreased the spool up time, MSR + Thermal Nozzle is just like big Nerv engine now, not really what I wanted.

But thank you very much for your input.

Edited February 3, 2018 by zanjiin

[samooo2]

20 hours ago, zanjiin said:

Yes, I could do with better reactors or use microwave transmitters for better efficiency but that's not the point. The point is that upgraded MSR can give enough thrust for a cumbersome mun lander with quite a reserve of delta V to hop around the Mun doing field science contracts and other silly things. The drawback of MSR powered lander is that is very heavy and once put to maximum output should produce lots of extraheat that I have to deal with. But it is just spools up and goes down at any change of thrust. That doesnt make any sense. So the idea is that when i have to land the craft or to hop around to navigation points I put it at max capacity have good thrust reaction time (low TWR though) but have to be aware of the heat that builds up. When I finished with maneuvrers I put MSR back to resting state to cool down. Indeed there might be higher reactor fuel consuption, but that will be enough for tens if not hundreds of missions.

 

Again I dont want to use more efficient technologies yet. I'm trying to slowly build up infrastructure and slowly progress to more advanced technologies.

 

P.S. I changed in cfg file the a "speed" parameter of MSR that decreased the spool up time, MSR + Thermal Nozzle is just like big Nerv engine now, not really what I wanted.

But thank you very much for your input.

I think you're misunderstanding those beamed power suggestions. If you put a tiny power transmitter onto the ship with the reactor/engine combo, the transmitter will keep your reactor output at 100% as long as it's set to transmit (assuming there's a thermal power generator attached). This way you can "fake" the option you were asking for until it's actually implemented (if ever).

[zanjiin]

2 hours ago, samooo2 said:

I think you're misunderstanding those beamed power suggestions. If you put a tiny power transmitter onto the ship with the reactor/engine combo, the transmitter will keep your reactor output at 100% as long as it's set to transmit (assuming there's a thermal power generator attached). This way you can "fake" the option you were asking for until it's actually implemented (if ever).

Oh I think I really did misunderstand that. Thank you for pointing out. Thought it was about microwave power and thermal receiver. But would a tiny transmitter put a 100% load on reactor? Since it will take only fraction of power from generator.

[lickgreenfrogs]

Hello, I’m having some issues with the Alcubierre drives. I will start my warp, go to the map to see where I am, and then when I come back my drives have disappeared. Is there any way to fix this? Thanks in advance! 

[Arivald Ha'gel]

There definitely is an issue with Solar Panels:

8 * 75kW panels only give 8.6kW (probably since KSPI-E told them to only generate that little).

There seems to be several issues to Solar Panels. I'll try to investigate those:

- minimal EC generated from Solar Panels.

- EC consumption when Solar Panel is perpendicular to Sun, or occluded by vessel, or occluded by celestial body.

- strange (extremely large) DC Electrical System component demand for MW (sometimes >25GW)

Let me know if there are any other issues, so I could also fix them.

 

Edited February 6, 2018 by Arivald Ha'gel

[aaronsta1]

quick question.. i want to add the interstellar fuel to OPT spaceplane parts.. right now you can choose LFO/LF/MONOPROP.. is there an easy way of doing that? 

 

[AlonzoTG]

I really appreciate how ambitious this project is... Okay, it's 409MB on my disk right now so my enthusiasm is somewhat dampened, but well, it is very ambitious... One thing really stuck out when I was going through my insanely huge modpack trying to bring it some sanity: LqdWater...    SERIOUSLY?!??!!  Dude, if you had say "hvyWater" which is fabricated by Deuterium + Oxygen -> HvyWtr + some energy from combustion, I'd be "kewl" but sanity kinda demands that u use just WATER for good compatibility with other mods... 

This is a really overwhelming pack, I haven't unlocked it in my career save yet so I'll keep u posted as I start getting into the tutorials and see how things go when I try to power surface colonies and such with it... 

[aaronsta1]

i dont think the calculation for the microwave relay distance is working as intended.. its using the farthest one. say i have 3 80GW transmitters in a 3Mm orbit.. and i have 6 relays at 900Km and one of the transmitters is on the back side of kerbin.. now say i have a satellite 30Mm with a microwave relay.. 

 

instead of using the 900Km relays to get to the transmitter.. which would be like 4Mm? the game uses the 30Mm relay and it says the transmitter is 60Mm away..

maybe im doing something wrong?

 

EDIT i confirmed this bug in sandbox.. if i put up 2 or 3 transmitters and i have a relay somewhere in LOS.. it will always use the relay on the 2nd and 3rd transmitter, even if the transmitter is directly over head..

so that means you cant stack transmitters if you use relays.. it will only connect to one at full power and the rest are whatever the max relay power is..  

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by aaronsta1

[aaronsta1]

i rearranged my transmitters to be 750Km orbit.. and i took out all of the relays as i think it was confusing the game?

 

ok so now im having another problem.. i have 3 micro relays around the mun.. they are 8GW phased arrays.. when one of those goes behind the mun, it loses signal.. it wont seem to relay the signal from the other 2?  here is a pic

 

the forward facing ones are in direct line to the micro transmitter around kerbin.

 

OK Edit, i added a 4th relay and they all started working? maybe it was a LOS issue even tho the relay seemed to be ok? i dunno.. now my problem is the relay really cuts down the power.. on the near side i have 3GW being transmitted from kerbin, but on the far side its only 300MW when it goes through the relay.. 

 

i guess im going to have to put a transmitter in orbit of the mun and minmus for this to work.. i was hoping i could do with just one huge transmitter in orbit of kerbin and relay the power..

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by aaronsta1