How do you make an ultra-high altitude intake?

[Fireheart318]

I need an intake that works well at roughly 55,000m and up. Is that even a thing that can happen? How do I make it happen?

[Gordon Fecyk]

It appears the intakes should work at any altitude, to a point. The limiter for most of the intakes is the machCurve in ModuleResourceIntake. Jet engines themselves are density and speed limited, to avoid the older problem of 'intake spam.'

If that isn't working, try ModuleResourceHarvester in atmospheric mode instead, which seems to work at higher altitudes and the lowest densities. You'd need to make a resource definition though, as I don't believe you can make 'intake air' as a resource when it already exists as a special case for oxygen worlds.

Take a look at the harvester examples in Explodium Breathing Engines for inspiration. Haven't tried hacking a resource definition at Kerbin in a while, but I cheated a craft to Eve and found the harvesters working on the very edge of Eve's atmosphere. The amounts were microscopic, but if this is for modelling that ion engine the ESA was proposing, microscopic amounts would be enough.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Gordon Fecyk
speed limited, not altitude limited.