[1.8.1 - 1.12] Photon Sailor 1.7.1 (now with background processing)

[linuxgurugamer]

Install it by hand

[JoE Smash]

I manually dropped it in the game data folder without Community Tech Tree and I play career....so the parts are not going to show up? Is that the issue? Because I could just edit the cfg files and put them in a stock node if that is the issue....

As far as Community Tech Tree, why I don't like it? Ummm the tree is like 50% bigger with more nodes requiring an amout of science I am unwilling to gather to unlock the tree....I think that's the main reason.

I feel the stock tree is more than sufficient for science grinding....

I restarted my career due to a bug and I am still not back to where I was science wise. I could just cheat and edit my save and add another 5000 science, but if I'm going to do that.....why even play?

Edited July 14, 2018 by JoE Smash

[FreeThinker]

Version 1.4 for Kerbal Space Program 1.4.3 can be downloaded from here

Released on 2018-07-14

• Compiled against KSP 1.4.3
• Added Improved Beamed Power Ray graphic effects
• Added Improved Thermal Dynamics simulation on sail
• Added Atmospheric Laser absorption
• Added support of Ignore Heat Cheat
• Added mass reduction based on unlocked Material and CTT Construction techs
• Balance: reduced minimum tech requirement photon sails
• Fixed missing ray texture

Edited July 14, 2018 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

7 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

I manually dropped it in the game data folder without Community Tech Tree and I play career....so the parts are not going to show up? Is that the issue? Because I could just edit the cfg files and put them in a stock node if that is the issue....

No it isn't it is just that access to higher technodes, certain features are unlocked or existing parts become better. The solar basic sailing functionality you won't need any other mod install but life does get significantly easier with persistent rotation installed. But if you want to supercharge your photon sailor experience, you need to  install CTT which add the KSC Beamed Power aability. Notice that in Sandbox mode, all parts and features are fully unlocked by default.

7 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

As far as Community Tech Tree, why I don't like it? Ummm the tree is like 50% bigger with more nodes requiring an amout of science I am unwilling to gather to unlock the tree....I think that's the main reason.

Well there is a solution for that problem

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by FreeThinker

[FreeThinker]

Photon sailor the animation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngfjBU1zh-o

[totos_totidis]

I am Building an interplanetary power- beamrider network. What wavelength should my photon emiters for optimal sail efficiency be? And since solar sail navigator is outdated, is there a similar mod for 1.4.4?

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, totos_totidis said:

I am Building an interplanetary power- beamrider network. What wavelength should my photon emiters for optimal sail efficiency be?

I'm afraid there is no clear answer, currently it has the same reflectivity in all wavelength (similar to solar reflectivty) , the exception to to this that the Gold Photon Sail has a reflectivity of 99.99658%  of to the long infrared wavelength transmittered from Kerbal space station. However in the next  release I expect to make this much more realistic where the reflectivity will differ between wavelengths. This allows the introduction  several other photon sail each specialized in specific wavelengths. The existing Gold Sail perform best in the infrared wavelength, a new copper variant performs best in near infrared,  a new Silver sails in the visible spectrum and the existing Aluminum is most sensitive in ultra violet. I also intend to introduce some advanced dielectric photon  sail variants  both broadband and narrow band which can be configured for a specific wavelength, similarly how rectennas in KSPIE can be configured for a specific a wavelength. What wavelength is best for you relay depend what else you plan to do with it and any existing infrastructure you build. long infrared is best for high power short range networks, aluminum is the opposite and is most suitable for long range low power networks.

1 hour ago, totos_totidis said:

And since solar sail navigator is outdated, is there a similar mod for 1.4.4?

I contacted him and he told me he wanted to resume work on his navigator. But doesn't the last release function in 1.4.4? If it doesn't there is an option to use the back-ported releases for KSP 1.3.1

Edited July 14, 2018 by FreeThinker

[totos_totidis]

46 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

I'm afraid there is no clear answer, currently it has the same reflectivity in all wavelength (similar to solar reflectivty) , the exception to to this that the Gold Photon Sail has a reflectivity of 99.99658%  of to the long infrared wavelength transmittered from Kerbal space station. However in the next  release I expect to make this much more realistic where the reflectivity will differ between wavelengths. This allows the introduction  several other photon sail each specialized in specific wavelengths. The existing Gold Sail perform best in the infrared wavelength, a new copper variant performs best in near infrared,  a new Silver sails in the visible spectrum and the existing Aluminum is most sensitive in ultra violet. I also intend to introduce some advanced dielectric photon  sail variants  both broadband and narrow band which can be configured for a specific wavelength, similarly how rectennas in KSPIE can be configured for a specific a wavelength. What wavelength is best for you relay depend what else you plan to do with it and any existing infrastructure you build. long infrared is best for high power short range networks, aluminum is the opposite and is most suitable for long range low power networks.

I contacted him and he told me he wanted to resume work on his navigator. But doesn't the last release function in 1.4.4? If it doesn't there is an option to use the back-ported releases for KSP 1.3.1

Thanks for the feedback. I am using the Kspie version of the mod how do I enable the kss laser? and can i use that laser for beamed power?

[FreeThinker]

19 minutes ago, totos_totidis said:

Thanks for the feedback. I am using the Kspie version of the mod how do I enable the kss laser? and can i use that laser for beamed power?

To enable the KSC Laser, you need to have either unlocked a CTT science energy tech or run in sandbox mod, have line of sight with KSC and  pull the "KCS Power Throttle" on the photon sail context interface to the right. The amount of power received depends on the amount of unlocked science tech and the angle the beam has to travel though the atmosphere and the distance to KSC. The KSC laser is currently only accessible for Photon propulsion but this might change in a future update.

Edited July 14, 2018 by FreeThinker

[totos_totidis]

Is the kspie bundled version of the mod different from the stand alone one? It seems to be missing the aluminum photon sail and the ksc laser.

[FreeThinker]

13 minutes ago, totos_totidis said:

Is the kspie bundled version of the mod different from the stand alone one? It seems to be missing the aluminum photon sail and the ksc laser.

The Kspie bundled version of Photon Sailor is an pretty old (the first 1.0 version). You realy need to download and install the latest version (1.4) separately or use C-KAN to benefit from all the new features including KSC beamed power

Edited July 14, 2018 by FreeThinker

[totos_totidis]

Thanks a lot!

[FreeThinker]

36 minutes ago, totos_totidis said:

Thanks a lot!

Please let me know your experiences

[JoE Smash]

13 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

To enable the KSC Laser, you need to have either unlocked a CTT science energy tech or run in sandbox mod, have line of sight with KSC and  pull the "KCS Power Throttle" on the photon sail context interface to the right. The amount of power received depends on the amount of unlocked science tech and the angle the beam has to travel though the atmosphere and the distance to KSC. The KSC laser is currently only accessible for Photon propulsion but this might change in a future update.

So you linked a "special ability" of the photon sail to unlocking a tech node that only exists in Community Tech tree and there is no way to instead link this ability to a stock tech node?

[FreeThinker]

55 minutes ago, JoE Smash said:

So you linked a "special ability" of the photon sail to unlocking a tech node that only exists in Community Tech tree and there is no way to instead link this ability to a stock tech node?

Well there is a back door do which is to override several hidden properties on the sail

Here is a little Module Manager Script which overrides these fields

 @PART[SM-Solar-Sail]{   

	@MODULE[ModulePhotonSail]
	{
		kscLaserTech1 = aerospaceTech  
		kscLaserTech2 = largeUnmanned
		kscLaserTech3 = experimentalScience
		kscLaserTech4 = experimentalMotors
		kscLaserTech5 = specializedElectrics
		kscLaserTech6 = experimentalElectrics
	}
}

Note that this will limit the KSC power to 600 GW

Edited July 15, 2018 by FreeThinker

[JoE Smash]

55 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well there is a back door do which is to override several hidden properties on the sail

Here is a little Module Manager Script which overrides these fields

 @PART[SM-Solar-Sail]{   

	@MODULE[ModulePhotonSail]
	{
		kscLaserTech1 = aerospaceTech  
		kscLaserTech2 = largeUnmanned
		kscLaserTech3 = experimentalScience
		kscLaserTech4 = experimentalMotors
		kscLaserTech5 = specializedElectrics
		kscLaserTech6 = experimentalElectrics
	}
}

Note that this will limit the KSC power to 600 GW

So the KSC can then send the laser to the photon sail, but the power of the laser is determined by the power of the KSC and by default it is 600GW?

How is the power increased by having CTT installed instead? 

I didn't realize CTT did other things to the game, other than adding a ton of new tech nodes....utilized by certain mods....

Edited July 15, 2018 by JoE Smash

[FreeThinker]

5 minutes ago, JoE Smash said:

So the KSC can then send the laser to the photon sail, but the power of the laser is determined by the power of the KSC and by default it is 600GW?

How is the power increased by having CTT installed instead? 

No the power in Watt is currently determined by the sum of tech unlocking cost multiplied by 1e8

CTT allows technodes with much higher unlocking cost. This is all done for balance

Edited July 15, 2018 by FreeThinker

[JoE Smash]

31 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

No the power in Watt is currently determined by the sum of tech unlocking cost multiplied by 1e8

CTT allows technodes with much higher unlocking cost. This is all done for balance

I see.....interesting....

[totos_totidis]

So I have made a CNO cycle fuson powered orbital infared laser installation. But for some reason the photon sail powered ship recieves no beam when there is a line of sight from it to the satelite. Why is that?

[FreeThinker]

1 hour ago, totos_totidis said:

So I have made a CNO cycle fuson powered orbital infared laser installation. But for some reason the photon sail powered ship recieves no beam when there is a line of sight from it to the satelite. Why is that?

Good find! There appears to be an loading problem with Interstellar_Redist.dll, the version between Photon Sailor and Interstellar Extended do not match. To fix it, copy Interstellar_Redist.dll from  GameData\WarpPlugin\Plugins to GameData\PhotonSail\Plugins

Edited July 15, 2018 by FreeThinker

[totos_totidis]

Thanks a lot. The issue is fixed. Now i just have to design a more powerfull laser array and it will be all set.

Also a minor question. Why is the Muon reactor running max at 1.956 gw when it says that it can provide up to 6 gw?

Edited July 15, 2018 by totos_totidis

[FreeThinker]

4 minutes ago, totos_totidis said:

Also a minor question. Why is the Muon reactor running max at 1.956 gw when it says that it can provide up to 6 gw?

Wrong forum but the short answer it has to do with efficiency compared to the fusion mode with the highest reactivity.

[FreeThinker]

Download Version 1.4.1 for Kerbal Space Program 1.4.4 from here

Released on 2018-07-15

• Compiled against KSP 1.4.4
• Added dielectric photon sail part specialized in near infrared wavelength
• Add MM script that add required CTT technides when CTT is not installed
• Added upgrade tech markers to help identify the effect of an technode on Photon Sailor
• Balance: lowered KSC Phased Laser Array wavelength to near infrared
• Balance: increased KSC Phased Laser Array maximum Power to 5 TW
• Balance: increased KSC Phased Laser Array maximum aperture to 1 km
• Balance: increased KSC Phased Laser Array minimum elevation (which mean you need to be above KSC to use it)
• Fixed incompatibility issue with KSPIE

Edited July 15, 2018 by FreeThinker

[Gordon Dry]

Is it by purpose that the TextureUnlimited.cfg is gone and the UnityEngine.dll is added?

[FreeThinker]

7 minutes ago, Gordon Dry said:

Is it by purpose that the TextureUnlimited.cfg is gone and the UnityEngine.dll is added?

The UnityEngine.dll should not have been included, but that should not be a problem I think and TextureUnlimited.cfg is intentionally removed from aluminiumPhotonSail because it already exist in the solarSail folder

Edited July 15, 2018 by FreeThinker