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[1.8x - 1.11.x] Stockish Project Orion v1.8.2 [update 12/29/2020]

SuicidalInsanity

By SuicidalInsanity
in KSP1 Mod Releases

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SuicidalInsanity

SuicidalInsanity

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V1.8.1
Vqo8w2R.png
You've likely heard of Project Orion - the incredibly metal spacecraft propulsion concept from the '60s that involved surfing on the wake of serial nuclear explosions - but Project Orion wasn't just the eponymous engine; it was an entire vehicle concept study to construct a fleet of Orion powered spacecraft variants to explore and utilize the local Solar System - Luna, Mars, even Jupiter or Saturn and their extensive moon systems. What this mod does is bring Project Orion to KSP.
Parts List:
-5m Orion Drive
-5m Medusa Drive
-2 Payload Spines, Short and Long
-3 external Size1.5 Pulse Unit magazines
-5 external LF/O & MonoProp tanks
-5 radial resource containers
-2 radial Cargo Bays
-4 Payload Spine adapters, 1.25m ,2.5m, 3.75m, 5m
-7 Structural adapters, 1.25m, 2.5m, 3.75m, &5m
-1.875m Command Pod
-1.875m Crew Can, Living Quarters, and Lab
-5m Cargo Bays
-5m Uranium ISRU Processor
-1.875m Metal ISRU Smelter

2RKd96l.png
Pics

Download
-SpaceDock
-GitHub

This mod is licensed under a MIT license.
Includes CRP as a dependency.

Kottabos review (version 1.0)

Usage Notes:
* Strut your stuff! If you think you have enough struts, you don't. Orion produces impulses, rather than continuous thrust. Make sure your vessel can survive the rigors of launch. AutoStruts (enabled via toggling Advanced Tweakables in the settings menu)are highly recommended, as is the Rigid Attach toggle.  Kerbal Joint Reinforcement continued is also recommended.
* 0.05kt yield pulse units don't seem like much, but are included for a reason. Dense atmosphere like Kerbin ASL boosts the impulse from the pulse units, and higher yields may very well straight up destroy a lighter rocket on launch.
* Nuclear Pulse Units are nukes. it is recommended to not operate an Orion drive near any launch pads, lunar bases or orbital stations you particularly like. Replacing the Launchpad at the KSC can get expensive.
* At present, due to ModulePulseEngine being a bespoke engine module, stock (or mod) dV calcs and readouts don't grab the Orion Drive; Orion dV calcs can be found in the Orion part action Window in flight.
* Bring lots of RCS. Orion Vessels can easily reach kiloton masses, and will take forever to come about on just SAS; 1.875m LF/O and MonoProp tanks that will fit on the sides of a payload Spine are included for this purpose.


Changelog:

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Edited by SuicidalInsanity
Updating OP
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B-STRK

B-STRK

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Excellent Kerbal Boom2 option here! Had a small test spin with a 500 ton NRAP to see how it fares, and I feel I have a good alternative to the USI Orion option (which still works, no doubt, and which has been and can still be my go-to, but I've been having some mis-timed pusher plate animation issues in my install that while not fatal, just kinda throws off the immersion for me).  If I may offer admittedly unsolicited advice? Unless I missed something, I think your intent for the ammunition pulse unit drums was to surface-attach the drums to the wells in the structural units for them. And yeah, you did warn us to strut them up. But would offering radial stack node options in the structural parts (similar to the engine plates in the stock/DLC parts) also work, or had that been tried in one of your prototypes already? (just to minimize parts count and autostrutting, and seeing a drum of nuclear bombs shaking about like jello is hilarious as it is horrifying in real life.)

(Also, on observation, a fuel structure-5m adaptor, unless I'm missing a part somewhere in my install, but other mods can offer workable alternatives or that structural part, perhaps?)

Boom boom away!

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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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This is really cool, it actually fires the engine as separate impulses unlike the RoverDude version.

There's just one problem. Orion drives are supposed to be INCREDIBLY powerful engines, capable of enormous accelerations. Mine struggles to leave the launchpad. Is there an explanation for this? Is it just to reduce stress on parts? Even with the yield set to maximum I only get a few Gee.

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SuicidalInsanity

SuicidalInsanity

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  On 4/2/2020 at 7:09 AM, theJesuit said:

Will this produce radiation for Kerbalism?

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Not at present - v1.0 is just the standalone - but it is something that I can add for future updates.

  On 4/2/2020 at 10:48 AM, B-STRK said:

Radial stack nodes on fuel drums and 5m adapter

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No 5m adapter at present, though I can easily add one. I agree on radial stack nodes for the fuel drums; I'll see about integrating a decoupler as well for part count/joint reductions.

  On 4/2/2020 at 1:48 PM, O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs said:

does this work with 1.8.1?

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Yes.

  On 4/2/2020 at 2:01 PM, GregroxMun said:

This is really cool, it actually fires the engine as separate impulses unlike the RoverDude version.

There's just one problem. Orion drives are supposed to be INCREDIBLY powerful engines, capable of enormous accelerations. Mine struggles to leave the launchpad. Is there an explanation for this? Is it just to reduce stress on parts? Even with the yield set to maximum I only get a few Gee.

Expand  

What is your vessel mass? Even the 0.5kt pulse units should be more than capable of lifting a 1000 ton ship off the pad with alacrity. That said, my pre-release testing was in a vanilla stock environment, so it's possible another mod is interfering. Are you running a mod that changes part mass/gravity/aero/atmo density?
 

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SuicidalInsanity

SuicidalInsanity

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Minor update to 1.01. rounds out the collection of adapter parts and the nuke magazines now have integrated decouplers - should help somewhat with part count and strutting stuff - as well as fixing an atmo density calculation; The Orion drive should now produce more reasonable levels of impulse in atmo.

 

  On 4/2/2020 at 11:18 PM, O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs said:

mate now that I have it installed I can not figure out how to attach the  external Pulse Unit magazines to the Payload Spines fro the life of me. Could you explain to me how they attach or upload a video? Ty

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The nuke magazines are standard fuel tanks with a fancy fuel type - just radially attach them. But you're by no means required to attach them specifically to the payload spines - those were included if players wanted to recreate classic 60's USAF Orion vessel concepts, but are otherwise  just a fancy structural part.

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O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs

O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs

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  On 4/2/2020 at 11:54 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:


 

The nuke magazines are standard fuel tanks with a fancy fuel type - just radially attach them. But you're by no means required to attach them specifically to the payload spines - those were included if players wanted to recreate classic 60's USAF Orion vessel concepts, but are otherwise  just a fancy structural part.

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I tried that but the engine does not use the fuel even though it recognizes it its weird

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SuicidalInsanity

SuicidalInsanity

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Oh. That's the issue. The Orion drive will use up the 225 nukes carried internally first before needing fuel from the external magazines. The external magazines are there to extend the range of the vessel, rather than as a primary fuel source. Apologies, should have specified that in the usage notes in the OP.

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O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs

O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs

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  On 4/3/2020 at 1:21 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Oh. That's the issue. The Orion drive will use up the 225 nukes carried internally first before needing fuel from the external magazines. The external magazines are there to extend the range of the vessel, rather than as a primary fuel source. Apologies, should have specified that in the usage notes in the OP.

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I did not get that

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X52

X52

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  On 4/2/2020 at 7:38 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Not at present - v1.0 is just the standalone - but it is something that I can add for future updates.

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As far as I could find out, all that would  be needed for Kerbalism support is expanding the module of the engine and the fuel tanks with this: 

    MODULE
    {
        name = Emitter
        radiation = rads/s
    }

where rads/s should be replaced with the amount of radiation emitted in rads/s

The only tricky part, would be to adjust it so that it is dependent on the amount of fuel in the tanks and only the engine only emits a much when it is firing (I don't know how to do this)(also I have no idea how much radiation it should produce).

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SuicidalInsanity

SuicidalInsanity

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  On 4/3/2020 at 11:24 AM, O YEAAAAAAH Mr Crabs said:

I did not get that

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The 5m Orion Drive part contains fuel. It uses that fuel first. Magazines add extra fuel, used later.

...

Re: Kerbalism: Looking at the original design docs, radiation yield for a 1kt pulse is 1000 Sievert per shot on the pusher plate, dissipating due to distance/intervening mass to 3.5 Sievert/shot for crewed sections. Rad shielding requirements called for a minimum of ~120g/cm2 of hydrogenous material + 55g/cm2 of lead for shielding to reduce crew rad exposure to ~0.5 Sievert/mission(~3k pulse units). Radiation case failure and the pulse unit exploding ~3ms after detonation releases 20000 Sievert/shot, reducing at a rate of 4*PI*distance^2 to the surrounding area.
Radiation opacity from the radiation case material of the pulse unit renders them radiation safe.
Assuming 'rads/s' = rad = 0.01Gy, and 1Gy = 1 Sv(X-Ray and Gamma), 2x10^6/(4PI*Dist^2) rads/shot for local area exposure(vac) and 0.01666(with shielding) to 350 (no intervening mass)rads/shot to Orion crew. I can poke around the kerbalism code and see if there's a way to get while an engine is firing instead of passively.

For ISRU, Pulse Units are just another fuel type, and can be created via a stock ISRU converter no differently than LF/O or Monoprop. Admittedly it doesn't make much sense to stick a pulse unit recipe onto a Convert-O-Tron (or maybe it would, they can already magically create everything else), but I can see about adding an ISRU Pulse Unit fabrication part.

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B-STRK

B-STRK

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  On 4/3/2020 at 8:01 PM, SuicidalInsanity said:

For ISRU, Pulse Units are just another fuel type, and can be created via a stock ISRU converter no differently than LF/O or Monoprop. Admittedly it doesn't make much sense to stick a pulse unit recipe onto a Convert-O-Tron (or maybe it would, they can already magically create everything else), but I can see about adding an ISRU Pulse Unit fabrication part.

Expand  

It's likely that there'd be support for SMX (wink wink nudge nudge ;)), but I'm also thinking, in case the pulse units will be using uraninite or any other applicable CRP resource that isn't Ore, for installs with USI Core, MKS or NFE involving spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, could Depleted Uranium/DepU be an alternate fuel source? (Or is it realistically too depleted to make or contribute to the proper fissile material, enrichment and extraction notwithstanding? Dangit Jim, I'm a Kerbal rocket engineer, not a Kerbal nuclear chemist. :D) 

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SuicidalInsanity

SuicidalInsanity

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Pulse Unit ISRU - I want it to be simple enough to fit in with the level of abstraction that stock uses for Ore, so that it's accessible to players who don't want to mess with MKS-tier ISRU proceses, but complex enough it's not simply a matter of finding the nearest asteroid and Abrakadabra! More nukes. Current thoughts are to remain within CRP, so Uranite -> Enriched Uranium via a Uranium Processor; MetallicOre -> Metals via a smelter, and then Metals + Enriched Uranium -> Pulse Units via a Machine Shop (Was entertaining the idea of Metals -> Parts via Machine Shop, then Parts + Enriched Uranium -> Pulse Units via Machine Shop, but that's likely getting too complex). Then there'll be MM patches for USI/MKS/NFE integration so their resourcing processes could be employed instead. Project Orion already called for onboard Machineshops, not too much of a stretch to envision ISRU variants with the other stuff as well.
Speaking of other stuff:
yqe1By7.png
I've been bitten by the muse, and Project Orion was more than just the engine, after all. The untextured cylinders above the 3.75m hab are inline Launch Escape Motors, the untextured wedges are radial cargo containers you can stuff in the spine trusses, and the suspiciously spaceplane-looking parts to the right are Spaceplane bits inspired by the proposed Orion Mars mission landers and are likely beyond Feature Creep to the point they'd need to be a separate mod if finished.
Not shown - Smelter for Pulse Unit ISRU, Orion landing legs/Inline landing thrusters (ala Orion Lunar Ferry designs), and various super-heavy RCS nozzles to maneuver around your 1000+ ton Orion vessel. Crew parts already have some IVAs done for them, and the remainder will be getting them, because I'm apparently a crazy person (incidentally, if any of you want to do some commissioned IVA modelling...?).
Since I want to get these parts done and then be done with it, instead of releasing new parts piecemeal for the next few months, are there any other Orion bits that are needed?

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FreeThinker

FreeThinker

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Intresting mod, main problem seems you apply the huge force only in a very short period which result in extreme force applied to the vessel. So I suggest you try to spread the force over multiple frames, even if it isn't fully realistic, it would at least improve playability

Edited by FreeThinker
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