ION engines

[Companion]

NOTE: I am not connected to the develpment of this mod in any way, find the mod page here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/13692-Mechanical-Mouse-Industries-Kethane-Payload-Packs-Released%21%21%21

One of the mods in this pack, the sattalite mod, would, in my opinion, be great for interplanetary travel. I just recently got the mod and you can run your ships with ion engines. I do not know much about it but the ion engines are run by ion battery packs which I think (I am not sure) can be recharged with solar panels. If this is true then this would be ideal for interplanetary mission as you would not run out of fuel. The only downside is that the ion engine only has a thrust of 15.

[AviatorBJP]

I use an ion engine mod for my long endurance rescue craft. They hang around in my standard orbits of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus waiting for an inevitable accident that strands my Kerbinauts. The batteries power the ION engines, and solar panels recharge the batteries (albeit slowly). Ion engines generate very low thrust, so they take patience to use.

I use two mods that have ion engines, and while they do not directly conflict with each other, they do not use compatible parts.

[dishycourier]

Your request is being addressed. I have a balancing issue with my setup, but there are 2 engines, 2 batteries, and a nuclear reactor.

TM-104: Shooting for 48 thrust. Trust me on this, it's all you need. I've tried 24, 48, and 110. 24 is a good number, but for this one 48 is better.

TM-102: 24ish thrust. Smaller.

Optional maybe 3rd engine: OD-8/LAB: a .5m engine that puts out 12 thrust. Might come in a cube variety with 6 thrust.

Batteries come in radial and cylinder cell.

Nuclear reactor looks like a bomb.

The problem I'm having is balance. What they tend to turn into is never-ending cheat machines for infinite thrust. I'm having a lot of trouble when it comes to how much power the engines should use per thrust unit and how much power each battery should hold. While these parts would be compatible with MMI ingame (EE plugin, similar sizes), they aren't nearly the same set.

[Libra00]

Slightly late here, but: There are a couple of mods that include ion engines. The one I use is the Deep Space Mission Pack http://kerbal.net/mod.php?id=4. It requires the Electric Energy plugin which it links to on the kerbal.net site. With the recent addition of the nuclear reactor (energy gain: 5, vs solar panels' ~0.3) it's quite a bit more viable, especially since I was having a LOT of trouble getting any kind of charge out of solar panels. Once in a while I'd get a trickle charge briefly, but most of the time not so much.

The problem I have really is, I suppose, lack of orbital construction. Trying to build an interplanetary vehicle that carries a porta-nuke, couple batteries, a rover (DEMV ftw!), and a lander by which to deliver the rover, I have a hell of a time getting it into orbit. I even installed NovaPunch and slapped a beefy 5-meter rocket under it and still ran out of gas with an apoapsis of around 45km.

[TG_bigboss]

You could take that ion engine from MMI and make a copy of it, then edit the cfg file to change the trust to let say 60? that is what i did and my probes i used to test out a flight before the crew did worked perfectly. If you strap on three of them using the tri coupler its a pretty efficient machine for a medium sizes probe/satellite

On the attachment you can see jebi hooking up the fuel lines from the refuel probe to the lander behide him =P