triple cheeseburger Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 (edited) Silly Photon Drives [1.1.0] Last Updated: September 19th, 2024 KSP 1.12.5 Download *Also on CKAN Although they carry no mass, photons still have momentum. We can use this principle to build engines that use light itself as an exhaust. This is a small mod which adds engines that use electricity to produce light – a photon engine. This is different from a solar/photon sail, which uses light from produced from an external source to push on a sail. These engines produce their own light and throw it out the back like a typical rocket to push themselves forwards. The gimmick here is that these engines only take in electric charge as an input, they do not require any physical propellant. The downside however is that the thrust is so small it makes other electric engines look beefy in comparison. Dependencies: Module Manager, B9 Part Switch (the mod won't work without these). Recommendations: Waterfall (These engines do not have any stock plumes configured). Suggestions: CommunityResourcePack, Heat Control, Far Future Technologies, CryoTanks, Near Future Electrical, Persistent Thrust. Supports: CommunityTechTree, VABOrganizer, SystemHeat. This mod currently contains three sizes of photon drives: PX-01 "Aura": A 0.625m photon drive, takes in roughly 60 electric charge per second and outputs a whopping 0.073 kN of thrust. PX-02 "Zenith": A 1.25m photon drive, takes in almost 200 electric charge per second and outputs 0.317 kN of thrust. PX-10 "Omega": A 5m photon drive, a very large flashlight indeed. Takes nearly 5,000 electric charge per second and puts out an impressive 10.898 kN of thrust As a bonus feature, if you have CommunityResourcePack installed, the 5m photon drive gains the option to instead run on liquid hydrogen and antimatter. This yields an Isp of ~3.1 million seconds, and even produces a whopping 54 kN of thrust, but comes with the downside of requiring physical propellant. You'll also want Far Future Technologies and CryoTanks as this mod does not provide any tanks for storing liquid hydrogen or antimatter. Due to the immense power requirements of these drives, Near Future Electrical is also suggested. That mod provides nuclear reactors which can actually meet such power demands. The engines in this mod produce far more thrust than a photon drive could realistically. If we assume 1 electric charge per second to be 1 kW, then 1 kN of thrust would take roughly 300,000 ec/s. For this reason the engines are 1,000,000 times more powerful than they otherwise would be. For extra customisation options, see "spd_Setting.cfg" inside the mod folder. This config lets you adjust the thrust output, power intake, and Isp of all engines all from a single file. So for example, if you wanted "realistic" levels of thrust you could set the thrust multiplier to 0.000001. This config has been adapted from NearFuturePropulsion, so all credit goes towards that. Liscense: CC-BY-SA Edited 8 hours ago by triple cheeseburger Fixed a typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarbon44 Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 Awesome mod and the "plume" looks amazing. Parts are very good quality and fit with restock-alike perfectly. One thing i thing would be beneficial, is perhaps adding a optional patch making engines slightly stronger so that those who don't use mods such as Persistent Thrust could just have fun with spicy flashlights of unusual size. Keep up the amazing work! https://imgur.com/kIsjUhJ https://imgur.com/kIsjUhJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple cheeseburger Posted November 27, 2023 Author Share Posted November 27, 2023 Thank you very much I know I already replied to the screenshots and images you made back on discord, but I'll say again that these ships are really pretty... and the the infographic you made looks extremely awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kavaeric Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 Photon drive real?! Congrats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ameoba Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 (edited) This is cool, thanks for early access btw! Edited November 28, 2023 by Ameoba not enough detail Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isabelle.V.Fuchs Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 Now I'm curious Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poodmund Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 If I install this mod and turn the vessel's cabin lights on, will it cause a torque to be induced? Congrats on the release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyne Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 (edited) This is so insanely silly but so scifi looking, I love it! I’ll have to try it back home and well done on the release Edited November 28, 2023 by Cyne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idiot Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 looks awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emilius73 Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 Looks great! Can't wait to try them. Now watch as For All Mankind makes this tech a thing in 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starwaster Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 Seeing some tri-hex style trusses in the first picture. Are those from this mod or another? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple cheeseburger Posted November 28, 2023 Author Share Posted November 28, 2023 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Starwaster said: Seeing some tri-hex style trusses in the first picture. Are those from this mod or another? The red and white truss in the first screenshot is just made out of Procedural Parts structure pieces that have been recoloured using SimpleRepaint Edited November 28, 2023 by triple cheeseburger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starwaster Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 4 minutes ago, triple cheeseburger said: The red and white truss in the first screenshot is just made out of Procedural Parts structure pieces that have been recoloured using SimpleRepaint Including the end cap at the front? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple cheeseburger Posted November 28, 2023 Author Share Posted November 28, 2023 2 minutes ago, Starwaster said: Including the end cap at the front? The end cap at the front is just some of the structural pieces from Near Future Construction and a few of the stock structural panels. This mod doesn't add any other parts besides the three engines shown in the infographics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
610yesnolovely Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 This is very cool, plus the tip about using procedural parts is nice. Also I looked up the infographic address. Hah! Very Kerbal. Congratulations on an excellent mod release and supporting ships (which are amazing also). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesuvius Posted November 29, 2023 Share Posted November 29, 2023 For some reason i can't find the 1.25 and 5m drives, anyone else have this problem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpha_star Posted November 29, 2023 Share Posted November 29, 2023 Wow man, great mod! I have been searching mods this type for ages, and it seems the search has ended, really cool concept and hopefully it works well in-game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSpaceWarlock Posted November 29, 2023 Share Posted November 29, 2023 Quite a cool mod. Even though photon rockets aren't very realistic, they are quite a fun idea. Excited to cook up some funny ships with this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple cheeseburger Posted November 29, 2023 Author Share Posted November 29, 2023 5 hours ago, Vesuvius said: For some reason i can't find the 1.25 and 5m drives, anyone else have this problem? Are you sure you installed the mod properly? If you installed it manually then I'd recommend using CKAN instead to prevent any issues happening. You could check inside GameData -> SillyPhotonDrives -> Parts -> Engine, and see if the files for "photon_5" and "photon_125" exist or not, if not then I'd recommend reinstalling the mod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSpaceWarlock Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 (edited) Such a pretty engine! Simple Scout ship using the lepton antimatter mode. TWR of around 0.05 with persistent thrust isn't so bad considering the deltav. Edited December 1, 2023 by TheSpaceWarlock fixed typos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesuvius Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 On 11/29/2023 at 3:18 AM, triple cheeseburger said: Are you sure you installed the mod properly? If you installed it manually then I'd recommend using CKAN instead to prevent any issues happening. You could check inside GameData -> SillyPhotonDrives -> Parts -> Engine, and see if the files for "photon_5" and "photon_125" exist or not, if not then I'd recommend reinstalling the mod. the photon_5 and photon_125 files do exist, yet don't appear in the parts list, i've tried redownloading manually and through CKAN, any other recommendations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple cheeseburger Posted November 30, 2023 Author Share Posted November 30, 2023 3 minutes ago, Vesuvius said: the photon_5 and photon_125 files do exist, yet don't appear in the parts list, i've tried redownloading manually and through CKAN, any other recommendations? Hmm... Are you sure you've downloaded all the dependancies for the mod? The 1.25m and 5m engines are the only ones with B9 configs so you might be missing B9 Part Switch, or maybe you could check if it's up-to-date enough for the mod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vesuvius Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 5 hours ago, triple cheeseburger said: Hmm... Are you sure you've downloaded all the dependancies for the mod? The 1.25m and 5m engines are the only ones with B9 configs so you might be missing B9 Part Switch, or maybe you could check if it's up-to-date enough for the mod. I've got all dependencies downloaded and B9PartSwitch on its most recent version (i hope), im gonna try redownloading B9, but if that doesn't work, any other recommendations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JadeOfMaar Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 @Vesuvius Most likely case is you have another mod for photon drives installed and its parts have the exact names as this one. If that's the case, there is a conflict and the affected parts become invalid. I've informed this mod owner on an action to take which will prevent this occuring later on but will break existing craft files. If you have another mod for photon drives installed do let us know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple cheeseburger Posted December 1, 2023 Author Share Posted December 1, 2023 Alright I've updated the mod to change the internal names of the engines, so this should prevent any conflicts with other mods. Unfortunately this will probably break any ships you have that currently use engines from this mod, I suppose you could remove the engines in the editor before updating and re-add it once you've got the new version of the mod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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