Kethane Pack 0.9.2 - New cinematic trailer! - 1.0 compatibility update

[SyberSmoke]

I noticed that when you are not focused on the satellite that your scanning with, deposits are not uncovered. Do you actually need to use the dish and antenna to communicate back to base and provide a constant stream of deposit information?

For now, you have to be in the ship to do any meaningful scanning. It is not Kethane, this is KSP in it's current shape. But I would bet they are working this side as part of the career mode. You can access the maps from mission control if you select the ship and then make sure you turn the grid on on the Kethane panel. The scans appear to be linked directly to the scanning ship for now.

I hope that once Kerbals are allowed to have tasks we can crew the command center and then it will allow background tasks like scanning an maneuvers out of seat.

Edited August 21, 2013 by SyberSmoke

[OopsThatNotWork]

none of this modes shows the grid

Im tempted to believe you, at which point I will suggest trying to re-install kethane, but can you post a picture of the orbit map with the craft active as well as a picture of the craft just so we can see what you are seeing?

[alacrity]

i am about to embark on a huge invasion... I mean colinization of Duna. Careful scanning has produced the best landing places for me to get near both Kethane and ore, my mining carts are built, hab refinery is set, kas is installed on everything.

I am beginning to realize the our Great Creator Majiir, (or cruel overlord depending on your OCD level... which for me is VERY HIGH) is working as hard as always which means only one thing... Starting over from scratch with new parts, new designs, rescanning the planet.

GODS I love this mod... and hate it sometimes... cruel mistress of Kerbal space.

Thanks Majiir for the work and the mod. You should buy all your crewmates at Kethane industries a pint... make it several... at least enough to keep them plastered till I can get my next iteration of the Duna base completed and goof around with it some.

Alacrity

[danjro]

OMG this is ridiculous! I have an expedition stranded in orbit around Ike, with no fuel, and only about 11t of rocketparts for building something to save the day. The problem is that the large kethane mining rig landed on a slope and fell on it's side, rendering it useless, so now the only way to get kethane for refining fuel and printing rocketparts is to build a kethane miner that weighs less than 11t.

So I build a small rover and a small miner in Ike orbit, and sent the rover down to search for a flat area in the kethane field. Then, with lots of mechjeb assistance, I landed the miner right next to it and, thinking that nothing more could possibly go wrong, I deployed the drill. It was too low. Epic disappointment.

So now, as I type, I have a tiny kethane miner hovering in low gravity on a small engine half a meter above the terrain, held stationary by the translatron, mining kethane and converting it to fuel on the fly.

Screenshot to follow when imgur starts working again.

[Majiir]

I am beginning to realize the our Great Creator Majiir, (or cruel overlord depending on your OCD level... which for me is VERY HIGH) is working as hard as always which means only one thing... Starting over from scratch with new parts, new designs, rescanning the planet.

You shouldn't have to do anything dramatic when the new version hits. Deposits and scans will carry over. The new deposit generator will only be used for new save files unless you manually reset it, so the only things that might change are part balancing. Your craft designs might become suboptimal, but they'll still work. The restart-every-update thing ended with 0.4.4 (or was it 0.5?) when I moved the save data to a config node.

[Haybale100]

3. If the mod manager doesn't even work and you have to move files around by yourself, why not just follow the installation instructions and paste it there yourself?

Sorry but I have to agree with this. Mod managers not worth it anymore. 99% of the time, all you do is take the contents of the game data folder from the mod zip and paste it into the game data folder for KSP........cant get any easier to mod at the moment.

Ok well thanks to both of you and i took your advise and removing the mod manager fixed the issue.

at least it is not Kethane itself that was causing the error.

Regards

Haybale100

[viperwolf]

OMG this is ridiculous! I have an expedition stranded in orbit around Ike, with no fuel, and only about 11t of rocketparts for building something to save the day. The problem is that the large kethane mining rig landed on a slope and fell on it's side, rendering it useless, so now the only way to get kethane for refining fuel and printing rocketparts is to build a kethane miner that weighs less than 11t.

So I build a small rover and a small miner in Ike orbit, and sent the rover down to search for a flat area in the kethane field. Then, with lots of mechjeb assistance, I landed the miner right next to it and, thinking that nothing more could possibly go wrong, I deployed the drill. It was too low. Epic disappointment.

So now, as I type, I have a tiny kethane miner hovering in low gravity on a small engine half a meter above the terrain, held stationary by the translatron, mining kethane and converting it to fuel on the fly.

Screenshot to follow when imgur starts working again.

you were able to use the scanner on a rover? I have this set up right now and the small scanner is not making any noise.

[GavinZac]

Ok well thanks to both of you and i took your advise and removing the mod manager fixed the issue.

at least it is not Kethane itself that was causing the error.

Regards

Haybale100

No worries, have fun!

[OopsThatNotWork]

Ok well thanks to both of you and i took your advise and removing the mod manager fixed the issue.

at least it is not Kethane itself that was causing the error.

Regards

Haybale100

No problem man, just trying to help. Have fun and enjoy the mod.

[taniwha]

viperwolf: that's because it will do "one ping only" (until you move to another hex, and trust me: hexes are biiiiiiiiig (especially on Kerbin)).

I doubt anybody truly appreciates their rockets or even jets until they drive over 500km in their rover (especially dropping a flag every 10km). 2 days realtime to get there by truck. Did two failed attempts (crashed on-site) and one successful return trip by jet this afternoon . And yeah, I had a kethane scanner on my truck just in case.

[GavinZac]

viperwolf: that's because it will do "one ping only" (until you move to another hex, and trust me: hexes are biiiiiiiiig (especially on Kerbin)).

I doubt anybody truly appreciates their rockets or even jets until they drive over 500km in their rover (especially dropping a flag every 10km). 2 days realtime to get there by truck. Did two failed attempts (crashed on-site) and one successful return trip by jet this afternoon . And yeah, I had a kethane scanner on my truck just in case.

Even my attempt to float a kethane drilling balloon (odd, I know) 500km north powered by jet engines was very tedious. It is easy to forget just how fast we're going at orbit.

[viperwolf]

viperwolf: that's because it will do "one ping only" (until you move to another hex, and trust me: hexes are biiiiiiiiig (especially on Kerbin)).

I doubt anybody truly appreciates their rockets or even jets until they drive over 500km in their rover (especially dropping a flag every 10km). 2 days realtime to get there by truck. Did two failed attempts (crashed on-site) and one successful return trip by jet this afternoon . And yeah, I had a kethane scanner on my truck just in case.

Ah ok thank you, that makes sense

Gavinzac your right. But the balloon sounds cool

Edited August 22, 2013 by viperwolf

[Ratzap]

Speaking of which, I was playing around with the kethane bypass jet today. It's quite a lot heavier than other jet engines and that odd squarish bit coming out one side gets in the way mounting sometimes. It also needs high atmospheric pressure to work? - flame out at 11,000m on Kerbin was a fair surprise. The drag is fairly high, not usually a problem but I'm using FAR for plane testing. Then again it seems to flame out at low throttle as much as it does at high settings. Around the 60% mark seems to run fairly well but then you end up going pretty damn fast.

Another big problem is that it seems to be impossible to start it again. Once it's gone flame out (and that Kintake hits 0) it will not come back, pretty bad since it's not at all hard to flame out in. Intakes don't seem to make any difference at all: I built two variants, one with no intakes and a nosecone, the other with ram intake and radial intakes. Both sit just under mach 1 at 1000m on Kerbin and produce almost exactly the same thrust. 94.5 kN vs 98 kN - close enough that my manual throttle setting is probably to blame.

Has anyone else tried the kethane jet? Found any uses for it or how to stop it flaming out? Or better yet how to restart it...

[dmage]

Im tempted to believe you, at which point I will suggest trying to re-install kethane, but can you post a picture of the orbit map with the craft active as well as a picture of the craft just so we can see what you are seeing?

ok, shure.

file structure

menu

vab picture

on the launch (no context menu on the scanner)

orbit picture.

[Geschosskopf]

Has anyone else tried the kethane jet? Found any uses for it or how to stop it flaming out? Or better yet how to restart it...

This engine only works reliably on Eve. Trying to use it anywhere else is a waste of time. This is because of its funky intake system. The engine has a built-in intake that supplies "KintakeAir", and this is the ONLY thing that supplies KintakeAir--regular intakes will not help at all. And the KintakeAir doesn't act like regular intake air. Instead of going away gradually with altitude, KintakeAir goes away all at once if the engine's operational parameters are exceeded. But OTOH, it comes back all at once when the engine gets back within parameters. To supply KintakeAir reliably, the airplane needs a combination of high throttle setting and low speed; the usual cause of flameout is going too fast for the throttle setting.

This engine is rather powerful so to stay happy, it needs to push a relatively large, heavy plane against a lot of air resistance (like on Eve). And because it lacks an attachment point on the back, you can't stage it in a stack so any plane using the engine must have at least 2 of them, meaning the plane needs to be that much bigger and heavier to stay slow despite high throttle.

It would be nice if this engine had something in its description outlining all this, so you'd know not to even try using it to fly on Duna, Kerbin, or Laythe, or consider using it for an SSTO anywhere. It would be even better if there was a family of engines for all these various applications. However, at least it does work for its intended purpose of flying on Eve.

[Ratzap]

Thank you so much for that answer, it makes clear what is going on. I actually found a way to make a single engine version BTW and it flies rather well - just too fast. I might tinker around and make a bigger slower version if I can.

[Majiir]

Geschosskopf is correct about how the engine works, but it doesn't only work on Eve. It works quite well on Kerbin, though it does prove challenging on Duna. (That hasn't stopped me from flying there, though!) Some careful mounting will let you place a stage behind a single centered engine. The Kethane engine doesn't work with high-altitude screamers, but it works great if you fly low or slow. (Take it for a test flight around KSC and you'll get a feel for how it behaves when you climb; right-click the engine to see intake performance.)

[Zeroignite]

It is definitely exciting to fly a kethane engine on Duna --- especially if you're coming in from a direct aerocapture, hoping drogue 'chutes will slow you down enough for the engine to light...

[Slye_Fox]

I was wondering if I could get some assistance coding a Ram Scoop type part?

Is it possible to make the part collect Kethane from space as the ship moves through it?

[SyberSmoke]

Si if I may ask, and I am not sure if it was answered, Is Kethane a Gas, liquid, or solid?

[Kimberly]

Si if I may ask, and I am not sure if it was answered, Is Kethane a Gas, liquid, or solid?

It's made of pure imagination. Anyway, I think it's a gas under the surface and a liquid when used.

[viperwolf]

was the spacedumper plugin made for this to work better with MJ? if so, sense the new update can we delete this plugin?

[Geschosskopf]

It is definitely exciting to fly a kethane engine on Duna --- especially if you're coming in from a direct aerocapture, hoping drogue 'chutes will slow you down enough for the engine to light...

I gave up on using this engine on Duna. Instead, I made a Kethane-electric hybrid system that works much like a Toyota Prius, except it has solar panels instead of a big battery. I'm kinda proud of this idea . It flies on 2 of the Firespitter electric props supplied by both the solar panels and the Kethane generator. That generator is SCHWEET, only running as and when needed (which is what gave me the idea), thus just barely sipping on Kethane most of the time. So the solar panels do most of the work with the generator assisting when the sun's at a bad angle, or the plane is banked away from it, or at night. If flown with that intention, it can circumnavigate Duna on a load of Kethane, although it needs to land at sundown to keep from using it all up in the dark.

If interested, you can see it in the "Flying Duna" challenge thread.

[dstruct2k]

I was wondering if I could get some assistance coding a Ram Scoop type part?

Is it possible to make the part collect Kethane from space as the ship moves through it?

Start with a clone of a stock air intake scoop, change the generated resource to Kethane, invert the atmospheric requirements (less atmosphere = more intake) or remove them entirely, and scale the intake rate down to a "realistic" level, maybe start around 5% and fine-tune for game balance.

[Geschosskopf]

I had this weird idea last night: what if the WAITNONOSTOP worked in reverse? Then you could manufacture cloned Kerbals on distant planets instead of going to the trouble and expense of shipping them all the way from Kerbin. I figure that's how we'll end up colonizing the planets in real life: send frozen embryos and digital brain uploads .