[0.22] Ion Hybrid Electric Pack 30.08.13 --- Soon FKSP!!! See Development Monitor

[Yorik]

I'm halfway done with my tour, but the joint venture is progressing smoothly without me, thanks to EPD's outstanding work. And I concur with him on the look and feel of our parts. It's fun to have a bit of sci-fi in KSP.

[Scotius]

Amazing looking parts My ships will looks soooooo pretty and futuristic And yes, i agree with InfinityArch - why not MPD engine? This thing has power, can use wide array of substances as propellant, and is worked on in RL.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Scotius
a typo

[EPD]

You want MPD engine?

Hmm... Ok There would be two parts. Engine and reactor generating enough power for it.

Ive talked to Yorik about some stuff, and we got nice plan for future releases.

If everything go smooth, MPD engine you will get in second release of new Ion Hybrid Engine Pack.

[InfinityArch]

Cool.

I imagine that a reactor for an MPD engine would be fission based rather than fusion based, and would, for the sake of part count, be assumed to contain the necessary thermoelectric generator equipment to convert the heat generated by said reactor into a usable form.

In terms of gameplay, you could have the reactor consume a resource called "enriched blutonium" (the nuclear fuel that kerbals seem to use for RTGs and NTRs) when active, and produce something on the order of 100-10,000 units of electric charge per second depending on the size of the reactor. The MPD thrusters in turn would consume a similar amount of electric charge per second along with xenon gas; while current MPDTs have used hydrogen, and the best performance would hypothetically be lithium vapors, xenon is still usable, and would probably be the best choice for gameplay reasons. Now, in real life the specific impulse of MPD thrusters would be around 11,000 s, and they'd also only have thrusts on the order of .1 kN (though mind you, that's for a design for probes), which is worse than current ion engines in KSP.

However, given that current KSP engines are, assuming 1 unit of electric charge is about a kilowatt (which makes the most sense in the context of ion engines' power consumption), about 2000x more powerful but significantly less efficient (4,200 s vs 6,000 s) than current VASMIR engines operating at the same power level, and more than 100x more powerful than electrostatic ion engines at any power level currently tested, giving an MPD maximum thrust on par with a NTR of a similar size-about 50 for a 1 m diameter that is-and specific impulse around 3,500 s wouldn't be unreasonable.

Balancing this out in terms of gameplay would be the engine's high power demands; probably something along the lines of 1,000 units of electric charge per second, and the fact that it's TWR when accounting for the reactor would be lower than the NTR; a completely unburdened NERVA has a TWR of about 2.7 in kerbin's gravity well. I'm not sure if an MPD would theoretically be capable of pushing it's own weight, though I'd make it just barely able to overcome kerbin's gravity well-maybe about 1.05-with no payload, though I'm not sure how well that would perform, and once you add any fuel whatsoever or a command pod/probe body, that value will plummet.

[gendalf]

those batteries should be lighter

[EPD]

Hybrid Side Engine - finished

Two more parts, and some .cfg files party, and we're good to go!

[InfinityArch]

Fantastic. Does that mean the ETA is tomorrow?

[EPD]

Fantastic. Does that mean the ETA is tomorrow?

Saturday. Maybe LATE Friday... Tomorrow I don't have much time to work.

[gary.townsend]

Looking awesome will have to build a Mk2 cruiser 2 days after my Mk1 left the base lol....this is gonna be nice.

[Exangels]

Cant wait for this, hows the update going?

[EPD]

Working on it right now. I wasn't able to work on saturday, but this night and whole tomorrow day i'm focused on finishing release

[EPD]

First of all - sorry for the delay, however it will be good for mod, and parts within ^^'

For those who are sure they would have nothing to do with this Part-pack, check out that almost finished Hybrid Main Engine. (there will be also 1,25m version of it)

(first part with normal bumped map, next release will be great...)

[Sapphire]

I hope this comes soon, I've got so many missions on hold as I wait for this pack!

[schoff123]

Looks awesome! Really, it inspires awe! im going to have to redo all my ships with these babies

[Tw1]

Wow. Now these look good.

Are the ion engines still the same?

I would also suggest making the larger tanks heavier, and increasing the Xenon content, to make them proportional to the original tank. I've been editing them myself so far.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Tw1
Didn't feel like making a new post.

[EPD]

Wow. Now these look good.

Are the ion engines still the same?

They will be slightly stronger, but pretty same as before. Ofc any advice are welcome, i want this mod be "usefull" but not overpowered

[schoff123]

possible release tomorrow?? i would love to get my hands on this

[Exangels]

Totally what i think of these parts and what im gonna do once the their released

Hope the parts are almost done, cant wait :S

Edited August 27, 2013 by Exangels

[EPD]

Config Party right now as we speak. ^^

Release in 24H

[Yorik]

I'm back. And working on some last-minute stuff for the release, so if there's any further delays it's my fault, not EPDs. Let's see if I can work my magic and give you something nice to play with. No promises at this point ^^

[EPD]

NEW RELEASE GUYS!!!!

Finally for us and everyone waiting for it.

Thanks for waiting till end, and very special thanks to Yorik who taught me a lot.

If you delete Previous version your crafts will not be loaded with this version.

This mod has own folder. If you don't need previous version, just delete previous version folder from GameData

View first post of thread to see parts Album

Download v2.0

Space Port

Edited August 28, 2013 by EPD

[Exangels]

woot woot! thanks parts are looking brilliant

[wasmic]

I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna need these parts, but they just LOOK SO FRIGGIN' GOOD that I have to download them anyway. You, sirs, are geniuses.

[EPD]

I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna need these parts, but they just LOOK SO FRIGGIN' GOOD that I have to download them anyway. You, sirs, are geniuses.

I tell you something... Try Hybrid engine HF-1000, and compare it to LV-N stock nuclear

[Exangels]

Xenon 1 lander