[0.25]KSP Interstellar (Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp) Version 0.13

[Kellas]

I'm a little confused as to how exactly the relay system works. Here's my current setup.

Approximately 7.2GW transmitting from kerbin surface.

6 relay satellites in kerbin synchronous orbit. (3 standard, 3 deploy-able)

3 relay satellites in high duna (33Mm) orbit. (3 deploy-able) //I had four.... Ike ate one when I wasn't looking.

All relay satellites also have two rear facing small receivers as well as one 0.65m generator and SAFE fission reactor. if that matters.

I sent the relay satellites to duna one at a time, about a day or two apart, each set to relay when not maneuvering. Behind them I sent a science vessel for cleaning and reprocessing experiments, as well as an experimental 20 ton plasma shuttle meant to explore duna's surface. The satellites all received the full 7.2GW of power after entering duna's SOI and had the expected thrust. The science vessel and shuttle are only receiving around 220MW.

If the distance from Kerbin was diluting the signal, I'd get that. But the relays are capable of receiving the power, so why are they failing to make it available to my other vessels? I'm not having any heating or shutdown issues.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Kellas

[Chaosratt]

Is there any way to slow down the animations for the Mk2 drive and radiators?

[Lightwarrior]

Kellas,

Received power depends on receiver (its surface area) used on receiving vessel and distance from transmitting vessel. Relays does not matter at all, they do not extend range. This is strange IMO, but this is how it works.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Lightwarrior

[Kellas]

I'm curious exactly what the falloff is. The ships probably weren't more than a couple Mm away from the relay sats on SOI transition. I expected a loss from Kerbin to Duna, then a reliable distribution of the remaining power throughout Duna's network. Are the relay satellites really just functioning as additional points to focus receivers on without taking into account the power being received by the relay?

I'd hate to have to engineer my entire fleet to carry deploy-able transceivers.

[Lightwarrior]

Yes, relay is only to avoid LOS problem, it does not change distance, distance is always counted from power source.

I have not tested this, but in theory you can try to make other type of relay - thermal receiver, generator, microwave transmitter.

But i ended up just using big enough reactor on "mothership" to transfer power from it for landers and everything else. This way the smallest receivers can be used on landers and you need only two relays in addition to transmitter in orbit to get good enough coverage.

[Der Kosmos]

I know this has been requested before but, could you PLEASE re-consider giving the basic Neuclear Thermal Rockets a buff to bring them in line with the stock NERVA? I know you wanted to be in line with real physics, but KSP is not supposed to be an exact copy of our universe. The planets are "Chibi" and hyper-dense for their size, and the distances between them have also been compressed. Several Stock engines are also more powerful than their real world equivalents.

Right now the midgame for Interstellar seems to be either just use the stock NERVA as a band aid until you unlock fusion power, or mess around with setting up a microwave transmission network for plasma engines. This is very disapointing because I got this mod because I wanted to make bigger NTRs and Bimodal NTRs, and I haven't unlocked fusion yet.

Please reconsider.

[Kellas]

Guess I'm sending a nuke sat to Duna then.Time to break out the heavy launch vehicles again...

Edit: while waiting, I landed my shuttle on Ike, with a whopping 1.18 TWR! Made a few craters before I managed to land it, but we got there in the end. Thomsby and copilot were so happy to be safely on the ground.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Kellas

[wasmic]

No need to act like a spoiled child. Fractal_UK provided the steps you used to figure out what's causing it. He hasn't said definitely that he'll be able to fix it, but you can be sure that he's seen your response.

You're calling me a spoiled child, because I followed the steps that Fractal_UK gave me. I had already posted the results once, without a response. Therefore I was not sure whether I had been noticed. So I posted it again, with big letters so that it would be noticed. Calling me a spoiled child is actually really offensive. You should think a little more about what you're about to post, before you post it.

[fenderzilla]

in the open resource system, there are definitions for oceanic resources (water and stuff in the oceans of planets). Can Someone tell me how to exctract these?

[pasty2k2]

Hi guys, finally I've unlocked enough tech to try out these fancy fusion reactors - and think I understand the heat dissipation mechanics correctly - but I can't seem to get "max power" out of it. Am I doing something wrong?

I've got the large 3.75m Tokamak and 2x 3.75m generators, one KTEC and one Direct, which I set manually - that correct? If I use just one the Charged Particles power is used only, and while the wiki says D/T fuel should give 80% CP power and 20% Thermal power, I'm seeing pretty much the opposite. Problem is the Thermal-based generator doesn't reach it's theoretical max. Hope my pic explains what I mean - is there a way to get that up to 42GW, or higher?

Finally, it states "unable to sustain fusion reaction" etc, do I need more non-fusion power sources to get rid of that risk? Would receiving microwave MW/J power from another sat suffice for that or must it be MW/Th?

Thanks for the help guys, loving the complexity of the mod, just a little stumped here

Can't seem to post images for some reason, here is link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/86axur3h5h5hhkg/35%20vs%2042.png

Edited March 9, 2014 by pasty2k2

[merendel]

I know this has been requested before but, could you PLEASE re-consider giving the basic Neuclear Thermal Rockets a buff to bring them in line with the stock NERVA?

If you go with biger reactors they are in line. the 3.5 reactor/rocket combo has 20kN less thrust but 115 more ISP than a similar mass LV-N cluster. If you use thorium instead of UF4 you get a bit more ISP and almost 200 more thrust. The rule for thermal rockets in KSPI with unupgraded reactors is prety much go big or dont bother. you can sorta go around this with beamed power but for that your still going big with your power plant, your just not carrying it with you. and the LV is one of those stock engiens thats better than it should be, particularly for its size.

Also the stats I quoted on the thermal rockets are for runing in pure LF mode. you can sacrifice ISP for thrust by shoving LFO or other fuels into the thing, something a LV-N cant do. ~600 ISP under thorium which is still quite a bit better than any stock engien that is not the LV-n or ion drive but more than 4 times the thrust of a similar mass of LV-n's. so NTR's are viable if you go big, if your building small and light go with the LVN and pack a small reactor for power. The game changes as you get higher tech, the AM powered thermals are crazy.

[JeffreyCor]

Hi guys, finally I've unlocked enough tech to try out these fancy fusion reactors - and think I understand the heat dissipation mechanics correctly - but I can't seem to get "max power" out of it. Am I doing something wrong?

I've got the large 3.75m Tokamak and 2x 3.75m generators, one KTEC and one Direct, which I set manually - that correct? If I use just one the Charged Particles power is used only, and while the wiki says D/T fuel should give 80% CP power and 20% Thermal power, I'm seeing pretty much the opposite. Problem is the Thermal-based generator doesn't reach it's theoretical max. Hope my pic explains what I mean - is there a way to get that up to 42GW, or higher?

Finally, it states "unable to sustain fusion reaction" etc, do I need more non-fusion power sources to get rid of that risk? Would receiving microwave MW/J power from another sat suffice for that or must it be MW/Th?

Thanks for the help guys, loving the complexity of the mod, just a little stumped here

https://www.dropbox.com/s/86axur3h5h5hhkg/35%20vs%2042.png

Can't seem to post images for some reason, here is link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/86axur3h5h5hhkg/35%20vs%2042.png

Doesn't look like there is a problem. You're getting the proper efficiencies the thing is the reactor simply puts out more thermal power than charged particle power. Reactor puts out 11.5GW CP,and 43GW Th. High efficiency means well well it converts, either from CP or Th into E. you're getting 9.74GW E from the direct conversion reactor which is a very high efficiency conversion rate. The thermal reactor is giving you 25.8GW E, which is a far lower efficiency but since you had far more to start with you still have a very high amount of power.

You misquoted your warning message. It does not say it is "unable to sustain fusion reaction", it says "Fusion Reactor plasma heating cannot be guaranteed, reducing power requirement is recommended" This is normal when you are using only a fusion reactor as if you demand too much power it can 'stall' due to not enough power being supplied to the reactor itself.

[pasty2k2]

Doesn't look like there is a problem. You're getting the proper efficiencies the thing is the reactor simply puts out more thermal power than charged particle power. Reactor puts out 11.5GW CP,and 43GW Th. High efficiency means well well it converts, either from CP or Th into E. you're getting 9.74GW E from the direct conversion reactor which is a very high efficiency conversion rate. The thermal reactor is giving you 25.8GW E, which is a far lower efficiency but since you had far more to start with you still have a very high amount of power.

You misquoted your warning message. It does not say it is "unable to sustain fusion reaction", it says "Fusion Reactor plasma heating cannot be guaranteed, reducing power requirement is recommended" This is normal when you are using only a fusion reactor as if you demand too much power it can 'stall' due to not enough power being supplied to the reactor itself.

Thanks for the explanation, and yes sorry I did misquote. If I only put on the KTEC generator though, it states 32GW/e maximum, and reaches it happily. If I put on the Direct generator as well, the KTEC only gets to 25.8GW/e. Is thermal energy lost/reduced when you use Charged Particle energy?

Additionally, that message is displayed whenever I transmit microwave power, even with 3x 1.25m nuke/gen combos, giving 211MW/e sustained power for the fusion reactor. If I use the aforementioned single 3.75m KTEC generator approach giving me 32GW/e, the net demand for the ship is exactly what the fusion reactor requires, 182MW/e, so the warning is eventually displayed once all MJ are depleted - the transmitter is shooting every last drop away! In my example image it seems to think 65GW/e are available and appears to be beaming that amount in the UI.

The demands for all onboard devices seem to be ignored by the transmitter. Can we adjust it's priority to say 3, would it then behave? Or, am I doing something wrong/misunderstanding something?

Thanks again for the explanations!

[WaveFunctionP]

Thanks for the explanation, and yes sorry I did misquote. If I only put on the KTEC generator though, it states 32GW/e maximum, and reaches it happily. If I put on the Direct generator as well, the KTEC only gets to 25.8GW/e. Is thermal energy lost/reduced when you use Charged Particle energy?

Additionally, that message is displayed whenever I transmit microwave power, even with 3x 1.25m nuke/gen combos, giving 211MW/e sustained power for the fusion reactor. If I use the aforementioned single 3.75m KTEC generator approach giving me 32GW/e, the net demand for the ship is exactly what the fusion reactor requires, 182MW/e, so the warning is eventually displayed once all MJ are depleted - the transmitter is shooting every last drop away! In my example image it seems to think 65GW/e are available and appears to be beaming that amount in the UI.

The demands for all onboard devices seem to be ignored by the transmitter. Can we adjust it's priority to say 3, would it then behave? Or, am I doing something wrong/misunderstanding something?

Thanks again for the explanations!

There is a problem with fusion reactors right now.

The fusion power transmission bug is actually a bug with the calculation of power available to a direct conversion generator, you can build reliable fusion power transmitters by switching the generators over to KTEC thermoelectric mode in the VAB. The bug is already fixed for the next update and I'm hopeful I can get the update out soon now.

Unfortunately I have a lot of work on at the moment so I've been having to make do with scraping little bits of spare time together to work on Interstellar as and when I can.

[pasty2k2]

There is a problem with fusion reactors right now.

Ah OK then, no probs! I'll just make do for now, it's still tons of power. Thanks for the protip, I hadn't seen that post.

I did have a look around but I couldn't see any options in any cfg files; does anyone know if you can change the power priority for each device? I would set the transmitter to 4, Engines to 3, and set the fusion reactor req's to 1, above all other operations barring DC power. That should in theory keep the fusion reactor going unattended, until the fission nukes ran out of fuel (and once the little fusion calc bug is fixed), right?

I do like the power priority system, but it would be great if the transceivers only sent power available after, say, priority 3+. Anything 2 or higher could be deemed off-limits, so you don't bleed your ship power supplies dry. Anyone else think this would be good, possibly configurable, in-game, as a tweakable or using the current Power Management UI? Don't wan't to sound ungrateful, the Power systems in this mod are fantastic already!

[WaveFunctionP]

Transceivers are supposed to only send excess power, more or less. That's the bug.

[ABZB]

0_o I just launched an entire nuclear fusion relay network...

I am going to try crl+F and see if I can switch the launched generators to solid state through the quicksave file.

[HerrGeneral]

Is there any way to fix the science lab IVA so you can see out of the windows? I've seen a video where the windows are transparent, but mine always has a flat blue texture on the portholes.

[colmo]

An idea I had a long time ago was that the famous coffin mod be converted into a crewable part - a stasis pod.

This mod is the perfect place for such a technology. It fits the theme.

Edit: Or it doesn't - blame Scott Manley for making me think there was life support in this mod!

In use, in exchange for higher energy demands, normal life support requirements would be vastly reduced. Losing power, however, would be fatal! A wake-up timer would make sense to avoid making it simply a handy place to stash a Kerbal when not required.

A sealed room (there are airlock mods in progress) with rows of pods laid out would also look amazing.

Alternatively, a dedicated module that stores, say, 6 Kerbals at a time would be a practical solution.

Edited March 11, 2014 by colmo

[merendel]

An idea I had a long time ago was that the famous coffin mod be converted into a crewable part - a stasis pod.

This mod is the perfect place for such a technology. It fits the theme.

In use, in exchange for higher energy demands, normal life support requirements would be vastly reduced. Losing power, however, would be fatal! A wake-up timer would make sense to avoid making it simply a handy place to stash a Kerbal when not required.

A sealed room (there are airlock mods in progress) with rows of pods laid out would also look amazing.

Alternatively, a dedicated module that stores, say, 6 Kerbals at a time would be a practical solution.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning on why you think this mod is such a good fit for your idea. KSPI does not have a life support requirement. Asside from the near future tech aspect theres not really any reason to include it in this mod specifically as anything but a flavor item. If you'd posted this in one of the various life support mod threads it would make much more sense.

Asside from that this mod focuses alot on advanced propulsion. Once you start advanceing into the mod you start unlocking crazy high ISP drives allowing for much more aggressive and shorter transfer times with the ultimate form being a warp drive. for the most part in SiFi settings FTL travle is a goal that once obtained makes sleeper pods redundant for general use.

Edited March 10, 2014 by merendel

[Glint Bloodrose]

Sorry as part of the forums anti spambot measures freshly registered accounts often dont have their posts show up for an hour or two after they are made. In a fast moveing thread that can mean your post appears 2 pages back by the time it shows up. Have you confirmed KSP is not runing out of memory? Open task manager while KSP is loading and watch its memory usage. If it goes up over 3.2 gigs of ram or so and then dies your runing out of memory and will need to either reduce the number of mods (part mods have the bigest footprint usualy) or run a texture compressor mod. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59005 is the link to the texture mod most of us swear by.

I have tried with this as the only mod but it still CTDs. Memory isn't an issue, but I suspect it's the plugin section of this mod rather than the parts that's causing it.

[agentexeider]

It's all integrated into the stock science system now. Upgrades, for the most part, will be done automatically when you buy new tech nodes, existing craft already in space are the only parts that need to be upgraded manually when you unlock new techs.

How does it work in sandbox mode?? my r and d center is closed in sandbox mode

[merendel]

I have tried with this as the only mod but it still CTDs. Memory isn't an issue, but I suspect it's the plugin section of this mod rather than the parts that's causing it.

Try downloading a brand new copy of the mod. It wouldnt be the first time someones goten an incompleat zip file thanks to an internet derp. Make extra sure the whole file merged into the gamedata directory propperly. I know you said you checked but I've had times where I checked twice and it wasnt untill the third check that I realized I'd done something wrong all along. If you've still got crashes try a complete reinstall of KSP and only install KSPI. If you still have trouble after that I'm out of easy troubleshooting tips and you'll have to hope someone else can come up with something more.

How does it work in sandbox mode?? my r and d center is closed in sandbox mode

In sandbox all parts are fully upgraded asside from the ones that require manual upgrades (warp drive and computercore)

[Grunf911]

Does anyone know how to calculate estimated beamed power reception (MegaWatts or Megajoules) on interplanetary travels ?

Let's just for the sake of argument assume:

Microwave power reception (Kerbin Orbit): 21GW

How much would the power reception be in Eve orbit (assuming perfect alignment of receiver) ?

For the sake of argument, let us assume that Eve and Kerbin lie on the same plane and that antennas are ideally aligned (as i try to assume what is Max Power reception anyway)

Distance (Closest - Kerbin Semi-major Axis - Eve Semi Major Axis): 3,7M km

Distance (Furthest - Kerbin Semi-major Axis - Eve Semi Major Axis): 23,4M km

Does any1 have either a formula, or a rough guess how can i estimate this ?

EDIT: As i read the surface of the receiver seems to play a role, I use 4x receivers (small ones that expand, typically used on rockets), mounted on Infernal Robotics Rotatrons and Hinges so I can point them to Kerbin without orienting my main craft.

The reason why I want to do this, is as I am planning new generation of Interplanetary craft using Beamed power and plasma thrusters. So i know thrust values for Kerbin orbit with 21GW power, now I want to know basically will i have enough juice to get home from Eve

Edited March 10, 2014 by Grunf911
Updated info

[Kellas]

Well, with my 7.5GW (give or take) kerbin ground network, my shuttle* is currently on the other side of the sun from Kerbin, around 30Gm away I'd guess. I'm receiving 570MW when my small receivers are focused as closely as possible. That's getting me 22kn of thrust from my mono-propellant fueled plasma thrusters. (that's 0.07 Kerbol TWR for a 17 ton vessel).

Larger receivers will give you faaaaaar more power. I can receive my entire 7.5GW with a deploy-able receiver even at those distances. They're harder to build vessels with though.

*They've just left Duna orbit on a mission to skim Kerbol and return to Kerbin with all the science. Their previous mission to land on Duna and return was scrapped due to unexpected and confusing relay satellite behavior.