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

[mandingo-mc]

You need beamed power using a nuclear/fusion/antimatter reactor and electrical generator otherwise it wont work. If you are not using beamed power, you will get insanely low thrust, but an insanely high ISP

Yes, but the ga,e say always " not reactor avaliable" What i need

[SeventhArchitect]

Say I have a nuclear reactor, LFO fuel, and a thermal rocket nozzle.

How does the thermalPower output of the nuclear reactor determine how much thrust said thermal rocket nozzle provides? What would be the formula of ThermalPower, LFO as the fuel, and thermal rocket nozzle size?

[WaveFunctionP]

Yes, but the ga,e say always " not reactor avaliable" What i need

You'll need radiators to run the reactor was well. Use the orange/red deployable ones if you are going to space, and the inline and radial ones for atmospheric use.

[WaveFunctionP]

Say I have a nuclear reactor, LFO fuel, and a thermal rocket nozzle.

How does the thermalPower output of the nuclear reactor determine how much thrust said thermal rocket nozzle provides? What would be the formula of ThermalPower, LFO as the fuel, and thermal rocket nozzle size?

The wiki has this information.

https://github.com/FractalUK/KSPInterstellar/wiki

Basicly, reactor temp and atmosphere determines isp (though the atmosphere portion is as yet undocumented), thermal power determines thrust which is also inversely proportional to isp, and fuel selection multiply the base isp and thrust values by differing ammounts. More information and details on the thermal nozzle and reactor pages.

Edited March 19, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[regex]

Reposting some questions I had here:

1. Does the generator need to be attached to a node on the reactor in order to generate power still? That's pretty limiting in craft design but I can get around it; mine is buried deep in structural components.

2. I assume reactors will naturally upgrade? Is there a way to prevent that?

3. Can nuclear fuel and its waste be "pumped" elsewhere?

Thanks.

[WaveFunctionP]

Reposting some questions I had here:

1. Does the generator need to be attached to a node on the reactor in order to generate power still? That's pretty limiting in craft design but I can get around it; mine is buried deep in structural components.

2. I assume reactors will naturally upgrade? Is there a way to prevent that?

3. Can nuclear fuel and its waste be "pumped" elsewhere?

Thanks.

1. Generators and thermal engines need to be directly attached to a reactor/thermal receiver to function.

2. When you unlock an upgrade, existing parts already "in flight" do not automatically upgrade. To upgrade and existing part you much right click on the part and click refit, which will cost some science depending on the part. Care much be taken when accounting for extra waste heat when upgrading reactors

3. Nuclear fuel and waste have tanks specifically for those resources. They are located on the propulsion tab. The icons look like baby blue sticks. You can pump those resources around the vessel in the same manner as you would fuel, by alt-clicking.

Edited March 19, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[regex]

1. Generators and thermal engines need to be directly attached to a reactor/thermal receiver to function.

2. When you unlock an upgrade, existing parts already "in flight" do not automatically upgrade. To upgrade and existing part you much right click on the part and click refit, which will cost some science depending on the part. Care much be taken when accounting for extra waste heat when upgrading reactors

3. Nuclear fuel and waste have tanks specifically for those resources. They are located on the propulsion tab. The icons look like baby blue sticks. You can pump those resources around the vessel in the same manner as you would fuel, by alt-clicking.

Thanks for the help!

[Sovek]

Ok, thanks for the help. Turns out the PandaJager Labs parts pack included a science def file on top of the stock file. This is what caused the problems and now things work correctly.

[SeventhArchitect]

How could I use a basic Kiwi Fission Reactor to put something somewhere else, un-upgraded? I currently just got the nuclear parts unlocked in my career, but I have no current ideas for use of this heavy, seemingly worthless thruster style. Maybe I could use it for a power source when paired with a generator, but otherwise, I'm basically scrapping the nuclear drive altogether if I can't figure something out.

[undercoveryankee]

How could I use a basic Kiwi Fission Reactor to put something somewhere else, un-upgraded? I currently just got the nuclear parts unlocked in my career, but I have no current ideas for use of this heavy, seemingly worthless thruster style. Maybe I could use it for a power source when paired with a generator, but otherwise, I'm basically scrapping the nuclear drive altogether if I can't figure something out.

Unupgraded fission isn't great, but uses present themselves now and then. In the career I'm running, I have a probe planned for a low Sun flyby. It uses a 1.25m Kiwi burning thorium driving a generator, one stock jet fuel tank, and a 0.625m plasma thruster. KER claims about 12 km/s and about 1g of acceleration.

[WaveFunctionP]

How could I use a basic Kiwi Fission Reactor to put something somewhere else, un-upgraded? I currently just got the nuclear parts unlocked in my career, but I have no current ideas for use of this heavy, seemingly worthless thruster style. Maybe I could use it for a power source when paired with a generator, but otherwise, I'm basically scrapping the nuclear drive altogether if I can't figure something out.

Use it for power, fission isn't that great for thrusters, but they make great power sources due to their long life.

[WhiteWeasel]

I'd really like to get into this mod, but man it would be nice it I knew what the tool tips were saying because I have hardly an idea of what does what, or what part needs what to work. Is there a simplified version?

[WaveFunctionP]

I'd really like to get into this mod, but man it would be nice it I knew what the tool tips were saying because I have hardly an idea of what does what, or what part needs what to work. Is there a simplified version?

http://i.imgur.com/CCxOGcF.jpg

Unless you've specifically been farming he-3 and antimatter, don't bother with that reactor.

[WhiteWeasel]

Unless you've specifically been farming he-3 and antimatter, don't bother with that reactor.

Of all the things it tells you, it does not tell you that you need to generate the resources for it separately?

[WaveFunctionP]

Of all the things it tells you, it does not tell you that you need to generate the resources for it separately?

The mod is in development, player messaging is part of that.

[merendel]

3. Nuclear fuel and waste have tanks specifically for those resources. They are located on the propulsion tab. The icons look like baby blue sticks. You can pump those resources around the vessel in the same manner as you would fuel, by alt-clicking.

Waste can be pumped but not all fuel can be. UF4 and ThF4 in particular cant be pumped around the ship. I ran afoul this particular bit of nuisance when I discovered the tanks I attached directly to my ISRU rig as a buffer were so much dead weight. Had to redesign for a modular fuel pod I could swap out as needed. Most of the other fuels are pumpable however.

[WaveFunctionP]

Waste can be pumped but not all fuel can be. UF4 and ThF4 in particular cant be pumped around the ship. I ran afoul this particular bit of nuisance when I discovered the tanks I attached directly to my ISRU rig as a buffer were so much dead weight. Had to redesign for a modular fuel pod I could swap out as needed. Most of the other fuels are pumpable however.

I believe you need to shut down the reactor and after it cools, you can refuel.

[merendel]

I believe you need to shut down the reactor and after it cools, you can refuel.

Thats a different issue. even without a reactor on the ship you cant pump UF4 between two tanks. Go deploy a pair of half full tanks of UF4 on any old craft on the launch pad. you'll find you cant transfer the UF4 from one to the other.

edit

UF4 and TH4 have the "transfer = NONE" flag set in their resorce deffinition. This blocks manual pumping, otherwise you could cheat the refuel mechanic and just pump in new fuel on the fly. the reactor refuel option end runs the need to pump as it just checks if resources are avalible and swaps it in. most other resorces in the mod have "transfer = PUMP" set instead.

Edited March 20, 2014 by merendel

[Tristavius]

Say I have a nuclear reactor, LFO fuel, and a thermal rocket nozzle.

How does the thermalPower output of the nuclear reactor determine how much thrust said thermal rocket nozzle provides? What would be the formula of ThermalPower, LFO as the fuel, and thermal rocket nozzle size?

The ISP of Thermal Rockets is taken from a combination of three factors... firstly the reactor temperature (not it's thermal output - see tooltips). If your thermal rocket is connected to a thermal receiver rather than a reactor the ISP is about 866. ISPs will be lower in atmosphere (sorry I haven't done the maths yet on how much so). Finally, the fuel type may change the ISP as well. Liquid fuel is the baseline ISP*1.0, all other fuels that I have seen are lower for example LFO = ISP*0.6.

The thrust a thermal rocket is capable of is determined by....

1) Thrust = Power / (0.5* ISP * 9.81)

- Power is in MW and is the total thermal power coming from the reactor or thermal receiver.

- The 9.81 comes from the gravity at sea level on Kerbin/Earth - does not change as far as I can tell.

- The 0.5 comes does not change.

2) Multiply the answer by 1000 to get it in kN like most thrust ratings in KSP.

3) Finally multiply the answer by the fuel being used. Liquid fuel is again baseline at Thrust*1.0. LFO as an example is Thrust*3.7.

An Excel equation if it's any use...

=((THERMALPOWER/(0.5*ISP*9.81))*1000)*FUELMULTIPLIER

Edited March 21, 2014 by Tristavius
Incorrect Equation Typo Corrected

[WaveFunctionP]

The ISP of Thermal Rockets is taken from a combination of three factors... firstly the reactor temperature (not it's thermal output - see tooltips). If your thermal rocket is connected to a thermal receiver rather than a reactor the ISP is about 866. ISPs will be lower in atmosphere (sorry I haven't done the maths yet on how much so). Finally, the fuel type may change the ISP as well. Liquid fuel is the baseline ISP*1.0, all other fuels that I have seen are lower for example LFO = ISP*0.6.

The thrust a thermal rocket is capable of is determined by....

1) Thrust = Power * (0.5* ISP * 9.81)

- Power is in MW and is the total thermal power coming from the reactor or thermal receiver.

- The 9.81 comes from the gravity at sea level on Kerbin/Earth - does not change as far as I can tell.

- The 0.5 comes does not change.

2) Multiply the answer by 1000 to get it in kN like most thrust ratings in KSP.

3) Finally multiply the answer by the fuel being used. Liquid fuel is again baseline at Thrust*1.0. LFO as an example is Thrust*3.7.

An Excel equation if it's any use...

=((THERMALPOWER/(0.5*ISP*9.81))*1000)*FUELMULTIPLIER

You got thermal power and thrust mixed up. Thrust is inversely proportional to isp.

[regex]

Does the generator need to be attached to a node on the reactor in order to generate power still?

1. Generators and thermal engines need to be directly attached to a reactor/thermal receiver to function.

The wiki is apparently wrong, the generator just uses the waste heat from the vessel. It literally started right up once I docked it to the ship, using all the built up heat from being in Moho SOI and the earlier reactor running. To test this I also started up the ship's reactor but left the generator's reactor turned off.

Unfortunately I screwed up the reactor type on the new generator, but I suppose that's easy to sort out on the next transfer window.

[WaveFunctionP]

Thermal power is an ALL VESSEL resource, but generators need to be attached to at least one source of thermal power to utilize it. Thermal engines behave the same way.

As you can see, there is no antimatter onboard this ship. The 2.5m thrusters are using the thermal power coming from the fusion reactor, even though they are connected to inactive reactors.

Edited March 20, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[Makeone]

Actually, it doesn't use wasteheat, but the thermal power, the reactor that has 'EVA maintenance needed' works as a 'buffer' and the other running reactors thermal power is been routed there. Its something that Fractal has been unable to remove, as the thermal power needs to move, although only between nearest nodes.

Edit: Wavefunction was faster...oh well

[tanelorn]

I really need some help with docking and waste heat. I docked my kethane probe to my space station, and it maxxed out it's solar panels waste heat from the station. Now if I undock the probe, its solar panels are at max waste heat and won't work! The probe doesn't have radiators as it didn't need them for just solar power.

How do I prevent docked vessels from absorbing all the waste heat? And how do I recover my probe?

[WaveFunctionP]

Your probe should naturally radiate some heat. Try only deploying one panel for enough time to maintain control until it goes back down. Shut off any power draw until then.

Or you could shut down your space station to let it cool off assming you do have radiators on board. You are probably generating or receiving power if it is so high. Turn off those waste heat source and your docked probe will reduce it's waste heat as well.

Alternatively, you could enable infinite fuel to keep your probe active until the waste heat decreases.