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

[Makeone]

Thinking about power problems in Interstellar? *gasp*

Why not? Its actually pretty awkward design to try to squeeze even the 0.625m reactor/generator combo to a probe as it becomes quite long and also it seems bit overshoot for pretty much one use vessel. Even on manned vessel, the reactor/generator combo becomes a PITA, if its a lander-only-design, not the whole thing to land. Thankfully, decent NFP(P) battery with some support from solar panels saves the problem...for mun and minmus anyway. It would really nice to see tiny reactor and generator to fit smaller space, maybe some sort of Interstellar (inline) RTG...

[Woodstar]

I have a question, the only place I've seen the NaN is in the Interstellar Mod, that being said I just completed an Atmospheric scan (all the goodies to get while in the atmosphere) and returned from duna and the report said I got NaN science it also says that in the research archives that my total science is NaN. Does it do that when you have unlocked everything? I guess I play too much I have over 900 hours in the game.

[merendel]

How do you figure out the coordinates where you have to place the impactor sensors? Without using MechJeb I figured I could use ScanSat's map, but I don't know what longitudes(not very savvy in the location system) to use for each of the six. I read the wiki, but it didn't tell me much - just one on the north, one on the south pole and 4 on the equator. Ok, but where, how to figure out the exact landing coordinates without MJ and how precise does my landing have to be?

As stated you dont need to be all that precise just have a bunch of them spread out as far as possible. Droping 1 on each pole and just eyeball estimate landing 4 evenly spaced around the equator is more than enough to max out the multiplier. You can also just spam probes at varoius places and still max it out or come close enough to not mater. I do recomend you include at least 1 probe designed to transmit that is carrying a nuke preferably or alot of solars as it takes a ton of power to transmit the impact data back. The rest can be little more than a probe core the sciesmomiter and whatever rocketparts it takes to soft land that much mass on your target and keep the probe powered.

[db48x]

Why not? Its actually pretty awkward design to try to squeeze even the 0.625m reactor/generator combo to a probe as it becomes quite long and also it seems bit overshoot for pretty much one use vessel. Even on manned vessel, the reactor/generator combo becomes a PITA, if its a lander-only-design, not the whole thing to land. Thankfully, decent NFP(P) battery with some support from solar panels saves the problem...for mun and minmus anyway. It would really nice to see tiny reactor and generator to fit smaller space, maybe some sort of Interstellar (inline) RTG...

I proposed radial-mount thermocouple modules to put on the reactors. Thermocouples are a lot less efficient than generators, so you'd lose total lifetime output, but they're light and double as radiators, so they should make for good probes. If you poke around the source code you might notice that there's an unused module for simulating simple passive decay of radioactive heat sources as well.

[Fractal_UK]

I proposed radial-mount thermocouple modules to put on the reactors. Thermocouples are a lot less efficient than generators, so you'd lose total lifetime output, but they're light and double as radiators, so they should make for good probes. If you poke around the source code you might notice that there's an unused module for simulating simple passive decay of radioactive heat sources as well.

That code is there because I was shooting for a recent concept that was discussed involving thermal rockets using decay heating as a heat source to make small hops across the surface of Mars but it looks like you need a high output/shorter half-life radioactive decay source than the general purpose Pu-238 to make that work effectively. That limits the general useage of those parts, it does let you use the higher efficiency with RTGs which is potentially quite handy.

The code works fine though so I'll probably introduce all of that in the future when I get those features polished nicely.

[InfinityArch]

So someting about the AMI reactor confuses me; does it actually need helium-3 to run in microfission mode, or is that just for microfusion mode?

[db48x]

That code is there because I was shooting for a recent concept that was discussed involving thermal rockets using decay heating as a heat source to make small hops across the surface of Mars but it looks like you need a high output/shorter half-life radioactive decay source than the general purpose Pu-238 to make that work effectively. That limits the general useage of those parts, it does let you use the higher efficiency with RTGs which is potentially quite handy.

The code works fine though so I'll probably introduce all of that in the future when I get those features polished nicely.

Shiny. Did you decide what to do about the potential part-count bloat?

[Donziboy2]

50%? I'll have to check the power scaling settings for Minmus, it shouldn't be possible to get numbers that large.

I think he means 0.5%.....

0.15% is what I was seeing and I got 50.369kg/hour

0.5% is around 167kg/hour based on rough math

[WaveFunctionP]

Demand limited power reception!

Boo ya!

[merendel]

I think he means 0.5%.....

0.15% is what I was seeing and I got 50.369kg/hour

0.5% is around 167kg/hour based on rough math

I'd swear that decimal was not there before :/ You are apparently right though I just loaded up the craft and the reading is 0.50%

[NeoAcario]

Demand limited power reception!

Boo ya!

Yes, this is something we've been demanding... and is said is in the next patch. I'm confused about the 'Boo ya!' you spit out.

~Steve

[merendel]

Yes, this is something we've been demanding... and is said is in the next patch. I'm confused about the 'Boo ya!' you spit out.

~Steve

considering he's been working on updating tooltips and such along with a few other things I suspect he managed to tweek the code on his end so it only draws the exact amount the system requests. His screenshot shows basicly the exact max draw of the .65 arcjet thruster in liquid fuel mode on his avalible power, something that would be difficult to hit exactly any other way.

[WaveFunctionP]

Founds some bugs with it, I'm trying a different method. The code attempts to optimize your power reception to your exact power needs.

edit: Working pretty good now. It drives mechjeb crazy because the twr is always changing though. I think with a little tuning, the optimizer will behave a little better.

As for whether it will be in the next patch, fractal will have to say. There's a slider for max power that he has implemented and the beginnings of toolbar integration. Along with some more tooltip tweaks for the module names and radiation tracking and vessel radiation hardening for our poor kerbals.

Here's a probe idling with the receiver deployed and in line of sight: (There's a hundred or so of GWs available.)

I don't even need the radiators deployed.

Edited April 1, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[merendel]

Dont feel too bad about driving MJ crazy, frankly beamed power gives it fits anyway. I learned the hard way to never let MJ try a landing on beamed power plasma thrusters. It just spent the whole time pulseing the thrusters and bouncing around all over before eventualy crashing. It can do fine with standard rockets and any onboard generated power but slight fluctuations in beamed power as angles change drive it crazy.

[smunisto]

Is there any purpose for the radiation counters on kerbals and manned parts?

If so is there reason to put reactors further away from crewed compartments on ships.

How does this mechanic work?

[merendel]

Is there any purpose for the radiation counters on kerbals and manned parts?

If so is there reason to put reactors further away from crewed compartments on ships.

How does this mechanic work?

In the order asked;

No

No

Its there for flavor.

At some point in the future fractal may include a mechanic requiring you to protect your crew from cosmic radiation and such. Till then that readout is just for your own edification and is not hooked into any functional mechanic.

[smunisto]

Ok, another question - the Fission reactors seem to be ever so slightly off-center.

I mean - the attachment nodes are perfectly centered to the vertical center-line, but if you look at it closely - the model itself seems to be just a tiny bit tilted to one side.

Example screenshots:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1nxqqszqz5sfgm/Screenshot%202014-04-01%2012.53.30.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/343p4y3yeuia34n/Screenshot%202014-04-01%2012.59.33.png

Is this a bug?

[Myrten]

Founds some bugs with it, I'm trying a different method. The code attempts to optimize your power reception to your exact power needs.

edit: Working pretty good now. It drives mechjeb crazy because the twr is always changing though. I think with a little tuning, the optimizer will behave a little better.

As for whether it will be in the next patch, fractal will have to say. There's a slider for max power that he has implemented and the beginnings of toolbar integration. Along with some more tooltip tweaks for the module names and radiation tracking and vessel radiation hardening for our poor kerbals.

Here's a probe idling with the receiver deployed and in line of sight: (There's a hundred or so of GWs available.)

I don't even need the radiators deployed.

http://i.imgur.com/9s5HRNF.png

Looks nice, now only thing we need is inline electric receiver

BTW if you have problems you can take a look how thermal receiver + generator work, MechJeb works generally fine with them.

[celem]

Ok, another question - the Fission reactors seem to be ever so slightly off-center.

I mean - the attachment nodes are perfectly centered to the vertical center-line, but if you look at it closely - the model itself seems to be just a tiny bit tilted to one side.

Example screenshots:

(snip)

Is this a bug?

Yes, its been reported here before and Fractal has acknowledged it, are you sure you are running the latest build? I thought that was fixed already, might be its in the next release and i fixed mine manually, dont recall. Somewhere in this thread someone posted a MM fix for it I think, but heavens knows where.

[MrOnak]

The "Electrolyse Water" option of my ISRU refinery on Minmus' lesser flats refuses to generate liquid fuel /oxidiser.

The "Extract Water" option works as expected, and the "Electrolyse Water" option does in fact consume both electricity and the "LqdWater" resource generated by extraction, but no fuel / oxidiser appears in my tanks. There are no seperate water tanks on the refinery, only the 100 units from within the ISRUs of which I have 2.

The refinery is connected to the near-empty fuel tank (in the bottom center of the stack) via a docked pair of 1.25m docking ports. Crossfeeding is enabled on that connection. I tried fiddling around with KAS fuel pipes running from the refinery to the fuel tank but that doesn't seem to help.

Any ideas?

I put a screenshot up to ease debugging:

The ship on the right is supposed to become the fuel shuttle for orbiting customers. Nevermind the weird KAS piping at the moment of the screenshot, I was trying various routes for the fuel flow to enable the water electrolysis.

Thanks in advance.

[WaveFunctionP]

If you aren't in right spots, the extract rates can be quite low. A healthy bit of timewarp is needed sometimes to see the fuel supply change. Though, I've never used them through docking ports. and fuel line in reverse may be in order.

[WaveFunctionP]

How about an automode switch for quantum vacuum plasma that remembers the last regular fuel and automaticly disables automode when you manually switch fuels?

Yes, that means you no longer have to switch modes before launching each and every time after you get the quantum vacuum upgrade unless you want to switch to a specific fuel.

You can thanks the superior amount of annoyance I experienced testing the receiver regulator.

Edited April 1, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[WaveFunctionP]

Is there any purpose for the radiation counters on kerbals and manned parts?

If so is there reason to put reactors further away from crewed compartments on ships.

How does this mechanic work?

does nothing currently. The next update will track radiation dosage for kerbals and includes radiation hardening to crew modules.

[Woodstar]

I have a question, the only place I've seen the NaN is in the Interstellar Mod, that being said I just completed an Atmospheric scan (all the goodies to get while in the atmosphere) and returned from duna and the report said I got NaN science it also says that in the research archives that my total science is NaN. Does it do that when you have unlocked everything? I guess I play too much I have over 900 hours in the game.

Any one know any thing about this?

[PringleMan]

Any one know any thing about this?

NaN means that the value that returned is not a real number. Try to reproduce it in a new save and detail what steps you took. Have you manipulated the config files at all? What other mods do you have installed?

edit:

Information on Tokamak designs are much easier to come by, hence the greater nuances in the behaviour of those parts. It's the inertial confinement designs that are the problem.

Unless something changes really soon with regards to inertial confinement, I would not worry about it. For starters the hardware requirements for the laser / ion arrays to generate fusion are massive. Even scaled hypothetically in KSP, to be even close to how they work you would be talking about microwaving power to the spacecraft in order to power the lasers in order to generate fusion, at which point why not just use the microwaved power. As well, as of yet there has not been a break-even or models to show break-even using inertial confinement. (The recent discovery of a new magnetic behavior does not directly help either method yet, though time will tell)

Edited April 1, 2014 by PringleMan