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

[Atrius129]

Well yeah' date=' but thats the thing. I'm not using any reactor, but the engines still work at the stats I gave earlier.[/quote']

Oh. Well, that's weird. I know most of the KSPI engines will produce some kind of thrust, even when not powered properly, but those stats should should not be produced.

[Darkeners]

You need to pump a LOT of power into plasma thrusters to get good thrust. Antimatter reactors are obviously more than capable of supplying such. Upgraded 3.75m fusion reactors are another good bet; my plasma-thruster based asteroid tug uses 5 of those to max out the power usage of 4 1.25m plasma thrusters, and it can take off from Kerbin under its own power using Argon propellant in drop-tanks, even with the hefty load of LiquidFuel for orbital maneuvering and Monopropellant for holding the craft straight when the asteroid starts trying to swing you around (and the substantial mass of the reactors themselves). With anything smaller and less high-tech, the power-to-weight ratio starts dropping pretty quickly, and that's what you need for high thrust-to-weight ratio with plasma thrusters, since their thrust is directly determined by the power delivered. At maximum throttle, the argon thrusters on my tug produce 2045 kN of thrust each, but that's at a power consumption of 32.9 GW* each.

Alternately, you can start spamming power transmitters and use microwave transmission to run your plasma thrusters, which takes away a lot of the TWR issues. You just have to deal with line-of-sight issues instead.

*Note: the "max power" of the 1.25m plasma thrusters is 25 GW, but that's after efficiency is taken into account, so it uses even more than that, depending on the efficiency of your fuel (argon is 76%, so 25 GW / 0.76 = 32.9 GW).

How to upgrade Reactors?

On max thrust, all green on Electric table, I have 12,2 kN.... on 2,5 plasma. I dont know how you menage that power from 4x small, I will test those...

Btw. On some movie I saw that somepeople transfer power from solar panels, but I doesn't see capable solar panels ; d

[Rabada]

I have been using Procedural Parts lately, totally fantastic mod; keeps my part counts way down and they look great. For my solar satellites I have been trying to add procedural batteries. I hate how the current batteries are spongy/springy. They are pretty much completely useless if they have any kind of mass stacked on top of them. Plus they only have 4K EC max so to reach the aforementioned 129k EC you would need to add 33 parts to the count.

I got the charge capacity to scale fairly closely to stock parts, but I am waiting on help now on getting the mass to scale properly. Will let you know when I get it figured out so we can have our "Solar-Off" properly.

P.S. What do Kerbals make their batteries out of? I don't understand why they appear to be made of water balloons, and are 1/6 the density of the stock tanks. Batteries don't work that way, silly Squad.

It is my understanding that the reason you need so many batteries is due not by design but is due to issues with the way that Interstellar interacts with stock KSP. I felt that because of this, it would not be gamey to add a very large amount of electrical charge to the Balkan solar panels I use for my solar power sats. I believe that the near future tech mod has some giant batteries also. I don't use them because I'm close to my RAM limit.

[G'th]

Okay, new bigger issue, that is probably connected to the previous one I had. After figuring that I'd just live with the atilla engines being weird, I decided I'd set up some reactors so at least I could pretend I was using it properly.

However, after building a basic mobile one, I've found that I can't interact with any of the parts. Not the reactor, the electric generator, the radiators, nothing. Only non-Interstellar parts have anything I can interact with. Not really sure why this is.

I'm going to try a clean re-install of the mod just to see if a missing file somewhere is the issue, but if not then I don't know.

[Threadsinger]

I've added https://github.com/FractalUK/KSPInterstellar/wiki/Solar-power-satellites to the wiki to collect everything we know about beamed solar power after the latest discussion. I wrote down what I currently know, but there are probably a few things left to add.

Thanks, always good to see the wiki updated!

[Einarr]

The Near Future mod has some 2.5m diameter batteries that hold 12k each, and are about 3-4 times the thickness of the stock 4k batteries. I've also found them to be less 'squishy' than the stock batteries. I think the mod author has split NFP into seperate packs now so you don't need the whole mod to use something. I'd also recommend the solar panels from that mod as the large ones output more than the balkas (what was it...250 or 260 Ec/sec...)

[phoenix_ca]

You never needed the whole NFP mod to use its parts. Now that it's broken-up it's just easier to pick and choose which parts you want.

[Darkeners]

Somone can tell me:

1) How to upgrade reactors? What does mean?

2) Can I build Microwave network based on solar panels? I try to build some whit large reactor, but that doesnt work.

[Haifi]

Easy way to place a nukular powerplant anywhere on Kerbin.

http://i.imgur.com/2ud6wvp.png' alt='2ud6wvp.png'>

Mission: Polar powerplant... Kerbal style

Mods used: Hooligan Labs Airships, B9 and Interstellar

Regards

[Makeone]

Somone can tell me:

1) How to upgrade reactors? What does mean?

2) Can I build Microwave network based on solar panels? I try to build some whit large reactor, but that doesnt work.

1) If you are playing career mode, their upgrade is opened when first fusion tech node is opened, after that, all fission reactors that are 'out' can be retrofitted. All reactors you build as new are automatically upgraded.

2) Yes, but you would need to get them close sun (kerbol) in order them to provide any meaningful power, and you need many panels too.

My MW beaming station is on ground, two 3.75m normal fission reactor with generators (obviously) and it works well. I also have 4 relay satellites at geosync orbit (more or less...) that will help for relaying the power.

[ArcFurnace]

How to upgrade Reactors?

On max thrust, all green on Electric table, I have 12,2 kN.... on 2,5 plasma. I dont know how you menage that power from 4x small, I will test those...

Btw. On some movie I saw that somepeople transfer power from solar panels, but I doesn't see capable solar panels ; d

Reactors are upgraded by unlocking the appropriate tech tree node. You get the upgraded tokamaks (2.5m and 3.75m fusion reactors) when you unlock the Advanced Fusion Power node with the DT Vista and 0.625/1.25m fusion reactors.

The different sizes of plasma thruster differ only in mass and maximum electrical power input. The 0.625m one has a max of 3,125 MW, the 1.25m one 25,000 MW, and the 2.5m one 200,000 MW (and remember that's after efficiency losses!). Feeding a 1.25m plasma thruster 20,000 MW (20 GW) will get you exactly the same thrust and ISP as feeding a 2.5m plasma thruster 20 GW. It's really very difficult to get enough power production that you need to use the 2.5m plasma thruster without a death-ray-intensity microwave power beam.

Plasma thrusters will sense how much electrical power your ship is capable of generating and adjust the throttle accordingly. 100% throttle is the plasma thruster consuming all available power on the ship. If you only have enough power generation to produce 15 kN of thrust at most, then 100% throttle will produce 15 kN of thrust. Increase your power generation and your maximum thrust will increase accordingly.

As of right now, solar panels will only produce ElectricCharge, which cannot be turned into MegaJoules on the same vessel and thus cannot directly power a plasma thruster. You can use solar panels to power a microwave power transmission antenna, however, which will generate MegaJoules on the receiving ship. Remember that 1000 EC = 1 MJ; you need quite a lot of solar power flow for this to be useful. Lots of panels and low solar orbit is recommended for solar power stations.

[nli2work]

Somone can tell me:

1) How to upgrade reactors? What does mean?

2) Can I build Microwave network based on solar panels? I try to build some whit large reactor, but that doesnt work.

Reactors you build in new craft automatically upgrade to the latest tech you unlocked. Reactors on crafts in flight might need a Kerbal EVA "Retrofit".

MW Network is fairly simple, launch a few Reactors into high orbit, ~200km. Connect 2 Generators on them and put on 8 or more large radiators, a folding transmitter. Basic UF4 Reactors are best for these, long life and generous power. upgrade 3.25m Angles will push close 10GW of power in orbit with upgraded Solid State Generators. You can do ground beam stations as well, but you lose quite a bit of power through the atmosphere, roughly 30% from sea level to low orbit. I place the relays out at the edge of kerbin SOI, ~65000km, to get coverage on Minmus and Mun.

here's good info on Solar MW transmitters https://github.com/FractalUK/KSPInterstellar/wiki/Solar-power-satellites

[Haifi]

Not to forget the huge amount of batteries that you need to keep up the ElectricCharge, you can only transmit as much power as it is able to generate without losses if you have enough batteries on your sat. Have a look at the wiki, theres a new part on solar satellites with calculations as how many batties you need for what power output.

[Fractal_UK]

Not to forget the huge amount of batteries that you need to keep up the ElectricCharge, you can only transmit as much power as it is able to generate without losses if you have enough batteries on your sat. Have a look at the wiki, theres a new part on solar satellites with calculations as how many batties you need for what power output.

After the next update, you should no longer have to worry about this because solar panels will generally be generating megajoules directly, that will allow the resource manager to deal with the transmission rather than what we have at the moment, which forces me to work with ElectricCharge.

[Darkeners]

Now I have a Problem that over 2 ships, most of my satellites shutdown.

I send over 10 satellites whit akulla generators, but due to time acceleration they burn all fuel, even I have 9 extra tanks (I need to feed manually, and I do so before shutdown).

You always set Transmit on those or Relay?

Time acceleration is the reason why I want to create even over 20 satellites powered by solar power, not reactors.

Btw. Thx guys for answers!

Edit: I read that article about solar panels, and I have a question, I build for test on the ground over 20 big solar panel, I have added around 16000 charges, but on Interstellar mod electric info, I doesnt see any value, all is on 0, this is normal? Did I need a Power Generator too? Whitout reactor.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Darkeners

[Rabada]

Now I have a Problem that over 2 ships, most of my satellites shutdown.

I send over 10 satellites whit akulla generators, but due to time acceleration they burn all fuel, even I have 9 extra tanks (I need to feed manually, and I do so before shutdown).

You always set Transmit on those or Relay?

Time acceleration is the reason why I want to create even over 20 satellites powered by solar power, not reactors.

Btw. Thx guys for answers!

Edit: I read that article about solar panels, and I have a question, I build for test on the ground over 20 big solar panel, I have added around 16000 charges, but on Interstellar mod electric info, I doesnt see any value, all is on 0, this is normal? Did I need a Power Generator too? Whitout reactor.

1: use the green fission reactors instead, they burn through their fuel much more slowly.

2: I like to attach 2 transmitters to my reactors and set one to relay and the other to transmit.

3: solar sats do not need a generator, to make sure they work attach a transmitter to them and set it to transmit and see how much power it is transmitting.

[AndreyATGB]

Something I've learned from playing with RT2, you never have enough antennas or dishes. There's always more you can use, if you think 3 is enough, put 4. Same goes for interstellar but to a lesser degree since a relay has no limit but 4 are good anyway for symetry and having 2 receivers never hurts.

[Darkeners]

I wanted to Instal RT2, but when I go on forum I saw lots of coment, that this mod is bugged, and abandoned... but RT2 solutions are "natural" for this game....

On Green is better to use UF4 or ThF4?

Edited May 25, 2014 by Darkeners

[Drew Kerman]

RT2 works perfectly fine. Use this hotfix for 0.23.5. If you can compile source, you can get a fix for the m/s burn problem, along with the rest of the fixes from the previous hotfix link. Or you can just be sure not to use HotRockets and the m/s burn will work fine for most engines. And then there's a new MET graphic.

[Asidem]

Let's say I put a big solar array on an extremely low Kerbol orbit, and beam all that free power through the Microwave network. I can power my far-too-efficient-plasma-spaceship with it. But in the meanwhile my solar power satellite rotated around Kerbol, and his panels aren't -theoretically- looking directly and efficiently at Kerbol anymore. Do I have to switch to and rotate it each time I want to get my sweet GWs ?

[undercoveryankee]

Let's say I put a big solar array on an extremely low Kerbol orbit, and beam all that free power through the Microwave network. I can power my far-too-efficient-plasma-spaceship with it. But in the meanwhile my solar power satellite rotated around Kerbol, and his panels aren't -theoretically- looking directly and efficiently at Kerbol anymore. Do I have to switch to and rotate it each time I want to get my sweet GWs ?

When a ship is unloaded, it will continue transmitting whatever it was transmitting when you switched away.

It may still update the scaling for distance from the sun - I'll need to take another look at that part of the code - but everything else is presumed to remain constant.

So you never need to switch to a power satellite just to rotate it. Just make sure that if you switch to it or come within loading range of it for some other reason, you point it back at the sun before you switch away again.

[VaporTrail]

Edit: This was a repeat of the previous post because it looked like it had failed to post. I'll use it to continue the discussion.

With regard to battery requirements: the FixedUpdate tick that governs power consumption is 0.02 s. Rabada has 24,000 EC capacity. 24,000 divided by 0.02 s equals 1,200,000 per second, which is the observed 1.2 GW.

Let me see if I can work out the math for this configuration.

You said the satellite has 12 single Balkas. I don't have that .cfg, but I'm guessing (based on http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-5-KSP-Interstellar-%28Toolbar-Integration-New-Models-New-Tech%29-Version-0-11?p=1171247&viewfull=1#post1171247 where you quoted part of the double Balka's config) that the single has a chargeRate of 200.

200 * 12 = 2,400 kW at Kerbin.

Scale to 100 km altitude. That's small enough compared to the sun's radius that the multiplier will still round to 2,700. 2,400 kW * 2,700 = 6,480,000 KW = 6.48 GW.

Divide the power in kW by 50 to get the amount of EC in 0.02 s. I get 129,600 EC required to transmit the full panel capacity.

Hmm... Let me see if I've got the math right.

I've got a design that's using 8 of the really big NFP blanket panels currently in orbit around Kerbin Kerbol (oops) at 20Mm altitude.

This equates to an energy flow (per panel) of roughly 575,000, for a total energy flow rate of 4,600,000 (assuming that's in Ec/sec) from the panels.

1 Ec/sec = 1 kW (yes?) ==> 4.6 GW of available power.

4,600,000 / 50 = 92,000 ==> need 92,000 EcC to transmit the full 4.6 GW.

Formula is basically this:

Flow rate at altitude * Conversion factor = Capacity

==>

(Total Electric Charge Flow (in Ec/sec)) * (1/50 sec) = Ec (capacity)

So taking it in reverse, a capacity of 37,315 Ec should max out at 1.86575 Gw transmitted, yes? My design, for some reason, is maxing out at exactly half that.

Edited May 25, 2014 by VaporTrail

[Darkeners]

RT2 works perfectly fine. Use this hotfix for 0.23.5. If you can compile source, you can get a fix for the m/s burn problem, along with the rest of the fixes from the previous hotfix link. Or you can just be sure not to use HotRockets and the m/s burn will work fine for most engines. And then there's a new MET graphic.

Could you give me direct links for what I need to RT2, and eventaly what I should have too...

My Plasma trusters are quite week so ms burn too ; d

[Haifi]

20Mm at Kerbin... You need to put it in an orbit around the sun, and a pretty close one too.

Something like this:

Around 4 GW, and thats pretty much the limit of my build, because the panels simply wont do more ^^.

[VaporTrail]

Oops, meant Kerbol. Fixed. Anyway...

Figured it out... I was still in Phys Timewarp x2. Dunno why it halves the output, but it does.

Anyway, here's the design:

Needs about 3x the EcC to make it actually work fully at that altitude... 214 parts on launch right now... But I should be able to tack on enough.

6 Large Hexcan Batteries should do the trick.

Edited May 25, 2014 by VaporTrail