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

[Undecided]

The atmosphere will limit your transmission, it cuts a lot of power, and the distance from the sun causes a loss of about 50% of the beamed power. So if you're beaming back 1 GW, you're only going to be seeing 500MW in Low orbit, and alot is going to be lost in the atmosphere.

Solution, see my link at the bottom which is my "Relay Plan" and shows a way that i have about 8 GW anywhere on Kerbin and in LKO.

The solar farm close to the Sun is the best "fire and forget" power source.

Finally, make some reactor rovers in the space plane building and drive them a few KM away to the Hills, with fusion/fission reactors and microwave transmitters, they send power directly to the launchpad and are barely affected by the atmosphere over such a short distance.

Hope that helps.

http://imgur.com/7Vk4vLK

Thank you very much for this! Very detailed and useful, I'll save this for future reference!But, may I ask a few questions? For example, why would you choose ground reactors over just ground relays? I would think all those antimatter and solar farms would produce so much excess power that you could afford the power loss from ground relays rather than going through the trouble of maintaining ground transmitter/reactor units. (Or do reactors not buildup waste when on-rails?)

Also, is it true that one relay satellite can handle unlimited power "bandwidth"? Or will having additional, redundant relays (e.g., those not intended for increasing area covered) help with power transmission?

Microwave Thermal Receivers seem to have both a megajoule and thermal power gauges... am I correct in reading MJ as the power input, and thermal power as the produced output by the Thermal Receivers?

And one last thing: Does using tweak scale fudge up the numbers on the thermal tool? I've scaled up some batteries, heat radiators, and solar panels to their maximum size, but it turns out my 1000 GJ sat is actually only transmitting 5 GJ... is this because it only transmits what the network demands and lets the rest go to waste, or is this power bottlenecking?

Nope, you'll have to use wavefunction's experimental update. Go back a few pages to find it in his sig.

He's releasing a new version soon though which will break save compatibility so you may wayya wait for that.

It's worth noting that you can theoretically save game edit out old parts for new ones, which will be a pain in the butt, but it's not a catastrophic "lose everything" savegame break. It really depends on how many parts he's removing and replacing with tweakscale versions (if you're reading this wavefunction, can we get a rough list of what part types are being phased out?)

Edited August 25, 2014 by Undecided

[tea-man]

He's releasing a new version soon though which will break save compatibility so you may wayya wait for that.

I'm assuming this will only break previous interstellar save games rather than the save I currently have without interstellar installed?

[Mister Spock]

Tea-man, I would think so.

What happens when a new version "breaks" a save, exactly? Will the save not load at all? Or will craft with KSPI parts explode or something?

I have only a couple KSPI parts installed: radiators on two or three satellites, and accelerometer thingies on a few others. Could I somehow edit my save file to remove those parts from the satellites in question?

[forsaken1111]

I'm assuming this will only break previous interstellar save games rather than the save I currently have without interstellar installed?

As far as I know, that is correct. You may miss out on some of the tech tree changes but otherwise it should be fine.

[Undecided]

In a nutshell: he's replacing duplicate parts (e.g., thermal thrusters and reactors with separate 0.625m, 1.25m, 2.5m, 3.75m versions) and instead placing a single size, which you can scale up or down using the slider in TweakScale. Normally, when a save game is incompatible, ships with invalid are deleted, but you should be able to edit your save games to replace old parts with tweak-scale ones of the same size. Just create a dummy ship on your launch pad with the new part you want, quicksave, copy/paste that particular part's code in the save file and use it to overwrite the obsolete parts of the same size.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Undecided

[WaveFunctionP]

Thank you very much for this! Very detailed and useful, I'll save this for future reference!But, may I ask a few questions? For example, why would you choose ground reactors over just ground relays? I would think all those antimatter and solar farms would produce so much excess power that you could afford the power loss from ground relays rather than going through the trouble of maintaining ground transmitter/reactor units. (Or do reactors not buildup waste when on-rails?)

Also, is it true that one relay satellite can handle unlimited power "bandwidth"? Or will having additional, redundant relays (e.g., those not intended for increasing area covered) help with power transmission?

Microwave Thermal Receivers seem to have both a megajoule and thermal power gauges... am I correct in reading MJ as the power input, and thermal power as the produced output by the Thermal Receivers?

And one last thing: Does using tweak scale fudge up the numbers on the thermal tool? I've scaled up some batteries, heat radiators, and solar panels to their maximum size, but it turns out my 1000 GJ sat is actually only transmitting 5 GJ... is this because it only transmits what the network demands and lets the rest go to waste, or is this power bottlenecking?

It's worth noting that you can theoretically save game edit out old parts for new ones, which will be a pain in the butt, but it's not a catastrophic "lose everything" savegame break. It really depends on how many parts he's removing and replacing with tweakscale versions (if you're reading this wavefunction, can we get a rough list of what part types are being phased out?)

The list would be too extensive. Nearly every part received some TLC, which why it has taken so long. Names were changed, parts were moved, and values were edited, models were removed, some were replaced with others, resources were renamed and some were removed. Code was changed to accommodate tweakscale configuration, and bugs have been squashed.

Upgrading will mean all but a complete loss with any vessels with kspi parts. I highly doubt it would be worth the effort to go through a save and edit the parts. For one, it would mean reverse engineer all the old parts to work with the new code. And even if some vessels did survive they would not perform as expected. Some stuff got buffed, significantly, while a lot of stuff saw nerfs. The number explosion has been halted and parts behave more like they should for the kerbal system instead of breaking every limit repeatedly.

It is going to be a minor version bump, but that understates how much has been developed.

[Undecided]

The list would be too extensive. Nearly every part received some TLC, which why it has taken so long. Names were changed, parts were moved, and values were edited, models were removed, some were replaced with others, resources were renamed and some were removed. Code was changed to accommodate tweakscale configuration, and bugs have been squashed.

Upgrading will mean all but a complete loss with any vessels with kspi parts. I highly doubt it would be worth the effort to go through a save and edit the parts. For one, it would mean reverse engineer all the old parts to work with the new code. And even if some vessels did survive they would not perform as expected. Some stuff got buffed, significantly, while a lot of stuff saw nerfs. The number explosion has been halted and parts behave more like they should for the kerbal system instead of breaking every limit repeatedly.

It is going to be a minor version bump, but that understates how much has been developed.

Well, if that's the case, I guess we'll just have to copy the navigation data (orientation, orbit, etc) from the saves, re-build and launch the ship, and paste the old navigation data over it in the save. A bit cheaty, but much easier to do than part editing.

[Brucey]

KIDS does not work with interstellar and there are a few resource conflict shenanigans with current experimental version. I am VERY close to the next version, which will break vessels in the transition. You may wish to hold out depending on how fast your progress through a save.

Thanks for the information. Looking forward to trying this out with your upcoming release. Looks really cool from the videos. One other question. I see the current download includes a folder for OpenResourceSystem. I already have that folder in my gamedata directory. I think it came from Roverdude's mods. What should I do with that when I install? Delete and replace? or copy and append?

[undercoveryankee]

Thanks for the information. Looking forward to trying this out with your upcoming release. Looks really cool from the videos. One other question. I see the current download includes a folder for OpenResourceSystem. I already have that folder in my gamedata directory. I think it came from Roverdude's mods. What should I do with that when I install? Delete and replace? or copy and append?

RoverDude ships the version of ORS that came with Wave's current 0.11-Experimental release. He may have stripped out a couple of atmospheric and oceanic resource configs that were placed in the ORS directory even though only Interstellar ever used them. I'd lean toward delete and replace unless someone finds that delete and replace breaks RoverDude's mods.

[RoverDude]

RoverDude ships the version of ORS that came with Wave's current 0.11-Experimental release. He may have stripped out a couple of atmospheric and oceanic resource configs that were placed in the ORS directory even though only Interstellar ever used them. I'd lean toward delete and replace unless someone finds that delete and replace breaks RoverDude's mods.

Delete and replace is safe

[sober667]

Tea-man, I would think so.

What happens when a new version "breaks" a save, exactly? Will the save not load at all? Or will craft with KSPI parts explode or something?

I have only a couple KSPI parts installed: radiators on two or three satellites, and accelerometer thingies on a few others. Could I somehow edit my save file to remove those parts from the satellites in question?

ships with some parts of interstellar wont load and the ships will be lost but all game should be more or less fine

[benkh]

why can't i upgrade the parts during EVA in Wave's Interstellar mod?

[Crim1]

So quick question. I decided to continue on with my save despite the new update coming soon for KSPI, I'm working on getting my power network up and it seems there arent any recent youtube guides for thermal helper. I'm using the 3.75 fission/generator so roughly where is the sweet spot as far as radiators goes?

[GreeningGalaxy]

If you can look at the thermal helper (i key in VAB), just add radiators until the red numbers turn green ("maximum radiator dissipation" is greater than "heat production") . If for some reason you can't use that, you probably can't go wrong with sticking six or so of the mid-sized graphene radiators on there. (I use 6 of the biggest foldable ones for a 3.75m fusion reactor so I think using that for a fission machine would be overkill).

[sreinmann]

Does anyone know the basic science scores available for the science experiments? I think I've figured out that the Magnetosphere and Gas-Chromo have base values of 22. But I've not been able to figure the Seismic or the Liquid Chormosphere experiments out.

[DavidHunter]

Nope, you'll have to use wavefunction's experimental update. Go back a few pages to find it in his sig.

He's releasing a new version soon though which will break save compatibility so you may wayya wait for that.

All righty, thank you for that.

And thanks Wavefunction for the planned update, for which I shall wait.

[undercoveryankee]

Does anyone know the basic science scores available for the science experiments? I think I've figured out that the Magnetosphere and Gas-Chromo have base values of 22. But I've not been able to figure the Seismic or the Liquid Chormosphere experiments out.

The seismic experiment doesn't have a base score the same way the stock experiments do. See https://github.com/FractalUK/KSPInterstellar/wiki/Double-C-Seismic-Accelerometer for a description of the formulas. The body multipliers may vary between versions or between fractal_uk and WaveFunctionP, but I haven't seen anything else change.

The LC/MS simply doesn't have ModuleScienceExperiment. It will tell you what ORS resources are in the water, but it won't give you science for it.

[bigbadben]

.12exp is out!

[RoverDude]

.12exp is out!

Sweet! FYI for MKS/Karbonite users, I will be recompiling shortly to reference 0.1.2 - but in the interim please do not delete the 0.1.1 version of ORS otherwise sadness ensues Assuming that ORS actually works as intended

[sreinmann]

Okay, I really thought that it did provide science points, but maybe that was a previous version? Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that before when I ran the experiments. Too bad, it would have made planning impacts more fun.

[forsaken1111]

I'd suggest Wave make a short info post and have a mod lock this thread so anyone looking for the new version will see it. Thread can always be unlocked if Fractal returns.

[Gecko99]

Thank you very much for this! Very detailed and useful, I'll save this for future reference!But, may I ask a few questions? For example, why would you choose ground reactors over just ground relays? I would think all those antimatter and solar farms would produce so much excess power that you could afford the power loss from ground relays rather than going through the trouble of maintaining ground transmitter/reactor units. (Or do reactors not buildup waste when on-rails?)

Also, is it true that one relay satellite can handle unlimited power "bandwidth"? Or will having additional, redundant relays (e.g., those not intended for increasing area covered) help with power transmission?

Microwave Thermal Receivers seem to have both a megajoule and thermal power gauges... am I correct in reading MJ as the power input, and thermal power as the produced output by the Thermal Receivers?

And one last thing: Does using tweak scale fudge up the numbers on the thermal tool? I've scaled up some batteries, heat radiators, and solar panels to their maximum size, but it turns out my 1000 GJ sat is actually only transmitting 5 GJ... is this because it only transmits what the network demands and lets the rest go to waste, or is this power bottlenecking?

It's worth noting that you can theoretically save game edit out old parts for new ones, which will be a pain in the butt, but it's not a catastrophic "lose everything" savegame break. It really depends on how many parts he's removing and replacing with tweakscale versions (if you're reading this wavefunction, can we get a rough list of what part types are being phased out?)

OK this is gonna take a while so bear with me

Ground rover question: The simple answer was easy of deployment, i could put (and i stand to be corrected here) roughly 8GW of beamed at the launch pad, which was enough for me to get my relay sats into geostationary orbit with a small conventional rocket lifter with thermal jets and some quantum plasma thrusters for orbital maneuvering. I know what you're thinking, ill go into a detailed procedure at the end of the post.

Relay related question : relay satellites will pass on all available power they receive, kind of like a perfect mirror. I like having redundancy purely for the added coverage...you never know when having a satellite closer will give you that extra power needed etc. :wink:

"Microwave thermal receivers" question (WavefunctionP jump in here if im wrong): the name says it, and as i understand, these bad boys are for receiving only, no other use intended - if you strap them to a plasma thruster or generator, you'll power it as though it was a reactor. As you noted, they do provide both forms of power, and are super useful for putting small things into orbit. Have a satellite you want up there with just microwave power, thermal rocket and plasma thruster baby. I did most of my relay satellites with a SSTO type launch.

Tweakscale question : looks like its been answered, BUT it will work better after this next update, which id love to get my hands on soon

OK, the procedure I used centered around having the max amount of microwave power at any place on or around Kerbin. This is just the procedure I used to establish a microwave power network, others are welcome to use, edit or not use, and improvements are welcome!

I started with the ground based rovers, they were fusion power plants with solar panels for a lil extra oomph (the OKEB 500 panel from Near Future Solar Mod) just to add to the mix. Each rover weighed in at about 300 tons (useless science module was just for giggles), so moving them was a task, but worth it. Each had the necessary reactor/generator/fuel/cooling necessary for a 10GW power plant (i always over spec the cooling), as well as 2 microwave transmitters (1 relay + 1 transmit) ... oh and big wheels, lots of them! (Im at work now, but ill edit this post later to include pics)

(Rover pic goes here)

(can you tell i like my spotlights)

Once those were in place (4 around KSC), i sort of got lazy and pointed the rover right side up, thinned it down A LOT (like a serious amount), put my standard "probe assembly" onto it stuck it to a rocket and put it into geosync orbit. Figuring out the nuances of getting a geosync orbit and the object where you wanted it took me 5 tries, so I have 5 power relays, fairly well spaced, each putting about 4 GW or so of Tokomak fusion power (reactor generated and solar) into the network, and relaying anything else they receive.

(relay sat pic goes here)

Once that was accomplished i used as many thermal rockets (for atmosphere work) and quantum vacuum powered plasma thrusters as i could manage per craft, this helped alot with Delta-V requirements etc.

Finally I turned to the task of an anti-matter farm... I started by putting up my collectors. Each collector rack as i called them, had 50 collectors, attached with fuel lines (that bits important) to the anti matter tanks. Sent 4 of those up, with the big docking ring on the front. Once they were all up I began the task of sending up a 2.5m antimatter reactor, with a few of its own collectors and other necessities (radiators etc) and docking them... that was challenging, but worth it, because once done, I can max out any of my thermal turbojets or plasma thrusters in the greater Kerbin system. Going to Mun or Minimus is a breeze. Each of the below sats puts up about 1 TW of power, so i really have over killed it by colossal proportions, but again, this is Kerbin...anything goes

(Anti matter rack pic goes here)

(Real FPS killer that rig - like trying to dock a moon, and yes all the radiators are necessary )

I was going to send up my solar farm satellites but decided to hold off with the impending break of save game coming, but for their purposes i have designed an "orbital tug" which happens to be warp capable. That will tow 8 satellites into a 140 000 000 m orbit around the sun and relay everything they get. Using those large Near Future Solar OKEB 500 panels, each satellite will add roughly 1 GW to the network (by the time it gets back to Kerbin - assuming a 50% loss).

The final step of my master plan was to put some antimatter collector/reactor satellites in the flux belt around KERBOL, which has pretty dense flux, and put a relay+transmitter set up on them, that'll add LOTS of power (about 1TW per satallite) that isn't going to need much in the way of maintenance. Once that's done, there will be an abundance of microwave power in the solar system, gonna make an Eve trip much easier than before

Sorry for the essay but i hope it helped.

(No appropriate potato could be found at time of going to press.)

Regards

The Gecko:wink:

EDIT : took so long to write this post its home time so the pics are in there

Edited August 26, 2014 by Gecko99
140 000 000 m not 140 000 000 000 m ... got a bit excessive with the "0's" there

[Undecided]

Thanks for taking the time to answer all my questions, Gecko!

I've been having issues with my power network and I've been trying to figure out what's going on by testing different builds and scanning my savegame code. The github wiki is also somewhat lacking in documentation, so I've had questions in my head gathering up over time. And the screenshots give me some great ideas for builds of my own. You're the man.

As thanks, a few tips of my own, which you might find useful in the future:

- Three relay satellites is the smallest number you can use to get full "ring" coverage around an equator wherein satellites have full line-of-sight to all the others. This will probably be easier to setup around additional planets than your five satellite ring. (Although extremely low gravity planet(oid)s may require more, since very low geosync orbits reduce maximum line of sight. But it should work around most worlds).

- On-rails objects don't seem to build up waste heat. So it's a bit cheaty, but you can create solar with few to no radiators. Antimatter satellites too, if you suck power from other satellites rather than generating your own (thus allowing you to put it back "off-rails" to pickup antimatter collected).

- You can probably save some FPS and weight by not using landing legs and modular girders on your ground relays. You're already using super-heavy wheels which are far tougher than the landing legs, so it's better just to use their brakes to stay still.

- For lowest possible orbit Kerbol (the sun) satellites, you'll need thousands(!) of tons of battery units to milk the maximum amount of power out of those regular OKWB-250 Blanket solar power arrays (the largest ones from Near Future power). Each of those requires417 of the BK-12K Rechargeable Battery Bank (the largest battery, 12000 EC each). This is almost guaranteed to lag/crash out your game, so as an alternative I'd recommend a TweakScaled B-3K Rechargeable Battery Bank. Scaled up to 5 meters wide, each of those can hold 1.4 million EC, greatly reducing part-count required and therefore physics lag. But even then, the battery capacity + thermal radiators for a single OKWB-250 Blanket is still ~1300 tons, even excluding any propulsion or additional gear.

My strategy was to assemble it into multiple battery "silos" and move each silo into orbit individually before assembling it together to make this:

(Note: Pretty much all modules you see in the picture were upscaled using TweakScale to the maximum size possible).

[Undecided]

Sweet! FYI for MKS/Karbonite users, I will be recompiling shortly to reference 0.1.2 - but in the interim please do not delete the 0.1.1 version of ORS otherwise sadness ensues Assuming that ORS actually works as intended

After applying the newest version, the Karbonite air-breathing engines freeze the game's initial loading screen. Not sure why, since the patch shouldn't have touched the UmbraSpaceIndustries directory. Either way the loading screen hands unless KA_Jet_Radial, KA_Jet_Stack, and KA_Jet_PropFan are deleted.

[RoverDude]

After applying the newest version, the Karbonite air-breathing engines freeze the game's initial loading screen. Not sure why, since the patch shouldn't have touched the UmbraSpaceIndustries directory. Either way the loading screen hands unless KA_Jet_Radial, KA_Jet_Stack, and KA_Jet_PropFan are deleted.

My suspicion is that ORS does not work in the way it's supposed to and is not respecting the version differences. I have some plans for taking care of that.