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

[Fractal_UK]

KSP Interstellar

Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp, Improved Stock Science Integration - Version 0.13

KSP Interstellar is a plugin for Kerbal Space Program, designed to encourage bootstrapping toward ever more advanced levels of technology as well as utilising In-Situ resources to expand the reach of Kerbal civilisation.

Players will first gain access to contemporary technologies that have not been widely applied to real space programs such as nuclear reactors, electrical generators and thermal rockets. By continuing down the tech tree and performing more research, these parts can be upgraded and later surpassed by novel new technologies such as fusion and even antimatter power.

We attempt to portray both the tremendous power of these technologies as well as their drawbacks, including the tremendous difficulty of obtaining resources like antimatter and the difficulties associated with storing it safely. The goal being to reward players who develop advanced infrastructure on other planets with new, novel and powerful technologies capable of helping Kerbals explore planets in new and exciting ways.

The principal goal of KSP Interstellar is to expand Kerbal Space Program with interesting technologies and to provide a logical and compelling technological progression beginning with technologies that could have been available in the 1970s/1980s, then technologies that could be available within the next few years, progressing to technologies that may not be available for many decades, all the way out to speculative technologies that are physically reasonably but may or may not ever be realisable in practise.

Before I go any further, I'd like to shout out a huge thank you to ZZZ, who has provided almost all of the amazing art found in this plugin. I'm not sure this plugin would have reached near this level of popularity without your excellent work.

New in Version 0.13

• A revamped refinery ISRU system giving you more information about what resource processing is going on, the amount of power it's using and generally reduced clutter
  
• New Magnetic Nozzles that give really nice high Isps when coupled with charged particle reactors
  
• Thermal rocket balance significantly changed to accomodate the new magnetic nozzles
  
• Computer Cores and Science labs integrated into stock science
  
• Massive changes to fusion reactors making alternative fuels much more viable (plus a reduction of fuel consumption with all fusion reactor fuels to make the rates more realistic)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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  KSP Interstellar Tech Tree
  
  
  Current upgradeable parts and the Technologies which unlock upgrades (More soon!)
  
  • [Per Part] Alcubierre Drive: Standard Field Geometry ----> Advanced Field Geometry (Faster charging times and higher maximum speeds)
    
  • [ultra-High Energy Physics] Antimatter Reactor: Solid/Liquid Core Reactor ----> Liquid/Plasma Core Reactor (3x power output)
    
  • [Per Part] Computer Core: Standard Mainframe ----> Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Core (Guaranteed to open the pod bay doors while within warranty period!)
    
  • [Experimental Electrics] Electric Generator: Brayton Turbine ----> KTEC Thermoelectric
    
  • [basic Fusion Power] Nuclear Reactor: Solid Core Reactor ----> Gas Core Reactor (3x power output)
    
  • [ultra-High Energy Physics] Plasma Thruster: Magnetoplasdynamic ----> Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster
    
  • [basic Fusion Power] Thermal Turbojet: Atmospheric Thermal Jet ----> Hybrid Thermal Rocket (Basic version can only work in atmosphere, Upgraded version can toggle over to internal fuel)
    
  • [basic Fusion Power] Particle Bed Reactor ----> Dusty Plasma Reactor
    
  • [Experimental Electrics] Heat Radiator: Mo Li Heat Pipe ----> Graphene Radiator
    
  • [Advanced Fusion] D-T Tokamak ----> High-Q Tokamak Reactor
    
  • [Antimatter Power] AIM Microfission ----> AIM Microfusion
    

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Eye Candy

KSP Interstellar according to Scott Manley

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For Documentation - Check out the Wiki

Problem? - Maybe the FAQ can give an instant response! FAQ

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Notes on use: You will not be able to use the advanced technology in this plugin right out of the box. You need to send an antimatter collector (or several) into the magnetosphere of a planet (look for the biggest particle flux you can find) and use it to fill antimatter storage tanks or upgrade nuclear generators and reactors. It's possible to achieve some amazingly powerful effects in this plugin but you do have to put in some effort to get access to them. If you wish, you can edit the .cfgs to get access to these sooner but bear in mind that plugin with resource collection in mind, so you will make the game very easy by doing this.

Download Plugin

Alternate Download Link

Important Note: If you are upgrading from a previous version of Interstellar, be sure to delete the WarpPlugin folder in your GameData folder before installing.

Wiki

Source

The plugin is licensed as follows.

I hope you enjoy it!

Finally, if you'd like to donate to my caffeine supplies to help fuel more sleepless nights spent doing this sort of thing, you're very welcome!

Changelog:

Version 0.13
-Added magnetic nozzles
-Capped thermal rockets at ~3000s Isp
-New refinery system with vastly improved GUI
-Integrated computer cores and AI with the stock science system
-Fusion reactor fuel scaling drastically changed to make alternative fuels more efficient
-Decreased fusion fuel consumption to more realistic values
-Attach node sizes fixed

Version 0.12.2
-Fixed Electric Engine nan bug
-Fixed Antimatter Initialised Reactor
-Fixed smallest fusion reactor
-Removed precooler integrated intake
-All atmospheric engines now shutdown correctly when non-precooled (they no longer explode)
-Added resource deprived message to reactors
-Update to ORS v1.4.2

Version 0.12.1
-Wrote new resource referencing system to avoid resource name bugs (fixes cryostat, etc, bugs)
-Rewrote magnetic field system for planets and fixed abnormal radiation values
-Types of radiation can now be distinguished internally
-Fixed Tritium breeding in reactors
-Fixed power consumption in inertial confinement reactors
-Tokamaks start with tritium breeding turned on
-Improved atmospheric intake code
-Added turn off reactor button for nuclear reactors to the control system interface
-Fixed prices
-Added Taverius additions to B9 cargo bay radiators
-Some code reorganisation

Version 0.12.0
-KSP 0.24.2 Compatibility
-New Eletric Engine Effects
-New Electric Engine System
-New Reactor Code + Reactor Control System interface
-Vastly improved VAB info for Reactor and Electric Engines
-Implemented Oktav radiator glow + background He-3 decay
-Changed fusion fuels to correct densities
-Fixed Telescope experiment and integrated it with stock science system
-Fixed Alcubierre drive volume
-Added first attempt at part costs
-Added first attempt at resource costs

Version 0.11.0
-Toolbar Integration
-Updated tech tree with additional fusion power node
-New Computer Core Model (by AArtisan)
-New 0.625 Pebble bed/dusty plasma reactor (model by AArisan)
-New Large 3.75m Refinery which does processing and resource extraction (model by Aartisan)
-Added Haber process (to produce ammonia) to Refinery
-Improved impactor mechanics
-Direct conversion max power fixed, fixes problems generally experienced with fusion and microwave transmitters
-Fixed thrust transform with small arcjet engine
-Default generator Electric Charge set to 1000

Version 0.10.3
-Integrated Impactor experiment into the stock science system
-Fixed zero resource extraction rate at low timewarp
-Fixed refinery monopropellant conversion rate
-Fixed overheating with atmospheric engines
-Fixed Tritium breeding rate

Version 0.10.2
-Fixed thrust asymmetry issue with fusion and direct conversion generators
-Impactor detection improvements
-Improvement of Thermal UI handling of microwave receivers
-Fixed Antimatter Initated Reactor cfg
-Lithium comes with Lithium tank by default
-Minor Antimatter tank ElectricCharge handling improvements

Version 0.10.1
-Fixed Plasma thruster loading bug
-Switched Antimatter Initiated Reactor to UraniumNitride fuel (instead of UF4).
-Fixed Antimatter Initated Reactor Resource amounts
-New planet science curve from impactor experiment (more science everywhere except Kerbin)
-Fixed some typos and included some missing part descriptions
-Thermal helper toggle key changed to "I"
-Fixed Gamma Ray Spectrometer orientation and attachment
-Fixed Radial Tank attachment
-Tritium radioactive decay added to reactors

Version 0.10
-Added Thermal Mechanics Helper (toggle with 'T' key in VAB)
-Added Large Fusion Reactors (by AArtisan)
-Added Antimatter Initiated Fission/Fusion reactor (by AArtisan)
-Added Solar Sail (by SasquatchM)
-Added extra fission reactors - particle bed/dusty plasma (by AArtisan)
-Added augmented arcjet electrical thruster (by AArtisan)
-Added IR telescope (with Kerbol gravitational lens experiment capability)
-Added inline refinery
-Added refinery option to produce Uranium Nitride fuel
-Integration with ORS (fixes resource generation/consumption bugs since 0.23)
-Changed accelerometer to new impactor experiment (smash things into planets in the name of science!)
-Changed antimatter factory rates based on tech level, added low tech antimatter bottle to store tiny quantities of antimatter for new reactor
-Hexcans replaced by unique radial tank (by Vaporlynx)
-Fixed second Van Allen belt for radiation detection purposes and added surface radiation levels
-Misc bug fixes
-New water resource maps for the Mun and Minmus (find water in the soil at both these locations, just like on Duna).

Version 0.9.2
-Added 62.5cm thermal rocket and plasma thruster.
-Added 2.5m thermal turbojet.
-Reverted to 0.9 atmospheric code and fixed application, engine atmospheric performance should now be optimal
-Added tweakable option for reactors to start disabled in the VAB
-Unupgraded generator efficiency raised to a theoretical maximum of 31%

Version 0.9.1.1
-Readded ModuleManager to download

Version 0.9.1
-Methane tank replaced and new smaller tank more suitable for landers
-Fixed Reactor and Generator Upgrades
-Fixed loading of warp plugin settings
-MJ treatment of plasma engines improved
-Megajoule display now responds to F2 and is hidden for vessels with no appropriate power supply
-Improvements to atmospheric engine code
-Tritium breeding option can now be selected - due to stock problem this will only function while ship is unfocused or at moderate time acceleration
-Expanding refinery in VAB workaround
-More info on radiators
-Atmospheric intake removed from VAB
-DT magnetometer rerunnable

Version 0.9
-New Megajoule power supply/consumption display!
-Massively expanded resource system including atmopsheric and oceanic resources definitions - aluminium and water mining integrated into existing planetary resource system
-New resource scanning and science parts - Gas chromatograph and Liquid chromatograph mass spectrometers for analysing atmosheric and oceanic composition
-New resources: Alumina (Aluminium Oxide), LqdWater, H2Peroxide and Ammonia
-ISRU production of Monopropellant now possible
-Lithium and Uranium extraction from seawater now possible (very slowly)
-New Duna water resource map - means lots more water at the poles
-New tweakable generator mode - Direct Conversion Electric Generator, which works with ChargedPower from fusion reactors
-Fusion reactor tweakable fuel modes - Deuterium/Helium-3 and Helium-3
-Fission reactor Uranium/Thorium modes tweakable in VAB
-Thermal rocket propellants tweakable in the VAB - TWR, delta-v and Isp calculations now compatible with MechJeb
-New precooler module, replaces the stock radial engine body (which doesn't do anything) - atmospheric engines overheat at very high velocities unless precoolers are directly attached to intakes
-Atmospheric performance of engines vastly improved
-Thermal Mechanics improvements - radiators will find a thermodynamic equilibrium, generator efficiencies increased to compensate
-Myrten's microwave routing algorithm added
-Refinery totally redone
-New generic resource extraction module for easy modding!
-Refinery functional attachment nodes reversed
-Thermal rocket can use LqdWater or Ammonia as propellant
-B9 cargo bays act as radiators
-Antimatter Tank power supply improvements
-Supply of stock electric charge from megajoule resource managed finally fixed
-Reactor temperatures fixed
-Thermal jet 0 thrust after re-entry problem fixed
-Antimatter collector GUI improvements
-Fixed magnetic field data

Version 0.8.2.1
-Retracted radiator temperature fix

Version 0.8.2
-Different plasma engine propellants have different efficiencies, added monopropellant (hydrazine) as a fuel option
-antimatter tanks charge use variable based on size
-Jool 0 temperature radiator bug fixed
-extensive microwave fixes - conservation of energy now respected
-antimatter consumption with multiple tanks fixed
-generator improvements, use better resource manager API
-radiation improvements + second van allen belt
-reactor supports unupgradeable types
-electrolysis rate fix
-resource manager electricity consumption fix
-resource manager negative consumption bug prevented
-various conversions to double precision to improve accuracy
-removed more constants from part modules

Version 0.8.1
-Microwave fix for vessels with more than one transmitter
-Improved resource manager handling of high time acceleration
-Fixed the solar panel power curves and made the solar panel waste heat module and inverse square law fix apply to all solar panels, rather than just stock ones
-Fixed Tritium breeding with fusion reactors
-Rewrote the antimatter reactor consumption code to a custom method, which should prevent the reactor power output from ever unexpectedly dropping down
to zero while you still have fuel and need power.
-Changed Refinery to remove top attach node, this prevents problems with it failing to attach at certain times in the VAB
-Applied radius fixes to the generator meaning that a generator works best when paired with a reactor of the right size
-Made propellant definitions for the nuclear and electric engines compatible with ModuleManager
-Updated RealFuels compatibility file
-Tweaked fusion resource consumption rates to make them correct
-Removed all the const definitions from the science lab and refinery and moved them to a seperate class, for some reason KSP sometimes takes offense to these on part loading.

Version 0.8
-Added resource system for Uranium and Thorium mining
-Added new nuclear reactor models by Vaporlynx
-Added nuclear reactor thorium fuel options - as well as EVA shutdown/restart and refuel options
-Added Gamma ray spectrometer for resource scanning
-Nuclear reactor temperatures and thermal rocket isp correlation adjusted (doesn't affect engine performance)
-Existing small nuclear reactor repurposed into a fusion reactor - uses Deuterium and Tritium fuel + requires power to maintain
-Added Microwave Thermal Rocket - much of the code and the models by Conti
-Total rewrite of Microwave transmission system, solar and nuclear power can be used together, plus proper relay functionality
-Added methane oxygen rocket and ISRU sabatier process + methane oxygen fuel tank
-Added refinery part to handle resource mining, nuclear fuel reprocessing and electrolysis
-Electrolysis option removed from science labs
-Computer core fixed for Linux
-Computer core science persistence fixed
-Resource manager fixed to avoid free thrust bugs
-Thrust asymmetry fixed
-Liquid Fuel + Oxidiser now provides proper thrust
-Solar Panel inverse square law fixed, works with stock solar system and RSS
-Added science lab notification of amount of science added
-Improved Antimatter storage tank code
-Various GUI fixes


Version 0.7.4
-Added option to stop/start charging antimatter tank when it doesn't need the charge
-Added ZZZ's small radial radiator
-Fixed generator attachment null reference exception
-Fixed same possible bug in thermal nozzle (it probably isn't possible here but best to be on the safe side)

Version 0.7.3
-Improved Engine information reporting in the VAB
-Engines will power up their reactor if the reactor is shutdown in order to get thrust
-Fixed resource manager NaN power bug
-Fixed asymmetric thrust bug

Version 0.7.2
-TWR limit and intake limit added to thermal nozzle to prevent flameout, including a lot of work from Conti
-All intakes will now create IntakeAtm as well as IntakeAir, again with a lot of help from Conti
-New Hexcan textures by bac9
-Rewrote Thermal Nozzle And Electrical Generator from scratch for better performance + fewer bugs
-Thermal nozzle will now maintain a constant fuel usage rate - atmosphere affects thrust
-Antimatter tanks no longer require having antimatter inside to recharge
-Altered 1.25m Antimatter reactor to bring it more into line with the others, excessive TWR reduced and Isp improved
-Fixed animation states of science lab/reactor
-Fixed bug where LiquidFuel could be used as Kethane
-Made reactors more resilient to autoshutdown - particularly time acceleration waste heat spikes

Version 0.7.1
-Added new KIWI nuclear reactor model by ZZZ
-1.25m Plasma Thruster has maximum 25GW power throughput and reduced mass to 1. 2.5m Plasma Thruster has maximum 200GW power throughput, mass remains 6.
-Rewrote Atmospheric Intakes/Scoops
-Atmospheric Scoop no longer requires attached intake
-Fixed Hybrid Thermal Turbojet auto-upgrade
-Fixed Plasma Thruster auto-upgrade
-Fixed UF6/DUF6 draw/supply to make them even
-Fixed Science lab persistent science
-Fixed exception in PartLoader
-Fixed generator consuming all waste heat when reactor inactive
-Improved resource manager performance at high time acceleration

Version 0.7.0.1
-Repackaged with updated TreeLoader for mod compatibility

Version 0.7
-Integration with stock science system/career mode
-Added tech tree extension using TreeLoader
-Added magnetospheric science experiment
-Nuclear Reactors that shutdown from overheating can be restored by Kerbal EVA work
-Generator cold bath Temperature based off average radiator temperature - efficiency goes down with increased temperature!
-Reactors, Microwave receivers and Solar panels shutdown when WasteHeat bar reaches 95%
-Radiators won't get hotter than reactor temperature
-Radiators will explode if the waste heat bar reaches 100%
-Fixed Microwave Receiver power detection/reception when disabled
-Fixed DUF6 reprocessing

Version 0.6.2
-Added Duna ISRU, water electrolysis with extra energy cost for baking water out of the soil
-Added persistence to Computer Core science production and reactor Lithium consumption/Tritium production
-Added warning message for undetectable propellant files
-Changed nuclear reactor base power outputs to 1.5MW, 40MW, 500MW and 3GW
-Revised down nuclear reactor masses to 0.225, 1.5, 8 and 28
-Changed vista engine to require 2.5GW of power (instead of 1.5GW), upped vista thrust to 1100kN
-Kerbol now has scientific value
-Reconfigured attachment node strengths of 3.75m for better structural integrity
-Reduced mass of thermal rocket nozzles, 3.75m now mass = 3, 2.5m now mass = 1.5 and 1.25m now mass 0.4. Throttle will scale down with ratio of attachment areas if you use the wrong size nozzle on the wrong size reactor.
-Removed all constructors and placed initialised code in OnStart methods (this should help avoid various unity related problems)
-Fixed Solar Panel collector area code
-Fixed science lab antimatter persistence
-Fixed multiple generator to one reactor plasma engine bug
-Fixed Science lab malfunctioning after vessel switch
-Amount of DUF6 that is reprocessable will drop after each reprocessing cycle

Version 0.6.1
-Added waste heat generation to all stock Solar Panels
-Added Lithium and Deuterium/Tritium Tanks
-Added Inline radiators created by Kerbtrek
-Added microwave nuclear transmission and relay functionality created by Conti
-Better inverse square law for all stock Solar Panels
-Nuclear reactors can turn Lithium into Tritium using Tritium Breeding option
-Changed DT Vista to use Tritium instead of Lithium fuel
-Changed DT Vista to capacity 15 Deuterium and 15 Tritium
-Added Lithium fuel option for Plasma engines
-Small rebalancing to science to incentivise landing on planets, landing will grant you double the science rate on most planets/moons,2.5x on Eve and 3x on Tylo
-Electrolysis of Aluminium/Oxygen possible on Tylo
-Radiation safety features not engaging quickly enough will no longer endanger Kerbal lives
-Plasma engine heat generation fixed
-ThermalPower flow changed to ALL_VESSEL
-Lithium and Deuterium now pumpable
-Generators and Engines not properly detected upgraded Reactor fixed
-Propellant loader path fixed for Linux compatability
-Fixed atmospheric altitude detection - stops improper radiator detachment
-Improved thermal rocket propellant autodetection
-Fixed 1.25m antimatter reactor antimatter consumption rates

Version 0.6
-Added WasteHeat and Radiators
-Added lots of models created by ZZZ (Antimatter reactor, 2 generators, DT magnetometers, phased array transmitters/receivers etc)
-Added deuterium centrifuge option to science lab
-Electric charge now provided in needed amounts by generator, rather than arbitrary 1000 figure
-Changed nuclear turbojet parameters such that, with some effort, it can be used to fly
-Warp effects scale to proper size
-Fixed Thermal engine NullReferenceException when not physics loaded but not selected ship
-Microwave beamed receiver now must be pointed at the transmitter or losses will occur
-Fixed Megajoule utilisation/plasma engine bugs
-Fixed MechJeb prevent overheats locking the throttle at zero


Version 0.5.1
-Fixed energy consumption continuing while ExoticMatter full bug
-Fixed energy generation stopping when Megajoules full + Plasma engine thrust bug

Version 0.5
-Added DT Vista Engine Inertial Fusion engine (Credit to ZZZ for the amazing modelling work on this engine)
-Added science lab IVA (Credit to ZZZ)
-Added power management system
-Added science transmission/reception options to computer core
-Added option to harvest Deuterium from Jool's atmosphere
-Added on/off options to Microwave Receiver
-Warp drive no longer selectable as root part
-Fixed science lab antimatter production
-Fixed resource management system unpredictability on docking/undocking
-Fixed science lab loading bug
-Fixed plasma engine incorrectly detecting number of active engines bug

Version 0.4.2
-Science Lab Loading Bug Fixed
-Plasma Engine upgrade cost not being deducted bug fixed.

Version 0.4.1
-Added Antimatter Factory resource persistence
-Added science transmission/receipt
-Fixed Computer Core Upgrade
-Fixed Plasma Engine Upgrade
-Fixed incorrect resource deprived display
-Fixed unlimited warp drive deactivation to gain speed bug
-Fixed warp drive still consuming resources after fully charged bug

Version 0.4
-Rebranded to KSP Interstellar
-Beta phase begins
-Warp Drive, Antimatter Collector, Science lab Models added
-Warp Animation and Sound
-New parts (2 more warp drives, computer core)
-Space solar parts now animate according to their function (Receivers deploy when they are receiving some power, Transmitters deploy when activated)
-New resource handler - should result in much better performance all round, especially at high timewarp speeds
-Resource prioritisation prevents you have to turn off generators to power engines
-Plasma thruster now scales its thrust depending upon how many plasma thrusters are attached and active
-Plasma thruster default propellant is now LiquidFuel, can also use Argon or Xenon (LiquidFuel is best for Isp, Xenon best for thrust, Argon in the middle)
-Upgrades added for warp drive, antimatter reactors and thermal turbojet
-Thermal turbojet can now use stock Air Intakes for propellant as well as my Atmospheric Intakes
-Warp Drives now use ExoticMatter, generated by power, rather than by acting as a huge battery for Megajoules
-Fixed Warp Vector persistence bug, should again be safe to activate the warp drive, leave the game and then deactivate the warp drive when you next return.
-Prevented Thermal Rockets functioning with no ThermalPower source

Version 0.3.2
-Fixed negative thrust and negative efficiency bugs when parts are loaded in atypical orders
-Fixed science rate when science labs are not active
-Altered science rate to account for stupidity of Kerbal crews (stupid Kerbals generate less science while clever Kerbals generate more)

Version 0.3.1
-Science is now generated passively even when science labs are not the active vessel.
-Antimatter and Uranium is now used passively by vessels even when inactive (provided the reactor is enabled)
-Updated antimatter matter tank model to the one created by SpaceK531
-Now capable of performing water electrolysis on the icy surface of Vall

Version 0.3
New Features:
-Science and upgradeable parts: Build science labs to collect science and use it to develop upgrades for certain rocket parts.
-Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing: Turn your depleted nuclear fuel back into useful fissionable material
-More In Situ Resource Utilisation: Electrolysis of water and aluminium oxide.
-Antimatter factory: Produce antimatter with huge amounts of power
-Added Aluminium Hybrid Rocket
-Added Liquid Fuel tanks
-Added propellant options to nuclear thermal rockets - burn liquid fuel+oxidiser, liquid fuel or kethane.

Bug Fixes:
-Fixed Thermal Rocket flameout behaviour
-Fixed Ship-breaking bug when Brayton Turbine becomes the root vessel part
-Plasma engine now detects the power ouput of generators on the ship it is attached to and calculates thrust accordingly.

Version 0.2
Changes:
-Warp Drive required power now scales with rocket mass, big rockets need more power.
-Added new nuclear reactors and tiny brayton turbine.
-Added Microwave solar power transmitter/receiver system.
-Added planetary magnetic probe.
-Added atmospheric intakes/scoop.


Bugfixes:
-Fixed Thermal Rocket Nozzle behaviour with manual activation and staging. It will no longer function in any circumstance without thermal power from a reactor.
-Fixed Brayton Cycle Gas turbines generating power with no input.
-Thermal Turbojet now functions with the same mechanism as the Thermal Rocket Nozzle and scales output properly depending upon attached reactor.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Fractal_UK

[Mekan1k]

Interesting... But can your alcubierre drive actually do what an alcubierre drive does?

[Fractal_UK]

Interesting... But can your alcubierre drive actually do what an alcubierre drive does?

What do you mean exactly?

[HavinAlmassi]

What do you mean exactly?

I think they want to know if it's really contracting space or just simulating the effects. Also, negative mass.

[Fractal_UK]

I think they want to know if it's really contracting space or just simulating the effects. Also, negative mass.

In terms of game function it applies a temporary velocity change to your orbit which is reversed when you turn it off. In this way the game correctly plots your trajectory at high speed but it still simulates the effect of an alcubierre drive correctly.

The requirement for negative mass is glossed over and is assumed to be integrated into the inner workings of the drive. All you need to power it for the purposes of this plugin is energy.

[KhaosCorp]

Kinda seems like a fancy way to pass off a fuel generator and some OP edits to stock configs..unless I'm missing something?

[MUSTANG]

This is awesome! Makes me wish I had some modeling talent. A concept this cool deserves its own distinctive look.

[Benie]

So, can this thing literally warp you to another planet without having to set Delta-V. as long as you point to the planet and shut it off before you crash into it?

[Fractal_UK]

So, can this thing literally warp you to another planet without having to set Delta-V. as long as you point to the planet and shut it off before you crash into it?

Correct. The warp drives needs a certain amount of power depending upon how fast you want to go with it. So, you can point your ship directly at another planet, click to activate the drive and it will instantly increase your velocity to the speed you have specified. Whenever you wish, you may then click to disable the drive and it will restore your ship's original momentum.

It is often best to make one warp journey at high speed to get close to the target, turn it off, then switch down to the slowest speed for a final approach toward the target planet.

Once you arrive in the SOI of the destination planet you will then have to make a burn, which does consume delta-v (and often massive quantities of it) in order to enter orbit. The warp drive is thus a great way of touring the solar system to see all the other planets very quickly but is definitely not a fuel efficient approach to getting from a stable orbit of planet A to a stable orbit of planet B.

[Event Horizon]

Correct. The warp drives needs a certain amount of power depending upon how fast you want to go with it. So, you can point your ship directly at another planet, click to activate the drive and it will instantly increase your velocity to the speed you have specified. Whenever you wish, you may then click to disable the drive and it will restore your ship's original momentum.

It is often best to make one warp journey at high speed to get close to the target, turn it off, then switch down to the slowest speed for a final approach toward the target planet.

Once you arrive in the SOI of the destination planet you will then have to make a burn, which does consume delta-v (and often massive quantities of it) in order to enter orbit. The warp drive is thus a great way of touring the solar system to see all the other planets very quickly but is definitely not a fuel efficient approach to getting from a stable orbit of planet A to a stable orbit of planet B.

So the warp drive keeps you at the speed you were going even when you turn it off? Or does it set you to some arbitrary speed? Either way, I'm glad you made a point to balance this.

[Pigbear]

So the warp drive keeps you at the speed you were going even when you turn it off? Or does it set you to some arbitrary speed? Either way, I'm glad you made a point to balance this.

It gives you the same speed in the other direction.

[Fractal_UK]

So the warp drive keeps you at the speed you were going even when you turn it off? Or does it set you to some arbitrary speed? Either way, I'm glad you made a point to balance this.

Yes, it preserves your original speed. I can demonstrate this with a visual example:

Step 1) Ship is in a fairly standard parking orbit in LKO.

Step 2) Ship begins warp journey to position opposite Kerbin in its orbit. (I used Moho as the target to give me a rough trajectory).

Step 3) I refine my position and deactivate my warp drive. I'm now in a retrograde orbit of the sun in a similar orbit to Kerbin's. My trajectory doesn't precisely match Kerbin's orbit because I also have a velocity component that was orbiting Kerbin in addition to the velocity component matching Kerbin's orbit around the sun and I haven't quite matched Kerbin's orbit completely.

As you can see then, if you want to minimise delta-v to enter orbit of another planet, you want to use the warp drive when that planet is at minimum distance from Kerbin. If you have to go across to the other side of the solar system to reach your target, your relative orbital velocity when you arrive will be absolutely enormous and you can have a hard time slowing down even with the very powerful sublight engines in this pack.

[Mekan1k]

...

Well... This is cool, but...

I don't know. I just... OrbitusII and I have been working on an engine that actually allows for alcbierre effects(without attempting to exceed lightspeed as the kraken STILL takes exception to that), and can be mounted anywhere on a vessel. You dock the module to a station, turn on the drive, and then aim the station very carefully....

But this... It gets the point across, but there is something off about it... Is there a specific plugin you use for this?

[Fractal_UK]

...

Well... This is cool, but...

I don't know. I just... OrbitusII and I have been working on an engine that actually allows for alcbierre effects(without attempting to exceed lightspeed as the kraken STILL takes exception to that), and can be mounted anywhere on a vessel. You dock the module to a station, turn on the drive, and then aim the station very carefully....

But this... It gets the point across, but there is something off about it... Is there a specific plugin you use for this?

I wrote all the code for it, you can look at the source code to see how it works if you like but I'll apologise in advance for it not being well commented.

When I made my first attempts to write this code, I did have problems related to the high velocities causing the ships to break in certain circumstances. I since redesigned the code to make all transitions between FTL and sublight happen while the orbits are on rails. Since I did that, even really large ships seem to hold together perfectly so you don't need to worry about the Kraken tearing apart your ships (at least no more than usual).

[dexan]

warp drive...I think it will be the quickest way to travel between planets

[Punk]

Very cool, especially the relative velocity thing. A difficult idea to get your head around in a field already full of difficult ideas.

[Mekan1k]

I wrote all the code for it, you can look at the source code to see how it works if you like but I'll apologise in advance for it not being well commented.

When I made my first attempts to write this code, I did have problems related to the high velocities causing the ships to break in certain circumstances. I since redesigned the code to make all transitions between FTL and sublight happen while the orbits are on rails. Since I did that, even really large ships seem to hold together perfectly so you don't need to worry about the Kraken tearing apart your ships (at least no more than usual).

Ah, I see. Well, what our design is trying to do is allow the ship to use a single frameshift engine, offset from the center of mass, to push the ship along without causing variable forces to be applied to each part. IE, you could connect the module to say, a dock on your space-station at an angle, and the station can be smoothly accelerated in the opposite direction that the engine is facing, without having to worry about COM or anything like that.

[SchroedingersHat]

One thought about an alternate/additional antimatter collection method:

Make it manufactured rather than gathered and require gratuitous amounts of energy. This will make for some awesome low orbit solar collection arrays.

[StarVision]

This looks really cool!

I also liked how you named your ship the "Phoenix"

[BigMorgan]

One thought about an alternate/additional antimatter collection method:

Make it manufactured rather than gathered and require gratuitous amounts of energy. This will make for some awesome low orbit solar collection arrays.

Some combination of the two might be even more fun. Need to park a large solar array in a collection zone.

[Orphican]

I'd have to say the number one thing you need are new models. lol We dont take kindly to "OP cfg edits" round these parts friend. The second thing you need is another star or star system.

[Fractal_UK]

One thought about an alternate/additional antimatter collection method:

Make it manufactured rather than gathered and require gratuitous amounts of energy. This will make for some awesome low orbit solar collection arrays.

Creating other kinds of reactors and other methods of generating antimatter is definitely one possible avenue for the future direction of this mod. Antimatter is essentially an extremely high density energy storage system, so you could imagine creating it with anything that produces electrical power.

I think in order for it to be believable that you could get enough energy from solar power to generate antimatter, I would need to change the stock solar energy model to use the proper inverse square law. It would then be reasonable for solar arrays in low solar orbits to generate vast amounts of energy. Performing operations near the sun is quite expensive in delta-v terms too so getting a solar array into an appropriate orbit wouldn't be completely straightforward and might prove to be a sufficiently challenging method of generating antimatter. I'd also have to find some way of explaining away the fact that it would probably need to be some kind of particle accelerator you'd be sending (and those things tend to be measured in kilometres).

I'd have to say the number one thing you need are new models. lol We dont take kindly to "OP cfg edits" round these parts friend. The second thing you need is another star or star system.

I would definitely like to include new models if the opportunity arises but I'd definitely reject any notion that this mod is just some kind of cfg edit. The vast majority of the parts in the pack all contain substantial amounts of new code and a lot of that code is very versatile.

To give an example, the antimatter collection model used by the plugin could be readily expanded into a fully fledged (albeit simple) planetary magentosphere model, allowing probes to study the magnetosphere of each planet or allowing the production of radiation hazards to ships passing through van allen radiation belts.

I could likewise easily add new types of reactor and expand the plugin to use a variety of resources to generate power, rather than just antimatter.

I don't deny that the sublight engine parts are extremely powerful compared to stock engines but you also need them to be. Using the warp drive to travel between planets will very often leave you with burns of over 10k-15 delta-v required in order to enter orbit of the destination planet. Equally, you cannot simply use the parts from launch to trivialise the game, you need to set up supply lines to actually collect antimatter and bring it somewhere useful for before you can use it.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Comrade Jenkens]

Looks like a nice mod but I highly recommend that you make new models for the new parts.

[wasmic]

10k-15 delta-v required.

Two words: Aerobraking and Lithobraking.

[Fractal_UK]

Two words: Aerobraking and Lithobraking.

I'd actually love to see if anyone can successfully pull off an aerobraking trajectory with the warp drive. I have no doubt that it's possible to put yourself on a collision course with a planet but getting the correct altitude to aerobrake at is really hard because it involves moving your ship into the perfect position such that your existing sublight trajectory will carry you into the planet's atmosphere at the correct altitude once you turn off the warp drive. It's possible but very hard.

Entering a planet's atmosphere with that much of a delta-v change could be very dangerous to your ship as well, it will suffer fairly constant high acceleration which may cause the ship to break apart. Slowing down with an engine burn is certainly much safer but it'd be nice to see if aerobraking was possible.