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

[nhnifong]

I've got a few questions about the science module. I've got one in LKO and one at the south pole of kerbin. both are inhabited by smart kerbals and have ample power supply, but they both say 0.000 science per day even at maximum time warp. What am I doing wrong?

Also is there a guide? I read up in your OP that they way to get started is to collect antimatter and do science, but what do you do with those resources?

[Donziboy2]

Its nice to just have an off button.. And if your trying to power other things like your probe core/lab/lifesupport turning off the generator has a negative effect.

Just playing with the Vista, shouldn't the MJ consumption vary with throttle since your igniting fewer pellets with the laser?

[Donziboy2]

I've got a few questions about the science module. I've got one in LKO and one at the south pole of kerbin. both are inhabited by smart kerbals and have ample power supply, but they both say 0.000 science per day even at maximum time warp. What am I doing wrong?

Also is there a guide? I read up in your OP that they way to get started is to collect antimatter and do science, but what do you do with those resources?

Are you supplying their power needs? IE with a reactor/generator.

Interesting, if you have gen/reactor and arent low on power it should be running.

You use Antimatter in the antimatter reactor, and science is used to upgrade reactors and probe cores and engines.

Did you test them on the launch pad to make sure they could get science before you launched them?

A picture may help.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Donziboy2

[nhnifong]

Figured maybe it doesn't work on kerbin so I tried on minimus.

No dice. Is a reactor of some kind necessary just for the science portion? I thought you had to have the science first to unlock the reactor!

Edit: nevermind I figured it out. You need MegaJoules to drive the science lab not ElectricCharge. Is there a converter?

Seems the nuclear reactors work right out of the box and you don't have to create the uranium hexafloride using mining equipment. Herpderp.

Edited September 13, 2013 by nhnifong

[Rampart]

Figured maybe it doesn't work on kerbin so I tried on minimus.

No dice. Is a reactor of some kind necessary just for the science portion? I thought you had to have the science first to unlock the reactor!

Edit: nevermind I figured it out. You need MegaJoules to drive the science lab not ElectricCharge. Is there a converter?

Seems the nuclear reactors work right out of the box and you don't have to create the uranium hexafloride using mining equipment. Herpderp.

Yah for the 5MW a science lab needs to research one of the smaller nuclear reactors and a corresponding sized generator will do just fine. My current project is an orbiting research station around moho consisting of 12 science labs all staffed by the smartest kerbals I could find. the stupid kerbals end up in the antimatter factory lab.

[Fractal_UK]

Just playing with the Vista, shouldn't the MJ consumption vary with throttle since your igniting fewer pellets with the laser?

No, you don't ignite fewer pellets by changing the throttle, that would lead to very uneven thrust. Instead the throttle controls the amount of liquid hydrogen injected around the pellet. Notice the effect of the throttle on the specific impulse, if your thrust drops, your specific impulse goes up by the same proportion.

[Lazurkri]

....so nice to be completely ignored.....

[Rampart]

....so nice to be completely ignored.....

no need to get upset man

First off, the drive doesn't need a massive stream of power constantly, or rather it does, but that just charges it's supply of exotic matter, once that's full it doesn't need more, and depending on your warp speed setting you don't need a full tank to do a jump. So yes, you could launch a probe, let a nuke reactor trickle charge the drive, then warp to the next destination. Just make sure you time the trip right or the dV needed by the probe to orbit will be way too much.

Second, the mod used to model the drive as a giant MJ capacitor, which worked, except it made a great giant battery so people were sticking it on space stations, the current exotic matter method works a bit better.

[DaveStrider]

....so nice to be completely ignored.....

The warp drive doesn't consume energy, it creates exotic matter which it stores and is used when needed. this is effectively the same as a system using capacitors since you don't actually need a lot of power, you simply need to wait longer to fill your E.M supply, you can easily power a 3.75 m warp drive with the second smallest nuclear reactor(the first only makes electriccharge), but it will take an age.

if you want solar powered warp drives then you can either

a) set up a network of solar energy satellites to beam the energy to your warp probe

you may be able to edit solar panels to produce megawatts instead of E.C, although i'm certainly not sure of this.

Sometimes messages get lost in popular threads like this one, passive aggressive posts certainly don't help that problem.

[Hremsfeld]

Hey, Fractal, the good idea fairy came to visit me: Is it possible to make it so the generators etc only produce electric charge, but if a ship's making more than 1000 electric charge per second in total from all sources the extra automatically goes to Megajoules?

[Fractal_UK]

Hey, Fractal, the good idea fairy came to visit me: Is it possible to make it so the generators etc only produce electric charge, but if a ship's making more than 1000 electric charge per second in total from all sources the extra automatically goes to Megajoules?

I think I saw the same fairy - that is exactly how it works at the moment

[Rampart]

Hey, Fractal, the good idea fairy came to visit me: Is it possible to make it so the generators etc only produce electric charge, but if a ship's making more than 1000 electric charge per second in total from all sources the extra automatically goes to Megajoules?

They actually work inversely to this, generators produce MW and the first 1 MW goes to creating 1000 electric charge/sec.

I honestly don't see it going the other way as you'd need a ridiculous number of RTG and/or solar panels to produce even 1MW at Kerbin orbit. The only time you can get away with it is when you're closer say around Moho, but it's Fractal's mod so I suppose anything is possible

EDIT: Beaten to the punch! Also, I didn't know it went it reverse, I'll have to re-design my research base orbiting Moho now....again...

Edited September 13, 2013 by Rampart

[DrPoo]

How do i get blutonium and other stuff?

[Rampart]

Also another bug(feature?) Fractal, If you have a nuclear reactor and a AM reactor both hooked up to a generator, that generator will only produce the amount of MW corresponding to the thermal output of the nuclear reactor, even if you undock the nuclear reactor from the assembly. Basically I had command>AM tank>3.75 generator>3.75 AM reactor, and then radially mounted on the generator were 4 2.5m nuclear reactors using clampotron sr. ports and the radial mount structure parts.

toggling the activation of the AM reactor and generator don't help, though it looks like switching craft resets the generator so it goes up to it's proper max amount.

[DrPoo]

In the older versions i could dig up blutonium and stuff, it would show up in the thing on the map with kethane and ore, like, toggle wich things that are shown, this no longer happens. So how do i actually get all that blutonium and deuterium and stuff?

[Rampart]

In the older versions i could dig up blutonium and stuff, it would show up in the thing on the map with kethane and ore, like, toggle wich things that are shown, this no longer happens. So how do i actually get all that blutonium and deuterium and stuff?

blutonium might be for a different mod, you can get deuterium from using the science lab's electrolyzing function on the water on kerbin and vall, as well as scooping jool's atmosphere using atmospheric scoops. currently this mod doesn't use the ore/kethane scanning map features.

[Rampart]

Fractal, you may want to adjust the break tolerance on the thermal turbojets, unless you intend for them to only be used on the small AM reactors, if you throttle more than say 50% when they're attached to the 2.5m AM reactor the connection fails.

EDIT: Connections also fail on the upgraded turbojets when throttled up and connected to an non-upgraded 1.25m AM reactor using liquid fuel. AM is too spicy for them I think

Edited September 13, 2013 by Rampart

[nhnifong]

Fractal, you may want to adjust the break tolerance on the thermal turbojets, unless you intend for them to only be used on the small AM reactors, if you throttle more than say 50% when they're attached to the 2.5m AM reactor the connection fails.

If it's just the default strength, then increasing it would just break the next thing in the stack. Use struts to distribute the force.

[SeventhArchitect]

Seventh there is losses associated with distance, I was getting 1% from a sat I had orbiting the sun.

DrPoo this mod does not add any resources that you can see. I think the Lab Module just checks what planet you are on before it will collect resources.

You see, my sat is in orbit of Kerbin, probably not even past the Mun's own orbit. Yours is much further away though, and thats understandable, but this one was literally on my doorstep, transmitting, and I was receiving absolutely nothing.

[Fractal_UK]

You see, my sat is in orbit of Kerbin, probably not even past the Mun's own orbit. Yours is much further away though, and thats understandable, but this one was literally on my doorstep, transmitting, and I was receiving absolutely nothing.

Was the transmitter blocked by being behind a planet when you switched away from it or when you were trying to receive some power? It's no good just having line of sight to the receiver, the trasmitter needs to be able to see the sun too. It also needs to be receiving power when you switch away from it.

[Fractal_UK]

Version 0.5.1 Released

The bugs seem to all be fixed but please let me know if you have any further problems - bug testing on a laptop with KSP and a poor hotel wifi connection makes for a bad combination. The bug fixes are relatively simple so they're unlikely to have any side effects.

This update should also restore the functioning of the trick of locking the ExoticMatter tank to prevent further charging if you need the power for something else, particularly plasma engines.

Changelog

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

Download links on first page updated!

[SeventhArchitect]

Was the transmitter blocked by being behind a planet when you switched away from it or when you were trying to receive some power? It's no good just having line of sight to the receiver, the trasmitter needs to be able to see the sun too. It also needs to be receiving power when you switch away from it.

Wait, wait, wait, wait...

You mean to tell me I need to make it point to the sun for this to be possible to even work? I thought it was a transmitter, meant for transmitting in a direction, not transmitting at the sun and getting 4G coverage wherever.

[Scotius]

"Transmitter" as in craft beaming power. It needs to be in sunlight, or else solar panels will not produce a single joule of power. For that reason it's better to put couple of Transmitter satellites in orbit if you want continuous surge of power. Even when one power sat is in Kerbin's shadow, and another on the other side of the planet third will send power to your receiver.

[Fractal_UK]

Wait, wait, wait, wait...

You mean to tell me I need to make it point to the sun for this to be possible to even work? I thought it was a transmitter, meant for transmitting in a direction, not transmitting at the sun and getting 4G coverage wherever.

All you need to do is make sure the satellite that is trying to send power to the surface has line of sight to the sun. Also, the power that you can access later is "recorded" when you switch away from the ship, so line up your solar panels with the sun to maximise their power output, then switch ship, and you should have power whenever line of sights permit.

[DrPoo]

Okay guys sorry for being so daft. I had a beer reserve to burn through