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

[Rampart]

I have the same issue, warp-drive didn't charge anymore. But it differs on the situation.

Ship-Design (tail to front, you can see it in the 4th picture in my post above):

Thermal-Rocket|AM-Reactor|Generator|LF-Tank|Warpdrive (all upgraded)

Situations:

1) floating in space, Warp-drive empty, AM-Reactor active: -> Warp-drive dosn't charge, AM-Reactor shows throttled to 0% (or 0.01%), Thermal power @max

2) accelerating with thermal rocket, Warp-drive empty, AM-Reactor active: -> Warp-drive charging slow, AM-Reactor shows full throttle (100%)

3) floating in space, Warp-drive empty, AM-Reactor disabled: -> Warp-drive dosn't charge, Thermal power is slowly emptying

4) docked @Station, Station AM-Reactor disabled, Station nuclear reactor online, ship AM-Reactor enabled: -> Warp-drive charges normal, Station nuclear reactor and ship AM-Reactor shows full throttle (100%)

Sounds like the generator isn't turned on. You have to remember that the nuke and AM reactors don't produce electricity directly, they produce heat, (aka thermal power) which you have to convert to electricity using a generator. The warp drive turns electricity into exotic matter for use in the warp activation.

[Jasmir]

Sounds like the generator isn't turned on. You have to remember that the nuke and AM reactors don't produce electricity directly, they produce heat, (aka thermal power) which you have to convert to electricity using a generator. The warp drive turns electricity into exotic matter for use in the warp activation.

Generators were turned on all the time. (At least, firing the thermal rocket wouldn't case the warpdrive to charging if the generator is off but it does it) Edited September 16, 2013 by Jasmir

[Fractal_UK]

Generators were turned on all the time. (At least, firing the thermal rocket wouldn't case the warpdrive to charging if the generator is off but it does it)

I can see why firing the engine would effect the charging rate, using up the thermal power by firing the engine will reduce the output of the generators as they have less thermal power to convert into electricity. That is why you have a low charging rate there.

Why it wouldn't charge until you fired the engine though... That is very unusual.

[Jasmir]

I can see why firing the engine would effect the charging rate, using up the thermal power by firing the engine will reduce the output of the generators as they have less thermal power to convert into electricity. That is why you have a low charging rate there.

Why it wouldn't charge until you fired the engine though... That is very unusual.

Here is my savefile:

http://codepad.org/QmguPHnW

I hope this is helpful for bughunting

[Xentoe]

Found a problem, know not if it is my fault:

When I update the ANtimatter Rector (Refit) the Electro Generator (direct coected) sems can notmore "indentyfy" the reactor and says"No themal power connected"

[SeventhArchitect]

You know...I do also have a problem with charging the Alcubierre drive after it's been fully charged. Might be because of the re-code, where you made it stop drawing power once it is full. I had the second largest nuclear reactor, second largest generator attached, and it was doing absolutely nothing for a full ingame week.

Only after I charged the medium sized drive to full capacity. Then it stopped charging after.

As for everything else...No problems so far. In fact, I edited some of the B9 aerospace parts so that they had efficient fuel in their parts. I took out parts bigger than the 3.75m liquidfuel tank, and they had about 1/20 of what that liquidfuel tank could hold, in terms of liquidfuel. Pitiful if I say so myself.

[zzz]

My attempt to make antimatter reactor:

It have a bit silly shape and overcomplicated, need to keep things more simple. Not very happy with it. It's in places nice to examine but not very good as part.

There also some "new year" glow for it, I'm not sure about it too. But anyway, there the link:

http://www./download/a85opqqfxw50xc4/antimatter.7z

Edited September 16, 2013 by zzz

[Xentoe]

Looks cool to me, will it get Special effects too ? (like glowing parts or so?)

[zzz]

(like glowing parts or so?)

Yep, this is what called "new year glow", maybe Fractal will be able to attach this animation to activating.

By the way, when I mess with it I got the thought about antimatter conteiners - I think it must to consume power to contain it, I'm not a physicist, but I think you can't just put it in to the barrel, and if power will end - antimatter will react with matter and whole ship will annihilate. It's not a suggestion, because I don't know how good it for a game, just a thought.

Edited September 16, 2013 by zzz

[SeventhArchitect]

Dude! That's perfect for an antimatter reactor! freaking legit!

[Xentoe]

What we would too need is perhaps a bette rmodel for the power generators (they look still like these fueltanks)

I guess I must too take once a look inside this Modellingstuff.

[Torminator]

I talked to Fractal about this, and he mentioned that a better Gas Generator was in the works already.

[DaveStrider]

My attempt to make antimatter reactor:

(Image)

It have a bit silly shape and overcomplicated, need to keep things more simple. Not very happy with it. It's in places nice to examine but not very good as part.

There also some "new year" glow for it, I'm not sure about it too. But anyway, there the link:

http://www./download/a85opqqfxw50xc4/antimatter.7z

Sweet! it fits in nicely with the warp drive and the vista engine

[nhnifong]

Is a 3.5 meter antimatter reactor overkill for the inertial fusion engine? Also I have about 50000 units of antimatter, will that be enough for a trip from kerbin to Jool?

[Ratzap]

Is a 3.5 meter antimatter reactor overkill for the inertial fusion engine? Also I have about 50000 units of antimatter, will that be enough for a trip from kerbin to Jool?

I did it with about 2,000 - a 180t ship with the 3.5m parts. That was with the nozzle and last version though. If it needs anything like that much it's way out of wack.

[Fractal_UK]

Here is my savefile:

http://codepad.org/QmguPHnW

I hope this is helpful for bughunting

I can't seem to be able to get the complete save file from that posting, regardless, I think I've figured out why this problem exists. Is this happening when you have some ExoticMatter in the drive already? If you can, try editing out the ExoticMatter and see if it then begins to charge. If I'm right, you should get at least a little ExoticMatter appearing.

Yep, this is what called "new year glow", maybe Fractal will be able to attach this animation to activating.

That shouldn't be a problem!

By the way, when I mess with it I got the thought about antimatter conteiners - I think it must to consume power to contain it, I'm not a physicist, but I think you can't just put it in to the barrel, and if power will end - antimatter will react with matter and whole ship will annihilate. It's not a suggestion, because I don't know how good it for a game, just a thought.

You are exactly right, they definitely would require power to run some kind of magnetic containment device. I always intended them to require that, the main reason they don't is that I've preferred to work on more interesting features - the antimatter tanks for now are just cfgs and for coding, there have always been other parts that seemed more pressing. In reality, the antimatter tanks would require power and be highly explosive if the power went off or the tank broke. Maybe some day!

Is a 3.5 meter antimatter reactor overkill for the inertial fusion engine? Also I have about 50000 units of antimatter, will that be enough for a trip from kerbin to Jool?

Yeah, you don't even need an antimatter reactor, an upgraded 3.75m nuclear reactor and upgraded 3.75m generator will work. The 1.25m antimatter reactor is enough provided you upgrade either the generator or the reactor. The 2.5m or 3.75m antimatter reactors will do it without breaking a sweat.

---

Finally, thanks for the new art ZZZ. I haven't had time to look at in game yet but the screenshots look very nice, it's proving difficult to keep up with all the comments while on holiday but I'm doing my best to figure things out/keep notes for the next update.

[nhnifong]

Even if it is realistic, I think that having the antimatter containers require power is a bit too hard on the player, unless it is just mediocre ElectricCharge and it's like 2 per second. That way it can be kept alive by a couple large solar panels and a big battery for when you go behind the planet.

There's also the interesting possibility of making the power drain increase with the amount of fuel in the tank. Each tank could have an effectively infinite capacity but a different power multiplier. This poses unique risks to antimatter collection ships. If they are left unattended too long, instead of dumping antimatter overboard, it will be stored anyways, and eventually the power requirements of the tank will outpace the ships's generating capacity, and the tank will blow up

Bigger antimatter containers could have a smaller power multiplier, effectively giving them a greater capacity for the same power draw.

[SeventhArchitect]

In reality, the antimatter tanks would require power and be highly explosive if the power went off or the tank broke. Maybe some day!

At least make it to where whenever the tank ruptures, it destroys any parts within X vicinity.

[zzz]

I talked to Fractal about this, and he mentioned that a better Gas Generator was in the works already.

Not sure what about better, but yes, I will make it. There was no any attempts to make parts(at least no anything finished) for a month(a couple days is enough to make one, especially if not begin to overdetail as I am) so I decided to fill untouched parts by my self. At least I will definitely make it.

Edited September 17, 2013 by zzz

[Gaius]

In reality, the antimatter tanks would require power and be highly explosive if the power went off or the tank broke.

Well, no. In our reality, we have plenty of experience containing explosions (heck, that's how an internal combustion engine works). We'd design a tank so that if the power failed, it would destroy the antimatter and probably ruin the tank, but contain the explosion, even if that meant (and it probably would) that over 99% of the mass of our antimatter tank was matter, and the majority of it was shielding for containing the explosion and catching the radiation when the antimatter and an equal amount of matter mutually annihilate. A competent engineer doesn't hope a system doesn't fail, they understand that it absolutely positively certainly will, and designs it to fail gracefully. Then they deliberately break it over and over again to test this until upper management refuses to pay for more explosions.

Granted, that's what human engineers do. Kerbals will be kerbals...

Edited September 17, 2013 by Gaius

[theSpeare]

Can someone please explain to me the mechanics of how having two thermal rocket nozzles work? Can I do two or more, or will it mess with the power management somehow?

[nhnifong]

I think this has been asked before, but it would be really nice to have an off switch on the Alcubierre drive charging. While it is possible to wait until the exotic matter is full to use the reactor for anything else, that's pretty inconvenient, and especially for the use case where one has just come out of warp and has to wait for the alcubierre drive to charge up again before using any thrusters which are reactor-powered.

[SeventhArchitect]

Well, no. In our reality, we have plenty of experience containing explosions (heck, that's how an internal combustion engine works). We'd design a tank so that if the power failed, it would destroy the antimatter and probably ruin the tank, but contain the explosion, even if that meant (and it probably would) that over 99% of the mass of our antimatter tank was matter, and the majority of it was shielding for containing the explosion and catching the radiation when the antimatter and an equal amount of matter mutually annihilate. A competent engineer doesn't hope a system doesn't fail, they understand that it absolutely positively certainly will, and designs it to fail gracefully. Then they deliberately break it over and over again to test this until upper management refuses to pay for more explosions.

Granted, that's what human engineers do. Kerbals will be kerbals...

In reality, if 1 unit of Antimatter from this mod is ~1mm^3, you'd have 10,000 in a small container, giving ~10m^3 of antimatter, which right there, could very much easily equal a multiple of that which a nuclear explosion can do. You'd be looking at something about the size of maybe...I dunno, probably Texas, from America, should you not know what Texas is.

Even if we did try to contain an explosion that big in an area which is inside a very small area, not even a full 1.25m cylinder, the amount of protection we could give it would do absolutely nothing. Sir/madame, I don't think you quite understand antimatter.

[Fractal_UK]

In reality, if 1 unit of Antimatter from this mod is ~1mm^3, you'd have 10,000 in a small container, giving ~10m^3 of antimatter, which right there, could very much easily equal a multiple of that which a nuclear explosion can do.

1 unit of antimatter in this mod is 1mg of antimatter, so it's really easy to calculate the kind of energies you're dealing with. If you have a full 2.5m tank of 80,000 units then you're looking at 80g, which releases around ~6x10¹⁶J when combined with matter. In terms of energy equivalence, that is equal to 21 Megatons of TNT, which for comparison is larger than the largest thermonuclear weapon that the US test detonated but smaller than the largest russian bomb ever detonated. The 3.75m tanks, I'm sure, contain even more energy than this.

This is actually one of the interesting things about space travel, that if you want to build fast interplanetary or instellar ships, you really must contain in your spaceship, somehow, an amont of accessible energy that if all released at once would be sufficient to level entire cities or even countries. Some forms of storage are obviously much safer than others, antimatter is interesting because it represents the best possible energy density but storing the stuff is a nightmare - all you need is the most fleeting contact with ordinary matter and... Bang.

[Xentoe]

I asked yet but seems to have gone under.

Is this wanted that the Electro Charge (EC)(Megajule) Generator does notmore "accept" the antimatter reactors Thermaloutput when you update the AM Reactor?

Was not a complex buildup.

Simple (Tried both ways)

Ec Generator above Antimatter Reactor Or Antimatter reactor above EC Generator.

Works fine till I retrofit (scienceupdate) die Antimatter reactors.

Than it says (directly) "Generator shutdown, no Themal Power conected" (the EC Generator)