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

[ChrisF0001]

So, if AM tanks are going to be explosive, I don't suppose there's any chance of a new version with more of a long, thin cylindrical shape, for better mounting on a radial decoupler? Maybe even with room for some separatrons?

I mean, there's no way I'll be mounting them inline anymore. From now on all AM tanks come with ejection systems connected to the Abort switch...

[Jasmir]

So, if AM tanks are going to be explosive, I don't suppose there's any chance of a new version with more of a long, thin cylindrical shape, for better mounting on a radial decoupler? Maybe even with room for some separatrons?

I mean, there's no way I'll be mounting them inline anymore. From now on all AM tanks come with ejection systems connected to the Abort switch...

My thougts: You need a decent force to bring these tanks to a "safe" distance. Let's talk about 100m/s^2 for at least 10 seconds. I'll don't know, if "some separatrons" are the right way to handle this issue. And if you do it in the right way, the AM-Reactor should go the same way if something went wrong.

But i also would like to see a more "plugable" AM-Tank & Nuclear Reactor.

[MJB]

I'm having a slight problem with the mod:

so i downloaded it and unzipped it into the ksp folder. I start the game, the loading screen shows up and everything loads quite nicely.

but then, when it is done loading the game just crashes.

I tried re-installing ksp, removing and reinstalling the mod, but I still get the same result!

Is there anything i'm doing wrong?

[Fractal_UK]

I mean, there's no way I'll be mounting them inline anymore. From now on all AM tanks come with ejection systems connected to the Abort switch...

The safest thing to do is probably to add more backup power systems rather than adding ejection systems. That said, it's pretty difficult to put yourself in a situation where the tank will actually explode. If you have antimatter in the tank, then you have fuel for your reactor to generate power to keep it in the tank. If you've run out of antimatter, you might also run out of power but if the tank has no antimatter in it, it won't explode.

The most dangerous situations are probably onboard small collecting stations which might use solar power or something rather than having actual nuclear or antimatter reactors.

Best way to make an ejection system is probably just to connect an antimatter tank by docking port and dump it if it's going to explode. You have almost 20 minutes of backup power inside the tank so you have more than enough time to escape on RCS power if you notice it early. If the timing gets tight then yes, you will probably need an aggresive, high thrust, engine burn to get out of range.

[Donziboy2]

The tanks aren't that heavy a few sepratrons would do the trick.

[forsaken1111]

I've started connecting all of my nuclear reactor/generator combos by docking port now so I can swap the reactor out when the UF6 finally runs out. This just means I can do the same for AM tanks now.

[Scotius]

Aww man. Now i have to add nuclear reactor and generator to my AM collector in Kerbin's orbit. As of now it only has couple of solar panels as power source.

[Fractal_UK]

Aww man. Now i have to add nuclear reactor and generator to my AM collector in Kerbin's orbit. As of now it only has couple of solar panels as power source.

The tanks can get power from solar panels too but they will need more than 2.

[Donziboy2]

The tanks can get power from solar panels too but they will need more than 2.

How much power exactly?

[Fractal_UK]

How much power exactly?

In my development build at the moment it's a flat 100KW (as either ElectricCharge or MJ) but I want to make it based on tank size. Perhaps 10, 50 and 250 for the 1.25m, the 2.5m and 3.75m respectively.

[Conti]

So what's the deal with the thermal turbojet? It's weak and it sucks intakeair/intakeatm super fast. Is that how it's supposed to be? I love the animation and the concept but it doesn't seem worth using.

Also, I tried plugging in some modules into b9 parts to make a sleek looking nuclear turbojet and it did not work well at all. I modified that big honking fuselage air intake piece, turned a large quad-engine adapter piece into a 2.5m nuclear reactor and made another piece into a generator. The results were not good, partially because I don't understand how KSP air intakes work at all. Has anyone else done this?

Underpowered you say? http://imgur.com/a/6xnZA

lol. granted I am using a LOT of beamed energy instead of carrying a reactor and thus I have a very lightweight vessel.

This code will be released sometime soon, it's still a WIP that I've been doing for a few days.

[Fractal_UK]

The effectiveness of the thermal rocket and thermal turbojet are totally dependant upon the power source that you give them, it's impossible to make any kind of statement about these parts in general because the reactor you are using to power it changes the parameters completely. The range of performance of a thermal rocket is bigger than the range of performance of all the stock rockets in the game.

If you use nuclear reactors to power thermal turbojets then yes, nuclear reactors are pretty heavy, the don't exactly produce incredible amounts of thrust and the specific impulse means that they burn through intake air creating what little thrust they do produce so they flameout low. The weight at the back of the plane makes it hard to make them stable too. So, yeah, there are quite a few drawbacks to doing it, on the other hand, if you navigate these problems you can build a plane that you can fly without stopping for literally years. If you use the right intakes you can send it to any planet with an atmosphere and just explore... almost forever.

Trying using a thermal turbojet with an antimatter reactor and you'll see a totally different animal, now you have something that will be easily hitting supersonic speeds at sea level and won't flame out until relatively high altitude. You also have a favourable velocity curve, meaning you can happily make hypersonic cruises through the upper atmosphere.

There is a picture of a small nuclear turbojet that I built in the first page which flies fairly nicely. Scott Manley built something similar in his video too.

[Kenken244]

Is there any chance of possible adding some compatibility with the Modular Fuel System? at its most basic level, you would just need to change science labs/atmospheric scoops from generating liquidfuel/oxidizer to liquid H2/O2, but you could probably do a bit more than that, and adjust your engines to use different fuels.

[DaveStrider]

Is there any chance of possible adding some compatibility with the Modular Fuel System? at its most basic level, you would just need to change science labs/atmospheric scoops from generating liquidfuel/oxidizer to liquid H2/O2, but you could probably do a bit more than that, and adjust your engines to use different fuels.

Wouldn't that essentially mean incompatability with the stock game? people who don't use MFS wouldn't be able to use the fuels generated by this mod for anything else.

[forsaken1111]

Wouldn't that essentially mean incompatability with the stock game? people who don't use MFS wouldn't be able to use the fuels generated by this mod for anything else.

I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to generate the H2/O2 only when modular fuel system mod is detected so anyone without it wouldn't be affected.

[pina_coladas]

Turbojets

Yeah I get how thermal power works and it makes sense to me when I make thermal rockets. But something seems weird with the turbojets. For example, I get significantly less thrust in LFO mode than I do in pure atmospheric intake mode, which goes opposite to my understanding. Also, when I attach 4 turbojets to one reactor (a modified part, maybe the problem is there) it's actually possible to "run out" out thermal power, shutting down the turbojets. I thought the thrust would just scale with the thermal power that was available, but it seems like the turbojets have some kind of minimum requirement. This is 4 of them drawing from one 500MW reactor and that particular problem goes away when I upgrade to 1.5GW. I expected the performance to be bad with 500MW but not for it to be non-functional.

My other problems have to do with my not understanding what the numbers mean in air intake CFGs I think... Say I wanted one large part to have the power of several of your provided intakes (maybe with a power requirement too), which numbers do I worry about? Is there something weird KSP does with the mass of intake parts too?

[Kenken244]

I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to generate the H2/O2 only when modular fuel system mod is detected so anyone without it wouldn't be affected.

Yes, that was my idea. If that was not possible, I can imagine it would just require a different set of configs that could be downloaded seperately.

[Chase]

I like some of the things in this mod, but I think the research should be tied into 0.22 research system somehow, since this system I have yet to figure out how to keep upgrades, and upgrading smaller rockets is just complicated.

I am more for a 'easier' version of this mod, since currently the mod has a lot of boring grinding. Once you get to an interesting location it should be relatively easy to get research.

Otherwise its

1. fly to location

2. land or orbit

3. turn on max time acceleration

4. go take a nap

In my humble opinion, nothing used as intended in KSP should require step 4.

On the waste heat issue, it is to difficult to get rid of waste heat, especially with a plasma engine. You're ship is pretty much one big heat sink with a plasma engine.

Suggestions:

1. Add 0.625m, 1.25m and 2.5m cores that can at least `receive` research. I used values 140, 500, and 2200 respectively.

2. Ability to store `some` antimatter in the antimatter reactors. I modded in values 500, 2000, 10000 for the 1.25, 2.5 and 3.75 reactors respectively.

3. A better antimatter container model.

4. Reduce all numbers to something manageable. That is, you currently use something like 625000 wate heat for the fins, and 360000 antimatter. I don't think such large values are really needed, you can make them smaller (and more managable), as KSP does support fractions!

[Donziboy2]

Well for step 3 and 4... try flying another ship, you don't have to babysit for science to roll in. I have 2 science ships on planets and plans for a large multicore lander. I have built and launch over 30 ships now, more then 10 are large solar sats that will be orbiting or are orbiting the sun. I can currently get about 250MW from a large receiver in LKO. I also have a 60+ AM collector in orbit of Kerbin and I am considering launching another one towards the sun to transmit large amounts of power back using an AM reactor/Gen.

Many of your suggestions have been suggested already, and the AM container is one of the older models made, if zzz gets the urge he will update it. You will also have to supply power to those reactors with AM stored in them since the containers will be changed to explode if not powered the reactors should do that same if he adds resources to it.

I do agree the numbers are high, along with the MW/MJ numbers but its Fractal_UK's mod so its ultimately his decision as to how it all works.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Donziboy2

[pina_coladas]

Ok I figured out the intakes but I'm pretty sure that running out of thermal power is a bug. 4 thermal turbojet engines attached to a 9GW reactor will ramp up to absurd levels of thrust but will drain the stored "thermalpower" in fractions of a second and start shutting down. Maybe you aren't supposed to have more than one engine per reactor but it looks cool dammit

[Donziboy2]

Ok I figured out the intakes but I'm pretty sure that running out of thermal power is a bug. 4 thermal turbojet engines attached to a 9GW reactor will ramp up to absurd levels of thrust but will drain the stored "thermalpower" in fractions of a second and start shutting down. Maybe you aren't supposed to have more than one engine per reactor but it looks cool dammit

All the engines are coded to be used 1 engine per reactor. You have 4 engines that see a large reactor/gen and are all trying to use that power. You will be limited to 1/4 throttle with 4 engines on 1 reactor/gen.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Donziboy2

[Fractal_UK]

I am more for a 'easier' version of this mod, since currently the mod has a lot of boring grinding. Once you get to an interesting location it should be relatively easy to get research.

Otherwise its

1. fly to location

2. land or orbit

3. turn on max time acceleration

4. go take a nap

In my humble opinion, nothing used as intended in KSP should require step 4.

Yeah, the most important to think to realise in this mod is that science will generate in the background, just go and do something else, build some more science bases

and put them on different planets while you're waiting for science to accumulate at the first. The idea is that the more developed your space program becomes, the more science you will be producing and the easier it will become to have more upgraded parts.

4. Reduce all numbers to something manageable. That is, you currently use something like 625000 wate heat for the fins, and 360000 antimatter. I don't think such large values are really needed, you can make them smaller (and more managable), as KSP does support fractions!

The numbers are often down to change in scope from where I started, it's not ideal but change means compatibility problems and that could be the greater of two evils. If there's a way I can think of to do this without compatibility problems though, I'll look into it.

[ada221]

snip regarding "grinding"

power to ya man, I see many modders out there who give into people trying to make a game "easier" (it also seems to be happening with squad and .22 considering theyre not trying to make the game more challenging in any way with the tech tree)

[ada221]

power to ya man, I see many modders simply giving into making a game "easy", it takes all the fun out of getting around a challenge. (even squad seems to have possibly succumbed with the info concerning the tech tree and .22)

[Tharios]

Two quick questions...how is it people are attaching multiple engines directly to reactors

And...would I still get full thrust from a given engine, even if multiples are attached to a single reactor, if I only activate one of them at a time?