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

[DaveStrider]

Uhm, this mod is not as "not OP" as Scott Manley said, i can launch a space station only containing a command pod, solarpanels, SAS modules and parts from this mod (focused on making it warp drive capable) and i can zoom across the solar system and land orbits around any planet, the "aiming straight at planet" tactic is just not doing it correct. I would love to go over how to correct that with you, Fractal_UK, if you would like.

The warp drive effectively gives you a second transfer window (when target and origin are at their minimum distance) that takes much less time, but more dV due to the braking burn. Often you'll find that in order to meet the dV requirements of your braking burn you'll actually need to set up some infrastructure first, like antimatter farms and research facilities. Because of this you need to put a lot of work in to be able to warp to, say, eeloo, where the dV for the braking burn is all kinds of huge. The "aiming straight at planet" technique is doing it correct if you're using a mode of transport that teleports you without affecting your momentum, any other method is silly (aside from the little variations that increase efficiency).

[forsaken1111]

The warp drive effectively gives you a second transfer window (when target and origin are at their minimum distance) that takes much less time, but more dV due to the braking burn. Often you'll find that in order to meet the dV requirements of your braking burn you'll actually need to set up some infrastructure first, like antimatter farms and research facilities. Because of this you need to put a lot of work in to be able to warp to, say, eeloo, where the dV for the braking burn is all kinds of huge. The "aiming straight at planet" technique is doing it correct if you're using a mode of transport that teleports you without affecting your momentum, any other method is silly (aside from the little variations that increase efficiency).

I think he may have been referring to setting up some kind of aerocapture maneuver (which is very hard to do) or using the warp drive to do multiple small jumps to alter your velocity until you are captured (also very hard to time well).

[Banpower1]

What exactly are you using to launch this into orbit? Not many of the engines in this game are launch capable without antimatter. I suppose if you are sitting around at 100,000x timewarp while a science lab generates antimatter for your first launch that is viable but its a really efficient and somewhat silly way to do it later on since all of your nuclear generators in other craft will be running down while you waste that time.

You can save some DV with creative use of the warp drive, true, though the power costs are pretty high.

I'm only using this: RTG(stock) (x3), Gigantor XL Solar Array(Stock) (x4) (never unfolded), PPD-12 Cupola Module(stock), Science Laboratory (Idle all the time), 3.75m "Aegletes 2" Nuclear Reactor, 3.75m Electric Generator, 3.75m Antimatter Reactor, Advanced S.A.S. Module, Large (Stock) (x3), 3.75m Alcubierre Drive, Huge Heat Radiator (x4).

total weight is around 133t which can be lifted in a single rocket, if you know how to design big lifters, another option could be using docking ports and assembly in orbit.

Give me 2 minutes and I'll link a video showing how i transfered from LKO to Laythe(Jool)

EDIT: no i did not use any advanced aero breaking techniques or any other magic, simple use of how orbiting works.

[forsaken1111]

I'm only using this: RTG(stock) (x3), Gigantor XL Solar Array(Stock) (x4) (never unfolded), PPD-12 Cupola Module(stock), Science Laboratory (Idle all the time), 3.75m "Aegletes 2" Nuclear Reactor, 3.75m Electric Generator, 3.75m Antimatter Reactor, Advanced S.A.S. Module, Large (Stock) (x3), 3.75m Alcubierre Drive, Huge Heat Radiator (x4).

total weight is around 133t which can be lifted in a single rocket, if you know how to design big lifters, another option could be using docking ports and assembly in orbit.

Give me 2 minutes and I'll link a video showing how i transfered from LKO to Laythe(Jool)

EDIT: no i did not use any advanced aero breaking techniques or any other magic, simple use of how orbiting works.

I was more or less asking where you got the antimatter. With antimatter-fed engines you can zoom all over the place but actually getting the antimatter to fuel them is time intensive and requires some setup, which is the trade-off for having amazing power generation and thrust.

[Banpower1]

I was more or less asking where you got the antimatter. With antimatter-fed engines you can zoom all over the place but actually getting the antimatter to fuel them is time intensive and requires some setup, which is the trade-off for having amazing power generation and thrust.

uhm what? it took me a single orbit, at 110km height around kerbin to generate enough for the first warp, and after that things escalate quickly with timewarping...

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/RPt2YyZEutc (and yes i forgot infinite fuel, but it doesnt run on fuel, and i detached all fuel tanks...)

Edited October 16, 2013 by Banpower1

[BostLabs]

So, what is the difference between the Alcubierre drive and the Bergenholm from the Lensmen series? They seem to have basically the same effect on velocity; particularly in that they both return your velocity to it's original state when you shut the drive off.

The Bergenholm just threw the ship inert in respect to the universe. Thrust was still required to move where you wanted to go.

Loved that series!

[DaveStrider]

Warping to a body with an atomsphere is admittedly much easier since you don't need much (or any at all if you're clever) dv to set an aerobraking trajectory, However this would realistically be balanced by the re-entry effects, i've entered Eve's atmosphere at over 10Km/s before, which would obviously be pretty deadly IRL. If you think this mod is OP try to make a base at Moho or Eeloo, or install Deadly Reentry.

[Donziboy2]

AM is really the endpoint tech, once science is implemented I can see Fractal_UK making it one of the last things you would unlock. The Alcubierre Drive does make getting to other planets a lot faster, the only thing is dV changes, which you can either keep warping to/from the planet and use the SOI or use engines to change it. If your charging with a nuclear reactor it takes a while, even the AM reactors can take time to charge up the drive.

[forsaken1111]

uhm what? it took me a single orbit, at 110km height around kerbin to generate enough for the first warp, and after that things escalate quickly with timewarping...

Here is the link: http://youtu.be/RPt2YyZEutc (right now youtube says 94% done, so link might not be ready this second) ((and yes i forgot infinite fuel, but it doesnt run on fuel, and i detached all fuel tanks...))

Huh... 110km is a terrible orbit for collecting Antimatter around kerbin and an orbit at that altitude lasts like... 30 minutes? You collected enough during that short period to fuel a transfer?

I'll have to test that when I get home. It may be a bug. At that altitude it should take weeks to get even one unit of AM iirc. (Away from my notes right now so I can't check)

[Banpower1]

Huh... 110km is a terrible orbit for collecting Antimatter around kerbin and an orbit at that altitude lasts like... 30 minutes? You collected enough during that short period to fuel a transfer?

I'll have to test that when I get home. It may be a bug. At that altitude it should take weeks to get even one unit of AM iirc. (Away from my notes right now so I can't check)

I can redo it again live on twitch if you want me to (for the 3rd time (1st for self proof, 2nd for recording it))

Also going to do a fresh install just to make sure i didn't do something wrong

EDIT: completely clean install (nothing but this mod) and it takes me half a day standing on the Kerbin Space Center Launchpad, to generate enough Exotic Matter for a single 0.10c jump (using the 3.75m parts all the way through) and didn't use any fuel hacks, since i didn't even need to launch...

EDIT2 - corrected derp, naming exotic matter wrong

Edited October 16, 2013 by Banpower1

[forsaken1111]

I'm not doubting you, just curious if its a bug you've run into.

[Chase]

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.

Good to know, because it looks pretty bad in my humble opinion. The antimatter containment requiring power makes sense. My idea is that I will go and dock my small antimatter ship (which will run on traditional resources until then), fill it up with power, fill up the reactor with antimatter (now it can generate power), and sail off to Eeloo without needing yet another tank. Mind you the stuff in the reactor might only be enough to get you there and back.

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.

Right, okay, well many mods don't. But still I don't want to put a dozen bases into orbit around distant planets to get any kind of useful research/antimatter. It makes the game move a bit to slow to play.

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.

Well there is a new version coming out, you may want to redo the research system to work with the new KSP Science system anyway. In fact I really hope that you do!

I would prefer people break things to make them better then keep them poor.

[Hremsfeld]

I can redo it again live on twitch if you want me to (for the 3rd time (1st for self proof, 2nd for recording it))

Also going to do a fresh install just to make sure i didn't do something wrong

Are you sure you didn't mean Exotic Matter? Your warp drive doesn't care how it gets power as long as it does.

As for the performance issues: Hohmann transfers are exact sort of thing using an atomic rocket/torchship lets you avoid. They're the longest-time, lowest-dV option, but when you're packing tens or hundreds of km/s, a few hundred m/s is pretty negligible; look up brachistochrone trajectories. We still don't have quite enough oomph to pull those off, even with the mod, but it's certainly closer. Chemical rockets are actually pretty horrendous in terms of endurance compared to nuclear engines, which themselves are nothing before antimatter engines.

Zzz, great work as always. Hopefully you feel better, soon!

Fractal, I'm probably going to disable the wasteheat function when consequences are added. I'll throw massive radiators all over the ships made for your mod, but I don't have them on my other craft. With no heat dispersion capabilities on them, they'll be derelict. One's been my main ship for the past eight years of in-game time, it'd be a shame to lose it because of this. Perhaps you could put Waste Heat into its own, seperate mod?

Edited October 16, 2013 by Hremsfeld

[forsaken1111]

Right, okay, well many mods don't. But still I don't want to put a dozen bases into orbit around distant planets to get any kind of useful research/antimatter. It makes the game move a bit to slow to play.

Eh.. that is kind of what this mod is about though. Building up infrastructure is the downside to using the amazingly high energy density antimatter engines and such. If you don't want to do that, just use a cheat like hyperedit or use TAC fuel balancer to fill your AM tanks before launch I guess.

[Fractal_UK]

Huh... 110km is a terrible orbit for collecting Antimatter around kerbin and an orbit at that altitude lasts like... 30 minutes? You collected enough during that short period to fuel a transfer?

I'll have to test that when I get home. It may be a bug. At that altitude it should take weeks to get even one unit of AM iirc. (Away from my notes right now so I can't check)

He is just powering the warp drive with the nuclear reactor. The antimatter reactor is just dead weight, it has no antimatter tank and no collector. When he turns the antimatter reactor on it just says "Antimatter Deprived."

As to the video in general, it isn't terribly surprising, a lot of people have been doing this kind of thing for a while, the downside to the approach is that it requires a reasonable amount of time spent on actually finetuning your approach. Sure, you can save some delta-v by doing it but considering the mod includes various ISRU technologies, you could hohmann transfer to Jool, aerobrake into Laythe orbit, land in the ocean and electrolyse some fuel. This second approach is probably both quicker and more familiar and thus requires less effort for most KSP players but because the second option could be done totally plausibly with no new technology whatsoever, we tend to see it a bit differently.

The mod definitely gives you capabilities that don't exist in stock, so in that sense, it is "OP." On the other hand, if it didn't add any new features, it'd be pretty pointless mod.

I do want to clarify something though: I didn't make the Alcubierre drive for the sole purpose of making a non-OP warp drive. I made it because I wanted to see, intuitively, how a warp drive that functioned by the principles Alcubierre described might function in the game and what you could actually do with it.

Perhaps you could put Waste Heat into its own, seperate mod?

I don't want to do this, I see the thermal mechanics as something of a key balancing feature for all the power hungry stuff in this mod. Once you have developed antimatter reactors and multi-GW space based power sources, the problem is increasingly less about the spaceship's actual performance capabilities with its engines and more about how you keep the damn thing cool while doing anything.

Stock ships are not even going to suffer particularly hard as a result of the changes. Just don't leave solar panels deployed when you don't need them and you'll probably be alright, especially from Kerbin and outwards.

[Tharios]

He is just powering the warp drive with the nuclear reactor. The antimatter reactor is just dead weight, it has no antimatter tank and no collector. When he turns the antimatter reactor on it just says "Antimatter Deprived."

As to the video in general, it isn't terribly surprising, a lot of people have been doing this kind of thing for a while, the downside to the approach is that it requires a reasonable amount of time spent on actually finetuning your approach. Sure, you can save some delta-v by doing it but considering the mod includes various ISRU technologies, you could hohmann transfer to Jool, aerobrake into Laythe orbit, land in the ocean and electrolyse some fuel. This second approach is probably both quicker and more familiar and thus requires less effort for most KSP players but because the second option could be done totally plausibly with no new technology whatsoever, we tend to see it a bit differently.

The mod definitely gives you capabilities that don't exist in stock, so in that sense, it is "OP." On the other hand, if it didn't add any new features, it'd be pretty pointless mod.

I do want to clarify something though: I didn't make the Alcubierre drive for the sole purpose of making a non-OP warp drive. I made it because I wanted to see, intuitively, how a warp drive that functioned by the principles Alcubierre described might function in the game and what you could actually do with it.

Maybe production of exotic matter should be altered so that nuclear reactors of any size or tech are not sufficient to power the drive? Honestly...considering the energies involved, even if it were possible to charge up a drive with a nuke, it would take years. Maybe tweak the output of both reactors to get a larger spread, so that a nuke might do the job, but only after lots of time-warping, while an antimatter reactor is essentially ideal (though maybe still not enough to go hopping around the system over-and-over) for the drive.

I think perhaps make it so that you can make a jump with little consumption, but upon deactivation, it dumps the whole supply (maybe this exotic matter is an all-or-nothing deal, and you use it or lose it). That would prevent people from being excessively clever about short-hopping into orbit. Maybe it could inspire an "exotic matter storage" so that each tank is good for one hop. Takes longer to charge all of them up, but segregates the supply so that it's not all gone in one go.

Perhaps both options, that should really discourage those who seek the quick and easy path, as Vader did.

I don't want to do this, I see the thermal mechanics as something of a key balancing feature for all the power hungry stuff in this mod. Once you have developed antimatter reactors and multi-GW space based power sources, the problem is increasingly less about the spaceship's actual performance capabilities with its engines and more about how you keep the damn thing cool while doing anything.

Stock ships are not even going to suffer particularly hard as a result of the changes. Just don't leave solar panels deployed when you don't need them and you'll probably be alright, especially from Kerbin and outwards.

I could be wrong...but I think he was referring to ships with parts that have been upgraded, while ignoring the idea of waste heat. Basically, he built a bunch of ships without radiators when they didn't matter, and made really spiffy ships, and now he'll lose them because heat will matter. I think that's what he was meaning, anyway. Again, I could be wrong.

Edit: Grammar...

[Scotius]

And you did put Alcubierre drive in admirably We are learning a whole new branch of astrogation here, and FTL engineering too. Who woulda think an FTL ship able to make interplanetary trip in about half an hour, will need more fuel and stronger engine than conventional ship? Alcubierre drive saves you time, not effort - you still need to work hard to set a foot on another planet

As for heat, option for passive heat radiation will go a long way with our older ships, since they don't really carry heat-intensive parts. There are more options to improve heat dissipation too: The farther from Kerbol you are, the dissipation is more effective. The same goes when your ship is in the planet's shadow. Add a small, static radiator that can be installed on the ship in EVA using KAS mod. I'm sure we can make it work

[Tharios]

Slightly off-topic, but something I think is of interest to us all.

Who says video games aren't constructive?

http://www.zmescience.com/research/studies/gamers-solve-decade-old-hiv-puzzle-in-ten-days/

Makes one wonder...if we could make something like KSP just as realistically functional as the game in the article, could we design and build an interstellar ship with current technology in a fraction of the time predicted?

[Chase]

Well if your going to do that, at least add some surface mountable heatsinks, rather then the solar panel-esk ones we have now.

Oh on that note, I wouldn't mind even slower values for the alcubierre drive.

Also, we should be able to turn it on in the atmosphere (and promptly explode), because its Kerbal engineered...

But I could see it working at the out reaches of the atmosphere (like 60k-65k on Kerbin) with limited damage to the ship.

[forsaken1111]

I think perhaps make it so that you can make a jump with little consumption, but upon deactivation, it dumps the whole supply (maybe this exotic matter is an all-or-nothing deal, and you use it or lose it). That would prevent people from being excessively clever about short-hopping into orbit. Maybe it could inspire an "exotic matter storage" so that each tank is good for one hop. Takes longer to charge all of them up, but segregates the supply so that it's not all gone in one go.

I like that. When you deactivate the drive it dumps all exotic matter. Combine that with a bit higher energy cost to create it and it will incentivize single jumps and using AM reactors but will still allow nuke-powered jumps if you have the time.

My newest ship has 3 nuke/generator combos on docking ports and I drop and recover them when the fuel eventually runs dry. I'd really like the ability to shut down a reactor with a rightclick context menu from EVA, so you need to EVA and interact directly with the reactor to shutdown/startup and it might take a full 10 minutes to cycle down to safe levels. This would let me bring additional reactors for long duration flights and use them up sequentially.

Might I also suggest an additional research location? Far enough away from the kerbol star to be analogous to the Heliopause. A deep space research outpost there would be an interesting logistical challenge to service and maintain.

[Tharios]

I like that. When you deactivate the drive it dumps all exotic matter. Combine that with a bit higher energy cost to create it and it will incentivize single jumps and using AM reactors but will still allow nuke-powered jumps if you have the time.

Why, thank you.

My newest ship has 3 nuke/generator combos on docking ports and I drop and recover them when the fuel eventually runs dry. I'd really like the ability to shut down a reactor with a rightclick context menu from EVA, so you need to EVA and interact directly with the reactor to shutdown/startup and it might take a full 10 minutes to cycle down to safe levels. This would let me bring additional reactors for long duration flights and use them up sequentially.

Neat idea, would certainly make multiple reactors more useful, but at the cost of carting a lot of extra dead weight into orbit at first.

Might I also suggest an additional research location? Far enough away from the kerbol star to be analogous to the Heliopause. A deep space research outpost there would be an interesting logistical challenge to service and maintain.

Now...this may be beating a dead horse, but from what I've found around the forums, this may be a new angle. The whole Lagrange point issue, seems to be centered around the idea that the game can't accurately model those gravitationally "balanced" spots. And all I could ever wonder at looking over all those posts was...why would you try? Of course, the game can't do that, because that's not at all how it works. But...you can still have them, and relatively simply.

The devs have already implied that they'd certainly like to add more planets and moons, and as such, this next bit is just as feasible. Don't model the gravity balance. Lagrange points even at their best aren't entirely stable, so no ship is just going to sit there in empty space, not moving. As I recall, all the probes and satellites we've place at those points are kind of orbiting the center of the zone?

So the solution is simple...create essentially planetless SoIs and place them on the same rails as each planet/moon, at the correct distances and moving at equal velocity. Fly to one, get into its SoI, orbit the empty spot in the middle. Lagrange point. They don't have to be modeled like Lagrange points...after all, a lot of KSP isn't modeled "correctly"...they just have to behave like them for the most part.

I won't claim to know how much more or less difficult it would be than adding extra planets, but aside from the lack of an actual planetary body, I have a hard time imagining it being all that much more difficult, if not necessarily easier.

Sorry for the off-topic...but your mentioning of a zone of boosted science collection at the edge of the system just fired up my brain on that whole spiel.

[Banpower1]

(...)Sure, you can save some delta-v by doing it. (...)

i'm sorry if i came off offensive, i really like the mod and it looks very VERY cool, i was just pointing out that the warp drive doesn't save "some" delta-v it saves a whole lot, around 3k dV to transfer between two celestial bodies, which can be done over and over at will, without refuel. I was just hoping to start a discussion on how to make the warp drive a thing that you would use "late game" and not something that makes newcomers like me able to jump around the solar system from the first craft created.

I was thinking something like having to do an initial science upgrade to upgrade it from not working to working? that way you have to get some science done as minimum?

and also i was considering if science shouldn't diminish when you research the same area/orbit for a long while? (like in real life there is only so much you can "science" on when visiting a single new planet) that way you have to visit a lot of planets to "unlock" warp drive, and then you can use it to cut down traveling that you already succeeded?

with the .22 update things should be more sensible though

anyways, just some ideas about the mod, from some new eyes (yes my craft contained stuff it shouldn't i just slapped stuff on a rocket to see how it worked, and then i found that it worked a little too well in my taste, and had a potential to work better, in my opinion)

Edited October 16, 2013 by Banpower1

[forsaken1111]

I was just hoping to start a discussion on how to make the warp drive a thing that you would use "late game" and not something that makes newcomers like me able to jump around the solar system from the first craft created.

I was thinking something like having to do an initial science upgrade to upgrade it from not working to working? that way you have to get some science done as minimum?

Eh, initial science cost to get it working make some sense but I think it would either be annoying or trivial depending on the cost, and neither is a feeling you want in a game. Easiest solution would be to wait for .22 and put the drive high up in the tech tree. Now your first craft can't zoom to jool.

Also the proposed 'one jump and you lose all exotic matter' change would effectively keep you from 'solar surfing' with microjumps to change trajectory. An upgraded warp drive could instead charge faster rather than be more efficient with exotic matter use.

[Tharios]

Eh, initial science cost to get it working make some sense but I think it would either be annoying or trivial depending on the cost, and neither is a feeling you want in a game. Easiest solution would be to wait for .22 and put the drive high up in the tech tree. Now your first craft can't zoom to jool.

Well, one would think a warp drive would be at the end of the tech tree, anyway. lol

Also the proposed 'one jump and you lose all exotic matter' change would effectively keep you from 'solar surfing' with microjumps to change trajectory. An upgraded warp drive could instead charge faster rather than be more efficient with exotic matter use.

Ah...faster charge from upgraded drives, coupled with better reactor/generator output ( further speeding charge rates)...that should make a minor degree of "surfing" possible, but only once all relevant components are upgraded to support that kind of charge rate. Yeah, I think that might be better than adding yet another tank of "fuel" to the mix.

Coupled with the drive being the last thing you get your hands on in the tech tree, no one will be jumping all over the place for a good long while.

[DaveStrider]

Instead of wasting all that exotic matter you could just reduce the storage size.