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

[Carcharhinidae]

0.4 e-5 is the scientific notation for 0.4*10^(-5) yes.

unrelated. I love this mod.. the nuclear reactors; the scientific data that gets added.. all those things. brilliant plugin!

[forsaken1111]

I've never seen e used for notation before this mod, is say, 0.4E-5 the same as 0.4 x10^-5, or does e represent the mathematical constant?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation#E_notation

[xandalis]

Unfortunately, batteries are big and heavy. I just did the maths on the 40kVA UPS we have in the server room here... It has about 10 minutes of autonomy at full load, which means that, ignoring the power factor and stuff like that to keep the maths simple, it can store about 40kW x (10min x 60) seconds = 24MJ of power. It weighs in at just under 0.7 tonnes, and takes up about 4m3 of space.

For comparison, 6 of the z-4k batteries will hold 24,000 charge (~=24MJ), weigh 1.2T and take up less than half that much space.

So, considering that the sample here is fragile batteries, that you can't safely tip over, let alone subject to acceleration stresses, I'd say that the slight increase in mass for stability and containment is reasonable, and that, if anything, KSP batteries are a little on the small side.

Essentially, this is the reason that large scale power protection involves a few minutes of battery to allow for a generator to cut in, rather than trying to provide emergency power just off the batteries. There's nothing to stop anyone doing a config edit to store thousands of MJ in something the size of a AAA, but anything more power-dense than the batteries in-game at the moment would definitely be based on wishful thinking rather than science. There are some promising looking possibilities in the nano-tech field, but, as anyone with a smart-phone or a laptop will tell you, real batteries just aren't very good, right now.

Granted, I was talking about in comparison to the reactor weights/sizes, not to the stock batteries. Also, the extra power regulation components in something like a UPS add to the weight/size considerably when dealing with high voltage/amperage components. Incidentally, I serviced a range of wet/dry batteries during my days in the US Navy (when I wasn't fixing aircraft comm/nav gear). Very few large "batteries" are actually single-cell units. In your example, you could build a bank that provides 240kVA, out of 6 of those 40kVA units. You'd only need one set of protection circuitry though, so a single "unit" built of 6 40kVA cell units would weigh less and take less space (granted, not by a lot) than 6 stand-alone 40kVA units in a bank array.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Fractal, you should add upgrades to the tech tree, so you don't have to have a science lab on every craft.

Also, great job!

Edited October 23, 2013 by KvickFlygarn87
Typo and added kudos

[Thogapotomus]

Sorry, yes, I forgot to include this in the changelog but the planetary magnetic fields were substantially altered, I discovered a huge bug in the way that antimatter and normal magnetic field data was calculated. I've included some factors to twiddle the amounts and bring them back to where I want them to be. The bug has revised many antimatter rates down, the small moons and Moho have been hit very hard though Jool should have improved and most of the other good large bodies: Eve, Tylo, Laythe etc shouldn't be too much different. Kerbin is unchanged.

How much are you getting at that altitude of Kerbol?

So I guess that means that the recently posted maps of the flux fields are already out of date? Or did you just alter the numbers over the whole field uniformly per body, while keeping the density to altitude values the same?

Also, I love your mod! I love KSP, but this mod really puts it over the top. Thanks for all your effort! (And to zzz for high quality visuals!)

[Fractal_UK]

Granted, I was talking about in comparison to the reactor weights/sizes, not to the stock batteries. Also, the extra power regulation components in something like a UPS add to the weight/size considerably when dealing with high voltage/amperage components. Incidentally, I serviced a range of wet/dry batteries during my days in the US Navy (when I wasn't fixing aircraft comm/nav gear). Very few large "batteries" are actually single-cell units. In your example, you could build a bank that provides 240kVA, out of 6 of those 40kVA units. You'd only need one set of protection circuitry though, so a single "unit" built of 6 40kVA cell units would weigh less and take less space (granted, not by a lot) than 6 stand-alone 40kVA units in a bank array.

I've looked into the idea of creating some kind of batteries and energy storage systems. The latest in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells look to have a specific power of around 1.5MW/ton this would be a device that could hold LiquidFuel and Oxidiser and produce some power by reacting the two across a semi-permiable membrane to produce water. You could conceivably fuel it up and use it as a small generator by simply adding more LiquidFuel/Oxidiser and discarding the water or make the process reversible by using electrolysis on the water when you wanted to store up power for later.

I don't know whether it would be so worthwhile given that even the tiny nuclear reactor would be better - basically the same power output but a lot lighter.

One thing I'm much more interested in in terms of energy storage is a more speculative technology, it involves pumping excited nuclear states of Hafnium to store energy in the form of a metastable isomer, them stimulating the emission of gamma rays to release it. A mere 1kg of excited Hafnium could provide 369MW for an hour. This is much less energy dense than actual nuclear fuel but its also substantially easier to handle, fission reactors produce a lot of neutrons that are hard to shield against, while an "isomer battery" would only produce gamma radiation meaning shielding requirements would be much reduced and making the whole thing lighter.

This would be more like a reactor with a very short-lived fuel supply but it would be really neat for landers/aircraft that could regularly dock with a mothership/base because it might grant you ulta-high performance for short periods.

[Crater]

Granted, I was talking about in comparison to the reactor weights/sizes, not to the stock batteries. Also, the extra power regulation components in something like a UPS add to the weight/size considerably when dealing with high voltage/amperage components. Incidentally, I serviced a range of wet/dry batteries during my days in the US Navy (when I wasn't fixing aircraft comm/nav gear). Very few large "batteries" are actually single-cell units. In your example, you could build a bank that provides 240kVA, out of 6 of those 40kVA units. You'd only need one set of protection circuitry though, so a single "unit" built of 6 40kVA cell units would weigh less and take less space (granted, not by a lot) than 6 stand-alone 40kVA units in a bank array.

The game, like most people, use the term "battery" loosely to refer to power storage, rather than referring to cells that make up batteries that are clustered together in strings, which are then paralleled up to provide the total required capacity at the aggregate voltage. It's way more complexity than is modeled in game, so it is simpler just to think of a fuzzy lump of charge-storage device, and call it a "battery", and the batteries in the game are, as I said, fairly close to real, and you were initially asking for higher capacity in lower masses, which is OP and not based on current scientific research.

Also, if I clustered 6 of the 40kVA units I would have 240kVA, but if I only had one set of control gear, I'd have a 40kVA unit with an hour of autonomy. It is a 240V system, and can supply up to around 150Amps, but if I tried to draw a thousand amps, apart from tripping and shutting down, it would catch fire.

In fact, I could add another 80 strings of batteries to the 8 strings currently in the UPS (which would take it to around its maximum supported configuration), taking the total storage to eleven times its current amount, but it would still only be a 40kVA unit, just with 2 hours of autonomy instead of 10 minutes. What you're looking for in-game would probably acutally also require very high power throughput and therefore the cell to control system ratio would probably still be about the same. Even so, the volume ratio is about 60% batteries : 40% control, the mass ratio is about 75% batteries to 25% control, so even looking at just the cells, the volumes in game are on the small side, and the masses aren't a million miles off.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Crater

[anaximander]

The bug where the right-click menus are empty is back again. This is the only mod I have installed, and for some reason all I have in the science lab's context menu is "Status: Locked" and a toggle for the lights. The radiators have no context menu at all, and when I select them in the VAB action group editor, there's no option to deploy them, so they're stuck as static parts. Any ideas?

[Fractal_UK]

The bug where the right-click menus are empty is back again. This is the only mod I have installed, and for some reason all I have in the science lab's context menu is "Status: Locked" and a toggle for the lights. The radiators have no context menu at all, and when I select them in the VAB action group editor, there's no option to deploy them, so they're stuck as static parts. Any ideas?

Take a look at your KSP.log file but if stuff isn't working in the VAB it sounds like the parts aren't being loaded properly, might be worth a reinstall and making sure the directory structure is all correct. You don't have an extra GameData folder that has crept in somewhere or anything, do you?

[forsaken1111]

What I would like for this mod is a high energy capacitor. Something that acts as a buffer for MJ. It would charge from any excess MJ production, possibly with some inefficiency/loss while charging, then discharge when the total MJ production doesn't meet the total possible demand. Slapping some of these on a probe with a small nuke reactor and a plasma thruster for example would give an option between long slow burns (using only the MJ production of the reactor) and short high thrust burns (tying in the capacitors and dumping their stored charge into the thruster).

It wouldn't be perfect, with loss while charging and probably some loss over time.

I was thinking:

It would have a button allowing you to cycle the desired charge state and the charge/discharge state.

If set to charge, it would take any excess MJ production (lowest priority for energy draw) and store it to charge the capacitor.

If set to discharge, it would provide MJ at a certain rate (possibly different rates for different sizes?) until discharged.

Its 'stable state' could be around ~75% charged. If pushed above ~75% you would experience loss over time and it would decay to ~75%

It experiences charging inefficiency when below 30% capacity, so if you completely empty it then getting back up to ~30% takes longer and loses some energy

It would produce waste heat while charging or discharging, but not if set to maintain ~75% charge. (If pushed above 75% it would produce waste heat because it loses charge over time and is being constantly trickle-charged for example)

Make it action group compatible so you could have a burst/afterburner mode which ties in all capacitors for a high thrust burn or to provide a quick burst of energy.

[Imca]

Is there a way to force a reactor to run at half power?

I lost a radiator on launch, and now when ever it runs at full it builds up wasteheat, and shuts itself off, the constant starting and stoping is a bit anoying.

I know they will auto regulate and only produce as much power as drawn, but the thing is it runs at 100 when ever there is electricity to be made, which the "Space deployment vehicle" I made has a need for quite often with the plasma thruster.

[forsaken1111]

Is there a way to force a reactor to run at half power?

I lost a radiator on launch, and now when ever it runs at full it builds up wasteheat, and shuts itself off, the constant starting and stoping is a bit anoying.

I know they will auto regulate and only produce as much power as drawn, but the thing is it runs at 100 when ever there is electricity to be made, which the "Space deployment vehicle" I made has a need for quite often with the plasma thruster.

If you keep the throttle low for the thruster doesn't it use less power than you're producing? You should be able to find a happy medium

[Donziboy2]

If you keep the throttle low for the thruster doesn't it use less power than you're producing? You should be able to find a happy medium

Yes, unless Fractal_UK made a change and did not say anything the power used is based on throttle, and the reactor/gen attached to it. It scales according to what it can get.

Im still playing around with the campaign mode and have not gotten into really playing with anything, or updating my spec sheet for the parts. Im also using NFPP which kind of bridges the gap between stock and KSPI.

[DrNuke]

So I guess that means that the recently posted maps of the flux fields are already out of date? Or did you just alter the numbers over the whole field uniformly per body, while keeping the density to altitude values the same?

Also, I love your mod! I love KSP, but this mod really puts it over the top. Thanks for all your effort! (And to zzz for high quality visuals!)

Looking at the new update the peak flux altitudes have stayed the same, and the flux magnitude was adjusted. I'll have new graphs out soon here.

[Donziboy2]

Fractal_UK, I seem to be having trouble with the science. If I time warp any ship then go to the space center the science has not changed, if I then go to my science station and then go back to space center the science changes.

[xandalis]

Also, if I clustered 6 of the 40kVA units I would have 240kVA, but if I only had one set of control gear, I'd have a 40kVA unit with an hour of autonomy. It is a 240V system, and can supply up to around 150Amps, but if I tried to draw a thousand amps, apart from tripping and shutting down, it would catch fire.

Not quite. It depends on the following: if you put those 6 cells in serial, you'll have a 240kVA system that only has 25 amps (if they're lithium-ion cells, they might burn, or they might blow up if overtaxed. Or both). If in parallel, you'd have a 40kVA system that can output 150 amps (the one you'd want for your office for an hour's backup time). I'm not saying that "batteries" capable of supplying the main operating power of a spacecraft are small/light. But between hydrogen/oxygen power cells (used during the Apollo missions for example, also I believe the origin of the jokes involving dehydrated water) and "dry" storage ("batteries") that's what they got by with (including some solar power to recharge the dry cells and thus save the hydrogen cell life for higher draw applications such as the flight computer).

Ultimately, going as far as including DC/AC theory into the workings of the game is a bit overboard though. I just would like to see something other than using extra generators as a way to increase MJ capacity on board, if possible. Which, of course, if we went by straight numerical conversion, something like the stock Z-4K would only hold about 4 MJ. So, going that route would of course be payload inefficient. But again, my point of reference is to the mod's parts, not stock. In my head, I was picturing something about half the size of each reactor (since they have whopping storage compared to a similar sized stock battery). But if not, I'll just carry on and figure out how to use what's already there to best potential.

One thing I'm much more interested in in terms of energy storage is a more speculative technology, it involves pumping excited nuclear states of Hafnium to store energy in the form of a metastable isomer, them stimulating the emission of gamma rays to release it. A mere 1kg of excited Hafnium could provide 369MW for an hour. This is much less energy dense than actual nuclear fuel but its also substantially easier to handle, fission reactors produce a lot of neutrons that are hard to shield against, while an "isomer battery" would only produce gamma radiation meaning shielding requirements would be much reduced and making the whole thing lighter.

This would be more like a reactor with a very short-lived fuel supply but it would be really neat for landers/aircraft that could regularly dock with a mothership/base because it might grant you ulta-high performance for short periods.

Sounds similar in concept to Star Trek's EPS conduits/grid. Would definitely fit in (I think, anyway) comfortably right next to the alcubierre drives.

[Fractal_UK]

Fractal_UK, I seem to be having trouble with the science. If I time warp any ship then go to the space center the science has not changed, if I then go to my science station and then go back to space center the science changes.

That is the best functionality that can be done at the moment. Unless you go back to your science lab, the game won't load any information about that science lab, I can only update your science totals when you actually switch to your science lab.

Basically the logic works by checking when the science lab was last running and adds science equal to the difference, if you don't ever go back to the science lab, that logic is never run. Nothing in the game even knows that science lab exists until you actually switch to it and load it into the physics engine.

I might find a solution to this sometime by clever reading of the persistence file but this is basically a KSP limitation.

[Donziboy2]

Ok, I was not aware that was how you had to set it up;)

[Fractal_UK]

Ok, I was not aware that was how you had to set it up;)

Yeah, unfortunately all of this persistence stuff is a bit of a compromise, the game isn't really set up for it so I'm just doing my best to put it in anyway. I guess that explains why, looking over the changelog, they've had to be fixed so many times.

[Cairan]

While we are in the subject of fixes and tweaks, here's an idea I implemented on an antimatter powered ship I built: core ejection!

Now if only we could have an electrical powered decoupler that decouples parts when it's electrical supply is cut-off, releasing spring loaded mechanisms released from now unpowered solenoids, we could attach antimatter pods with these decouplers and in the event of a power outage, we'd "dump the core" into space, and hopefully before their fields drops below a critical value

Of course, this being Kerbal, and with thousands of hours of Star Trek proving it, core ejection never, ever works. OK, except once on Voyager, but that's a side issue... It would still be a nice touch.

I've rigged it with regular decouplers, but I thought I'd drop the idea here, just in case.

Keep 'on modding folks, great job.

[Cairan]

What I would like for this mod is a high energy capacitor. Something that acts as a buffer for MJ. It would charge from any excess MJ production, possibly with some inefficiency/loss while charging, then discharge when the total MJ production doesn't meet the total possible demand. Slapping some of these on a probe with a small nuke reactor and a plasma thruster for example would give an option between long slow burns (using only the MJ production of the reactor) and short high thrust burns (tying in the capacitors and dumping their stored charge into the thruster).

Flywheels. That's what many high power labs use. Plug it to the grid, spin it up with an electrical motor, disconnect from the grid, connect the load, discharge by running a generator off of it. Rince and repeat.

Existing torque generating parts could be piggy-backed for power generation with regenerative braking. Since KSP doesn't model reaction wheels momentum saturation at the moment (I don't think they will ever do that, either), we could use these to say spin their mass up to a couple thousands RPM.

An inline reaction wheel has a mass of 0.5 tons, could very conservatively store about 5 MJ (today's commercial solutions) up to 50 MJ (theoretical energy density). This could be a nice upgrade path. Start with "standard" flywheels and end with super high-strength nanocrystalline superconducting flywheels.

Here's some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage#Physical_characteristics

[pschlik]

(First post, whoo!)

I'd hate to come into the discussion with a bug report, but I have to. It seems that a lot of animations are acting up for me in the latest version. Things like the heat radiators appearing extended when I launch a ship, but they aren't actually functioning as if they were open, and the science lab looks like it is active, but isn't. I do have a big list of mods, if that may influence anything, but I don't know what information is needed, I'll gladly provide more if it is needed, but I wouldn't know.

[Beowolf]

Doing electrolysis on the Mun, I'm getting aluminum but no oxidizer.

After some failed troubleshooting, I ended up installing a fresh KSP 0.22, then installing only KSP Interstellar 7.1 and HyperEdit (to teleport my ship to Mun). Problem still occurred. It isn't a HyperEdit conflict, as the original KSP I was playing when I ran into the problem has never had HyperEdit installed.

Thanks!

Edited October 24, 2013 by Beowolf

[Fractal_UK]

Doing electrolysis on the Mun, I'm getting aluminum but no oxidizer.

After some failed troubleshooting, I ended up installing a fresh KSP 0.22, then installing only KSP Interstellar 7.1 and HyperEdit (to teleport my ship to Mun). Problem still occurred.

Thanks!

I'm guessing you probably don't have a connection between your science lab and the oxidiser tank, it has to follow exactly the same rules in terms of fuel crossfeed components and fuel lines as fuel going to an engine. If you need to add fuel lines, the fuel line needs to go from the tank to the science lab - because the science lab is creating something the fuel lines go the opposite way than they would with engines.

Hope that helps.

[TMarkos]

Actually, I had the same problem just today. I had a KAS pipe from my science lab to an aluminum-burning rocket, and the electrolysis replenished the aluminum and not the oxidizer in the same rocket. Thinking there was some odd routing issue, I transferred oxidizer from a few linked containers to the rocket to see if it replenished any of the others - it did not.