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

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

I think your problem is because you need something to jumpstart your fusion reactor. Remember, it takes a bit of up-front energy to start a fusion reactor.

Like this baby, coming to an orbital shipyard near you. (As soon as I transport enough vehicle parts up to the station to begin.)

I did engine tests before I began kitting this out. The Aegletes provides the starting energy to initialize four fusion reactors, which in turn will power the plasma thruster engines. It's got the TWR of a can of refried beans at a rodeo, but since I'm building it in orbit, that doesn't matter too much.

Funny thing is... with the bio-fuels mod, which kind of ignores conservation of mass issue of generating fuel, that ship is self-refueling... If slowly.

[Dante80]

AdmiralTigerclaw, that ship looks awesome. Where did you get those nice white bulkheads from?

Extremely excited about 0.8, can't wait to get home to try this...XD

[Thourion]

Well this is one massive update, thats for sure. Im gonna open the smoke scoops, and start Water + Black Coffee centrifuge procedure right away. (Dont wanna hear any silly ideas, that im going to make a mess)

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

A little B9, a little Lack Luster Labs.

The hull's made from the B9 Aerospace S2 LFO tanks.

The big windows as well as the front pod nose and the 'bridge' are Lack Luster Labs parts.

The stripes near the front are a BUNCH of S2 reaction wheel sections.

(EDIT: Oh, and I'm using Modular Fuels with Real Fuels. That's allowing me to fill the ship up completely with One fuel type.)

It's also go biofuels' biomass and fuel generator module. A few O2 and CO2 tanks providing backup supplies to it.

In terms of equipment, it's got scansat arrays, it's got comms dishes. A microwave power receiver for emergency power if I neglect the reactors. Lazor System, MechJeb, and Kerbal Engineer are set up on it.

And up there on the front is a Sunbeam for blasting orbital debris.

Ulysses Light can crew eight, though standard crew will be six. It's going to act as an operational communications array.

But I can't wait until we have bigger fusions.

Hey Fractal, are the old fission reactor models going to be repurposed as large fusion reactors? Seems like the perfect use for them if you ask me.

Oh, and that reminds me, tomorrow I need to test a fusion jet.

[Jivaii]

A little B9, a little Lack Luster Labs.

The hull's made from the B9 Aerospace S2 LFO tanks.

The big windows as well as the front pod nose and the 'bridge' are Lack Luster Labs parts.

The stripes near the front are a BUNCH of S2 reaction wheel sections.

(EDIT: Oh, and I'm using Modular Fuels with Real Fuels. That's allowing me to fill the ship up completely with One fuel type.)

It's also go biofuels' biomass and fuel generator module. A few O2 and CO2 tanks providing backup supplies to it.

In terms of equipment, it's got scansat arrays, it's got comms dishes. A microwave power receiver for emergency power if I neglect the reactors. Lazor System, MechJeb, and Kerbal Engineer are set up on it.

And up there on the front is a Sunbeam for blasting orbital debris.

Ulysses Light can crew eight, though standard crew will be six. It's going to act as an operational communications array.

But I can't wait until we have bigger fusions.

Hey Fractal, are the old fission reactor models going to be repurposed as large fusion reactors? Seems like the perfect use for them if you ask me.

Oh, and that reminds me, tomorrow I need to test a fusion jet.

I really want that craft file, but it goes against my "take ideas and build my own" philosophy. But I gots ideas now. Are you using orbital construction redux?

[Eadrom]

I'm really liking the Methane engine. Glad to finally have a really good, solid lifter engine from this pack. I'm wondering if it would be possible to use something like stretchy tanks to have smaller tanks of Methane+oxidizer to use on landers or as smaller drop tanks for mid-tech interplanetary vessels.

Just tested the methane engine. Was able to take a stack of methane engine, four of the big methane tanks, 3 large reaction wheels from KSPX, a heat shield, and a 3 man capsule and parachute from launch (1.06 TWR) to orbit. Apoapsis of 21,000,000 meters and periapsis of 88,000 meters. I like! Will definitely be building a very sweet asparagus lifter with this new engine.

I did some testing with the 1.25m fusion reactor as well. I was hoping I could use it as a mid-stage engine, but alas, I was only getting a little over 50 kN of thrust from larger of the fusion reactors. With just a FL-T800 and only a capsule and heat shield above that, I was able to get almost 30k delta-V with a TWR of over 0.6, so really amazing propulsion system once you get it into space. It can probably even be used to finish a circulation burn. Just a little disappointed that I still can't use a thermal engine for launch unless it's paired with antimatter reactors. Still, I'm very happy about the performance available once in space. I am definitely looking forward to use a fusion power and propulsion system for a long range probe.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Eadrom

[Thourion]

Well ill probably have to wait until fractal comes, but yeah i dont suppose anyone knows where is he going to put the Refinery part in the tree right?

I cant seem to remember if i put it anywhere myself, and then the part changes location, does it brake anything in the save?

[Fractal_UK]

(EDIT: Oh, and I'm using Modular Fuels with Real Fuels. That's allowing me to fill the ship up completely with One fuel type.)

Can you give me a hand testing new compatability options for Real Fuels?

If you locate the WarpPluginSettings.cfg file in the GameData/WarpPlugin directory and change it such that:

	HydrogenResourceName = LiquidH2
	OxygenResourceName = LiquidOxygen

You should be able to scoop those resources from atmosphere, as well as generate them via electrolysis.

[Report on 0.8]

Thanks for the large report, I'll take a look at those issues.

Edit:

Well ill probably have to wait until fractal comes, but yeah i dont suppose anyone knows where is he going to put the Refinery part in the tree right?

I cant seem to remember if i put it anywhere myself, and then the part changes location, does it brake anything in the save?

Should be in advScienceTech like the science lab.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Jivaii]

Well ill probably have to wait until fractal comes, but yeah i dont suppose anyone knows where is he going to put the Refinery part in the tree right?

I cant seem to remember if i put it anywhere myself, and then the part changes location, does it brake anything in the save?

I've gone and verified that the only things I'm currently using on active flights is just the heat sinks. Less likely to break my save that way.

[Thourion]

I've gone and verified that the only things I'm currently using on active flights is just the heat sinks. Less likely to break my save that way.

Yeah, well i got a ton of stuff flying around, labs, collectors and whatever. But anyway my question was more intended for convenience, as i always backup my saves before mod changes etc.

--------

Edit:

Should be in advScienceTech like the science lab.

Thanks Fractal.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Thourion

[Kenken244]

Are there supposed to be no 2.5 or 3.75 meter fusion reactors? I don't seem to have any in the parts catalog.

[Eadrom]

Well ill probably have to wait until fractal comes, but yeah i dont suppose anyone knows where is he going to put the Refinery part in the tree right?

I cant seem to remember if i put it anywhere myself, and then the part changes location, does it brake anything in the save?

I took a look at the .cfg for the refinery part and there I didn't see code allocating it to a tech node, unless that info is somewhere else.

If you aren't seeing the part in career mode, you can add to the node Fractal said by placing the following code into the part.cfg file for the refinery:

TechRequired = advScienceTech
entryCost = 11000

Are there supposed to be no 2.5 or 3.75 meter fusion reactors? I don't seem to have any in the parts catalog.

Only 62.5cm and 1.25m fusion reactors for now. If I remember correctly, the part that ZZZ made that used to be the 1.25 KIWI fission reactor was designed to be a 1.25m part and didn't scale well up to a larger size part.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Eadrom

[Fractal_UK]

It'd be good if someone who uses Firespitter could let me know if they have any ongoing compatibility problems. I think the issues are fixed but it'd be nice to have confirmation from regular users of those parts.

[KhaosCorp]

It'd be good if someone who uses Firespitter could let me know if they have any ongoing compatibility problems. I think the issues are fixed but it'd be nice to have confirmation from regular users of those parts.

If your talking about the issue with the FS electric engines they seem to be working just fine.

edit: LOVE that the hotspot markers are not just a mapscreen thing....no guessing if your about to land in the right spot with a harvester =)

Edited November 24, 2013 by KhaosCorp

[Fractal_UK]

I did some testing with the 1.25m fusion reactor as well. I was hoping I could use it as a mid-stage engine, but alas, I was only getting a little over 50 kN of thrust from larger of the fusion reactors. With just a FL-T800 and only a capsule and heat shield above that, I was able to get almost 30k delta-V with a TWR of over 0.6, so really amazing propulsion system once you get it into space. It can probably even be used to finish a circulation burn. Just a little disappointed that I still can't use a thermal engine for launch unless it's paired with antimatter reactors. Still, I'm very happy about the performance available once in space. I am definitely looking forward to use a fusion power and propulsion system for a long range probe.

You might have better luck using it with an aircraft-like launch. You will get more thrust with intake air and lower TWR will be less of a problem when you have lifting surfaces. My testing definitely gave me the impression that they make aircraft which fly very nicely as well as a nice space engine.

[Hremsfeld]

An old bug is rearing its ugly head again:

I've got a ship parked in orbit in Jool's radiation belt, powered exclusively by antimatter. The reactor and generator are both online, but neither of them are producing any power. I've got an antimatter collector inline with its tank, which is directly above the generator and reactor. My ship has 1043 out of 20,000 megajoules, and no electric charge (when timewarping to gather antimatter, it depleted and wasn't replenished). I've tried quicksave+quickloading; I've gone to the tracking station; I've switched to a vessel on the surface of moho, quicksaved, and quickloaded; I very briefly ran the engines while MechJeb limited me to 0.01m/s^2. This has happened before, but I don't remember how I fixed it.

The reactor and generator's right-click menus I've uploaded here, along with a screenshot of the debug log. The "dT is NaN!" messages look quite suspicious, but I've got no idea what to do with them, or if it's even this mod.

Edit: Unrelated, but I have a quick question: Is the radiation exposure a gee-whiz thing, or are you planning to incorporate that in the future?

Edited November 24, 2013 by Hremsfeld

[Thourion]

I just came back from this bug myself, and while i thought it was because it was already flying.

So i made a new one, added a nice warp drive along this time, and flew it to Jool. Now the interesting thing is, that this time the time warp dont seem to bug the crap out of electricity, although im sure something is happening with the AM in general.

Anyway after i tried to physic-warp x4, just to speed up the circ burn of my Vista, i blew up the engine lol .. So i had to reload a quick saev i did, with Pe at 9km (AM at the resources tab show -0.11 ) . After the reload the ship is behaving exactly as the one i had in orbit, and similar to Hremsfeld's above.

Im also gettin the dT is NaN spam msg in the log.

[Pigbear]

Someone needs to replace the warp drive with Star Trek sounds.

[KhaosCorp]

I just came back from this bug myself, and while i thought it was because it was already flying.

So i made a new one, added a nice warp drive along this time, and flew it to Jool. Now the interesting thing is, that this time the time warp dont seem to bug the crap out of electricity, although im sure something is happening with the AM in general.

Anyway after i tried to physic-warp x4, just to speed up the circ burn of my Vista, i blew up the engine lol .. So i had to reload a quick saev i did, with Pe at 9km (AM at the resources tab show -0.11 ) . After the reload the ship is behaving exactly as the one i had in orbit, and similar to Hremsfeld's above.

Im also gettin the dT is NaN spam msg in the log.

Kinda getting the same thing...launched a new AM scoop and after time warp it will gather no AM, despite the collector showing 3.1+ AM flux, all tanks charged...should be collecting, but getting nothing.

Also...please no startrek sounds...would take alot away from the mod imo...

[Fractal_UK]

I just came back from this bug myself, and while i thought it was because it was already flying.

So i made a new one, added a nice warp drive along this time, and flew it to Jool. Now the interesting thing is, that this time the time warp dont seem to bug the crap out of electricity, although im sure something is happening with the AM in general.

Anyway after i tried to physic-warp x4, just to speed up the circ burn of my Vista, i blew up the engine lol .. So i had to reload a quick saev i did, with Pe at 9km (AM at the resources tab show -0.11 ) . After the reload the ship is behaving exactly as the one i had in orbit, and similar to Hremsfeld's above.

Im also gettin the dT is NaN spam msg in the log.

The issue has to be related to the antimatter collectors, it may be that the stock resource system isn't coping well with resources being added and removed at the same time. If I add the resources to unfilled tanks directly instead of part.requestResource()ing, it might finally resolve this.

[NotCoach]

The 62.5cm fission reactor looks like the old 3.75m fission reactor. The connection nodes seem to be correct (almost entirely swallows a cupola when connected), but the texture is obviously wrong. And the old 1.25m fission reactor is still there, but not still there. Shows as unresearched in VAB. Go to tree and research it, still unresearched in VAB. Go back to tree and it's not researched again. I don't think it's supposed to be around at all with the new reactor models, but it's apparently having a hard time accepting its obsolescence.

[Fractal_UK]

The 62.5cm fission reactor looks like the old 3.75m fission reactor. The connection nodes seem to be correct (almost entirely swallows a cupola when connected), but the texture is obviously wrong. And the old 1.25m fission reactor is still there, but not still there. Shows as unresearched in VAB. Go to tree and research it, still unresearched in VAB. Go back to tree and it's not researched again. I don't think it's supposed to be around at all with the new reactor models, but it's apparently having a hard time accepting its obsolescence.

Did you delete the WarpPlugin folder before you installed the update? That's really important for this update or you will have texture issues and load some unnecessary assets that will use crucial memory, I've made some optimisations in 0.8 to try and be as responsible with memory as possible.

[Eadrom]

The 62.5cm fission reactor looks like the old 3.75m fission reactor. The connection nodes seem to be correct (almost entirely swallows a cupola when connected), but the texture is obviously wrong. And the old 1.25m fission reactor is still there, but not still there. Shows as unresearched in VAB. Go to tree and research it, still unresearched in VAB. Go back to tree and it's not researched again. I don't think it's supposed to be around at all with the new reactor models, but it's apparently having a hard time accepting its obsolescence.

The fission reactors have new models. The model for the 1.25m fission reactor in 0.7.4 has been retasked to become the model for the 62.5cm and 1.25m fusion reactors. The new fusion reactors are unlocked by researching the fusion technology node (the node that gives you the Vista D/T engine).

[Damarai]

The 62.5cm fission reactor looks like the old 3.75m fission reactor. The connection nodes seem to be correct (almost entirely swallows a cupola when connected), but the texture is obviously wrong. And the old 1.25m fission reactor is still there, but not still there. Shows as unresearched in VAB. Go to tree and research it, still unresearched in VAB. Go back to tree and it's not researched again. I don't think it's supposed to be around at all with the new reactor models, but it's apparently having a hard time accepting its obsolescence.

Aye, I've had this problem myself when testing in sandbox. I'm guessing it has something to do with overwriting the 0.7.2 version of WarpPlugin with 0.8 as I tried deleting the old with a fresh install of 0.8. All nuke models are now correct, however it would appear I'm now missing the thorium reactors and no 1.25m KIWI nuke reactor.

Have I screwed up somewhere?

Also, thanks Fractal for creating a major outlet to my creativity!

[NotCoach]

No I didn't. Thank you.