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

[Ratzap]

0.23 should allow us to change fuel in the VAB. It was made that way so you cant just shut down the reactor, refuel and leave in 10 seconds.

The thing is, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun, not a grindy drag with built in obstacles which the game lets you bypass with a 10 second button press anyway. Lots of actions in KSP take a lot of time in reality but they don't make it happen in the game because it's supposed to be entertaining. Putting timers in a game with time warp just seems rather masochistic but w/e.

[Fractal_UK]

The thing is, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun, not a grindy drag with built in obstacles which the game lets you bypass with a 10 second button press anyway. Lots of actions in KSP take a lot of time in reality but they don't make it happen in the game because it's supposed to be entertaining. Putting timers in a game with time warp just seems rather masochistic but w/e.

The point is, you have to refuel these reactors somewhere between every 2 years and every 20 years depending on the exact configuration and how much power you're using. If you could turn on and off the reactors whenever you wanted without a waiting period, there would be no need for refueling because you'd never run out of fuel, ever - you'd be toggling on and off your reactors every 5 minutes. When you do need to refuel, you have to spend about 3 seconds time accelerating, which is not really a major gameplay impact compared to the balance implications of having reactors you can use essentially forever.

Putting timers in a game without timewarp would be far worse from a gameplay perspective.

Edit: Let me expand on that. A period like 3 days in game time is enough for ingame events to occur, as an example, a reactor that fails due to overheating and needs to wait for decay heating to subside could have real gameplay implications, 3 days is more than enough time to fall out of orbit, for example, but it's not enough time to actually waste the player's time warping through it.

It's important, in my opinion, for simulation games to convey ideas, you don't and will never get close to 100% accuracy but you want to get across an idea that people can recognise in a particular technology. Nuclear reactors have massive advantages in terms of power output and amount of fuel required to achieve that power output and indeed are very safe, especially the Molten Salt designs potrayed here - but you can't go just tinkering around with them any old way, you perform the maintenance by the book so you don't kill yourself.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Myrten]

That looks awesome! One of the two things keeping me from working on a deep space energy net is the lack of proper relay networks.

I've tested it even more, take a look at this case:

Route A is obviously shorter but since receiver isn't pointed at Kerbin but at relay near Sun new algorithm will choose longer route B. Penalty from bad angle would be huge if we were to connect directly to Kerbin, and since route B's length is still within distance limit of this big receiver there is no distance penalty thus it's clearly a better choice.

Everything is running as fast as before and with this complexity I seriously doubt it will ever lag unless you go into hundreds of relays...

Edited December 7, 2013 by Myrten

[Ratzap]

The point is, you have to refuel these reactors somewhere between every 2 years and every 20 years depending on the exact configuration and how much power you're using. If you could turn on and off the reactors whenever you wanted without a waiting period, there would be no need for refueling because you'd never run out of fuel, ever - you'd be toggling on and off your reactors every 5 minutes. When you do need to refuel, you have to spend about 3 seconds time accelerating, which is not really a major gameplay impact compared to the balance implications of having reactors you can use essentially forever.

I know this and the only time it'll be more than an irritation is when you're doing multiple flights - set kerbal alarm clock and do other things. I know the idea you're trying to bring across too but I just can't see anyone bothering - most players will just go 'well that's a drag' and launch a new ship. Or hyperedit everything full again then dump the waste - done. I know what you're trying to do but most of the rest of KSP doesn't force people to see what is being simulated and there are a plethora of mods to let people bypass it. Putting in things like that obviously makes you feel you're doing it right, I'm just trying to point out it puts joe average off.

Anyway, I checked Thorium with the plane I was using and a couple of different fuels (LF and kethane). It'll get to 8km then TWR falls under 1 (reactor at 100% still) slowly falling to 0.6 or so by 14km. Kick in some liquids and it'll get up to 55km apoapsis but even with kethane (higher thrust, less ISP) it just doesn't have the oompf left to make orbit - 20kN per jet just isn't sufficient. A 30% power generation increase is nice but it didn't seem to translate into as much of a boost on the jet.

[Donziboy2]

Actually Rat, its up to the player to decide what they want to do, but Fractal_UK can make his mod any way he wants...

If your using career mode reactors, your best bet is to wait to unlocking fusion reactors for an SSTO, and once you upgrade the fusion reactor you will get a liquid fueled engine with 20kN of thrust and an ISP of 5375.9.

This bird has over 8k Dv, along with the engines that will run for a year in Atmo at full power or 4 years of idle.... I used FAR.

[Lightwarrior]

Looks like someone simply want "i win" button.

ThermalTurbojet is very powerfull already, but yes, it is a bit hard to use. And it is good.

BTW upgraded fission reactor with ThF4 fuel gives 11KN thrust in liquid fuel mode, and 3000isp. 30KN and 2000isp in LFO mode. It is not as good as with fusion reactor, but still way better than anything stock. Those small plane i talked about above has ~3000dV using single T200 fuel tank.

[Fractal_UK]

I've written up a section on the wiki summarising the options available to the Reactor and the conditions under which they are available: find it here. Hopefully this will help overcome some confusion as to how everything works. I'm going to try and do this for all the parts in the mod but that is going to take some time. As always, experienced players are encouraged to help out with the wiki.

[arslin]

Let us first start off with a quote in the description of the MOD:

Cool idea.

Maybe this was spoken about in the 400 pages i did not read thru, but I read that I could Electrolysis fuel on Vall. I wanted to setup a location that could refuel ships without sending supply ships. I do not have some of the most advanced technology right now.

So I put a station in orbit around Vall, landed a science lab, landed a shuttle to bring fuel up to the station, and sent a refueling ship to keep everything running... everything was in place, and the lab did not work.

Only after looking into it more did i see where the change notes say in fine print.

First: why was it removed? Second will it come back?

Cool MOD, but try to update the description guys

Anything? It would be great to know if this base can be used in the future.

[Fractal_UK]

Anything? It would be great to know if this base can be used in the future.

Sorry about that, unfortunately new posters can often get missed because the posts don't show up at the end of the thread after they have been approved by moderators. I try to watch out for that but often the thread moves quite quickly.

The idea of the refinery was to replace some of the ISRU functionality of the science lab - I've had a lot of people commenting that the science lab part was way too versatile, it was rapidly turning into a part of miscellany for every function that didn't have another place so I'm trying to address that by splitting functions logically.

I'm doing a major overhaul of the documentation at the moment, eventually I will get rid of the part descriptions in the first thread and have that information solely in the wiki.

Wiki

Sorry about the inconvenience and hopefully you can find a use for your science lab.

[Fractal_UK]

Much work has been done on the first post and the wiki - feedback would be appreciated. Particularly, what you like, what you don't like and what needs to be added next.

[Lightwarrior]

So if i understand correctly now there is only one option to get rid of actinides - refinery. And it will reprocess them only directly from (working) reactor. It sounds wrong to me and because of it refuling small reactors is impractical. Its way, way easier to replace reactor itself (or even whole reactor-engine assembly).

May be there should be another EVA option to fully replace fuel, which will also remove actinides to external container, which can be reprocessed later, or just thrown away?

As i understand removing whole fuel assembly and installing new one is the only way to "refuel" reactor IRL, which will also remove all waste from the reactor.

p.s good job with those wiki, finaly we can know how things really should work not from those "science experiments" on the launchpad

Edited December 7, 2013 by Lightwarrior

[CatastrophicFailure]

So the warp drive keeps you at the speed you were going even when you turn it off? Or does it set you to some arbitrary speed? Either way, I'm glad you made a point to balance this.

Much work has been done on the first post and the wiki - feedback would be appreciated. Particularly, what you like, what you don't like and what needs to be added next.

The magnetometer page on the wiki doesn't seem to be working, it just reloads the main page.

As a newcomer to this mod, the wiki is kinda helpful but a bit random... How about an actual tutorial or "quick start" for those familiar with the basic game? Things seem to work a lot differently and this is an awful long thread to wade thru.

[Fractal_UK]

So if i understand correctly now there is only one option to get rid of actinides - refinery. And it will reprocess them only directly from (working) reactor. It sounds wrong to me and because of it refuling small reactors is impractical. Its way, way easier to replace reactor itself (or even whole reactor-engine assembly).

May be there should be another EVA option to fully replace fuel, which will also remove actinides to external container, which can be reprocessed later, or just thrown away?

As i understand removing whole fuel assembly and installing new one is the only way to "refuel" reactor IRL, which will also remove all waste from the reactor.

You can reprocess with a lab as well, there is a known issue with reprocessing Uranium using a lab but reprocessing Thorium should work fine and it will be fixed in the next update. There are a lot of reasons for which I'd like to avoid having the option to remove actinides from the reactor - 1) I would need to produce more containers which clutters up space in the VAB with parts that won't be used very often, 2) Actinide waste is really nasty dangerous stuff so I'd need to find some way of modelling that and 3) I'm currently using a trick to minimise the number the number of resources - at the moment a reactor can reprocess actinides into either Uranium or Thorium but if you can move them around you lose the knowledge on what they should go back to being.

MSR can use pyroprocessing, basically working directly with the molten salt fluid at high temperatures to conduct fuel reprocessing so you can at least do this non-disruptively.

The magnetometer page on the wiki doesn't seem to be working, it just reloads the main page.

Fixed.

As a newcomer to this mod, the wiki is kinda helpful but a bit random... How about an actual tutorial or "quick start" for those familiar with the basic game? Things seem to work a lot differently and this is an awful long thread to wade thru.

What kind of tutorials are you interested in? There are lots of different topics that could be covered, as an example, a lot of people ask about building fission planes so I could make a tutorial about how to do that but that's no use to someone who wants information on using and refueling the DT-vista, for example.

It's very tricky for me to know what features people aren't making the most of or are struggling to make best use of because, for me, every feature that goes into the mod is already second nature by the time it's publically released, so watching this thread is the only way I find out what people understand and what they don't.

[Donziboy2]

What kind of tutorials are you interested in? There are lots of different topics that could be covered, as an example, a lot of people ask about building fission planes so I could make a tutorial about how to do that but that's no use to someone who wants information on using and refueling the DT-vista, for example.

It's very tricky for me to know what features people aren't making the most of or are struggling to make best use of because, for me, every feature that goes into the mod is already second nature by the time it's publically released, so watching this thread is the only way I find out what people understand and what they don't.

I think one thing that probably needs to get started is a known bug list, so that we can cut down on the number of repeated bug reports and questions.

Im going to make up a general description right now for minimum parts needed for reactors and engines to function. Im sure I will miss something so once I get it written feedback will be needed.

[vardicd]

Would it be possible to put an explanation on the Dual Technique Magnetometer page as to how to read the Antimatter flux? It has two separate numbers, one that seems to range from 0 to 9-ish, and then a second number that changes as the 0 to 9 one rolls over, and I'm not sure if Higher numbers are better or lower numbers or one high and the other low?

[Eadrom]

Would it be possible to put an explanation on the Dual Technique Magnetometer page as to how to read the Antimatter flux? It has two separate numbers, one that seems to range from 0 to 9-ish, and then a second number that changes as the 0 to 9 one rolls over, and I'm not sure if Higher numbers are better or lower numbers or one high and the other low?

Check out this link. Many large numbers or very small numbers (as in the case of the DTM) are written in scientific notation. It is straight forward once you see how the numbers are written the way they are.

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

[Lightwarrior]

You can reprocess with a lab as well, there is a known issue with reprocessing Uranium using a lab but reprocessing Thorium should work fine and it will be fixed in the next update. There are a lot of reasons for which I'd like to avoid having the option to remove actinides from the reactor - 1) I would need to produce more containers which clutters up space in the VAB with parts that won't be used very often, 2) Actinide waste is really nasty dangerous stuff so I'd need to find some way of modelling that and 3) I'm currently using a trick to minimise the number the number of resources - at the moment a reactor can reprocess actinides into either Uranium or Thorium but if you can move them around you lose the knowledge on what they should go back to being.

MSR can use pyroprocessing, basically working directly with the molten salt fluid at high temperatures to conduct fuel reprocessing so you can at least do this non-disruptively.

Ok, i will not argue here.

But may be smaller part can be made to service those smaller reactors?

Currently the easiest way is to make changable reactors on docking ports and just replace them when needed. But it does not seem right...

[vardicd]

Originally Posted by vardicd,

Would it be possible to put an explanation on the Dual Technique Magnetometer page as to how to read the Antimatter flux? It has two separate numbers, one that seems to range from 0 to 9-ish, and then a second number that changes as the 0 to 9 one rolls over, and I'm not sure if Higher numbers are better or lower numbers or one high and the other low?

Check out this link. Many large numbers or very small numbers (as in the case of the DTM) are written in scientific notation. It is straight forward once you see how the numbers are written the way they are.

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

Uh, no, This just sent my brain screaming into a corner and its refusing to talk to me now. {Seriously, me and math have been enemies for a long time.} I need someone to explain this in a "this number high=good, this number low= bad" fashion or I will never get this.

[Eadrom]

I think that in practice, the issues you guys are having with refueling the smaller fission reactors are not actually a problem. Think about it. I only use the small fission reactors on either atmospheric research planes or one way probes. Neither situation do I have the need to refuel them as by they will have finished their mission long before they run out of reactor fuel. On larger vessels, I likely have larger fission reactors, so including the small reactors in maintenance cycles is not a problem. Also, by the time I need to refuel early tech fission reactors, I will very likely have developed better power systems.

In my mind, the fusion reactors take the place of the smaller fission reactors in many applications once you unlock them. Fusion reactors have higher power output and easier refueling as well than their same sized counterparts in the fission reactor family. So once I've unlocked fusion tech, I rarely find the need to include fission reactors as the sole power source on small vessels and probes. If I do use the small fission reactors after unlocking fusion reactors, it's usually for short duration missions (refueling not needed) or on larger vessels or stations (can just swap out reactors as needed or they have facilities for refueling/reprocessing).

I know that just because I don't have the same issues with refueling small fission reactors that doesn't mean that the opinions that they are difficult or impractical to refuel are invalid. Just trying to point out that by the time you would need to refuel them, they are probably obsolete.

[Eadrom]

Uh, no, This just sent my brain screaming into a corner and its refusing to talk to me now. {Seriously, me and math have been enemies for a long time.} I need someone to explain this in a "this number high=good, this number low= bad" fashion or I will never get this.

No worries! For the application of the DTM, you want larger numbers on both sides. Remember that when dealing with negative numbers, "-5" is larger than "-12". For example, 2.9E-4 is larger than 5.2E-6.

The number to the RIGHT of the "E" is the number of decimal places you move. A positive number means you move the decimal point to the right. A negative number means you move the decimal point to the left. In my example, those two numbers are "0.00029" and "0.0000052". Now I'm sure you can tell which number is larger. That's easy when dealing with small numbers of exponents (the number to the right of the "E"), but when dealing with lots of zeroes, like in 3,920,000,000,000 (3.92E12), it quickly gets very tedious to count zeroes. That's where scientific notation comes in handy. You can quickly compare and do math with very large or very small numbers.

Hopefully this helps?

[Jivaii]

Originally Posted by vardicd,

Would it be possible to put an explanation on the Dual Technique Magnetometer page as to how to read the Antimatter flux? It has two separate numbers, one that seems to range from 0 to 9-ish, and then a second number that changes as the 0 to 9 one rolls over, and I'm not sure if Higher numbers are better or lower numbers or one high and the other low?

Uh, no, This just sent my brain screaming into a corner and its refusing to talk to me now. {Seriously, me and math have been enemies for a long time.} I need someone to explain this in a "this number high=good, this number low= bad" fashion or I will never get this.

Bigger number = good

Little number = not so good

That's how I've been going about it so far.

[vardicd]

No worries! For the application of the DTM, you want larger numbers on both sides. Remember that when dealing with negative numbers, "-5" is larger than "-12". For example, 2.9E-4 is larger than 5.2E-6.

The number to the RIGHT of the "E" is the number of decimal places you move. A positive number means you move the decimal point to the right. A negative number means you move the decimal point to the left. In my example, those two numbers are "0.00029" and "0.0000052". Now I'm sure you can tell which number is larger. That's easy when dealing with small numbers of exponents (the number to the right of the "E"), but when dealing with lots of zeroes, like in 3,920,000,000,000 (3.92E12), it quickly gets very tedious to count zeroes. That's where scientific notation comes in handy. You can quickly compare and do math with very large or very small numbers.

Hopefully this helps?

I think I got this now, the way I understand,High positive numbers are best, low negative numbers are better than high negative numbers? Thanks for the help.

Edited December 7, 2013 by vardicd

[Eadrom]

These graphs by NA411 show the optimal altitudes to collect antimatter at all the bodies in the Kerbol system.

http://imgur.com/a/g313g#0

[Pual24]

This mod is perfect when used with the Planet factory Mod

[db48x]

I tried to improve the organization of the main wiki page by adding a table of contents, but the links don't work. Does anyone know how to do a proper link to a named anchor? Currently it's mangling the fragment identifier so that it doesn't match the named anchors on the page. The result is a properly-formed link that doesn't go anywhere.