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

[Lightwarrior]

Thorium reactors are so much better that i finaly concluded that if big enough reactor/ship is used, probably 2.5m/3.75m reactor, it is better to use thorium + science lab + few containers for depleted fuel. It will last way longer than uranium reactor without lab, and lab weight is really insignificant compared to reactor weight.

[Vahal]

Hi folk. I have some questions about the magnetometer antenna and the science.

• The antenna doesn't deploy when logging data, is that normal? I can log eve with folded antenna.
  
• I can't pick the data from the antenna with my dear when he is on EVA to collect datas from science modules. Is that on purpose or buggy?
  
• Can we have an antenna collapsible by a kerbal like solar panels?
  

TY for reading. *go back to learn about the art of blowing up rockets.*

[Eadrom]

Thorium reactors are so much better that i finaly concluded that if big enough reactor/ship is used, probably 2.5m/3.75m reactor, it is better to use thorium + science lab + few containers for depleted fuel. It will last way longer than uranium reactor without lab, and lab weight is really insignificant compared to reactor weight.

An easy solution if your ship is regularly in the vicinity of a space station or similar such large staging areas, is to just put a jr docking port on your ship. I like to put them on reactors so I can think of it as a service and maintenance port. You can save a lot of mass and design complexity by adding in this one small part. So many options open up when the majority of your vessels can have small support ships dock with them. You can even install docking adapters or extensions if you need to dock two larger vessels together. Keeps you from having to constantly design in the same infrastructure into every ship you launch.

[Lightwarrior]

Yes but... if this ship will be used for interplanetary travel this is not an option at all. I usually include lab into ship, but attach those fuel containers to docking ports to be able to replace them when needed. So no complex design is needed here, only the lab itself.

Also i have those problem with UF4 appearing in ThF4 reactor during fuel reprocession... i am concerned about what will happen when it will be full of UF4...

Edited December 23, 2013 by Lightwarrior

[Eadrom]

Yes but... if this ship will be used for interplanetary travel this is not an option at all. I usually include lab into ship, but attach those fuel containers to docking ports to be able to replace them when needed. So no complex design is needed here, only the lab itself.

If it's a one time or an uncommon trip, then sure. But if you are going to say Moho or if you frequent Jool and its moons, it might be better to have a service station to refuel and reprocess the reactors and such. I'm not saying to leave it off every ship, but if you can foresee wanting to send two or three ships with the same utility, see if you cut that utility out if those vessels and make a support vessel to perform that utility.

I find that this makes for needing to use more vessels and stations, but each one is more efficient and smaller and thus runs faster on my computer. YMMV and obviously do what works best for you!

[Filippe999]

I've just put a warehouse with six Gigantor arrays and two heat radiators, but the radiators are not radiating the heat away, they have no power convected ratings.

i would post the pic, but i can't seem to upload right now

[Lightwarrior]

Yes, may be making separate utility vessels is good idea... but i just like building those huge self-sufficient interplanetary ships

By the way science progress during career works really interesting with this. Something like:

1. First nuclear reactors. Huge thermal rocked powered ship with low efficiency.

2. Upgraded reactors, even more huge DT Vista powered ship. Also "not so efficient" because of size/weight.

3. Upgraded fusion reactors. Again DT Vista and this time small/efficient ship, even capable of Kerbin takeoff without any LV.

All this is definetely fun to design/test.

And also those attempt to power DT Vista by unupgraded generator... it is possible. Barely. Using 3.75m thorium upgraded reactor and 12 huge + 8 medium radiators. Was fun to design it in such way that it can be launched from kerbin and does not rip itself apart while maneuvering. Resulted in ~250T monster, partially assembled in orbit.

[jordanjay29]

Okay, now that I have my antimatter collection farm up and running, I'm encountering another couple problems.

Around MET: 537:03:27:00 the station goes behind Kerbin for a longer period than normal, and that winds up draining my batteries completely. I pulled out of time warp before any shutdown explosions occurred, but I noticed the Thermal Power completely depleted. I deactivated the Electric Generator to build up more TP, but this started my explosion countdown. I couldn't find any way to turn the generator back on, or to shut down the Antimatter Containment Devices, although at one point I thought they had a 'Stop Charging' button.

A similar problem occurs to the antimatter collector ferry I docked with the farm station. I started transferring antimatter to the ferry, but once I undock the electric charge starts draining like mad. It seems like the collector got used to having Megajoules and getting an Antimatter charge right from the collectors, rather than a mere transfer. Like a drug addict, once it was hooked....well, things went downhill for my ferry after that. The electric charge ran out, and even my small little solar panels couldn't help it, so the containment unit went into explosion mode and detonated.

What did I mess up here? Or what should I be doing instead? Does the containment units need Megajoules even when not charging/collecting antimatter? What happened to the 'Stop Charging' button that was present on my test vehicles before?

[Fractal_UK]

Okay, now that I have my antimatter collection farm up and running, I'm encountering another couple problems.

Around MET: 537:03:27:00 the station goes behind Kerbin for a longer period than normal, and that winds up draining my batteries completely. I pulled out of time warp before any shutdown explosions occurred, but I noticed the Thermal Power completely depleted. I deactivated the Electric Generator to build up more TP, but this started my explosion countdown. I couldn't find any way to turn the generator back on, or to shut down the Antimatter Containment Devices, although at one point I thought they had a 'Stop Charging' button.

A similar problem occurs to the antimatter collector ferry I docked with the farm station. I started transferring antimatter to the ferry, but once I undock the electric charge starts draining like mad. It seems like the collector got used to having Megajoules and getting an Antimatter charge right from the collectors, rather than a mere transfer. Like a drug addict, once it was hooked....well, things went downhill for my ferry after that. The electric charge ran out, and even my small little solar panels couldn't help it, so the containment unit went into explosion mode and detonated.

What did I mess up here? Or what should I be doing instead? Does the containment units need Megajoules even when not charging/collecting antimatter? What happened to the 'Stop Charging' button that was present on my test vehicles before?

When Antimatter Storage Tanks have antimatter in them, they require power and the "Stop Charging" button dissappears, you can only stop charging a tank that has no antimatter because stopping charging a partially or fully filled tank is like pushing a button labelled "explode". They are very benign when they are empty so that's why you're seeing such a big difference.

The antimatter tanks, especially the larger ones, require quite a bit of power to actually contain the antimatter. It can certainly be met by solar panels but you'll definitely want to add quite a few batteries for those periods when you're in darkness.

You can see how much power each tank will need in the VAB.

[jordanjay29]

When Antimatter Storage Tanks have antimatter in them, they require power and the "Stop Charging" button dissappears, you can only stop charging a tank that has no antimatter because stopping charging a partially or fully filled tank is like pushing a button labelled "explode". They are very benign when they are empty so that's why you're seeing such a big difference.

The antimatter tanks, especially the larger ones, require quite a bit of power to actually contain the antimatter. It can certainly be met by solar panels but you'll definitely want to add quite a few batteries for those periods when you're in darkness.

You can see how much power each tank will need in the VAB.

Thanks.

So that just means I poorly designed this ferry.

[pina_coladas]

I'm still a little confused about the thermodynamics simulation. Upgraded radiators really do have identical emissivity to unupgraded radiators? So they behave exactly the same way, only they have a higher maximum temperature, which you need when you start upgrading reactors. Okay, clear enough. But at one point you said that it was somehow a bad idea to use upgraded radiators on unupgraded reactors, and this is where the confusion started. Yeah, they won't reach their full potential when stuck at low temperatures but they shouldn't be any worse than the lower tier radiators, assuming you use the same number of them (maybe this is what you were trying to convey - you'd have to use just as many). If that's the case then there's been a lot of arguing in here over nothing.

Just out of curiosity, how does waste heat work exactly? Does each part get a waste heat capacity based on an assumed specific heat capacity and mass of the part? Are waste heat units Joules or something arbitrary?

Also, to the people complaining about the huge mass of radiators you need for the basic nuclear reactors... I haven't done the math or anything but my understanding is that that's one of the key problems of in-space nuclear electric propulsion - the power to weight ratio is crap when you account for the radiators. Which is why higher-temperature technologies are better (your radiator temperatures can get higher while still maintaining a healthy delta T between the reactor and radiators, and higher radiator temperature means less mass of radiator is required). This is why that Kirk Sorenson guy has such a huge space nerd boner over molten salt thorium reactors - they can operate at higher temperatures than some of the other nuclear technologies that have been explored, which is good for space stuff. So anyway, I think it's fine and cool that the first tier nuclear reactors in this mod are kinda crappy and only have niche uses, and that things start to get good once you can reach higher temperatures. It's sci-fi in a realistic way.

[Fractal_UK]

I'm still a little confused about the thermodynamics simulation. Upgraded radiators really do have identical emissivity to unupgraded radiators? So they behave exactly the same way, only they have a higher maximum temperature, which you need when you start upgrading reactors. Okay, clear enough. But at one point you said that it was somehow a bad idea to use upgraded radiators on unupgraded reactors, and this is where the confusion started. Yeah, they won't reach their full potential when stuck at low temperatures but they shouldn't be any worse than the lower tier radiators, assuming you use the same number of them (maybe this is what you were trying to convey - you'd have to use just as many). If that's the case then there's been a lot of arguing in here over nothing.

That is correct, upgraded radiators are never worse than their unupgraded counterparts but they might not be any better.

The only difference between upgraded and unupgraded radiators in this respect is that upgraded radiators can get hot enough that if you don't put enough on, generator efficiency can actually go to zero. The unupgraded radiators never get hot enough to cause generator efficiency to go to zero but, of course, they do still cool the ship far more slowly. I think that is why there is some confusion.

Just out of curiosity, how does waste heat work exactly? Does each part get a waste heat capacity based on an assumed specific heat capacity and mass of the part? Are waste heat units Joules or something arbitrary?

Basically, reactors produce WasteHeat equal to their ThermalPower and generators consume an amount of WasteHeat equal to their electrical output. This is basically assuming that 100% of the energy that becomes electrical power does something useful and the rest is useless. Thermal rockets use up all the WasteHeat that their reactor is producing to power them, meaning they can always be powered without heat buildup.

The radiators calculate their temperature based on either the minimum reactor temperature or their own maximum temperature, whichever is higher. They start at the ambient temperature and then increase in temperature and thus WasteHeat dissipation until they hit the maximum temperature they can achieve - the amount they radiate at any given moment is determined by how full the WasteHeat bar is.

Also, to the people complaining about the huge mass of radiators you need for the basic nuclear reactors... I haven't done the math or anything but my understanding is that that's one of the key problems of in-space nuclear electric propulsion - the power to weight ratio is crap when you account for the radiators. Which is why higher-temperature technologies are better (your radiator temperatures can get higher while still maintaining a healthy delta T between the reactor and radiators, and higher radiator temperature means less mass of radiator is required). This is why that Kirk Sorenson guy has such a huge space nerd boner over molten salt thorium reactors - they can operate at higher temperatures than some of the other nuclear technologies that have been explored, which is good for space stuff. So anyway, I think it's fine and cool that the first tier nuclear reactors in this mod are kinda crappy and only have niche uses, and that things start to get good once you can reach higher temperatures. It's sci-fi in a realistic way.

For realistic power generation systems in space, the golden rule is that 50% of the system mass is radiators. If you want to run the 3.75m reactor in space at 100% power, then you will find that that is approximately correct in the mod.

That said, you don't neccessarily need to run the system at 100% power - because thermal rockets have open cycle cooling you can make use of the reactor at 30% power for electrical purposes and still be able to run the reactor at 100% throttle without ever having WasteHeat issues.

My general approach has been to build unupgraded nuclear rockets that only dissipate the resting 30% WasteHeat because then you only need 30% of the radiator mass.

Due to the power scaling, the smaller reactors are a little easier to cool with their associated radiator size.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[jordanjay29]

That said, you don't neccessarily need to run the system at 100% power - because thermal rockets have open cycle cooling you can make use of the reactor at 30% power for electrical purposes and still be able to run the reactor at 100% throttle without ever having WasteHeat issues.

Will there ever be a feature in which users (or Kerbals) can adjust the output of a reactor? I've noticed such a feature included in Near Future Propulsion for its reactors to run at a custom percentage output. This is quite useful if one somehow manages to underestimate the amount of radiators or a radiator gets damaged/destroyed by unforeseen circumstances.

[Tharios]

Further note...no radial intakes function at all with the pre-coolers. I assume then that they're specifically set to recognize only inline intakes, since it recognizes them even from other mods?

[AerospaceME]

Thanks.

So that just means I poorly designed this ferry.

It wasn't poorly designed, just poorly named. You should have called it an AM torpedo instead of an AM ferry.

[Lightwarrior]

BTW how much WasteHeat (in % of maximum) is needed for radiators to reach there maximum temperature? It seems that WasteHeat need to be 100% full and this is impossible (radiators will never reach maximum temperature because at 95% reactor will shutdown). Or i am wrong?

It also would be quite usefull to have those "% of maximum" reading displayed somewhere.

[Fractal_UK]

Will there ever be a feature in which users (or Kerbals) can adjust the output of a reactor? I've noticed such a feature included in Near Future Propulsion for its reactors to run at a custom percentage output. This is quite useful if one somehow manages to underestimate the amount of radiators or a radiator gets damaged/destroyed by unforeseen circumstances.

Maybe, I mean, you do have automatic reactor power adjustment and you'd still be stuck by the 30% minimum anyway so some kind of controllable output would only apply in a limited selection of circumstances. I've thought about adding it but my conclusion was that I don't think I'd ever have a use for it. If other people tell me they would have a use for it, I could be convinced to add it though - it's probably only a 10 minute job.

Further note...no radial intakes function at all with the pre-coolers. I assume then that they're specifically set to recognize only inline intakes, since it recognizes them even from other mods?

Yeah, that's right. This is another one I'm interested in opinion on. I have considered some options for changing this to support radial intakes but, on the other hand, none of the radial intakes I've seen in the base game or in mods seem especially suited to pre-cooling. It isn't as if having no precoolers makes it impossible to build an SSTO spaceplane, it simply makes it a bit harder. So in many respects I'm inclined to say this is some kind design trade-off - you can use convenient small convenient radial intakes but that has the downside that you have to switch to LFO earlier. Or you can use the larger intakes and reach higher speeds and higher altitudes.

I do think some element of compromise is very important to represent in the design process.

BTW how much WasteHeat (in % of maximum) is needed for radiators to reach there maximum temperature? It seems that WasteHeat need to be 100% full and this is impossible (radiators will never reach maximum temperature because at 95% reactor will shutdown). Or i am wrong?

It also would be quite usefull to have those "% of maximum" reading displayed somewhere.

It is 100% but I cheekily used a power scaling in the WasteHeat percentage, so you'll get ~84% of maximum when the bar is only 50% full. The radiator temperature readout is a good guide to the amount of heat you're dissipating compared to maximum, of course it doesn't convert linearly.

I am interested in making some kind of WasteHeat summary (like the new megajoule power management display) in the future so I think I'll look into that rather attempting a more primitive solution.

[jordanjay29]

Maybe, I mean, you do have automatic reactor power adjustment and you'd still be stuck by the 30% minimum anyway so some kind of controllable output would only apply in a limited selection of circumstances. I've thought about adding it but my conclusion was that I don't think I'd ever have a use for it. If other people tell me they would have a use for it, I could be convinced to add it though - it's probably only a 10 minute job.

I'm interested. Even somewhat capped, it would still be useful.

[Lightwarrior]

...It is 100% but I cheekily used a power scaling in the WasteHeat percentage, so you'll get ~84% of maximum when the bar is only 50% full. The radiator temperature readout is a good guide to the amount of heat you're dissipating compared to maximum, of course it doesn't convert linearly.

...

I am asking because i had something around 1050-1100 with unupgraded radiators and upgraded reactor, and WasteHeat was almost full, ~93%.

But yes, with upgraded radiators it seems to work better.

[not-a-cylon]

Hello there! I love the concept of the mod so I went and installed it. I guess the purpose of this post is to find the answer to a few questions and to provide observations on my experience.

Now, I'm one for figuring things out on my own, but in the 4 days that I've played this mod, information that a new player (to this mod) needs is not readily available or is not clearly intuitive even with visiting the wiki or reading this guide.

note I'm playing the game in Career Mode

1. At the start of career mode, why is the player given ammonia/water tanks and then given thermal rockets and reactors much later? These extra resources confused me at first and made me feel like I was missing something while I frantically searched for what these mystery parts/resources were for. I found that water is for making LFO and ammonia for monopropellant through the ISRU. It took some considerable amount of digging to find this.

2. When I got the radiators, I understood that anything with solar panels/reactors/etc need radiators in order to function. I loved the form and function of these parts! However, I did not understand how much radiating was needed in order to keep my craft safe- I did not know how much waste heat solar panels/etc etc to produced.

3. When I got the reactors, thermal rockets, and combinations of fuel (liquid/LFO/Kethane/etc), I did not know how to accurately predict the thrust with each combination. ISP was a little more forgiving to understand as the information was cryptically placed in the tooltips- I think I might have eventually figured it out. The reason for needing this information is to ultimately find the [reactor+engine+set fuel amount]'s delta-v for a specific mass of payload. I think I'd have to do this manually as Mechjeb/Engineer, as far as I know, can't display the information.

4. I've dabbled VERY lightly in researching science for upgrading, so I might be missing the obvious. Is there a GUI in determining how much science you've accrued? How does one go about upgrading parts while in career mode?

5. How does the ISRU attach and how do you set up the base infrastructure in order to produce the reagents to produce the final product?

I hope my comment doesn't seem to harsh! This direction of the mod adds a refreshing touch of complexity to reward in the game, but I feel like some of this complexity can be avoided through:

1. A complete, organized list of parts, resources, and features in the wiki with descriptions (already starting to happen) and HOW to use them.

2. A series of guides and tutorials explaining how to use this mod. The guide I linked earlier begins to do that. The videos on youtube don't really do this- they look like a series of Let's Plays and really just focus on the obvious warp drive (which is TOTALLY AWESOME)

Thanks for your hard work! I hope you (or any of you Interstellar vets) can help me out here and continue to help out others with questions. I really want to stop being frustrated and really appreciate the scope of this mod.

[Gibster]

Hello there! I love the concept of the mod so I went and installed it. I guess the purpose of this post is to find the answer to a few questions and to provide observations on my experience.

Now, I'm one for figuring things out on my own, but in the 4 days that I've played this mod, information that a new player (to this mod) needs is not readily available or is not clearly intuitive even with visiting the wiki or reading this guide.

note I'm playing the game in Career Mode

1. At the start of career mode, why is the player given ammonia/water tanks and then given thermal rockets and reactors much later? These extra resources confused me at first and made me feel like I was missing something while I frantically searched for what these mystery parts/resources were for. I found that water is for making LFO and ammonia for monopropellant through the ISRU. It took some considerable amount of digging to find this.

2. When I got the radiators, I understood that anything with solar panels/reactors/etc need radiators in order to function. I loved the form and function of these parts! However, I did not understand how much radiating was needed in order to keep my craft safe- I did not know how much waste heat solar panels/etc etc to produced.

3. When I got the reactors, thermal rockets, and combinations of fuel (liquid/LFO/Kethane/etc), I did not know how to accurately predict the thrust with each combination. ISP was a little more forgiving to understand as the information was cryptically placed in the tooltips- I think I might have eventually figured it out. The reason for needing this information is to ultimately find the [reactor+engine+set fuel amount]'s delta-v for a specific mass of payload. I think I'd have to do this manually as Mechjeb/Engineer, as far as I know, can't display the information.

4. I've dabbled VERY lightly in researching science for upgrading, so I might be missing the obvious. Is there a GUI in determining how much science you've accrued? How does one go about upgrading parts while in career mode?

5. How does the ISRU attach and how do you set up the base infrastructure in order to produce the reagents to produce the final product?

I hope my comment doesn't seem to harsh! This direction of the mod adds a refreshing touch of complexity to reward in the game, but I feel like some of this complexity can be avoided through:

1. A complete, organized list of parts, resources, and features in the wiki with descriptions (already starting to happen) and HOW to use them.

2. A series of guides and tutorials explaining how to use this mod. The guide I linked earlier begins to do that. The videos on youtube don't really do this- they look like a series of Let's Plays and really just focus on the obvious warp drive (which is TOTALLY AWESOME)

Thanks for your hard work! I hope you (or any of you Interstellar vets) can help me out here and continue to help out others with questions. I really want to stop being frustrated and really appreciate the scope of this mod.

I feel the same exact way. I'm not sure whether to use the DT Vista as a launch engine or an interstellar engine and how to max things out and such. My one question is, What goes and does what and answer in simple terms like this is a good landing engine with this fuel and basic setup, etc. I love this mod but its so confusing to newcomers.

[Lightwarrior]

BTW TAC Fuel Balancer can provide some surprisingly usefull info about WasteHeat:

Lander just docked so its radiators are hotter.

I feel the same exact way. I'm not sure whether to use the DT Vista as a launch engine or an interstellar engine and how to max things out and such. My one question is, What goes and does what and answer in simple terms like this is a good landing engine with this fuel and basic setup, etc. I love this mod but its so confusing to newcomers.

But is not it the most interesting part of the game to figure it out yourself? Few test flights and you will understand how it really works. As for me those "documentation" and "guides" will just spoil the process.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Lightwarrior

[jordanjay29]

But is not it the most interesting part of the game to figure it out yourself? Few test flights and you will understand how it really works. As for me those "documentation" and "guides" will just spoil the process.

I don't know about the poster you quoted, but for me as a Computer Science student, documentation and guides are the first thing I check to learn something new. I don't see the point in reinventing the wheel when someone has written some documentation that explains it. It saves me time and effort, and then I can spend that time and effort on creating something useful with that new knowledge.

Your approach is fair, but realize that there are those who don't see it as you do.

[pina_coladas]

Hello there! I love the concept of the mod so I went and installed it. I guess the purpose of this post is to find the answer to a few questions and to provide observations on my experience.

The current dev build of mechjeb does support this pack's thermal engines. I think I saw somewhere that it still doesn't know how to handle plasma engines but that's another story. Get it here: http://jenkins.mumech.com/job/MechJeb2/

Fractal says he's looking to replace the ISRU part with one that attaches properly and isn't so unwieldly. As for how to use it, I don't know. I have a feeling there's all sorts of crazy business going on with different resources having different fuel flow logics and stuff like that complicating everything. I wouldn't even try to play with ISRU stuff without TAC fuel balancer installed, honestly. I blame squad for neglecting to develop their resource system beyond a clunky placeholder state, forcing modmakers to hack around it. Hope they clean that up someday...

[DerekL1963]

I don't know about the poster you quoted, but for me as a Computer Science student, documentation and guides are the first thing I check to learn something new. I don't see the point in reinventing the wheel when someone has written some documentation that explains it. It saves me time and effort, and then I can spend that time and effort on creating something useful with that new knowledge.

Your approach is fair, but realize that there are those who don't see it as you do.

That goes for me too... As someone who was a submariner and worked with nuclear weapons - my first impulse is to reach for, and diligently study, the documentation. That's why I've been following this thread, but haven't installed the mod.