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

[Lightwarrior]

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.

Yes, and i fully agree with this if we are talking about work. But this is the game. More, game about those "practical science" when you just "put everething together and see how it goes". Documentation here (except just basic controls and UI usage) instantly removes part of the game.

...

Yes, i understand. But then... someone need to spend some time and write those documentation. It is not so fast and easy, and possibly can take more time than plugin development itself... i think as a Computer Science student you shold understand this...

p.s. i could have spent some time making something like few guides, but with my "not so good" knowledge of English i am afraid it will look "not so good".

Edited December 23, 2013 by Lightwarrior

[Eadrom]

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...

Interstellar's resource system is actually well implemented in my experience. Some of the support mechanics for the resource system could use, and are getting, polishing. But overall, it is a job well done, even more so considering how quickly Fractal coded it in. Where I expect to find a resource, I find it and am able to collect it, no problems. With how quickly the resource system changed from simply mining a couple types of KSPI fuels to almost a full blown resource tree, I am very impressed.

It even has hooks built in for editing its respite system. That feature, released in 0.9, has made it possible for me to start my own little modding venture and successfully integrate TAC Life Support's water resource into Interstellar's resource system. I'll be publishing my little adding probably tomorrow.

Personally, not once have I wished I had fuel balancer nor had the need to use it.

[Northstar1989]

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.

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.

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.

What about emissivity differences? As I pointed out, the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation includes a term for emissivity (effectively how capable a given material is at radiating or absorbing heat), and Graphene radiators have a much higher emissivity than metal radiators in real life? My number-crunching before seemed to indicate the Graphene radiators had a roughly 25% greater emissivity (their maximum thermal radiance is higher than you would expect just from extrapolating the metal radiators to higher temperature ranges), which sounds reasonable...

Not to sound like a nag- but did you look at my numbers before? I agree, the station I discussed before did not have enough radiator area to deal with all the WasteHeat produced (nor did the 3.75m reactor with only 4 medium radiators- which can radiate up to 560 MW power, but produced 900 MW of heat on standby mode), but the generator efficiency still did decline MUCH more quickly than mathematical prediction indicates it properly should *IF* WasteHeat = 100% is when the maximum radiator/reactor temperatures are both reached... (and not before)

(the reactor doesn't necessarily need to be on all the time- the station is manned, and I'm willing to turn off the reactor at regular intervals- but the efficiency plummeting much more quickly than it should with WasteHeat accumulation makes this strategy much less feasible)

[MainSailor]

Maybe this has been covered, but with 478 pages thus far it's kind of hard to search through the whole thread...but are there any plans to add science definitions and points to the parts that don't have them (i.e., the liquid chromatograph and the gamma ray spectrometer)? I like attaching these to probes and while seeing results from the instruments is cool, I think it'd be great to get points from them too. I looked into writing a Module Manager definition but I still don't understand how some of the .cfg file lines work to actually give you points from data.

[Northstar1989]

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.

Ahh, now *THAT* explains why my mathematical predictions didn't work at all. It does, however, also mean that the temperature builds up much more quickly than it should at first (when the WasteHeat % is low), and slowly later on (when the WasteHeat % is high), if WasteHeat is produced at a constant rate while the bar fills up...

On an entirely different note, I would very much like to see smaller versions of the Aluminum Hybrid Rocket Engines- more suitable for smaller craft and landers. Also, is it possible you could get an original texture for them? I find the resized Route-10 booster texture currently in use (in the version I am running, at least) to be quite ugly, as well as the Aluminum Hybrid Rocket Engines to be almost unusably large.

Also, please don't forget about the emissivity issue I raised before. If the radiators don't already reflect emissivity differences, they should- and Graphene radiators should radiate more heat at a given temperature (relative to metal radiators) as a result of their higher emissivity... Look up emissivity with regards to the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation if you're not sure what I'm talking about- no material is a perfect black-body, and the emissivity reflects how closely a material approaches being one (Graphene is a much better black body than most metals).

Regards,

Northstar

[Northstar1989]

Maybe this has been covered, but with 478 pages thus far it's kind of hard to search through the whole thread...but are there any plans to add science definitions and points to the parts that don't have them (i.e., the liquid chromatograph and the gamma ray spectrometer)? I like attaching these to probes and while seeing results from the instruments is cool, I think it'd be great to get points from them too. I looked into writing a Module Manager definition but I still don't understand how some of the .cfg file lines work to actually give you points from data.

*MIGHT* be a little overpowered, considering how many other parts already add Science. But what *WOULD* be nice, would be to see definitions of science values using the Magnetometer for the new planets introduced in Krag's Planet Factory Mod: (http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceP...sentar_system/)

Edited December 23, 2013 by Northstar1989

[MainSailor]

*MIGHT* be a little overpowered, considering how many other parts already add Science. But what *WOULD* be nice, would be to see definitions of science values using the Magnetometer for the new planets introduced in Krag's Planet Factory Mod: (http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceP...sentar_system/)

I hadn't thought about is being overpowered. I'm basically completed with the 'stock' tech tree as it is, and only earning science points to try to unlock some of the '9th tier' mod parts. Once you've dropped probes and whatnot on the planets with stock science instruments, it feels like you kind of get to the point where you're running out of data sources.

I haven't played with the Krag's mod at all, but I guess learning the syntax to build custom defs would help build them for the other planetary bodies via a MM file too.

[Donziboy2]

Fractal_UK would it be possible to scale the Thermal TurboJet, Fusion Reactor, Intake Precooler and Ram Air Intakes to 2.5m parts?

My most recent monster has 16 Thermal TurboJets and the parts count is 347, 130 of which is the TurboJets/Reactors/Intakes/Ram air + engine pylon....

[jordanjay29]

Yes, and i fully agree with this if we are talking about work. But this is the game. More, game about those "practical science" when you just "put everething together and see how it goes". Documentation here (except just basic controls and UI usage) instantly removes part of the game.

...

Yes, i understand. But then... someone need to spend some time and write those documentation. It is not so fast and easy, and possibly can take more time than plugin development itself... i think as a Computer Science student you shold understand this...

p.s. i could have spent some time making something like few guides, but with my "not so good" knowledge of English i am afraid it will look "not so good".

I agree, someone needs to spend the time. Unfortunately, you can see that I barely have enough knowledge right now to play Interstellar, much less help others. I'd much prefer to leave the task up to someone with more wisdom.

If you want to publish those guides, I'm sure someone would be willing to help you polish them.

[Northstar1989]

Fractal_UK would it be possible to scale the Thermal TurboJet, Fusion Reactor, Intake Precooler and Ram Air Intakes to 2.5m parts?

My most recent monster has 16 Thermal TurboJets and the parts count is 347, 130 of which is the TurboJets/Reactors/Intakes/Ram air + engine pylon....

For that matter, why are you getting rid of the Atmospheric Scoop Intakes, Fractal? I hate clutter in my resource display, and it was so nice to have an intake that produced ONLY the IntakeAtm that I needed to run the turbojets (which I am trying to use on Duna as well) rather than both IntakeAtm *AND* IntakeAir- the latter of which most of my designs don't use (and the intakes don't produce on Duna anyways...)

Also, maybe I shouldn't point this out, but you can run almost twice as many thermal turbojets on the same number of Ram intakes on Kerbin if you have a large enough number (at least 3), and run some on IntakAtm, and some on IntakeAir... And if you DON'T do this, then the IntakeAir you aren't using just weighs you down (as it has weight) unless you custom disable each individual intake from accepting the resource, and empty all your intakes of the resource with TAC Fuel Balancer, before each takeoff/reentry.

I too would greatly like to see 2.5 meter versions of the thermal turbojets (the 2.5 meter reactors also have better power-weight ratios than the 1.25 meter reactors, so this would also improve my TWR), as larger versions to use larger reactors (for precisely the TWR reasons mentioned) were a technology that they were actually working on when they abandoned the thermal turbojet projects back in the 60's/70's... It would be GREAT for my strategic-lifter designs meant to operate on Duna (where lower gravity makes weight less of an issue...)

I would also GREATLY prefer if the Atmosphere Scoops stayed in the game (and maybe were even upscaled to have a 3.75 meter version to go with 2.5 meter thermal turbojets)- as I already have a number of existing thermal turbojet vessel designs that use them, and several such craft in operation; and they are currently the only part that allows me to use 2.5 meter intakes, so I don't need to intake-spam to run my engines at high altitude... (this saves me a LOT of part-count and lag)

Edited December 23, 2013 by Northstar1989

[Filippe999]

Did anyone fixed the issue with radiators not working? if they don't work, i'll be forced to use either fission reactors from near-future or their solar panels as they don't produce wasteheat

[Fractal_UK]

Did anyone fixed the issue with radiators not working? if they don't work, i'll be forced to use either fission reactors from near-future or their solar panels as they don't produce wasteheat

There is no issue with radiators not working. They work perfectly.

[Gibster]

I agree, someone needs to spend the time. Unfortunately, you can see that I barely have enough knowledge right now to play Interstellar, much less help others. I'd much prefer to leave the task up to someone with more wisdom.

If you want to publish those guides, I'm sure someone would be willing to help you polish them.

I quite agree, you see, I'm a casual gamer, even though I might play games more than others I tend never to go hardcore on something, if something irritates me and the game just isn't "fun" any more I'll stop playing it and go back to another game, be it TF2 or War Thunder or whatever else I'm in the mood for. When I want to do something in a game, I'll try by myself a few times and if it proves to be harder than that I go look up a guide, because I have neither the patience or time. Never the less I really like KSP and have enjoyed every minute of playing it. My point is that some of us just prefer to play using guides because that's our play style and as a casual gamer who really wants to learn how to use this mod effectively, a dedicated guide and up to date data base for all players would be extremely helpful, especially for such a massive mod.

[Fractal_UK]

For that matter, why are you getting rid of the Atmospheric Scoop Intakes, Fractal? I hate clutter in my resource display, and it was so nice to have an intake that produced ONLY the IntakeAtm that I needed to run the turbojets (which I am trying to use on Duna as well) rather than both IntakeAtm *AND* IntakeAir- the latter of which most of my designs don't use (and the intakes don't produce on Duna anyways...)

Because they 1) Have an intake area 4x too large, 2) Don't produce any drag and 3) Don't produce both IntakeAtm and IntakeAir (which is totally illogical).

At the moment, the module that produces IntakeAtm is ideally suited to being attached to existing stock and modded intakes because the stock intake module takes care of the drag calculations. If I was to keep a solely IntakeAtm intake, I'd have to write an extension to the existing class that added drag calculations and the result would be a bizarre creation that took in Atmosphere from Kerbin without collecting any oxygen.

I too would greatly like to see 2.5 meter versions of the thermal turbojets (the 2.5 meter reactors also have better power-weight ratios than the 1.25 meter reactors, so this would also improve my TWR), as larger versions to use larger reactors (for precisely the TWR reasons mentioned) were a technology that they were actually working on when they abandoned the thermal turbojet projects back in the 60's/70's... It would be GREAT for my strategic-lifter designs meant to operate on Duna (where lower gravity makes weight less of an issue...)

Larger turbojets, however, will probably get added soon.

What about emissivity differences? As I pointed out, the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation includes a term for emissivity (effectively how capable a given material is at radiating or absorbing heat), and Graphene radiators have a much higher emissivity than metal radiators in real life? My number-crunching before seemed to indicate the Graphene radiators had a roughly 25% greater emissivity (their maximum thermal radiance is higher than you would expect just from extrapolating the metal radiators to higher temperature ranges), which sounds reasonable...

At the moment all radiators are assumed to have emissivity = 1. My impression is that, in space radiator systems, the practical emissivity is almost always very close to 1 and that choice of material actually makes only the most marginal difference. The value would start comfortably over 0.9 for the unupgraded radiators (most likely even higher than 0.95) so I don't really see the point of modelling it.

Yes, and i fully agree with this if we are talking about work. But this is the game. More, game about those "practical science" when you just "put everething together and see how it goes". Documentation here (except just basic controls and UI usage) instantly removes part of the game.

...

Yes, i understand. But then... someone need to spend some time and write those documentation. It is not so fast and easy, and possibly can take more time than plugin development itself... i think as a Computer Science student you shold understand this...

p.s. i could have spent some time making something like few guides, but with my "not so good" knowledge of English i am afraid it will look "not so good".

If you want to write something on the wiki, I will be able to edit it afterwards. It is much quicker and easier for me to polish off someone's attempt at an explanation than for me to find the time to write all of it myself, in addition to trying to develop new features.

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.

Basically because there is nowhere else to put them. You don't really need to unlock these things and anywhere else I place them is awkward - I could add them in Nuclear Propulsion as NTR fuels or have them unlock along with the refinery but then what if you unlock one of those before the other? Why can't you have a tank of water, of all things?

Start feels like the least bad node to place them, rather than the best node, if that makes sense.

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.

Solar panels produce 50% of their capacity, their energy flow is assumed to be in KW. That means, in general, all the radiators will cool a whole load of solar panels to the point that one tiny radiator will almost always handle it, unless you're trying to stick something close to the sun.

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.

I fixed support for MechJeb in version 0.9 with Thermal Rockets, so you can toggle through all the fuel combinations in the VAB and see accurate thrust and delta-v values. I haven't tested it with Engineer but I presume it works just the same.

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?

There is the R&D building that tells you how much science you have.

Part upgrades are usually done automatically in the VAB (for free). You only need to manually upgrade components that are leftover from before you unlocked the tech node that gives you an upgrade. In those cases, you'll have an upgrade button and a science display on the right-click menu for the part.

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?

Use the side node on the refinery. The refinery has everything you need integrated into it for producing and refining resources. If it doesn't, you'll have to add fuel lines going from the thing you want to fill up to the refinery (i.e. in reverse order to what you expect).

[Gigi10012]

I have one question: Why when I rightclick science lab (In Career Mode) it shows only a 'lights on' button? and Why I cant extend radiator panels (when i rightclick it, it only shows 'WastedHeat') ? is this a bug or its just me doing something wrong?

Images:

Radiator:

Science Lab:

Parts:

1.25m 'KIWI' Nuclear Reactor:

Heat Radiator:

Science Lab:

Computer Core:

My KSP version 0.22

Interstellar Mod Version 0.9.1

thanks for reading

[Fractal_UK]

My KSP version 0.22

Interstellar version 0.9.X is for KSP version 0.23. It is not compatible with KSP 0.22.

[Gigi10012]

Thanks for Reply but Where I can Download older Interstellar which is compatible with KSP 0.22

thanks

[Gigi10012]

thanks for reply. I will download older version of interstellar mod

[Elan]

Electric generator has two versions - standard (Brayton or KTEC) and something like "direct power conversion" (I don't remember exactly). What does that do ? Also, could someone write it on the wiki ? Thanks.

[pina_coladas]

Electric generator has two versions - standard (Brayton or KTEC) and something like "direct power conversion" (I don't remember exactly). What does that do ? Also, could someone write it on the wiki ? Thanks.

Direct conversion is for fusion reactors only. Fusion reactors give off a fraction of their energy output as charged particles instead of thermal power (100% charged particles when in He3-He3 mode). Fractal made a detailed post about fusion reactors and direct conversion at one point but it's buried in the thread...

[Elan]

Direct conversion is for fusion reactors only. Fusion reactors give off a fraction of their energy output as charged particles instead of thermal power (100% charged particles when in He3-He3 mode). Fractal made a detailed post about fusion reactors and direct conversion at one point but it's buried in the thread...

Oh right, that's a good feature.

Anyway, someone should find all relevant posts by Fractal and put them on the wiki. It would save him a lot of time if he didn't have to respond to the same old questions.

[Doomydoom]

I was thinking about something to add: a railgun launch system. The space launch one described at the railgun wiki page would be 1.6km long and launch a package of almost 1.4 tons. The rail is chargeable in a matter of hours using 10MW it says. Something on a much smaller scale should be possible for launch from Kerbin.

[rosenkranz]

Did I miss something or do the plasma engines have no sound?

[biglightbt]

Hey Fractal. You have any tips on building a Fusion + Atmospheric turbojet space plane? I have tried just about every iteration I can imagine. Varying speed, adding engines, adding intakes, and it seems that irregardless of how many ram intakes I have on my twin engine/reactor craft I have the right most engine abruptly loses thrust at 14000M while going ~450m/s. It doesn't "flame out" with the usual pop and shower of sparks though, it just abruptly loses thrust from 150+kN down to 20kN or so, almost as if its throttle has been abruptly reduced. It's not just changing fuel modes either. I've tried a clean install already and the only mods I use are yours obviously, B9 Aerospace and KAS. I'm not even able to get high enough or fast enough to necessitate pre-coolers.

I get that the old Atmo intakes were hax and over powered but this is getting ridiculous.

Thanks for the help and the awesome mod! Even if I can't build a SSTO for s***.

[NotunMojarGame21]

I'm having problem with the heat radiator. No matter where I put them on, they seem to not reduce heat waste. Anyone know why this problem is persisting? Also any way to fix the issue where the solar panels? They generate heat waste too as is it by design, but it goes out of control when getting slightly closer orbit near the sun. Any way to fix that or remove it? I would love to edit the cfg file but have no idea.