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

[BigD145]

Is this compatible with earlier versions?

Most everything is version dependent and not backwards compatible at all. KSP changes too much with each version. That's just a general rule of thumb.

[Fractal_UK]

Is this compatible with earlier versions?

No, the changes to 0.23 were fairly extensive in certain areas that affect Interstellar (particularly the engines). Interstellar version 0.8.2.1 is compatible with KSP 0.22.

Again, make sure you don't download the above link if you have 0.23, it won't work.

[Donziboy2]

Fractal_UK what kind of Tritium breeding rates should we see and is there any benefit to using large reactors over small ones?

[Fractal_UK]

Fractal_UK what kind of Tritium breeding rates should we see and is there any benefit to using large reactors over small ones?

You'll see zero unless you timewarp up to about 100x or so due to the 0.23 changes to part.requestResource(). I don't have the figures to hand right now but it does scale with reactor thermal power (but not charged power).

[AeroEngy]

Having considered how anti-matter farming might be done I came up with this.

http://imgur.com/a/0rWhH

Twenty labs (354 parts total). It can produce 480mg of AM each day. If using plasma thrusters that is enough to put a 30t payload in orbit. (i'm just guessing based on my earlier attempts in sandbox mode)

That is just twenty. If i'm feeling ambitious I could expand that out to 50. If i was feeling like Whackjob I'd expand it out to 100+ and make a crawler that could transport 5 labs at a time.

Sadly, the Kracken covets this construction something fierce. I found out early on that every time I crawled out there with a new segment some kind of static builds up in the coordinate system. This affects KAS but it may affect docking as well. When 'docking' the segments together whichever side gets docked to gets hurled away at some insane speed. I found the only way to clear the issue was to quicksave (F5) and immediately quickload (F9) just before attempting a linkage.

Anyway, I can fill a 1.25m AM tank every 21 days which isn't bad.

Bags! How do I post an imgur album? Nothing I do wants to display correctly.

Here is how I use AM on the ground. I had a farm like yours at first but it became to much trouble. I use an orbiting farm w/ 108 collectors, a shuttle to ferry it from high to low orbit, a low orbit refeuling station, and a rover that can take loads from my low orbit station back to KSC.

The hardest part was getting the AM Farm into orbit in 1 piece. IT would have been easier to assemble in sections but I was stubborn and it took dozens of attempts.

FYI to post embedded IMGUR albums take just the last bit of the link imgur.com/a/syAv4 and wrap it in "

[imgUR]syAv4">

[imgUR]syAv4">Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Donziboy2]

You'll see zero unless you timewarp up to about 100x or so due to the 0.23 changes to part.requestResource(). I don't have the figures to hand right now but it does scale with reactor thermal power (but not charged power).

I tried that earlier before I asked, I had it running all the way to max warp and saw no number it stayed at 0. Does it matter where the tanks are located?

Edit...

Got it, it seems to very with reactor size, I tested with the unupgraded reactors. The 3.75 only needed 5x warp, the 2.5 needed 100x warp and the 1.25 needed 10000x warp.

0.04kg/d for 1.25, 0.45kg/d for 2.5 and 9kg/d for 3.75.

I was initially using the 62.5cm and 1.25m, 62.5cm output cant been seen even at max, and the 1.25 needs almost max warp lol.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Donziboy2

[Lightwarrior]

Alright I can't seem to reprocess nuclear fuel with the most recent update. I have spare capacity for depleted fuel, and somewhere to put the uranium. The reactor is more than half filled with Actinides. I got more than enough power of course. What could I be doing wrong? Does the reactor need to be shut down now?

Try using 100-1000 timewarp... reactor does not need to be shut down.

[Fractal_UK]

I tried that earlier before I asked, I had it running all the way to max warp and saw no number it stayed at 0. Does it matter where the tanks are located?

Edit...

Got it, it seems to very with reactor size, I tested with the unupgraded reactors. The 3.75 only needed 5x warp, the 2.5 needed 100x warp and the 1.25 needed 10000x warp.

0.04kg/d for 1.25, 0.45kg/d for 2.5 and 9kg/d for 3.75.

I was initially using the 62.5cm and 1.25m, 62.5cm output cant been seen even at max, and the 1.25 needs almost max warp lol.

Don't worry if you can't see it. Just activate the mode and you can switch away from the ship - unfocused generation of Tritium will still work fine and, along with high time warp speeds, those are most important.

[rosenkranz]

Here is how I use AM on the ground. I had a farm like yours at first but it became to much trouble. I use an orbiting farm w/ 108 collectors, a shuttle to ferry it from high to low orbit, a low orbit refeuling station, and a rover that can take loads from my low orbit station back to KSC.

The hardest part was getting the AM Farm into orbit in 1 piece. IT would have been easier to assemble in sections but I was stubborn and it took dozens of attempts.

FYI to post embedded IMGUR albums take just the last bit of the link imgur.com/a/syAv4 and wrap it in "[imgUR]" tags

http://imgur.com/a/syAv4

I shall remember the imgur tip, thanks much. That orbital farm looks almost exactly like the one i'm working on now but I am going to put it up in sections. at 4 tons each that must have been a bear to get into orbit.

Using KAS for quick docking at the ground farm it's not that much trouble. I was planning on that just for enough to get to orbit, not fill the tank. The idea was to have an orbital farm or two (or five) to collect most of this from.

Problem I have with your setup is that I use FAR and cannot for the life of me land anywhere near an intended target. It ends up being way too frustrating to make that work.

[Ailure]

Try using 100-1000 timewarp... reactor does not need to be shut down.

No actinides is being processed even at 100x timewarp, and I forgot to mention the refinery reports "Infinity hours remaining" which is it certainly didn't report before. So something is off but it's quite strange as I successfully managed to reprocess nuclear fuel under similar circumstances before.

[Lightwarrior]

No actinides is being processed even at 100x timewarp, and I forgot to mention the refinery reports "Infinity hours remaining" which is it certainly didn't report before. So something is off but it's quite strange as I successfully managed to reprocess nuclear fuel under similar circumstances before.

Try higher timewarps, for me it worked only at 1000+.

This is caused by stock game changes in 0.23, not Interstellar.

[metalpoetza]

I came across this via the Scott Manley videos - and it looks like an awesome extension to career mode. That said - my 0.23 career mode has completed probably 90% odd of the standard tech tree so far - and I really want to finish the official one before I expand it. So my question would be - how feasible would it be to stick this onto the end of a save-file with it's standard tech tree maxed out ? Or would I have to start a new career from scratch to get maximum joy out of it ?

[Eadrom]

I came across this via the Scott Manley videos - and it looks like an awesome extension to career mode. That said - my 0.23 career mode has completed probably 90% odd of the standard tech tree so far - and I really want to finish the official one before I expand it. So my question would be - how feasible would it be to stick this onto the end of a save-file with it's standard tech tree maxed out ? Or would I have to start a new career from scratch to get maximum joy out of it ?

The majority of Interstellar's parts are added in the extended tech tree appended after the stock tech tree ends. You'll need another 20,000 science to unlock all the Interstellar tech nodes added by the mod. The parts that are added in the stock nodes are pretty much on par with their stock counterparts. The only issue you will have if you add in Interstellar to your current game is that your existing ships and space stations will have waste heat issues. If you just finish your current missions and then immediately send small radiator modules to your existing space stations, that should mitigate those overheating issues.

I would recommend adding in this mod to the end of a career save. You don't need to start a new save to get the enjoyment out of this mod. You don't start to get Interstellar parts unlocked until late mid/late stock tech tree anyways, so you wouldn't have missed very much at all by adding in this mod at your level of tech progression.

[metalpoetza]

Thank you - that's awesome - I don't have that many existing ships out there - I have Kethane mining stations on the mun and minmus which acted as refuelers for multihop science labs I used in the early parts of the tree - but the last 2 tiers I've done mostly by doing interplanetary missions (I have thus far landed on every planet except Moho which I am currently busy with, eloo and eve - each time taking a full set of experiments and then bringing them home safely to kerbin using multi-stage orbital docking). So other than the two mining stations the only other things I have out there are Scansat's orbiting mun and minmus which I used during the multihop stages to find good landing spots in the biomes. Since everything out there is unmanned, if it blows up it's not that tragic

[SergeantBlueforce]

What does the radiation level in crew compartments do?

[SergeantBlueforce]

No, the changes to 0.23 were fairly extensive in certain areas that affect Interstellar (particularly the engines). Interstellar version 0.8.2.1 is compatible with KSP 0.22.

Again, make sure you don't download the above link if you have 0.23, it won't work.

Oh, and what I meant by this question is if the mod was compatible with earlier versions of the mod. So, is it?

Edited December 27, 2013 by SergeantBlueforce

[Shadoworgon]

I have a quick question. Has the amount of heat produced by the 62.5cm reactors changed? because ive never had a problem before with waste heat until i put one on my space station. I have 2 normal sized radiators, 4 small radial radiators , and 6 small radiators and my wast heat is still going up! (keep in mind nothing is upgraded yet)

[RadHazard]

What does the radiation level in crew compartments do?

At the moment, nothing. It's just flavor. In a future update there might be hazards to it, as well as countermeasures.

I have a quick question. Has the amount of heat produced by the 62.5cm reactors changed? because ive never had a problem before with waste heat until i put one on my space station. I have 2 normal sized radiators, 4 small radial radiators , and 6 small radiators and my wast heat is still going up! (keep in mind nothing is upgraded yet)

How high does your waste heat get? There was a change to the waste heat mechanics in the most recent version. Your radiators' temperatures are now dependent on the level of waste heat, meaning the more waste heat your ship accumulates, the hotter the radiators get and the more heat they radiate. This means that in almost all setups, waste heat will now go up at least a little bit before stabilizing at some value. If your station has only a single 62.5cm reactor and all those radiators, you shouldn't have to worry about overheating, as it should stabilize just fine.

[forsaken1111]

I have a quick question. Has the amount of heat produced by the 62.5cm reactors changed? because ive never had a problem before with waste heat until i put one on my space station. I have 2 normal sized radiators, 4 small radial radiators , and 6 small radiators and my wast heat is still going up! (keep in mind nothing is upgraded yet)

Your waste heat is always going to go up. It will rise until it stabilizes. If you have enough radiator capacity it will stabilize somewhere below the reactor's maximum temperature.

This is, as I understand it, part of the reworked thermal system. You will never have zero wasteheat any more, but instead your craft will reach an equilibrium point between heat producers and radiators. Your electrical generators will be more efficient if you can keep this equilibrium point low by including more radiatiors.

[Konnor]

I guess it is a reference. Or are these names generated randomly?

[Shadoworgon]

How high does your waste heat get? There was a change to the waste heat mechanics in the most recent version. Your radiators' temperatures are now dependent on the level of waste heat, meaning the more waste heat your ship accumulates, the hotter the radiators get and the more heat they radiate. This means that in almost all setups, waste heat will now go up at least a little bit before stabilizing at some value. If your station has only a single 62.5cm reactor and all those radiators, you shouldn't have to worry about overheating, as it should stabilize just fine.

ah ok I just noticed it was steadily going up i didnt wait to see if it stopped. Thanks for answering that lol was worried my station would be nothing but radiators lol

[Eeke]

Yeah I dunno.

As a simple test. I tried:

Small amount of LFO -> 1.25 Reactor -> 1.25 Nozzle

Essentially the smallest amount of weight possible.

With the entry level tech in Nuclear Engines that got me an amazing 13.6kN of thrust and drained my fuel in a relatively short amount of time.

The weight was large and it was by far the worst TWR/Isp of all forms of propulsion.

Either I'm missing something or there's just no reason to even have them there in the first place. If they're going to be that bad why not just remove then from that tier and give us the upgraded ones straight up later?

Those are orders of magnitude better and people seem to have success with them.

[Ailure]

Try higher timewarps, for me it worked only at 1000+.

This is caused by stock game changes in 0.23, not Interstellar.

Yup, this did the trick for me so thanks! My spacestation wasn't far out enough in orbit to timewarp at 1000x. But I moved it out in orbit and I see it now processes actinides properly. About time too, the reactor was up to 90% filled with actinides.

[rosenkranz]

I must say I'm enjoying the methane engines. However, the tank selection is a bit iffy. I like the new textures for the tanks. Is there any chance of a -16 and -8 equivalent?

Also for pictures sake, here's my orbital AM farm under construction.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Thx Hodo for the fix. I can see I was trying to hard

Edited December 27, 2013 by rosenkranz

[Hodo]

I must say I'm enjoying the methane engines. However, the tank selection is a bit iffy. I like the new textures for the tanks. Is there any chance of a -16 and -8 equivalent?

Also for pictures sake, here's my orbital AM farm under construction.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Geez! Still couldn't get the imgur thing to work

Fixed it for you...

To post imgur links it goes like this.

[] (imgur in the []) string of letters in your case SnJuH [/] (imgur after the / in the [])