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

Fractal_UK

By Fractal_UK
in KSP1 Mod Releases

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forsaken1111

forsaken1111

Posted
Posted
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.

You are indeed missing something. Did you actually look at the ISP for that setup? The thrust may be lackluster but the ISP is far better than the stock NERVA iirc.

Note: You want to test these things in space. Nuclear Reactor to thermal rocket is not a launch engine and not intended for atmospheric use.

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RadHazard

RadHazard

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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.

The smaller reactors are not very viable as thermal rockets before you upgrade them. Their primary use at a low tech level is either powering thermal turbojets or generating a large amount of electricity. The 2.5m and 3.75m unupgraded reactors have superior T/W with LFO over stock LV-Ns, although they are larger and heavier and have a lower ISP. The 3.75m can even match the LV-N in T/W using pure liquid fuel, which gives you superior ISP (915s vs 800s).

These numbers are all considering Uranium-powered reactors. If you swap to Thorium, your performance is even better, although not enough to make the 1.25m viable. Basically, if you want to use the low-tech reactors on a ship, you need to build big. You might as well stick a science lab (for reprocessing) on your ship and run thorium, which gives you even better performance for only a slight additional weight.

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Donziboy2

Donziboy2

Posted
Posted
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.

Bah RadHazard beat me to it...

Your thrust will increase about 2.5 times just between Launchpad and vacuum.

The early reactors don't really accel at anything. But that is no reason to wait till the upgraded reactors.... You can also upgrade parts after unlocking the tech node, so its not like your stuck with the crappy starter reactor forever on a craft.

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Fractal_UK

Fractal_UK

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

Yes it is.

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

The AGI core names are mainly derived from science fiction series, though there are one or two in-jokes that I put in for some friends.

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Patupi

Patupi

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Posted

Fractal? I thought I remembered you saying that the nuclear reactors, when connected to thermal rockets, gave varying thrust and isp based on the size of the reactor? IE, smaller reactor gives lower TWR, but higher ISP. I haven't seen any improvement in ISP on smaller reactors yet when I've tested them. It's all 915 ISP with liquid fuel. Did I mis-read what you meant?

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crypsis45

crypsis45

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Posted

Hello, where do the lithium tanks have to be in relation to the reactor to breed tritium? Does docking ports matter or it is controlled by crossfeed? I have the lithium tanks docked to my station by the six port standard connector and when I try to turn on tritium breeding from the reactor control it just clicks and doesn't engage the process. I docked a fussion reactor across from the tanks and when the reactor is offline the button engages at 0.00 per second for tritium breeding but as soon as I put the reactor online it reverts back to non-breeding. I haven't put any tanks directly on the reactor yet and hope I don't have to because it has taken hours to build the station in orbit. Thanks for any help you can offer, or any suggestions I can test on the launch pad.

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Fractal_UK

Fractal_UK

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Fractal? I thought I remembered you saying that the nuclear reactors, when connected to thermal rockets, gave varying thrust and isp based on the size of the reactor? IE, smaller reactor gives lower TWR, but higher ISP. I haven't seen any improvement in ISP on smaller reactors yet when I've tested them. It's all 915 ISP with liquid fuel. Did I mis-read what you meant?

Yeah, Isp is always the same because they all have the same reactor temperature. TWR changes significantly with size though because the power/weight ratio is much much better for the big reactors. Only way to change the Isp of the thermal rockets with nuclear reactors is upgrades and choice of fuel (Uranium or Thorium).

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BigD145

BigD145

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Posted
Hello, where do the lithium tanks have to be in relation to the reactor to breed tritium? Does docking ports matter or it is controlled by crossfeed? I have the lithium tanks docked to my station by the six port standard connector and when I try to turn on tritium breeding from the reactor control it just clicks and doesn't engage the process. I docked a fussion reactor across from the tanks and when the reactor is offline the button engages at 0.00 per second for tritium breeding but as soon as I put the reactor online it reverts back to non-breeding. I haven't put any tanks directly on the reactor yet and hope I don't have to because it has taken hours to build the station in orbit. Thanks for any help you can offer, or any suggestions I can test on the launch pad.

Ramp your speed up to 50-100 and check on those numbers again. I have docked hex tanks in orbit and it works at high time compression.

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crypsis45

crypsis45

Posted
Posted (edited)
Ramp your speed up to 50-100 and check on those numbers again. I have docked hex tanks in orbit and it works at high time compression.

Hey, First thanks for replying, I tried to ramp the speed up first 50 then 100, but the tritium doesn't generate, as before even when I click the button on the UI it just stays the same on the fussion reactor, on the fission reactor it clicks over to breed tritium when inactive but when activated it switches back and will not work.

I will try and re-install interstellar and try again I hope I can get this to work. As you can see below, it took four launches to put this together even with MechJeb docking was a pain. :huh:

There are docking ports at the red and tanks at the blue indicators.

I'm running MechJeb, Alchemy Technologies, Interstellar, B9, KWRocketry, Kethane, EnhancedNavBall, I think that is it. Right now it is not too big a deal, but later if I want to put a station over Jool for refueling it may be irritating.

qfafxx9.png

Also I forgot to say how much I love this game I have almost 400 hours on steam playing, and mods like this one really make it so much more fun and interesting.

Thanks for your help.

P.S. Yes, I need to figure out how to do images...

Edited by crypsis45
Read the FAQ...
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crypsis45

crypsis45

Posted
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Hey, yes I was ;.; I just check that and re-downloaded the mod, now I feel like an idiot for posting without checking for updates. But on the bright side after actually reading the beginner FAQ questions I now know how to post images. I'll check if it works now. Thanks again for the help and suggestions.

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RussPixie

RussPixie

Posted
Posted

Thought I'd share my latest project.

The Interplanetary Science Vessel Discovery.

Discovery is powered by a 3.75m Thorium fuelled Gas Core Nuclear Reactor and Thermal Rocket Engine, delivering ~ 11.5km/s dV at ~0.38 TWR.

EDDD002BD1E0351780DF2C1082D31FEF10258C3D

2A465191BE65E53A9E7DE1C6F7A82BC2B630FEE9

You will notice that Discovery has no landing capability, and will be used Primarily as a test bed for the various nuclear technologies and as an orbital science platform. I didn't want to do all the missions with just one vessel, so I'll be sending a larger ship with attached landers at the successful conclusion of Discovery's mission. Discovery is currently on her way to the Mun for a shakedown cruise before returning to Kerbin to collect the crew for her extended mission.

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Jivaii

Jivaii

Posted
Posted
Thought I'd share my latest project.

The Interplanetary Science Vessel Discovery.

Discovery is powered by a 3.75m Thorium fuelled Gas Core Nuclear Reactor and Thermal Rocket Engine, delivering ~ 11.5km/s dV at ~0.38 TWR.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/883002022436263852/EDDD002BD1E0351780DF2C1082D31FEF10258C3D/

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/883002022436473200/2A465191BE65E53A9E7DE1C6F7A82BC2B630FEE9/

You will notice that Discovery has no landing capability, and will be used Primarily as a test bed for the various nuclear technologies and as an orbital science platform. I didn't want to do all the missions with just one vessel, so I'll be sending a larger ship with attached landers at the successful conclusion of Discovery's mission. Discovery is currently on her way to the Mun for a shakedown cruise before returning to Kerbin to collect the crew for her extended mission.

The orange tanks...did you update them to 0.23 or someone else has? (That entire mod really)

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RussPixie

RussPixie

Posted
Posted
The orange tanks...did you update them to 0.23 or someone else has? (That entire mod really)

I did it myself. It's just adding a couple of lines to each config to enable them in the research tree. I stuck them all in the last few nodes along side the various stock parts as appropriate ie xenon tanks together etc. I've also made a few other changes/additions. The orange tanks in the image are actually just liquid fuel rather than fuel + oxidiser. I also added a couple of argon tanks etc using the xenon tanks as a template.

The easiest way to add the changes needed is to look at one of stock parts and copy the research lines into the various configs. I used editpad as it allowed me to do the changes to many files at once. I can't find a license for the mod so I'm not sure where we stand distributing the changed configs. I suppose you could always use module manager to make the changes, but I'm not that familiar with it, and the only reason it's in my install is because interstellar uses it.

Hope that helps

Russ

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NotunMojarGame21

NotunMojarGame21

Posted
Posted

Ok, the forum has 497 pages so far...I can't find out how to and where the answer to my question would lie. So I'm asking again (since I did before and my post was lost):

Is there a way to remove the heat build up from the solar panel? ALSO: No matter how many heat radiators I add to the body (be it the generator or reactor or whatever), they fail to dissipate heat. Heat waste builds up at a constant rate.

ANYONE? HELP!!!!?????;.;

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Lightwarrior

Lightwarrior

Posted
Posted (edited)
Ok, the forum has 497 pages so far...I can't find out how to and where the answer to my question would lie. So I'm asking again (since I did before and my post was lost):

Is there a way to remove the heat build up from the solar panel? ALSO: No matter how many heat radiators I add to the body (be it the generator or reactor or whatever), they fail to dissipate heat. Heat waste builds up at a constant rate.

ANYONE? HELP!!!!?????;.;

Try using timewarp and see if buildup will stop at some point.

Also inline radiators and small non-deployable radiators are ineffective in space.

Edited by Lightwarrior
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Amram

Amram

Posted
Posted
Ok, the forum has 497 pages so far...I can't find out how to and where the answer to my question would lie. So I'm asking again (since I did before and my post was lost):

Is there a way to remove the heat build up from the solar panel? ALSO: No matter how many heat radiators I add to the body (be it the generator or reactor or whatever), they fail to dissipate heat. Heat waste builds up at a constant rate.

ANYONE? HELP!!!!?????;.;

Radiators have to be hot to do their job. No wasteheat, no radiated heat either, so the radiators can't do anything at all until you build up wasteheat.

Its like the stock engine overheat mechanic. Showing overheat isn't a problem at all, just don't actually max out. Having wasteheat isn't a problem, its just a fact of life, but if you brought enough radiators you will never actually max out, so it won't be a problem.

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chaospockets109

chaospockets109

Posted
Posted

So I'm finally starting to wrap my head around how Interstellar works. One minor question: What can I refine on Minmus and Dres? The wiki doesn't mention either body and I'd rather not lug refineries, power plants and a bunch of storage containers there to find out... forgive my laziness but I'm trying to stave off building fatigue :)

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