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

[RadHazard]

My orbit 3.75m upgraded Fission Reactor gets overheated with 4 Huge Radiators... Is this the intended behavior?

http://than.pol.as/TC1P/screenshot17.png

Your radiators are not upgraded. The huge radiators only dissipate 300 MW each, and the upgraded reactor produces 9000 MW at full power. Your unupgraded generator will turn at least 70% of that into waste heat.

If you want to operate an upgraded 3.75m reactor in space with unupgraded radiators, you will need a minimum of 9 huge radiators, which are only enough to dissipate the heat produced by the reactor at 30%.

[Shad0wCatcher]

EDIT: Ninja'd by RadHazard. And much more thorough than my explanation.

[metalpoetza]

Hi Again - my quest to develop a full scale mission pack for KSP Interstellar to help players learn the abilities of the various parts is coming along nicely - covering each set of parts as they open up I've done basic nuclear rocketry, magnetometer scan missions and now a long range thermal jet mission. The next major part to be unlocked is the plasma reactors - there's a lovely guide on the wiki to using them with a microwave power network (and that guide would make an excellent mission pack I think) but I'm struggling to work out how best they could be applied (preferably in a science-gathering mission) before microwave power is unlocked ? Just a standard propellant for basic probes ? Something more ? Their many fuel options are a bit confusing too (the wiki explains them to a degree at least).

Basically - if you had just unlocked the plasma thrusters - how would you use them to in a space flight to score some science points ? Because whatever your answer is - is probably what my next mission should be.

[db48x]

Just a small progress update on the KSP_Interstellar Story Missions I'm developing - I've put out a new pre-release today which adds a second mission chain entitled "Magnets - how do they work" in which the player gets to use the dual magnetometer to scan for antimatter around Kerbin, Eve and Jool. I'm expecting some guests soon so I won't be working on this further today but I will be back and working on the next chain (thermal jets based) over the weekend.

https://github.com/ajventer/ksp_stuff/releases/tag/0.0.5

Shiny. I note however that the orbit for the Kerbin mission doesn't hit the ideal altitude of 900km; if put the requirement out around 2000km the orbit will cover the majority of the field. You may want to double-check the other missions for the same reason.

Can you grade a mission based on the rate of resource gathering? If so, a good mission would be to collect hundreds of mg of antimatter per day in Jool orbit. Or thousands, if you want to require that they have more than one collector.

[metalpoetza]

Shiny. I note however that the orbit for the Kerbin mission doesn't hit the ideal altitude of 900km; if put the requirement out around 2000km the orbit will cover the majority of the field. You may want to double-check the other missions for the same reason.

Can you grade a mission based on the rate of resource gathering? If so, a good mission would be to collect hundreds of mg of antimatter per day in Jool orbit. Or thousands, if you want to require that they have more than one collector.

And this is why I am doing prerelease versions I hadn't realised that the ideal for kerbin is that far out. I'll fix it by adding that as a target. The others may be closer already as their targets work from the outside in (since you aren't taking off from them).

Currently KSPStorymissions has no concept of resources so while I can write a mission to put collectors up (once they are unlocked for me) I cannot control their actual use. I have one more item in the current tier to unlock before starting the 550 tier.

[RadHazard]

Hi Again - my quest to develop a full scale mission pack for KSP Interstellar to help players learn the abilities of the various parts is coming along nicely - covering each set of parts as they open up I've done basic nuclear rocketry, magnetometer scan missions and now a long range thermal jet mission. The next major part to be unlocked is the plasma reactors - there's a lovely guide on the wiki to using them with a microwave power network (and that guide would make an excellent mission pack I think) but I'm struggling to work out how best they could be applied (preferably in a science-gathering mission) before microwave power is unlocked ? Just a standard propellant for basic probes ? Something more ? Their many fuel options are a bit confusing too (the wiki explains them to a degree at least).

Basically - if you had just unlocked the plasma thrusters - how would you use them to in a space flight to score some science points ? Because whatever your answer is - is probably what my next mission should be.

This is dependent on what you have unlocked. If all you have unlocked are basic nuclear reactors and generators, the best you can do is a large space tug with a 0.1 TWR (using a 3.75m Thorium Reactor + generator and xenon fuel, before any payload is attached). It's fairly useless unless you wanted to send a large nuclear reactor and generator combo somewhere for whatever reason. It would require a lot of patience though. If you go ahead and get fusion power, that same tug would have a 0.4 TWR and could actually work as a tug. At that point, you could also build a small fusion-powered plasma craft, which would have a decent TWR using xenon.

The unfortunate truth is that plasma engines are almost useless until you either get microwave transmission or fusion power. You can't get useful amounts of thrust out of them if you have to lug around an unupgraded fission reactor to power them.

[Lightwarrior]

When you get fusion power you can throw away those plazma thruster, put DT Vista on its plase and get ~1 TWR with higher efficiency.

Personally I found plasma thrusters usefull only for small probes with fusion reactors/power transmission, or for small manned crafts with AM reactor or power transmission when when i get plasma thruster upgrade and can abuse those unlimited fuel.

In all other cases either thermal nozzle or DT Vista seem to be better.

[Eadrom]

And this is why I am doing prerelease versions I hadn't realised that the ideal for kerbin is that far out. I'll fix it by adding that as a target. The others may be closer already as their targets work from the outside in (since you aren't taking off from them).

Currently KSPStorymissions has no concept of resources so while I can write a mission to put collectors up (once they are unlocked for me) I cannot control their actual use. I have one more item in the current tier to unlock before starting the 550 tier.

Check out these graphs for the optimal altitudes for collecting antimatter around the various bodies.

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

[dubhorizon]

I'm having the bug with the refinery unit in the VAB where when i hover with the mouse over it the icon keeps getting bigger till it fills the whole screen. I must have seen a fix somewhere, not sure if it was this thread though. Anyone with the link?

[metalpoetza]

Check out these graphs for the optimal altitudes for collecting antimatter around the various bodies.

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

Thanks those were very helpful - I've altered the ranges to cover the full areas of the graphs for each of the three bodies in this mission pack.

[metalpoetza]

This is dependent on what you have unlocked. If all you have unlocked are basic nuclear reactors and generators, the best you can do is a large space tug with a 0.1 TWR (using a 3.75m Thorium Reactor + generator and xenon fuel, before any payload is attached). It's fairly useless unless you wanted to send a large nuclear reactor and generator combo somewhere for whatever reason. It would require a lot of patience though. If you go ahead and get fusion power, that same tug would have a 0.4 TWR and could actually work as a tug. At that point, you could also build a small fusion-powered plasma craft, which would have a decent TWR using xenon.

The unfortunate truth is that plasma engines are almost useless until you either get microwave transmission or fusion power. You can't get useful amounts of thrust out of them if you have to lug around an unupgraded fission reactor to power them.

I'm not so sure I agree... I just built a massive science farming probe to Dres - it has an SC-9001, 4 Mystery Goo's, 3 SCANSat parts, a Magnetometer and an antenna. My previous designs for such probes usually used the LV-909 mini engines or since it was unlocked the LV-N motor. But those SCANSats in particular are truly power hungry so I started building them with generators and nuclear power ... on a whim I stuck an argon container and a plasma thruster on this one instead (all Interstellar parts on this one are 1.25m versions).

The only annoying thing I found is that the plasma thrusters won't let you change the fuel type in the VAB - though it automatically switched to Argon as soon as I launched so according to Engineer-Redux I had no delta-V in stage-0 at all in the VAB. As soon as I was launched though - I saw the numbers. 14600+ delta-V with a starting TWR of around 0.69 on a 12-ton probe.

I have never been able to match that with an LV-N - hell to get 14K delta-V out of an LV-N I would need so much fuel that the thing would end up weighing at least 30 tonnes, and thus my TWR would be in the 0.0x range (meaning massively long burns to get anywhere).

This makes it, unupgraded, by far the best probe engine I've ever had. I suppose the pure-liquid mode rocket nozzles may beat it (it will beat it on TWR - but even then not by much) but while I meant this probe to go to Dres I could send it anywhere - heck a variant of this could easily do a magnetometer scan anywhere in the Kerbol system including Kerbol itself.

Update: erm - okay - found the catch - once it started firing on the plasma thruster the TWR dropped to 0.035 - and just finishing my insertion orbit is estimated to take 11 hours of real-time. It will work, but it's going to take some careful planning and observation (nasty side effect of slow burns are they can actually take so long that you end up on the other side of your orbit and burning prograde when you started out retrograde or vice versa).

For a science-farming probe this is a fantastic engine already... and it may be worth designing a mission or two around that if only to help players unlock the next tier.

Edited January 4, 2014 by metalpoetza
Updated information

[Shad0wCatcher]

Metal: The TWR you were seeing I *believe* is based on the thruster receiving maximum power. It's a start but nowhere near an accurate "launch" number.

[metalpoetza]

I believe you're right - it went up a little when I shut down everything else drawing power - but the message is clear - to give the 1.25m thruster full power you need a LOT more than 1.25m generator+reactor, which means a lot more weight, which means a lot less TWR. I redesigned my probe with an LV-N instead - so I'll just be farming up some science now to start unlocking the next tier and start writing new missions from there, I honestly can't seem to find a suitable mission to showcase the pre-upgrade plasma-thrusters since they seem to be virtually useless.

[Shad0wCatcher]

Essentially they aren't an upgrade in the slightest until you can get some Thermal Microwave power going. Once you get fusion upgraded they become a marginal thruster (~0.5 G acceleration tops for a very light build). Once you get antimatter they're fairly amazing.

[Sandermatt]

EDIT: Sorry, was a stupid question, found the answer.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Sandermatt

[Donziboy2]

I'm having the bug with the refinery unit in the VAB where when i hover with the mouse over it the icon keeps getting bigger till it fills the whole screen. I must have seen a fix somewhere, not sure if it was this thread though. Anyone with the link?

What version of KSPI are you using?

[Shad0wCatcher]

Interstellar doesn't change the default tree. It only adds its own nodes at the end of the stock tree (along with a couple minor changes to the stock tree to give the proper "upgrades" to KSPI parts) Basically like adding in a hook to say "if this is unlocked then unlock this upgrade". DRE adds its parts to default tree nodes. As none of the default tree nodes are renamed in the KSPI tree they work just fine.

For Example, my Modlist is as follows and everything works correctly and shows up in its proper place on the tree: AIES (with MM config to add parts to nodes), B9, BeastlyScience, Biomass, Davon Thrust Corrector, Deadly Reentry, Extraplanetary Launchpads, RasterPropMonitor, Kerbal Attachment System, Kethane, FTMN Nuclear Rockets, KSPX, KSPI, KW Rocketry, Infernal Robotics, MechJeb2, Spherical/Toroidal tank pack, NFPP, SDHI's service Module, NothkeSerCom's Service Compartments, Novapunch2, PorkWorks (inflatable habitat module), Procedural Wing (need to add to tree still), RealChute, RealFuels, Stretchytanks, RLA_Stockalike parts, Romfarer Lasers, Station Science, and SurfaceLights.

That isn't counting the plugin mods I have installed. All work just fine with KSPI's tech tree.

[Donziboy2]

I believe you're right - it went up a little when I shut down everything else drawing power - but the message is clear - to give the 1.25m thruster full power you need a LOT more than 1.25m generator+reactor, which means a lot more weight, which means a lot less TWR. I redesigned my probe with an LV-N instead - so I'll just be farming up some science now to start unlocking the next tier and start writing new missions from there, I honestly can't seem to find a suitable mission to showcase the pre-upgrade plasma-thrusters since they seem to be virtually useless.

Try it with Xenon, you will get twice the thrust and half the ISP.

[dubhorizon]

What version of KSPI are you using?

I've got the 0.9 version. Downloading the latest at the moment. Aaaaaand it's fixed. Thanks

[RadHazard]

I believe you're right - it went up a little when I shut down everything else drawing power - but the message is clear - to give the 1.25m thruster full power you need a LOT more than 1.25m generator+reactor, which means a lot more weight, which means a lot less TWR. I redesigned my probe with an LV-N instead - so I'll just be farming up some science now to start unlocking the next tier and start writing new missions from there, I honestly can't seem to find a suitable mission to showcase the pre-upgrade plasma-thrusters since they seem to be virtually useless.

Try it with Xenon, you will get twice the thrust and half the ISP.

Try using the 62.5 cm thruster as well. The only difference between the sizes is their weight and the maximum amount of power they can use. You won't cap the 62.5 cm one using only nuclear power, so that saves you 0.833 tons of weight. It's not much, but it can make a difference for your small ships.

But yeah, it takes a lot of power to get usable levels of thrust from plasma. It takes 820 megawatts to match the LV-N's thrust using Xenon, after accounting for the power you lose from xenon's 69% efficiency. That's more power than what you can get out of any unupgraded fission reactor/generator combo.

[InfinityArch]

So I'm experiencing a rather unusual issue with my KSP right now: every so often (haven't been able to reproduce it reliably, it just happens on rare occasions), vessels will randomly duplicate when not focused on, leading to spontaneous explosions if you try to fly said vessel, and, given that I'm playing a heavily modded game, my first response has been to start removing mods one by one and seeing whether or not the issue persists. It's starting to look like either KSPI or remotetech is causing it. If it does get narrowed down to KSPI, how would you prefer I report this bug?

[Fractal_UK]

So I'm experiencing a rather unusual issue with my KSP right now: every so often (haven't been able to reproduce it reliably, it just happens on rare occasions), vessels will randomly duplicate when not focused on, leading to spontaneous explosions if you try to fly said vessel, and, given that I'm playing a heavily modded game, my first response has been to start removing mods one by one and seeing whether or not the issue persists. It's starting to look like either KSPI or remotetech is causing it. If it does get narrowed down to KSPI, how would you prefer I report this bug?

I'm fairly sure this was already identified as a RemoteTech issue.

[InfinityArch]

I see, never mind then.

[Dreadp1r4te]

Hey guys, another question for you. I'm having some trouble with B9 Aero's Sabre engines and precoolers. On my prototype SSTO, I have 3 Sabre M's with precoolers attached; I can burn at full throttle to my intake limit just fine, but once I switch to rocket mode, the engines start building up heat that doesn't dissipate. I'm not talking about Waste heat, either; I mean the engine Overheat bar. My engines are some distance from my CoM, so I figure that's why they're building up heat, which is fine; I can manage that. However, the fact that it isn't dissipating at all is problematic. If I comment out the lines in the KSPI ModuleManager "b9aero.cfg" file that add "ModuleSabreHeating," this problem goes away; however then they overheat in atmosphere, as I'm assuming the precoolers stop working.

In addition, if I right click on a precooler in the flight screen, it says "Precooler status: Offline." Is this normal? Do the changes to precoolers require power? If so, they don't give any indication of that in the tooltips.

Further testing: It seems in atmosphere, the engines in rocket mode will slowly dissipate heat; dissipating back to 0 almost instantly if I switch to air-breathing mode, provided there is air flowing in. Activating the engines in rocket mode at ALL in a vacuum causes spontaneous unplanned disassembly... i.e., overheat and explode. Any idea what could be causing this?

Edited January 4, 2014 by Dreadp1r4te

[Donziboy2]

Hey guys, another question for you. I'm having some trouble with B9 Aero's Sabre engines and precoolers. On my prototype SSTO, I have 3 Sabre M's with precoolers attached; I can burn at full throttle to my intake limit just fine, but once I switch to rocket mode, the engines start building up heat that doesn't dissipate. I'm not talking about Waste heat, either; I mean the engine Overheat bar. My engines are some distance from my CoM, so I figure that's why they're building up heat, which is fine; I can manage that. However, the fact that it isn't dissipating at all is problematic. If I comment out the lines in the KSPI ModuleManager "b9aero.cfg" file that add "ModuleSabreHeating," this problem goes away; however then they overheat in atmosphere, as I'm assuming the precoolers stop working.

In addition, if I right click on a precooler in the flight screen, it says "Precooler status: Offline." Is this normal? Do the changes to precoolers require power? If so, they don't give any indication of that in the tooltips.

From what I understand B9 is not updated to 0.23, until its updated you have to do some modification to make the B9 sabre work, try asking or reading back a few pages on the B9 thread.