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

[Monkeh]

Universe replacer and Nova Punch are pretty RAM heavy and i think the city lights one is quite a RAM hog too, not used that one myself, but I bet its Universe replacer, I had to get rid of most of the planets and just keep the EVA suits, faces and skybox to make it work with my mods.

You can also try trimming any parts from NovaPunch you don't use as well, every little helps, or even turn down the graphics settings a bit too.

[crazyewok]

Ok thanks Il start trimming the fat

[xfrankie]

Alright, so I deleted the B9 and a part of the problem seems to be gone. I launched simillar ship and the diabolical sliding out of view is gone (at least it didn't happen on this one launch). And the docking ports didn't disappear either.

Bad news is that the power bug still stands.

I definitely changed the generators to KTEC solid state (the heat type) and yet they appear to run on Charged power.

Also there is an antimatter reactor hidden between the two AM tanks, and it seems to produce power even though it has no antimatter.

here is ksp.log: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxSUXWRJIwcOUXBBdV9QVl9ZcGM/edit

Edited January 8, 2014 by xfrankie
added ksp.log

[metalpoetza]

Question: has anybody used the alcubierre drive with the Romfarer Lazor system (specifically - the blue lazers) ? Any advice on how this could be useful (if it is) ? I haven't actually used the warp drive yet - so I'm just trying to get a rough idea of how you're supposed to aim the thing

[RadHazard]

Would it be possible for you to implement upgrading parts via the tech tree? If not an actual upgrade, maybe have a hidden "relock" part and unlock a new part?

The mod actually already does this. Here's a list of all upgradable parts:

Experimental Electrics

Electric Generator: Brayton Turbine → KTEC Thermoelectric (better efficiency)

Heat Radiator: Mo Li Heat Pipe → Graphene Radiator (better efficiency)

Fusion Power

Nuclear Reactor: Solid Core Reactor → Gas Core Reactor (3x power output)

Thermal Turbojet: Atmospheric Thermal Jet → Hybrid Thermal Rocket (Basic version can only work in atmosphere, Upgraded version can toggle over to internal fuel)

Antimatter Power

D-T Inertial Fusion Reactor → High-Q Intertial Fusion Reactor

Ultra-High Energy Physics

Antimatter Reactor: Solid/Liquid Core Reactor → Liquid/Plasma Core Reactor (3x power output)

Plasma Thruster: Magnetoplasdynamic → Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster (uses no fuel)

Note that technology upgrades only apply to newly launched parts; parts on existing ship will need to be upgraded individually.

Individually upgraded parts (must always be upgraded manually using science):

Alcubierre Drive: Standard Field Geometry → Advanced Field Geometry (Faster charging times and higher maximum speeds)

Computer Core: Standard Mainframe → Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) Core (Guaranteed to open the pod bay doors while within warranty period!)

Alright, so I deleted the B9 and a part of the problem seems to be gone. I launched simillar ship and the diabolical sliding out of view is gone (at least it didn't happen on this one launch). And the docking ports didn't disappear either.

Bad news is that the power bug still stands.

I definitely changed the generators to KTEC solid state (the heat type) and yet they appear to run on Charged power.

Also there is an antimatter reactor hidden between the two AM tanks, and it seems to produce power even though it has no antimatter.

-Snip-

here is ksp.log: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxSUXWRJIwcOUXBBdV9QVl9ZcGM/edit

I have also encountered that issue with generators automatically becoming charged power generators. The antimatter reactor, however, doesn't appear to be an issue so much as an odd quirk of the resource system. It appears that the unused thermal power the fusion reactors are producing are filling up the antimatter reactor (as thermal power has VESSEL_ALL_FLOW). The generator attached to the reactor is able to make use of this thermal power as if the antimatter reactor were producing it. I assume that if you were to do something that demanded more power than the fusion reactors could provide you would starve the antimatter reactor of it's bleedthrough thermal power.

Question: has anybody used the alcubierre drive with the Romfarer Lazor system (specifically - the blue lazers) ? Any advice on how this could be useful (if it is) ? I haven't actually used the warp drive yet - so I'm just trying to get a rough idea of how you're supposed to aim the thing

I can't speak about using Romfarer, but I do know an easy way to aim yourself is to target the planet and use the pink guide markers on the navball to point yourself directly towards it.

[dbmorpher]

Blue Lazor wouldn't be nessesary because the drive essentially just translates you along your vector ignoring the effects of gravity so just point and go.

There is a problem i'm having though with electrical generators

When I put them onto Direct conversion mode they do not seem to function so I have had to go for the less efficient solid state versions.

[Fractal_UK]

There is a problem i'm having though with electrical generators

When I put them onto Direct conversion mode they do not seem to function so I have had to go for the less efficient solid state versions.

Direct conversion only works for fusion reactors (requires charged power).

[velusip]

I installed this mod for the heat management, but I may have the wrong idea about how it works. It seems like the heat sinks only function with the new "wasteheat" resource, and not "stockheat" (e.g. normal rockets producing normal heat and blowing themselves up). I really like how the normalheat now slowly dissipates from engines in low atmosphere (which makes spaceplane building way more fun), but the heatsinks don't seem to help balance that out. Are there different heatsinks for the task that I haven't unlocked yet?

Somewhat related, it seems like the precoolers don't do anything at all, but I'm going to go forum searching on that topic...

Using FAR, Deadly Reentry, and KSPInterstellar.

[CleverLikeMe]

Fuel tanks/storage question.

Other than what is provided for directly in the mod, are there other options for new fuels storage. For example, lets say I want to burn Lithium, but I want to use a more standard fuel tank shape with an engine strapped to it. Yes, it is possible to strap those awkward tubes onto the sides or practically anywhere and have the fuel magically routed there, but maybe I just want to have fuel in a standard 1.25m size --- is there a way to do that (that is reasonable and relatively balanced)?

[Fractal_UK]

Fuel tanks/storage question.

Other than what is provided for directly in the mod, are there other options for new fuels storage. For example, lets say I want to burn Lithium, but I want to use a more standard fuel tank shape with an engine strapped to it. Yes, it is possible to strap those awkward tubes onto the sides or practically anywhere and have the fuel magically routed there, but maybe I just want to have fuel in a standard 1.25m size --- is there a way to do that (that is reasonable and relatively balanced)?

There is no special mechanism provided but, of course, you could create your own Lithium tank using a stock fuel tank as a basis if you like.

[dylloop95]

I saw scott manleys series including this mod and decided to install it and I see he uses the magnetometer and other parts to get science but when I don't have the opten to log the info only to activate the part. was this feature removed, is this a bug, or is it user error on my part?

[CleverLikeMe]

There is no special mechanism provided but, of course, you could create your own Lithium tank using a stock fuel tank as a basis if you like.

I was kind of hoping there was a module manager implemented system that would allow you to use something like Fuel Balancer to remove the LFO in a tank and replace it with plain liquid, with the system attributing each kind of fuel its own density and each container a maximum volume --- or something.

Oh well

[Atragon]

I saw scott manleys series including this mod and decided to install it and I see he uses the magnetometer and other parts to get science but when I don't have the opten to log the info only to activate the part. was this feature removed, is this a bug, or is it user error on my part?

I have the same behaviour, in VAB, I can add the log action for the magnetometer to an action group, but in flight, I don't have the button in the GUI, and the action group does nothing.

[Fractal_UK]

Now for a bit of a development update/future information post:

So, first of all I've been going over many of the functions of the science lab and refinery in order to make them work better and to add certain sections of code to their own classes to avoid duplication and generally improve performance. This should result in massive improvements to the internal handling of deuterium centrifuging, antimatter production, nuclear fuel reprocessing and resource extraction.

It occcurs to me that now I'm handling things like this, I can make antimatter production efficiencies at the science lab vary by tech level to provide a more logical progression as you advance down to the tech tree. The ultimate advantage of this is that currently you experience a jump between zero and viable antimatter production.

If this works well it could be the start of a system that provides tiered part with multiple upgrades that slowly make them better and better rather than a simple binary state of a part being either unupgraded or upgraded.

In reality, there are some fairly interesting "antimatter initiated" concept rocket designs that use quantities of antimatter that might actually be (just about) practical to produce in the very near future not as a direct reactor system but to initate fission and fusion reactions. Typically they use antiprotons to induce fission in a heavy element like Uranium which provides the power to kickstart a fusion reaction between Deuterium/Tritium or Deuterium/Helium-3, a bit like a thermonuclear bomb only on a far far smaller and more controlled scale. These are rocket designs that I'm very interested in looking at in the future and I'd like to create a smoother transition between the standard rockets found in the stock game/early Interstellar and the very high-tech end game period.

These rockets tend to be high specific impulse, moderate thrust and are very heavy - the DT vista is probably the best example of such a thing that appears already albeit it at the high powered end. I'm quite interested in these realistic concept interplanetary rockets at the moment so these are things I'm interested in working on for future updates.

I'm also going to be changing the relationship between charged and thermal power such that unused charged power is useable as thermal power - this is both more realistic and makes the charged power producing fusion reactors a bit more versatile.

I've also done some work recently that hints at the possibility of creating an entirely new engine module that would work during timewarp - this would, of course, be something of a holy grail for electric engines in KSP as the burn duration would no longer matter! You could simply adjust your course while timewarping through interplanetary space and the anaemic thrust of the plasma engines in KSPI, at least when using nuclear reactors, would no longer really matter. Hell it would probably make solar powered plasma engines worthwhile. This is all at an early stage and there are a lot of technical details to fill in but I'm certain now that it's at least possible.

I'm also interested to hear suggestions and what priorities you would want to see developed in future versions.

[Fractal_UK]

I have the same behaviour, in VAB, I can add the log action for the magnetometer to an action group, but in flight, I don't have the button in the GUI, and the action group does nothing.

I've heard reports of people who have SCANsat installed having some major problems with the magnetometer. I think the GUI button also has a habit of disappearing if you use it a time when the experiment isn't available, if that happens, reloading the craft should fix it.

[Atragon]

I've heard reports of people who have SCANsat installed having some major problems with the magnetometer. I think the GUI button also has a habit of disappearing if you use it a time when the experiment isn't available, if that happens, reloading the craft should fix it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't try using it at an inappropriate time, low Kerbin orbit should be OK IIRC. I'll try removing scansat and see what happens.

[CleverLikeMe]

If there's any one thing I would be looking for it would be a cleanup and better presentation of upgradeable parts in general. The thing that comes to mind at first would be more, cheaper tech nodes and upgrades broken into separate parts instead of simple stat changes. Of course, that's got its issues, memory for one, and simply an increased part bloat in an already pretty bloated environment.

Maybe easier and more practical would be to add clearer descriptions of what nodes upgrade which parts in the actual game.

I know its being worked on, but the ISRU needs some love. Right now I feel like it's very hard to work into most of your typical rocket designs.

[dbmorpher]

New update is sounding awesome

keep up the great work!

[AerospaceME]

I think the pre-cooler stuff needs some work. It would be nice if they also worked by attaching to the thermal nozzle / turbo-jet / rapier engine instead of intakes. This would allow compatibility with radial intakes, give design flexibility, and still be realistic as the turbo machinery shouldn't care where the intake air is cooled, as long as its cooled before it enters. It would be consistent with the rest of KSP to assume all turbo machinery is contained in the engines / nozzles. The pre-coolers could have a rated amount of intake air they can handle to prevent blatant intake spamming a few nozzles. Make the rating tied both intake air and air speed, so cooling required = airspeed x intake air. Exceeding the cooling capacity provided by the pre-coolers on the vessel would cause nozzles to overheat and explode.

[Umlüx]

i have a question about the new precoolers. is it possible to add this function to the B9 Sabre precoolers somehow? they look great but are only for show as i remember?

help please?

[Fractal_UK]

help please?

B9 precoolers already function as precoolers within this system.

[Umlüx]

aaah ! thanks

[urbansys]

does this mod work okay with MechJeb?

[Alcari]

I've got a very basic question... maybe it's because of some other mod i have installed...

but how do I upgrade stuff? I can't find anything on the item, or the techtree.

[Scotius]

It's hidden When you research specific tech nodes, you are automatically getting the upgrades to the stuff you already have. I think somewhere inside the thread there is a picture with those nodes highlighted.

P.S. Ah, yes. Actually screenshot is on the first page. Go check it out.