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

[Lightwarrior]

Maxing the tech tree in 0.23 without labs is probably not possible. You can get maybe 500-700 science per planet/moon if you do it right. I don't remember how much the alcubierre drive costs (5500?) but I'm pretty sure there isn't enough science in the game for this.

It is not just possible, it is really easy.

You do not even need to go to "hard" places like eve or tylo, you get enough science just landing on / returning from "easy" planets/moons.

Also Warp Drive / AM reactor upgrade node cost 10000, and i got it in a single mission, landing on Jool moons except Laythe.

And this is not even close to optimal, i only had 4 magnetometers and did each experiment only once per place (i had do store them in single pod).

Edited January 17, 2014 by Lightwarrior

[AndreyATGB]

Do you get the same amount for taking a second surface sample in a different mission? I've landed on Vall, Bop and Pol in one mission and got about 6000 science, didn't use the magnetometer, one surface sample, materials bay and goo for each landing. So only materials bays I got were from the surface. If you said you landed on all moons except Laythe, how did you land and take off of Tylo without being able to land on Laythe?

I'll redo this mission soon while carrying the lab with my ship so I can spam materials bay.

[Matrix Aran]

All you need is a Lithium tank and a Tritium tank anywhere on your ship and a nuclear reactor, it can be a fission or fusion reactor, though you can't do it with a fusion reactor using pure He-3 fuel.

I suspect you're experiencing a weird issue introduced in KSP 0.23, if you time accelerate while tritium breeding up to 1000x or so, you should begin to see Lithium being used up and Tritium being added. KSP doesn't allow draws of ALL_VESSEL flow resources of less than 1e-5 for some bizarre reason, which means the draw isn't big enough at low time acceleration not be zeroed out. I've written some code for the next version of ORS, which reimplements ALL_VESSEL resource draw behaviour in a better way and that will allow me to resolve this problem in the next version of Interstellar.

Ah I see. I placed my satellite into a low orbit and switched focus over to a ship on its way to Jool. After 14 days of time acceleration, there was no tritium in the tank. I know it'll produce tritium at high time acceleration on the pad. Am I correct in assuming I need to time accelerate while focused on the breeder?

Edited January 17, 2014 by Matrix Aran

[BJ Quest]

Greetings - Been working with KSP Interstellar (Ksp v.23 Interstelar v9.2 mostly career mode) for about a week on and off. I have gotten most engines to work and have also recently operated the Alcubierre Drive on one of my ships. Below is a short list of flying models:

http://imgur.com/EknGjQi

http://imgur.com/rPcd9ix

http://imgur.com/8WZ7upI

http://imgur.com/PESLIyc

http://imgur.com/zxOaGwo

I am having a more difficult time figuring out how to use the ISRU refinery (what attaches to what to get what. Etc.). A good tutorial could be helpful here. I have not tried the microwave power system yet nor got got a working antimatter reactor. So far it has been a good and interesting challenge. Putting the warp to practical use would be part of the challenge. I have not used the chromatography function yet. A smaller size pellet driven nuclear engine might be nice for smaller rocket ships(?) It is quite powerful and long lasting. I do like the mod - one I will be playing with for quite a long time.

BJ Quest

Edited January 17, 2014 by BJ Quest

[Jyro117]

Bro, stop trying to shut down the party. (This is my dissenting opinion)

I don't agree that microwaves need a nerf. The system as it is is both incredibly powerful and incredibly limited, which is great.

Yeah, launching becomes trivial, but first - when is it not trivial? The only difference is you're upgrading from 200 tons of fuel to 5 tons. You say "it kills progression" but first - if you're getting launch thrusts, you're just about at the end of the tech tree, so you don't have much further to progress. Second, after launching the 25 moon/minmus missions and/or spending the better part of a day navigating the whole solar system you need to max out the vanilla tech tree, you should be just about over putting together huge asparagus monstrosities. Third, late game goals like returning from the surface of Eve and getting to Eeloo are still challenging with microwaves going around.

Fourth, microwave power is very ill-suited for some applications. Landing, for instance. With your power fluctuating wildly and even potentially shutting off completely, landing with a plasma thruster is a nightmare. I still use chemical rockets for landers.

If you're playing sandbox I can understand the sentiment, because it totally makes all those rockets worthless, but this mod isn't intended for sandbox.

About labs - well, I don't disagree, but getting the Alcubierre drive without them - well, I'm not even sure it's possible.

Definitely do agree about ISRU, it needs a massive bump.

I only play career now, which is what I've been using when playing with the mod.

Yes, launching isn't a challenge anymore (even without KSPI) and when it is, slice it into parts and dock them in space. I disagree with your limitations for microwave networks since many of them could be solved via relays. Even for missions where I am planning a lander/return, which is pretty much all of them, I can easily setup a bunch of small relay probes around a body because the transceiver is very light-weight and because heat isn't handled for inactive vessels. If heat was handled for inactive vessels I would probably be singing a different tune. I am also coming in with a lot of experience setting up networks for RemoteTech which might mean I'm really good at setting up networks already? I am tempted to say that microwave receivers should have to feed into electrical generators to produce power, or something along those lines so they aren't as incredibly powerful (then make it upgrade in a later node to no longer need the electrical generator?). My issue with microwaves is not how they are really powerful in the late game (which is expected with the mod near the end, and how we essentially have unlimited resources in 0.23), but how quickly a player can build up a decently high power network with really good coverage over the Kerbol system. If you feel it is challenging enough, then we will have to agree to disagree.

[Lightwarrior]

Do you get the same amount for taking a second surface sample in a different mission? I've landed on Vall, Bop and Pol in one mission and got about 6000 science, didn't use the magnetometer, one surface sample, materials bay and goo for each landing. So only materials bays I got were from the surface. If you said you landed on all moons except Laythe, how did you land and take off of Tylo without being able to land on Laythe?

I'll redo this mission soon while carrying the lab with my ship so I can spam materials bay.

I thinks samples are similar to other experiments, second time you get small amount of science and then nothing.

I used this lander:

4 fusion reactors + 4 thermal nozzles, ~1.2 TWR on Tylo, not very easy to land, but with those insane ISP/dV definitely possible. And Laythe's atmosphere reduce thrust, making landing/takeoff impossible.

Also i used 2.5m RCS tank + material bays&goo canisters in 8x symmetry instead of lab, used them in space and then transferred results to pod and thrown this thing away. It seems to be easier as it does not require kerbals (and life support supplies).

Edited January 17, 2014 by Lightwarrior

[crazyewok]

Just a queation. Does this mod work with the Kethane mod?

[Jivaii]

Just a queation. Does this mod work with the Kethane mod?

What do you mean by that? I'm using Kethane and KSPI in the same install if that's what you're trying to figure out.

If you want to convert Kethane into KSPI fuels, not happening unless you do alot of .cfg edits.

[crazyewok]

What do you mean by that? I'm using Kethane and KSPI in the same install if that's what you're trying to figure out.

If you want to convert Kethane into KSPI fuels, not happening unless you do alot of .cfg edits.

I mean will it crash it.

[Jivaii]

I mean will it crash it.

No...I just stated I use them both, along with several other mods.

[Lightwarrior]

Technically works fine. Does not requre "a lot of cfg edits" to get KSPI fuels from kethane, only adding few sections to kethane converter cfg's is required.

However it is way too easy, unbalanced and "magical" to get all those from some "magical substance" which can be gathered on any planet/moon. It is better to use integrated KSPI resource mining capabilities.

BTW also tried EngineIgnitor with KSPI, made cfg for KSPI engines, and it is definitely fun. It allows such things as additional power requirement to start engine etc

Edited January 17, 2014 by Lightwarrior

[Shania_L]

Hi guys, I'm relatively new to this mod but I'm really looking forward to unlocking some of the high tech stuff later in my game.

At the moment though I have run into a little issue with heat generated from my solar panels. I am building some long duration scanning satelites to map the moons of Kerbin and I have put four of the stock 1x6 panels on. The buildup is very slow but after about 6 days they overheat and shut down, effectively making the craft unusable (as I then have no power to re-open them).

I am very early in the tech tree so I do not have access to any reactors or generators yet, and I only have the very basic radial/inline radiators. I put 2 of the smallest radial radiators on my satelite with 4 1x6 stock panels and it still overheats.

How do I work out how much cooling I need, and how much cooling I have? the wiki has examples for the high power thermal rockets and reactors and such, but nothing on low-tech solar panels

This is my craft with readouts of solar panels and radiators displayed.

This is my current tech tree.

[Lightwarrior]

Try waiting for radiator temperature to raise a bit, they will radiate more heat and this should be enough.

Or they radiate no heat at all?

[Shania_L]

As you can see on the pics, the craft is six and a half days in space, and the radiators are emmitting 0MW (maybe its a rounding thing and they are actually radiating some though) The waste heat buildup on the panels has reached 162 of 200, at 200 the panels shut down and the craft dies. The heat doesn't dissapate even if I manually deactivate the panels one at a time.

If I max out the draw on the panels I create 4KW of waste heat, how many radiators to emit that?

[Boamere]

As you can see on the pics, the craft is six and a half days in space, and the radiators are emmitting 0MW (maybe its a rounding thing and they are actually radiating some though) The waste heat buildup on the panels has reached 162 of 200, at 200 the panels shut down and the craft dies. The heat doesn't dissapate even if I manually deactivate the panels one at a time.

If I max out the draw on the panels I create 4KW of waste heat, how many radiators to emit that?

A craft will always overheat, it's just that the panels get more efficent the hotter they are, so wait and the heat "should" stop rising at some point in time

[ada221]

i just tried this with the Alternis mod (that changes the planets in the kerbol system around) and i am glad to say that they play nice together! atmospheres and oceanic samples seem to be functioning properly on at least kerbin laythe and jool, and all the thorium and uranium is still there too

[Mic_n]

At the moment though I have run into a little issue with heat generated from my solar panels. I am building some long duration scanning satelites to map the moons of Kerbin and I have put four of the stock 1x6 panels on. The buildup is very slow but after about 6 days they overheat and shut down, effectively making the craft unusable (as I then have no power to re-open them).

That does seem problematic. Note though that the radial radiators like that (like the inline ones) are designed more for atmospheric use - they're not particularly good in space - you want the deployable ones out there.

I'd also suggest a few 'fixed' solar panels in case of the emergency situations you're describing. Four of them (one flat on an end and another three in symmetry around the sides and tilted towards the other end) are enough to ensure that you'll get at least a dribble of power no matter how your craft winds up oriented. Nothing worse than having an otherwise perfect craft stranded without power.

[Lightwarrior]

As you can see on the pics, the craft is six and a half days in space, and the radiators are emmitting 0MW (maybe its a rounding thing and they are actually radiating some though) The waste heat buildup on the panels has reached 162 of 200, at 200 the panels shut down and the craft dies. The heat doesn't dissapate even if I manually deactivate the panels one at a time.

...

If I max out the draw on the panels I create 4KW of waste heat, how many radiators to emit that?

This should not happen. They should only close when craft overall wastedHeat is full, not individual panel.

...

Any single radiator.

[RadHazard]

I only play career now, which is what I've been using when playing with the mod.

Yes, launching isn't a challenge anymore (even without KSPI) and when it is, slice it into parts and dock them in space. I disagree with your limitations for microwave networks since many of them could be solved via relays. Even for missions where I am planning a lander/return, which is pretty much all of them, I can easily setup a bunch of small relay probes around a body because the transceiver is very light-weight and because heat isn't handled for inactive vessels. If heat was handled for inactive vessels I would probably be singing a different tune. I am also coming in with a lot of experience setting up networks for RemoteTech which might mean I'm really good at setting up networks already? I am tempted to say that microwave receivers should have to feed into electrical generators to produce power, or something along those lines so they aren't as incredibly powerful (then make it upgrade in a later node to no longer need the electrical generator?). My issue with microwaves is not how they are really powerful in the late game (which is expected with the mod near the end, and how we essentially have unlimited resources in 0.23), but how quickly a player can build up a decently high power network with really good coverage over the Kerbol system. If you feel it is challenging enough, then we will have to agree to disagree.

Power decay over long distance actually does exist in this version. Each antenna has a maximum range, beyond which power decays. I don't know what the range for each of them is, but I do know that you can't receive full power at interplanetary distances using the smallest receiver. From what I remember, I believe the distance is measured as the distance of all the relay hops added together, so relays don't act as "repeaters".

I'd say a good balancing measure would be to simply make the larger relays heavier, as I agree they are fairly light-weight. I also agree with your statement that heat should still accumulate over time for deselected vessels, although I know there are technical issues to that. Perhaps a simple check as the vessel is offloaded to see if it has the capability to stabilize (using the data from the new heat management window, perhaps)? If it doesn't just automatically disable relay/transmission for that ship.

As for spamming nuclear reactors on the ground, that should hopefully be balanced by the inclusion of the rest of the economy, which I believe is going to happen in the next version of KSP. Atmospheric decay is (I think) already modeled, so presumably space-based power generation is more efficient (assuming you can make the launch cost-effective). If it's not, the inclusion of that would help as well.

[Shania_L]

All four panels and the radiators gain waste heat at the same rate, but the panels reach their 200unit capacity and shut down first with the radiator only having 200 of its thousands worth of capacity used. I even built a craft with 4 of the smallest radial radiators, and the same behaviour, full system shutdown at 200 units of waste heat(per panel).

Even if the radiator should "collect" the heat from all modules on the ship and dissipate it, I can see that there is a hole in your abilities at this stage in the career tree. You gain access to the single solar panel at the 90point level, folding ones at 160, but you have no method of dissapating heat until you have bought a 300 point science module.

This leaves you with a big gap where your craft are unable to perform long(ish) duration missions. Would it be possible to include a flat single panel "space rated" radiator at a lower tech level for this purpose? This would also be useful for tiny 0.625m space probes where the smallest folding radiators are still huge!

As far as my situation is going, I have paid up and now have access to the folding space radiators, so all my craft from now on will have sufficient cooling. I will just have to be careful switching to that Minmus relay... maybe I'll rename it "Schrodinger's Relay", it works providing I dont look at it

Edited January 18, 2014 by Shania_L

[Fractal_UK]

All four panels and the radiators gain waste heat at the same rate, but the panels reach their 200unit capacity and shut down first with the radiator only having 200 of its thousands worth of capacity used. I even built a craft with 4 of the smallest radial radiators, and the same behaviour, full system shutdown at 200 units of waste heat(per panel).

Even if the radiator should "collect" the heat from all modules on the ship and dissipate it, I can see that there is a hole in your abilities at this stage in the career tree. You gain access to the single solar panel at the 90point level, folding ones at 160, but you have no method of dissapating heat until you have bought a 300 point science module.

This leaves you with a big gap where your craft are unable to perform long(ish) duration missions. Would it be possible to include a flat single panel "space rated" radiator at a lower tech level for this purpose? This would also be useful for tiny 0.625m space probes where the smallest folding radiators are still huge!

Solar panels don't shutdown until the WasteHeat bar is 98% full, in your first picture, your probe has capacity for 800,800 units, so it won't retract the panels until you reach total WasteHeat: 784,784. I don't see how it's possible for the solar panels to retract before that.

I would suggest you delete your GameData/WarpPlugin folder and reinstall Interstellar because something is not right here. If that doesn't help, please send me a copy of your KSP.log file.

[Jyro117]

Power decay over long distance actually does exist in this version. Each antenna has a maximum range, beyond which power decays. I don't know what the range for each of them is, but I do know that you can't receive full power at interplanetary distances using the smallest receiver. From what I remember, I believe the distance is measured as the distance of all the relay hops added together, so relays don't act as "repeaters".

I'd say a good balancing measure would be to simply make the larger relays heavier, as I agree they are fairly light-weight. I also agree with your statement that heat should still accumulate over time for deselected vessels, although I know there are technical issues to that. Perhaps a simple check as the vessel is offloaded to see if it has the capability to stabilize (using the data from the new heat management window, perhaps)? If it doesn't just automatically disable relay/transmission for that ship.

As for spamming nuclear reactors on the ground, that should hopefully be balanced by the inclusion of the rest of the economy, which I believe is going to happen in the next version of KSP. Atmospheric decay is (I think) already modeled, so presumably space-based power generation is more efficient (assuming you can make the launch cost-effective). If it's not, the inclusion of that would help as well.

I had to double check about the power decay over long distances since I hadn't noticed it with my missions to Eve and having a series of relays setup around Kerbin's orbit. I flew out to Dres and sure enough the amount of power I was getting was significantly less even when pointed directly at Kerbin. I guess it isn't crazy powerful after all, but I'm sure it will be fine when budgets are actually important (I'm temped to play with Mission Controller Extended just to add more of a challenge and see how some sort of budgeting changes the balance). Atmospheric decay from the surface of Kerbin is only about 25%, which really isn't a huge deal when you consider a 10GW network gives you 7.5GW on the ground. Increasing that would make radio powered planes not an option so hard to say how else to balance it.

When it comes to spamming nuclear reactors on the ground it almost is always going to be a win in the current state because it only needs about 500 dV with a bunch of parachutes... which is a heck of a lot less fuel/parts compared to launching them into orbit. Then consider refueling them on the ground... you can drive to them from the launch pad...

My best thoughts for a way to balance it out would be to make transmissions in atmosphere be extremely weak but keep receivers at the current level.

[Die4Fun]

Hey guys, I am having some problems with the Deinonychus engines. It says they use thrust vectoring, but when I use them there is none and it's almost impossible to turn my rocket. I have checked and the gimbal was free. It looks like the thrust vectoring on these engines doesnt work properly for me. I have tried different size of rockets and they all can't turn if I use that engine. When i change the white tank + Deinonuchus for orange tank + mainsails then I can control the rocket, so I don't think that it's my design that is flawed. Anyone encountered this issue? Thank you!

[seb-eisdrache]

how I can get Helium 3 ?

[modivos]

Hi i just installed this and after the game loads everything, just before load the menu. KSP crashes and return to windows.

I don't know what just happen.

Some advice? maybe something i should edit? some .cfg file or something like that?

Facts:

It's my first mod

Everything is in the GameData folder (ModuleManager_1_5.dll, WarpPlugin, TreeLoader, HexCans)

My english isn't very good and i'm sorry for that ;_;

Thank you