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

[AndreyATGB]

When the game loads any ship with a plasma thruster, it is already runing, and not in the staging.

Yet it does nothing, and cant be shut of....

I noticed this in my RSS game but I haven't tried it in my normal game yet since 0.10. I just assumed it's a bug with real fuels.

[JewelShisen]

I noticed this in my RSS game but I haven't tried it in my normal game yet since 0.10. I just assumed it's a bug with real fuels.

It isn't. I have almost the same bug and do not have real fuels in my game. Also mine shows a second exhaust animation.

[AndreyATGB]

It isn't. I have almost the same bug and do not have real fuels in my game. Also mine shows a second exhaust animation.

Yeah, it gives off sparks every few seconds and clips through the ground. The engine does work if you activate it with right click but it isn't in the stage list or even gets highlighted when you hover over it. Really weird bug.

[effy]

It isn't. I have almost the same bug and do not have real fuels in my game. Also mine shows a second exhaust animation.

I came across this bug aswell while testing the new reactors in sandbox mode. It might be related to the Quantum Vacuum Upgrade as the unupgraded plasma thrusters in my career save still work just fine.

Another thing I noticed is that, while Antimatter Collection, Fuel Reprocessing and Tritium Breeding all seem to now work without the need to timewarp or have the vessel active (which is great, thanks Fractal!), the decay of Tritium into Helium-3 still only works under very high timewarp for me. On a craft with about 4000 Tritium on it the decay only showed at 10000x speed and higher.

Edited February 3, 2014 by effy

[Fractal_UK]

I am not a big fan of you changing the way the stock seismic record science works! If you want to add new science that's fine but gimping existing science is not cool. the stock seismic sensor generates a lot of early game science from each of the biomes on kerbin, mun, and minmus. Your changes gimp this quite a bit. I don't mind the idea of adding the impactor functionality or adding additional science but please leave the default mechanics alone!

Adding loads of new science is pointless, there is already more than enough science in the game so simply adding lots more of it is not a productive use of anyone's time. Especially when getting late technology is supposed to actually pose some kind of a challenge.

There are 36 biomes that the seismic seismic sensor could record science from on kerbin, mun, and minmus alone. You could, on average, take three readings from each biome before the diminishing returns made it no longer worth it. As I recall kerbin was around 20, mun 60, and minmus 80. Actually I think those values are actually low, even so, if you just took one reading from each biome that's around 3000 science that you just gimped away.

The impactor science might be a little low at the moment and need to be tweaked upward somewhat, I'm already coming to that conclusion. That said, you seem to be assuming where you once got X science, you now get zero, which is not even close to true.

Furthermore you only give vague descriptions and no information on what kind of return on in vestment you get for all the work of sending out probes and then impactors.

That's hardly unprecendented, the stock instruments don't tell you what return you're going to get either. Ultimately, the answer is: it depends.

You don't say if there is a limit to the number of impacts or duration the probes can run. You keep all the mechanics of how you divy out the science secret and vastly complicate the mechanics and then leave people to waste tons of time trying to figure out how to best set things up. You don't say how the data is transmitted back to kerbin. Do I have to have remote tech or some kind of constant data link for insntance???

Why would you assume there are lots of restrictions on how long probes can run or the number of impacts? Why would you think you would have to have remote tech, a different mod? That honestly makes no sense and suggests that you haven't even run one single impact experiment (which you could do in 30 seconds on the launch pad). I'm quite happy to take feedback/criticism but it'd be kind of nice to think it was actually based on some actual experience of the new system.

The amount of science you get depends on the number of detectors you have and their position (more detectors will give you a bit more science beyond what one will give you) and the amount of science will diminish with each impact but will never reach zero. This is hardly an unprecended mechanic and it's not particularly complicated.

Personally if I do a restart I will not add interstellar as a result of this one change! I would wait until I exhausted all the kerbin local system science using the seismic sensor before you gimped it and only then would I install interstellar. Don;t get me wrong so far I am really enjoying the mod. I believe it's brilliant in concept and design but when you start tinkering with stock science mechanics especially early game science I think you are taking a step backwards and will drive people away from the mod.

Ultimately, one of the biggest complaints made about the stock science system is that it doesn't involve any actual experimentation - you go somewhere, you click a few times, you fly back. The accelerometer is a good choice for alteration because the most effective way to produce seismic activity on a geologically dead world is to produce it yourself, so you know the magnitude of the impact that caused it and can actually produce meaningful data.

With this system, you can land detectors on each body, you can use multiple detectors if you like (best positioned on opposite sides of the body) and then send off special impactor missions or use discarded stages to produce science as you travel.

If you really want the stock functionality back as well, you can just delete

!MODULE[ModuleScienceExperiment]
{
}

in GameData/WarpPlugin/Science.cfg.

how does one attempt a impact probe? just a stock little yellow science thing and crash it into a planet? or something else?

Just crash a ship into the ground, it doesn't need anything special on it.

Another thing I noticed is that, while Antimatter Collection, Fuel Reprocessing and Tritium Breeding all seem to now work without the need to timewarp or have the vessel active (which is great, thanks Fractal!), the decay of Tritium into Helium-3 still only works under very high timewarp for me. On a craft with about 4000 Tritium on it the decay only showed at 10000x speed and higher.

Thanks, I missed a changed as I was switching everything over to the new resource draw method.

Ok seriously, can anybody explain why it is that after I updated this mod I am getting two exhaust animations from the smallest MPD Thruster and they NEVER turn off?

Apparently a last minute change designed to make a small tweak to the arcjet thruster caused this bug, I think I have a fix now.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Fractal_UK

[TheTom]

Will you push an updated version, given the number of small issues that get fixed at the moment?

[Fractal_UK]

Version 0.10.1 Released

Version 0.10.1
-Fixed Plasma thruster loading bug
-Switched Antimatter Initiated Reactor to UraniumNitride fuel (instead of UF4).
-Fixed Antimatter Initated Reactor Resource amounts
-New planet science curve from impactor experiment (more science everywhere except Kerbin)
-Fixed some typos and included some missing part descriptions
-Thermal helper toggle key changed to "I"
-Fixed Gamma Ray Spectrometer orientation and attachment
-Fixed Radial Tank attachment
-Tritium radioactive decay added to reactors

Download links on the first page have been updated.

[a__gun]

I understand both points of view on the seismic/impactor sensor. I think it would be good to maintain the original part, but add in the impactor functionality as an unlockable upgrade. This was you get the original stock science early on and still get to use the awesome impactor idea. Thoughts?

[ModZero]

Why would you think you would have to have remote tech, a different mod?

I *think* the actual question is „do I need an antenna link to Kerbinâ€Â, i.e. stock uses antennas, RT2 enforces having a connection to Kerbin for the „transmit†option to work. I suspect that the lab (haven’t done the seismic one and my stations always have a connection, and I’m at work now so can’t check) doesn’t use the transmission code at all, so it works around RT2’s limitation.

I admit it would be kinda nice if we had the science „accumulate†somehow, so that it would integrate with RT2 transmission nicely.

[ModZero]

I understand both points of view on the seismic/impactor sensor. I think it would be good to maintain the original part, but add in the impactor functionality as an unlockable upgrade. This was you get the original stock science early on and still get to use the awesome impactor idea. Thoughts?

Balance. Arguably it’s completely wonky in the game anyway, but I’d say that KSPI feels a bit half way between „just give me the parts†B9/KW and „it’s my game now†BTSM.

[kiwiak]

I never actually played KSPI in career mode, before start new save i am supposed to select interstellar version of techtree, right?

And will it work with another mods like station science, dmagic etc?

[Donziboy2]

Observations....

You can crash out of physics range but be careful around the runway area, not all spots work.

You have to turn it on before you can get any science.

I previously used the stock seismic sensor on the runway, any probes I crash on the runway give no science, I don't even get a message.

If I launch 2 impactors from the same craft one after the other I don't get any science from the second impact.....

Edit..

Might be a bug with switching from the impactor back to the sensor craft after impact and then reverting, the science is removed from the pool, but the next time you do an impact you get the reduced science instead of the science you got on the previous impact that you reverted...

Edited February 3, 2014 by Donziboy2

[Patze]

Thanks for making this awesome mod etc.

I actually made account to post this odd thing with thermal helper I found while fooling around with new parts. Somehow transceiver drastically affects thermal helper values which seems to be buggy maybe?

[Fractal_UK]

Yes, ideally it'd be nice to integrate it with the stock science system such that reports get generated in the typical style. The major problem with this is that generally you're transmitting data from the active vessel back to the R&D centre, while these impactors needn't even be within physics range of an active science instrument.

It's theoretically possible that I could make it so that reports are generated and then picked up by the detectors later, and you then you send that data back. That might be a nice avenue for expansion but, that would leave you in the position of having to click back to your detectors after each impact event, record the data and send it back to Kerbin - this might make it prove to be just an irritating feature rather than a worthwhile intregration step. I'm not really sure at this stage.

In any case, certainly adding thousands of science to the game without taking any away would be a really bad idea. The Interstellar tech nodes cost thousands in themselves and it's really not right if you can advance through all of these super advanced technologies in a matter of mere moments.

***

Observations....

So the seismic sensor only works if you crash a craft within psychics range of it...

That is not correct, you can crash anywhere. You only need enabled seismic sensors on the same planet. The impactor module is added to all vessels on flight startup.

I previously used the stock seismic sensor on the runway, any probes I crash on the runway give no science, I don't even get a message.

The runway is a model so crashing into it doesn't generate the right behaviour. You need to crash into the ground.

I never actually played KSPI in career mode, before start new save i am supposed to select interstellar version of techtree, right?

Yep.

And will it work with another mods like station science, dmagic etc?

I've never tested those particular mods but I don't see why not.

[Donziboy2]

That is not correct, you can crash anywhere. You only need enabled seismic sensors on the same planet. The impactor module is added to all vessels on flight startup.

The shore just east of the runway gave me nothing, I will play with it more after work

[Fractal_UK]

The shore just east of the runway gave me nothing, I will play with it more after work

Is it possible that you didn't crash fast enough? You need to be going at least 40m/s to generate the science (this was reduced from 100m/s in 0.10.0 to be more friendly to Eve impactor attempts).

[db48x]

My first impact with a single accelerometer on Minmus got me 125 science with version .10, but my second impact (this time on the Mun with three accelerometers scattered about) has gotten me 0, with .10.1. Install problem? Bug in the update? I just double checked and all three of the landed probes are recording. I'll try Minmus again; I've still got impactors in orbit.

[xfrankie]

Thanks for making this awesome mod etc.

I actually made account to post this odd thing with thermal helper I found while fooling around with new parts. Somehow transceiver drastically affects thermal helper values which seems to be buggy maybe?

I asked the same thing two pages back. It can't calculate the right number of radiators because if you set the Transciever to "recieve", the thing can get anything between 0 and max power of your network (like, 200GW). The problem is you also recive according amount of WasteHeat along with the power, and the helper cannot really predict this.

Maybe someone said this before, but a nice thing to implement in the future would be a tweakable maximal amount of power recieved. As in, relay option would be still relay, transmitter would still send 100%, but the reciever would be limited. Even the transmitter power might be tweakable, but separately - for mothership/lander pairs in outer Kerbol system.

Reason being if you have some small probes/landers with scanners that use microwave only for SAS or instead of RTGs, you don't really need hundreds of GW there and they also don't have enough radiator capacity to dissipate 100sGW of WasteHeat.

And on the other hand, if you launch heavy vessels using microwave, you would set that particular reciever to get 100% without having to worry that you have only a low-power network for your probes.

Correct me if I'm talking nonsense, but I think such option would be useful.

Also it would require some user-thinking, "Hey, I have 540GW power available. I'll be using five Vista's for the launch. How much power (percentage) do I need to set the reciever to?"

Edited February 3, 2014 by xfrankie

[vardicd]

Fractal, I just started a new game, and I play with Yargnit's tech tree, which ramps the science cost of parts considerably. I'm not sure if you are familiar with it or not, but it means I haven't unlocked the accelerometer yet. I've seen quite a few people react negatively to your change in the stock accelerometer, Personally I like the idea. it sounds new, cool, and fun, and since I've got a habit of smashing spent rocket stages into the ground, to keep my debris from building up in orbits, this will give me science for something I already do. How easy would it be to tweak the science return value up, if I find its return value a little low for use in my favorite tech tree?

Edit: one other thing, the thermal helper in the VAB, has a slider for distance from the sun in AU's. In real life this is the distance from the Earth to the sun, In KSP, would this be the distance from Kerbin to the sun, or the real world AU?

Edit of the edit: The very next time I loaded into the VAB I saw the thermal helper says 1 Au= Kerbin on it. {Facepalm} Feel like such a ******.

Edited February 3, 2014 by vardicd

[Patze]

Why I thought it was bug is that even though numbers turn red, maximum heat dissipation also drops, which I think should stay the same be it insufficient or not while receiving power with transceiver from network.

Total heat production also stays the same so it doesn't seems to be taking radiator network to account. It's just that dissipation power in thermal helper drops for some reason.

[likke_A_boss]

AW Sweet! Thanks Fractal_UK!

[Donziboy2]

Is it possible that you didn't crash fast enough? You need to be going at least 40m/s to generate the science (this was reduced from 100m/s in 0.10.0 to be more friendly to Eve impactor attempts).

It was a powered descent;)

[Itsdavyjones]

I have a feeling that this question got missed several pages back, so I just going to ask again.

I have a question, i know that radiation doesn't do anything. but the radiation for different manned parts is different. For you science lab, it is getting 183.29 nSv/h, where as porkjet's centrifuge is getting 305.48 nSv/h and the fustek station expansion Karmony MK III has only 70.5 nSv/h. How does that work, is this external radiation, or radiation on the inside?

Edit: The radiation stats i got was from the launchpad, all from the same craft.

[Fractal_UK]

I have a question, i know that radiation doesn't do anything. but the radiation for different manned parts is different. For you science lab, it is getting 183.29 nSv/h, where as porkjet's centrifuge is getting 305.48 nSv/h and the fustek station expansion Karmony MK III has only 70.5 nSv/h. How does that work, is this external radiation, or radiation on the inside?

Edit: The radiation stats i got was from the launchpad.

Every part has an automatically generated radiation hardness which reduces the dose received. If you EVA a Kerbal you'll see the "true" dose and any other part that you store a kerbal inside will produce a reduced dose depending upon the mass of the part and the number of Kerbals it contains.

Maybe someone said this before, but a nice thing to implement in the future would be a tweakable maximal amount of power recieved. As in, relay option would be still relay, transmitter would still send 100%, but the reciever would be limited. Even the transmitter power might be tweakable, but separately - for mothership/lander pairs in outer Kerbol system.

I like the idea, I will look into it.

Why I thought it was bug is that even though numbers turn red, maximum heat dissipation also drops, which I think should stay the same be it insufficient or not while receiving power with transceiver from network.

Total heat production also stays the same so it doesn't seems to be taking radiator network to account. It's just that dissipation power in thermal helper drops for some reason.

You're right. The receivers have to have a temperature rating due to the thermal reception option, because that temperature is quite low, it reduces the maximum temperature rating of the radiators and leads them to being detected as having massively reduced cooling.

There might actually be a way to fix this, I'm going to experiment with some ideas.

[Boamere]

I have noticed that if you activate the impactor on kerbin then fly to the mun, you don't get any science :/

I think this is intentional, but what is the point on landing on a body so I can use the impactor?

I have to build much bigger ships now