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

[AngelLestat]

Plenty of people are using them. I've used them quite a bit.

But I was surprice be one of the first to comment about that since the 10. version.

The sun was directly behind me and I was gaining speed sideways, 90 degrees from the angle I would have expected, I've sailed on a sailing boat, I know how sails work.

I can imagine 4 possibilities.

1-You thought that already leave kerbin sphere of influence and you point the solar sail into some polar direction in your navball, when in fact was pointing to kerbin. (it happen to me)

2-You place your probe or manned part in different direction from the sail. Or you have more than one and you mess with "control from here" option.

3-The gain speed in the direction that you saw was cause by gravity depeding the position of your orbit.

4-bug

Edited February 5, 2014 by AngelLestat

[Fractal_UK]

I can see that trying to make Hydrazine in an environment lacking in Ammonia is unfeasible. It seems to take 100 units of Ammonia for every 1 unit of Hydrazine (monoprop). Ouch. Guess I won't be shipping Ammonia to a future Minmus base to produce Monoprop.

This is obviously a bug, right Fractal? It's supposed to be 2 NH3 + H202 -> H2N-N2H +2H20

So shouldn't it be 2 Ammonia and 1 Hydrogen Peroxide to yield 1 Hydrazine and 2 water?

Not exactly, no. You also need to account for the density of the different fluids, 1 unit does not equal 1 reactant.

That said, you are right, the rate is much too low and there is a bug here.

[K3-Chris]

Isn't "monoprop" just any gas you can compress and store compressed then release burst of through nozzles? Doesn't need to be a specific gas does it? Could for example compress the available atmosphere.

[Fractal_UK]

Isn't "monoprop" just any gas you can compress and store compressed then release burst of through nozzles? Doesn't need to be a specific gas does it? Could for example compress the available atmosphere.

Not really, usually monopropellant is Hydrazine because it is a propellant that will decompose against a platinum catalyst without any ignition source needed. You could use cold gas thrusters, e.g. with Nitrogen but the Isp produced by KSP monopropellant is far too high for that type of thing. That'd be more the sort of thing that your EVA Kerbals would use.

[NeoAcario]

Not exactly, no. You also need to account for the density of the different fluids, 1 unit does not equal 1 reactant.

That said, you are right, the rate is much too low and there is a bug here.

Fractal... you're being inconsistent. You have the refineries produce electrolysis results by mass (as they should)... shouldn't this be the same case? Or are you trying to say that hydrazine (monoprop) in the game has an improper mass per unit and are compensating for this?

On a side note: are you also going to include the production of water in the Hydrazine process? Would be nice to have a useful byproduct. That is, assuming you have the storage capacity.

~Steve

[AngelLestat]

damm what I said to get always ignored by fractal? :S

Well I need to ask others, someone know if the solar sail values or radiators values can be upgrade or (already are upgraded) in sandbox mode?

Solar Sail 1T mass seems like it use to day solar sails materials with a densitie of 7g/m2, but the radiators are made of graphene according to description, or is just due to some KSP problem with strenght-lightness config?

If we take the same 400x400 solar sail area made of graphene with density of 0,01 g/m2, their mass will be only 0,05 T (this a realistic aproximation of what we can achieve in 10 or 20 years with reflective surfuce, of course if is pure graphene it will be a lot less light than that.)

[Fractal_UK]

Fractal... you're being inconsistent. You have the refineries produce electrolysis results by mass (as they should)... shouldn't this be the same case? Or are you trying to say that hydrazine (monoprop) in the game has an improper mass per unit and are compensating for this?

On a side note: are you also going to include the production of water in the Hydrazine process? Would be nice to have a useful byproduct. That is, assuming you have the storage capacity.

That's the point, they're done by mass but the units that you see in the resource bar are not mass units, they're volume units so you have to convert to mass units before you can make a meaningful comparison.

damm what I said to get always ignored by fractal? :S

Sorry, but I don't have time to go back and reread your post from earlier right now.

Remember though that mass of the sail isn't the only part, there is all the structure that actually supports the sail as well.

[AngelLestat]

you dont need to excuse your self, I know that you are too busy with so many comments and all your stuff that you are doing. But I just want to feel my self usefull due to you are doing all the work of what I like most.

There is not structure. Is all inflatable booms, here there is a rudimentary example

All the gas tanks and mechanism to inflate and deploy the solar sail are detached once the sail is open.

Here is a sunjammer pdf of how it works.

Sunjammer mass is 34 kg, sail mass is 8 kg, but the remaning 26 kg is not solar sail structure, is mostly payload (instruments).

With 1T of mass that you set, reduce a lot the amount of payload that we can add, also make impossible to make some escape maneuvers from kerbol system.

So there is not KSP limit to how light can be? Also I find it interesting if that weight is the base weight and then we can upgrade it like you do with radiators. (but i cant do it from sandbox i guess)

[K3-Chris]

Inflatable arms are actually structure, even if very light-weight.

[Kaa253]

Hi All. Great mod and great update.

I cannot work out how to use the Antimatter Initiated Reactor. First I got "resource deprived" even when I thought it had everything required and then (somehow) that goes away and the reactor goes active and runs up to 0.016% and stops there, which is apparently not enough to run a thermal rocket engine. I have got antimatter, Deuterium, Uranium, radiators, lots of GW of power. Can anybody lend a hand/give a hint/explain what I am missing or might be missing? Thanks.

[AngelLestat]

Inflatable arms are actually structure, even if very light-weight.

But that does not change my point, don't you?

So you find your speed direction problem? it was one of those 4 that I mention?

[rosenkranz]

I'm not getting my head around resource gathering here. I see the refinery parts, but I don't see any mining equipment.

If I wanted to gather Lithium, how would I go about that?

Alternately, if I wanted to produce Monopropellant. I can see where the refinery makes it and I can see how the refinery can make the Hydrogen Peroxide. But how do I gather the LqdWater and Ammonia?

[Kaa253]

The ISRU refinery can do your mining. It doesn't need to touch the ground it simply needs to be a part on your landed lander. I haven't done much mining but LqdWater has been fairly easy to find. I think Ammonia and Lithium are harder to find (I don't want to provide a spoiler here). Make use of the two mass spectrometers.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Kaa253

[stevron]

I'm having issues with fusion reactor's which I recently unlocked. They just turn off the moment the physics load. I have a 2.5 reac + 2.5 jenny combo and once physics loads, the reac shuts down and my electricity recharges at a really slow pace. The only way I've gotten one to run was to attach a separate 1.5 nuke + jenny on somewhere else otherwise it just will not start on it's own. Can someone please explain my ******ation in not being able to understand this.

[Fractal_UK]

I'm having issues with fusion reactor's which I recently unlocked. They just turn off the moment the physics load. I have a 2.5 reac + 2.5 jenny combo and once physics loads, the reac shuts down and my electricity recharges at a really slow pace. The only way I've gotten one to run was to attach a separate 1.5 nuke + jenny on somewhere else otherwise it just will not start on it's own. Can someone please explain my ******ation in not being able to understand this.

The big fusion reactors require a lot of ongoing power so if you just spawn one on the pad, it won't have anything to fill those power requirements. The small fusion reactors are rarely affected by this because the fusion reactors will try to draw ElectricCharge if they don't have enough power to keep going normally. The big fusion reactors require an inconceivably large amount of ElectricCharge so you will need something to start them up with.

[stevron]

Yeah I figured :S, cheers.

[ctbram]

The deep impact seismic sensors are working now for me on mun and minmus ty for putting the fix in so quickly.

Here are some thoughts that I hope you might take into consideration. I have run through career mode a couple times so I have information regarding the science gained from the stock seismic sensor and your modification although it seemed to me at first would be significantly more complicated to set up in the end I have to say I found it to be less complicated but still adds a nice new task to the career mode. Comparing the science gained between the stock and new implementation here is what I found.

Consider at the point in career mode you get the sensor you are still mostly in the 300 level of the science tree. The next instrument you get is the graviolli detector and it is really the bread and butter of science as it is the only instrument you can use in three locals within each biome, so you really need all the science you can to get to this critical device.

So I wanted to see how close the science gained between the old and new way the seismic sensors work. Here are my findings...

Looking at my past career runs I see that I got 6 science for every kerbin biome (21), 87.93 for every mun biome (15), and 109.92 for every minmus biome (9). So that is a total science, JUST for kerbin, mun, and minmus, of 2434.23. From what I am seeing from your revised seismic sensor you start at 500 science and then get 2/5 for each successive impact (500, 300, 120, 40, 8 - I am just extrapolating tese numbers based on two impacts on mun and minmus so I might be off). So the total science from the new seismic impact sensor network scheme would be about 960 for each of mun and minmus or around 1936. I have not done kerbin impacts but it appears you have set up the science scaling very close to the original stock device. I must say although setting up the original networks is a bit tedious, it was enjoyable creating the satellite and delivery vehicle. So in the end the science seem to be comparable and it adds an interesting new challenge to the game.

Comparing the difficulty acquiring the science between the old and new implementation. Although at first thinking that I would have to setup the setup network on each body (in this case kerbin, mun, and minmue) I felt this new system was going to make things more complicated. However, when you consider to get the 2400ish science from the stock implementation you had to setup landing missions to a total of 45 biomes. In the new system you only need to land 6 sensor stations - which if you add a medium range or one medium and one long range dish gives you the added benefit of six ground based geosynchronous comm relays on each body. As I mentioned earlier I enjoyed designing the light weight ground relays / sensors as well as the lifter that carried all six.

So my conclusion is that the science gained from the new implementation (for kerbin, mun, and minmus) is comparable to the stock implementation. Although ultimately you do need to land at all the Biomes (and I believe this should not be changed) for this experiment all you need do is land six ground stations which have the advantage of being multi-tasked and is simpler then planning and making 45ish landing missions.

The only thing I can say i'd like to see added is a report of the science gained from this new implementation of the seismic sensor is that there is a record added to the science archives. It seems this should be possible as I have the scansat mod and it adds a record in the archives.

-Rick M

Here are shots of the stuff I built...

The ground relay deep impact sensor station - GRDISS-1...

The lifter that carries six GRDISS-1's...

The impactor - I was just being silly with the design of this...I love the giant mace head!!!

Edited February 5, 2014 by ctbram

[TheTom]

Good analysis with one exception - you STILL Must make the landings for the other experiments

[Fractal_UK]

The only thing I can say i'd like to see added is a report of the science gained from this new implementation of the seismic sensor is that there is a record added to the science archives. It seems this should be possible as I have the scansat mod and it adds a record in the archives.

Since you ask so nicely...

I have succesfully hacked the stock science apart and now it does my bidding.

[ctbram]

Looks like you just missed it, understandable since the post was long winded.

...Although ultimately you do need to land at all the Biomes (and I believe this should not be changed)...

[Kaa253]

I have worked out that to get the Antimatter Initiated Reactor to start up I need an independent source of charged particles (i.e. add a GEKKO). Is this intended? However, after start up I still cannot get the AIM reactor to run at more than ~0.013% activity, regardless of how much power load I apply.

[Fractal_UK]

I have worked out that to get the Antimatter Initiated Reactor to start up I need an independent source of charged particles (i.e. add a GEKKO). Is this intended? However, after start up I still cannot get the AIM reactor to run at more than ~0.013% activity, regardless of how much power load I apply.

I think you're missing Helium-3 for the reactor as well, that's probably why you're having problems. It certainly doesn't start with any.

[Kaa253]

Ah! So having Helium-3 is not optional. That must be it. Thanks a lot.

[Asidem]

Hi,

I have two questions :

- Can you use a telescope elsewhere than >550AU ? And how does exactly work the new cooling liquid ?

- I have an Electrolysis base landed on Minmus. It can gather LqdWater. It can make H2O2. The base has more capacity in LiquidFuel than Oxidizer. When landed, the Oxidizer tanks were *completely* full, but the LiquidFuel ones were not. When Electrolyzing, LqdWater is consumed, but no LiquidFuel is produced (not at all : the consumption rate is 0 and not -0.00 or anything. It won't change). Is it because the Oxidizer tanks are full ?

And a sneaky suggestion ;p

Could you make the Microwave Receivers receive the amount of power the ship needs ? Or an adjustable amount ? (in order to avoid to have to radiate off several GW_th of WasteHeat when the ship needs 5MW of power)

Last but not least, FractalUK, thanks a lot for your awesome work (and your contributors) and I hope to see this mod getting more & more perfect !

[Patupi]

I've heard the query on variable power input on the microwave receivers before. Fractal (I think, it could have been someone else who sait this) said it isn't really realistic to do this. If you don't receive it all your ship could get fried by the remainder.

How about saying the 'beam' being transmitted is a given size and have a special 'variable width' receiver? It changes to a larger size to get more power, reduces it's radius for a smaller power input. You could even have multiple fixed receivers of different sizes at lower techs to give smaller vessels a chance to use a smaller receiver.