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

[forsaken1111]

I seriously don't know what you're talking about... Both reactors and generators allow surface attachment on my end...

Really? When I try to attach things to the 2.5m reactor they just pass through it in the editor.

This has been mentioned several times, the solution is to strut to the reactor, rather than strutting from it. As the old reactors get replaced, the restriction on lateral attachment will be removed - that is why the 1.25m nuclear permits it.

All of the generators permit lateral attachment.

So you're waiting on someone to make you some models? Is there any way I can just scale up the kiwi model and use that?

Why does the 'restriction' exist in the first place? Is it something I can remedy on my end?

[redshift690]

Well as far as attachment go's it's really an easy fix. Just change the attachment rules in the part .cfg from

"attachRules = 1,0,1,0,0" - from the old sphere nuclear reactors

to

"attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0" - this is from the new KIWI 1.25 .cfg

But really though I haven't had to many issues with them as long as you run your struts to it not from it as Fractal said.

[NotCoach]

This has been mentioned several times, the solution is to strut to the reactor, rather than strutting from it. As the old reactors get replaced, the restriction on lateral attachment will be removed - that is why the 1.25m nuclear permits it.

All of the generators permit lateral attachment.

For modeling purposes perhaps it might be cool to add aesthetic struts that span a reactor so it doesn't look like lateral connections are floating in midair. Instead the lateral connections will appear to be connected to the aesthetic struts.

[NotCoach]

Well as far as attachment go's it's really an easy fix. Just change the attachment rules in the part .cfg from

"attachRules = 1,0,1,0,0" - from the old sphere nuclear reactors

to

"attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0" - this is from the new KIWI 1.25 .cfg

But really though I haven't had to many issues with them as long as you run your struts to it not from it as Fractal said.

I might do that, thanks.

[Myrten]

Hey,

I'm new to this mod and try to understand how microwave power transmission works and got two questions.

1) Does solar panels generate any power which can be transmitted at all? So far I've only been able to transfer power from reactors.

2) I've put a vessel on low Sun orbit with upgraded 3.5m reactor&generator which has 4 GW of output power on microwave transmitter, but when I launched another vessel with receiver and pointed it @ Sun I got insane 623 GW of power which gave my plasma powered rocked insane thrust...

Is this WAD or something has bugged?

[Stealth17]

Hey guys, I'm new to this mod, so I'm probably doing something wrong.

I'm trying to use the Thermal turbojet. I've created a minimalistic (space)plane with just a structure, intake, reactor, jet and wings, but I can never get the TWR high enough to take off. What am I doing wrong?

Also, I've sent up a small probe to test the reactor + thermal rocket engine. My reactor states "offline" after some boosting. Any way to get this online again?

Again, sorry if I'm asking noob questions.

Best,

Stealth

Edited November 8, 2013 by Stealth17

[Jason_25]

I'm trying to use the Thermal turbojet. I've created a minimalistic (space)plane with just a structure, intake, reactor, jet and wings, but I can never get the TWR high enough to take off. What am I doing wrong?

Also, I've sent up a small probe to test the reactor + thermal rocket engine. My reactor states "offline" after some boosting. Any way to get this online again?

Career or Sandbox? Sandbox mode unlocks everything and gives you some powerful reactors to work with. What reactor type are you using? I don't think you will be able to get the fission reactors to fly and it is difficult to fly the heavier reactors. The "win" reactors with this version of the mod seem to be the lightest antimatter reactors.

For the second question, the only way I know of for a reactor to be offline is to be out of fuel or overheated.

[Stealth17]

Thanks Jason. I'm in career. I'm coupling a 2.5m reactor to the 2.5m turbojet (I think those are the parameters).

Reactors offline through heat might be the case yeah. Last time I played the mod you weren't punished for it yet so I didn't put any heat dispersers on.

Also, anti-matter: is it worth it to put on a AM-reactor? Won't it take ages to charge up? Mind you, I don't have the lab yet.

[Jason_25]

Thanks Jason. I'm in career. I'm coupling a 2.5m reactor to the 2.5m turbojet (I think those are the parameters).

Reactors offline through heat might be the case yeah. Last time I played the mod you weren't punished for it yet so I didn't put any heat dispersers on.

Also, anti-matter: is it worth it to put on a AM-reactor? Won't it take ages to charge up? Mind you, I don't have the lab yet.

You can build a really elaborate anti-matter factory / building to speed up production if that is your thing. Think something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S50plant.jpg . At least put a couple of small reactors even on your test vehicles so you don't have an immediate shutdown of the reactor.

[Stealth17]

Right, build the AM factory in space or on Kerbin?

[Donziboy2]

Right, build the AM factory in space or on Kerbin?

Both, set up some ground factories to get the AM you need to get your ships into space, then have collectors at 900K from Kerbin to fuel it up further. A small non-upgraded AM reactor needs 0.14/s at full output, you can get almost 4 AM per day per Collector in Kerbin orbit. You will unlock the collectors and containers before the actual reactor so you technically have time to stock up.

Also are you sure you were using the thermal turbojet and not the thermal rocket nozzle? Since I dont recall there being a 2.5m Turbojet engine....

Edited November 8, 2013 by Donziboy2

[Stealth17]

Thanks! Yes you're right it was the 1.25m version.

[Myrten]

One more question - how vessels have to be positioned to have line of sight for Microwave network? I've noticed that microwave receiver has to be targeted straight on 'source vessel' but I'm not so sure how it works for transmitters.

[Fractal_UK]

One more question - how vessels have to be positioned to have line of sight for Microwave network? I've noticed that microwave receiver has to be targeted straight on 'source vessel' but I'm not so sure how it works for transmitters.

The orientation of the transmitter is irrelevant, if it's solar powered the transmitter has to have a direct line of sight to the sun but that's the only constraint there.

[Jason_25]

That's a great looking ship. Would you care to share it?

db48x

Certainly. You can pick up it and my other ships based on this mod here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/46679-Aerotech-Industries-Future-Technologies-Division-KSPI-Mod?p=601982

[Myrten]

The orientation of the transmitter is irrelevant, if it's solar powered the transmitter has to have a direct line of sight to the sun but that's the only constraint there.

OK, this helps but I got few more questions

1) Is there any maximum range between vessels? I was not able to get connection between Kerbin and Sun satellites despite nothing being in between, it got fixed when I warped few days ahead and sun satellite came closer.

2) Does adding more then one transmitter to single vessel gives any benefit?

3) My Sun's satellite only sends 4183 MW of power on one active transmitter but I receive 872777 MW on Earth, is this a bug or solar power is just not displayed on transmitters?

4) How do I make relays? I've put 4 satellites on Kerbin's orbit with both receivers and transmitters but they don't relay power from Sun's satellite - only transmit their own.

Great mod BTW

Edited November 9, 2013 by Myrten

[CalculusWarrior]

A question related to Myrten's post; what exactly is the difference between the two Microwave Receivers? One is unlocked later in the tech tree and fulfils the same purpose, has an awesome zzz model and has more resource storage capacity, but otherwise functions the same. Is that it?

[Myrten]

A question related to Myrten's post; what exactly is the difference between the two Microwave Receivers? One is unlocked later in the tech tree and fulfils the same purpose, has an awesome zzz model and has more resource storage capacity, but otherwise functions the same. Is that it?

Later one can receive much more power, I only get 90000MW with dish receiver but 872777MW with phase array receiver.

[Fractal_UK]

1) Is there any maximum range between vessels? I was not able to get connection between Kerbin and Sun satellites despite nothing being in between, it got fixed when I warped few days ahead and sun satellite came closer.

Nope, there is no maximum, you have to be careful with planetary alignment though with sun satellites.

2) Does adding more then one transmitter to single vessel gives any benefit?

No, none.

3) My Sun's satellite only sends 4183 MW of power on one active transmitter but I receive 872777 MW on Earth, is this a bug or solar power is just not displayed on transmitters?

It looks like this is a fairly amusing bug with the range logic when using reactors. Basically, all solar satellites have their power output calculated at a fixed distance from the sun so that their power output can be inverse-square scaled relative to their distance from the sun. It seems, however, that the reactor/generator powered satellites are getting this behaviour too, meaning their power gets multiplied up as they get closer to the sun. This explains the incredibly high power output you're receiving.

I'm surprised this hadn't been noticed before but the fix shouldn't be too difficult.

4) How do I make relays? I've put 4 satellites on Kerbin's orbit with both receivers and transmitters but they don't relay power from Sun's satellite - only transmit their own.

You need to make sure they're actually receiving some power from the sun satellite when you push that activate transmitter button, it won't detect any power if it becomes available later.

[Fractal_UK]

Rare Resource Generation

Up to now, I've been dealing with resources that are extremely common. Aluminium-Oxygen minerals and Water/Water Ice. That's all well and good, some things can be found anywhere but plenty of things cannot, plenty of things are rare. In order to tackle problems like nuclear refueling, I needed to tackle making some kind of rare resources that would have varying abundance across the surface.

I wanted to make a system that was basically infinitely extendable so I could create as many resources as I wanted with variable abundance.

In the case of nuclear material, what I need to detect resources is a gamma ray spectrometer (GRS). This sort of equipment has been used to measure the abundance of thorium on the Moon in real life.

This all gives me something to aim for. I decided an image wasn't a bad way to interpret planetary resource information so I opened up MATLAB and fired up some kind of fractal (of the non-self referential sort) generation algorithm and started generating some maps. After a bit of tinkering, I generated this:

This image doesn't look very exciting but it's a good way of storing logarithimically encoded data about resource availability. It is actually a map of thorium abundance on Kerbin. The greyscale represents the amount of Thorium, because my interpretation code is, in this case, log-scaled, only the very brightest parts actually represent significant quantities.

I also needed a way of connecting up this resource information to something within the game. I thought this kind of resource system something might be something other people might be interested in using (please let me know if you are interested!) to generate their own resources so I decided to try and make everything simple to use. It works via a ConfigNode, so you make a definition like this one:

planetaryresourcedefinitions.cfg

PLANETARY_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
	name = Thorium
	celestialBodyName = Kerbin
	mapUrl = WarpPlugin/PlanetResourceData/kerbin_thorium
}

I can then make a Gamma Ray spectrometer with one line of functional plugin code (the rest is all for display purposes).

thorium_abundance = FNPlanetaryResourceMapData.getResourceAvailability(vessel.mainBody.flightGlobalsIndex, "Thorium", vessel.mainBody.GetLatitude(vessel.transform.position), vessel.mainBody.GetLongitude(vessel.transform.position));

And here's one I scanned with earlier:

[Donziboy2]

It looks like this is a fairly amusing bug with the range logic when using reactors. Basically, all solar satellites have their power output calculated at a fixed distance from the sun so that their power output can be inverse-square scaled relative to their distance from the sun. It seems, however, that the reactor/generator powered satellites are getting this behaviour too, meaning their power gets multiplied up as they get closer to the sun. This explains the incredibly high power output you're receiving.

I'm surprised this hadn't been noticed before but the fix shouldn't be too difficult.

I think most of us have not bothered sending reactor/transmitter combo's near the sun or to other planets. This might explain the weird AM reactor outputs in Moho orbit I was getting a while back.

Your Resource Generation looks interesting

Your tempting me to start playing with Blender again...

Its been over 13 years since I messed around with blender, this is from my bored High School years.

[Carcharhinidae]

well, for a stop-gap measure. you could look into kethane's resource generator. kindof like what extraplanetary launchpads have done with their ore generation.

[Myrten]

It looks like this is a fairly amusing bug with the range logic when using reactors. Basically, all solar satellites have their power output calculated at a fixed distance from the sun so that their power output can be inverse-square scaled relative to their distance from the sun. It seems, however, that the reactor/generator powered satellites are getting this behaviour too, meaning their power gets multiplied up as they get closer to the sun. This explains the incredibly high power output you're receiving.

I'm surprised this hadn't been noticed before but the fix shouldn't be too difficult.

But why is this huge value not displayed on Sun's satellite transmitter? Only 4k there

You need to make sure they're actually receiving some power from the sun satellite when you push that activate transmitter button, it won't detect any power if it becomes available later.

I've reset transmitter and it still doesn't work

All my satelites have:

1 Phased Array Receiver

4 Phased Array Transmitters (but since only one is working I've activated only one)

Updgraded 3.5m nuclear reactor&generator

DT Vista fusion engine

[Donziboy2]

You cant relay transmitted power, its point to point, no retransmission.

On your launch I see its connected to 2 sats, one is in LOS the other is probably at a high enough angle that you wont get anything from it.

[Fractal_UK]

But why is this huge value not displayed on Sun's satellite transmitter? Only 4k there

Because there is nothing wrong with the transmitter code. It only knows about the power it is receiving from the generator. It's the receiver code that has the bug.

I've reset transmitter and it still doesn't work

Can you post a screenshot with the transmitters current activity shown as well please?