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

[Guest]

Note, that's actually a very viable technique. Also, we could be using solar panels that aren't stock. Balkas from KOSMOS, for instance, are gigantic and could be bundled to produce enough power to run the lab, especially on Moho.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

The real question is:

What the heck are they RUNNING in that little bitty science lab that requires five megawatts of power? A Kompact Hadron Kollider?

[Hremsfeld]

The real question is:

What the heck are they RUNNING in that little bitty science lab that requires five megawatts of power? A Kompact Hadron Kollider?

No, that one requires 5GW.

[db48x]

The real question is:

What the heck are they RUNNING in that little bitty science lab that requires five megawatts of power? A Kompact Hadron Kollider?

It's very kompact and versatile. They can even use it to make antimatter if you have a few gigawatts of power to spare.

[Scotius]

The real question is:

What the heck are they RUNNING in that little bitty science lab that requires five megawatts of power? A Kompact Hadron Kollider?

World's most awesomely advanced koffee grinder. It serves as centrifuge for recycling used nuclear fuel rods. And still grinds koffee.

[Cairan]

There should be a time-travel jump option using the lab bundled with an Alcubiere drive...

...requiring 1.21 GW.

[Donziboy2]

You mean you didn't see the flux capacitor? Its right next to the whatchamacallit.

[Saphykitten]

There should be a time-travel jump option using the lab bundled with an Alcubiere drive...

...requiring 1.21 GW.

When these Kerbals hit 88m/s you're going to see some serious explosions

[Fractal_UK]

In Version 0.8, I'll be introducing a new WarpPluginSettings.cfg file. This might be of interest to people who want to ensure compatibility of KSPI with other mods. This was written mainly with MFS Real Fuels in mind. At present I have a compatibility file with all the config alterations to make the engines use the appropriate propellant but the internal plugin functionality, e.g. for water electrolysis, have hard-coded resource names so, at present, you get LiquidFuel and Oxidiser from water instead of the more proper LiquidH2 and LiquidOxygen. I don't like that, so I decided to make this totally configurable.

It looks like this:

WARP_PLUGIN_SETTINGS
{
	HydrogenResourceName = LiquidFuel
	OxygenResourceName = Oxidizer
	AluminiumResourceName = Aluminium
	MethaneResourceName = LqdMethane
	ArgonResourceName = Argon
	ThermalMechanicsDisabled = False
}

This only affects internal plugin code. Propellant files and, in certain cases, part.cfgs may also have to be altered to ensure complete compatibility. Regardless, this is now a matter of simply altering .cfg files rather than code changes.

Also, if you don't want to play with thermal mechanics, you can set ThermalMechanicsDisabled to True. This stops the production of WasteHeat but a generator will still require 1 radiator to be attached because it still needs something to derive a thermodynamic cold bath temperature from.

[Goonswarm]

Hi, I am new to this game as of around a few days ago, and I am currently loving this mod. I am having some issues with the new thrusters I unlocked, as they don't actually generate thrust even though I believe I assembled them correctly.

I am to the point of farming science via orbital labs, and I would like some insight as to what I am doing wrong, thanks for the help.

Photo of one of my small lab rockets:

[Jivaii]

When these Kerbals hit 88m/s you're going to see some serious explosions

88 km/s is more like it.

[Xentoe]

That is real cool.

I think Mods should more look for combatibility.

We have slowly so many resources..... that do in main the same but are a little different.

So ... cool idea *thumbs up*.

[MildMicah]

SOOO. I had an idea. I have sketched a model up if anyone wants to see but I had an idea for a new method of propulsion. It sounds... theoretically possible. Ive done a bit of research.

Step one, super heat a inert gas like argon to a plasma state. Then, accelerate and ionize the plasma, then pass it through several yards of magnetically charged poles, accelerating the now negatively charged plasma. Next add a new medium, like liquid fuel, kethane, or a very reactive alkaline metal or earth metal like lithium. WITHOUT IT REACTING? Foof? ... Then condense the super heated hybrid plasma/fuel mix and compress it by using extreme heat from a reactor. Once it reaches a high temperature, introduce a nuclear fuel like UT36... Or nuclear fuel pellets. Next propel this mixture at a very high rate through another method of super heating. Maybe lasers? kind of like the engine we have, but using magnetically charged particles and ions to achieve higher specific impulse and higher impulse velocity. Meaning slightly more thrust. However this would be an extremely heavy engine... and it would require several sources of fuel...

SO. Pros:

Very high specific impulse and reliability good thrust.

Very efficient and can use MANY different fuel combinations.

Most of its fuels are found within many planets.

Cons:

Because of the reactors that would need to be built into this to even be able to sustain its power needs, it would be very heavy...

Also, you need magnets or some kind of polarized screen to accelerate any kind of ion... I'm not quite sure if plasma can be ionized because it's already in a unique state... Maybe you could ionize it before hand and then super heat it, and in the end neutralize the ion after it is charged and combined with your second fuel type.

Because you need an inert gas, a noble gas... A reactive earth or alkali metal... and nuclear fuel... it would be hard to use all of these all at once. you might also need extra generators... thus adding MORE weight.

You also need to store these... so... Weight weight weight...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This would work because when an ion is charged and run through an electrical field, it accelerates. This is how a general Ion drive works. HOWEVER, if you super heat an ionized gas, then polarize it, it acts...differently. Although an inert gas is perfect because it has a full shell of electrons, when it is ionized, the electrons act differently. it can now have negative charge because it can GAIN another electron. Since it has this extra electron, it is now more likely that another element, either a halogen, which is ONE electron short of a perfect shell, or an alkaline earth metal, which has very few valence electrons, could bond with this and/or react with it. this new combination cannot react however, because it isn't chemically possible to force the atomic level of electrons into another level........ It just isn't possible through an electrical field. SO. This means that you must then bring in fusion. Which... right now isn't possible. BUUUT. who knows maybe in a couple decades right? --- anyways. You bring in fusion. Maybe obtainable by very focused lasers. Once this happens... well. I'm unsure. I havent done much research beyond this point. ... But if anyone cares to comment let me know. JUST A CRAZY OUT OF THIS WORLD KIND OF IDEA BUT. Hey, it's worth mentioning.

if any of my chemistry is wrong let me know. it probably is. BUT I AM USING MY IMAGINATION SO. points for that.

[Hremsfeld]

A plasma ship

Going by the resources, I see you've got the 2.5m nuclear reactor on board. I'm assuming it's your only source of Megajoule production, and that you haven't unlocked Experimental Electrics or Fusion Power quite yet. By your powers combined, that's an accurate thrust readout for the plasma thruster using liquid fuel. Forums user Donziboy made a chart showing the various ISP and Thrusts from various combinations of upgrades and fuels:

I'm pretty sure this is assuming the ship has only one reactor and generator; adding more increases your thrust, but also your weight.

While you're working with nuclear engines, I'd recommend switching to Argon or Xenon due to their increased thrusts. 3.5or 6.3kN still isn't much, but it will increase as you progress through the end of the tech tree. You lose a significant amount of Delta-V by doing so, yes, but you'll also reduce your burn times by a massive amount. Non-chemical engines tend to have delta-V to spare anyway, so it shouldn't be too much an issue.

Edited November 22, 2013 by Hremsfeld

[Eadrom]

Hi, I am new to this game as of around a few days ago, and I am currently loving this mod. I am having some issues with the new thrusters I unlocked, as they don't actually generate thrust even though I believe I assembled them correctly.

I am to the point of farming science via orbital labs, and I would like some insight as to what I am doing wrong, thanks for the help.

It's really hard to see your ship in that picture, but from what I can see, everything looks correct on that plasma thruster. Those engines need *a lot* of power to provide good amounts of thrust. You aren't going to get anything impressive with basic nuke reactors and even the 3.75 nuke reactor/generator once upgraded doesn't provide a whole heck of a lot of power when talking about this application.

I just tested it out to give you some numbers. With the 3.75m upgraded nuke reactor and 3.75 upgraded generator, you get 4.187 GW of power. Throw that into a 2.5m plasma thruster using liquid fuel gives you 53.4kN of thrust (same 11,213 ISP as you have). That's less thrust than a stock nuke engine, albeit at WAY more ISP. My 66 ton, barebones test ship had a wimpy 0.082 TWR in LKO. I think I've had ion probes with better TWR than that, heh.

The plasma thruster really comes into its own when you pair it with an antimatter reactor. I have a 100 ton antimatter powered warp tug (cargo docks to front and the tug warps it around the solar system). It uses the 3.75 parts. Even being that big and heavy, it gets something like 22m/s^2 acceleration. I actually have to be careful about throttle % when it has no cargo attached as full power will break the freighter in half!

Also, you can try using Argon, Lithium, or Xenon and see if you can get some usable thrust for you. All of those will provide higher thrust and lower ISP than liquid fuel. Like a lot of the parts in this plugin, you have to really plan around and think about using newly obtained parts. Often times an engine or system will start giving you impressive, "future tech" feeling results only after it's been upgraded or additional support tech has been researched. In your case, you might consider using a thermal rocket on that ship instead of a plasma thruster and see if that will give you more usable TWR.

[pantheis]

Should the 2.5m fully upgraded plasma thruster being powered by a fully upgraded 2.5m antimatter reactor and generator be eating my antimatter by multiple units per second? It seems like it BLOWS through my antimatter like it's going out of style...

[Goonswarm]

Okay thanks a lot, I have yet to research any of the 3000 science upgrades, but I think I will just stick to conventional boosters for now. I still need to get to some of the outer planets, and at the point I think I will research the 3000 science nuclear tech that gives the insane thrust engines.

I can't tell you how silly I feel with my ship on the launch pad and watching it fall and explode as it has no thrust. I thought it was an issue with my configuration.

[Eadrom]

Yes. When powering a plasma thruster with an antimatter reactor/generator, when you are at full throttle the reactor will be burning at max temperature and consuming antimatter at its max. If you mouse-over the reactors in the VAB/SPH, it tells you how quickly it burns through fuel. The largest upgraded antimatter reactor burns 11.2mg/second of antimatter. One mg is one unit of antimatter.

[Eadrom]

Something to keep in mind is overdoing it with the research labs. I sent a 3.75m tank from KW rocketry with 16 science labs attached using the radial connector parts to Moho. Filled them with smart Kerbals. Being within the max science orbit, it is reasonable to say they generate at least 2.5 science per day per lab. With this set up, it only takes 525 days to generate 21,000 science. That's a really small time frame when you consider how long it takes to send a mission out to Jool for a moon tour or science heavy Eeloo mission. I had my lab station set up at Moho, then decided to send a probe out to Jool to suck the science out of all the moons' orbits. By the time my probe got to Jool, I only needed a few thousand science to wrap up the entire tech tree. It was exciting for all of the 5 seconds it took to spend the science. lol I didn't realize that I had pretty much negated the need to gain any science in the next 17 months until I actually already got the labs to Moho as I couldn't really gain enough science anywhere close enough to matter. I would have sent fewer labs and will next save game.

Fractal, perhaps you can consider diminishing returns on the science labs so that one can't simply get a ton of labs out to Moho and then wait 1.5 years and clear the tech tree. I would think even 50-75% reduction would work and not be too harsh. Using random numbers, in orbit around Moho, the first lab would give 3 science per day. The second would give 1.5 science per day. The third, .75. And so on. This would prevent the situation I described above and encourage people to spread out their labs instead of stacking a whole bunch at Moho or Eeloo. Maybe let upgraded computer cores not have diminishing returns (or reduced) since they require such a hefty investment to allow generation of science in the first place.

[Goonswarm]

It's really hard to see your ship in that picture, but from what I can see, everything looks correct on that plasma thruster. Those engines need *a lot* of power to provide good amounts of thrust. You aren't going to get anything impressive with basic nuke reactors and even the 3.75 nuke reactor/generator once upgraded doesn't provide a whole heck of a lot of power when talking about this application.

I just tested it out to give you some numbers. With the 3.75m upgraded nuke reactor and 3.75 upgraded generator, you get 4.187 GW of power. Throw that into a 2.5m plasma thruster using liquid fuel gives you 53.4kN of thrust (same 11,213 ISP as you have). That's less thrust than a stock nuke engine, albeit at WAY more ISP. My 66 ton, barebones test ship had a wimpy 0.082 TWR in LKO. I think I've had ion probes with better TWR than that, heh.

The plasma thruster really comes into its own when you pair it with an antimatter reactor. I have a 100 ton antimatter powered warp tug (cargo docks to front and the tug warps it around the solar system). It uses the 3.75 parts. Even being that big and heavy, it gets something like 22m/s^2 acceleration. I actually have to be careful about throttle % when it has no cargo attached as full power will break the freighter in half!

Also, you can try using Argon, Lithium, or Xenon and see if you can get some usable thrust for you. All of those will provide higher thrust and lower ISP than liquid fuel. Like a lot of the parts in this plugin, you have to really plan around and think about using newly obtained parts. Often times an engine or system will start giving you impressive, "future tech" feeling results only after it's been upgraded or additional support tech has been researched. In your case, you might consider using a thermal rocket on that ship instead of a plasma thruster and see if that will give you more usable TWR.

I just realized I am simply lacking the tech right now to make this happen. I am also trying to plan my mission to moho and dres now that I have a ship with enough fuel to make the trip there (not sure about back yet).

On another note, my science facilities don't seem to generate science automatically, is there a trick to it, or something in particular I might be doing wrong? (I have them in orbit with 2 crew members doing research and the 5mw power.

[Goonswarm]

Something to keep in mind is overdoing it with the research labs. I sent a 3.75m tank from KW rocketry with 16 science labs attached using the radial connector parts to Moho. Filled them with smart Kerbals. Being within the max science orbit, it is reasonable to say they generate at least 2.5 science per day per lab. With this set up, it only takes 525 days to generate 21,000 science. That's a really small time frame when you consider how long it takes to send a mission out to Jool for a moon tour or science heavy Eeloo mission. I had my lab station set up at Moho, then decided to send a probe out to Jool to suck the science out of all the moons' orbits. By the time my probe got to Jool, I only needed a few thousand science to wrap up the entire tech tree. It was exciting for all of the 5 seconds it took to spend the science. lol I didn't realize that I had pretty much negated the need to gain any science in the next 17 months until I actually already got the labs to Moho as I couldn't really gain enough science anywhere close enough to matter. I would have sent fewer labs and will next save game.

Fractal, perhaps you can consider diminishing returns on the science labs so that one can't simply get a ton of labs out to Moho and then wait 1.5 years and clear the tech tree. I would think even 50-75% reduction would work and not be too harsh. Using random numbers, in orbit around Moho, the first lab would give 3 science per day. The second would give 1.5 science per day. The third, .75. And so on. This would prevent the situation I described above and encourage people to spread out their labs instead of stacking a whole bunch at Moho or Eeloo. Maybe let upgraded computer cores not have diminishing returns (or reduced) since they require such a hefty investment to allow generation of science in the first place.

Could you post a screenshot of the craft?

Also, I just unlocked the Fusion Power Engines, but I severely lack power to consistently run them, I know it may be redundant but how do I go about making my generators put out more energy?

[Donziboy2]

Should the 2.5m fully upgraded plasma thruster being powered by a fully upgraded 2.5m antimatter reactor and generator be eating my antimatter by multiple units per second? It seems like it BLOWS through my antimatter like it's going out of style...

Yes, the reactors consume more fuel when upgraded.

Okay thanks a lot, I have yet to research any of the 3000 science upgrades, but I think I will just stick to conventional boosters for now. I still need to get to some of the outer planets, and at the point I think I will research the 3000 science nuclear tech that gives the insane thrust engines.

I can't tell you how silly I feel with my ship on the launch pad and watching it fall and explode as it has no thrust. I thought it was an issue with my configuration.

The Quantum Plasma does not work in atmo also, only in space, so you have to use fuel in atmo.

[Kass]

So umm where am I going wrong? I have a station that is in LKO researching. Yet I have no science bar, no idea how to transfer nor upgrade. This is a second science lab I've got sat by the space centre just to illustrate.

[db48x]

So umm where am I going wrong? I have a station that is in LKO researching. Yet I have no science bar, no idea how to transfer nor upgrade. This is a second science lab I've got sat by the space centre just to illustrate.

There's no longer a Science resource or a menu button for explicit transfers. Whenever you visit a craft with an active science lab, KSPI will calculate the amount of science the lab has generated since you were last there. it then adds that directly to your total, which you can view back at the R&D Center.

Fractal_UK has already mentioned that the next version will add a message when this happens, so that it's more obvious.

I've been wondering though if there is any way to annotate a craft with information that you can retrieve even while the craft isn't loaded. If that's possible, then the plugin could just store the science/day rate on the craft and then bump the science total periodically whenever the simulation is running. Another alternative is just to persist the science rate keyed off of the craft id. I think the only way that could get out of sync is if the player removes a craft from the tracking center.

[Kass]

Ahhh thanks db48x. Mega fast reply too, cheers.

That's what I thought happened, it just gets added to your "regular" science points. Then I started back-reading, came across the transmit science points thing and my world just exploded lol.