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

[Dix2lespace]

thanks Fractal! sorry bur i'll need precision:

"[Experimental Electrics] Electric Generator: Brayton Turbine ----> KTEC Thermoelectric"

Can i upgrade the KTEC Thermoelectric with other science research to have 57 or 60 % or it's just a theorical limit? I'm not sure to understand...

I can only upgrade the Electric Generator Brayton Turbine with 19% efficiency (and not the 24% like written in the VAB)

I have the KTEC Thermoelectric upgrade but to obtain 47% , i need to make a warp time to x50 (only in mode career not in sandbox mode): it's normal?

"With the basic generator, it's not possible to get more than 24% efficiency"

So, with the basic generator, on the lauch pad, i should have 24%? I had (before the upgrade) only 4% efficiency, and one more time I needed to make a warp time to obtain 19% (and not 24%).

What do you think about that?

[Donziboy2]

Somebody ordered a 77T gas can, and you know how Jeb is

10 fully upgraded fusion reactors, 1 nuke hidden in the front compartments that can be jettisoned it if all goes wrong, some B9 parts, a few less struts then I really need and one really krazy Kerbal...

It was a long flight up, got to 35K after about 30 minutes.

Circularizing was interesting since the engines are not on the center line... Im going for more torque next time. Using the gas cans built in RCS to get it out.

After getting it out and clear I deployed the panels and they closed 2 seconds later since somebody forgot radiators..... But its up there

Edited December 14, 2013 by Donziboy2

[XanderTek]

In version 0.9, you will be able to see thrust and delta-v stats for all thermal rockets in the VAB as well as in flight, I'm certain this will help you plan your missions more effectively.

Awesome, that'll be a big help! From your wording, I'm guessing that there are separate/additional problems with getting plasma engines working with MechJeb?

[Fractal_UK]

thanks Fractal! sorry bur i'll need precision:

"[Experimental Electrics] Electric Generator: Brayton Turbine ----> KTEC Thermoelectric"

Can i upgrade the KTEC Thermoelectric with other science research to have 57 or 60 % or it's just a theorical limit? I'm not sure to understand...

I can only upgrade the Electric Generator Brayton Turbine with 19% efficiency (and not the 24% like written in the VAB)

I have the KTEC Thermoelectric upgrade but to obtain 47% , i need to make a warp time to x50 (only in mode career not in sandbox mode): it's normal?

So, with the basic generator, on the lauch pad, i should have 24%? I had (before the upgrade) only 4% efficiency, and one more time I needed to make a warp time to obtain 19% (and not 24%).

What do you think about that?

The efficiency that you see is different from the theoretical efficiency. So, 24% is the maximum for the unupgraded generator but it can be a lot lower. 60% is the maximum for the upgraded generator but again, it can be lower.

The formula is (1-T_C/T_H)*generator efficiency, where T_C is the average temperature of your radiators and T_H is the temperature of your reactor. The efficiency you see will sometimes go up when you timewarp because the reactor and generator will run at 100% until they have filled the Megajoules and ThermalPower bars, that takes a bit of time, after a while, when those bars are full, the reactor and generator will drop down to low percentages of their maximum power output - which produces much less heat and allows the radiators to cool. When the radiators cool down, you get much higher efficiency.

The 4%, however, is actually a bit lower than it should be possible due to a slight error with reactor temperatures in version 0.8 and I don't think you'll ever see lower than about ~10% efficiency in version 0.9.

Awesome, that'll be a big help! From your wording, I'm guessing that there are separate/additional problems with getting plasma engines working with MechJeb?

To be totally honestly, I don't know if that is possible - it'd be easy to give you a correct specific impulse for the plasma engine, which is enough to calculate an accurate delta-v but there is almost no chance of you getting an accurate TWR in the VAB, there are simply too many things to consider. For all the difficulty of doing it for the thermal rocket - the plasma engine is 100x worse.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Dix2lespace]

ok i understand, thanks Fractal

[Donziboy2]

Any keyboard landing you can walk away from.....

[Fred The Zombie]

Ok, I'll standby and hold all "manned" flights with Soyuz modules until then. Thank you for the quick answer and for the great mod.

[Fractal_UK]

More about Version 0.9

Version 0.9 shall feature a new part which both serves as a resource prospect for resource extraction and as a new science experiment. This part shall be a Gas Chromotography Mass Spectrometer and it will give you comprehensive details about the atmospheric composition of the current celestial body - this equipment needs an atmospheric sample in order to operate so you won't be able to just fly into a sphere of influence and take some readings, you'll therefore have to actually drop probes inside the atmosphere in order to get a sample to analyse and figure out the abundances of all the gases. Once you do that, you'll be able to collect readings as from any other science instrument.

Additionally, you can also use this part in preparation for sending out atmospheric scoops, to see what kind of resources it might be productive to extract from the native atmosphere.

[9911MU51C]

does this require kethane?

[Fractal_UK]

does this require kethane?

Nope, everything that is required is included in the download. It is compatible with Kethane though and you can use Kethane as a thermal rocket propellant if you have it installed but it doesn't matter if you don't, Interstellar includes a "LqdMethane" propellant too.

[Hremsfeld]

To be totally honestly, I don't know if that is possible - it'd be easy to give you a correct specific impulse for the plasma engine, which is enough to calculate an accurate delta-v but there is almost no chance of you getting an accurate TWR in the VAB, there are simply too many things to consider. For all the difficulty of doing it for the thermal rocket - the plasma engine is 100x worse.

The Fusebox plugin isn't yet compatible with KSPI because, in the mod author's words, "every part in it tends to be drowning in [electrical] charge." It's a plugin for determining if your electric charge production / consumption lines up or not, so Megajoules aren't factored in, but perhaps there's some chance of working with him to determine Megajoule production in the VAB. From there, the usual "X kN per MJ input at this level of thrust" applies.

Nope, everything that is required is included in the download. It is compatible with Kethane though and you can use Kethane as a thermal rocket propellant if you have it installed but it doesn't matter if you don't, Interstellar includes a "LqdMethane" propellant too.

I think you may've already answered this, but there are plans for other LM-fueled engines in the future, right? It would involve making up new engines without real-world analogues, but the 1-D is strictly a lift-off engine right now. The methane tank is too massive and the 1-D is too powerful for use on a non-incredibly-overpowered lander, and the specific impulse is far too low for interplanetary flight when options like the Vista exist.

[Charzy]

How on Earth do you get the upgrades for the nuclear reactors and things?

[Fractal_UK]

The Fusebox plugin isn't yet compatible with KSPI because, in the mod author's words, "every part in it tends to be drowning in [electrical] charge." It's a plugin for determining if your electric charge production / consumption lines up or not, so Megajoules aren't factored in, but perhaps there's some chance of working with him to determine Megajoule production in the VAB. From there, the usual "X kN per MJ input at this level of thrust" applies.

The problem is - generator electricity production is very variable depending on efficiency. Upgraded reactors, thanks to their high tempetatures make the process of estimating power output simpler but in the extreme case of unupgraded reactors and upgraded generators, you can theoretically go between almost 0 and 60% efficiency depending on the amount of radiators that are available. So you need to take into account: reactor upgrades, generator upgrades, radiator upgrades and reactor and radiator expected temperatures in order to guess output and that is an incredibly complicated amount of factors to estimate.

I think you may've already answered this, but there are plans for other LM-fueled engines in the future, right? It would involve making up new engines without real-world analogues, but the 1-D is strictly a lift-off engine right now. The methane tank is too massive and the 1-D is too powerful for use on a non-incredibly-overpowered lander, and the specific impulse is far too low for interplanetary flight when options like the Vista exist.

I'm very interested in the idea of adding more Liquid Methane engines, a 1.25m version particularly but this isn't the kind of thing that I'm personally very useful for. Making a Liquid Methane engine requires 0 lines of plugin code and a lot of really good modelling, so I'm not the best person to drive that forward, I just need some generous artist to take an interest in making some engines.

If I did make another engine, it'd just be a smaller one with scaled down thrust and mass and almost the same specific impulse. Pretty much the biggest factor in determining specific impulse is the propellant so it's a little strange that the stock engines have so many different combinations over such a wide range - I can only assume they're modelling a range of perfomances you could get with different propellants (Kerosene, Hydrogen, MMH, etc) without the extra complexity of actually using different resources.

How on Earth do you get the upgrades for the nuclear reactors and things?

Generally, automatically by researching technologies at the R&D building. Look in the first page of this thread or on the wiki, the nodes with technologies in brackets upgrade things for free.

[Donziboy2]

Hey Fractal_UK I noticed the Thermal TurboJet will run off the Stock Engine Nacelle weather its intake is open or close...

[Makeone]

I'm wondering if adding LiquidMethane to thermal rocket fuels, both alone and together with oxidizer? I'd assume they would have similar thrust figures as 'normal' liquid fuel and LFO usage?

[Fractal_UK]

I'm wondering if adding LiquidMethane to thermal rocket fuels, both alone and together with oxidizer? I'd assume they would have similar thrust figures as 'normal' liquid fuel and LFO usage?

I will probably do this at some point soon, before I do it though, I want to improve the LFO code so that you get a more realistic change to thrust and specific impulse.

[Donziboy2]

OK, im ready for anything now

Went out and bought a $30 Joystick and my first test flight and landing was awesome! Normally I break parts off the wings with the keyboard...

[Fractal_UK]

Update

I have been working on an electrical power display for your ships for version 0.9, it will give you information about the amount of power that your generators can supply, current power demands, net power and power utilisation.

You can also get a list of parts that are currently drawing power, how much they are drawing and potentially, for certain parts, information about what that part is doing with it. As an example, instead of just seeing "Science Lab 5MW", you might see "Science Lab (Researching) 5MW", this will help you see which parts are doing what and what they are doing with it.

For the first run, this system will just be informative but in the future I can tie it into the power prioritisation code so you'll be able to use this display to divert power preferentially to the components that you want to receive it the most.

Using the information gained from testing this, I've improved the handling of power by antimatter storage tanks too, so that should lead to fewer messages restricting time warp and generally improved performance.

[Konnor]

So fusion-powered FAR-compatible SSTO is indeed possible... Donziboy2, did you use LFO to circularize or just liquid fuel?

I've been trying that with a small craft and one engine, general idea being to reach upper atmosphere using intake air only and then switch to liquid fuel, spending as little fuel as possible; but I can't rise high enough that way, thrust decreases fast (faster then with jets or SABREs) as the air becomes less and less dense (which is expected behavior, of course).

Another fusion-related question (I can't seem to find it mentioned in this thread, but I could have missed it): is it possible to add lithium to the resource-mining framework? That would be useful for long-term self-sufficient operations.

As for now (and if I understand it correctly), with fission power, a colony somewhere on Laythe can produce its own liquid fuel and oxidizer, the only things to worry about being the nuclear fuel (which runs out but can be refilled via mining) and actinides (that must be buried somewhere - on Jool, maybe). With fusion, deuterium can be extracted from water, and so only tritium requires regular lithium supplies from Kerbin. If that colony could mine lithium as well, it would not depend on resources from Kerbin, at least in theory - I'm not sure tritium breeding is fast enough for it (and maybe these independent colonies are a case of having the cake and eating it at the same time).

[Donziboy2]

So fusion-powered FAR-compatible SSTO is indeed possible... Donziboy2, did you use LFO to circularize or just liquid fuel?

I've been trying that with a small craft and one engine, general idea being to reach upper atmosphere using intake air only and then switch to liquid fuel, spending as little fuel as possible; but I can't rise high enough that way, thrust decreases fast (faster then with jets or SABREs) as the air becomes less and less dense (which is expected behavior, of course).

Another fusion-related question (I can't seem to find it mentioned in this thread, but I could have missed it): is it possible to add lithium to the resource-mining framework? That would be useful for long-term self-sufficient operations.

As for now (and if I understand it correctly), with fission power, a colony somewhere on Laythe can produce its own liquid fuel and oxidizer, the only things to worry about being the nuclear fuel (which runs out but can be refilled via mining) and actinides (that must be buried somewhere - on Jool, maybe). With fusion, deuterium can be extracted from water, and so only tritium requires regular lithium supplies from Kerbin. If that colony could mine lithium as well, it would not depend on resources from Kerbin, at least in theory - I'm not sure tritium breeding is fast enough for it (and maybe these independent colonies are a case of having the cake and eating it at the same time).

I actually find FAR a must, it makes planes fly like planes.. And my new joystick is a godsend lol. I use liquid fuel only(and its OP). You can build SSTO's with Fusion and Fission reactors, for career you will have a limited payload based on your reactor tech level. B9 is also vary helpful, since they have a few craft you can modify, the B9's are already strutted so they hold together better. I took the B9

As for circularizing, you need to work your way up to 30Km and just build up speed once you get there, you need to be going atleast 1.8-2kms before you really start going up or your going to waste alot of fuel, its a very slow process and I usually don't switch over to LF until about 35 minutes into my flight, and I use very little. You also have to spam intakes... I also have mechjeb setup to tell me the drag on my craft, if its to high you will have issues. I also have Deadly Reentry so I try to keep my craft right at the verge of flame effects. The craft I posted above can get a 77T payload into 80km LKO and only use about 30LF. Using 10 upgraded fusion reactors and 30 intakes

Fractal_UK, could you halve the ISP on LF/LFO for the Thermal Turbo Jets(leave the thrust and intake alone), it feels way to much like cheating once you get the hang of it. The fact you can get into orbit with almost no fuel usage on intakes is nice, but then having insane ISP in vacuum is just a little to much lol.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Donziboy2

[Myrten]

Update

I have been working on an electrical power display for your ships for version 0.9, it will give you information about the amount of power that your generators can supply, current power demands, net power and power utilisation.

You can also get a list of parts that are currently drawing power, how much they are drawing and potentially, for certain parts, information about what that part is doing with it. As an example, instead of just seeing "Science Lab 5MW", you might see "Science Lab (Researching) 5MW", this will help you see which parts are doing what and what they are doing with it.

For the first run, this system will just be informative but in the future I can tie it into the power prioritisation code so you'll be able to use this display to divert power preferentially to the components that you want to receive it the most.

Using the information gained from testing this, I've improved the handling of power by antimatter storage tanks too, so that should lead to fewer messages restricting time warp and generally improved performance.

That's awesome feature. Can't wait to see it in practice

[Fractal_UK]

Another fusion-related question (I can't seem to find it mentioned in this thread, but I could have missed it): is it possible to add lithium to the resource-mining framework? That would be useful for long-term self-sufficient operations.

As for now (and if I understand it correctly), with fission power, a colony somewhere on Laythe can produce its own liquid fuel and oxidizer, the only things to worry about being the nuclear fuel (which runs out but can be refilled via mining) and actinides (that must be buried somewhere - on Jool, maybe). With fusion, deuterium can be extracted from water, and so only tritium requires regular lithium supplies from Kerbin. If that colony could mine lithium as well, it would not depend on resources from Kerbin, at least in theory - I'm not sure tritium breeding is fast enough for it (and maybe these independent colonies are a case of having the cake and eating it at the same time).

Lithium is a pretty abundant element so I think the justification for mining it locally is very strong, it would be easier to find than elements like Uranium or Thorium, it would come as some mineral but you have electrolysis equipment in the refinery anyway so that's all fine.

I will put lithium into the resource system soon, in addition to switching both aluminium and water into that system so you'll have some variability in the availability of those resources rather than the current setup where you either have plenty or nothing.

Additionally, with respect to fusion, you will be able to use Deuterium/Helium 3 or pure Helium 3 fuel with the upgraded reactor in version 0.9 and both of those can be extracted from Jool's atmosphere so a thermal jet based upon Laythe that sports atmospheric scoops could serve as a refueling vehicle for Laythe-based fusion reactors.

[InfinityArch]

@Fractal_UK: Will we also be able to mine Helium-3 from certain areas on the Mun and possibly other similar bodies?

[Myrten]

Will Helium-3 be available at launch or the only option to get it is to produce it manually?

[Fractal_UK]

Helium 3 will not be available at launch, no. I'm assuming that on Kerbin, like on Earth, Helium 3 is exceptionally rare - it is possible to manufacture on Kerbin, however, because Tritium decays into Helium 3 so if you can produce lots of Tritium, you will eventually end up with a tidy supply of Helium 3.

I want to add Helium 3 mining to regions like the moon's polar regions but even in those areas its very rare so I don't want to make a static mining operation, I'm looking to add some kind of tractor with revolving regolith processor that drives around sifting through lots of regolith to extract all the juicy Helium 3, I just need to find someone who can take this idea from my head and turn it into model form!

Note that these aneutronic fusion reactors are very different to the other reactors in the mod, attached to a generator they'll give you stupidly high efficiencies at making electrical power but they give very little thermal power and consequently much less waste heat.