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

[nhnifong]

I just started playing with this again, I have many questions, hopefully with obvious answers. :/ sorry It's just so hard to search through hundreds of pages.

Is this the mod that added radiation? I see the pods have an indication of nano-Sieverts. where can I read about this mechanic? is there anything I can do to protect my kerbals? What are the deadly cumulative levels and is there any way to know how much any given kerbal has accumulated?

The radiators don't open, although they do function. Are they supposed to be automatic? Will I be able to close them if I need to?

[Lyinginbedmon]

Still getting these problems, any further ideas?

Hitting stage has no effect save the sound effect

All Interstellar engines provide zero thrust regardless of situation, most just shut down automatically regardless of reactor and generator status (the thermal jet in that save being one example)

Radiators seem to work but by and large all the functions of Interstellar parts seem to be broken

SAS seems to be ineffective despite showing its usage, with many parts of the HUD overlay being blank or matte colours

Unloading and reloading some craft occasionally restores function like heat radiating and power transmission but also results in the Hell glitch (Apollo station in the first version of the log had this issue).

[silverdragon41]

Just a question. Does this mod have any conflicting issues with the Kw rocketry mod?

[UltraVires]

Just a question. Does this mod have any conflicting issues with the Kw rocketry mod?

Nope, I have KW, Interstellar, MechJeb, FASA, Krag's Planet Factory and Kerb-Town. They all work great together (so far) I thought I would have had RAM problems by now, but I'm still rocking and rolling!

@Nhnifong The Radiators should work just like stock solar panels, use right click or actions groups to unfold them. They still work folded up, but they work better deployed. Protecting Kerbals from Radiation is a lot harder. Use your Magnetometer part to find out the Magnetic Field flux (amount of Radiation interacting with Kerbin's (or any planet's) magnetic field). Generally, the lower the number on the Magnetometer, and the higher the orbit, the less radiation your Kerbals take. Don't put your orbit too high though, or you'll leave the planet's Magnetosphere and your radiation will go up again because of the solar wind. I'm not sure that your Kerbals can actually "die" from radiation, or at least it hasn't happened to Jeb yet after 3 years getting to Jool and back...

I'm not sure of the plugin's values, but in real life, 50 mSv (50,000 Nano-Sieverts) of Radiation in a one year period is considered the maximum "safe" amount of radiation exposure in the USA. The lowest yearly dose figure that has been confirmed to increase risk of cancer etc. is 100 mSv. At 400 mSv you start to feel the Symptoms of "Radiation Sickness" but you won't die. At 2000 mSv up to 2 Sv's is considered severe Radiation Poisoning, this is not good, but dose's like this are not generally deadly, especially with medical treatment. Some people have survived exposure of up to 6 Sv, with immediate medical attention, but a dose this high is usually fatal. Any exposure over 8 Sv is considered deadly under any circumstances.

Sorry to go off on a lecture, but my Great Uncle used to work at the Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility here in the US, so I've heard a lot about this stuff

@Lyingindebmon I recommend just re-installing KSP and the mods you want. You can copy your "Saves" folder before you do, do you don't lose any of your Career mode stuff. That's all I can think of, I've really never even heard of an error like yours... Maybe someone else here on the forums can help you more.

[Eadrom]

Oh so there will be one fusion reactor that can change fuel modes on the fly? And you need a different type of generator depending on which fuel mode you're using at any one time, and thermal rockets will stop working when you switch to He3... I really like how you're fleshing out fusion but I hope for your sake that you make some really detailed patch notes, because there will probably be a lot of confused people in here next week!

Or am I misunderstanding and the different fusion reactions have dedicated reactor parts?

I'm guessing these will either be one reactor with fuel source controlled by tweakables or one reactor with fuel source controlled by some combo of right click action buttons or eva actions. I doubt Fractal would bloat the already numerous part pool with a bunch of fusion reactors. Fractal has been very good about typing in a lot of functionality in one part model without having one part do everything (got close with the sci lab though ). I also didn't get that we'll need a special generator when using helium 3 fusion fuel mode in fusion reactors. All in all, Fractal is great about providing info on new processes and such when releases them. I'm sure we'll get more solid info next week!

I just started playing with this again, I have many questions, hopefully with obvious answers. :/ sorry It's just so hard to search through hundreds of pages.

Is this the mod that added radiation? I see the pods have an indication of nano-Sieverts. where can I read about this mechanic? is there anything I can do to protect my kerbals? What are the deadly cumulative levels and is there any way to know how much any given kerbal has accumulated?

The radiators don't open, although they do function. Are they supposed to be automatic? Will I be able to close them if I need to?

We regulars know this thread is big and some days it can move FAST. There are resources on the first post (wiki and FAQ, both being worked on to bring up to date). That being said, feel free to ask questions! This mod can be a little overwhelming for people new to it.

As far as radiation, it is just flavor text for now. Fractal has stated that one of the upcoming things he would like to do is implement a type of magnetic/plasma bottle field thing (can't remember what he exactly called it) to protect against radiation. If he goes down the same path as when WasteHeat was implemented, we'll get a measurement (which we have now), then we'll get some way to protect against it in a future patch, then in a patch sometime after that, he might implement consequences for not protecting against radiation. Long story short though, it's nothing to worry about at all right now.

The cylindrical and the little white and gold radial radiators do not fold out. Think of them kinda like heat sinks for your computer's processor. The redish and black radiators do fold out and retract, just like solar panels. They are not automatic in deployment. You can set them to toggle states with an action group like you can with solar panels.

Just a question. Does this mod have any conflicting issues with the Kw rocketry mod?

I use KW rocketry and have no issues. If you run into RAM issues, as can be common using large part heavy mods like this mod, KW, Kethane, LLL, B9, etc, I *highly* recommend the texture reduction mod located HERE. It's a small DLL file that compresses part textures and such when loading the game. Some people have reported 200-800 mb reduction in RAM usage. Another thing you can do to save more RAM than compressing a texture is just flat out delete parts from parts packs like KW that you don't use (like if you use procedural fairings, you don't need the fairings provided by KW).

[Kalloran]

It depends exactly what you have done in terms of installation - you should end up with three folders inside GameData, those are HexCans, TreeLoader and WarpPlugin. If you do have those directly inside the GameData folder, you have installed it correctly.

Also, you should be able to see if the WasteHeat is working by right-clicking on a solar panel, that will give you information about the amount of WasteHeat the panel is currently generating. If you don't see that, chances are there is something wrong with your installation.

Thanks for the quick reply. The installation was correct. It turns out that I am a) not technologically advanced enough to generate heat at rapid rates and too impatient to notice this.

[Eadrom]

Thanks for the quick reply. The installation was correct. It turns out that I am a) not technologically advanced enough to generate heat at rapid rates and too impatient to notice this.

Keep in mind that this mod changes the inverse square for solar power to be more realistic. Solar power is *a lot* higher close to Kerbol than in stock and less than stock when out around Eeloo or Jool. Reference, a sundive mission had one of the basic 1x6 panels generating something like 38,000 EC/s in the low Kerbol biome (<1 Mm). What this means is that even very small solar panels can quickly roast ships that don't have any radiators on them when you get to Moho or low Kerbol orbit. I typically send a probe on a sundive during early mid career and have to be careful not to overdo it with solar power or underdo it with radiators to prevent my probe from getting cooked when grabbing science from the low Kerbol biome.

[vardicd]

Yeah I'm getting this too, I played one game a while back, and the stock single solar panel had a display for waste heat, it almost never accumulated any, but now the waste heat display doesn't show. I've added a few mods, and was wondering if I've got something conflicting, but was going to wait till I unlocked bigger waste heat generators before mentioning it, but since you did...

got it fixed, borked something in my install had to reinstall the warp plugin to get it going again.

[Fractal_UK]

Still getting these problems, any further ideas?

I guess it could be some incompatibility with another mod or mods. You could perhaps try making a copy of your KSP installation, add just Interstellar, see if you have any problems when it's the only mod you're running, then keep adding your mods back in until something goes wrong?

Oh so there will be one fusion reactor that can change fuel modes on the fly? And you need a different type of generator depending on which fuel mode you're using at any one time, and thermal rockets will stop working when you switch to He3... I really like how you're fleshing out fusion but I hope for your sake that you make some really detailed patch notes, because there will probably be a lot of confused people in here next week!

Or am I misunderstanding and the different fusion reactions have dedicated reactor parts?

Fusion reactor is just one part, just like the fission reactors. The fusion reactor is easier to switch fuels on though, you can just toggle them whenever you want. The generator might need to be different, it really depends what you want - you can use a "direct conversion generator" with any fusion reactor and it has 85% efficiency but the amount of charged particles you produce depends on the fusion reactor - 20% for Deuterium/Tritium, 80% for He-3/Deuterium and 100% for He-3.

Personally, I think using direct conversion generators is a good idea with even the Deuterium/Tritium reactors because you have a nice dividing line - 80% of the power is always available to thermal rockets and the remaining 20% gets converted into electricity at 85% efficiency. The only situation where I wouldn't do it that way would be one where I was designing a Deuterium/Tritium fusion "power plant," something that never or almost never used thermal rockets.

Here is a handy table to compare electrical production by different methods

[Eadrom]

The generator might need to be different, it really depends what you want - you can use a "direct conversion generator" with any fusion reactor and it has 85% efficiency but the amount of charged particles you produce depends on the fusion reactor - 20% for Deuterium/Tritium, 80% for He-3/Deuterium and 100% for He-3.

So we'll be getting a new generator part in 0.9?

I am practically salivating at the thought of small cluster of fusion reactors burning He-3/He-3 feeding into Direct Conversion Generators feeding into a plasma thruster. Seems like very nice set up for small local ships (tugs, kethane miners, etc) or easy ways to power D/T Vista drives.

I'm liking the fusion changes more and more! I'll definitely be setting up a large scale tritium breeding program to get large quantities of He-3 as early as I can in my next KSP 0.23 career save.

[Myrten]

I guess it could be some incompatibility with another mod or mods. You could perhaps try making a copy of your KSP installation, add just Interstellar, see if you have any problems when it's the only mod you're running, then keep adding your mods back in until something goes wrong?

Fusion reactor is just one part, just like the fission reactors. The fusion reactor is easier to switch fuels on though, you can just toggle them whenever you want. The generator might need to be different, it really depends what you want - you can use a "direct conversion generator" with any fusion reactor and it has 85% efficiency but the amount of charged particles you produce depends on the fusion reactor - 20% for Deuterium/Tritium, 80% for He-3/Deuterium and 100% for He-3.

Personally, I think using direct conversion generators is a good idea with even the Deuterium/Tritium reactors because you have a nice dividing line - 80% of the power is always available to thermal rockets and the remaining 20% gets converted into electricity at 85% efficiency. The only situation where I wouldn't do it that way would be one where I was designing a Deuterium/Tritium fusion "power plant," something that never or almost never used thermal rockets.

Here is a handy table to compare electrical production by different methods

1)Can you post a table with Megawatts?

2)Do I get it right that Direct Conversion Generator only works on Charged Power while Thermoelectric Generator only works on Thermal Power?

3)Can we attach Direct Conversion Generator on one side of the reactor and Thermoelectric Generator on the other side so both Charged and Thermal power would be fully utilized?

[Fractal_UK]

1)Can you post a table with Megawatts?

Sure, here you go:

The other effects of changing fusion fuel are mildly altered fuel consumption rates - Deuterium/Helium-3 is the most mass efficienct while pure Helium-3 is the least mass efficient. The Deuterium/Helium-3 and Helium-3 burning options also both require more laser power (1.5x and 2x respectively) than the Deuterium/Tritium mode - the best option to use then depends very much on what you're going to do with the reactor. Deuterium/Tritium is the clear winner for thermal power but the others will offer some significant improvements in electrical production if that's more what you're looking for.

2)Do I get it right that Direct Conversion Generator only works on Charged Power while Thermoelectric Generator only works on Thermal Power?

Yes, that is correct.

3)Can we attach Direct Conversion Generator on one side of the reactor and Thermoelectric Generator on the other side so both Charged and Thermal power would be fully utilized?

Yes, you can do this as well. Obviously it uses up both attachment nodes so no thermal rocket but if all you want is electrical power, you can do this.

[silverdragon41]

Nope, I have KW, Interstellar, MechJeb, FASA, Krag's Planet Factory and Kerb-Town. They all work great together (so far) I thought I would have had RAM problems by now, but I'm still rocking and rolling!

@Nhnifong The Radiators should work just like stock solar panels, use right click or actions groups to unfold them. They still work folded up, but they work better deployed. Protecting Kerbals from Radiation is a lot harder. Use your Magnetometer part to find out the Magnetic Field flux (amount of Radiation interacting with Kerbin's (or any planet's) magnetic field). Generally, the lower the number on the Magnetometer, and the higher the orbit, the less radiation your Kerbals take. Don't put your orbit too high though, or you'll leave the planet's Magnetosphere and your radiation will go up again because of the solar wind. I'm not sure that your Kerbals can actually "die" from radiation, or at least it hasn't happened to Jeb yet after 3 years getting to Jool and back...

I'm not sure of the plugin's values, but in real life, 50 mSv (50,000 Nano-Sieverts) of Radiation in a one year period is considered the maximum "safe" amount of radiation exposure in the USA. The lowest yearly dose figure that has been confirmed to increase risk of cancer etc. is 100 mSv. At 400 mSv you start to feel the Symptoms of "Radiation Sickness" but you won't die. At 2000 mSv up to 2 Sv's is considered severe Radiation Poisoning, this is not good, but dose's like this are not generally deadly, especially with medical treatment. Some people have survived exposure of up to 6 Sv, with immediate medical attention, but a dose this high is usually fatal. Any exposure over 8 Sv is considered deadly under any circumstances.

Sorry to go off on a lecture, but my Great Uncle used to work at the Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility here in the US, so I've heard a lot about this stuff

@Lyingindebmon I recommend just re-installing KSP and the mods you want. You can copy your "Saves" folder before you do, do you don't lose any of your Career mode stuff. That's all I can think of, I've really never even heard of an error like yours... Maybe someone else here on the forums can help you more.

Hmm then it must be Kw mod then. As the parts from it in career mode do not stay research so I can never use them in career mode. Works fine in sandbox.

[Myrten]

Sure, here you go:

The other effects of changing fusion fuel are mildly altered fuel consumption rates - Deuterium/Helium-3 is the most mass efficienct while pure Helium-3 is the least mass efficient. The Deuterium/Helium-3 and Helium-3 burning options also both require more laser power (1.5x and 2x respectively) than the Deuterium/Tritium mode - the best option to use then depends very much on what you're going to do with the reactor. Deuterium/Tritium is the clear winner for thermal power but the others will offer some significant improvements in electrical production if that's more what you're looking for.

Thanks, I've made some calculations, with both generators attached energy difference between Deuterium/Helium3 and Pure Helium 3 is negligible.

1.25m reactor + two generators with D/H3 can generate 426.3 MW while pure Helium 3 can generate 446.25 MW. Comparing to 3.75M nuclear reactor\generator these numbers doesn't look great but they are way more weight efficient so 6 of them is enough to power DT Vista while having much lower weight. If FPS drops wouldn't be related to number of parts they could be also a great material for a power plant

Still, any chance of 2.5m and 3.75m fusion reactors?

[Eadrom]

Two questions, Fractal. Are all reactors going have their output split into thermal and charged power or just the fusion reactors?

Also, as I understand it, one of the products of all three fusion reactions we'll be getting is Helium-4. I gather that the neutron radiation just goes off on its merry way and we collect the protons. My second questions is do the reactors just vent the Helium-4 or is there anything useful we can do with this byproduct? Would it be useful as mono-prop or venting the helium-4 carry away some waste heat or feed into the crew's air recyclers for amusing sounding transmission back to mission control?

Thanks, I've made some calculations, with both generators attached energy difference between Deuterium/Helium3 and Pure Helium 3 is negligible.

1.25m reactor + two generators with D/H3 can generate 426.3 MW while pure Helium 3 can generate 446.25 MW. Comparing to 3.75M nuclear reactor\generator these numbers doesn't look great but they are way more weight efficient so 6 of them is enough to power DT Vista while having much lower weight. If FPS drops wouldn't be related to number of parts they could be also a great material for a power plant

Wouldn't the He-3/He-3 fuel mode with just one direct conversion reactor be more better than a D/He-3 with one of each type of generator because of the mass you are saving from having one generator instead of two? Granted, the 1.25 generator in 0.8 is only 0.5 tons. But that'll add up fast if you are wanting to do something like power a D/T Vista drive; that's an extra 3 tons and 6 parts. You can also save a lot of weight in radiators if I understand Fractal correctly in that the He-3/He-3 will generate a lot less waste heat producing electrical power. So while yes, the two fuel modes might be very close in output, the He-3/He-3 still offers some significant advantages in my mind (less mass to move and fewer parts to render).

Edited December 16, 2013 by Eadrom

[Myrten]

Wouldn't the He-3/He-3 fuel mode with just one direct conversion reactor be more better than a D/He-3 with one of each type of generator because of the mass you are saving from having one generator instead of two? Granted, the 1.25 generator in 0.8 is only 0.5 tons. But that'll add up fast if you are wanting to do something like power a D/T Vista drive; that's an extra 3 tons and 6 parts. You can also save a lot of weight in radiators if I understand Fractal correctly in that the He-3/He-3 will generate a lot less waste heat producing electrical power. So while yes, the two fuel modes might be very close in output, the He-3/He-3 still offers some significant advantages in my mind (less mass to move and fewer parts to render).

It would be obviously better but since He-3 is hard to get and this mode consumes largest amount of fuel I'd go for D/He-3 hybrid.

[Eadrom]

It would be obviously better but since He-3 is hard to get and this mode consumes largest amount of fuel I'd go for D/He-3 hybrid.

As soon as unlock large docking ports and nuke reactors, I plan on lobbing up several stations that will just spending the next few years churning out tritium and then storing the Helium-3 that decays out. hopefully by the time I unlock fusion reactors, I'll be well on my way to having a lot of Helium-3 stored up for mission once I unlock that tech. If you wait until you unlock that tech to start farming the helium-3, you'll be waiting a looong time to get usable amounts of fuel. I start collecting antimatter as soon as possible for the same reason. Farming up a good chunk of helium-3 should be pretty easy since you get lithium right off the bat (Fractal, maybe move the lithium tanks to same node as fission reactors?) and you get fission reactors mid-game.

I absolutely love that planning ahead in this manner pays off very well in this mod.

I'm envisioning something vaguely along the lines of this:

Edited December 16, 2013 by Eadrom

[NotCoach]

As soon as unlock large docking ports and nuke reactors, I plan on lobbing up several stations that will just spending the next few years churning out tritium and then storing the Helium-3 that decays out. hopefully by the time I unlock fusion reactors, I'll be well on my way to having a lot of Helium-3 stored up for mission once I unlock that tech. If you wait until you unlock that tech to start farming the helium-3, you'll be waiting a looong time to get usable amounts of fuel. I start collecting antimatter as soon as possible for the same reason. Farming up a good chunk of helium-3 should be pretty easy since you get lithium right off the bat (Fractal, maybe move the lithium tanks to same node as fission reactors?) and you get fission reactors mid-game.

I absolutely love that planning ahead in this manner pays off very well in this mod.

I'm envisioning something vaguely along the lines of this:

Why bother launching it? Park it out back next to the Korvette sitting on blocks.

[Eadrom]

Why bother launching it? Park it out back next to the Korvette sitting on blocks.

I don't use KAS (nothing against it, might try it after 0.23 comes out if its optimizations are good enough) and I like to keep the KSC clear of other vessels. A quick stop at an antimatter or helium-3 depot in LKO and then off to the mission is easier for me than working with ground based infrastructure.

[NotCoach]

I don't use KAS (nothing against it, might try it after 0.23 comes out if its optimizations are good enough) and I like to keep the KSC clear of other vessels. A quick stop at an antimatter or helium-3 depot in LKO and then off to the mission is easier for me than working with ground based infrastructure.

Meh. Personally if the stuff can be realistically manufactured/mined on Kerbin I don't trouble myself with any of that. My KSP isn't green. It buys everything wrapped in plastic, and always in triplicate. Now when the resource component is implemented then I might have to decide if going through the trouble is more economical then just throwing free Kerbal tax dollars at it (still might just spend instead of manufacturing). Until then anything that can realistically be manufactured on Kerbin I outsource its procurement to TAC Fuel Balancer Inc.

[Fractal_UK]

Two questions, Fractal. Are all reactors going have their output split into thermal and charged power or just the fusion reactors?

Also, as I understand it, one of the products of all three fusion reactions we'll be getting is Helium-4. I gather that the neutron radiation just goes off on its merry way and we collect the protons. My second questions is do the reactors just vent the Helium-4 or is there anything useful we can do with this byproduct? Would it be useful as mono-prop or venting the helium-4 carry away some waste heat or feed into the crew's air recyclers for amusing sounding transmission back to mission control?

It will just be fusion reactors that produce charged power - in theory, antimatter reactors should produce some too but in this case it is charged pions that are being produced, these are very fast, very penetrating and essentially impossible to stop so although power is technically being produced in this form, you can't extract it.

As for Helium-4, I don't really have a use for it at present so I'm not going to worry about it. It's certainly no use for carrying away waste heat considering a few years of reactor operation will get you a few kilograms of helium-4. It is almost certainly used inside the brayton cycle generators but its used within a closed cycle so it doesn't really get used up, so not much need for a resource for it.

[Donziboy2]

Nice, I will continue to plan for my next career

Just designed a small AM satellite, it will only take 9 trips from my Fusion SSTO to get it all into orbit:rolleyes:

[RabidMonkey]

With Kethane seeming to be the front-running resource mod now that integrated resources have been indefinitely shelved, are you rethinking integration with it?

[Fractal_UK]

With Kethane seeming to be the front-running resource mod now that integrated resources have been indefinitely shelved, are you rethinking integration with it?

Kethane has been the most popular resource mod for a long time, the fact that the stock resource system has been shelved indefinitely is irrelevant, nothing has changed with regard to hard dependency since I last discussed this matter - it remains out of the question. Any Kethane integration will only be of the very soft dependency kind, e.g. the current Thermal Rockets being able to use Kethane as a propellant.

[Myrten]

Nice, I will continue to plan for my next career

Just designed a small AM satellite, it will only take 9 trips from my Fusion SSTO to get it all into orbit:rolleyes:

How about Single Stage To Jool Orbit power plant powered by 100 antimatter collectors ?

I'm not sure why generator generates more power then reactor, all microwave receivers are off.

Going over 100 is not a good idea since FPS drop gets too hard. Getting it to Jool is actually not that hard with everything unlocked, it runs on 9 DT-Vistas. I warp to Jool, aerobreake and circularize orbit.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Myrten