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

[RadHazard]

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:

-snip-

What mod is that large solar array from? It kinda looks like the Near Future solar array, but I didn't think it was so large.

[Fractal_UK]

Okay, here's something of interest with respect to resources - in version 0.9 there will no longer be a single type of resource definition, there will be three differents types. These are "Planetary Resource Definitions", "Atmospheric Resource Definitions" and "Oceanic Resource Definitions" these can be used to define the constituents of the crust, atmosphere and ocean of every planet in the game.

Planetary resource definitions, you have seen before, they look like this:

This is used to define Moho's crustal abundance of Uranium, defined by the image moho_uraium.png

PLANETARY_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
	name = Uranium
	celestialBodyName = Moho
	resourceName = UF4
	mapUrl = WarpPlugin/PlanetResourceData/moho_uranium
	resourceScale = LOG_SCALE
	scaleFactor = 1.0311580936394657748190008944693
	scaleMultiplier = 3
	displayTexture = WarpPlugin/uranium_resource_point
	displayThreshold = 0.001
}

The new types look like this:

This defines the oxygen content of Kerbin's atmosphere as 20.946%

ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
	name = KerbinOxygen // a name
	guiName = Oxygen // a name to display in game
	celestialBodyName = Kerbin // the planet
	resourceName = Oxidizer // the resource to extract
	abundance = 0.20946 // the fraction of the atmosphere that is this resource
}

This defines the Uranium content of Kerbin's oceans as 0.0000003%

OCEANIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION
{
	name = KerbinUF4 // a name
	guiName = Uranium // a name to display in game
	celestialBodyName = Kerbin // the planet
	resourceName = UF4 // the resource to extract
	abundance = 0.000000003 // the fraction of the ocean that is this resource
}

As you can see, I now have code infrastructure to create resource extraction that can be done from planetary bodies, atmospheres and oceans anywhere in the solar system.

Also coming in the new version is a generic resource extraction component that you can use to produce resources - this will let you mod in your own resources using only .cfg files, no coding required. That looks like this:

MODULE
{
	name = FNModuleResourceExtraction // you need this part
	powerConsumptionLand = 10 // number of megajoules used extracting this resource on land
	powerConsumptionOcean = 100 // " in ocean
	extractionRateLandPerTon = 0.009259259259 // a measure of how quickly the resource is extracted on land
	extractionRateOceanPerTon = 0.0001 // " in ocean
	resourceName = UF4 // name of the resource to produce
	unitName = Uranium Miner // what it is
	extractActionName = Mine Uranium // what the "start" button says
	stopActionName = Stop Uranium Mining // what the "stop" button says
}

[Donziboy2]

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.

Somehow I don't think FAR would make it so easy to launch that lol. Besides that thing looks way more tempting to the Kraken then my AM Space Station

What mod is that large solar array from? It kinda looks like the Near Future solar array, but I didn't think it was so large.

Its a Balka from KOSMOS.

[Myrten]

Somehow I don't think FAR would make it so easy to launch that lol. Besides that thing looks way more tempting to the Kraken then my AM Space Station

It would be a funny challenge to launch this masterpiece of Kerbal Technical Though to Jool in FAR By now I'm going to build improved version with 17 'towers' instead of 9, should have much better TWR as this one barely lifted from the ground .

Where is your station located? I'd build mine in orbit too but since Quantum Struts doesn't work with 0.22 AFAIK it would be pretty hard to move it to Jool...

[Eadrom]

Also coming in the new version is a generic resource extraction component that you can use to produce resources - this will let you mod in your own resources using only .cfg files, no coding required.

With this new system in place, would you say it would be fairly straight-forward to add the ability to get water from certain bodies (Mun?, Laythe, Eeloo?, Vall?) for use with the TAC LS mod? I'd like to be able to set up water and oxygen supply points elsewhere in the kerbol system and right now all I can do is get oxygen at Laythe. If I can either grab ice and melt it or suck up ocean water and get water via vaporization, I can get water, as well as oxygen and liquid fuel (since we sim that LF is liquid hydrogen in Interstellar) from places that are not Laythe.

I'm really excited about this addition the more I think about it!

*****

As far as the kethane integration thing, with how Majiir and Fractal are both awesome at providing hooks into their mods, I'm betting it will not take much work to set up integration via module manager. I believe both KSPI and Kethane's licences allow for distribution of MM config files that interact with their mods (correct me if I'm wrong).

I think Kethane and Interstellar's resource system are different enough in theory and backend mechanics that they can happily coexist and even work with each other. I personally see no reason to have Interstellar rely on Kethane to provide resource extraction. I think the two mods compliment each other nicely.

[Fractal_UK]

With this new system in place, would you say it would be fairly straight-forward to add the ability to get water from certain bodies (Mun?, Laythe, Eeloo?, Vall?) for use with the TAC LS mod? I'd like to be able to set up water and oxygen supply points elsewhere in the kerbol system and right now all I can do is get oxygen at Laythe. If I can either grab ice and melt it or suck up ocean water and get water via vaporization, I can get water, as well as oxygen and liquid fuel (since we sim that LF is liquid hydrogen in Interstellar) from places that are not Laythe.

I'm really excited about this addition the more I think about it!

It's really really simple just to add in but it will be a little trickier to add without making the interface of the Liquid chromatograph–mass spectrometer look a bit weird - there is already a resource definition for water so you could create another definition for water but with the TAC resource type but it will then appear twice in the Liquid chromatograph–mass spectrometer analysis window. This may or may not be something that bothers you.

Anyway, instead of just clicking the electrolysis option on the refinery and it gives you either aluminium/oxygen and liquid/oxygen depending on your location, you now choose a resource to extract first, e.g. "LqdWater" or "Alumina", which you extract with the refinery - it has capacity for both of these resources. You can then carry those resources away with you if you want and electrolyse them later.

This means that in the future, you could imagine having a smalling mining part that only has resource extraction options (no processing options) and you collect up water, alumina or other resources on the surfaces of planets and ship them back to some kind of larger processing facility to electrolyse them into finished products.

Additionally - I likely don't have time to do it for version 0.9 (but I'll have a go) - I have put in place the groundwork for chemicals like Ammonia being available in certain places (I won't tell you where because it's fun to explore!), you will be able to see where it is with the new resource scanning parts, the mass spectrometers. Combined with an option to manufacture Hydrogen Peroxide from water, this will finally permit the manufacture of Monopropellant out in space.

Note: Because of all these additions to the resource system, refineries are likely to be somewhat broken, or at least hindered, by the update (nothing else will be). Since this part is already a bit of a headache with its dodgy attachment nodes, I'm guessing this won't be a major problem and getting the thing working nicely will be well worth it.

Edit: ^Though it's looking like it may actually work fine anyway, afterall.

Edited December 17, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[Eadrom]

Thank you for the info Fractal! Maybe I can rig something up on the TAC water purifier to process Interstellar's "LqdWater" into TACLS's drinkable "Water". So it could either convert waste water back to drinking water or convert...industrial? water to drinking water.

With these extra resources that we can extract and then electrolyse later, will we see some new hexcan's for storing them?

[Patupi]

It's really really simple just to add in but it will be a little trickier to add without making the interface of the Liquid chromatograph–mass spectrometer look a bit weird - there is already a resource definition for water so you could create another definition for water but with the TAC resource type but it will then appear twice in the Liquid chromatograph–mass spectrometer analysis window. This may or may not be something that bothers you.

Anyway, instead of just clicking the electrolysis option on the refinery and it gives you either aluminium/oxygen and liquid/oxygen depending on your location, you now choose a resource to extract first, e.g. "LqdWater" or "Alumina", which you extract with the refinery - it has capacity for both of these resources. You can then carry those resources away with you if you want and electrolyse them later.

This means that in the future, you could imagine having a smalling mining part that only has resource extraction options (no processing options) and you collect up water, alumina or other resources on the surfaces of planets and ship them back to some kind of larger processing facility to electrolyse them into finished products.

Additionally - I likely don't have time to do it for version 0.9 (but I'll have a go) - I have put in place the groundwork for chemicals like Ammonia being available in certain places (I won't tell you where because it's fun to explore!), you will be able to see where it is with the new resource scanning parts, the mass spectrometers. Combined with an option to manufacture Hydrogen Peroxide from water, this will finally permit the manufacture of Monopropellant out in space.

Note: Because of all these additions to the resource system, refineries are likely to be somewhat broken, or at least hindered, by the update (nothing else will be). Since this part is already a bit of a headache with its dodgy attachment nodes, I'm guessing this won't be a major problem and getting the thing working nicely will be well worth it.

Edit: ^Though it's looking like it may actually work fine anyway, afterall.

Heck, you could have a lightweight, but large cockpit setup, then 'fill' the outside of it with water as a radiation shield... whenever you get around to making radiation lethal Build rocket. Launch rocket. Dodge Van Allen belts. Head to minmus or asteroids. Mine water. Now you can visit Jool with relative impunity... well, mostly.

[simmy2109]

So... with all these awesome fixes and new features coming out in 0.9, am I the only one sitting here refreshing the page every couple hours looking for it to be uploaded? Haha. But honestly, I'm more excited for KSPI 0.9 than KSP 0.23. Keep up the awesome work Fractal! (and don't take this as me trying to rush you... take all the time you need).

[Scotius]

Ammonia? My first thought was Eve - since this planet already does have hot fart for an atmosphere But then i had a second thought, and now i know where to look for it

[Fractal_UK]

Okay, I have had chance to put it in, so let's make one of these funny resource diagrams like SQUAD put out there some time ago. This is how you make Monopropellant:

I could abstract the process and have simply Water and Ammonia inputs involved in producing the Monopropellant but Hydrogen Peroxide is a pretty useful chemical that I may give some use to in the future so I'd rather prepare for that possibility. Indeed Hydrogen Peroxide is actually an oxidiser commonly used in, you guessed it, rockets.

Additionally, Hydrogen Peroxide is the standard oxidiser in MFS-Real Fuels so assuming I can convince NathanKell to produce a load of additional ModuleManager configs, this will be useful to players who use both that mod and Interstellar.

Note: In order to guard against spelling errors and annoyingly long names the "Pechiney–Ugine–Kuhlmann Process" option at the refinery is simply called "Monopropellant Production".

Edited December 17, 2013 by Fractal_UK

[diomedea]

@ Fractal_UK: based on your recent posts, I really like the direction this mod is taking.

[RabidMonkey]

Haven't seen this in the thread, but will the lab module in here be able to duplicate the functionality of the stock lab?

[BigD145]

Haven't seen this in the thread, but will the lab module in here be able to duplicate the functionality of the stock lab?

If it can piggyback it should be easy to do that.

[Eadrom]

I kind of am liking the idea of two manned science lab. One for research science and one for post-processing of experiments already performed. I would think these two operations would be different enough to warrant two different parts. Also nice to actually have some more parts to add to a science station.

[Silophant]

From what I saw of the stock science lab from Scott Manley's video, The Interstellar and stock science labs should warrant different parts, like Eadrom said above. It would maybe make sense for the "research" function from the Interstellar lab to be moved to the stock lab, leaving the other for antimatter production/fuel reprocessing, but I don't know enough about how modding works to know if that's feasible.

[Myrten]

205 AM collectors can into space

It's a test version without AM reactor\warp drive, but so far it's very stable with TWR of 1.7 Requires 60 GW of microwave power to operate.

[Donziboy2]

205 AM collectors can into space

It's a test version without AM reactor\warp drive, but so far it's very stable with TWR of 1.7 Requires 60 GW of microwave power to operate.

Nice, im working on a version similar to the one you posted in Jool orbit, but with large landing legs

Its over 500 parts so im hoping 0.23 will make it less laggy..

[Myrten]

Nice, im working on a version similar to the one you posted in Jool orbit, but with large landing legs

Its over 500 parts so im hoping 0.23 will make it less laggy..

What do you need landing legs for? You are not going to land it anywhere are you? Also, my 205 AM collectors version doesn't even need launch stabilizers

[Myrten]

LOL just tried 0.23 and two cool things:

1) KSPI generally seems to be working, although Vista is half-broken

2) NO LAG ON MY 200 AM collectors ship!!!!!!

Edited December 17, 2013 by Myrten

[simmy2109]

My Steam just downloaded 0.23. It seems to be out there now.

[Fractal_UK]

Version 0.9 Released

Enjoy

Version 0.9
-New Megajoule power supply/consumption display!
-Massively expanded resource system including atmopsheric and oceanic resources definitions - aluminium and water mining integrated into existing planetary resource system
-New resource scanning and science parts - Gas chromatograph and Liquid chromatograph mass spectrometers for analysing atmosheric and oceanic composition
-New resources: Alumina (Aluminium Oxide), LqdWater, H2Peroxide and Ammonia
-ISRU production of Monopropellant now possible
-Lithium and Uranium extraction from seawater now possible (very slowly)
-New Duna water resource map - means lots more water at the poles
-New tweakable generator mode - Direct Conversion Electric Generator, which works with ChargedPower from fusion reactors
-Fusion reactor tweakable fuel modes - Deuterium/Helium-3 and Helium-3
-Fission reactor Uranium/Thorium modes tweakable in VAB
-Thermal rocket propellants tweakable in the VAB - TWR, delta-v and Isp calculations now compatible with MechJeb
-New precooler module, replaces the stock radial engine body (which doesn't do anything) - atmospheric engines overheat at very high velocities unless precoolers are directly attached to intakes
-Atmospheric performance of engines vastly improved
-Thermal Mechanics improvements - radiators will find a thermodynamic equilibrium, generator efficiencies increased to compensate
-Myrten's microwave routing algorithm added
-Refinery totally redone
-New generic resource extraction module for easy modding!
-Refinery functional attachment nodes reversed
-Thermal rocket can use LqdWater or Ammonia as propellant
-B9 cargo bays act as radiators
-Antimatter Tank power supply improvements
-Supply of stock electric charge from megajoule resource managed finally fixed
-Reactor temperatures fixed
-Thermal jet 0 thrust after re-entry problem fixed
-Antimatter collector GUI improvements
-Fixed magnetic field data

Download links on the first page have been updated.

[CalculusWarrior]

Heavens, that was fast! Great work, Fractal! XD

[Myrten]

Version 0.9 Released

Enjoy

Version 0.9
-New Megajoule power supply/consumption display!
-Massively expanded resource system including atmopsheric and oceanic resources definitions - aluminium and water mining integrated into existing planetary resource system
-New resource scanning and science parts - Gas chromatograph and Liquid chromatograph mass spectrometers for analysing atmosheric and oceanic composition
-New resources: Alumina (Aluminium Oxide), LqdWater, H2Peroxide and Ammonia
-ISRU production of Monopropellant now possible
-Lithium and Uranium extraction from seawater now possible (very slowly)
-New Duna water resource map - means lots more water at the poles
-New tweakable generator mode - Direct Conversion Electric Generator, which works with ChargedPower from fusion reactors
-Fusion reactor tweakable fuel modes - Deuterium/Helium-3 and Helium-3
-Fission reactor Uranium/Thorium modes tweakable in VAB
-Thermal rocket propellants tweakable in the VAB - TWR, delta-v and Isp calculations now compatible with MechJeb
-New precooler module, replaces the stock radial engine body (which doesn't do anything) - atmospheric engines overheat at very high velocities unless precoolers are directly attached to intakes
-Atmospheric performance of engines vastly improved
-Thermal Mechanics improvements - radiators will find a thermodynamic equilibrium, generator efficiencies increased to compensate
-Myrten's microwave routing algorithm added
-Refinery totally redone
-New generic resource extraction module for easy modding!
-Refinery functional attachment nodes reversed
-Thermal rocket can use LqdWater or Ammonia as propellant
-B9 cargo bays act as radiators
-Antimatter Tank power supply improvements
-Supply of stock electric charge from megajoule resource managed finally fixed
-Reactor temperatures fixed
-Thermal jet 0 thrust after re-entry problem fixed
-Antimatter collector GUI improvements
-Fixed magnetic field data

Download links on the first page have been updated.

Another great update today

Sorry to break the party but first 0.9 bug:

New megajoules window doesn't show DT Vista consumption

[Dix2lespace]

thx Fractal great job