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

[Rabada]

Done.

Quite a few values changed slightly, thrust now takes into account that KSPi uses g0=9.82m/s instead of 9.81, reactor mass and TWR now include the reactors internal fuel.

Awesome thank you!!!

[undercoveryankee]

Also, do the thermal turbojets actually need precoolers as the other jet engines do?

Yes. The code for thermal turbojets in FNNozzleController checks for precoolers.

Physically, a thermal turbojet would still have a compressor before the heat exchanger so the air going through the heat exchanger is at a speed and pressure where the heat exchanger is effective. Same as a chemical-fueled jet, with the same need for precoolers.

(You may need a few more intakes before you get your aircraft fast enough to notice, but the code is there.)

[teepee2345]

What would be the purpose for marking the location of the ship you were just controlling? Are you suggesting that the science yield for repeat impacts should scale with the geographical distribution of the impacts the way that multiple sensors scale with coverage?

Or are you planning to go look at the surviving debris and a marker would help to distinguish that impactor's debris from other debris?

Kind of both. i think it would be good for like, KSP Movies.

[Donziboy2]

Out of curiosity, is there any reason that thermal turbojets are inferior to stock jets or B9's SABREs (in jet mode)? I can't seem to keep mine running above ~14k on Kerbin using the same number of intakes I'd use on the stock jets or B9's SABREs. Also, do the thermal turbojets actually need precoolers as the other jet engines do?

Should be noted I'm powering them with upgraded fusion reactors, and am generally using the 2.5m ones paired with 2.5m reactors.

Give us a picture of your craft...

[Zurack]

This has probably been asked a hundred times before, but I couldn't find a good answer on Google.

Is there any way to merge KSPI's new tech tree nodes with the Better Than Starting Manned changes to the tech tree?

[Dust]

Is there any way to merge KSPI's new tech tree nodes with the Better Than Starting Manned changes to the tech tree?

The creator of BTSM told me in no uncertain terms that he was not in the least interested in hearing from folks using other mods along with his. It's purely meant to be a standalone total conversion mod. So, just an FYI to not look over in that forum for any help.

[phoenix_ca]

There's no easy way to merge tech trees. You'd be better off choosing one, then using Module Manager to make the parts of the other mod conform to that tech tree. Otherwise you're into making a new tree yourself.

[SHiRKiT]

I've seen that in the Wiki it says that Science Lab generates more science the closer to the surface, but says it has a limit to it. By looking at the code, I can't see how that applies, since it has nothing to actually prevent that. Can someone take a look at that again, to double check if the information about the Stupidity and the Height is actually correct with Code/Wiki?

[Sokar408]

So here I am again with questions, seems all I do with this mod... Damn you for being so appealing!

Anyway I put 8 relay satellites in orbit around Kerbin, 2 million meters, 0 eccentricity 4 in 0 inclination and 4 in 90 degrade inclination. They all have the Phased Array Microwave Transciever, and they all have it set to relay. I put up a power station in orbit, a 3.75 Fission reactor, with a 3.75 Generator attached directly do it. It is producing tons of power and all it well. I then docked on it, a Phased Array Microwave Transciever, set it to transmitter at a 100%, and left to try out my new power relay system on the launchpad, just to try it out. I put a simple vessel, a 1.25 Plasma Engine, a single Mk1 Fuselage Jet Fuel part directly on top of that, a inline battery on top of that, a probe core on that, and a transceiver on top of that. Set it to receive, and nothing happens.

The way the relay satellites are in orbit, I be getting at least some, but nope. When I click on the transceiver that are receiving, it says: Satellites Connected: 0/0, Relays Connect: 0/8

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT: I tried going back to the power station, and for as soon as I did, and went back to the launchpad vessel, everything worked. Now it also changed the "Satellites" to 0/1 (it overheated almost immediately).

Edited May 3, 2014 by Sokar408

[philotical]

I've seen that in the Wiki it says that Science Lab generates more science the closer to the surface, but says it has a limit to it. By looking at the code, I can't see how that applies, since it has nothing to actually prevent that. Can someone take a look at that again, to double check if the information about the Stupidity and the Height is actually correct with Code/Wiki?

it's correct in the game - I've tested it..

Stupid kerbals produce less science.

I faked 100% smart kerbals and got the maximum science as listed in the wiki..

You have also a "landed" bonus for all planets..

the rates in the wiki seemed to be correct - at least they where in my last carrer game with 10.3..

[Rabada]

So here I am again with questions, seems all I do with this mod... Damn you for being so appealing!

Anyway I put 8 relay satellites in orbit around Kerbin, 2 million meters, 0 eccentricity 4 in 0 inclination and 4 in 90 degrade inclination. They all have the Phased Array Microwave Transciever, and they all have it set to relay. I put up a power station in orbit, a 3.75 Fission reactor, with a 3.75 Generator attached directly do it. It is producing tons of power and all it well. I then docked on it, a Phased Array Microwave Transciever, set it to transmitter at a 100%, and left to try out my new power relay system on the launchpad, just to try it out. I put a simple vessel, a 1.25 Plasma Engine, a single Mk1 Fuselage Jet Fuel part directly on top of that, a inline battery on top of that, a probe core on that, and a transceiver on top of that. Set it to receive, and nothing happens.

The way the relay satellites are in orbit, I be getting at least some, but nope. When I click on the transceiver that are receiving, it says: Satellites Connected: 0/0, Relays Connect: 0/8

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT: I tried going back to the power station, and for as soon as I did, and went back to the launchpad vessel, everything worked. Now it also changed the "Satellites" to 0/1 (it overheated almost immediately).

You need to put some radiators on anything with a plasma engine. They produce waste heat. The fact that your plasma engine overheated means that you are pulling power from your relay network. I believe it said you were connected to 0/8 because you were not actually drawing any power from the relays.

[Deredere]

You need to put some radiators on anything with a plasma engine.

Not necessarily! I'm quite liking designs that use a thermal receiver to power a generator to power the plasma engine. The system suffers from inefficiencies, of course, but the amount of power in the network more than makes up for it and makes large radiators unnecessary. The generator still produces an extremely small amount of waste heat and has no capacity itself, so a small radial radiator or a B9 cargo bay or something is still required.

[WaveFunctionP]

So here I am again with questions, seems all I do with this mod... Damn you for being so appealing!

Anyway I put 8 relay satellites in orbit around Kerbin, 2 million meters, 0 eccentricity 4 in 0 inclination and 4 in 90 degrade inclination. They all have the Phased Array Microwave Transciever, and they all have it set to relay. I put up a power station in orbit, a 3.75 Fission reactor, with a 3.75 Generator attached directly do it. It is producing tons of power and all it well. I then docked on it, a Phased Array Microwave Transciever, set it to transmitter at a 100%, and left to try out my new power relay system on the launchpad, just to try it out. I put a simple vessel, a 1.25 Plasma Engine, a single Mk1 Fuselage Jet Fuel part directly on top of that, a inline battery on top of that, a probe core on that, and a transceiver on top of that. Set it to receive, and nothing happens.

The way the relay satellites are in orbit, I be getting at least some, but nope. When I click on the transceiver that are receiving, it says: Satellites Connected: 0/0, Relays Connect: 0/8

Any idea on what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT: I tried going back to the power station, and for as soon as I did, and went back to the launchpad vessel, everything worked. Now it also changed the "Satellites" to 0/1 (it overheated almost immediately).

Are you using enough radiators on the power station and probe? The video in my sig may help.

[Sokar408]

Are you using enough radiators on the power station and probe? The video in my sig may help.

Yea i checked your video a few times actually I knew it was gonna overheat, I was merely trying to see if it worked, and as I said, for some reason I just had to make the powerstation the active ship once more for it to update. Then everything worked. I do think its ******ed I need 10 Huge Radiators to keep one fission reactor from overheating, but I assume thats only until they get upgraded

[Einarr]

Alright, someone was asking for pictures...be careful what you wish for...

My first experiments were based on the Ravenspear Mk 1 design, swapping the outboard jets with thermal jets, and the center engine with a thermal rocket nozzle (at the time, I hadn't unlocked Fusion power and was using a power relay network for beamed power to a thermal receivers), though I'd built the plane out of mostly B9 Mk2 plane parts, but in the pattern of the Ravenspear Mk 1. Ido not have the craft files for these anymore, and thus, have no pictures of it. It performed terribly, but I blame the limits of the thermal receivers.

My second attempt was a conversion of the, "Heinlein" spaceplane that is one of the examples from the B9 pack. I removed the outboard small SABRES, the larger SABRE at the back, took out about half the LFO tanks, and dropped in a precooler, generator, 2.5m fusion reactor, and a thermal turbojet. Add some other odds and ends (Vangaurd ejection, TAC Life Support), and it was meant to ferry crew, supplies, and science to/from my LKO science station (was used to clean various sciencey bits on other ships so they could be reused, and never have to land on Kerbin directly). In the album, the first 2 images are of the 'stock' "Heinlein" as can be found in the B9 pack mostly to show the overall layout and intake placement. The rest show off my conversion from a few angles.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

My third attempt was to create a twin engine SSTO capable of interplanetary resupply, crew transfer, etc. The design is loosely based on the "Vonnegut" that comes with the B9 pack. I still don't really have a name for the craft, so what you see is a placeholder.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Note that I've added a ModuleManager config that adds the precooler module to the B9 precoolers as well, since KSPI does not have a 2.5m precooler. Seems KSPI already has a MM config that does this that I was unaware of. I've since removed my own MM config and left the KSPI one to do it's thing.

In all cases, none of the thermal turbojets perform well above 12 km, the TWR starts dropping off considerably at that altitude and I'm not really able to get a decent acceleration either, upper speedlimit I remember was ~450m/s.

I'm used to spaceplanes in Orbiter (specifically the XR2 Ravenstar) where you get up to Mach 3 or so, kick in the scramjets, climb to and hold about 60km altitude, build speed to ~mach 20, then begin climing for orbital insertion. I was hoping to have a similar profile in KSP (the acceleration phase in particular), and I seem to remember being able to do something like it with spaceplanes before...but that was many versions of KSP ago...

Edited May 5, 2014 by Einarr

[WaveFunctionP]

Yea i checked your video a few times actually I knew it was gonna overheat, I was merely trying to see if it worked, and as I said, for some reason I just had to make the powerstation the active ship once more for it to update. Then everything worked. I do think its ******ed I need 10 Huge Radiators to keep one fission reactor from overheating, but I assume thats only until they get upgraded

Yes, there can be problem with scaling if you have upgraded reactors, but not upgraded radiators. It's pretty ridiculous actually, the upgrades are like 40 times better than the base parts. I've stated before that is creates a gameplay issue, but fractal seems to be more concerned about realism than gameplay, which is fine, it is his mod after all. It's one of the reasons that I decided to fork my own version. I started with integrating enhancements, but I do plan to get around to rebalancing the progression to be more linear like stock ksp instead of the exponential scaling of stock kspi.

[ctbram]

[bug] - This is a possible bug. I have a fusion reactor and every time I leave the active ship and come back the reactor is offline and half the ships lights are off? This has me totally confused as this ship design is basically the exact same design as my three power stations and my first version of this transfer vehicle. There is a reactor (3.75m 55GW High-Q tokamak,mode=dueterium/tritium), a 3.75 KTEC generator. I have batteries and blutonium generators to get the reactor started and maintain things like lights and stuff. As well as six graphine huge radiators. I will link to an image of the ship with the reactor status open and you can see everything is nominal. Then I will simply switch away to another ship. The Mk1 version of this ship and you can see it's reactor is running nominally. Then I will switch back to the mk2 and you can see half the bloody lights are off and the reactor has shutdown! I get no message to indicate why it is shutting down???? VERY FRUSTRATED!

Here is a link to 6 images that demonstrate the problem...

https://imgur.com/a/2sKFF

Picture 1 and 2 shows the ship and both the reactor(1) and the generator(2) are running nominally.

Picture 3 shows the mk1 version of the first ship. It's the same basic reactor/generator design (1 reactor attached to 1 generator with 6 radiators) You can see the reactor and generator are running fine! I can switch away and come back to this ship until hell freezes over and the reactor will still be running!!!

Picture 4,5, and 6 show that when I return to the mk2 version of the ship the lights in the front half of the ship are out??? The next picture shows the reactor is offline even though it has fuel and it should have had a continuous 187+ MW of power from the 30GW generator to keep it running yet the reactor is friggin shut down!!!! WHY? The last picture is me just clicking activate reactor and the damn thing starts right back up again. I can sit with the ship active for 1 minute or 24 hours and the reactor runs just fricken fine. But as soon as I switch away to anything and immediately come back half the damn lights are off and the reactor is shut down again!!!

[SirusKing]

Is the other model for the acclubeir drive meant to be in the experimental science node? It only costs 1000 Science and is long before antimatter or fusion...

[philotical]

the other model for the acclubeir drive is NOT part of the official download - so it is not "ment" to be anywhere actually..

iirc it's a model by ZZZ and you can place it where ever you want in the tree..

[Woodstar]

I'm having a problem with beamed power and thermal rocket nozzles or maybe i'm just doing it wrong, I have a reactor in geosynchronous orbit producing over 40 GW of beamed power, is that a lot? IDK im noob to the power management. This is a pic of the rocket i built, can anyone tell me if either, I don't have enough power, or I've built the rocket wrong? And secondly can you tell me how to fix it?

[ctbram]

Okay this is becomming quite maddening now!!!! I have three reactors already in orbit that have been and are functioning for weeks (RL) and years (IG). However, yesterday I built a new ship with the exact same power system - 1 3.75m55GW fusion reactor, 1 3.75m ktec generator, and 6 huge radiators. 4x1600Ec batteries and a couple blutonium generators to kickstart the fusion reactor. I power the reactor up and it runs fine as long as it is the active vessel. As soon as I switch to another craft and come back the reactor is offline!!!!

I have four of these same setups in orbit. The first power plant I put up has generated over 10000 units of tritium! The new ship I cannot switch away and come back without the reactor going offline!!! I just built a test bed and put it on the launch pad it has just 24 parts. It has the upgraded high-q tokamak 55gw fusion reactor, the ktec solid state generator, 6 huge graphine radiators, 4x1200Ec batteries, 6xblutonium generators, and a computer core. This is the core of the power system on my four working power stations (3 stations and 1 Dt Vista ship). these have been in continuous use for several kerbal years and are still working fine.

However the new ship I built last night and spent the last 16+ hours trying to debug will not keep the reactor running if I switch away from the ship! I just built a test bed and confirmed that the reacotr will not continue to run if I switch to another ship!!! So what the bloody hell is going on? Why does the reactor keep going offline when I switch ships and why are the four ships I built with the same exact power system working as expected???

Can anyone please help because I am getting so pissed that I am getting ready to take a baseball bat to the computer

[ArcFurnace]

This is a pic of the rocket i built, can anyone tell me if either, I don't have enough power, or I've built the rocket wrong? And secondly can you tell me how to fix it?

40 GW is indeed a good bit of beamed power. It looks like you have a microwave-electrical reciever on the top of your ship, which will capture the beamed power and turn it into Megajoules. Given that you don't seem to have anything using Megajoules on that ship there, it's pretty much useless during launch, although it might be useful for electrical power once you get it into space.

You also have a microwave-thermal reciever on top of that thermal rocket nozzle. That's doing it right. However, where exactly is your geosynchronous power station? Orientation matters for recievers, and the microwave-thermal recievers want their beamed power to be side-on to the reciever, perpendicular to the stack. The microwave-electrical reciever may also be stealing beamed power that ought to be going to the microwave-thermal reciever, due to Fractal's implementation of conservation of energy.

Try closing up that microwave-electrical reciever, and adding a few beamed power relays "off to the side" of the launchpad, either on the ground or in geosynchronous orbit. See if that works any better. From what I remember of messing around with the microwave-thermal recievers, ground stations work well right after launch but quickly drop off as you get higher and the angle of incidence increases, so geosynchronous relays set up to be near the horizon when at KSC might be best. If you have the station above KSC and relay(s) off to one side, you should get good power throughout your gravity turn ... I think.

@ctbram: Okay, that's just weird. Don't think I've had that happen before. I've had a few unexpected reactor shutdowns, but those were generally while I had the vessel focused, and there was usually a reason once you investigated (weird waste heat fluctuations at high timewarp, or running out of tritium in the reactor because all the bred tritium went into external containers ...). I really can't think of anything besides a bug that would be causing your problems. Uhh ... try deleting and reinstalling KSPI? I have no idea if that would help, but it might. Make sure you get it reinstalled before you load up the game so it doesn't delete your ships for having invalid parts.

EDIT: Just loaded the game and switched to my Asteroid Tug with the 3.75m fusion reactor, and it was offline ... well well well. Still not sure what could be causing this.

Edited May 3, 2014 by ArcFurnace

[Woodstar]

40 GW is indeed a good bit of beamed power. It looks like you have a microwave-electrical reciever on the top of your ship, which will capture the beamed power and turn it into Megajoules. Given that you don't seem to have anything using Megajoules on that ship there, it's pretty much useless during launch, although it might be useful for electrical power once you get it into space.

You also have a microwave-thermal reciever on top of that thermal rocket nozzle. That's doing it right. However, where exactly is your geosynchronous power station? Orientation matters for recievers, and the microwave-thermal recievers want their beamed power to be side-on to the reciever, perpendicular to the stack. The microwave-electrical reciever may also be stealing beamed power that ought to be going to the microwave-thermal reciever, due to Fractal's implementation of conservation of energy.

Try closing up that microwave-electrical reciever, and adding a few beamed power relays "off to the side" of the launchpad, either on the ground or in geosynchronous orbit. See if that works any better.

Thanks,

Orbit is at 2,868.75 KM Right above KSP. Will try closing the reciever and giving it a shot.

Got it,

Maybe i wasn't recieving enough? IDK slow take off but i got the jest of it. I'd like tho think 21GW was enough lol.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Woodstar

[db48x]

I'm having a problem with beamed power and thermal rocket nozzles or maybe i'm just doing it wrong, I have a reactor in geosynchronous orbit producing over 40 GW of beamed power, is that a lot? IDK im noob to the power management. This is a pic of the rocket i built, can anyone tell me if either, I don't have enough power, or I've built the rocket wrong? And secondly can you tell me how to fix it?

http://i362.photobucket.com/albums/oo62/1980cb/screenshot12_zpse058bda2.png

You've got two receivers on your craft. The expanding dish on top is for receiving microwaves and turning them into electricity, measured in megajoules. A thermal nozzle doesn't use electricity, it uses heat, so that receiver isn't going to do much for you. Perhaps you're just using it to power the probe core; not very aerodynamic, but perhaps it's lighter than some batteries and a solar panel or two.

The other receiver receives microwaves but converts them to heat right away, which is what your thermal nozzle will draw from. Like all receivers, this one is directional. Because of its shape, it converts microwaves into heat most efficiently when the microwaves are coming in from the side. Since your reactor is in orbit and is above the craft, only a tiny amount of heat is created, thus the low thrust. (It's also in the shadow of your other receiver, but the mod doesn't model that.) Drive a reactor into the field a few km away from the pad so that you've got some power coming in from the side. You may also find it advantageous to put one out on the island with the alternate runway, or out in the ocean somewhere, to provide more power in the middle of your launch.

[Woodstar]

You've got two receivers on your craft. The expanding dish on top is for receiving microwaves and turning them into electricity, measured in megajoules. A thermal nozzle doesn't use electricity, it uses heat, so that receiver isn't going to do much for you. Perhaps you're just using it to power the probe core; not very aerodynamic, but perhaps it's lighter than some batteries and a solar panel or two.

The other receiver receives microwaves but converts them to heat right away, which is what your thermal nozzle will draw from. Like all receivers, this one is directional. Because of its shape, it converts microwaves into heat most efficiently when the microwaves are coming in from the side. Since your reactor is in orbit and is above the craft, only a tiny amount of heat is created, thus the low thrust. (It's also in the shadow of your other receiver, but the mod doesn't model that.) Drive a reactor into the field a few km away from the pad so that you've got some power coming in from the side. You may also find it advantageous to put one out on the island with the alternate runway, or out in the ocean somewhere, to provide more power in the middle of your launch.

Yup understand that now, I was just basicly trying make one work now that i understand that I'll add another reactor parallel to the launchpad. Again thanks to you and ArcFurnace for helping an old nub out you guys are great.