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

[phoenix_ca]

@Biotronic: Good luck. That sounds tricky, not even sure how much support there is for adjusting modules with TweakScale. Obviously it can adjust resources because Gaius uses it for fuel tanks. But if that could work for complex parts, that'd be a huge boon for everyone to reduce part counts.

[PaladinVito]

So, I've been playing KSP pretty hard for a few months now, and over the last few weeks I got into KSPI quite heavily (this is an absolutely brilliant mod, btw). I've done basically every different mission available to try and do except sending an IR telescope to >550AU to do G-lensing.

What's holding me back is this: according to the wiki, using the telescope to perform g-lensing uses ~9.3 liquid helium PER SECOND. Is this right? That would mean it would be using 803520 liquid helium per day to get that ever-so-appealing 15 science per day (even though I've already unlocked everything). That seems... wrong to me. It's beyond impractical to try and include anywhere near that amount of liquid helium onto a vessel. Can someone verify this?

[Woodstar]

So, I've been playing KSP pretty hard for a few months now, and over the last few weeks I got into KSPI quite heavily (this is an absolutely brilliant mod, btw). I've done basically every different mission available to try and do except sending an IR telescope to >550AU to do G-lensing.

What's holding me back is this: according to the wiki, using the telescope to perform g-lensing uses ~9.3 liquid helium PER SECOND. Is this right? That would mean it would be using 803520 liquid helium per day to get that ever-so-appealing 15 science per day (even though I've already unlocked everything). That seems... wrong to me. It's beyond impractical to try and include anywhere near that amount of liquid helium onto a vessel. Can someone verify this?

True, made a scope the other day With 5 tanks and forgot to turn off flow of the He (because the scope is insta active i guess) was out of He as soon as broke Kerbin orbit to interstellar space.

[DeepOdyssey]

Hi. I love your mod. Will you plan to add hydroponics crop lab? We can produce water, oxygen and energy, all resources that kerbal needs, but the only thing missing is the food. With water, heat and ellectrical power we could produce food for our kerbals. Thus making a self sustainable colony. It's the only thing that i miss.

[BigD145]

Hi. I love your mod. Will you plan to add hydroponics crop lab? We can produce water, oxygen and energy, all resources that kerbal needs, but the only thing missing is the food. With water, heat and ellectrical power we could produce food for our kerbals. Thus making a self sustainable colony. It's the only thing that i miss.

There's a mod for that and it's not here.

[undercoveryankee]

So, I've been playing KSP pretty hard for a few months now, and over the last few weeks I got into KSPI quite heavily (this is an absolutely brilliant mod, btw). I've done basically every different mission available to try and do except sending an IR telescope to >550AU to do G-lensing.

What's holding me back is this: according to the wiki, using the telescope to perform g-lensing uses ~9.3 liquid helium PER SECOND. Is this right? That would mean it would be using 803520 liquid helium per day to get that ever-so-appealing 15 science per day (even though I've already unlocked everything). That seems... wrong to me. It's beyond impractical to try and include anywhere near that amount of liquid helium onto a vessel. Can someone verify this?

What he said was that it was ~9.3 He per real-time second while running at high time warp. In fact, I don't see code in the telescope module to consume helium at all. It's the boil-off code in the cryostat module that depletes helium. If I'm reading the code right, the rate of helium depletion is proportional to the number of cryostats, so you should use the smallest number of cryostats that will let you stack-attach all of the telescopes.

And be sure to power your cryostats. It's a fairly substantial power demand, for a fairly substantial benefit in helium usage.

[smunisto]

So, I've watched Wave's video of relay networks after the discussion quite a few pages back.

I have a question though - I assume there are major losses related to distance traveled for transmitter power?

I have a liquid fuel plasma thruster satellite around Tylo, and it is getting power relayed from around Kerbin.

I have about 4 GW of power from reactors in LKO, with 4 relays around Kerbin to relay that power.

However I only get 4 MW for the plasma engine on Tylo. The satellite is equipped with 2 of the small receivers, each gets about 2 MW, depending of the orientation.

So, if there are losses - is there a way to boost the power received? Like, can I set up some more relays around Jool, which would have the undeployable phased array microwave transceiver?

Or do I have to build power stations at Jool too?

[artforz]

Yup.

The IR telescope doesn't actively use helium, the cryostats constantly boil off helium at a rate of maxAmount*1.667794e-8 per second when powered and at 25 times that rate when unpowered.

So no matter how many cryostats you have, if they start full they will last for about 694 earth days powered or a bit under 28 earth days unpowered.

[phoenix_ca]

Hi. I love your mod. Will you plan to add hydroponics crop lab? We can produce water, oxygen and energy, all resources that kerbal needs, but the only thing missing is the food. With water, heat and ellectrical power we could produce food for our kerbals. Thus making a self sustainable colony. It's the only thing that i miss.

MKS.

This is the forum ruining a perfectly good short post with character limits.

Edit:

So, if there are losses - is there a way to boost the power received? Like, can I set up some more relays around Jool, which would have the undeployable phased array microwave transceiver?

Or do I have to build power stations at Jool too?

You have a few options. Adding extra relays is unlikely to help unless for some reason your aspect angle to Kerbin is very high and cannot be lowered.

Option one: MOAR POWER. Build even more power plants at Kerbin. Easy to put up, easy to maintain, but you'll need a pile of them.

Option two: Build some power plants way out there at Jool. Maybe put some relays in a very, very high polar Jool orbit (past Bop if possible; I haven't actually tried that yet) to give reasonable coverage without resorting to relays around every goddamn moon.

Option three: Probably the worst option with the most minimal return, but stick the deployable array on your receiving vessel. I will result in an increase of received power. Note that this is the only case where using the deployable array makes sense. It does nothing for relays or transmitters.

Edited May 7, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[Spearka]

Small question: why is it that Eeloo is covered in ice yet you cannot extract water from it?

[Fractal_UK]

Small question: why is it that Eeloo is covered in ice yet you cannot extract water from it?

My assumption is that, like Pluto, the surface is not covered by water ice but other, often less interesting, types of ice. One of those is Methane, so there is a possibility that in future you will be able to extract that there.

[phoenix_ca]

If you don't like it, you can always just add a tiny PNG for water on Eeloo, slap water in the open resource defs and you're good to go.

[db48x]

Yup.

The IR telescope doesn't actively use helium, the cryostats constantly boil off helium at a rate of maxAmount*1.667794e-8 per second when powered and at 25 times that rate when unpowered.

So no matter how many cryostats you have, if they start full they will last for about 694 earth days powered or a bit under 28 earth days unpowered.

Thanks for the details; I've just updated the wiki page.

[HunterForce]

Not sure if its just me but the DT Vista will not appear in the research tree (yes I chose interstellar) but it does appear in the parts list in sandbox. Very frustrating as it is my favorite.

[artforz]

If you're using the KSPi 0.11 tree for 0.23.5, Vista is in Advanced Fusion Power.

You should have gotten a "Interstellar Tech Tree Update" notification box from KSPi in the space center after selecting the interstellar tree with TreeLoader. Click "Install Update" in that, exit to main menu and resume that save.

If you didn't... exit KSP and manually copy the the tree.cfg from GameData\WarpPlugin into that save.

[RychschaX]

so my thermal turbojets just instantly overheat and explode when i throttle them up during reentry. apparently I need to use precoolers. How exactly do these work, and is there some kind of flag I can add to other parts to make them perform the same functionality. Also, so does the game actually track the temperature of intake atmosphere somehow, then? Wow, I kinda butchered my grammar in that last sentence...

[philotical]

precoolers need to be attached to the intake.

radial intakes attached to precoolers do not work.

one intake, one precooler.

Heat, no clue - but with precoolers, no overheating at no altitude - ever.

There is a file in WarpPlagin folder that adds precooler to certain parts - have a look there, maybe you can extend it somehow.

[phoenix_ca]

I'm not familiar with the code so I might be wrong, but it's not the temperature of the intake atmosphere that's the problem, it's the relative speed at which it enters the intake. A key problem with designing a real engine for use at high velocity through an atmosphere is that you need to slow-down the air coming through the intake so that it can actually be passed through a compressor/combustion chamber. If you had it going through at full speed it would easily damage the engine. The problem then is dissipating the kinetic energy of the air. Laws of thermodynamics do their annoying "can't destroy energy" bit and by slowing down the air quickly (a lot of change in speed in a short time), it emits a lot of thermal energy. The effect is not dissimilar to reentry heating. Both are all about the compression of air, not friction (as some people erroneously may think).

Once you have the air slowed it's really hot, and needs to be cooled. That's where the precooler comes in. It's really just a super-effective heat exchanger, constantly pulling thermal energy out of the airflow to the engine itself. In KSPI, this means putting a precooler part (either the modified stock part or the two B9 engine bodies that are modified by KSPI to be precoolers) directly behind the air intake. If they are anywhere else they won't work. Kinda an annoying mechanic, since sometimes (quite often in fact) it's far more preferable to be able to put precoolers in front of the engines themselves, for design purposes, like using smaller radial intakes. This won't work, unfortunately. You can see if precoolers are working in-flight by right clicking them. They will read as either active or inactive.

Basically all it comes down to is always put a precooler right after the intake. If you don't, you'll get a fairly significant amount of overheating as you increase in speed. The reason that this causes engines to explode during reentry is because you're passing through the atmosphere are orbital or near-orbital velocities. Burn off a lot of that excess velocity before even touching the throttle.

There is a file in WarpPlagin folder that adds precooler to certain parts - have a look there, maybe you can extend it somehow.

Oh that's useful. I suppose one could add precoolers to some of the B9 radial intakes. Those things are pretty big anyway; it'd make some modicum of sense that they have a precooler. Not sure if just adding the module would work though; not unless it can accept that it's part of an intake instead of looking for one attached to it.

Edited May 8, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[RychschaX]

Ah, yes, I see that file. that being said...the radial engine bodies don't appear to be getting changed to precoolers, and I can't get the little "precooler active" box to come up when i rightclick the part during flight (like it shows in one of the screenshots). any ideas? as it is, the radial engine body seems to be staying as the same old utterly useless part it normally is...

the mod is installed properly, and everything else works...this seems to be the only thing causing issues...

[phoenix_ca]

O.o

The change is made by rapier.cfg in the WarpPlugin folder. It should have the following:

@PART[radialEngineBody]
{
@title = Intake Pre-cooler
@description = A magnificent piece of engineering that pre-cools the air flow from atmospheric engines, preventing overheating at high speeds.
MODULE
{
	name = FNModulePreecooler
}
}

Also what version of Module Manager are you using? The most recent ones have a few bugs that might be breaking it.

[RychschaX]

oh.....ummm.....so apparently the dll for that got deleted somewhere along the way...replaced it, and it works fine now. now if I can just get For little tail out of my head...

[Einarr]

I'm going to assume that as far as intakes, larger area values are better...I find it a bit odd that some of the B9 intakes seem to have inconsistent intake areas (small intakes having a larger area than larger intakes of the same type...I'm looking at you Diverterless Intakes...)

[phoenix_ca]

larger area values are better

Stock model: More intake air, more drag. No clue how FAR handles that though.

[smunisto]

FAR treats open intakes with less drag than closed ones, no idea about area.

For example if a closed intake has 0.2 drag, the same intake when open will have 0.04.

[Einarr]

I don't care about drag, I'm mostly concerned with choosing intakes that will give me the most IntakeAtm and IntakeAir. I really wish I could determine if simply adding the precooler module to the B9 radial intakes would work or not...