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

[phoenix_ca]

Watch WaveFunction's tutorials...or read the wiki. Or wait for someone else. My brain isn't quite working right now. I can't recall the exact minutiae of this mod. >.<

[xeon_1]

Not to sound like a **** but, feelings don't matter. What matters is the license. Fractal has explicitly allowed others to do play with his code, and more to the point, has expressed no objection to WaveFunction's meddling in this thread. Asking might be nice, but it is far from required.

Sorry but you do sound like an ******* and the kind i don't get along with in RL.

Taking somebody's work and saying its your own is just wrong no matter what legal papers you hold.

Alway's get the creators permission or don't spread your modifications.

That is my view on it anyway.

Unfortunately most people like you just steal other peoples work.

Sorry if this is hugely off topic but people like that just make my hair stand up strait with rage

[phoenix_ca]

Taking somebody's work and saying its your own

I'm pretty sure that's not what I suggested, nor did I give any indication of that. Please point me to exactly where I said that and I will clarify.

Nor do I understand why you're resorting to ad hominem attacks.

I would point-out that your reasoning is flawed. The whole point of providing a license agreement is to make it clear what is and is not permissible use of intellectual property, for the very purpose of not requiring that every person wanting to use that property contact the creator directly to ask for permissions. Taken to its logical extreme, you are suggesting a world in which one would have to contact the developer of every piece of software before using it at all, to say nothing of other mediums such as print, sculpture, video, various tools, hardware, appliances...the list goes on practically without end.

As a content-creator myself, I'm actually very, very annoyed with people who badger me about using my work when I have clearly licensed it under a very permitting license such as CC-BY-NC, or even just CC-BY.

Edited May 18, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[Makeone]

Because I have no idea how the stuff works... And one generator doesn't make more juice if I turn off the other.

Btw, does one know how much heat microwave receivers actually produce?

Generators have a thing called efficiency that tells how much of the reactors THERMAL power they can convert to MegaJoules. Best efficiency is from KTEC generator with proper radiators, when it will be around 58%. Another generator on an ordinary reactor doesn't help anything.

And when it comes to power a small satellite, just use solar panels if the power need isn't huge. Thermal rocket nozzle powered via the microwave thermal receiver doesn't produce any wasteheat (if i recall correct) as it will be fired out of the nozzle...

Plasma thrusters create some waste heat and they need radiators for 'storage', aka time when engine is running and those times aren't usually very long.

[undercoveryankee]

Sorry but you do sound like an ******* and the kind i don't get along with in RL.

Taking somebody's work and saying its your own is just wrong no matter what legal papers you hold.

Alway's get the creators permission or don't spread your modifications.

That is my view on it anyway.

Unfortunately most people like you just steal other peoples work.

Sorry if this is hugely off topic but people like that just make my hair stand up strait with rage

The license contains a specific requirement: "If You use our Work, You must acknowledge Us." As long as we're talking about exercising the permission that's given in the license, we're not talking about claiming credit for Fractal's work.

And please don't insult the mod author's intelligence by suggesting that his expectations wouldn't be accurately reflected in the license he chose.

[cy-one]

Generators have a thing called efficiency that tells how much of the reactors THERMAL power they can convert to MegaJoules. Best efficiency is from KTEC generator with proper radiators, when it will be around 58%. Another generator on an ordinary reactor doesn't help anything.

Sooo, let us see if I get this straight.

3.75m KTEC Solid State Generator(currently sitting in orbit, so... not a small satellite )

- Efficiency 50,5%

3.75m "Aegletes 2" Fission Reactor

- Thermal Power 9GW

This would mean, the Generator should generate around 4,45 GW, right?

I tested a little bit... I think you're... kinda right

- the tooltip inflight says max 4,53 GW and does this when I shut down the second generator.

- with only one generator online, the transceiver only transmits only 4,525 GW

- with the second generator online, they both produce 2.26 GW, but the transceiver transmits 8,956 GW (there are no Megajoules stored in the satellite, it's completely drained)

If the second generator shouldn't "do" anything, why does the transceiver send nearly twice as much juice around?

Is this a bug or do I still not understand something?

[WaveFunctionP]

Sooo, let us see if I get this straight.

3.75m KTEC Solid State Generator(currently sitting in orbit, so... not a small satellite )

- Efficiency 50,5%

3.75m "Aegletes 2" Fission Reactor

- Thermal Power 9GW

This would mean, the Generator should generate around 4,45 GW, right?

I tested a little bit... I think you're... kinda right

- the tooltip inflight says max 4,53 GW and does this when I shut down the second generator.

- with only one generator online, the transceiver only transmits only 4,525 GW

- with the second generator online, they both produce 2.26 GW, but the transceiver transmits 8,956 GW (there are no Megajoules stored in the satellite, it's completely drained)

If the second generator shouldn't "do" anything, why does the transceiver send nearly twice as much juice around?

Is this a bug or do I still not understand something?

It's a bug, but it may or may not be actually transmitting that much power. I'll look at the code later.

[cy-one]

Whee, I found a bug

Aaand, okay, the last satellite (3/4 already launched ) will only feature one generator. Even if the transmitter would transmit twice as much, I don't like bug-using and (probably) after the next KSPI-update it would be useless anyway.

[Deredere]

Things I would do to simplify KSPI and/or improve it from a gameplay perspective:

1. Remove generators, incorporate their functionality (and weight, if necessary) into the reactors themselves. MAYBE allow switching between thermal and charged-particle generation as a VAB tweakable, but I would just presume both types of generator are present in the reactor, and scale power level to balance if necessary.

2. Scale the power of the smaller reactor types up to match the TWR of the larger reactor/thermal rocket combos. As someone just mentioned a few posts back, it is extremely disappointing to get access to badass manly nuclear reactors and find out that the only one that isn't wholly inferior to the LV-N is the giant massive one that's bigger than your mom and not going anywhere fast anyway. Sometimes you just want to land a dude on Minmus, not arm-wrestle an asteroid and win.

3. Roll thermal power and charged particles into KJ. KSPI has three different types of what is basically usable energy, and that's ridiculous, especially considering we already had a usable energy resource in the stock game. I appreciate there are reasons for megajoules to continue existing, but there really aren't any for TP and CP. Get rid of them with the generators.

4. Remove the need to correctly orient microwave receivers. Power reception should be based on distance (and line of sight re: planetary bodies) to the transmitting relay/source, not the position of the receiver on the craft. Trying to maintain usable power levels in every orientation leads to part creep and unwelcome surprises when it turns out that the direction you need to burn to prevent a high-energy rendezvous is the one direction your receivers aren't pointing in. Also frustrating for new players to figure out.

OR

4. Consider removing or massively reworking the microwave system. Right now there is no incentive to carry reactors on craft, because with even a moderate microwave infrastructure in place, a receiver will "produce" a zillion times the power of most reactors with a fraction of the weight. Launch enough fusion reactors around and you can produce 10 times the power of the largest fusion reactor with a 1 ton part. This makes a lot of stuff superfluous, like - radiators, fissionable/fusionable ISRU, lab reprocessing, having 20 different reactor types in the first place, etc. There is no incentive to gather resources when it's easier to just build stuff on Kerbin and beam energy from there.

But, of course, if you're going to fix the microwave system, the reactors would need to be buffed. I would very, very happily mine some fuggin Thorium if a nuclear reactor could give me launch thrusts from Eve without being 85% of my lander weight. This would also be nice because I wouldn't have to hope relays are in the right position to send the Kerbin/Jool power to that part of Eve's surface.

5. Remove Tritium. Roll it into Deuterium as D-T fuel.

6. Either remove or massively boost Helium-3.

7. Argon doesn't really need to be a thing. Methane needs to either get a full set of engines/tanks, or be removed. Same with Aluminum. The AlO2 rocket is too unwieldy a piece of crap to care about. Uranium Nitride? Doesn't need to be a thing. Just call it Uranium. Hydrogen peroxide doesn't need to exist either. It is itself a monopropellant. Just go straight from water to monoprop. It's crap compared to hydrazine but this is a gaaaaaaaame. We also have liquid hydrogen that never boils off and RTGs that never lose power. Just do it.

8. Let us melt down reactors to self-destruct stuff because that would be AWESOME.

9. Unupgraded radiators need to not completely suck nuts. Make them tungsten filament or something if you want. Similar operating temperature, higher weight? Maybe? I wouldn't do the calculations even if I knew how to. There's no need it's a gaaaaaaame.

10. A smaller version of the DT Vista would be hot. There's a niche for that kind of high isp decent thrust thing that doesn't require microwaves in the lander weight class.

"But Dere, muh SCIENCE, this isn't accurate!!!??"

Edited May 19, 2014 by Deredere

[Whovian]

Sorry, just found a minor bug while playing around with the thermal rocket nozzles today. If they aren't attached to a reactor, they produce a small pulse of delta-v and use a little fuel before they realize there's no reactor; thus assigning an action group to "activate engine" and spamming away allows reactor-free delta-v from them. I deorbited a tiny vehicle from a 100k orbit around Kerbin using this. No idea why anyone would use this, given that the isp is horrible and it requires button-spamming.

Just wanted to point this out. It probably doesn't need fixing all that badly.

EDIT: Oh. The isp is actually quite impressive; spamming 4 "activate engine" action groups (my fingers aren't all that fast) resulted in a 2200 m/s burn on a 3.3-ton ship (lander can, FL-T400, 1.25 m thermal rocket nozzle) using only 70 liters of fuel. The g-force during said burn oscillated between usually 1 and 4 and sometimes went as high as 6. So, basically, quite an exploit.

Edited May 19, 2014 by Whovian

[the grue]

Apologies if this has already been asked before.

Is there any benefit to attaching two generators to either end of one reactor? Or is it just better to install additional radiators?

[cy-one]

I asked something similar a page ago:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-5-KSP-Interstellar-%28Toolbar-Integration-New-Models-New-Tech%29-Version-0-11?p=1166027&viewfull=1#post1166027

[bonesbro]

Apologies if this has already been asked before.

Is there any benefit to attaching two generators to either end of one reactor? Or is it just better to install additional radiators?

Attaching two generators of the same type to a reactor is pointless. The only time it's useful is when the reactor emits both thermal power AND charged particles, and you attach one direct conversion generator (which uses charged particles) and one thermal generator (which uses thermal power). That will get you some extra electricity production at the cost of additional weight.

[Deredere]

I asked something similar a page ago:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43839-0-23-5-KSP-Interstellar-%28Toolbar-Integration-New-Models-New-Tech%29-Version-0-11?p=1166027&viewfull=1#post1166027

Yeah but that guy is wrong, mostly.

If a generator produces both thermal power and charged particles (Fusion reactors running D-T or D-He3 or upgraded particle bed fission reactors) then attaching two generators, one thermal and one direct conversion, will have a benefit.

Regular fission reactors and antimatter reactors produce only thermal power and only benefit from a sterling/Ktec generator. Pure He3 fusion reactors produce only charged particles and only benefit from a direct conversion generator.

[WaveFunctionP]

You will want to use both types of generators for reactors that output both types of energy. Assuming you want the extra efficiency of the charged particle conversion. And they you are willing to sacrifice TWR for that extra generator.

The sticky part is that right now thermal generators and thermal nozzles are able to utilize charged particles if demand exceeds that of the available thermal power. This is problem since there is no detection of whether or not there is a more efficient generator available. So what happens is that both generators think they have access to all of the charged particles exclusively and report their output accordingly. This discrepancy is large enough to shut down a fusion reactor due to no power being left available for confinement.

In my experience, it won't shut down while focused, but it will always shut down in the background when it is handed over to Open Resource Manager for persistence maintenance.

[SmarterThanMe]

Things I would do to simplify KSPI and/or improve it from a gameplay perspective:

+1 on everything Dere said.

[cy-one]

Mhm, for some reason i'm unable to reprocess nuclear fuel... Tried it once in orbit and now on the ground.

There is new UHF4, there is space for DepletedFuel and there are 156 Actinides. Halp?

[Einarr]

I see no space for Kerbals on those things. I may be mistaken, but I think you must have at least one (possibly two) Kerbals onboard to reprocess the nuclear fuel, or an upgraded computer core.

[Makeone]

156 actinides...oh dear, world will come to an end. Seriously, there is still plenty of fuel on those reactors. Also, for some reason one needs to click twice on the reprocess button on the gui.

And for Deredere: first thanks for kind words, secondly, all you need is an hypereditengine and all is good for you. So, game over and on to next game, eh?

[Pure]

So, I installed this great looking mod and ran into a few issues.

If I add a Science Lab to ANY rocket (with kerbals, without kerbals, makes no difference), my staging is gone upon launch, and I cannot launch at ALL. Do I need a reactor to power this thing from the get go? I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.

Also, I flung a fission reactor into orbit (with a generator, plenty of UF4 tanks and radiators) and it doesn't produce any power. I cannot right click it to start it either. I tried EVA with a kerbal, nothing appears in the right click menu or anywhere else.

Besides that, there is no way for me to unfold the radiators (I tried all three models), just shows me waste heat in the right click menu, nothing else.

Sooo.. not so succesful so far..

Thanks,

Pure

[Deredere]

And for Deredere: first thanks for kind words, secondly, all you need is an hypereditengine and all is good for you. So, game over and on to next game, eh?

Man, if you're trying to imply I want to make KSPI easier, you totes didn't read a thing I wrote.

[cy-one]

@Einarr: The orbital test was done by a two-kerbal-crew.

@Makeone: It was a test, want how/if it works.. Well, didn't But that "click twice" might be the solution

@Pure: Kinda sounds as if you didn't install the plugin, only the parts.

[Pure]

@cy-one

I downloaded the archive (from the first post in this thread), and moved all the files into the GameData folder, as the installation instructions told me to (so, I did not copy GameData into GameData). Basically, I followed the instructions.

I also started a new (career) game, and selected the proper science tree.

I installed it initially together with a bunch of other mods. When I ran into the issues from the previous post I made a clean install of KSP (0.23.5.464) with just the Interstellar mod and ran into the same issues.

Thanks,

Pure

[Pure]

Aargh.. Nevermind..

I redownloaded the archive. Unzipped it again and compared the old installation vs the new one.. 20 megs of difference.. I was missing some files apparently (no clue how that happened).

It seems to work now..

[Makeone]

Man, if you're trying to imply I want to make KSPI easier, you totes didn't read a thing I wrote.

I did read it, and i read it again and...

Yes, you seem to wish that the mod would be easier, isn't it? I mean, you are asking that most of the core parts of the mod would be removed, like the tritium that is required for proper fusion that would any serious power. Fractal mentioned that he created the interstellar resource manager just so that mod would have some reason to work. There is no such thing as free lunch, right?

I do agree that 1.25m fission reactor fitted with rocket nozzle should give some better thrust as it is closes to LV-N (aka stock NERVA) that i am currently trying NOT to use on my current career save, all good so far.

Also, i case of anti matter reactors, an integrated generator would be handy so that it output could be upgraded with science (in career mode, that is), up to, say, 85-90% of the thermal power.

But you probably know the basic rule in these kind cases, if you can't cope with it, uninstall it.