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

[nli2work]

Awesome. Thanks for the quick reply.

Can you describe how you manually refuel the fission reactor?

I would hate to bring a rig into orbit only to discover that i'm missing some stupid little part:)

You need fresh fuel, UF4 or ThF4 cannisters, either part of the craft, or a craft docked to the reactor. Once the reactor is cooled down completely, refuel as you would normally transfer fuel by Alt-Right Click between fuel cannisters and reactor part. Swap fuel by right clicking on the reactor and clicking appropriate button, make sure you have enough space to store old fuel, you can't mix UF4 and ThF4.

[Einarr]

Wonder where WaveFunctionP went...wanted to show off the latest version of my grand tour ship...I'll do it anyway...

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[leftler]

I had a thought that the science lab should be able to perform similar functions to the new stock science lab. So I added

    MODULE
    {
            name = ModuleScienceContainer

            reviewActionName = Review Data
            storeActionName = Store Experiments     
            collectActionName = Take Data

            evaOnlyStorage = True
            storageRange = 2

            allowRepeatedSubjects = True
    }
    MODULE
    {
            name = ModuleScienceLab

            containerModuleIndex = 1        
            dataTransmissionBoost = 1.5     
            crewsRequired = 2

            canResetConnectedModules = True
            canResetNearbyModules = True
            interactionRange = 5

            RESOURCE_PROCESS
            {
                    name = ElectricCharge
                    amount = 10
            }
    }

This somewhat works, except right clicking the science lab now completely disables being able to right click anything else. I suspect it is possibly due to multiple modules attempting to add menu items. Anyone attempted something similar?

I also ran in to the same problem. Has anyone else tried this and got it to work?

Googeling "canResetConnectedModules Interstellar" the quoted post is the only result returned.

[ABZB]

Happens to me to, with other mods - I think this is a KSP-wide issue

[ArcFurnace]

I also ran in to the same problem. Has anyone else tried this and got it to work?

Googeling "canResetConnectedModules Interstellar" the quoted post is the only result returned.

Try this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69993-Science-Lab-Module-migration-problem

Relevant bit:

So, the TL;DR of all that is that the science lab expects to have the location of the container passed to it in its MODULE node and if the indexed number doesn't match the location of an actual science container then it will throw an exception.

Delete your ModuleManager configuration that adds the science stuff and edit the actual part.cfg

Insert the science modules before ANY OTHER MODULES. Or if you put them somewhere other than up in front then make careful note of where the container module is and change the index in the science lab to correspond.

Ordinarily I wouldn't tell someone not to use ModuleManager for this, but the way Squad set that up means that if you want to do it with ModuleManager you'll have to positively identify the correct index of the container and if the ordinal location of the container changes for any reason then the science part will BREAK all over again. (Thanks Squad)

[filip.kofron.cz]

Why would receivers produce so much heat while they do NOT receive any energy at all ? Is this a bug? The heat is dependent on the potential energy that i can get beamed down.. I upgraded my power plant with lots of fusion reactors on Kerbin and all my satellites already in the orbit overheat, some of them even ran out of power after shutting down (without backup solar power, my bad).

I would expect that the receiver would communicate with its transmitter directly or via relays, since it has to do it because it can't beam the power to all directions at once anyway.. so that it would say, hey the demand is 10kw, beam me this amount and not the full 80GW that i do not need...

[Atrius129]

Why would receivers produce so much heat while they do NOT receive any energy at all ? Is this a bug? The heat is dependent on the potential energy that i can get beamed down.. I upgraded my power plant with lots of fusion reactors on Kerbin and all my satellites already in the orbit overheat, some of them even ran out of power after shutting down (without backup solar power, my bad).

I would expect that the receiver would communicate with its transmitter directly or via relays, since it has to do it because it can't beam the power to all directions at once anyway.. so that it would say, hey the demand is 10kw, beam me this amount and not the full 80GW that i do not need...

This is something I have been waiting on for a while now. My near Kerbin MW network has over 1.5 TW power, making MW useless for any smaller craft. This could be fixed by adding a Maximum Power option to all of the receivers.

[Raven.]

I have a question about the uranium and thorium resources in Interstellar. Are the resource deposits generated at random, or are the resources always located in the same general area from save game to save game?

[nli2work]

I have a question about the uranium and thorium resources in Interstellar. Are the resource deposits generated at random, or are the resources always located in the same general area from save game to save game?

I am corrected, see ArcFurnace's post

Edited June 3, 2014 by nli2work

[ArcFurnace]

They're the same for everyone, if you look in the WarpPlugin/PlanetResourceData file you'll see the .png grayscale maps used to generate land-based resources. I believe Fractal handcrafted them to match up to surface features (e.g. ice on Minmus is found in the flats), and prevent things like deposits underwater on Kerbin where you can't get at them.

[simcool2]

when i press the link, why does it bring me here? http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal :/

[Rabada]

This is something I have been waiting on for a while now. My near Kerbin MW network has over 1.5 TW power, making MW useless for any smaller craft. This could be fixed by adding a Maximum Power option to all of the receivers.

1.5TW ?!? What are you doing with so much power? In my current game I have a 100 GW microwave network and I can launch 100T payloads with thermal nozzles at up to 100 g's of acceleration. How do you power that? I think I'm using 6 3.5m fusion reactors. Anyways you can turn down the power of receivers, but the lowest I can set my recievers still gives them several GW of power.

[TurielD]

While this mod has a lot of great stuff in it, its use is entirely opaque without an actual nuclear physics degree. It is incredibly frustrating to, for instance:

• bring the IR telescope up to my early-tech space station, for a bit of science. The delivery probe unexpectedly lost power on its way up, but no biggy, we can move the station to meet it! Now the station power is being drawn down, what's this? Oh, the telescope is 'off' but the fuel canister is sufficiently prioritized that TAC will let my Kerbals die of lack of power rather than, I dunno, let the helium heat up a little while it's not in use.
  As nothing catastrophic seems to happen when electricity is actually depleted, it would make me very happy if MW usage stopped short of actually leaving a craft totally unpowered. Aside from the TAC thing, I also use remote-tech which makes it very annoying to lose the power required for the coms antenna. Could MW requirements perhaps stop drawing from ElectricCharge when EC is below 10%?
  
• spend a considerable amount of time working out how to get a good 3.75m thermal rocket/Akula design in to orbit to use as an interplanetary vessel, to discover that the fuel runs out a few weeks in to the trip. Beating the LV-N it aint. The consumption rate is listed in the VAB stats, but it would be great if the part stats listed in the wiki were included in the descriptions of reactors, rather than the somewhat pointless flavour text.
  
• Experiment with B9 Sabre engines, and RAPIER engines. That overheating code simply makes them blow up in stupid ways. The pre-cooler addition is nice, but its structure requirements make it massively impractical for most uses. B9 being a mod that is community-updated with some number of possible bugs (compounded by combination with DR and FAR) made that I was looking for a long time trying to find the reason for all Sabres/RAPIERS blowing up at 12km regardless of thrust and airspeed. I noticed this in Scott Manley's videos too: When he enters the atmosphere and switched his Sabres from rocket to air-breathing at 60km mode they
  (30 seconds in to the vid). The game treats the heat of the air-breathing and rocket-modes as entirely separate entities, so the air-breathin engine can be basically already-exploded while you're in rocket mode, but it only triggers when you switch back. I don't know what to do about this, but I'm afraid I felt I had to disable that code entirely for now.

  The green fissions (SAFE/Kiwi/Aegletes) produce Actinides as waste. Reprocessing converts Actinides into new fuel and DepletedFuels. One of the limitations of the Sethlans/Akula series is that their waste goes straight to DepletedFuels without any opportunity to reprocess.

• I wish this had been documented somewhere. Anywhere. I was looking through the wiki and this ten thousand response thread for hours looking for information on why 'reprocess nuclear fuel' wasn't working. Could this option please be renamed 'reprocess ThF4/UF4 reactor waste'?
  

To just touch on a few of the other entirely vague features which are just annoying:

• the new seizmic accelerometer function is super cool! But how close to 90 degree intervals does it have to be? Willl it work if one probe is 10 degrees out of possition? What if I have probes at 15, 105, 195 and 285 degrees? What if I have 5 probes out of the required 6 for the advanced sensing? Trial an error is great in science... but I prefer the experiments to be trial and error, not the equipment I'm using.
  
• while the new impact system is awesome, I actually would kinda like to know if a planet is seizmically active... could the old function remain, or be added to a higher tier sci module, provided it had been in position for X amount of time (like a year) to study the planet's geological activity?
  
• so, so many activities of the science lab and refineries are available at times when they can't work, but don't give any feedback. As I noted above about the 'reprocess fuels' thing - could there please be some feedback text as to why something isn't working? "You cannot reprocess nuclear fuels because *Reason09* there is no free UF4 storage capacity" and the like.
  
• folding radiators make the VAB hang. This is rather odd, and quite annoying.
  
• surely a kerbal should be able to access the readout from a magnetometer? If not that, then let him grab its data container while on EVA? I'd rather have "dataIsCollectable = True" than "rerunnable = True" (which I have changed for myself). I'm sure I'm not the only one.
  
• the ISRU node weirdness is... annoying. I've gotten around it by changing the root part of a ship with SelectRoot, but might it not be simpler to have two models of the ISRU available in the VAB? One with the bottom node being main, and one for the side one?
  

Having said that, I am as yet not so frustrated as to actually give up on the mod, it is just too good! Instead I have some questions:

I've read people talking about 'throttling' reactors, and the wiki talks about reactors having longer running times at lower power. How can a reactors operating level be changed? I've gone EVA near them and the only option I get is 'manual shutdown'. The Right-click menu doesn't seem to offer anything either.

What is the purpose of the Akula type reactors? Especially when upgraded: it runs at 1/4 the temperature of the Aegletes II, provides 5/6th of the power, for 1/6th of the amount of time before refueling (assuming the values in the Wiki are still correct), and it also can't have its fuels reprocessed for extended usefulness. I suppose it's fuel is a bit lighter. What am I missing?

How can I tell if the IR telescope and/or the science lab have actually produced any science?

This mod is incredible, Fractal, I am endlessly impressed by both the results and sheer amount of work you've put in to making all these awesome things. The whole Microwave power system taken on its own is just staggeringly good. Just, for the love of god, can you write down what stuff does and how it works when you add new things in? In one place?

[Senshi]

Many agree with you, Turiel. That's why the wiki was set up, to gather and store such elusive information in a central, actually browsable place (which this super-thread is not). I feel like a unique forum section for Interstellar would be helpful as well to discuss the various aspects, but that'd be more of a hazzle.

Currently your best bet is to go to the wiki and use the info provided there. And/or go the more frustrating, hardcore route of trying to figure out yourself how everything works. Which I'm not too big a fan of. Even with the wiki, I regularly get stumped when trying out new stuff (such as the peculiarities to consider with a microwave network).

[Dangerous_Beans]

I've read people talking about 'throttling' reactors, and the wiki talks about reactors having longer running times at lower power. How can a reactors operating level be changed? I've gone EVA near them and the only option I get is 'manual shutdown'. The Right-click menu doesn't seem to offer anything either.

I've seen them throttle automatically. What sort of power are you using from it, and in what sort of situation?

with the resources, is there a limited quantity? or is it just high concentration/low concentration?

[TurielD]

I've seen them throttle automatically. What sort of power are you using from it, and in what sort of situation?

Ah I see. I was using the Akula as a power transmitter and occasionally to power the nuclear rocket nozzle. I'll experiment with switching off the microwave transmitter!

[nli2work]

Reactors will throttle down to lowest level necessary to power whatever you have running, after your MJ pool is fully charged. e.g. after you shut down engines and parts that uses MW, but your MJ reserve is below maximum, the reactor will continue to run at 100% for a short while before dropping down. All fission reactors have a minimum point below which the reaction is no longer self sustaining and it goes into cool down mode, it's about 10% from what I've observed.

[ArcFurnace]

I've seen them throttle automatically. What sort of power are you using from it, and in what sort of situation?

with the resources, is there a limited quantity? or is it just high concentration/low concentration?

I believe it's the latter, the quantities are effectively unlimited.

[Einarr]

The minimum power for fission reactors is 25% and if you're using them to put power into a microwave power network, I found it best to set the Transmitter to ~45-49% output depending on what other power draw you have from the rest of your craft due to the heating issues reducing efficiency. Above 50% on the reactor, the radiators tend to run hot enough to reduce the power output significantly (assuming you only have the minimum required to get the Thermal Helper in the green). Below 50% on the reactor you get better power generation efficiency, but then you still end up producing little power as you're running at a low setting. YMMV, but as I said, I found ~50% total output on the reactor (measured from the reactor) is ideal, this means your transmitter will usually be set slightly lower than 50% to ensure all other power draws do not put the reactor too far over the 50% mark. This also allows the reactor to run longer before needing to be refueled.

As to seeing what your reactor is running at, the right click menu for the reactor should tell you, should be the Reactor Status line, this is also true for the other reactor types. The reactors that have a minimum of 10% are fusion, excluding the Antimatter Initiated Reactor, which runs like an Antimatter reactor (no minimum).

Edited June 3, 2014 by Einarr

[bartekkru99]

Does anyone know, how to launch a vehicle with antimatter already onboard, like Enter Elysium did in his movies?

[Rabada]

Does anyone know, how to launch a vehicle with antimatter already onboard, like Enter Elysium did in his movies?

You have to open up the .cfg's for the antimatter tanks in GameData/WarpPlugin/Part/FuelTank/AntimatterTanks. Look for this part of the code:

RESOURCE
{
 name = Antimatter
 amount = 0
 maxAmount = 270000
}

Change the amount = 0 to whatever value you wish it to start as.

[bartekkru99]

Thanks. I need it for my antimatter powered fighter.

[tyrant264]

Question is this mod just a heavyload on the game itself or is it not compatible with some mods?

[Atrius129]

Does anyone know, how to launch a vehicle with antimatter already onboard, like Enter Elysium did in his movies?

YES!!!

Use the Resource Recovery mod that Philotical so wonderfully made for us!!

It lets you recover resources that you land on Kerbin! This includes elusive things like Antimatter, He3, Tritium, and Kethane. I even keep some Exotic Matter stored. It was just developed but I have been doing what I can to work with the author to help improve it, but it could use a few more people for testing and refining.

When I first played around with Tritium and then AM it killed me that I had to use a fuel rover on the landing pad, even to test a new craft. My comp is older now and other craft nearby on the landing pad don't help things. Then I used the config change like Radaba suggested, but I always felt it was cheatey. I did try to periodically land AM tankers on the surface and keep track of how much I had used. But this mod finally takes care of that! I was just testing it at first, but I feel it is stable enough to have become part of my "Essential Mods for Other Mods".

The author also plans to add a large part that you can drop onto another body's surface to allow similar resource recovery.

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Edit: Spelling, minor content.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Atrius129

[raxo2222]

Does anyone know, how to launch a vehicle with antimatter already onboard, like Enter Elysium did in his movies?

Use ship manifest - you can load literally any resource on ship on launch.