[WIP] Nert's Dev Thread - Current: various updates

[Jimbodiah]

I had a ship blow up coming out of time-warp (part overheated and the ship blew up). Is this a stock thing in 1.1.3 or should I send logs if it happens again? Haven't played for a while and I found some other mentions of ships exploding after warping.

[Nertea]

On 8/4/2016 at 5:15 AM, shynung said:

A few points:

- The Z-pinch engines hasn't had names yet.

- The NSWR engine was named 'Heinlen'. Posting it here because you may have meant 'Heinlein'.

- The NSWR engine consumes electricity. NSWRs in principle are nearly identical to hypergolic rockets, which simply release propellants into a reaction chamber. I don't see why the NSWR would need electricity, unless using a magnetic nozzle.

Also, regarding this:

I'd suggest to put in the ISRU components last. That way, you'd have a pretty good picture on what the ISRU processes need to produce, since the engines needing the refueling are done.

Yeah I don't have fun names for everything yet (and yeah, it should be Heinlein). NSWR consumes a small amount of electricity to use its magnetic nozzle (check the model, it has those telltale bronze rings). It's likely that in a functional NSWR, the propellant would be plasma-fied and a magnetic nozzle would help to keep the exhaust from cooking the nozzle. 

ISRU will be happening whenever, really. I know what fuels I need to produce in the "final" version of the mod already (yay spreadsheet), I just need to work on models for them. 

On 8/6/2016 at 2:17 PM, Deimos Rast said:

amazing work as always.

I'm a little worried about #2 and compat with Kerbal Construction Time, since it hijacks the launch button already.

I'll probably work on that at some point. It shouldn't be impossible to insert the AM loading screen bit just before the KCT interface if KCT is installed. 

On 8/9/2016 at 11:32 PM, shynung said:

@Nertea I suggest grouping the non-AM engines into later updates of Kerbal Atomics, since they're a bit closer to reality than AM power, and are indeed powered by the might of the Atom. They'd be somewhere between FFT and KA/NFT, in terms of game balance, overall performance, and power consumption.

EDIT: On second thought, forget the suggestion.

Also, how's your vacation?

Back now! it was great, very relaxing, though a bit hot...

All these engines more or less have to go in the same pack because of fuel commonalities. I would rather minimize the need to share tankage between dissimilar mods... it's a real headache. Keeping the separation means that the only tanks I need to share are the LH2 ones, which are already shared with CryoEngines, so it's simple enough.

On 8/4/2016 at 2:41 PM, Jimbodiah said:

Having fun with this mod together with Mage's new station parts. Both mods WIP but already awesome.

That's a big big torus! Nice. 

On 8/11/2016 at 6:10 AM, Jimbodiah said:

I had a ship blow up coming out of time-warp (part overheated and the ship blew up). Is this a stock thing in 1.1.3 or should I send logs if it happens again? Haven't played for a while and I found some other mentions of ships exploding after warping.

Stocky thing. If you have a lot of heat in some part of your vessel, when entering/exiting analytic mode (> 1000x timewarp), there can be a redistribution of that heat into parts with lower thermal tolerances, and some overheating. 

[shynung]

18 hours ago, Nertea said:

Back now! it was great, very relaxing, though a bit hot...

All these engines more or less have to go in the same pack because of fuel commonalities. I would rather minimize the need to share tankage between dissimilar mods... it's a real headache. Keeping the separation means that the only tanks I need to share are the LH2 ones, which are already shared with CryoEngines, so it's simple enough.

Nice to hear that.

I agree, the fuel tank sharing would be quite a headache. I wonder, though, would separating the folder containing tankage from the engine folders reduce some complexity? Something like what you did with LH2, but applied to all tanks in general?

I ask this because MIF, at least the MSNW design, requires light metals for propellant, not LH2, because the fusion process uses the propellant to induce fusion. You'd need to borrow the lithium tanks from NFT Propulsion if you plan to include MIF.

Also, are you planning for FFT-NFT interdependence, or is it going to be a completely separate mod?

Edited August 20, 2016 by shynung

[Nertea]

On 8/20/2016 at 7:42 AM, shynung said:

Nice to hear that.

I agree, the fuel tank sharing would be quite a headache. I wonder, though, would separating the folder containing tankage from the engine folders reduce some complexity? Something like what you did with LH2, but applied to all tanks in general?

I ask this because MIF, at least the MSNW design, requires light metals for propellant, not LH2, because the fusion process uses the propellant to induce fusion. You'd need to borrow the lithium tanks from NFT Propulsion if you plan to include MIF.

Also, are you planning for FFT-NFT interdependence, or is it going to be a completely separate mod?

The complexity derives from the need to update more than one mod if some component changes - eg when I change a value for LH2 tanks, I need to update CryoEngines and KerbalAtomics. Splitting out more stuff into more GameData root folders does make it easier to create zips, but doesn't really stop the main pain point. I will probably try something clever with the lithium tanks. 

Completely separate, but complementary

[eataTREE]

So, I've added the test release to my career save but am too frightened to actually launch any of the parts yet. (I did make a seven-NSWR beast of a cargo tug that could, in theory, take off from the pad with two hundred tons of cargo and then haul it to Plock, but chickened out on launching it. Have you modeled any interesting ramifications of setting off a "continuous nuclear detonation" in the atmosphere?) 

You have made... an antimatter pion torch. I'm wondering how realistic you've made it in terms of the waste heat that such an engine would produce. Real-world proposals for this include 500 square kilometers of heat radiators and/or fancy theoretical droplet radiators to get rid of the energy from absorbed gamma rays -- should I assume that your model has comparable heat dissipation requirements?

I also notice that you're working on a ray-traced radiation mod. (Yay!) An antimatter pion drive would produce rather a lot of radiation, and by "rather a lot", I mean enough to kill you stone dead from 100 km away. Does or will your radiation mod model this lethal gamma-ray shine? (If so, how many thicknesses worth of 2x2 structural plates does it take to attenuate the gamma rays to survivable levels?)

Love, love, love your work.

[Nertea]

4 hours ago, eataTREE said:

So, I've added the test release to my career save but am too frightened to actually launch any of the parts yet. (I did make a seven-NSWR beast of a cargo tug that could, in theory, take off from the pad with two hundred tons of cargo and then haul it to Plock, but chickened out on launching it. Have you modeled any interesting ramifications of setting off a "continuous nuclear detonation" in the atmosphere?) 

You have made... an antimatter pion torch. I'm wondering how realistic you've made it in terms of the waste heat that such an engine would produce. Real-world proposals for this include 500 square kilometers of heat radiators and/or fancy theoretical droplet radiators to get rid of the energy from absorbed gamma rays -- should I assume that your model has comparable heat dissipation requirements?

I also notice that you're working on a ray-traced radiation mod. (Yay!) An antimatter pion drive would produce rather a lot of radiation, and by "rather a lot", I mean enough to kill you stone dead from 100 km away. Does or will your radiation mod model this lethal gamma-ray shine? (If so, how many thicknesses worth of 2x2 structural plates does it take to attenuate the gamma rays to survivable levels?)

Love, love, love your work.

I wouldn't recommend using a heavily beta mod in your nice career yet :P. I make no stability promises. Glad you enjoy it. 

This mod doesn't model ramifications. There is a plugin that I am kinda working on as part of Radioactivity that generalizes ingame areas as "sensitive" and gives you a reputation penalty per second when running the engine there. So you use your 7 NSWRs to lift off and you no longer have any reputation as a space program. That's more or less the extent to which I aim to deal with this.

I have given it a thermal emission that more or less corresponds to a 99.95% efficient nozzle (hah). That means that you do need quite a large stack of radiators to make it work. Easily customizable if you feel like you need to have more...

The last one is more of an open question because Radioactivity is a gameplay mod with no balance specifications yet. The idea will be to first balance it to work with stock parts then start extending things in a logical way. The answer to that last question though is pretty easy to tell. Assume some given dose rate at the surface of the engine, then apply the concepts in the Radioactivity document (https://github.com/ChrisAdderley/Radioactivity/wiki/Attenuation-Concept) to discover the attenuation that's needed. They should match up pretty well. 

[ZewelVonLelek]

On 31. 7. 2016 at 3:58 AM, Nertea said:

 

 

Oh kriff... it is practically a giant lightsaber

[Dreadthrone]

Just when I thought there weren't any good mods adding 3.75m generation ship-ish parts, I find Far Future Technologies. Even though it's still WIP it's already one of the best mods I know of  

 

I particularly like the Z-pinch parts, they seem very simple and balanced. 

Edited September 11, 2016 by Dreadthrone

[Nertea]

So I'm starting to think about resource generation equipment in a specific way.... listing things, concepting, gathering art ideas. I'll going to go through it

• Antimatter: gathered from free space around certain planets
• FusionPellets: production chain resource, transformed from LqdDeuterium plus LqdHe3
• FissionPellets: production chain resource, transformed from EnrichedUranium. 
• NuclearSaltWater: production chain resources, transformed from EnrichedUranium and Water
• LqdDeuterium: gathered from atmospheres, particularly of giants
• LqdHe3: gathered from atmospheres, particularly of gas giants
• LqdHydrogen: gathered from atmospheres, particularly of gas giants. 

I've gathered these into several parts that should minimize the amount of work I need to do. 

Magnetic Particle Scoop

• 2.5m part, inline
• Deploys to very large size
• Collects Antimatter, LqdHydrogen from free space

Atmospheric Particle Filter

• Unknown form factor!
• Collects LqdHe3, LqdHydrogen, LqdDeuterium 

Nuclear Smelter

• 3.75m, about the height of a Kerbodyne S3-7200 Tank
• Transforms EnrichedUranium to FissionPellets
• Transforms LqdDeuterium+LqdHe3 to FusionPellets
• Transforms EnrichedUranium+Water to NuclearSaltWater

Energetic Particle Detector

• Detects space-based Antimatter, LqdHydrogen
• Also collects Science!

Atmospheric Gas Spectrometer (NF Propulsion Part)

• Patched to detect LqdHe3, LqhHydrogen, LqdDeuterium

Nuclear Reprocessor (NF Electrical Part)

• Transforms Ore to EnrichedUranium

ISRU (Stock Part)

• Patched to transform Ore to Water
• Transforms Ore to LqdHydrogen (NFP Patch)

Obviously there's a bit of a weird assumption that Ore contains water there.

I think the biggest question for users is about the form-factor of the atmospheric scoop. What should it look like? Should it look like it fits on a spaceplane? More industrial? etc. 

 

 

[DStaal]

My thoughts on an atmospheric scoop: I'd want something I can make part of a surface base - it sucks in air and filters it.  3.75 - or even in a larger form factor, like 5m - and then unfolds/deploys.  (Either by expanding, or opening top+bottom to suck air through.)

And I'd point out that if Ore contains Oxidizer and some hydrocarbon based liquid fuel, you can definitely refine that to water.  Though it may not be the most efficient use.     (Actually - the easiest way should output H2O, CO2, and a lot of heat...)

[Jimbodiah]

Water is actually a resource in CRP, so you can mine it directly.

[Nertea]

14 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Water is actually a resource in CRP, so you can mine it directly.

But I don't want to make harvesting parts

1 hour ago, DStaal said:

My thoughts on an atmospheric scoop: I'd want something I can make part of a surface base - it sucks in air and filters it.  3.75 - or even in a larger form factor, like 5m - and then unfolds/deploys.  (Either by expanding, or opening top+bottom to suck air through.)

And I'd point out that if Ore contains Oxidizer and some hydrocarbon based liquid fuel, you can definitely refine that to water.  Though it may not be the most efficient use.     (Actually - the easiest way should output H2O, CO2, and a lot of heat...)

Yeah... that's probably something like the cryogenic gas separator in NFP. This has to be more skimming-oriented, as the part would be more oriented to harvest from gas giants and such.

[Streetwind]

Well, so long as it's the same CRP water, people can install other mods to get a direct water mining drill

[Jimbodiah]

56 minutes ago, Nertea said:

But I don't want to make harvesting parts

Euhm.. euhm... what's the difference with an atmospheric scoop?

[Nertea]

21 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Euhm.. euhm... what's the difference with an atmospheric scoop?

Blah I mean water harvesting :P. 

[Jimbodiah]

Haha, squeezing water out of rocks makes more sense 

[DStaal]

4 hours ago, Nertea said:

Yeah... that's probably something like the cryogenic gas separator in NFP. This has to be more skimming-oriented, as the part would be more oriented to harvest from gas giants and such.

Ah, sorry.  I'll admit I tend to avoid spaceplanes, but looking up what the issues are from the Atomic Rockets website what would be realistic would probably be a moderate sized scoop on the front of a very, very, long processor.  Having a large scoop doesn't really help because unlike an engine (where you're sending the gas through), you're capturing the gas, which means your scoop will end up at equalization pressure to the atmosphere.  The bottleneck is actually how fast you can cool and compress the gas down to process it - while doing an atmospheric entry...

[shynung]

9 hours ago, Nertea said:

I think the biggest question for users is about the form-factor of the atmospheric scoop. What should it look like? Should it look like it fits on a spaceplane? More industrial? etc. 

For a comparison, KSPI-E used a radially-attached bulky, boxy scoop part. It has an intake port on the front, and vents on the back; I'd imagine it has a mini atmospheric separator inside that somehow filters the gas we wanted, and spits out the rest from the vents.

As for me, I'd prefer an industrial look that fits just as well on mega-spaceplanes as it does on traditionally-shaped rocketships and surface bases.

[Streetwind]

7 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Haha, squeezing water out of rocks makes more sense 

You be surprised - pretty much all of the water in your typical asteroid is locked away trapped in the lattice structure of minerals, or bound in chemical compounds. There are preciously few places where straight water ice can exist until you get a certain distance away from the sun (Jupiter's orbit, at minimum). And even then, that ice is solid just like a rock

[Kertech]

@Nertea which version of ksp is this for testing on?

[Nertea]

17 hours ago, DStaal said:

Ah, sorry.  I'll admit I tend to avoid spaceplanes, but looking up what the issues are from the Atomic Rockets website what would be realistic would probably be a moderate sized scoop on the front of a very, very, long processor.  Having a large scoop doesn't really help because unlike an engine (where you're sending the gas through), you're capturing the gas, which means your scoop will end up at equalization pressure to the atmosphere.  The bottleneck is actually how fast you can cool and compress the gas down to process it - while doing an atmospheric entry...

Yeah the trick is going to making something that looks cool on a spaceplane or spaceship. I'll see if I can block something out next week.

3 minutes ago, Kertech said:

@Nertea which version of ksp is this for testing on?

This is still on 1.1.3. I will try to get it updated to 1.2 soon with a number of improvements, but I'm probably going to be sorting minor bugfixes on my suite release for the next week, so that will hamper work. 

[Kertech]

Just now, Nertea said:

This is still on 1.1.3. I will try to get it updated to 1.2 soon with a number of improvements, but I'm probably going to be sorting minor bugfixes on my suite release for the next week, so that will hamper work. 

I'd just never found your dev thread before (which is odd considering I've been using the NF stuff since starting ksp!) Thanks for the update on the other stuff!!

[DStaal]

44 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Yeah the trick is going to making something that looks cool on a spaceplane or spaceship. I'll see if I can block something out next week.

Here's a concept model someone put out: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Transport_and_Engineering_Methods/Resource_Extraction#Scoop_Mining

Don't know if it looks all that cool though...

[Nertea]

This 1.2 update is getting a bit frustrating. I can't seem to override the Launch button anymore, so that's a real downer. I might have to change things to an "on the pad" filling method.

On 10/21/2016 at 0:19 PM, DStaal said:

Here's a concept model someone put out: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Transport_and_Engineering_Methods/Resource_Extraction#Scoop_Mining

Don't know if it looks all that cool though...

Pretty basic, but I might start off on that direction. A long part with a flattened 2.5m profile that is streamlined at the front and greebled at the back. 

I quite like this thing (everything forward of "C") as the particle scoop, but with a smaller "solid" cone that is more like the bits in "G"

[DStaal]

'G' in that model is open trusswork, I believe...  But yeah, as the scoop that looks interesting.

(As for 1.2: I can't even run it.  My OS isn't compatible.  It locks up my computer the moment I get past the loading screen.)