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

[toric5]

you are easily one of the best artists making mods for ksp. i dont say that lightly. I find myself going out of my way to use your parts simply to make my ships look good.

[benad]

11 minutes ago, toric5 said:

you are easily one of the best artists making mods for ksp. i dont say that lightly. I find myself going out of my way to use your parts simply to make my ships look good.

I agree. These parts are gorgeous 

[Nertea]

Thanks, appreciation is always appreciated. 

This morning's work involved working out the animation for closing the scoop. I added a truss structure in the middle to provide something for the bits to link to and add some more interest. In addition the new bits were unwrapped and a few ingame tests were done. Fun times. 

 

The collapsed version looks like this: 

Texturing still needs to be finished for both this and the atmosphere scoop, but things are looking pretty solid!

 

 

[Domfluff]

I'm not sure I've actually said this to you at any point, but KSP for me has been "KSP with Nertea's and Roverdude's mods" for years now. They're an intrinsic part of the game for me, and that's amazing.

So... thanks

[Nertea]

Some last pictures of the scoop, which I'm pretty happy with now:

 

 

Last resourcing part: the imaging spectrometer:

 

So now we have the whole resourcing flow for the mod created:

• Detect concentrations of LqdHe3, LqdDeuterium and LqdHydrogen with the Imaging Spectrometer
• Harvest atmospheric LqdHe3, LqdDeuterium and LqdHydrogen using the Atmospheric Ramscoop
• Detect concentrations of Antimatter using the Gamma Detector (which is also a new science experiment)
• Harvest exoatmospheric LqdHydrogen, LqdDeuterium and Antimatter using the Energized Particle Scoop
• Use the Nuclear Smelter to create FissionPellets, FusionPellets and NuclearSaltWater from a number of seed resources (EnrichedUranium, LqdDeuteriun+LqdHe3, Ore+EnrichedUranium respectively)
• Use other mods' (NFElectrical, USI) production methods to get EnrichedUranium for the Smelter
• Additionally, use the patched stock ISRU to convert LqdHydrogen and Lithium from Ore (same patch as NFPropulsion and CryoTanks use)

This should hopefully result in a new dev version within the next few days. After this the next goal is to work out the pulsed fusion tech, which is four more engines:

• Magnetized target fusion
• Magneto-inertial fusion
• Laser ICF fusion (magnetic nozzle)
• Laser ICF fusion (ablative nozzle)

Here is an ingame shot for bonus!

Edited February 27, 2017 by Nertea

[Domfluff]

Obviously FFT is very much a work in progress, so it's more than fine if this doesn't exist, but is there currently any way in-game to know what amount of cooling a propulsion system requires?

[DStaal]

I'm noting a couple of new resources in the list - in particular, FusionPellets, which I know @Angel-125 also uses in WildBlueIndustries.  Just bringing up so you two can coordinate, if at all possible.

[Nertea]

1 hour ago, Domfluff said:

Obviously FFT is very much a work in progress, so it's more than fine if this doesn't exist, but is there currently any way in-game to know what amount of cooling a propulsion system requires?

Not in stock, but FFT includes a module. 

57 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I'm noting a couple of new resources in the list - in particular, FusionPellets, which I know @Angel-125 also uses in WildBlueIndustries.  Just bringing up so you two can coordinate, if at all possible.

Way ahead of you - the change was made from FusionTargets to FusionPellets for coordination in that respect. 

[MaverickSawyer]

5 hours ago, Nertea said:

Some last pictures of the scoop, which I'm pretty happy with now:

 

 

Last resourcing part: the imaging spectrometer:

 

So now we have the whole resourcing flow for the mod created:

• Detect concentrations of LqdHe3, LqdDeuterium and LqdHydrogen with the Imaging Spectrometer
• Harvest atmospheric LqdHe3, LqdDeuterium and LqdHydrogen using the Atmospheric Ramscoop
• Detect concentrations of Antimatter using the Gamma Detector (which is also a new science experiment)
• Harvest exoatmospheric LqdHydrogen, LqdDeuterium and Antimatter using the Energized Particle Scoop
• Use the Nuclear Smelter to create FissionPellets, FusionPellets and NuclearSaltWater from a number of seed resources (EnrichedUranium, LqdDeuteriun+LqdHe3, Ore+EnrichedUranium respectively)
• Use other mods' (NFElectrical, USI) production methods to get EnrichedUranium for the Smelter
• Additionally, use the patched stock ISRU to convert LqdHydrogen and Lithium from Ore (same patch as NFPropulsion and CryoTanks use)

This should hopefully result in a new dev version within the next few days. After this the next goal is to work out the pulsed fusion tech, which is four more engines:

• Magnetized target fusion
• Magneto-inertial fusion
• Laser ICF fusion (magnetic nozzle)
• Laser ICF fusion (ablative nozzle)

Here is an ingame shot for bonus!

Dang that's a sexy ship.

[Nertea]

Good progress today. I tracked down the key bug that was affecting the Antimatter Factory component (zeroing out your reserves when you went into the VAB). I also went through all the parts, cleaned up a bunch of trailing tgas, did some general cost/mass fixes and ensured conservation of mass was happening for the converters. In addition I've also retextured the two fusion fuel tanks to look somewhat better, fitting the geosphere-type tanks that I've been using in the pack to visually identify a "futuristic" cryogenic tank. 

I also drafted a bunch of resource configs for exoplanetary H2 and antimatter. These will ship with this dev build as a custom CRP for testing out. Eventually they will get merged into CRP, but not yet.

 

[Nertea]

Still nothing interesting at this point, I'm afraid. I identified one more problem that's been logged on my git for ages, which is the timewarp Ec consumption bug. I solved this in CryoTanks a while ago, so some time was spent porting that code to FFT, in terms of creating a modular, interface-accessible library that both mods can hook into. For now, this will just exist in FFT, but will be back-ported to CryoTanks relatively soon. This is necessary so that the two systems can interact correctly.  

Still some build/test work to do tonight to verify it though.

[Streetwind]

Is this where I complain about poor, content-devoid devnotes?

 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by Streetwind

[toric5]

sooo mutch hype!

[Temeter]

This sounds neat! Recently watched The Expanse, and now I'm on a bit of a Scifi-Trip. I want to see how these engines fare in RSS!

[Nertea]

 

FFT Version 0.1.1

• KSP 1.2.2
•  Added AVC support
•  Updated bundled MM to 2.7.5
•  Updated bundled CRP to 0.6.6
•  Updated bundled B9PartSwitch to 1.7.1
•  Added a new ModuleEngineHeatDisplay component to all FFT engines to show engine heat outputs in VAB tooltips and as a right click option in flight
•  Reworked entirety of FFT antimatter handling plugin
  •  Antimatter is now loaded in the flight scene, provided the selected vessel is at the KSC
  •  Loading interface allows loading and unloading of antimatter tanks back into the KSC reserve
  •  Antimatter storage tank plugin completely refactored
•  Completed a number of tweaks and improvements to part names and descriptions
•  Added better part search tags for many parts
•  FusionPellets and FissionPellets have replaced FusionTargets and FissionTargets for compatibility with DSEV
•  NuclearSaltWater has replaced NukeSaltWater for clarity
•  Normalized all fusion tech parts to use either D-D or D-He3 fusion
•  Removed tritium storage from fusion fuel tanks
•  Normalized all nuclear fuel tanks (NuclearSaltWater, FusionPellets, FissionPellets) to have mass ratio of 4.0
•  Normalized all cryogenic fuel tanks (LqdHe3, LqdDeuterium) to have mass ratio of 5.0
•  Antimatter containers now have enough builtin EC storage for 10s of power loss
•  NuclearSaltWater tanks have been respecced to be tougher and more thermally resistant instead of having cryogenic values]
•  Converted a number of completed textures to dds
•  Reworked fusion fuel tank models to look better and obey isotank design language
•  Added textures to the inline antimatter tank
•  Added KV-1 'Vulcan' Nuclear Smelter: processes EnrichedUranium -> FissionPellets, LqdDeuterium+LqHe3 -> FusionPellets, EnrichedUranium+Water -> NuclearSaltWater
•  Added CX-A Particle Scoop: extracts LqdHydrogen, Antimatter from exoplanetary locations
•  Added 'Hoover' Atmospheric Ramscoop: extracts LqdHydrogen, LqdDeuterium, LqdHe3 from atmospheres
•  Added ZAP Gamma Spectrometer: detects exoplanetary Antimatter
•  Added ALICE Imaging Spectrometer: Detects LqdHydrogen (atmo and exo), LqdHe3, LqdDeuterium

 

2 hours ago, Temeter said:

This sounds neat! Recently watched The Expanse, and now I'm on a bit of a Scifi-Trip. I want to see how these engines fare in RSS!

 

Funny, I've been watching the Expanse too. 

[Temeter]

21 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Funny, I've been watching the Expanse too. 

 

Oh, this is dope! Question, what exactly are those engines? I've tried to google it and checked the wiki, but only found out that they are some sort of fusion engine. And the epistein drive, making them out solar system accessible, has some coils added, which somehow allows week-long burns, while driving up efficiency. (bit weird the engine is supposedly beend developed 150 years before the series started (which is 200 years in the future^^'))

 

So just fusion reactor powered electric engines? Or something shooting out fusion products and then accelerating them? I'm confused.

I mean, the crafts in the series are super OP, managing minutes of 15g burns without problem. Besides the capability of weeks-long burns, they'd need to have 100k's of delta-v, if not millions.

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by Temeter

[Nertea]

I mean, fiction, but the in-universe thing seems like it's a inertially-confined fusion drive (books frequently describe fusion pellets) that spews its reaction products out the back, plus some additional water as reaction mass. 

[Temeter]

28 minutes ago, Nertea said:

I mean, fiction, but the in-universe thing seems like it's a inertially-confined fusion drive (books frequently describe fusion pellets) that spews its reaction products out the back, plus some additional water as reaction mass. 

 

I've also searched a bit, and yep, seems like they knowingly keep it very vague. Pretty much a near magical device to make the otherwise more realistic setting work.

 

From what I get, the big ships use fusion pellets, however, the fuel efficiency varies. Earlier books say a ship can easily have enough fuel for 30 years on board, later it gets changed to the ship reguarly taking up new pellets (which are quite cheap and widely available, apparently). Those pellets get translated into insane amounts of energy. Potentially combined with a very tiny, if any amount of water?

 

And smaller ships still use the pre-epstein torch drive that's much less efficient, and relies on a lot of water as a propellant.

 

Just according to one source, tho. Might be wrong.

 

EDIT

This here:

http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/prequel.php

 

Is a short story about the creation of the engines. This story is also shown in the series 2nd season. Supposedly there is some info in there!

Edited March 3, 2017 by Temeter

[Angelo Kerman]

Very cool, congrats on the release! Love the artwork and design.

[Raptor9]

3 hours ago, Nertea said:

Funny, I've been watching the Expanse too. 

 

That looks awesome!  I've been trying to get a "Rocinante"-looking asteroid miner/ore hauler using the biggest MPD thruster, but could never get anything I was satisfied.

[Nertea]

On 3/3/2017 at 2:20 PM, Temeter said:

I've also searched a bit, and yep, seems like they knowingly keep it very vague. Pretty much a near magical device to make the otherwise more realistic setting work.

 

From what I get, the big ships use fusion pellets, however, the fuel efficiency varies. Earlier books say a ship can easily have enough fuel for 30 years on board, later it gets changed to the ship reguarly taking up new pellets (which are quite cheap and widely available, apparently). Those pellets get translated into insane amounts of energy. Potentially combined with a very tiny, if any amount of water?

And smaller ships still use the pre-epstein torch drive that's much less efficient, and relies on a lot of water as a propellant.

 

Just according to one source, tho. Might be wrong.

EDIT

This here:

http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/prequel.php

Is a short story about the creation of the engines. This story is also shown in the series 2nd season. Supposedly there is some info in there!

Yeah, I've been a fan of this for quite a while, having multiple book reads under my belt. My own personal set of combined observations

• The drive is an open-cycle inertially-confined fusion reactor with a magnetic nozzle, expelling reaction products plus water as reaction mass
  • based on numerous statements that they have loads of pellets when they steal the Tachi, and a bunch of later statements about needing to refuel on reaction mass, which is cheap, but being lucky the Roci's reactor is so efficient and that it was fully loaded, they don't need to buy new pellets too frequently (expensive
  • also based on the show's art which shows the Anubis' main reactor as looking awfully ICF-reactor-like
• The "Epstein" component of the drive is the containment and magnetic nozzle
  • essentially allows the ship to hit a much higher reaction rate and thus thrust/exhaust velocity without melting the drive/ship
  • Fusion drives can be run in no-epstein mode with water as reaction mass at a much lower fuel efficiency,
    • This occurs in the RCS thrusters (superheated steam) and older ships (no Epstein confinement for their reactors)
• The fuel cycle is proton-lithium
  • basically based on the fact that in Cibola Burn, there's a decent number of statements that indicate that lithium is fuel for powerplants, and that it's very valuable on that way

These items make logical sense based on the book. They make "vague" physics sense in that if you ignore heat output, it's probably ok. 

On 3/3/2017 at 5:06 PM, Raptor9 said:

That looks awesome!  I've been trying to get a "Rocinante"-looking asteroid miner/ore hauler using the biggest MPD thruster, but could never get anything I was satisfied.

Yeah... I modeled the whole Roci (I guess Tachi because I used the MCRN colours) last year after watching season 1. Only got as far texturing the nozzle and reactor though. Got stuck on the exact structure of the midships area due to lack of clear references for the detail, but maybe now in S2 we will have some better shots :). PDCs were fun to make!

[Temeter]

47 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Yeah, I've been a fan of this for quite a while, having multiple book reads under my belt. My own personal set of combined observations

• The drive is an open-cycle inertially-confined fusion reactor with a magnetic nozzle, expelling reaction products plus water as reaction mass
  • based on numerous statements that they have loads of pellets when they steal the Tachi, and a bunch of later statements about needing to refuel on reaction mass, which is cheap, but being lucky the Roci's reactor is so efficient and that it was fully loaded, they don't need to buy new pellets too frequently (expensive
  • also based on the show's art which shows the Anubis' main reactor as looking awfully ICF-reactor-like
• The "Epstein" component of the drive is the containment and magnetic nozzle
  • essentially allows the ship to hit a much higher reaction rate and thus thrust/exhaust velocity without melting the drive/ship
  • Fusion drives can be run in no-epstein mode with water as reaction mass at a much lower fuel efficiency,
    • This occurs in the RCS thrusters (superheated steam) and older ships (no Epstein confinement for their reactors)
• The fuel cycle is proton-lithium
  • basically based on the fact that in Cibola Burn, there's a decent number of statements that indicate that lithium is fuel for powerplants, and that it's very valuable on that way

These items make logical sense based on the book. They make "vague" physics sense in that if you ignore heat output, it's probably ok.

Oh, so you actually read the books! And here I first somehow got the impression you've been a newbie like me, just watching the series first time ^^'

I always thought the Anubis reactor looked a bit weird for a tokamak/stellarator type thing, with the giant beams piercing a ball (assumed it to be a scifi cliche). However, intertial fusion makes a lot more sense for that shape. Steam also explains RCS and why they look like monoprop (or steam).

This actually explains quite a bit that wasn't mentioned in the series; it's even closer to 'realistic' scifi space stuff than I thought it was. Attention to details is quite impressive.

 

Am I right in assuming that the cores heat is also transformed into energy for the ships systems, having it run on low power when the drive isn't being used? (also, bahamuto compatible PDCs? :3 )

47 minutes ago, Nertea said:

but maybe now in S2 we will have some better shots

S2 got lots of shots of the roci (some even w/o ore containers!), including some nice combat sequences.

Google image search actually lists a lot of detailed shots from every angle:

https://www.google.com/search?q=rocinante&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO34OJ7cLSAhXH6xQKHR8HC44Q_AUICCgB&biw=1920&bih=971

Edited March 6, 2017 by Temeter

[Nertea]

1 minute ago, Temeter said:

Oh, so you actually read the books! And here I first got the impression you've been a newbie like me, just watching the series first time ^^'

I always thought the Anubis reactor looked a bit weird for a tokamak/stellarator type thing, with the giant beams piercing a ball (assumed it to be a scifi cliche). However, intertial fusion makes a lot more sense for that shape. Steam also explains RCS and why they look like monoprop (or steam).

This actually explains quite a bit that wasn't mentioned in the series; it's even closer to 'realistic' scifi space stuff than I thought it was.

 

Am I right in assuming that the cores heat is also transformed into energy for the ships systems, having it run on low power when the drive isn't being used?

I'll try to avoid future spoilers then ;). 

The only thing that goes against the ICF concept is that later the idea that a ship can "drop core" (eject the fusion plasma) is important. This wouldn't make a huge amount of sense for ICF because there wouldn't be much plasma to vent. 

I expect the drive reactor can operate at low power in closed cycle mode too to power ship systems. In a later book, for... reasons... the Roci's reactor stops working for a while, so the ship has to sustain everything via batteries. It's mentioned that this can go on pretty much forever if it doesn't have to do major maneuvering. Still implies that typically the reactor might run at low power to keep charge up. 

[Temeter]

8 minutes ago, Nertea said:

I'll try to avoid future spoilers then ;). 

The only thing that goes against the ICF concept is that later the idea that a ship can "drop core" (eject the fusion plasma) is important. This wouldn't make a huge amount of sense for ICF because there wouldn't be much plasma to vent. 

I expect the drive reactor can operate at low power in closed cycle mode too to power ship systems. In a later book, for... reasons... the Roci's reactor stops working for a while, so the ship has to sustain everything via batteries. It's mentioned that this can go on pretty much forever if it doesn't have to do major maneuvering. Still implies that typically the reactor might run at low power to keep charge up. 

Thanks for the consideration.

Yeah, I can't really imagine why you'd drop a core. Maybe they are just a lot better than expected at containing a large amount of plasma? The only time in the series a reactor made problems was when the mars flagship had to disable it's engines to avoid overheating (which might be a military thing, powering strong engines and railguns n' stuff?).

Edited March 6, 2017 by Temeter

[Nertea]

So has anyone had a look/a test recently? I had one report requesting an infinite antimatter setting, which is reasonable, but not much else.