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

[lemon cup]

Here's the AIM in action. 

In its above configuration it is helping hash out a concept of a unique sort of JNSQ Duna architecture. The idea is, rather than take a massive station-like vessel to Duna and lug resources and equipment back and forth, to take a lightweight crewed pod (launched atop a conventional rocket) and blast it out to Duna for relatively cheap, with surface and orbital infrastructure already in place for long 1.5 year crew rotations. The downside is that dV is still a little tight meaning I have to stick to a modified transfer window, but if done right I can get a crew of 4 to Duna in roughly 24 days. Still working to get the trip time down and payload up but it looks like I'm close to the sweet spot already.

Testing went very well as you can imagine, no real issues. Though it did cause me to come to a similar conclusion as a few others - seems like one more anti-matter tank would come in handy to fill the gap between the ring tank and the next smallest tank available. Trying to fine tune the dV here was tricky, I ended up abusing Tweakscale on the ring tanks (please forgive me) because I needed 350 units of antimatter, and the two tanks to choose from held 50 units, or 2400 units. 

Also noticed that all of the engines with built-in fusion reactors do not throttle to meet power needs, unlike the standalone reactors. For instance I needed 25kW to power the ship's systems at idle but the reactor consumed resources as if it were providing its rated 100kW. Is this intentional?

[Nertea]

1 hour ago, ra4nd0m said:

Primary example (just count letters): термоядерный синтез means fusion in russian.  So I try to replace words with abbreviations or paraphrase something to make it shorter. Hardest part so far was Axial flow z-pinch. There are simply no russian language analouges for this thing so I had to come up with something to properly convey the meaning of this in russian. And this seriously affects  how fast I burn out.

 

An interesting challenge. I really appreciate your work though - even if I can't read it I'm sure other Russian speakers greatly appreciate it. 

 

1 hour ago, lemon cup said:

Here's the AIM in action. 

In its above configuration it is helping hash out a concept of a unique sort of JNSQ Duna architecture. The idea is, rather than take a massive station-like vessel to Duna and lug resources and equipment back and forth, to take a lightweight crewed pod (launched atop a conventional rocket) and blast it out to Duna for relatively cheap, with surface and orbital infrastructure already in place for long 1.5 year crew rotations. The downside is that dV is still a little tight meaning I have to stick to a modified transfer window, but if done right I can get a crew of 4 to Duna in roughly 24 days. Still working to get the trip time down and payload up but it looks like I'm close to the sweet spot already.

 

Testing went very well as you can imagine, no real issues. Though it did cause me to come to a similar conclusion as a few others - seems like one more anti-matter tank would come in handy to fill the gap between the ring tank and the next smallest tank available. Trying to fine tune the dV here was tricky, I ended up abusing Tweakscale on the ring tanks (please forgive me) because I needed 350 units of antimatter, and the two tanks to choose from held 50 units, or 2400 units. 

Nice! A very pretty ship.

1 hour ago, lemon cup said:

Also noticed that all of the engines with built-in fusion reactors do not throttle to meet power needs, unlike the standalone reactors. For instance I needed 25kW to power the ship's systems at idle but the reactor consumed resources as if it were providing its rated 100kW. Is this intentional?

Yes, it's intentional. Depending on the reactor, the minimum throttle is different. The AIM reactor is rated for 200kW and has a minimum throttle  of 50%, so you'll always see minimum 100 kW. The power reactors and the 'traditional' confinement reactors on engines have a 10% minimum.

[lemon cup]

23 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Nice! A very pretty ship.

Thanks!

23 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Yes, it's intentional.

Got it, yes that makes sense now.

 

[sturmhauke]

20 hours ago, ra4nd0m said:

[insert original reduced scope joke here].  Do not worry about it. I really enjoy these fancy futuristic engines. They are one of my favorite topics! The biggest problem in translating this stuff to russian is words length.

English does seem to have a higher information density when it comes to technical subjects. I've done some worth with writing localization code for web applications. For a given paragraph of text, English usually ends up being shorter in length than most other languages.

[Starhelperdude]

2 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

English does seem to have a higher information density when it comes to technical subjects. I've done some worth with writing localization code for web applications. For a given paragraph of text, English usually ends up being shorter in length than most other languages.

german is even denser IMO

[Captain Sierra]

I finally played with the afterburning mode on the Cascade. I think its safe to conclude the thing is absolutely insane. Nailing down a precise fuel mixture is proving a bit tricky so I opted for a slight surplus of fusion fuel. I can either run a reactor off of that (overkill for tank cooling) or have a slight buffer for reaction products mode if I run out of hydrogen mid-mission. Its only like 4,000 dV buffer but that's all you need to save a mission. Oh and I think I broke the embeds in my previous post while cleaning up my imgur so uh, RIP. Have a new album instead.

full album

[SpaceFace545]

Got to say the Frisbee is my favorite part in this pack partly due to its insane delta v and its self radiating capabilities but does anyone have any ideas on how to launch a 110 m long engine?

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Just now, SpaceFace545 said:

Got to say the Frisbee is my favorite part in this pack partly due to its insane delta v and its self radiating capabilities but does anyone have any ideas on how to launch a 110 m long engine?

You don’t. Use extraplanetary launchpads or global construction to build it on orbit.

[Captain Sierra]

3 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

You don’t.

Not with that attitude. @SpaceFace545 it looks something like this: It ain't pretty but it works.

[NHunter]

38 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Got to say the Frisbee is my favorite part in this pack partly due to its insane delta v and its self radiating capabilities but does anyone have any ideas on how to launch a 110 m long engine?

I'd pull Mark Thrimm and build a multi-body SSTO rocket around the engine using either 3.75m or even 5m cores. Something akin to what you can find in this video. Basically, you'll have your engine hanging down from the mounting point set between the launcher bodies (and strutted to it to avoid the whole thing from swinging around too much.

[SpaceFace545]

3 hours ago, Captain Sierra said:

Not with that attitude. @SpaceFace545 it looks something like this: It ain't pretty but it works.

I was kinda thinking about ditching the fairings and opting for a puller rocket that has engines on the top, I'm thinking this could counteract the wobble associated with absurdly long and narrow rockets.

[CDSlice]

1 hour ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I was kinda thinking about ditching the fairings and opting for a puller rocket that has engines on the top, I'm thinking this could counteract the wobble associated with absurdly long and narrow rockets.

Alas, this will not help

[Captain Sierra]

51 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I was kinda thinking about ditching the fairings and opting for a puller rocket that has engines on the top, I'm thinking this could counteract the wobble associated with absurdly long and narrow rockets.

KJR pretty much stabilized the stack when I launched it. My stack was only like 15 parts top to bottom too. The biggest spot I was worried about flexing was the interstage because I was using a step-down upper stage with clustered engines. I was coupling 7.5 meter cores to a 5 meter cluster mount and that sometimes doesn't like to stay rigid but KJR usually keeps it where its supposed to be. And of course @CDSlice is right in that puller config only helps if your rocket behaves like a noodle rather than a rocket. KJR of course fixes that.

I would dare say KJR is basically required when using this mod because absurdly long constructs (often punctuated with docking ports) are pretty normal for spacecraft which use these drives, especially the torches.

[TBenz]

1 hour ago, CDSlice said:

Alas, this will not help

Pendulum fallacy assumes a fully rigid rocket. Which is a fair assumption in real life, but KSP rockets can get a lot more flexible. So for this use, the "pendulum" design has benefits to stability. 

[Nertea]

Finished up the dozer version last night:

[aeroeng14]

3 hours ago, Nertea said:

Finished up the dozer version last night:

Woah. You mean we'll be able to attach them to rovers if it's a dozer version?!

[Wilhelm Kerman]

Isn't the first release slated for before Christmas?

[Nertea]

1 hour ago, Wilhelm Kerman said:

Isn't the first release slated for before Christmas?

It probably would have been if it hadn't been for KSP 1.11...

5 hours ago, aeroeng14 said:

Woah. You mean we'll be able to attach them to rovers if it's a dozer version?!

You can put the other one on rovers too, just... bigger ones ;). 

[Nertea]

FFT 0.9.11 (RC1???)

• Updated DynamicBatteryStorage to 2.2.1
• Updated DeployableEngines to 1.2.3
• Updated CryoTanks to 1.5.4
• Updated SystemHeat to 0.3.0
• Updated SpaceDust to 0.3.0
• Updated Waterfall to 0.2.10
• Marked mod for KSP 1.11
• Added PK-DUST-XS Regolith Processing System: smaller bulldozer style He3 processor
• Made gas scanner storeable as a cargo part
• Moved Dirac to correct tech node
• Reduced minimum throttle for Dirac reactor to 25% from 50%

 

It's worth mentioning that this might not work in older KSPs than 1.11, as I use some new API features in SystemHeat. Feedback welcome.

[Danielle]

Spoiler

 

What tank are those? I can't seem to find a good mod-pack to match Nertea's style for ReStock and FFT/NFT

[MrFancyPL]

I love this new parts!

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Edited December 21, 2020 by MrFancyPL
grandpa mistakes

[Starhelperdude]

2 hours ago, Danielle said:

  Hide contents

 

What tank are those? I can't seem to find a good mod-pack to match Nertea's style for ReStock and FFT/NFT

I can't see the stuff inside your quote, sry

[ra4nd0m]

So I've been thinking about science mode balance and I can say that there are some problems around it. The main problem is that Hammertong is on the same tech level as the torch drives and there is absoultely no point on using it. The only reason to pick fusion over Unified Field is Ouroborous. I think it can be partially fixed by allowing to unlock unified field only when both previous nodes are researched not one of them

[WarriorSabe]

1 hour ago, ra4nd0m said:

So I've been thinking about science mode balance and I can say that there are some problems around it. The main problem is that Hammertong is on the same tech level as the torch drives and there is absoultely no point on using it. The only reason to pick fusion over Unified Field is Ouroborous. I think it can be partially fixed by allowing to unlock unified field only when both previous nodes are researched not one of them

All FFT does tech-tree-wise is place its parts into the existing nodes from CTT.  The arrangement and structure of those nodes is part of CTT, and changing that through a patch could easily cause problems for other mods that intend to use CTT.

[ra4nd0m]

But the problem exists. This node is very far from the beginning. I know only one mod that uses nodes that are so far. And it is KSPI-E. Such change should not wreck havoc around mods. It is not that significant. After all this change would fit into "unified field theory"