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

[Misguided Kerbal]

1 minute ago, Nertea said:

So yes, I am working on FFT again. I seem motivated and no more KSP2 for a year gives me some time to finish it. However, a major scope and content restructuring will be happening to make this reasonable. Expect little to no compatibility between older versions and this one.

• All antimatter mechanics are getting removed: this is necessary to keep the scope reasonable.
•  All inertially confined engines are getting removed for a considerable rework and should not be even considered part of the mod for the time being. This includes the z-pinch driven engines.
•  Magnetically confined fusion engines are being reworked artistically as can be seen, but also mechanically with different sizes and capabilities. Probably more on that as they get done. 
•  Fusion reactors are sticking around and should stay largely the same as they are currently.
•  Exotic fission propulsion systems are getting strongly reworked but should still be in the mod. This means the NSWR and FFRE.
•  Metallic hydrogen propulsion might be going away.If not it's getting a similar treatment to the inertially confined engines and getting taken out for a heavy conceptual rework. 
•  ISRU equipment is being revised and edited where appropriate. Some of the models are salvageable, others will need a rethink conceptually and artistically. 

I'm concurrently developing three utility mods that are required to make the mod work the way I want. These will not be optional. 

•  SystemHeat, which overhauls heating
•  Waterfall, which is something I and a few others have been working on to drive better engine effects
•  SpaceDust, which is a piece of work to overhaul the buggy garbage mess that is atmospheric and exoatmospheric harvesting in stock. 

An initial release will be available when the fusion, fission and ISRU systems are done, and the three support mods have reached a sufficient level of stability. 

Is a 1.7.3 port planned?

[Nertea]

2 minutes ago, Misguided_Kerbal said:

Is a 1.7.3 port planned?

God no. 

[coyotesfrontier]

Utterly amazing, Nertea. As today is my birthday, this is probably the best gift I could have ever gotten. I can't express how excited I am for this!

[theJesuit]

I, for one, am looking forward to welcoming these Far Future Overlord's into the Tetrix Tech tree, and using them in JNSQ.

Thank you Nertea.

Peace.

[NiL]

15 hours ago, Nertea said:

 Metallic hydrogen propulsion might be going away.If not it's getting a similar treatment to the inertially confined engines and getting taken out for a heavy conceptual rework. 

It would be such a shame to see it gone. I understand through the need of "a heavy conceptual rework", just hope that you'll have enough motivation to do it. Knowing you, you probably wouldn't want any advices in how to do your job, but might I suggest putting the old metallic hydrogen stuff in a separate micro-sub-mod if you would turn out to prefer not to rework it for FFT? Just that people wouldn't need to search for an old FFT download link and delete all other parts of the mod to play with MH2 engines.

P.S. I personally won't miss the old antimatter stuff much, it always was kinda owercomplicated for it's purposes and too futuristic to go alongside other KSP stuff... Ok, maybe I will  a little bit, but nwm.

[Guest]

Do note that MetH2 is, according to the latest research, of no use as rocket fuel IRL. In KSP, it kind of acted like a superpowered LFO engine, which is IMO quite dull. Same with NSWR, but that one was at least somewhat plausible (if absolutely nuts from the safety point of view). Fusion and fission actually had some mechanics to differentiate them, and I think they were the best part of the mod, by far.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Guest

[NiL]

2 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

Do note that MetH2 is, according to the latest research, of no use as rocket fuel IRL. 

Any links?

[Guest]

A whole thread about this:

It's still interesting, but not for rocketry.

[Cochies]

It also always seemed to me that MH or NSW engines were not needed.
In my old assembly with FF, I either deleted them or transferred them to another fuel. It's not even that they are not realistic or not used, but they require separate tanks with separate resources that are not used anywhere else.
They seemed to have got into the game by accident.
Yes, I felt sorry for such beautiful models, so the NSW, FFR and MH engines joined the line of Lithium and Atomic engines.

Let me express my opinion: for the role of so far no existing engines "better than exist" would be suitable Pulse detonation engine, Rotating detonation engine or  Air-augmented engine.

To be honest, I thought that some of them would appear in one of the new NFLV or NFProp releases((


 

[eataTREE]

NSW and MH provide that unicorn of rocketry: high ISP AND high thrust. If you want to go jetting around the solar system in days at a comfortable constant 1G acceleration, Expanse-style, you need both. 

[theJesuit]

2 hours ago, eataTREE said:

NSW and MH provide that unicorn of rocketry: high ISP AND high thrust. If you want to go jetting around the solar system in days at a comfortable constant 1G acceleration, Expanse-style, you need both. 

Expanse style is it actually 1g? You could probably get away with .3 Mars with strong exercise.  But the ISP is going to have to be INSANE to do expanse style.  Has anyone worked out the how much fuel you'd have and store for a week's burn at 1gee for a particular tonnage?

INSANE I'm throwing a number out there and suggesting in the 50000 ISP range.

Happy to be wrong.  Peace.

Edit:  reread of your quote and realised you mentioned unicorns.  My mistake.  Maybe we could have a rainbow beong vomitted out the back as the rocket plume.

Edited May 24, 2020 by theJesuit

[coyotesfrontier]

I highly encourage you to keep the MH and NSW engines in the mod, Nertea, regardless of what Cochies says. The serve a very unique roll that no engine in FFT does, and I've used them on many ships due to their usefulness.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, eataTREE said:

NSW and MH provide that unicorn of rocketry: high ISP AND high thrust. If you want to go jetting around the solar system in days at a comfortable constant 1G acceleration, Expanse-style, you need both. 

You can get that out of flow stabilized fusion, though:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist3.php#fszpinch

That thing is basically Epstein drive. And best of all, it doesn't run on either a nuclear explosion waiting to happen nor on magic pixie dust. In fact, it's based on a principle that has been actually been tested, to great success.

[jimmymcgoochie]

On 5/21/2020 at 12:47 AM, Nertea said:

Boop.

It's a NERV with a magnetic containment nozzle? Put me down for a hundred!

[Nertea]

On 5/23/2020 at 12:25 PM, Cochies said:

Let me express my opinion: for the role of so far no existing engines "better than exist" would be suitable Pulse detonation engine, Rotating detonation engine or  Air-augmented engine.

To be honest, I thought that some of them would appear in one of the new NFLV or NFProp releases((

You could make PDEs and RDEs by patching some jet engines to have slight bumps in capabilities. Though they barely exist, it seems clear that in most contexts they would look very similar to existing jet engines. It's fundamentally like making different models for engines with slightly injectors, which isn't really interesting to me. Ultimately I model what I like...

23 hours ago, coyotesfrontier said:

I highly encourage you to keep the MH and NSW engines in the mod, Nertea, regardless of what Cochies says. The serve a very unique roll that no engine in FFT does, and I've used them on many ships due to their usefulness.

I encourage discussion but really the final choice of what to include is driven by what I want to create in terms of gameplay. There is some lip service to realism but most of these engines require major engineering or physics breakthroughs to work. If I twist it a little, I'm not very concerned. 

 

I have mostly wrapped up texturing (earlier image was mostly plume) for the second fusion engine, the Spherical Tokamak. A classic, really. 

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Nertea

[theJesuit]

5 hours ago, Nertea said:

have mostly wrapped up texturing (earlier image was mostly plume) for the second fusion engine, the Spherical Tokamak. A classic, really. 

 

Can you please repost this screenshot?

Edit.  I must have run low on data.   Sorry!

Edited May 25, 2020 by theJesuit

[coyotesfrontier]

4 hours ago, theJesuit said:

Can you please repost this screenshot?

Looks fine for me.

[coyotesfrontier]

Nertea, two questions. Are any engines with sizes smaller then 2.5m planned, and are any atmospheric engines planned? These were large gaps in the original FFT, but I can understand why they both weren't included.

[Corax]

Just a random thought, and only half joking... what is it with the radiation warning signs?
Ignoring the fact that anyone coming even close would bloody well know that there is a nuclear device, down to its precise location: As long as the engine is cold, it shouldn't matter much, and once it is hot and you're close enough to make it out (provided you're "lucky" enough to actually approach from the side where you *can* see it), it isn't going to make a difference any more, is it? ;)

Love the stuff you're doing. No, seriously.

[NiL]

8 hours ago, coyotesfrontier said:

are any atmospheric engines planned?

They are partially covered with NFA's airfed and bimodal airfed nuclear engines, would personally love to see some diversity through

[Nertea]

On 5/25/2020 at 9:13 PM, coyotesfrontier said:

Nertea, two questions. Are any engines with sizes smaller then 2.5m planned, and are any atmospheric engines planned? These were large gaps in the original FFT, but I can understand why they both weren't included.

1. I don't like planes anymore, and there's a post somewhere with more complex reasons. I might allow one, but remember I'm making the mod smaller, not bigger. 

2. It's not feasible to build most of these engines to be small - the energy flux is far too high. In fact, I scaled a lot of them down by a fair bit. The gasdynamic mirror engine, in the older mod, for example, should have been ~100m long, as I recall I made it a maximum of 30m. That'll be going up to about 45m in the new version.

On 5/25/2020 at 10:20 PM, Corax said:

Just a random thought, and only half joking... what is it with the radiation warning signs?
Ignoring the fact that anyone coming even close would bloody well know that there is a nuclear device, down to its precise location: As long as the engine is cold, it shouldn't matter much, and once it is hot and you're close enough to make it out (provided you're "lucky" enough to actually approach from the side where you *can* see it), it isn't going to make a difference any more, is it?

Love the stuff you're doing. No, seriously.

It's more about the visual design language really. it's nukular, so it get big trefoil!

With this one, if you can even see the plume, you might be dead!

 

[coyotesfrontier]

3 hours ago, Nertea said:

1. I don't like planes anymore, and there's a post somewhere with more complex reasons. I might allow one, but remember I'm making the mod smaller, not bigger. 

2. It's not feasible to build most of these engines to be small - the energy flux is far too high. In fact, I scaled a lot of them down by a fair bit. The gasdynamic mirror engine, in the older mod, for example, should have been ~100m long, as I recall I made it a maximum of 30m. That'll be going up to about 45m in the new version.

It's more about the visual design language really. it's nukular, so it get big trefoil!

With this one, if you can even see the plume, you might be dead!

 

Ooo! Nice! Any clues on what kind of engine it is?

BTW, by atmospheric, I didn't mean a jet engine, I just meant able to be used in-atmosphere.

[sturmhauke]

Is that an engine or a titanic lightsaber?

[eataTREE]

Hmm, you said you're getting rid of the antimatter, which is probably the most lethal of the "kills you dead immediately" methods of theoretical space travel. Is it D+D fusion, then? Or something similarly neutronic?

[SpaceFace545]

On 5/27/2020 at 2:56 AM, Nertea said:

1. I don't like planes anymore, and there's a post somewhere with more complex reasons. I might allow one, but remember I'm making the mod smaller, not bigger. 

2. It's not feasible to build most of these engines to be small - the energy flux is far too high. In fact, I scaled a lot of them down by a fair bit. The gasdynamic mirror engine, in the older mod, for example, should have been ~100m long, as I recall I made it a maximum of 30m. That'll be going up to about 45m in the new version.

It's more about the visual design language really. it's nukular, so it get big trefoil!

With this one, if you can even see the plume, you might be dead!

 

is that a nuclear saltwater rocket engine