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


Nertea

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8 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Just to clarify are nswr supposed to be used in the atmosphere or in a vacuum 

I can't remember where the post was but I'm pretty sure that it is more of a vacuum optimized engine.

Also welcome to page 114!

Edited by Mountain Parrot
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5 hours ago, Mountain Parrot said:

I can't remember where the post was but I'm pretty sure that it is more of a vacuum optimized engine.

Also welcome to page 114!

it has enough power to be used in the atmosphere but the tanks aren't that streamlined.

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I'm pretty sure an atmosphere is going to make fireball effects, which are going to be bad for your NSWR spacecraft. Does Zubrin's paper mention an atmosphere? I only skimmed it because I'm NOT a fluid dynamicist....

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1 hour ago, Plutron said:

I saw on GitHub you were working on a 'Solid Core Fission Fragment Engine'. Is that based on that strange rotating fuel design?

Yes, it's actually mostly done:

bgWdINA.png

 

There is a complete roadmap on Github now. Scope additions are unlikely. 

 

 

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Wait, what the .... Nertea is working on FFT stuff again?! I thought you had pretty much consigned that mod to the graveyard with the KSP2 trailers to severely demotivating you regarding it's stuff. I had started looking into recompiling it myself. (I haven't actually tested it on 1.9 yet but it needing a recompile seemed an extremely likely prospect given it was last updated for 1.5.) I'm kinda shocked that might be coming back, very happy, but still kinda shocked.

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2 hours ago, Captain Sierra said:

Wait, what the .... Nertea is working on FFT stuff again?! I thought you had pretty much consigned that mod to the graveyard with the KSP2 trailers to severely demotivating you regarding it's stuff. I had started looking into recompiling it myself. (I haven't actually tested it on 1.9 yet but it needing a recompile seemed an extremely likely prospect given it was last updated for 1.5.) I'm kinda shocked that might be coming back, very happy, but still kinda shocked.

KSP isn't coming out till next fall 2021 so for current standards KSP2 isn't coming out for a while so Nertea feels like FFT will be relevant again if he worked on it.

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On 5/22/2020 at 10:29 PM, 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. 

Are  AM engines completely ereased from conception this mod without chance of going back, or they are removed only from the scope of nearest release(s) of FFT ?

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Can someone tell me how heat control works? I stick heat exchanger to a tosmak jet engine, then stick high temp radiators on the exchanger, the engine still gonna overhear quite soon (around two mins)

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@MrFancyPL I think that was the plan he had, but assuming @Nertea does not have some personal vendetta against the parts themselves (barring the plasma core's half-baked texture, the models don't need to be touched) then I do believe they could remain with most of their functionality intact by using the CryoTanks plugin as-is. That way the antimatter code logic can still get nuked from orbit for scope-reduction, and the parts remain in the mod. All their other code features (variable length, chargeable engine) are covered by other engines not being removed anyway so I would suggest doing it like this:

  • Nuke antimatter factory and pad-loading mechanics (never liked them anyway)
  • Set antimatter cost-per-unit to half a million funds or something similarly ridiculous (encourages ISRU, discourages bulk purchase)
  • Set antimatter to have a very high boiloff rate and a significant EC cost to prevent it
  • (optional) allow boiloff events to generate heat (replicating old explosive behavior)
  • ...
  • profit!

 

@ssd21345 You are using a fusion torch. The amount of heat being generated is insane. You need a lot of radiator area for that engine, and I mean a LOT. I would suggest using 3-4 of the largest graphene deployable radiator panels.

 

@Nertea I know the z-pinch drives are getting temporarily deprecated pending conceptual rework of inertial confinement, but I would definitely say you should not permanently remove them from scope. They are very awesome and they work perfectly fine as-is if you felt like leaving them in until their rework time comes.

screenshot86.png

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The antimatter parts suffer from the same thing as the rest of the parts; they are fundamentally bad. They will need to be completely redone, along with everything else in the mod. The problem with the antimatter stuff is

  • 4 large (3.75m+ engines), which are each 20+ hours of work.
  • 3-5 unique tanks, which are also a bunch of work. 
  • Plugin work (I'm not really happy with how it functions now)

That's a lot of work. So don't hold your breath. The concepts are still cool, and particularly I'd like to bring back the two antimatter-initiated engines, but I'm not scoping it. 

And no, I will not be leaving the old code/models in the mod. 

38 minutes ago, ssd21345 said:

Can someone tell me how heat control works? I stick heat exchanger to a tosmak jet engine, then stick high temp radiators on the exchanger, the engine still gonna overhear quite soon (around two mins)

Ignore everything you know about heat, it will all be better with the newer releases.

30 minutes ago, Captain Sierra said:

@Nertea I know the z-pinch drives are getting temporarily deprecated pending conceptual rework of inertial confinement, but I would definitely say you should not permanently remove them from scope. They are very awesome and they work perfectly fine as-is if you felt like leaving them in until their rework time comes.

 

Eh, their gameplay is meh, not worth keeping around. I'd dedicate the effort to the IC fusion if I was going to spend more time. 

 

Some things for progress: the other day I rewrote the fusion reactor and engine code based on SystemHeat, and to be honest it is pretty great compared to the old stuff. Getting away from Core Heat has natively removed so many bugs. 

screenshot224.png

I guess I should also share a picture of the revised 2.5m fusion reactor, which is shown in that image. 

Capture.PNG

Last, but not least, working on some cool plume stuff. 

 

Edited by Nertea
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HHHNNNNNGGGG. That Waterfall demo made me feel funny in my pants. Next to that, RealPlume would slink ashamed into a corner.

Which is not to say that RealPlume is bad - there's an enormous amount of work that went into it, and it's given us the best results possible within KSP's native system. But it just cannot compete with outright replacing the system.

The Realism Overhaul community is going to tear Waterfall out of your hands like a bunch of toilet paper shoppers in the middle of a pandemic :D

Edited by Streetwind
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29 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

HHHNNNNNGGGG. That Waterfall demo made me feel funny in my pants. Next to that, RealPlume would slink ashamed into a corner.

Which is not to say that RealPlume is bad - there's an enormous amount of work that went into it, and it's given us the best results possible within KSP's native system. But it just cannot compete with outright replacing the system.

The Realism Overhaul community is going to tear Waterfall out of your hands like a bunch of toilet paper shoppers in the middle of a pandemic :D

I had no idea SmokeScreen was still running on the stock particle system- it seemed so much better. But wow, this looks different indeed and I’m excited to see what comes of it (especially if it’s not limited to FFT)

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41 minutes ago, RyanRising said:

I had no idea SmokeScreen was still running on the stock particle system- it seemed so much better. But wow, this looks different indeed and I’m excited to see what comes of it (especially if it’s not limited to FFT)

Both stock legacy particles and SmokeScreen particles are running on the Unity shuriken system. Stock uses maybe 1% of that system's capabilities, SmokeScreen uses more like 50%. 

These mesh-oriented FX are better for some kinds of effects than particles are - they will complement each other well. 

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0_0 I'm almost as excited for Waterfall as I am for KSP 2 now

Also, I read something about a ISRU overhaul called SpaceDust a few pages back, will we be seeing some more info about that in the near future?  ;) 

Edited by nubeees
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Are there some dedicated tools to assist with heat management with the new heat system? I know there is one for near future, but it seems won't work well with inbuilt reactor type engine like far future's

Does heat control gonna work with both SystemHeat and stock heat system?

Edited by ssd21345
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8 hours ago, ssd21345 said:

Are there some dedicated tools to assist with heat management with the new heat system? I know there is one for near future, but it seems won't work well with inbuilt reactor type engine like far future's

Does heat control gonna work with both SystemHeat and stock heat system?

Heat Control is just parts, they don't do anything special at all. The NFT Systems Manager was not designed to work with FFT because FFT is crap and old.

You should follow this thread to see how things will work with SystemHeat.

14 hours ago, nubeees said:

0_0 I'm almost as excited for Waterfall as I am for KSP 2 now

Also, I read something about a ISRU overhaul called SpaceDust a few pages back, will we be seeing some more info about that in the near future?  ;) 

I don't have much to share, it will effectively function the same way as stock but not have infinite bugs. 

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