Electrodeless Plasma Thruster

[coolitic]

Yup, this a real kind of thruster and could possibly be used as a higher thrust (or just bigger?) variant of the current pb-ion thruster.

More on them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodeless_plasma_thruster

I personally like the idea of having a higher thrust variant of the pb-ion but it seems that we may need a new source of power and maybe just make it use less power.

[ravener]

Finally a reason to have huge solar arrays, give us more power hungry stuff yiiiis.

[samhuk]

Meh, problem is the ion engines are already currently almost redundant. Chemical and nuclear propulsion is all you need. So adding an even more powerful version of the ion engines is just not needed and just over-bloats RAM usage. There is the hybrid ion engine mod if you are interested in ion engines with a little more thrust and a little less efficiency...

Sam

[UberFuber]

You mean something like this?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/28428-Orion-aka-Ol-Boom-boom?highlight=orion

Ridiculously high thrust + ridiculously high Isp.

[samhuk]

Yeah Uber.

IMO you can literally do anything with chemical and nuclear propulsion currently, and ion drives in this game are just really for playing around. I would like for devs to implement the need for them, like in real life they are hoping to get ion-engines on the space-station so they don't have to keep sending up ridiculous amounts of fuel on every supply run to stop it de-orbiting.

So to be honest, and this is to the original poster, IMO before you ask for new hyper-efficient engines I would suggest thinking a way to make them needed in the game in the first place. No point in adding something that has no purpose.

This is why I think they should just push for some kind of really far away objects/require loads of delta-v, to create a need for hyper-efficient engines, because right now it is just way too easy to get to anywhere with current propulsion systems in-game. (eye's over to intersteller post, but hush, I heard any post with the word intersteller makes the devs go all and then I have to be like for the next few posts...)

Sam

[TwoHedWlf]

Yeah Uber.

IMO you can literally do anything with chemical and nuclear propulsion currently, and ion drives in this game are just really for playing around.

While I agree you can do anything with nuclear or chemical, I think Ion drives are far better for probes. Usually what I do is I have a single big ship, is slap a few probes with, ionengine+tank and a few sensors onto it. That's enough to get a few probes pretty much anywhere in any system, and with significantly less weight. They're also light enough that the low thrust isn't overly tedious.

[samhuk]

While I agree you can do anything with nuclear or chemical, I think Ion drives are far better for probes. Usually what I do is I have a single big ship, is slap a few probes with, ionengine+tank and a few sensors onto it. That's enough to get a few probes pretty much anywhere in any system, and with significantly less weight. They're also light enough that the low thrust isn't overly tedious.

TwoHedWlf, I know what you mean, but the fact is the Oscar-fuel tank (2 or 3 of them) with a probe body and the rest, provide plenty of delta-v to get anywhere. And because the TWR of the ant-engine and 2/3 Oscar-b fuel tanks is so much higher than the ion engine, there is doubly no point of the ion engine.

Sam

Edited November 15, 2013 by samhuk

[allmappedout]

TwoHedWlf, I know what you mean, but the fact is the Oscar-fuel tank (2 or 3 of them) with a probe body and the rest, provide plenty of delta-v to get anywhere. And because the TWR of the ant-engine and 2/3 Oscar-b fuel tanks is so much higher than the ion engine, there is doubly no point of the ion engine.

Sam

Plus there's the major issue that to keep Ion probes running for any good amount of time you need vast amounts of electricity which involves putting batteries and solar panels on your probe which adds to your weight and thus hits your dV hard, and your TWR even harder. The problem with ion probes is that even 400 units of xenon is far more than you really need to go anywhere, but going there in a reasonable time is still better done by an ant or a 48-7S (which has the highest TWR of any engine apart from the mainsail IIRC, and still maintains fairly good ISP in a vaccuum).

[pizzaoverhead]

Have you seen the RLA Electric Engines? It has arcjet and resistojet engines. It might be worth suggesting making an electrodeless plasma thruster to hoojiwana too.

[samhuk]

vast amounts of electricity which involves putting batteries and solar panels on your probe which adds to your weight and thus hits your dV hard, and your TWR even harder.

Yes allmappedout, I agree, this is what I mean, there is just no need for them...With no orbital decay they are useless (and there won't any orbital decay to come since we won't then have time-warp and since the forces on ships get so small our consumer computer CPU's will begin to do calculation errors, I mean seen the shaking when your Ap and Pe get really close to being equal? The Floating point precision error is what causes that)

Case closed...No need for more ion-engines if even the current ones aren't needed

Sam

[Wahgineer]

Solution to low-thrust ion engines:

loads of batteries+RTGs

loads of Ion engines

[allmappedout]

Solution to low-thrust ion engines:

loads of batteries+RTGs

loads of Ion engines

Bear in mind that for every battery and RTG and Ion engine you add, you're reducing the available dV you get from your xenon tanks, and unless you have sufficient electrical charge to run multiple Ion engines you won't be able to do a total burn, which given the low thrust means you will have to do lots of periapsis kicks, or similar. And remember that every engine you add doubles the amount of electricity you need so you need to add more solar panels or RTGs, but that increases your weight so your TWR goes down so you add more engines, but that means you run out of fuel too early so you add more xenon but then you need more thrust for the added weight and.......etc etc etc

Unless you are building super light vehicles, there's no point to Ions.

[Nuke]

the list of potentially useful electric propulsion schemes is longer than my arm. the stock ion engine is already op (in terms of thrust) compared to real ion drives currently in service. you might just have a generic catch all term like "plasma thruster" to cover those systems. i wouldn't mind some larger ion engines, xenon tanks, and bigger solar panels. but i wouldnt go too overboard and have 50 kinds of electric engines.

[samhuk]

the list of potentially useful electric propulsion schemes is longer than my arm

In KSP? No. Without orbital decay or interstellar flight, there is no uses of ion engines, nuclear and chemical can do all that is needed to travel anywhere in KSP.

the stock ion engine is already op (in terms of thrust) compared to real ion drives currently in service.

Yes but in KSP it is still underpowered, as nuclear...yes, that again...can do everything ion engines can do. Low thrust and need for giant (therefore heavy) electrical systems outway greater efficiency.

but i wouldnt go too overboard and have 50 kinds of electric engines

For some reason people think adding more engines improves the situation, well, it doesn't. More engines means more mass in terms of electrical systems and mass of the actual engines themselves.

Sam

[TwoHedWlf]

I still disagree that they're useless. A simple probe comparing weights and DV.

Ion+2 giant panels

1.14t

2611 m/s

Ant+4 Oscar Bs

.41t

2707 m/s

Damn, you're right...

[coolitic]

While I agree you can do anything with nuclear or chemical, I think Ion drives are far better for probes. Usually what I do is I have a single big ship, is slap a few probes with, ionengine+tank and a few sensors onto it. That's enough to get a few probes pretty much anywhere in any system, and with significantly less weight. They're also light enough that the low thrust isn't overly tedious.

Currently the only kinds of probes that can use ion engines are the extremely tiny ones. I have tried to make arrays of ion engines, it doesn't work.

[coolitic]

Also I would prefer this to be in vanilla KSP, since vanilla stuff often works well and is supported.

[coolitic]

Also actual ion engines do perform similarly to ksp ion engines so that dude who said they are op is wrong.

[Nuke]

Also actual ion engines do perform similarly to ksp ion engines so that dude who said they are op is wrong.

i dont know how you figure this. ksp's ion engine is 0.5kn, an engine like NEXT only has 236mn thrust. so its over 2000 times more powerful. there are some theoretical designs that can do better, theoretically mpd thrusters top out at 88.5 newtons of thrust and power requirements around 4MW or more. thats still less powerful than that 500n ferrari engine that ksp gives us.

though from a gameplay perspective the stock ion engine is fine. nobody wants to spend hours on a single burn without some higher physics warp modes (its already intolerable).

Edited November 17, 2013 by Nuke

[samhuk]

I still disagree that they're useless. A simple probe comparing weights and DV.

Ion+2 giant panels

1.14t

2611 m/s

Ant+4 Oscar Bs

.41t

2707 m/s

Damn, you're right...

Ha, I actually laughed at this. At first I was like oh damn , did I see the mechjeb numbers wrong when I did the comparison or something? Then at the end I was like, phew!

To be honest you don't need the really big solar panels, about 6 or 8 of the little 6-squares ones will do. But even then delta-v is only slightly more, and then you have to consider the fact that still your probe will be heavier, so your launch vehicle will have to be bigger, and it just does. not. work. Simple.

I have never used them for this reason, they kind of implemented these things without really thinking, what would people actually use this for?

Sam

Edited November 17, 2013 by samhuk

[Floppster]

I'm just gonna slide in here and tell you a little about the Near Future Propulsion Pack

Adds a whole load of electrical engines and reactors and solar panels and structural parts and tanks and resources and batteries and capacitors and and and...

Point is, the pack makes ion propulsion a lot more fun and feasible to use.

[NERVAfan]

I still disagree that they're useless. A simple probe comparing weights and DV.

Ion+2 giant panels

1.14t

2611 m/s

Ant+4 Oscar Bs

.41t

2707 m/s

Damn, you're right...

Don't use 2 giant panels, that's tons of extra mass. Use 6 of the smaller extendable ones (not the OX-STAT) instead.

[Temstar]

Ion engine do have use in game currently. If you want to deploy a probe to Low Kerbol Orbit for example you need an extreme amount of delta-V to circularise and you have incredible amount of solar radiation to take advantage of. Ion becomes the obvious choice in this instance. Even with three ion engine at full power my probe had way too much electricity than I know what to do with with just two 1x6 panels.

And I'm fine with ion engines having very limited niches like that, that is after all how they are used in real life too.

[Nuke]

I'm just gonna slide in here and tell you a little about the Near Future Propulsion Pack

Adds a whole load of electrical engines and reactors and solar panels and structural parts and tanks and resources and batteries and capacitors and and and...

Point is, the pack makes ion propulsion a lot more fun and feasible to use.

lets find 5 moth old threads, nekro them, and use them to pimp our favorite mods! its like the best idea ever! [/sarcasm]