[Part][Plugin][0.23.5] Thut's Things In Dev - Orion Rockets, Magnetospheres, etc

[thutmose]

Note: Textures are pending, still using the template textures from the UV Map, or a random one for the radiator, with the exception of the coil rings, which are just a plain colour for now. the model and the uv map are on the github. If anyone can come up with good textures, please send them my way.

We at Thut Kerman's Plasma Research Facility have been studying Nuclear Fusion for a while now, and all attempts to use it for anything have failed.During one of those failed experiments, one researcher placed some Blutionium inside as a test target of the Z-Machine we use for High Pressure tests.The result was the destruction of the machine, as well as a large neutron flux that made the surrounding area Radioactive for a while, The blast gave us ideas however.

We managed to miniaturize the Z-Machine as much as possible, finally reducing the mass of the needed equipment down to less than 100t, and utilized some of the technology which was developed for the (failed) Tokamak experiments, and Created this, the Nuclear Pulsed Plasma Engine.

We then developed a way to rapidly dispense the shaped Blutonium charges into the device (each uses only a few grams of Blutonium)

and quickly found that the whole thing exploded due to overheating, after only using a handful of pulse units, As such, we did some slight re-designing of the insides, to allow for better heat transfer, and issued some large heat radiators for dissipating the heat.

This solved the heating problem, but now the vessel, with any meaningful payload, had a TWR of less than 1.

What we ended up with, was an engine capable of sustaining about 0.5g (assuming a fairly large payload) for almost 7 hours, which, once in orbit, could carry a large payload to anywhere else in the solar system, on a minimal-time trajectory.

Github Link: https://github.com/Thutmose/ANPP

Todo:

Figure out how to give the engine a shutdown option

Balance the mass/yield of the pulse units

Add more types of pulse unit (may need to look at MFT for that)

Make the radiators compatible with KSPI wasteHeat (currently use temperature)

Make this compatible with as many mods as I can.

Fix any major bugs that are found

Acquire better textures (template textures are in the download)

Maybe change the model to a narrower cone for the coils

Specific Features:

Adds the Mini-Mag Orion Engine, A container full of Pulse units for it, and a large heat sink.

Makes heat propagate from one module to another, this is used to allow the engine to cool off, If it causes undue problems, Let me know, and I will disable it for anything besides parts added by this mod.

Mini-Mag Orion Engine (NPPE1) requires 40k EC to get it started, but generates much more than that per pulse. It has to come from it's own internal banks, which decay over time.

Designed based on the Mini-Mag Orion concept

dv3

-added 3.75-5m adapter part

-fixed some heating bugs

-now is variable Isp, from 12000-3900

dv2

-re-modeled the NPPE1 and NPPFT1

-resized down to 5m part size

-increased the amount of fuel, it should be about the same density as aluminium (proposed designs had about 3g of fission material, and rest of the projectile was plastic/aluminium)

-re-balanced thrust accordingly, Isp should be approximately 7900.

dv1

- added the NPPE1, NPPFT1 and NPPRadiator

- basic heat transfer support added

Calculates magnetic fields for locations, currently based on several imperfect dipole fields. Will add magnetohydrodynamic effects once I figure out a low-computational way to do so.

Will add pictures when I figure out how to make some sorta graphic to show it. for now, this is just meant to be a standalone magnetic field plugin so that I can standardize any mods I have with magnetometers.

source code found in same place as above.

Downloads:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1pcejzfwyext22i/AABLNkvVQLjs1kvvAF-NNMcta

Disclaimer/License

this is my first attempt at doing anything in C#, I am not a programmer, so may have done some stupid things in code, If anyone sees any, please let me know so I can fix them

I don't care what is done with my code, however I am not responsible for any damages it may cause in any way, or for any damages caused by any derivatives of it.

Edited June 5, 2014 by thutmose

[cyagrdner]

This is awesome, however I would never use it as long as the model looks like that.

Possibly make it fit the size of existing parts!

[thutmose]

I will work on improving the model, that one was mainly just a test case. As for parts, this should be about 10m or so wide at the base, I could try to make an adapter that takes it down to the size of the kerbodyne parts, and one to 5m, as I think I have seen mods that use 5m parts

[thutmose]

This is awesome, however I would never use it as long as the model looks like that.

They now fit to 5m parts from tweakscale, Is this model better? texture still needs to be done.

[Boamere]

I'm going to be keeping my eye on this

I'm going to see how it turns out

[thutmose]

Some Thoughts on improvements/changes;

Maybe I should make it so that the engine consumes a single pulse unit per 0.5 or 1s, but an amount of reaction mass based on the throttle level, probably 10 intervals.

The higher the throttle, the higher the mass used. This results in greater thrust, but lower specific Impulse, as each pulse unit produces the same amount of energy. This will allow it to operate in High Thrust and High Isp mode. High Thrust mode will probably result in an acceleration slightly greater than 1G, though the main use of this propulsion system is for hauling around high masses in low thrust mode.

Make a part that converts the metal resource used in several other mods into reaction mass. Then have the pulse units be rather small and light (realistically are a few grams of fissile material), and the majority of the mass of the fuel being reaction mass. If this is the case, then a giant number of the pulse units can be hauled into orbit, then the reaction mass generated off planet.

Find some way to extract reaction mass or blutonium from Asteroids, and make a part that makes pulse units from that.

[thutmose]

Added a 5m-3.75m adapter part, fixed some overheating bugs.

the engine is now variable Isp, at max thrust, it has about 3900s, and at lowest thrust, it has a bit over 12000s

some nodes might need a little bit of tweaking up and down, but otherwise functional, still needs a better texture

Edited June 5, 2014 by thutmose