Making a Warp / FTL Engine in KSP (Because I can) Request advice / Comments

[TheAlmightyOS]

Ok, so after crashing into Mun for the 3000th time and mucking up my 241st attempt at orbital docking, I realized I just do not have the chops to be a kerbalnaut. HOWEVER, the game is still fun to mess around in. I have a SPACE SANDBOX! So I started building outrageous ships (alt-f12) and exploring the solar system. First one was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike an X-Wing. Letting MechJeb handle the finer points I flew everywhere, checking out all the planets (and crashing into the sun). Now I am to the point of editing the in game parts to make my own creations. Most have just been to change the thrust and create an auto-refueler. But I want to try something a little more extreme. I want to create a warp / FTL drive.

Obviously it would use up a S-Ton of energy to use and the thrust would be off the scale. But if the shear energy of the jump doesn't rip the ship to shreds, I have two problems with this little project of mine:

1.) This would not just be a part or collection of parts. I would have to create some sort of "nav computer" in which one would have to carefully plot a course taking into account gravity wells, distance and planetary bodies (aka, don't smack into Mun on your way to Eeloo). No idea where to begin on something like that.

2.) STOPPING. After engaging the FTL and getting where you want to go, how to STOP? I have been trying to figure out a way to make the craft go to zero-V but can't figure it out.

Yes, I know this is, technically, cheating. But come on! I could not resist! If anyone care's to offer any suggestions I would appreciate it!

Edited July 21, 2014 by KasperVld
removed minor profanity

[Mekan1k]

Well, your nav-computer might allow you to use the in-game node system to plot out a course from point A to point B, and it would be the responsibility of the plotter to make sure their last course correction brought themselves into a stable orbit...

[TheAlmightyOS]

well yeah. Definitely don't want it to be EASY to plot an FTL jump. If you are going to go several lightyears in the blink of an eye I think the difficulty should be much higher then planning an orbit. And, for instance, if you muck up and jump into a planets atmosphere, well lets just hope you built your ship capable of landing and have enough fuel to do so lol.

Been looking around. Still can't figure out how to zero-V the craft. Script maybe? Can I put a script within a part? Is that how they do it with MechJeb? There is a thought, look at how MechJeb does all that cool stuff and see what I can learn.

[TheAlmightyOS]

So first test of the FTL engine (basically a heavily modified ion engine) ended in catastrophic failure. I roughly estimated the thrust it would take my test rocket to the speed of light and set that value in the FTL engine part. I placed an FTL engine pointing forward and one backward (to go and stop). I set up two action groups, one to activate the main FTL and one to turn off the main FTL and activate the "Stopping" FTL.

The moment I activate the FTL my test ship became space dust

RIP Bob. Maybe next time I will use an unmanned test.

[randomness5555]

Too much thrust eh? I tried making an engine with (insert number that I can't remember, but there were a lot of 9's in it here) way back when the game was simple enough for me to mod. Same thing happened. I'm not a modder-but I reccomend having a look at the Jump drive plugin-it (almost) does pretty much what you asked for. At the very least-that should give you some ideas

[TheAlmightyOS]

going to have to look into this jump drive. Thanks for the info