parts [1.12.x] Asteroid Recycling Technologies

[lodestar]

 

10 hours ago, stub said:

However, lowering the thrust further would make it even harder (and less fun) trying to capture even medium asteroids.

Fun is subjective. I don't have fun when something is so easy it feels like cheating.

How about if instead the engines become much heavier, eg. by bolting the ISRU model to the top of the engine model to represent the complex machinery required to transport and convert raw unprocessed solid material into something suitable for being blasted out of the back of a rocket in real time. Heavy enough that a rock powered engine can't be used to take off from Kerbin for sure, or maybe even Minmus. Keep the ISP, but get the TWR in line with ion drives. It should make using them less practicable than nuclear engines, unless you have an asteroid attached for its fuel supply.

The engine is unbalanced by two orders of magnitude in comparison with other electric engines. If you want to make it balanced, you have to adjust its parameters to bring it in line with the others. As I mentioned above, I did it in my game by adjusting TWR and Ec/s by a 10x factor. If you think reducing TWR by 100x works better for you, go for it.

 

 

[goldenpsp]

31 minutes ago, lodestar said:

 

Fun is subjective. I don't have fun when something is so easy it feels like cheating.

The engine is unbalanced by two orders of magnitude in comparison with other electric engines. If you want to make it balanced, you have to adjust its parameters to bring it in line with the others. As I mentioned above, I did it in my game by adjusting TWR and Ec/s by a 10x factor. If you think reducing TWR by 100x works better for you, go for it.

 

 

If it feels like cheating don't use it?

I tend to feel that the power of engines also has to take into consideration the fuel source.  I know I'm bad at KSP but catching an asteroid, bringing it back, and mining it just for the fuel is not a minor undertaking.

@RoverDude's K+ engines are seriously OP as well, but getting the fuel for them is a serious challenge.

[lodestar]

2 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

If it feels like cheating don't use it?

Or fix it, which is what I did. 

2 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

I know I'm bad at KSP but catching an asteroid, bringing it back, and mining it just for the fuel is not a minor undertaking. @RoverDude's K+ engines are seriously OP as well, but getting the fuel for them is a serious challenge.

Yes, but you don't have to catch an asteroid to use the Mass Driver engines. You can fill a Rock tank at the VAB. That's the problem. You can't fill a K+ tank at the VAB, getting the fuel is a serious challenge, so that kind of balances it out.

Edited August 8, 2016 by lodestar

[goldenpsp]

1 minute ago, lodestar said:

Or fix it, which is what I did. 

Yes, but you don't have to catch an asteroid to use the Mass Driver engines. You can fill a Rock tank at the VAB. That's the problem. You can't fill a K+ tank at the VAB, getting the fuel is a serious challenge, so that kind of balances it out.

Well that is a good point.  It's been awhile since I have used it.  I knew the K+ tanks are not fillable but did not remember the others.  Of course you could just not fill the tanks and capture an asteroid, which is what I've always done.

[lodestar]

4 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

Well that is a good point.  It's been awhile since I have used it.  I knew the K+ tanks are not fillable but did not remember the others.  Of course you could just not fill the tanks and capture an asteroid, which is what I've always done.

I'm OK with roleplaying when it's a workaround for some problem that can't be easily fixed. For instance, I hate how parachutes disappear on landing, which makes it way too easy to design unmanned landers. That's not easy to fix, so I roleplay that, and I always design to avoid the parachute landing on top. An unbalanced part is something easy to fix in my own game, there's no need to roleplay around it.

Even if you have to capture an asteroid to get the fuel -- which doesn't make sense, as it's just throwing disposable mass away -- it's still too easy, because the engine is insanely overpowered. Capturing an asteroid isn't a challenge at all once you learn how to do it, and then you have plenty of fuel for an engine that's 100 times better than any realistic engine available in the stock game or mods. 

Frankly, I don't see the point of this discussion. If you like it as it is, go for it, but it's grossly overpowered, that's a fact.

[DStaal]

I haven't gotten around to capturing an asteroid with this yet - I haven't had any good candidates in a while - but as an option to balance could the fuel be bulky and dense?  That is: you don't get many units of fuel in a tank, and it'll weigh a lot to do so.  Do that with an increase in EC usage, and you get an engine that'll be a lot harder to abuse, while still being useful for it's intended purpose.  You still have the high thrust (which this engine should have, realistically), but you can't carry huge amounts of fuel with you unless you're building something huge (in which case, hopefully, there's better options in many cases) or you're dragging an asteroid - in which case the asteroid itself is fuel.

Increasing the cost of the fuel isn't really a solution - basically this should work with any low-grade magnetic ore, like iron, so the fuel should be cheap.  But you should need a lot of it to do anything interesting, and it's not an efficient fuel in mass/thrust terms.  (Note that the other way to increase the bulk is to increase the amount of fuel used per second, so you burn through a tank faster.)

As for the point of this discussion - well I think as interested players we want the part to suit the role RoverDude designed it for and to feel balanced.  You seem to feel at least part of that equation is off, so the question is how best to fix it.    (And whether that's just your opinion or if it actually needs a fix.)

---

[lodestar]

26 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I haven't gotten around to capturing an asteroid with this yet - I haven't had any good candidates in a while - but as an option to balance could the fuel be bulky and dense?  That is: you don't get many units of fuel in a tank, and it'll weigh a lot to do so. Do that with an increase in EC usage, and you get an engine that'll be a lot harder to abuse, while still being useful for it's intended purpose.

---

AFAIK, tank units are based on volume, not mass, and Isp is impulse per unit weight of propellant, so what you're saying is to lower the Isp. That's an option too.

As for the point of this discussion - well I think as interested players we want the part to suit the role RoverDude designed it for and to feel balanced.  You seem to feel at least part of that equation is off, so the question is how best to fix it.    (And whether that's just your opinion or if it actually needs a fix.)

---

Fitting the role and being balanced are different things. I think RoverDude doesn't care much about balance with respect to other mods. He's generous enough to make his work available, and we're free to choose how we want to play. 

The engine is unbalanced with respect to the stock and NF engines. That's a mathematical fact, not an opinion. Being unbalanced makes the game less fun for me. That's an opinion.

 

[DStaal]

(!@^*!^*!^*@^*!^@ Stupid forum - the only way to get rid of this is to post it.)

[stub]

I think the mass driver's raison d'etre is for pushing asteroids around, and it should be much better at it than the alternatives. I also agree they are greatly overpowered for general use. This is why I was thinking a mass increase could be a better alternative to only lowering the Isp or thrust. An extra 20t of mass would make them totally impractical for other uses, and turn getting them into place a logistical challenge. But once hooked up to a big asteroid, the extra mass is insignificant and they can shine in their role.

(Just guessing at the 20t - I haven't done the math)

[DStaal]

(Trying a workaround for this horrible forum)

Here's some realistic info on this type of drive from Atomic Rockets:
  ------------------- ------------------------------
  Exhaust Velocity    30,000 m/s
  Specific Impulse    3,058 s
  Thrust              20,000 N
  Thrust Power        0.3 GW
  Mass Flow           0.67 kg/s
  Total Engine Mass   150,000 kg
  T/W                 0.01
  Thermal eff.        90%
  Total eff.          90%
  Fuel                800MWe input
  Remass              Regolith
  Remass Accel        Electromagnetic Acceleration
  Specific Power      500 kg/MW
  ------------------- ------------------------------

I'll have to take a look in-game again to see what it shows as, or how that compares to other engines.  Note that the 'total engine mass' in the above might include the nuclear reactor needed to power it.

Anyway, who said anything about what RoverDude thinks?  He hasn't checked in on the issue recently.  ;)  If we can find some balance where it's useful for moving asteroids and balanced into the rest of the game, we can put together a PR for it and suggest it to him.

 

[lodestar]

15 minutes ago, stub said:

I think the mass driver's raison d'etre is for pushing asteroids around, and it should be much better at it than the alternatives. I also agree they are greatly overpowered for general use. This is why I was thinking a mass increase could be a better alternative to only lowering the Isp or thrust. An extra 20t of mass would make them totally impractical for other uses, and turn getting them into place a logistical challenge. But once hooked up to a big asteroid, the extra mass is insignificant and they can shine in their role.

(Just guessing at the 20t - I haven't done the math)

If you want to balance it by increasing mass, the engine has to be at least three hundred tons. That's how grossly unbalanced it is. By merely increasing it to 30t it would still be greatly overpowered and far above even the best engine from NFP.

 

[goldenpsp]

Yea I'm at the point that @lodestar mentioned further up.  At this point we have all said our peace.  If you like the mod use it.  If you don't like the specs, change it.  Otherwise the only other thing is to sit back and see if @RoverDude chimes in on his thoughts, as it is his mod.

[Murdabenne]

Umm... its a game? I get enough real-life at my job. Not understanding the fuss about the parts, if someone feels they are imbalanced, edit them.No need to argue others or the original author away from his design decisions, same as there is no need to justify one's editing to anyone else either - we each play our own way, that's the best thing.

Why not create another addon that brings them to where you think they should be - like the "realism" addons or config changes?  No need to force a change for those of us who still want it as-is for our game play.  And yes, making it more "realistic" takes away from play for me in this case. This is a case where "real enough is good enough" IMHO 

[stub]

14 hours ago, lodestar said:

If you want to balance it by increasing mass, the engine has to be at least three hundred tons. That's how grossly unbalanced it is. By merely increasing it to 30t it would still be greatly overpowered and far above even the best engine from NFP.

 

Ha. Yes, that would be ridiculous. Sounds like it certainly needs more than just a mass increase.

[mirodasc]

Anyone else having issues with this mod and Rock not showing up on the asteroids as a resource?

I turn on the laser, and mass decreases but no Rock appears anywhere.

 

 

[RoverDude]

Have not been able to repro this one.  All asteroids or specific ones?

[mirodasc]

On 9/17/2016 at 4:58 AM, RoverDude said:

Have not been able to repro this one.  All asteroids or specific ones?

Seems to be every asteroid I attached the JAW to.

[RoverDude]

NEW VERSION FOR KSP 1.2 IS UP!

Also - if you want to grab the entire USI Constellation in a single zip... head over here:  https://github.com/BobPalmer/USI_Constellation/releases/

0.9.0 - (KSP 1.2)
------------------
Reduced the engine thrust of mass drivers, but increased RCS thrust.  Both 1.25 and 2.5 versions of the mass drivers can act as both engines and RCS.  

[Aelfhe1m]

@RoverDude First of all thank you for your rapid update of all the USI mods for 1.2.

But ART still seems to have a reference to KSPUtils - log extract follows:

Spoiler

Non platform assembly: E:\Games\KSP\1.2 modded\GameData\UmbraSpaceIndustries\ART\DynamicTanks.dll (this message is harmless)
ADDON BINDER: Cannot resolve assembly: KSPUtil, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
 
(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 42)

ADDON BINDER: Cannot resolve assembly: KSPUtil, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null
 
(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 42)

AssemblyLoader: Exception loading 'DynamicTanks': System.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException: The classes in the module cannot be loaded.
  at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Reflection.Assembly:GetTypes (bool)
  at System.Reflection.Assembly.GetTypes () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at AssemblyLoader.LoadAssemblies () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

Additional information about this exception:

 System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'DynamicTanks.USI_CrewTank' from assembly 'DynamicTanks, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.

 System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'DynamicTanks.USI_DynamicPort' from assembly 'DynamicTanks, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.

 System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type '<>c' from assembly 'DynamicTanks, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.

 System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type '<>c' from assembly 'DynamicTanks, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null'.
 
(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 42)

Non platform assembly: E:\Games\KSP\1.2 modded\GameData\UmbraSpaceIndustries\Konstruction\Konstruction.dll (this message is harmless)

 

 

[RoverDude]

Thanks will look

[Odonian]

It's a lot of fun wrangling giant ART asteroids and bringing them into orbit around Kerbin using clusters of Project Orion nuclear pulse engines and starlifter SAS rings to keep everything from wobbling. The 1.2 autostrutting feature makes connections to asteroids a lot more stable, and I'm excited to play with asteroids again. Maybe with weldable Konstruction ports it will be possible to attach asteroids to each other, something which always summoned the kraken for me in 1.1.x, when the klaw or KAS attached docking ports had to be used to do this.

I'm having some trouble with ART, though. None of the asteroids I grab with the Jaw have the option to 'Vent Rock'. Is there a specific combination of parts that need to be present in order for this option to pop up in the right-click menu, or is this a bug? Thanks!

[Constan7ine]

Hello,

How does the crew hatch work in this mod? It doesn't have crew capacity? And it seems to attach to things.

[RoverDude]

Attach it to an asteroid

[Constan7ine]

4 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Attach it to an asteroid

Does the asteroid act as a crew cabin?

[DStaal]

37 minutes ago, Constan7ine said:

Does the asteroid act as a crew cabin?

The way this mod works is that you attach a Jaw to an asteroid, chew out some internal space, and then use the different hatches to configure the space inside the asteroid.

Using the asteroid as a crew cabin or a storage container is kinda the whole point of the mod.