[0.24.2] Interstellar Lite - Tweakscale Integration [v0.12.3][Sept 7]

[Meltafire]

That's an intrigue. Will KSPIL techtree merge with Near Future Technology? What "WaveF" will do after Jool trip...

Edited September 4, 2014 by Meltafire

[Taki117]

I'm glad that players are taking advantage of the added compatibility enhancements.

Feel free to put in up in the OP if you want. It doesn't move any KSPI things (Except the stock accelerometer) but it does provide more useful things sooner, and less useful things later.

[GreeningGalaxy]

Last I heard someone had a model that drastically reduced the power requirements. Granted, it was still absurd, and would instantly kill anyone trying to ride along due to the radiation, but hey, baby steps.

Last I heard in a Scientific American article, the energy required is now thought to be about equal to the mass of one Voyager space probe converted to energy- still pretty intense, but not unattainable. Actually generating negative mass exotic matter is a whole different beast, of course, but we're making progress there too- last I heard, they'd figured out how to separate positive and negative vacuum energy with big lasers.

As for the energy conservation issue, my current best guess is that the gained potential energy would come not from your momentum, but from the exotic matter structure of the Alcubierre bubble itself, which would mean that you'd need more energy to sustain the bubble if you were going up a gravitational field. That still doesn't conserve momentum, but hey- that QVPT engine appears to have worked in some capacity, so maybe the LoCoM is bogus after all. That was a joke.

WaveFunction mentioned a NASA lecture on the subject- do you have an actual link?

[ABZB]

Last I heard in a Scientific American article, the energy required is now thought to be about equal to the mass of one Voyager space probe converted to energy- still pretty intense, but not unattainable. Actually generating negative mass exotic matter is a whole different beast, of course, but we're making progress there too- last I heard, they'd figured out how to separate positive and negative vacuum energy with big lasers.

As for the energy conservation issue, my current best guess is that the gained potential energy would come not from your momentum, but from the exotic matter structure of the Alcubierre bubble itself, which would mean that you'd need more energy to sustain the bubble if you were going up a gravitational field. That still doesn't conserve momentum, but hey- that QVPT engine appears to have worked in some capacity, so maybe the LoCoM is bogus after all. That was a joke.

WaveFunction mentioned a NASA lecture on the subject- do you have an actual link?

This book has interesting relevance:

Time travel and warp drives : a scientific guide to shortcuts through time and space / Allen Everett and Thomas Roman.

[sarsengo]

The odds a pretty decent that you're having a memory problem, B9 is GIGANTIC.

How much RAM do you have and are you running 32 or 64 bit?

64 bit KSP has a habit of just kind of crashing for giggles, while 32 bit is pretty memory limited. There is a set of texture reduction for B9 to hammer it into less memory, jeck out the OP in the B9 thread for the link.

thank you for the quick reply darkblade48 and ballistic Idiot, but i dont think its a memory issue...The game doesnt load, its just stuck on the loading screen. Could that be a memory issue? I downloaded the texture management and it still didnt work

It only seems to crash when i have the warp drive folder into my game data folder...other than that, both mods work independently.

Btw I am running an I5, with 9 gigs of ram. Maybe there is a new texture manager out there? or i have to tweak it somehow?

Just reading that you guys can combine both mods is exciting. Thanks again guys!

[sarsengo]

thank you for the quick reply darkblade48 and ballistic Idiot, but i dont think its a memory issue...The game doesnt load, its just stuck on the loading screen. Could that be a memory issue? I downloaded the texture management and it still didnt work

It only seems to crash when i have the warp drive folder into my game data folder...other than that, both mods work independently.

Btw I am running an I5, with 9 gigs of ram. Maybe there is a new texture manager out there? or i have to tweak it somehow?

Just reading that you guys can combine both mods is exciting. Thanks again guys!

Oh i just got it to work! thank you guys for the help...it worked with a fresh install, i dont know what went wrong last time...maybe a remnant of an old mod

[GreeningGalaxy]

Couple of weird little things I found that are probably not my fault:

-The fusion reactor says it puts out 8.00 gigawatts when first placed (with its default size set to 2.5 meters), then reverts to 4.00 gigawatts for that size when scaled up or down and then back to default. I haven't ever seen it put out more than 4 gigawatts in-game, but the number in the VAB screws up the thermal helper's calculations.

-The core temperature of fusion reactors goes up as they're scaled down, with the biggest ones reaching only 7500-ish Kelvin and the tiniest getting to over 9000 Kelvin (meme not intentional). Was this an intended effect of rescaling? If so, why?

[WaveFunctionP]

Couple of weird little things I found that are probably not my fault:

-The fusion reactor says it puts out 8.00 gigawatts when first placed (with its default size set to 2.5 meters), then reverts to 4.00 gigawatts for that size when scaled up or down and then back to default. I haven't ever seen it put out more than 4 gigawatts in-game, but the number in the VAB screws up the thermal helper's calculations. I could put up some MM configs to match the base and upgraded stats on the part files. I am going to wait for updated B9 configs before I do this.

-The core temperature of fusion reactors goes up as they're scaled down, with the biggest ones reaching only 7500-ish Kelvin and the tiniest getting to over 9000 Kelvin (meme not intentional). Was this an intended effect of rescaling? If so, why?

Says it puts out 8GWs on the thermal helper? I know there is some wonkiness on the thermal helper right now. I am going to try and clean it up on the next major version. It is still trying to initialize at upgraded stats I think.

Reactor temperature diverges slightly to replicate the stocklike behavior of smaller = higher isp, larger = higher twr. Which should help further differentiate reactors. Static scaling would be more boring I think.

One thing about procedural mods is that they are great at developing smooth progressions and niches, but not so good at making gaps. Gaps create small gameplay challenges which keep things interesting, but I am content to leave that as unresolved designed challenge for now until the mod is more developed.

Edited September 4, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[WaveFunctionP]

That's an intrigue. Will KSPIL techtree merge with Near Future Technology? What "WaveF" will do after Jool trip...

http://i.imgur.com/1QYMSAe.png

I don't really have tech tree plans at this time.

[WaveFunctionP]

Feel free to put in up in the OP if you want. It doesn't move any KSPI things (Except the stock accelerometer) but it does provide more useful things sooner, and less useful things later.

Send me a one sentence pitch about what your tech tree mod's name and what it does and I'll add it to the OP.

[Taki117]

Send me a one sentence pitch about what your tech tree mod's name and what it does and I'll add it to the OP.

Experienced Tech: Takes the Stock Concepts you've already mastered and gives you the parts to put that knowledge to use sooner.

[tygoo7]

How well would this mod work with an existing save? I'm already half way through the tech tree for NearFuture. But I haven't had this mod installed for this save so no ships with these parts. Also is TweakScale required? I have had a major problem with it only loading a few parts on my station and Kerbin is just the atmosphere but I had a backup. I'm using 64-bit.

[WaveFunctionP]

How well would this mod work with an existing save? I'm already half way through the tech tree for NearFuture. But I haven't had this mod installed for this save so no ships with these parts. Also is TweakScale required? I have had a major problem with it only loading a few parts on my station and Kerbin is just the atmosphere but I had a backup. I'm using 64-bit.

KSP 64 is really buggy even without mods. I highly doubt that tweakscale is the major problem. I played with it. A LOT.

I can't really say about near future, since I do not know how it implements it's tech. If it uses the stock tech tree, it should be fine.

Tweakscale is required in order to have more than just 2.5m parts. You only need the version included in the kspil download though.

[Wercho]

I like this mod, and the depth of gameplay it adds. Have you looked into balancing the stats of the reactors with different fuels? I ask because I just unlocked nuclear technology in my career, opening up the fission reactors and they seem really OP compared to the LV-N. Better Isp, better TWR. Thus, I was able to easily throw together an SSTO with a PB fission with a payload capacity of about 20%, while the LV-N doesn't have a hope of even getting to orbit on an SSTO design, much less with a payload fraction better than stock staged rockets. So basically I can replace the function of all the traditional rockets with a PB fission.

Also, they seem to be producing (much) more thrust using LFO than the tooltips say. In my game, the tooltip says the 2.5m rocket on a PB fission reactor using LFO gives about 479 kN, but in the game I'm getting well over ~1000kN, I forget what exactly, which is what allows it to get off the ground in my SSTO design, above, even with thrust scaling with atmosphere. The tooltips using liquid fuel seem to be right, though.

I have a ton of mods installed, so if any of this isn't vanilla KSPI behavior then ignore it (and let me know so I can sort it out on my end).

Keep up the good work!

[WaveFunctionP]

Experienced Tech: Takes the Stock Concepts you've already mastered and gives you the parts to put that knowledge to use sooner.

I need a link too.

[WaveFunctionP]

I like this mod, and the depth of gameplay it adds. Have you looked into balancing the stats of the reactors with different fuels? I ask because I just unlocked nuclear technology in my career, opening up the fission reactors and they seem really OP compared to the LV-N. Better Isp, better TWR. Thus, I was able to easily throw together an SSTO with a PB fission with a payload capacity of about 20%, while the LV-N doesn't have a hope of even getting to orbit on an SSTO design, much less with a payload fraction better than stock staged rockets. So basically I can replace the function of all the traditional rockets with a PB fission.

Also, they seem to be producing (much) more thrust using LFO than the tooltips say. In my game, the tooltip says the 2.5m rocket on a PB fission reactor using LFO gives about 479 kN, but in the game I'm getting well over ~1000kN, I forget what exactly, which is what allows it to get off the ground in my SSTO design, above, even with thrust scaling with atmosphere. The tooltips using liquid fuel seem to be right, though.

I have a ton of mods installed, so if any of this isn't vanilla KSPI behavior then ignore it (and let me know so I can sort it out on my end).

Keep up the good work!

The balance isn't perfect, but it is close to where I want it. The estimator isn't entirely accurate though.

[Wercho]

The balance isn't perfect, but it is close to where I want it. The estimator isn't entirely accurate though.

Hmm, getting the thrust of a Mainsail with the Isp of the LV-N for an extra couple of tons doesn't seem balanced to me. Especially not one node further down the tech tree than a Mainsail. As I look into it more, it seems like there is a problem with calculating the thrust using LFO. Data here:

This is what I get:

2.5m PB fission + nozzle, using LFO: 1507.9 kN, 600.3 Isp, total mass: 6t (without radiators)

Mainsail: 1500 kN, 360 Isp, total mass: 6t

(2.5m PB fission tooltip in VAB, using LFO): 678.6 kN, Isp and mass are the same

So the tooltip thrust seems balanced, but the game performance isn't to me.

1.25m PB Fission + nozzle, using LFO: 182.1 kN , 621 Isp, total mass: 0.751t

(1.25m PB fission + nozzle, tooltip): 81.9 kN

LV-N: 60 kN, 800 Isp, 2.25t

Same with the 1.25m parts. In game I'm getting 2.2 times as much thrust as the tooltips say, but only using LFO. Using just LiquidFuel, the tooltips are correct and everything seems balanced. I get the same effect using the normal Fission reactors also. I haven't unlocked fusion so I don't know about those, and I'm not sure about other fuel types.

Getting the tooltips right is lower priority. I was mostly wondering if the tooltip or the in-game performance represented your desired thrust for LFO fueled nuclear power. Thanks for all your work on this.

[Taki117]

So, thanks to the newest update my MM patch works.

Based in large part on this mod

Quoting myself so Wave has the link again...

Just drop it anywhere in your Gamedata folder and start up KSP, hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

http://www./view/sseojn6yr2upzl5/VetTechInterstellar.cfg

Quoting myself so Wave has the link.

[Wercho]

... In game I'm getting 2.2 times as much thrust as the tooltips say, but only using LFO...

I did some more testing, and Water and Ammonia seem to be producing the right thrust, so the issue may be limited to LFO only.

Now if only squad had used a reasonable mass scaling system when they made the stock engines, and then we could figure out how to balance tweakscale. I did some testing on that, and Squad's stock engine's seem to be scaled with thrust to size cubed, and mass to size squared, roughly. Which is why when you scale the mass of engines to size cubed and thrust to size squared, you get really light engines compared to stock when scaling down, and really heavy when scaling up.

[tygoo7]

Is it normal some nodes in the back of the tech tree are just floating by themselves? No lines leading up to them.

[WaveFunctionP]

Hmm, getting the thrust of a Mainsail with the Isp of the LV-N for an extra couple of tons doesn't seem balanced to me. Especially not one node further down the tech tree than a Mainsail. As I look into it more, it seems like there is a problem with calculating the thrust using LFO. Data here:

This is what I get:

2.5m PB fission + nozzle, using LFO: 1507.9 kN, 600.3 Isp, total mass: 6t (without radiators)

Mainsail: 1500 kN, 360 Isp, total mass: 6t

(2.5m PB fission tooltip in VAB, using LFO): 678.6 kN, Isp and mass are the same

So the tooltip thrust seems balanced, but the game performance isn't to me.

1.25m PB Fission + nozzle, using LFO: 182.1 kN , 621 Isp, total mass: 0.751t

(1.25m PB fission + nozzle, tooltip): 81.9 kN

LV-N: 60 kN, 800 Isp, 2.25t

Same with the 1.25m parts. In game I'm getting 2.2 times as much thrust as the tooltips say, but only using LFO. Using just LiquidFuel, the tooltips are correct and everything seems balanced. I get the same effect using the normal Fission reactors also. I haven't unlocked fusion so I don't know about those, and I'm not sure about other fuel types.

Getting the tooltips right is lower priority. I was mostly wondering if the tooltip or the in-game performance represented your desired thrust for LFO fueled nuclear power. Thanks for all your work on this.

LFO has a 2.2 multiplier on thrust. It has .6 the isp.

I added edited the OP earlier with some numbers along with some more clarifications earlier.

Reactors are supposed to be partially balanced by cost, and partially by logistics. The logistic portion isn't in, but the cost is significant. It's like 10x the cost of conventional rockets, which does a lot of heavy lifting as far as balance goes. You can throw away lower stages with stock parts and remain solvent, you'd have a very difficult time doing so with kspil, so the idea is that they have a good but more performance, but they cost a lot more which means you also need to recover them. The idea is that it fits within a reusability niche.

Which may not be the best design, and maybe they need to be nerfed more, but it wouldn't be a drastic nerf either way. I only have a few domains to work with and the parts would be impossible to balance without the addition of funds without completely neutering the fun out of thermal nozzles.

I just have to wonder if you've actually played career with the current version. Finds can get tight. It has happened to me a couple of times in this playthrough. And I had to go to extra lengths to try and recover failed vessels just to get my funds back. (Which was what I was going for.) I can't really go much higher with costs especially on early tech without stepping outside the income rate of stock career. Nevermind if someone decides to use a funds nerf addon to make career more difficult which is a tweak I'd like for players of kspil to be able to use for extra challenge if they desire.

Edited September 5, 2014 by WaveFunctionP

[WaveFunctionP]

Is it normal some nodes in the back of the tech tree are just floating by themselves? No lines leading up to them.

No, I've not experience this issue. You may have installation error.

[Jetski]

It's an issue with your install most likely. Follow the instructions in the OP, and watch the video if you still have problems.

Been playing the mod since you released it, so maybe not an install issue? Just in case, I just did a new download/install of KSP, new download/install of KSPI Lite, ran a test in sandbox with no other mods at all. Still have the same problem. The research lab opens out the antennas, then folds them right back up. Also, once I shutdown the fission reactor via EVA, I wait for cooldown timer, then can't refuel. I have a tank for depleted, there's room, power, etc. I looked on the old KSPI thread, and there were a few similar reports but no solution other than try clicking lots, which didn't do it. Is this working for other people? Am I missing something stupid? Screenshot of test ship:

[WaveFunctionP]

Been playing the mod since you released it, so maybe not an install issue? Just in case, I just did a new download/install of KSP, new download/install of KSPI Lite, ran a test in sandbox with no other mods at all. Still have the same problem. The research lab opens out the antennas, then folds them right back up. Also, once I shutdown the fission reactor via EVA, I wait for cooldown timer, then can't refuel. I have a tank for depleted, there's room, power, etc. I looked on the old KSPI thread, and there were a few similar reports but no solution other than try clicking lots, which didn't do it. Is this working for other people? Am I missing something stupid? Screenshot of test ship: http://i.imgur.com/oHLGBbi.jpg

Hmm, maybe a sandbox issue.

I need to see some logs. Check out the video in the OP for instructions.

[Torminator]

Is it normal some nodes in the back of the tech tree are just floating by themselves? No lines leading up to them.

Both KAS and LLL use a floating node like that. It's the KAS magnet and a lot of the LLL decoration pieces