[1.12.x] Alcubierre Warp Drive (Stand-alone)

[theSpeare]

Sorry! By promote I really just meant put it in the first post just so it's easy to find. I apologise as I didn't fully read the previous posts to see that user posted patch, thanks for pointing that out.

I fully respect RD's decision to maintain his design decisions, and my post in no way suggested he should compromise for something he disagrees with.

EDIT: No need to put it up if you don't want to. I was just asking if it was okay.

 

Edited September 21, 2017 by theSpeare

[JadeOfMaar]

On 9/20/2017 at 4:45 PM, theSpeare said:

@RoverDude I 100% fully appreciate the reasons why you want to keep the mod as-is, but is there any chance you could please promote a MM patch to achieve the requested "mine for ExoticMatter" feature?

On 9/20/2017 at 3:33 PM, Mrcarrot said:

I still feel like it's unrealistic to synthesize matter out of nothing but electricity. Maybe mining for ExoticMatter?

As far as we as a species know, some things can only be produced in a particle accelerator. The warp cores may count as particle accelerators. And ExoticMatter may be something you can't hold or transfer except with magnetic containment fields.

On 9/20/2017 at 5:06 PM, Mrcarrot said:

My config only makes it possible to convert Unobtainium into ExoticMatter. You would have to mine the very rare unobtainium first, no direct mining of ExoticMatter.

Gold Standard's Unobtanium is not rare. It occurs on too many planets imo.

[Kerman Jebediah]

so, it uses energy... how much (estimated) energy i need to use?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

4 hours ago, Kerman Jebediah said:

so, it uses energy... how much (estimated) energy i need to use?

Pick a value to make it hard, for game balance. Last I checked current real world theories they'd knocked lots of the initial estimates of about half the universe converted into energy. It could be down as low as one percent.

[Nightguard]

Can i change something in the files to make the bubble bigger?

(i wont sell or share it to anyone)

or can multiple drives be used to make the bubbles cover the whole ship?

thanks

 

EDIT:

PS, pls tell me what to change in what file coz i dont know anything about programming

Edited September 25, 2017 by Nightguard
PS

[goldenpsp]

3 hours ago, Nightguard said:

Can i change something in the files to make the bubble bigger?

(i wont sell or share it to anyone)

or can multiple drives be used to make the bubbles cover the whole ship?

thanks

 

EDIT:

PS, pls tell me what to change in what file coz i dont know anything about programming

Upper right is a handy search feature.  You can search bubblesize.

That being said unless something has changed the answer is no.  @RoverDude's last post on the topic I can find is:

"The limitation on the warp bubble size is a conscious design choice and part of the balance between the different parts."

And no you cannot use 2 drives.

[Nightguard]

Thanks!

[Nightguard]

18 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

Upper right is a handy search feature.  You can search bubblesize.

That being said unless something has changed the answer is no.  @RoverDude's last post on the topic I can find is:

"The limitation on the warp bubble size is a conscious design choice and part of the balance between the different parts."

And no you cannot use 2 drives.

i changed the bubblesize to 1000, still same.

is there something else i need to change?

[goldenpsp]

3 hours ago, Nightguard said:

i changed the bubblesize to 1000, still same.

is there something else i need to change?

No,  if you read through the thread about bubblesize those variables don't do anything.  Hence the roverdude quote I posted earlier. 

[Nightguard]

11 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

No,  if you read through the thread about bubblesize those variables don't do anything.  Hence the roverdude quote I posted earlier. 

Oh. Thanks anyways

[RedPandaz]

It isn't working. When I try to use it, it quickly flashes PropRequirement = 0% for some reason and the bubble dissapears after like a tenth of a second

[goldenpsp]

11 minutes ago, RedPandaz said:

It isn't working. When I try to use it, it quickly flashes PropRequirement = 0% for some reason and the bubble dissapears after like a tenth of a second

How high is your orbit?

[RedPandaz]

8 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

How high is your orbit?

I teleported it to 100000 meters

[goldenpsp]

8 minutes ago, RedPandaz said:

I teleported it to 100000 meters

Search Altitude in the thread.  For Kerbin IIRC its 600,000 minimum.  Your answer is littered all over the thread.

Edited September 27, 2017 by goldenpsp

[RedPandaz]

1 minute ago, goldenpsp said:

Search Altitude in the thread.  For Kerbin IIRC its 600,000 minimum.

So none of this 

huh? Ok, I'll try

 

[RedPandaz]

And what exactly is the bubble size? in meters?

[capi3101]

On 9/26/2017 at 11:08 PM, RedPandaz said:

And what exactly is the bubble size? in meters?

Depends on which engine you're wanting to go with. My own self, I just started playing around with this mod yesterday; the 2.5 meter engine has a bubble size of around 40 meters, at least according to the VAB. Haven't tried futzing around with any of the other engine units just yet, so I'm of no help there. The 0.625-meter unit's bubble is not particularly large, I will say that; probably wouldn't want to do much more than a probe with it.

Incidentally, if you want to stow the engine in a fairing prior to launch and the game gives you fits, try shutting off the bubble visualization...

 

So yeah, been using this mod for all of two days now. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the notion of the conservation of momentum; engineering physics/vector mathematics was twenty years ago, and not something I've had cause to use much since. Let me ask you guys this: as I recall, the two components to the any vector are magnitude and direction (in crude, my-body-needs-moar-covfefe-right-now terms). I get the idea of lining up for a dive towards/away from Kerbol to use gravity in order to pick up or reduce your orbital velocity to match the orbital velocity of the target. I'm having trouble with the notion of direction (of all things); does your direction component include your current movement around the source body?Say, if I was orbiting Kerbin, does my initial direction component relative to Kerbin factor in it at all, or just the direction component relative to Kerbol? Do I even need to be concerning myself with direction, or is it sufficient to just worry about magnitude?

Corollary: anybody know about any mods out there that would do the necessary calculations?

Edited October 3, 2017 by capi3101

[capi3101]

Never mind - I figured out what I was doing:

Just took a few tries is all. I figured out that if you go sundiving first and switch your speedometer over to target relative mode, you can gauge when to engage the warp bubble by when your target relative velocity is minimized. I'm not entirely certain that the speed listed in the screenie - 138.4 m/s - wasn't what that got to on that attempt to make it to Dres.

Actual warp jumps were short enough; the mission time above was mostly spent in close proximity to Kerbol decelerating to Dres's orbital velocity.

I guess my last question about how to use this mod is this - for the 2.5 meter engine, is the 600 kilometer failsafe distance for all bodies, for just those bodies with atmosphere, or is it specifically Kerbin? I ask because I tried Eve last night and the bubble collapsed closer to the planet, IIRC.

Going to have to play around with the other engine sizes now...I'm having fun with this mod.

 

[Aelfhe1m]

42 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

is the 600 kilometer failsafe distance for all bodies, for just those bodies with atmosphere, or is it specifically Kerbin?

The failsafe altitude is different for each planet and is equal to the planet's radius multiplied by the drive's configured MinAltitude (1 for 2.5m drive and 1.5 for 0.625m drive)  - this bit of code here

Edit: and it's displayed in the warp drive's PAW whenever you're under the failsafe altitude.

Edited October 4, 2017 by Aelfhe1m

[goldenpsp]

@capi3101 you would be my hero if at some point you had the interest in an even basic tutorial.  I am obviously too dumb to wrap my head around how to use this drive.  Others have done some simple diagrams but it just hasn't clicked for me.

[capi3101]

21 minutes ago, Aelfhe1m said:

The failsafe altitude is different for each planet and is equal to the planet's radius multiplied by the drive's configured MinAltitude (1 for 2.5m drive and 1.5 for 0.625m drive)  - this bit of code here

Edit: and it's displayed in the warp drive's PAW whenever you're under the failsafe altitude.

Thanks for the data. I was asking the question for planning purposes; if I know how close I can jump, I can find out what I want my velocity to be at that point.

20 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

@capi3101 you would be my hero if at some point you had the interest in an even basic tutorial.  I am obviously too dumb to wrap my head around how to use this drive.  Others have done some simple diagrams but it just hasn't clicked for me.

I'd be interested, though it may be a while before I could do it. For one thing, I'd have to find the time. For another, there's the fact that today is only my third day with this mod...

[capi3101]

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/27292-what-did-you-do-in-ksp-today/&do=findComment&comment=3190350

After reading through this entire thread over the weekend, I finally got the basics of using linear velocity mode down; was able to make it into Moho's and Eve's orbit yesterday. I attempted to reach Eeloo earlier this morning from Moho; somehow I managed to flip the direction of my velocity vector. Still trying to figure out how I managed to do that. So the Moho-Eeloo run is still not open for buisness just yet, but I'm getting there.

I need to thank @jd284 for the final missing piece of that puzzle, which was how to do the plane change properly. I figured it did have something to do with warping along the north/south axis; I was just doing it at the wrong place. @AeroEngy's technique for adjusting your vector also works well, as does @Dred_furst's "braking" maneuver; most of the links to those post in this thread are rotten (on account of the Great Forum Chrysalis of 2015), so I've relinked them here.

Edited October 9, 2017 by capi3101
Had a few other people to thank and mention. Forum was being weird.

[capi3101]

Forum member @kraden and I had a PM discussion earlier today in the wake of a successful mission to use the Alcubierre Drive to land Jeb on Eeloo. I think that discussion would be useful to more than a few of y'all, so I'm copying/pasting my main post from that discussion.

Quoth me: I did read through the whole thread - all 47 pages worth (as of this message). Critical hints are on these posts:

(Hit the little arrow in the upper-left corner of those links to view the replies - otherwise you'll just get the thread a bunch of times).

There is also a GitHub wiki page for the mod here that is very useful. Biggest piece of information I got off of it was how to use Alcubierre Drive to do a plane change.

The real trick is to know how to use the nav ball to your advantage, the failsafe altitudes of the source planet, destination planet and Kerbol, and the orbital velocities of those failsafe altitudes. Failsafe altitude is, as stated in @Aelfhe1m's post here, a planetary radius for the 2.5 meter drive and 1.5 planetary radii for the 0.625 meter drive, and you can use the method for calculating orbital velocities posted on the wiki to determine the orbital velocity at that point. Since orbital velocity decreases with altitude, the magnitude of the orbital velocity at failsafe is the maximum speed you can be going if you want to achieve orbit at the destination body on warp drive alone. I've got a table of these velocities made up.

Quick note to @kraden - the table has been corrected. Here it is:

Failsafe Altitudes and Velocities for RoverDude's Alcubierre Drive Mod

Celestial Body	2.5m Failsafe Altitude (m)	2.5m Failsafe Orbital Velocity (m/s)	0.625m Failsafe Altitude (m)	0.625m Failsafe Orbital Velocity (m/s)
Kerbol	261,600,000	47,336.00	392,400,000	42,338.61
Moho	250,000	580.71	375,000	519.40
Eve	700,000	2,415.98	1,050,000	2,160.92
Gilly	13,000	17.86	19,500	15.97
Kerbin	600,000	1,715.52	900,000	1,534.41
Mün	200,000	403.54	300,000	360.94
Minmus	60,000	121.31	90,000	108.50
Duna	320,000	686.21	480,000	613.76
Ike	130,000	267.24	195,000	239.03
Dres	138,000	279.00	207,000	249.55
Jool	6,000,000	4,852.22	9,000,000	4,339.95
Laythe	500,000	1,400.71	750,000	1,252.84
Vall	300,000	588.05	450,000	525.97
Tylo	600,000	1,534.41	900,000	1,372.41
Bop	65,000	138.31	97,500	123.71
Pol	44,000	90.56	66,000	81.00
Eeloo	210,000	420.91	315,000	376.48

@Dred_furst's technique helps when you arrive at your destination going too fast.

I mention the nav ball - your typical markers (prograde/retrograde, etc.) give you information about the direction of your velocity vector, which is fine and dandy but of limited use when you're making warp maneuvers. Of greater importance is the position of your navball's nadir, zenith, east and west. Think in polar coordinates - the nadir/zenith axis changes your range (altitude) to the body you're around; east/west, if you can hold it steady on the horizon, changes your azimuth without changing your range. And then plane changes are along north/south.

So what I do is like this: I begin by leaving my source SOI and head towards Kerbol. I head to an altitude of 1.9 Gm over Kerbol or closer, but no closer than 1 Gm (recalculated this also this afternoon, and the target distance should be  1,638,487,944.1 = 1.64 Gm instead). Why 1.64 Gm? By the inverse square law, that's the altitude at which 8 Gigantor solar panels should produce the necessary amount of power to power the Exotic Matter generator (for 2.4 tonnes. Equivalent other power supplies are 89 OX-4W or 4L panels for 1.56 tonnes, 89 SP-W or L panels for 2.23 tonnes, 52 OX-STAT-XL panels at 2.08 tonnes or 412 OX-STAT panels for 2.09 tonnes; pick your poison - they all have to be pointing directly at Kerbol at exactly the same time, in any case). Once I am at the target altitude over Kerbol, I go either west or east to either point my prograde vector towards Kerbol (if I want to reach a planet closer to Kerbol than the source) or away (vice versa) as needed. I can tell when I'm at the point where I'm travelling directly towards or away from Kerbol when I see the normal/anti-normal marker cross the east/west horizon. I then let Kerbol's gravity help me pick up or lose the speed I need, and while I'm doing that I shut off the drive and turn on the Exotic Matter generator to recharge. Once it's full, I secure the recharging system; don't want to warp with that turned on or bad things happen. I then switch over to relative velocity mode - which will show you what your speed is going to be at the target body. When it's at the target magnitude, I turn on the drive and warp to the target. If the relative velocity starts to increase, I warp to the target anyway and once I'm there I use the same trick - nadir/zenith, east/west - to position myself so that I'm travelling away from the planet, then warp to failsafe and use Dred_furst's technique to yo-yo and lose more speed, stopping to back up to failsafe every ten minutes or so, until I'm finally at the right speed. Then it's just east/west and nadir warps until I get an orbit. 

  @goldenpsp asked me in a post from October 4 if I'd be interested in doing a more in-depth tutorial and I am. I was thinking about doing a YouTube video^*. Hopefully this is enough to get you started, though.

I should mention that this technique is for linear velocity (default) mode only. I haven't even begun to grok angular momentum mode...

 

EDIT: Video is here.

Edited December 14, 2017 by capi3101
added equivalencies for other solar panel types.

[capi3101]

What planet packs are current for v. 1.3.0/1.3.1? Other than making the forthcoming YouTube video, I'm trying to think how else I might be able to help out people using this mod, and the only thing I can come up with is determining failsafe orbital velocities for planets/moons outside the basic Kerbol system. I'm aware of Kopernicus and Outer Worlds; are there others?

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, capi3101 said:

I'm aware of Kopernicus and Outer Worlds; are there others?

There are many. The following 7 planet/star mods are very popular, very stable, current, and mostly very large... Especially the very last one.

Spoiler