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

[Jaxxman]

No, not in atmosphere. I am running KSP 1.4.5, Below are the images of before and after. I've got quie a few mods installed but I can post a list if you want those too.

https://imgur.com/V4nIcKh

https://imgur.com/Hmxo1kh

 

Thank you all for your help.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Jaxxman

[capi3101]

Okay. So basically everything astern of the drive is ripping itself off, with the craft in space and presumably above the cutoff altitude.

What mods do you have for power generation, and what kind of power generation do you have on the craft? Would you mind posting a screenshot with your resources readout before and after drive activation (presumably corresponding to before and after an RUD event)?

[Jaxxman]

7 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Without more details, I'll ask the standard "is it plugged-in" question for this mod, which is "Are you attempting to use the Exotic Matter generator and the engine at the same time?" If so, it's likely running out of power and ripping yourself apart as the warp bubble collapses.

Actually, there's a reasonable amount of this mod that depends on what other mods you're using. Would you mind providing a list, and would you also mind posting a screenshot of your craft? It'll help the rest of us to better determine any specific issues.

 

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

Also... are you trying to do this in atmosphere?

 

35 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Okay. So basically everything astern of the drive is ripping itself off, with the craft in space and presumably above the cutoff altitude.

What mods do you have for power generation, and what kind of power generation do you have on the craft? Would you mind posting a screenshot with your resources readout before and after drive activation (presumably corresponding to before and after an RUD event)?

Interstellar for power. I have a Dusty Plasma, Particle Converter and Tomahawk.

 

https://imgur.com/Nl2URP5

Before

https://imgur.com/NK11wE8

After

https://imgur.com/7ebNYZb

 

I have all cheats active for analysis.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Jaxxman
Information update.

[JadeOfMaar]

@Jaxxman The MkIV crew cabin is a cargo bay. USI warp drive does not like cargo bays.

[Jaxxman]

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@Jaxxman The MkIV crew cabin is a cargo bay. USI warp drive does not like cargo bays.

 

That's interesting. I have to take a closer look at the builds that work to see if they follow in line with your statement. Is there any reasoning behind this?

 

 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

2 hours ago, Jaxxman said:

That's interesting. I have to take a closer look at the builds that work to see if they follow in line with your statement. Is there any reasoning behind this?

I don't know, but generally, other modules won't deploy normally (or at all) while inside a cargo bay. The warp drive module is clearly among these and is known to be kraken bait anyway. Flameouts will destroy your ship (on purpose), it will slice your ship where it exceeds the warp bubble, and it may drag with it everything that's in physics range when it's started up.

[Jaxxman]

9 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I don't know, but generally, other modules won't deploy normally (or at all) while inside a cargo bay. The warp drive module is clearly among these and is known to be kraken bait anyway. Flameouts will destroy your ship (on purpose), it will slice your ship where it exceeds the warp bubble, and it may drag with it everything that's in physics range when it's started up.

I was able to successfully build a working warp craft after I removed the cargo bay. I wonder if there is a work around for this. Like, welding your parts together or moding the addon.

[capi3101]

Hey @RoverDude, quick question. I've started using Angel-125's Pathfinder and MOLE mods with KSP 1.5.1. There are a few advanced EC-generation parts in those mods; I'm curious if I am going to need to adjust the designs of my warp ships to incorporate those parts or not (i.e. I want to know if I now fall under the 25x power requirement rules). From the warp drive configuration files it doesn't look like I'll need to, but I wanted to verify that with you before I launched any warp ships in this career save. Using Alcubierre Drive v.0.10.1.0 with KSP 1.5.1.

EDIT: Pathfinder makes a few references to DSEV. I'd have to know what to look for to tell if they're relevant or not.

Edited December 5, 2018 by capi3101

[helaeon]

@capi3101When I made the 25x EC configs I was thinking about the fusion reactors from DSEV so didn't include WildBlue/Pathfinder as a whole.
Pathfinder's SAFER reactor didn't exist then, neither did Flying Saucers, so right now WildBlue generally should probably trigger the higher numbers but I have no plans to push such a change.

[capi3101]

6 hours ago, helaeon said:

@capi3101When I made the 25x EC configs I was thinking about the fusion reactors from DSEV so didn't include WildBlue/Pathfinder as a whole.
Pathfinder's SAFER reactor didn't exist then, neither did Flying Saucers, so right now WildBlue generally should probably trigger the higher numbers but I have no plans to push such a change.

Alright, thanks. Y'all be sure to mention if/when that change is ever made, purdy please.

[Corovaneer]

Is there a way to reduce drag on a 25KK part? Or, well, any part? It's a bit frustrating to see this elegant aerodynamic-looking rockety ring resisting air flow with the might of a brick wall of the same size.

And I kinda want to be able to get it back down to the surface in a manner other than an inflatable castle.

[RoverDude]

11 hours ago, Corovaneer said:

Is there a way to reduce drag on a 25KK part? Or, well, any part? It's a bit frustrating to see this elegant aerodynamic-looking rockety ring resisting air flow with the might of a brick wall of the same size.

And I kinda want to be able to get it back down to the surface in a manner other than an inflatable castle.

Custom drag cube would be the way to do it.    In theory rings are not draggy (it's why in stock we have to tweak decouplers and tubes and give them custom cubes), though this one is probably related to the bubble guide.  Possibly fixable by removing the reference to the bubble guide model (or just making it super tiny), deleting partdatabase.cfg, letting the drag cube regenerate, then toss the new values into the part config itself (so it overrides the values).   Should even work for the animated warp engines as well.

Toss a github issue and it will be added to the stack, or if someone gets industrious, a pull request will get it added a lot sooner.

[Corovaneer]

Another question - why isn't it possible to change mode in flight? To go from conservation of velocity to conservation of angular momentum?

If one plays mod in a career it's kinda difficult to amass enough cash to make one of each just to compare, if you're stuck with one mode for whatever reason. Especially if there's no easy way to get the module back down to KSC to recover it (because of heat and drag)...

[Jengazi]

Hi, first time poster, I'm just having a small issue

Whenever i try to put a drive on a plane of some sort (stock planes and spaceplanes i've built) it always causes the craft to be really slow to take off, and when it does it flips over backwards without fail, even if i put the drive on the nose of each craft.

I have no other mods installed (except for the usual- kerbalengineer, mechjeb, etc) so it can't be a mod incompatibility, i don't think

Any help is appreciated

Thanks in advance!

(can provide screenshots if needed)

[RoverDude]

Drag cube issue.  Something I need to sort.

[helaeon]

On 12/14/2018 at 10:51 AM, Corovaneer said:

Another question - why isn't it possible to change mode in flight? To go from conservation of velocity to conservation of angular momentum?

If one plays mod in a career it's kinda difficult to amass enough cash to make one of each just to compare, if you're stuck with one mode for whatever reason. Especially if there's no easy way to get the module back down to KSC to recover it (because of heat and drag)...

Because they are almost exact opposites. By switching between the two modes you can cancel out the undesirable effects of the other mode.
There should be a flag on the part in your save file that will let you switch it. I was using a quicksave so I could change it in the file, save the file, then reload. That's how I was testing between the two modes easily.

[capi3101]

I still don't understand angular momentum mode or (more importantly) how to maneuver with it (but then again, rotational physics in general has always kind of baffled me). I haven't tried it out since y'all fixed that bug with it a version or two back. I forget - when you warp in angular momentum mode, your velocity vector doesn't change (just like velocity mode), right? Which means you can maneuver your craft so that its course can point directly towards or away from a planet, right? Or have I misunderstood something?

[helaeon]

@capi3101 Velocity vector direction doesn't change from your start. Velocity magnitude (speed) changes a lot. That's mostly due to my own limitations with the math and for simplicity's sake. You can't just do regular algebra on vectors, so I had to keep that direction constant. Then I can mess with the other parameters. Velocity magnitude changes in order to conserve angular momentum / orbital energy. As you move your ship around the gravity well, the resulting orbit(s) will have roughly the same energy as when you started. The total velocity conserving version gives you lots of free energy.

Example I always use is that Jool has a lot more orbital energy than Kerbin (that's why it is further away), so when you get out to Jool from an orbit starting at Kerbin, you should be falling into Kerbol (what AM mode does), not trying to escape it (what velocity mode does). Turns out that warp drive in AM mode still makes you "pay" for your translation in DeltaV almost the same as your normal escape and capture burns if you went at the same time. You just pay for it all at the end (and you can do trickery with repeated slingshots to match orbits). You should also be able to drive out to Jool, turn around, return to your original location around Kerbin and have the same orbit. As a practical piloting manner one can't do that, but you can get close and it was one of the scenarios I tested against.

One of the reasons for the new speed reductions in the gravity well were so you could drive your ship in warp more slowly so place it more precisely when you drop out of warp for more complex and precise maneuvers.

Side Note: I learned recently that my intuition as to why I liked the Angular Momentum mode better and seemed more "right", is actually kinda based in work Emmy Noether did and how it relates to the mathematical symmetry gravitational field. Turns out the conserved quantity in conservation of energy in such a system like how we use our warp drives is in fact angular momentum. Which is probably why the math all fell out very nice and clean once I hit upon the correct equations.

[capi3101]

Experienced something last night that I felt worth reporting - using Alcubierre Drive v. 0.10.1.0 with KSP 1.5.1. It's been a while since I've flown an Alcubierre ship, so I figured I should send one up to see if I remembered what I was doing. No problems navigating with the drive, but I was able to get all the way to failsafe altitude over Duna without the braking code kicking in; it was fortunate that the craft was pointed away from Duna at the time, I suppose. I did experience the drive slowing down over Kerbol as normal, so this may just have been a fluke. I'll try another planet and see if it happens again. 

Log file, if it's remotely helpful.

[T3CH]

is there a way to get this in CKAN since i dont really understand how its done someone please help

-Thanks

[capi3101]

2 hours ago, T3CH said:

is there a way to get this in CKAN since i dont really understand how its done someone please help

-Thanks

The latest version of the mod is a few versions old at this point; 1.4.1 unless I'm mistaken. CKAN would look at that and laugh at any attempt to add it condescendingly (since it only lists mods that match the current KSP version, i.e. v. 1.6.0). Alcubierre Drive does work in 1.6.0 from all reports as is, so if you want to use this mod, you're going to have to go for a manual install.

Assuming you're running KSP on Windows 10:

1) Go to the very first post of this thread and download the mod from RoverDude's GitHub. Latest version you can get there is 0.10.0.0; there's an extant patch version 0.10.1.0 somewhere but I don't have the link.
2) Once it's downloaded, go to your Downloads directory/library to find the file. Alternatively, you should be able to click something on the downloaded file that will allow you to "Show File Location". Double-click the .zip file to open it, and copy the GameData file from within the zip.
3) Go to the directory from which you run KSP (on my computer, it's C:/Kerbal Space Program). Paste it in. You won't be overwriting anything in the GameData directory.
4) To verify the install, go into the GameData directory. If you see a directory called "UmbraSpaceIndustries", you're good. If you see one called "GameData" (i.e. another GameData directory within the GameData directory), something fouled.

Try that and see if it works.

[helaeon]

14 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Experienced something last night that I felt worth reporting - using Alcubierre Drive v. 0.10.1.0 with KSP 1.5.1. It's been a while since I've flown an Alcubierre ship, so I figured I should send one up to see if I remembered what I was doing. No problems navigating with the drive, but I was able to get all the way to failsafe altitude over Duna without the braking code kicking in; it was fortunate that the craft was pointed away from Duna at the time, I suppose. I did experience the drive slowing down over Kerbol as normal, so this may just have been a fluke. I'll try another planet and see if it happens again. 

Log file, if it's remotely helpful.

I haven't flown one since I made the changes to the braking code that made it not trap you at Laythe. Actually I'm on 1.6 right now and don't even have my own mod installed... yet.
Duna has a small gravity well, and "physics ticks" are a major issue with anything warp drive related. Sometimes you just cover too much space per tick for the game to do much with your warp velocity.
I did test the brakes with Dres and I do remember having to come in kinda slow to get the brakes to kick on (I may have had to turn some of the braking related settings up. It's been a while so I don't remember). It really is like the Frame Shift Drive in Elite:Dangerous, you come in too hot and there's not much the brakes can do for you.

[Modding Maniac]

So this mod still works? i thought it was dead

[RealKerbal3x]

4 minutes ago, Modding Maniac said:

So this mod still works? i thought it was dead

Yep, still works! (at least for me). Not many mods have actually broken since 1.3.

Edited January 19, 2019 by RealKerbal3x

[RoverDude]

53 minutes ago, Modding Maniac said:

So this mod still works? i thought it was dead

Not dead at all, works fine.  We've done no breaking API changes, so this (and all of the other goodies) work fine in 1.6.