Fusion Fuel Resupply, Am I stuck with sending tankers?

[SciMan]

Here's a problem I haven't been able to solve yet regarding KSP Interstellar.

How do I get more fusion fuel (LqdDeuterium, LqdHelium3) without launching a tanker?

I ask because LqdHelium3 costs an absolute fortune to get, and while LqdDeuterium is cheap enough and you can recover the cryostats, it's still a pain when you have fusion reactors scattered around the system that need to stay where they are but are running out of fuel.

I understand that you get LqdHelium3 from LqdTritium decay, and LqdTritium from lithium via tritium breeding in a reactor. However, it takes time, and doesn't even give you enough LqdHelium3 to run the same reactor, so it's a non-starter for me. And that doesn't solve the LqdDeuterium issue, either.

KSPI has a lot of ISRU capabilities, so I'm sure there's a way to do it. I figured that these resources would be atmospheric (since they are gases at room temperature), so I looked thru the atmospheric planetary resource data file.

However, I only found references to the "old" versions of those resources, so it looks like it won't work.

Here's what I found.

@ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[JoolDeuterium]
{
    resourceName = Deuterium
}
@ATMOSPHERIC_RESOURCE_DEFINITION[JoolHelium3]
{
    resourceName = Helium-3
}

It looks like I should be able to get some of this stuff from Jool by using ISRU atmosphere scoops while skimming the atmosphere, but the resource names are wrong.

Does it work in this state?

If not, is there a known way to fix it?

On a related note, where are the other fusion reactions? Even with just these three resources, there's still Deuterium-Deuterium, Tritium-Tritium, and Tritium-He3 fusion reactions that aren't available.

Key: P = Proton, D = Deuterium, T = Tritium, He3 = Helium-3, He = Helium nucleus, N = Neutron, KeV = Kiloelectronvolt, MeV = Megaelectronvolt

D+D+15KeV => 50% (T(1.01MeV)+H(3.02MeV)), 50%(He3(0.82MeV)+N(2.45MeV)) // 2 simultaneous reactions, one produces Tritium, other one Helium-3

T+T+(energy) => (He+2N+11.3MeV) // Helium, 2 neutrons. Probably good for transmuting nuclear waste (stack 2.5m/3.75mfusion reactor with same size Agelates reactor?)

T+He3+(energy) => 57% (He+P+N+12.1MeV), 43% (He(4.8MeV)+D(9.5MeV)) // 2 simultaneous reactions, one produces Hydrogen, other one Deuterium

Also, shouldn't LqdDeuterium be available wherever there's an ocean?

In earth's oceans, 0.0312% of all hydrogen in ocean water is deuterium, by mass. That's one Deuterium atom for every 6420 regular hydrogen atoms, approximately.

I was going by this assumption and built an entire ocean-going ISRU capable 3.75m fusion generation plant for my microwave power network, only to find that I can't use the 3.75m ISRU refinery to get Deuterium.

Now, I'm usually flexible in how much realism I expect from KSP (stock atmosphere, no Realism Overhaul, no RealFuels, no Deadly Reentry, etc.).

Mostly, that's because IMO current realism mods are all about telling you what you "can't" do. KSP Interstellar is different.

It's basically all about telling you what you CAN do, so when it tells me I CAN'T do something that reality says I CAN do, I'm (hopefully) understandably perplexed.

Edited December 1, 2014 by SciMan
another related question

[Kellis]

My solution for Tritium, so far, has been to create 3.75m Fission reactor farms using 'Tritium Breeding' to produce Tritium from Lithium. Of course, you still need to supply the Lithium, and anywhere except KSC, that's going to be...challenging. That said, if you build a silly enough structure on the launchpad, 40 or so reactors will produce it pretty quickly. You can then either have tanker trucks come pick the Tritium up (using KAS to transfer, or some such), or just recover the structure for stupid amounts of cash - which you can then turn around and spend on Tritium for the same net effect.

That still leaves having to send resupply tankers out from Kerbin, but at least alleviates the cost issues.

I haven't fiddled with it, given the relatively inexpensive nature of Deuterium, but I think it's the science lab that has to be splashed down to produce it, not the ISRU.

[SciMan]

Well, I figured out that all fusion reactors can produce enough Tritium to keep themselves running (plus a bit excess). So that's not going to be as much of a problem as I thought it was going to be, at least until those reactors run out of Lithium. And if they run out of fuel before I get fusion power set up around Jool, I can always just spam UF4 fission reactors with transmitters about 3-4 km from KSC launched from the runway (those huge rover wheels finally have a use).

The mining capable ISRUs can extract Lithium from oceans, so I guess I can send floating ISRU platforms to Laythe's oceans to get that, as it's the only planet or moon in Jool orbit that has a liquid ocean, and Jool is the only body in the solar system that has even a mention of containing Deuterium.

I suppose this all means I should get Exoplanetary Launchpads and the ORSX compatability patch for it, then send just the launchpad + miners out there, instead of sending each thing individually. Since I make my power relays and generation satellites unmanned anyways, I should be able to get away without sending continuous crew ferry flights, too.

Also, unless you patched the costs yourself, you can actually get paid for destroying the 2.5m deuterium/tritium cryostats. It's something crazy like 16 million per each one that you don't recover.

You don't "have" to destroy them, but its most efficent to just drop them from a high place on the launchpad. If it destroys the launchpad, so what? the money you "unspent" on the cryostat will more than pay for any repairs.

I got tired of the nonsensical resource costs of the KSPI resources so I just made a craft of like 200 of the 2.5m cryostats along with a single 1 mg antimatter bottle, and let its antimatter containment fail. Made a bunch of cash, and didn't even destroy the launchpad (should have created a new bay in the ocean, tbh).

You would think with the "worth more than its weight in gold" price of tritium and Helium3, that antimatter would be more expensive, right? Somehow, it's free on my install.

So for the time being I have my network powered mostly by 2 3m antimatter reactor satellites in 900km orbit around Kerbin. Each one has a few collectors on it too, so if it shuts off I don't have to trash it, just switch the antenna to recieve (for powering the antimatter containment) and wait for it to refill with antimatter.

Now, I'm asking myself why I want fusion power when I have all the free antimatter I care to claim, and that 3m antimatter power satellite is available to launch whenever I need more power.

To be honest, 200Gw microwave power added per satellite is probably more than most people would know what to do with.

In reality, it makes my microwave thermal rockets produce way too much thrust and consume fuel far too quickly to be useful (basically like lighting a mainsail at full thrust with infinite fuel, carrying only an okto2 probe core). Of course, it probably also means I can already get useful amounts of power out at Jool, right now.

To be honest, perhaps this whole thing is better suited as a bug report for KSPI, even tho it's not exactly a bug as much as it is a "this is working, but it's not working right" report. I just don't know anymore.

Now that I think of it, I could probably make it work if I changed the resource names to the correct ones in the code fragment in my previous post.

That might just solve everything except my microwave thermal rockets tearing themselves apart at 10% throttle...

Oh well, Jeb world problems, right? I've actually got TOO MUCH booster. Never thought I'd say that...

Edited November 29, 2014 by SciMan