[v0.1] MOSOI Ind. MicroFuels (Half-RF, half-stock)

[Niemand303]

I really enjoy Real Fuels, but every time I make realism-focused mod pack in my gamedata folder it's getting really messy. So, after lots of pain I decided to make something really simple but keeping stuff close to reality. And, what is most important, not requiring big mods that break the balance, that are complicated and, as well, for the sake of being modding-friendly. That is how I got the idea of MicroFuels. It is basically a number of MM configs for tanks and engines, that require only Firespitter plugin (for different tank configs) and MM for the configs themselves to work.

Download proof-of-concept: @KerbalStuff

REQUIRES MODULARFUELTANKS AND MODULEMANAGER

This is currently in conceptual phase of development, thus, it means that even the necessity of such a mod is a subject of question. I am open to suggestions about its future and present.

The mod will introduce 3 new fuels (while keeping all of stock fuels present):

0) LiquidFuel will play the role of Kerosene, Oxidizer is liquid oxygen, while Monoprop will be something like Hydrazine, but less dense (I don't want to mess with stock balance).

1) CryoFuel - that is the fuel, based on LH2. Lighter than its non-cryogenic counterpart (LiquidFuel), lighter, but more effective! Also feeds nuclear engines.

2) HypFuel - generalization of all hypergolic fuels. Toxic, not so effective, but cheap and dense.

3) HypOxidizer - something like NTO. Also toxic, not really effective, but cheap and ready to fly.

How will it work:

1) Engines - write specific configs for every single engine. Use the same technology as Rapier for multiple engine modes. Engines, that don't have a specific config, included in the mod, shall be all converted with a single MM patch for all this kind of parts, replacing it to LF/COx mode of operation. Currently, the situation will be like this:

a) Small thrust engines (such as 48-7S, LV-1®, LV-909, possibly Poodle) - Hypergolic, since they are designed to be used in orbit, thus, where cryo components will boil away.

LV-T30 and LV-T45 - first is hypergolic with low ISP and higher thrust, the second one is semi-cryo, with higher ISP and lower thrust.

c) Skipper and Mainsail - since those are based on Saturn V engines, the first one will be cryo, the second one semi-cryo. Also, to fill the niche of powerful 2.5 hypergolic engine a 3.75 NASA engine will be downscaled to play the role of HF/HOx lower stage engine.

d) NASA engines will definitely work based on their real counterparts.

e) Possibly, I will make other engines to fill some niches if you don't want to have other mods in your game. I will, of course, recommend Tantares/TantaresLV, RLA, MRS and SpaceY (those will be the first mods to obtain their own configs), since they offer a large variety of engines.

2) Fuel Tanks - Firespitter allows having different configurations for the tanks. So, every fuel tank will have 2 or 3 different modes of operations. The tanks not modified by specific configs will all be changed to LF/COx. I'm sticking with Modular Fuel Tanks, it will be the dependency. Also, every tank includes a generator module to simulate boil-off of Cryo fuels

3) RCS - everything, like before, will work on Monoprop, except for the patches I might introduce (i.e. Tantares (Soyuz) RCS will use HF/HO instead of monoprop, like the real Soyuz). Basically, it won't even require any changes since MonoProp will be untouched.

Any other ideas, kermrades?

Edited January 27, 2015 by Niemand303

[Tellion]

You might want to take a look at this! I am not sure if you want something similar, but it sure wont hurt to take a look

[bs1110101]

I like this, but two issues, one, make non-configged engines generate configs for all fuel tanks. And two, can the stock engine switching thing handle more then 2 modes?

[Niemand303]

You might want to take a look at this! I am not sure if you want something similar, but it sure wont hurt to take a look

Thanks! Yeah, I've seen it. It still bases on the idea of REAL fuels, while my mod uses also abstract fuels, but with different choices on fuel types. Dense but not so effective Hypergolic (smaller rockets) or larger, more expensive but more ISP efficient Cryo or SemiCryo rocket.

I like this, but two issues, one, make non-configged engines generate configs for all fuel tanks. And two, can the stock engine switching thing handle more then 2 modes?

I might have misunderstood the question, I'll try to explain:

Engines which won't have planned dual-mode will have a replacement like "@PROPELLANT[Oxidizer] {@name=CryoOxidizer}", which will basically make all the non-configged engines be semi-cryo. The tanks will have something like "@RESOURCE[Oxidizer] {@name=CryoOxidizer}", which will make them SemiCryo too. Thus, even without additional configs the engines and tanks will work, but only in semi-cryo mode.

Another idea for the tanks, is making Cryo fuels boil off, I'd think about adding a non-toggleable generator module in every tank without output, consuming CF and CO.

For the second question, it's a tricky one. I haven't studied it yet, actually, but it seems it can have only 2 modes. I don't want to use that EngineConfigs, since it will make making compatibility with MF really tedious. Probably, I will stick with having two modes of work: some engines will have Semi-Cryo and Hypergolic, some will have Cryo and Hypergolic. That is especially more likeable for parts that are based on real engines, like 5m KW Rocketry parts, or, well, everything in Tantares mod.

I don't think there is point in making some engines Cryo, especially low-powered ones.

[bs1110101]

I might have misunderstood the question, I'll try to explain:

Engines which won't have planned dual-mode will have a replacement like "@PROPELLANT[Oxidizer] {@name=CryoOxidizer}", which will basically make all the non-configged engines be semi-cryo. The tanks will have something like "@RESOURCE[Oxidizer] {@name=CryoOxidizer}", which will make them SemiCryo too. Thus, even without additional configs the engines and tanks will work, but only in semi-cryo mode.

That's how realfuels does it now, and the big problem with it is that if you want any other engine type you have to write configs/bug people on the forum to do it for you. Make a way to have it use something like isp*1.2, thrust*.8 or whatever, the best value for those multipliers could be found by taking it from any balanced config, or many of them, and averaging them.

I don't think there is point in making some engines Cryo, especially low-powered ones.

Wrong! Tweakscale, Procedural Parts, and other odd things like rocket planes, tiny probes, whatever. Add configs for everything, the main problem with RealFuels for me is that it doesn't.

[Niemand303]

That's how realfuels does it now, and the big problem with it is that if you want any other engine type you have to write configs/bug people on the forum to do it for you. Make a way to have it use something like isp*1.2, thrust*.8 or whatever, the best value for those multipliers could be found by taking it from any balanced config, or many of them, and averaging them.

I'm afraid there is no automated to make engines auto-compatible AND to work in different modes, at least without plugins such as RF. Personally, I kinda enjoy making configs, so for me it won't be hard to make configs for the most popular mods (and the ones I usually use).

Wrong! Tweakscale, Procedural Parts, and other odd things like rocket planes, tiny probes, whatever. Add configs for everything, the main problem with RealFuels for me is that it doesn't.

Well, you're right. RF allows more engine modes of operation from the spot. Now that I look, the overall idea of multimode engines using stock parts looks bad, especially regarding that for every engine mod you need to make additional effects module.

I think, a compromise might be possible, if use some criteria to automatically convert engines. Something like this (for stock KSP, of course):

thrust < 201 -> orbital engine, hypergole

200 < thrust < 700 -> upper stage/light lower stage engine, cryo

700 < thrust -> lower stage heavy, semicryo

And, possibly, some additional configs for exceptions (like semicryo R-7 engines, cryo Saturn V etc).

[passinglurker]

is NO2 cryogenic? if not it might be something to re implement plain oxidizer as

[Niemand303]

is NO2 cryogenic? if not it might be something to re implement plain oxidizer as

It's not cryogenic, as I remember, and, besides, I want to have something abstract, I currently think not replacing oxidizer with COx and just add those 3 resources, boil-off mechanics and switch some of the engines to HF/HOx and CF/Ox.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey for my KSPI NF Integration mod I'm looking a fuel mod that is in between RealFuel and CRP , meaning I want some realistic often used fuel types and the simplity of CRP. You mod looks promising

Well, I'm afraid it till disappoint you, since my mod will use some "averaged" abstractions and will be merely a bunch of MM configs (I have no programming skills, unfortunately).

For having SEVERAL real fuels I'd suggest one or another implementation of NearFuels:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107735

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92642

[wasmic]

Really great idea! I was thinking about something like this myself (even the name CryoFuel)

I think the main drawback of CryoFuel shouldn't be that it's expensive, but rather that it takes up a lot of space. Thus, you'd need bigger tanks (which are expensive and heavy). This would also allow us to build Ariane V and Shuttle style rockets, without getting a really small core tank or a way overpowered rocket.

[Niemand303]

Really great idea! I was thinking about something like this myself (even the name CryoFuel)

I think the main drawback of CryoFuel shouldn't be that it's expensive, but rather that it takes up a lot of space. Thus, you'd need bigger tanks (which are expensive and heavy). This would also allow us to build Ariane V and Shuttle style rockets, without getting a really small core tank or a way overpowered rocket.

Thanks! But still I really don't know what to do with the engines, the most comfortable solution is to make them single mode, it'll be easy to write configs (like LV-T30 as Hypergolic, LV-T45 as semi-cryo, since they're all look-alike).

Probably, I'd stick with making some additional engines, but I'm really bad at modelling.

[wasmic]

Thanks! But still I really don't know what to do with the engines, the most comfortable solution is to make them single mode, it'll be easy to write configs (like LV-T30 as Hypergolic, LV-T45 as semi-cryo, since they're all look-alike).

Probably, I'd stick with making some additional engines, but I'm really bad at modelling.

Ha, me to. I really want to get into modeling, but my motivation is lacking so I don't get to improve my modeling, which causes my motivation to drop...

An alternative solution to multi-mode engines would be to add some extra .cfg files to the download. Thus, all the engines in their current forms would still be available, and alternate fuel engines would too. Some engines shouldn't have every kind of fuel type, of course - the 48-7S wouldn't have a hypergolic variant, and the same with the Poodle. The Mainsail would not have any variants, and the Skipper would have a cryox variant in addition to the stock liquox version.

[Captain Sierra]

So I just found this and am reading through the OP concepts. Some thoughts just out of my initial opinions.

CryoFuel: CRP currently has LiquidHydrogen and that's used as MPDT/NTR fuel by both Roverdude and Nertea. Its becoming a pretty common standard. If the goal is to do LH2, then you might want to leverage this to maintain inter-mod compatibility whilst still achieving the same end goal.

Oxidizer: Not sure this can represent LOX unless you intend to change the consumption rates of LFO, because currently its most certainly nothing like kerolox. I'd possibly suggest adding LOX as a resource and making stock Oxidizer something hypergolic.

Monoprop: I think its a smart move just leaving this as a hypergolic RCS fuel and not to mess with it. A case here could be made for it being hydrogen peroxide though isntead of hydrazyne, since stock monoprop and EVAprop have been said to be the same thing by the devs (though realistically EVApropellant should be compressed nitrogen or something), and also due to density factors.

HypFuel: This might be a better role for Hydrazyne, which has been used by NASA as an actual primary rocket fuel. Another interesting thought would be to combine this with monoprop, just using the stock resource definitions. Beware that the use of MP rocket engines messes with fuel flow and the use of CrossFeedEnabler may become necessary to prevent wierdness with radial tanks.

I don't want to go off on too much, these are just my thoughts after being presented with your concept. Take it for whatever its worth.

[Niemand303]

Ha, me to. I really want to get into modeling, but my motivation is lacking so I don't get to improve my modeling, which causes my motivation to drop...

An alternative solution to multi-mode engines would be to add some extra .cfg files to the download. Thus, all the engines in their current forms would still be available, and alternate fuel engines would too. Some engines shouldn't have every kind of fuel type, of course - the 48-7S wouldn't have a hypergolic variant, and the same with the Poodle. The Mainsail would not have any variants, and the Skipper would have a cryox variant in addition to the stock liquox version.

That will force to make every one engine it's own config, which is definitely no good. But having alternative setups will be good.

So I just found this and am reading through the OP concepts. Some thoughts just out of my initial opinions.

CryoFuel: CRP currently has LiquidHydrogen and that's used as MPDT/NTR fuel by both Roverdude and Nertea. Its becoming a pretty common standard. If the goal is to do LH2, then you might want to leverage this to maintain inter-mod compatibility whilst still achieving the same end goal.

Oxidizer: Not sure this can represent LOX unless you intend to change the consumption rates of LFO, because currently its most certainly nothing like kerolox. I'd possibly suggest adding LOX as a resource and making stock Oxidizer something hypergolic.

Monoprop: I think its a smart move just leaving this as a hypergolic RCS fuel and not to mess with it. A case here could be made for it being hydrogen peroxide though isntead of hydrazyne, since stock monoprop and EVAprop have been said to be the same thing by the devs (though realistically EVApropellant should be compressed nitrogen or something), and also due to density factors.

HypFuel: This might be a better role for Hydrazyne, which has been used by NASA as an actual primary rocket fuel. Another interesting thought would be to combine this with monoprop, just using the stock resource definitions. Beware that the use of MP rocket engines messes with fuel flow and the use of CrossFeedEnabler may become necessary to prevent wierdness with radial tanks.

I don't want to go off on too much, these are just my thoughts after being presented with your concept. Take it for whatever its worth.

On density: the density of other fuels will be based on assuming LF is Kerosene, while CRP/RF propellants have other densities of their own. Making it a RF branch would be possible, but it'll remove all the differences with RF Stockalike Configs or NEAR Fuels. I wanted to make something stock-ish.

On the fuel choice: about LOx/HOx choice -- here there are the reasons why LF/Ox will better represent kerolox: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107735-WIP-NearFuels-%28Design-Stage%29?p=1694443&viewfull=1#post1694443

On the Hypergolic fuels: UDMH/NTO are far more common as hypergolic propellants, that's why it would "fit" more different designs.

[billbobjebkirk]

You mean i'm going to have to delay my new save AGAIN??

But seriously, how long do you think this will take to develop? I want it.

[saabstory88]

If you want to avoid using RealFuels code, feel free to pull and improve any of the stuff I was working on from my old mod (link in sig). It is a much more basic and un-sophisticated implementation of boil-off which may be more to your liking. The other thing that may work for you is forcing fuel type by tech node, although maybe not, again, your call. If you want to use any of these old configs, a simple copy and replace of your new fuel types should do the trick. I'm really happy there are people starting to run with this idea though!

[Niemand303]

You mean i'm going to have to delay my new save AGAIN??

But seriously, how long do you think this will take to develop? I want it.

Currently, I'm finishing the stock engine balancing and soon be ready to present a proof-of-concept version for testing. Also, I must admit that I might want to implement some things which will make the creation of first version longer.

If you want to avoid using RealFuels code, feel free to pull and improve any of the stuff I was working on from my old mod (link in sig). It is a much more basic and un-sophisticated implementation of boil-off which may be more to your liking. The other thing that may work for you is forcing fuel type by tech node, although maybe not, again, your call. If you want to use any of these old configs, a simple copy and replace of your new fuel types should do the trick. I'm really happy there are people starting to run with this idea though!

Thanks! Your boil-off plugin is really awesome! It will make those mechanics more realistic than I currently have.

For the tech node limiting of the fuels, that would be awesome, but I have very little idea how to do it. I'll be checking your configs to learn how to do it.

[Niemand303]

Aaaaand, here goes the first "proof-of-concept" version of MicroFuels:

https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/541/MicroFuels

Mods supported:

Tantares/TantaresLV

SpaceY

[Beale]

Aaaaand, here goes the first "proof-of-concept" version of MicroFuels:

https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/541/MicroFuels

Mods supported:

Tantares/TantaresLV

SpaceY

I will try this right-now!

It's great idea, I like more diversity in the fuels, but even Near Fuels I kinda consider a little too "hardcore".

I only have gripe with the naming (But, hell, I am the worst person to talk about English)

LiquidFuel, CryoFuel: I feel they flow from the tongue nicely

HypFuel, not so much, maybe some thing like HypergolFuel? (Which according to wikipedia is an accepted term for hypergolic).

This is the weirdest nitpick I can say, and would not stop me using this (Not at all).

And thanks for Tantares support!

Edited January 27, 2015 by Beale

[Niemand303]

I will try this right-now!

It's great idea, I like more diversity in the fuels, but even Near Fuels I kinda consider a little too "hardcore".

I only have gripe with the naming (But, hell, I am the worst person to talk about English)

LiquidFuel, CryoFuel: I feel they flow from the tongue nicely

HypFuel, not so much, maybe some thing like HypergolFuel? (Which according to wikipedia is an accepted term for hypergolic).

This is the weirdest nitpick I can say, and would not stop me using this (Not at all).

And thanks for Tantares support!

Thanks! I think I've just spotted a very weird bug: for no reasons the ratio for hydrolox doesn't work at all, I'm investigating what is wrong.

And for the names, I think they could be changed too.

[billbobjebkirk]

Any news? Did you figure out the fuel ratios?

[Niemand303]

Any news? Did you figure out the fuel ratios?

Still no, I've been busy with Tantares and RL stuff for a while, but until any solution found I'd recommend using EngineerRedux, since it shows fuel mixtures for the engines.

[billbobjebkirk]

Could this possibly be incorporated as a complement to Road To Kosmos?

[Niemand303]

Could this possibly be incorporated as a complement to Road To Kosmos?

I'd prefer for it to stay a separate mod, but since both are aiming in their balance on stock Kerbin system they should work together fine. About new versions: I'll wait for 1.0 for its fuel mechanics. So, RtK dev only right now (still lots of trouble with the tech tree).

[Starbuckminsterfullerton]

Just found this, you've done fuel almost exactly the way I would have! I'm glad someone else thought of just splitting liquidfuel into kerosene and LH2. I would like to suggest that you consider NearFuture compatibility; NFT's LiquidHydrogen resource is already the standard for most mods using LH2, so I'd say either add an MM config that changes and LiquidHydrogen resources to CryoFuel, or just start using LiquidHydrogen instead. (And maybe rename liquidfuel to kerosene for consistency)

Oh, and KW should probably be on the list to get compatibility too. Excited to see where this goes!

[Dr. Jet]

Your idea is very nice, but...

1) Stock "Oxidizer" is not LOX.

Why?

Let's just sum up some known facts.

It is used along with stock "Liquid fuel" which is almost undoubtely a replica of RT-1 (Kerosene). KeroLOX is OK, but is not the only available Kerosene-based mix.

It is available at the lowest tech level (Kerbin 1940-s or 1950-s). LOX was used at earliest german rockets, but there were lots of tries to replace it with something less cryogenic and more manageable at 50-s. Nitric acid, dinitrogen tetroxide, dioxygen difluoride, etc.

It lets multiple ignitions on ANY engines - even the most primitive ones. IIRC KeroLOX requires additional ignition systems to do that.

It can stay in tanks for YEARS - even under the burning rays of Kerbol at Moho orbit. LOX is cryogenic and thus not very storageable.

Not a single LifeSupport mod treat it as a source of breathable oxygen. So it's NOT an oxygen, right? At least not a pure oxygen...

Summing up the facts above, we can conclude that "Oxidizer" is some kind of hypergolic oxidizer allowing self-ignition rather then LOX. Most probably it's one of many HNO3/N2O4 mixes that were used IRL along with kerosene.

Hydrazine/NTO looks more realistic LFO decifer then Kerosene/NTO, especially in terms of self-ignition. But since both are viable and LF is treated as Kerosene...

On the other hand - you need to make MM configs anyway...

2) Treating monopropellant as hydrazine is plausible (especially concidering N2H4 being the most common monopropellant). But hypergolic N2H4/N2O4 (hydrazine/tetroxide) mix in this case will look like "Monopropellant/Oxidizer" and that's just ODD. Maybe an MM patch replacing all parts "Monoropellant" with "Hydrazine"?

3) Methane is a must for any ISRU mods support. It's a byproduct of Sabatier process (both life support oxygen regeneration and ISRU fuel production) and also was and is concidered as an alternative fuel for real nuclear drive projects, providing better thrust at cost of lower ISP (comparing to liquid hydrogen) while not being as highly cryogenic.

So... we should have such fuels and mixes:

Kerosene - for jets and propellers

Kerosene/NTO (skipping the nitric acid part) - robust early/lowtech mix, not messing with cryogenics

Hydrazine/NTO - effective hypergolic mix for both engines and RCS

Hydrazine - monopropellant for RCS and smallest probe engines

Kerosene/LOX - cheap and dense lower stage mix, more efficient than Kerosene/NTO, less expensive and poisonous then Hydrazine/NTO, but needing cryogenic tanks for long term missions

H2/LOX - highly cryogenic mix - either use it as low stage or face severe boiloff

CH4/LOX - not-so-highly cryogenic mix - mostly for ISRU refuelling capability and to utilize LS byproduct

H2 - highly cryogenic nuclear propellant severe boiloff!)

CH4 not-so-highly cryogenic nuclear propellant (less boiloff, more thrust, less ISP)

Xenon - ionic propellant

P.S. CH4/NTO mix is possible but not viable.

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Edited March 25, 2015 by Dr. Jet