KSP Interstellar Extended Beam Power Compendium (part 1)

By popular demand, a super in depth Beam Power tutorial. This will be released in multiple parts because each one will be pretty long. I want to try to be as detailed as possible with describing the different reactors, thermal and electric nozzles and transmitter/receiver/relay types.

Also, I'm learning a lot about how the interstellar extended parts progress through the tech tree. I'll admit, sandbox mode spoiled me!

Time stamps will be in the comments for making navigation easier.

Enjoy and feel free to ask questions, leave comments or offer criticism (constructive or otherwise). Requests for individual parts to cover are always welcome.

Thank you for watching!

@FreeThinker is a legend, find his patreon and give him stuff. (shhh, Don't tell him I told you.)

[PunkWyrks]

Hey guys, wavelength questions come up a lot so I figured I'd sticky this link here for future reference.

It's a chart that plots wavelength vs atmospheric absorption. Super handy!

[leolen]

4 Years later and still the best tutorial for KSPIE out there. You know you've made it when these videos are better than Scott Manley's!

[PunkWyrks]

Episode 10 of project Kerbalshed
Timestamps!
00:00 intro
00:55 tech tree overview
02:24 baby's first beam power transceiver
05:25 build the thing!
07:03 radiator options, submerge those (non-graphene) radiators!
10:00 initial reactor power test
14:42 tritium breeding
17:00 prototype ThF4 thermal rocket
20:00 prototype MSR rocket test
(yes we use liquid fuel for the test but not for the actual flights)
23:00 must go bigger
24:00 went bigger
27:00 power transmitter
31:20 hydrolox from here out
33:25 power transmitter test take one
34:45 power transmitter take two (now with more crossfeed)
35:42 transmitter take three (parachute test?)
37:00 this one should work...
38:30 splashdown!
41:00 n.b. fewer radiators, but still more power because ocean!
49:00 prototype thermal rocket test
52:00 moar powa!
55:45 batteries not included
57:52 moar powa transmittaz! (sorry about the dead air here, meant to dub over this and totally missed it)
01:01:53 one more transmitter on the other side of Kerbin for circularization (since I don't have relays up yet)
01:03:02 Klaus [comm relay] thermal launch vehicle (flies but I used the wrong thing for a microwave relay)
01:09:07 launch the Klaus! remember, this is a good rocket but not a proper relay design.
01:16:46 another Klaus, but with no sound :/
01:23:00 recap
Relays will be Part 2, stay tuned.

[rthegreat]

thank you for doing this im new to the mod and im having difficulties, keep up

[bobbobert]

Ive found that the liquid metal cooled reactor is nice for nuclear powered probes to power electric planes without solar power, such as flying on eve. Best to tweakscale it down for that though

[Yamyatos]

I'm never too sure if there's something i'm missing or if this stuff is just buggy as hell. I cannot seem to get any engine to work with beamed power. The Krusader works with a reactor, but not when i replace that with an inline (or other) receiver/s. I have the termal receiver directly above the engine.. and just for good measure i connect fuel lines to it as well. The receiver tells me it has like 150MW of power available, and the current usage goes up or down when i scale the thrust accordingly. The engine tells me Prop. Requirements Met 100%, Specific Impulse this and that, Status Nominal.. the engine just does absolutely nothing. Any idea? I'm totally lost here. It's so hard to find information on this stuff.. like it's probably something like i'm missing power or connected stuff in the wrong order, but i just dont know anymore.

If anybody has any clue what's wrong, i'd be super grateful.

[djdrack]

So I have interstellar extended AND Planetary Bases (Inc) installed as community mods.
It is installed in the correct directory (I'm getting the mods in creative mode), but I don't seem to see the additions to the R&D tree. Any idea what might be going wrong ?
Thanks

[scrublord]

Hey! Ive really been struggling to get the beamed power to work, Im in science mode and I cannot get the transducer to produce more than 14MW of power no matter what reactor I use, do you know what the minimums to make a beamed powered ship to produce thrust is for both parts and power?

[Ares]

Hello, I have been trying to learn from your videos so I can get more enjoyment out of KSPIE, do you have any mods that are effecting your energy output? When trying to follow along with your build, at the 18:07 point, I noticed that where your "Power Output Mk2" is 675 Megajoules, mine is 6.75 Megajoules. Items are scaled to 2.5m for me as well, any suggestions?

[John_Gillman]

can you do a tutorial about how to use the power and if you even need it?

[hechtic]

Thanks for this. Super helpful. Questions: 1) What is the difference between the microwave bands? 2) I've tried to recreate the Micowave Tranceiver Rocket as much as possible and can only generate about 50 mW, so clearly I'm not doing something right. I have several Near Future mods installed (Spacecraft, Exploration, Propulsion, Construction, Solar Core, Electrical) but not Near Future Technology. Could this be the problem?

[SainnQ]

Man they must've nerfed the hell out of Reactor power generation since I last played, you can't get Multi-GW systems up without access to Antimatter Reactors