Solid Electric
A part pack based around the concept of Electric Solid Propellant - a newly developed technology, where intensity of solid fuel combustion is regulated by electric current.
The pack provides several useful tools for the game and simultaneously gives you an overview of applications of the technology.
- Pulsed plasma drive - the precursor of the technology; a ion drive that uses solid propellant evaporated into ionized gas via electric impulse.
- A disposable RCS thruster block - good for maneuvering station parts for docking; can be easily disposed of when not needed anymore.
- An RCS nanothruster block - for nanosatellites. Electric Solid Propellant RCS is being actively developed for cubesats.
- A "soft landing" booster - facilitating Soyuz style braking just before ground impact; uses a not fully extinguishable formula of ESP.
- A strong, fully throttleable and restartable booster of "size 0" - Especially helpful for "test part at altitude X, speed Y" style contracts.
To read more about the Electric Solid Propellants, click here.
Version 0.1
Experimental release. Parts have pretty much final looks and behaviors; use custom or customized flame effects; most parts also use bump-maps to make them look more detailed. Still, all of them require thorough gameplay balancing. Thrust, delta-V, fuel amount, EC draw, atmospheric curves, specific impulse, part price, science node, unlock cost, part mass, these are all set by hunch and definitely require fine-tuning. That may make some parts way overpowered, and others - useless.
Version 0.2
Landing SRB is now a sturdy, simple landing leg.
Fixed FX on nanoRCS
SRB now takes 3x as much electricity; one 200EC battery is not enough.
Fixed self-destruct text for RCS
Ion engine sucks less, though still sucks.
Subjective opinion: The two RCSes and the SRB already make this mod worth installing. The landing leg is still more of a gimmick, if rather cool-looking (and streamlined!) - I'll get the ion engine balanced eventually; ignore it for now.