KSPI-E feels very janky

[DukeDankins]

Interstellar extended feels extremely janky, unpolished, and poorly explained, especially compared to near future. Is this just me, or are you guys also having trouble understanding how it works?

[GeorgieWashWash]

There's a learning curve to it, try watching some youtube vidoes on it. Also understanding how it works IRL helps a little bit too

[Silverygoo]

haven't tried near future but yeah..
i had a rocket with 15k deltaV which costed 1.7M with kspi e (using thermal and the methane combustion things with pebble reactor)
I later retried with stock parts and all the sudden i had a rocket for only 500k that could do the same thing with the same payload. not to mention the fact that it was almost twice as small as well..

the isp on the kspi-e engines are rather low on liquidfuel, hydrogen is high isp but you can fit so little hydrogen in 1 tank you need a tank the size of the VAB to get anywhere close to stock nuclear engines.
hydrogen also takes power to keep cool.

all this hassle for a rocket that's more expensive, has less deltaV and is bigger than needed.
then on top of this you also have to deal with heat.

maybe we're doing it wrong but i have no idea.
at this point i don't see the point in using any of the cool stuff that it adds because the cost and hassle are not worth the deltaV that it provides.

if anyone can explain to me how you're supposed to do it that would be nice.

[MechBFP]

I hate the mod. I tried it multiple times and said screw it after getting annoyed with how incredibly user unfriendly it is.
I get the fact that it is supposed to be real, and I think the mod author did a great job of that, but I honestly can’t see how anyone could find it fun.
Who wants to spend 90% of their time figuring out why the **** things aren’t working (which is what happens 99% of the time when trying to use that mod).

[Gralzeim]

Used to be a bit better (back when the original developer was still working on it), but yeah the Interstellar mod's always been complex and somewhat unintuitive. Though, I do respect the current dev(s) working on it, a mod like that is more complex to update and maintain than it is to play with.

USI Kolonization Systems is also complex and tricky to pick up, but at least it has a robust fairly up-to-date wiki. (Granted, different goal than Interstellar, but it has some similarities, both aim for some ISRU aspects and have additional resources to manage)

[Arya]

I like it. It's imperfect, but it fills a gap and gives me what I want..

NFT is definitely a better mod, it's a much more polished production and much easier to live with. But there are some things it doesn't cover, like legitimate options for rapid interstellar travel. KSPIE isn't the friendliest, but I'd rather struggle with a janky Alcubierre drive than deal with some of the other options out there. Most of other warp drives are just thrusters with their Thrust turned up insanely high, at least this feels... sort of authentic and not like I'm using a dumb cheat code.