"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." ― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
I find it sad that I tweeted at Day9 and Scott Manley while he was streaming, and that Scott Manley was unable to say hello because Day9's chat was sub only. But I think it would've been hilarious.
Honestly, though, I can't think Day9 is as clueless as he sometimes appears to be during his day off streams. Not that he's really putting his all into it (it's a day off). But even I didn't screw up my staging as consistently when I first started
Just started this game and I'm having a whale of a time. Always wanted a game like this that actually took some semblance of science into consideration. Anyone know of a good video resource for learning the more complex parts of the game?
You can search youtube for tutorials on anything specific, but I recommend Scott Manley's videos, since he is an actual astronomer and explains things.
I guess you can already reliably reach orbit. How about landing on Minmus?
Minmus has low gravity, so it seems somewhat more forgiving for landing than the moon.
But my current career save has a Moho transit window opening up soon. I don't have the big Sr. docking ports. I really hope this thing can keep together for a few long burns. It handles okay as long as I leave RCS off. I may need to use lower than max thrust too. But I'm going to try to get my first (successful) interplanetary mission done sometime this week. (I had a probe aimed at Duna but it missed... bloody Ike.)
I did some modding to shake things up for a new sandbox save. Here's a couple of screenies from a Laythe mission (not quite as complicated as one might think) that I flubbed.
Here's the craft on the launchpad. Parts provided by KW rocketry, though you might be more fixated on the fact that Jool is looming over the VAB. That's thanks to Alternis Kerbol, where the solar system is rearranged in a really refreshing way. If I'm not mistaken, the moon high above Jool is the Mün, in orbit around the gas giant. + Show Spoiler +
The dark side of Kerbin. City Lights and Clouds provided by the mod of the same name. Points of interest include Gilly, which Alternis Kerbol has turned into a comet, shining above Kerbin, and the Pleiades in the top left, from Universe Replacer. + Show Spoiler +
The mission itself failed because I forgot to turn the solar panels towards the sun before speeding up time. The flyby looked nice, though. + Show Spoiler +
And here's Kerbin and Laythe, from the atmosphere of Jool after the craft had burned up in it. + Show Spoiler +
Interesting (and pretty) mods - although I'm still working through plain stock KSP, those are pretty nifty. City Lights and Clouds doesn't happen to drop citys on anomalies, does it?
On January 02 2014 06:44 Ljas wrote: The lights are just a texture that disappears when you're low enough.
Be handy for getting a general location, though.
Half the time I can't even figure out where KSP is without leaving a ship or flag in reasonably close proximity. Hmm. Maybe I need to check for overlay map mods that hopefully aren't too spoilery about any anomolies and landmarks to survive the great re-surfacing of the planet.
Not sure about the copyright on the map data (I think it's a product of the software package he's using to drive the maps) but it's not quite a Google Earth of the entire system. Handy. (And I can choose to look at or not look at spoilery layers.)
Sooooo... I was building my giant rocket of doom. It consists of three sections thus far, and I have a lander I plan on tacking on at the top using the available docking port.
There's just one problem... potentially duplicated slightly on the engine section as well, but far less wrong. + Show Spoiler +
Yes, that's right. My "command module" docking at the top of the stack does not line up with the portions below. There are four big docking ports, and hidden in the middle is one regular docking port. I was trying to use the middle docking port to line up the others, but the big one on the corner is the only one that appears to have correctly connected, and the other three are apparently short. (No clue on the central port - I'm assuming it's also off by either location or more likely distance.)
Should I be very worried about this if I attempt to go interstellar? Or even to the Mun/Minmus? The rear section has 16 nuke engines, but every fuel tank is full. I'm not sure if all four big docking ports connected on the engine section - only one port shows "undock" but all four are (correctly, I think) lined up.
This is my first "large orbital construction" ship, so I'd be interested in knowing if this is still feasible to take out to say, Duna.
Short version - In pieces. Launched the middle (main fuel tanks) in one shot. The lower engine section (grey tanks and nuke engines) were a second launch. (Well, 4th or 5th, actually. It took a few tries to get the launch vehicle to chuck it into orbit (dem nukes HEAVY mon), and on the first pass I ran out of RCS fuel while trying to line it all up to dock.
The top command section was the easiest to get into orbit - hell, it's got a TWR over 1.5 on Kerbin and can double as a bad excuse for a lander. I already had a lifter that could tote it up.
Will post pictures of launch vehicles with payload tomorrow - KSP just crashed out on me after a long flight for my unsuccessful space plane just as I was "landing".
Edited:
Here's an imgur gallery of a successful launch of the main section. The other sections are launched similarly, although this particular launch was done as a demonstration, so it's all kinds of eccentric as hell.
Now for the fun part. When thrust was applied from the engines, the whole thing broke apart. One of the upper parts of the middle fuel section was torn clean off, with the RCS tank separating from the orange tank. It stayed attached to the upper "command" section. The very top lander stage stayed docked to the command section, and other than a nasty tumble, stayed intact. The engine section stayed mostly together, just ripping the four lower docking ports off the orange tanks. Something wonky happened here, as it took me several tries to take control of the engine section and manage to first cut thrust, then maneuver it for a sad faced deorbit burn and fiery death. After that, I was able to kill the middle tanks' roll, and stabilize the surviving command section. All Kerbals are accounted for and fine, but we're working on how we can save Jeb. Jeb is stuck in the cupola module, which is not designed for Kerbin re-entry and landing. Bill and Fred are in the intact lander and can come down any time, but they are keeping Jeb company.
On January 18 2014 06:51 felisconcolori wrote: So this was the whole thing put together in orbit, time-warping towards what I thought would be a nice ejection burn.
Now for the fun part. When thrust was applied from the engines, the whole thing broke apart. One of the upper parts of the middle fuel section was torn clean off, with the RCS tank separating from the orange tank. It stayed attached to the upper "command" section. The very top lander stage stayed docked to the command section, and other than a nasty tumble, stayed intact. The engine section stayed mostly together, just ripping the four lower docking ports off the orange tanks. Something wonky happened here, as it took me several tries to take control of the engine section and manage to first cut thrust, then maneuver it for a sad faced deorbit burn and fiery death. After that, I was able to kill the middle tanks' roll, and stabilize the surviving command section. All Kerbals are accounted for and fine, but we're working on how we can save Jeb. Jeb is stuck in the cupola module, which is not designed for Kerbin re-entry and landing. Bill and Fred are in the intact lander and can come down any time, but they are keeping Jeb company.
On January 18 2014 06:51 felisconcolori wrote: So this was the whole thing put together in orbit, time-warping towards what I thought would be a nice ejection burn.
Now for the fun part. When thrust was applied from the engines, the whole thing broke apart. One of the upper parts of the middle fuel section was torn clean off, with the RCS tank separating from the orange tank. It stayed attached to the upper "command" section. The very top lander stage stayed docked to the command section, and other than a nasty tumble, stayed intact. The engine section stayed mostly together, just ripping the four lower docking ports off the orange tanks. Something wonky happened here, as it took me several tries to take control of the engine section and manage to first cut thrust, then maneuver it for a sad faced deorbit burn and fiery death. After that, I was able to kill the middle tanks' roll, and stabilize the surviving command section. All Kerbals are accounted for and fine, but we're working on how we can save Jeb. Jeb is stuck in the cupola module, which is not designed for Kerbin re-entry and landing. Bill and Fred are in the intact lander and can come down any time, but they are keeping Jeb company.
Fuck bill out the craft, bring Jeb home : D
I'm happy to report that, after botching an attempted docking with the remaining command structure, Jeb said screw this and EVA'd to the rescue craft. It then successfully deorbited and, despite wildly spinning on re-entry and the loss of two thirds of the craft on parachute deploy, landed safely in the grasslands of Kerbin. Bill and Fred are now considering an impromptu visit to the Mun before returning themselves.
My current vessel is armed with a thermometer, and will attempt to take a temperature reading of the big white ball in the sky. I'm currently in orbit around Kerbin, but attempting to escape Kerbin is rather difficult.
You see, I am god-awful at docking. So I don't. To reach the sun without sending up pieces in parts, my craft has four Ion engines and 72,000 units of fuel. That's 42 hours of fuel, at .1Gs of thrust. To provide power, 6 Gigantor arrays are on the front of the craft forming a Solar Shield. So, the current plan is escape Kerbin (~4 hours of fuel), point at sun, wait two days, take temperature. If I manage not to crash into the sun or burn up, and can somehow make it back to kerbin, I do have several science-y things to boost my research. Not that I have no idea if the sun gives research for close proximity missions haha. I may try to do a flyby of a planet if I have enough time, fuel isn't really the issue!
EPT
although Day's knowledge about orbits and stuff is a bit *lacking* so i recommend it only for KSP veterans to have a giggle.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pNaSj9J.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QhibJP3.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TyJOJk3.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OuZr9zq.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/l9RZ4m9.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2vyUwz4.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XoBP4xh.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6UFsn7e.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GjqMQT5.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Kh1zC4A.png)
