Searched around and didn't find another thread about this, but I think TL would definitely enjoy it.
Kerbal Space Program, found at http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ is currently an indie game in alpha development, in which you run a fictional space agency. You build, launch, and pilot your very own rockets. The game realistically models gravity, inertia, thrust, torque and air resistance (Though rockets re-entering the atmosphere don't burn up yet, its planned for later versions however) It's free to DL and play.
Here's a few videos to showcase some of the most fun moments:
A zany failure:
Another zany failure::
Here's a successful launch, with insertion into Kearth orbit, to show that the game isn't just Crashes: the Simulation:
I made a ship that did really well, but i couldnt get the damn radial coupling to seperate at the right time so didnt get high enough. Rest have been failures lol.
Getting into space is actually really easy ^^ Put a tri-splitter thing and stack 3 fuels tanks on each arm and then engines under those, attach a SAS module and just auto-cruise into outer space.
I made a ship that did really well, but i couldnt get the damn radial coupling to seperate at the right time so didnt get high enough. Rest have been failures lol.
Its not all that easy though, you need to be very VERY careful with your velocity once you're near your target altitude. Just 20m/s too slow, and you de-orbit, 20m/s too fast, and your orbit will become more and more elliptical, until you either clip the atmosphere and re-enter, or hit escape velocity, and drift in space forever.
https://gist.github.com/1075144 I didn't make this, but its a reference chart so you can know what speed you need to maintain your orbit. Also, the atmosphere ends abruptly at 34,500m, meaning only the orbits from 35k and up are viable.
On July 17 2011 21:37 Zilver wrote: Getting into space is actually really easy ^^ Put a tri-splitter thing and stack 3 fuels tanks on each arm and then engines under those, attach a SAS module and just auto-cruise into outer space.
While getting to space is easy, doing anything interesting while you're there is not. I'm currently trying to place a satellite into orbit, and leave it there, while bringing my Kerbals home.
On July 18 2011 10:56 Flingoko wrote: Found the game on TL this morning, only played it today.... SOOO nice got to 50 million meters altitude before i aborted mission o.0
Height is not a good way to measure how well your ship worked, since if you hit escape velocity, and wait long enough, any arbitrary height can be reached. A better measure is velocity, though that depends on piloting skills as well as on rocket design. Another measure of quality could be amount of mass a rocket can place into a circular orbit.
On July 18 2011 13:23 UniversalSnip wrote: one question before I decide whether to download this: can you crash your ship into the sun?
Not yet. Right now the sun is just an image in the skybox. An entire solar system, with moons, planets, and the sun, is planned however, and will likely be in an updated version in the near future.
The game is still plenty of fun without that, though.
I'm trying it out now. Definitely a fun game, and thank you OP, for making me occupy myself with this the rest of the day. Surprisingly, it's pretty demanding and shot up my temperatures quite high. To low graphics I go.
Game is all out awesome, you can find links to some additional parts on their site as well which are kinda sweet. Managed to stay in orbit for 30 mins this morning with my basic craft. My goal now is to reach EV with 2 stages and still have a stage + SRF boosters to make a return lol. Awesome game though!
just spent like 2 hours on this! amazing! i made it to 555,000 Meters in about 11 mins, top speed was like 2700 m/s, and i could have kept going for quite awhile i think, i was still at roughly 1300 m/s when i exited. Go try this out people. its great!
Currently at 3030 Km above ground, going at 898m/s. Speed is decreasing though, so I guess I didn't get far enough early. Top speed was 2700m/s or such.
On July 18 2011 18:52 Tobberoth wrote: Currently at 3030 Km above ground, going at 898m/s. Speed is decreasing though, so I guess I didn't get far enough early. Top speed was 2700m/s or such.
No, you got going fast enough. I usually figure that if I'm over 1000Km that I hit escape velocity somewhere along the way. Just because your speed is decreasing doesn't mean you will come back down. Once you hit escape velocity, you will still decelerate from gravity, but you are moving away fast enough that gravity weakens faster than it can slow you down.
On July 19 2011 03:38 TerraTron wrote: I'm so bad at this game, probably going to have to actually read the tutorial necause my rocket keeps overheating
Are you using liquid or solid rockets? I've never had a solid rocket overheat to the point of failure before, so you shouldn't worry about those. With liquid rockets, you do need to worry, but you can just lower your throttle if it gets too hot.
When you're building, pay close attention to where the exhaust from each rocket goes. If engines higher up the stack are firing, the exhaust will heat up the lower parts, especially if those higher engines are SRB's.
On July 19 2011 04:07 LanTAs wrote: YESSSS!!!! I BROKE 1KM!
Btw how far do you have to go to get out of earth's gravity?
Just like in real life, you're never truly out. If you hit escape velocity though, you are going quick enough for gravity to be unable to stop you. It will still slow you down, but you won't stop, no matter how long you wait.
Escape velocity varies based on altitude, but a chart listing escape velocities for different altitudes can be found here.
Vesc is the escape velocity for a given altitude, and assumes that your velocity is entirely vertical. Vcirc is the velocity needed to maintain a circular orbit at a given altitude, and assumes that your velocity is entirely horizontal.
Both of these are pretty much impossible to hit below 35Km, since the atmosphere doesn't end until 34.5Km
On July 19 2011 04:07 LanTAs wrote: Edit: broke 2,700,000M, holy crap, still there is gravity but its way less =0
Oh, yeah, you hit escape velocity. I always figure that if I get over 1,000,000m that I hit Vesc somewhere along the way.
Can anyone recommend any addons (there's a section on their forums for user-created mods/addons) that are high-quality and reasonable additions? I saw some pictures with some nice nose cones that I couldn't find; anything along those lines like more engines, wings, and cones that are not purposely made goofy or overpowered.
Having so much fun with this. It's very difficult I find to make something larger without heavy use of the symmetry settings, because lining things up perfectly by hand is tedious and without abuse of the SAS modules very small misalignments actually make a huge difference.
On July 19 2011 19:13 YourMom wrote: Escape velocity is around 3.500m/s.
Escape velocity varies based on your altitude. I posted a chart with different escape velocities, as well as orbital velocities earlier in the thread.
On July 19 2011 16:56 LanTAs wrote: 75,000M+2300m/s is the sweet spot where you get orbit!
You can orbit at any altitude over 34.5Km, though lower orbits require higher velocities.
On July 19 2011 22:44 Duka08 wrote: Can anyone recommend any addons (there's a section on their forums for user-created mods/addons) that are high-quality and reasonable additions? I saw some pictures with some nice nose cones that I couldn't find; anything along those lines like more engines, wings, and cones that are not purposely made goofy or overpowered.
Having so much fun with this. It's very difficult I find to make something larger without heavy use of the symmetry settings, because lining things up perfectly by hand is tedious and without abuse of the SAS modules very small misalignments actually make a huge difference.
Sunday Punch's pack is the one with the nosecones, and its an all-round great pack. The site seems to be down again, so I can't get a link for you, but I'll try to later.
Edit: Heres the link to that mod pack I mentioned.
On July 19 2011 22:44 Duka08 wrote: Can anyone recommend any addons (there's a section on their forums for user-created mods/addons) that are high-quality and reasonable additions? I saw some pictures with some nice nose cones that I couldn't find; anything along those lines like more engines, wings, and cones that are not purposely made goofy or overpowered.
Having so much fun with this. It's very difficult I find to make something larger without heavy use of the symmetry settings, because lining things up perfectly by hand is tedious and without abuse of the SAS modules very small misalignments actually make a huge difference.
Sunday Punch's pack is the one with the nosecones, and its an all-round great pack. The site seems to be down again, so I can't get a link for you, but I'll try to later.
Edit: Heres the link to that mod pack I mentioned.
Man this mod pack is effing fantastic! so many more possibilities, really enjoying this game.
A friend in EVE-o linked a video of this to a friend of mine, while he was at my house. First time even hearing of the game, and it was 15 minutes of geeky physics hilarity. Neither of us could breathe.
We're now taking it in turns to break eachothers' upward speed record. Mine's about 3700, and his, (the bastard) is 4645. It's a cheap two-stage piece of crap, too, and it's still ungodly fast. D:<
I also like getting one liquid engine with one fuel cell to float gently across the land, nose-up, nearly brushing the floor. It's a pain in the rear.
Anyone know how to work the WASD controls? They always point in funky directions for me.
The controls are best used with the navball. W points the nose down, S points it up, A points left, and D points right. The problems arise when the rocket rotates. If the rocket rotates 90 degrees clockwise, W is no longer down, but rather right.
I also think now would be a good time to remind everyone in the thread that version 0.9 is out, and added some pretty important features, including struts and an improved staging system.
Glad TL hasn't forgotten about this. The next version, version 0.13 is going to be the last free version, and will be mostly an under-the-hood patch, improving load times and such. It's also adding fuel lines, which will allow external and jettisonable fuel tanks. Last, its improving the time-warp feature, so you can now warp if you've landed, so you can wait for your launch window of choice.
Version 0.13 will always be free, and if you pre-order now, you get all future versions as well.
Don't mean to sound like I'm advertising; I'm not affiliated with KSP in any way, I just love the game and don't want TL to miss out.
Just did my first orbit. Really fun game. I have yet to try out any of the mods yet, but I think I'm gonna try to do a moon-landing before I do.
I think that the upcoming introduction of fuel lines will make a massive difference to the design and performance of the vessels. Not having to stack fuel tanks in a linear fashion makes so much more sense.
On December 06 2011 23:39 jtype wrote: Just did my first orbit. Really fun game. I have yet to try out any of the mods yet, but I think I'm gonna try to do a moon-landing before I do.
I think that the upcoming introduction of fuel lines will make a massive difference to the design and performance of the vessels. Not having to stack fuel tanks in a linear fashion makes so much more sense.
The mods are just additional parts, since the default ones are lacking some important features; like different-sized engines, tanks, and such.
This game is really funny. It's the next minecraft if you will. The next version will have docking so now you can re-do the Apollo missions with some mods on the forums, even cars can be driven on the moon!
So I got this game on steam. I've started to work through the weekly challenges, and I just finished rendezvous. I decided to use the same rocket for the Minmus challenge, as it had enough fuel when I got in orbit. I loaded it up, launched it, and set a course for Minmus.
When I enter orbit (Minmus really has next to no gravity) I realize something.
I forgot to put landing gear on my final stage :|
Unwilling to abort the mission and find another Minmus trajectory, I decided that I should just go down until I see my shadow and fly back to Kerbal. As I'm coming in, I make the decision that my rocket nozzle might have enough surface area to land the craft, even though I decided to land in the mountainous area. Negating all horizontal velocity is a bit difficult, so I'm moving slightly as I touch down. I start to tip over, so I abort that landing and go up a bit to try again. I do my best to keep retrograde directly up, approach at under 1 m/s, and touch down. It wobbles a bit, then stabilizes. Success! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=133793704
I've only had this game for a day and I love it. Its not for everyone though. Its actually a bit hard to control everything until you practice a bit, the game doesn't baby you. There are some good videos here that teach a bunch of different topics.
Got the game on Steam now too and already have been playing for 20 hours in the past days, despite the game not having any goals (yet) apart from the ones you set for yourself.
So far I had limited success on my first goal -> Land Kerbals on the Mün.
I refuse to read up too much or copy someone elses design, so it might still take a little while longer. The first tries I even had trouble leaving the atmosphere. After a few more tries I was able to reach the Mün, but landing was still unsuccessful, as often times I would come down to fast.
My last try everything broke apart, but the command module was still intact... so now I have 3 Kerbals on the Mün, with no way to return, unless I start a rescue mission.
I wonder if I can send an unmanned probe with decoupleable command module+rocked, so they can enter that and fly back. I don't really want to have more of them stuck on there...
I hope, now that they pre-released the game on steam, they'll be a bit more frequent with updates and content.
Here's a video of one of my first (unsuccessful) attempts: + Show Spoiler +
I know I'm not being very efficient going straight up into orbit. Some noteworthy marks: 0:00 Start 3:25 Going into Kerbin orbit 7:15 Leaving orbit and aim for the Mün 12:15 Preparing landing attempt 13:50 Incoming crash
Been starting to play it again recently and it's so much fun now, especially if you read up on some of the basics in rocket science so you can do shit properly instead of just dicking around.
Just did my first successful Asparagus launch, that's downright ridiculous. I usually only have 2 stages, forcing me to use quite a bit of fuel from my last stage to get a proper orbit. With this asparagus launch, I had enough fuel before going INTO stage 2 to not only achieve orbit, but also start me on my way to mun. I was able to fly to the moon, get into orbit and fly back before even separating to my last stage. Seems good enough to be an exploit.
On March 26 2013 23:30 PandaCore wrote: Got the game on Steam now too and already have been playing for 20 hours in the past days, despite the game not having any goals (yet) apart from the ones you set for yourself.
So far I had limited success on my first goal -> Land Kerbals on the Mün.
I refuse to read up too much or copy someone elses design, so it might still take a little while longer. The first tries I even had trouble leaving the atmosphere. After a few more tries I was able to reach the Mün, but landing was still unsuccessful, as often times I would come down to fast.
My last try everything broke apart, but the command module was still intact... so now I have 3 Kerbals on the Mün, with no way to return, unless I start a rescue mission.
I wonder if I can send an unmanned probe with decoupleable command module+rocked, so they can enter that and fly back. I don't really want to have more of them stuck on there...
I hope, now that they pre-released the game on steam, they'll be a bit more frequent with updates and content.
Here's a video of one of my first (unsuccessful) attempts: + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZRrOsd3dH0
I know I'm not being very efficient going straight up into orbit. Some noteworthy marks: 0:00 Start 3:25 Going into Kerbin orbit 7:15 Leaving orbit and aim for the Mün 12:15 Preparing landing attempt 13:50 Incoming crash
When you do an unmanned probe, make sure you have electricity generation or you will be unable to control your probe. I lost one on the way to minimus :s
Spent the whole evening trying to land a beacon pillar with a satellite core on the Mün. Finally got it down with a wobbly finish. I attached a little plate with thrusters and a few RCS on the top that would be decoupled later. While touching down I overthrusted and went spinning. Managed to catch it again and somehow touched down, before all my fuel was gone and it didn't fall over again.
Deorbiting Kerbin towards the Mün
The first tries I was short on fuel, that's why I added a rather oversized tank/engine construct. You can see the beacon in the middle. The rockets on the side are detached later at arrival on the Mün and after using their last bits of fuel to decelerate the descent. On the top is the plate with 4 small thrusters (the ones that look like fire extinguishers), 4 RCS, fuel tanks and a SAS module for stabilizing.
The final result, the beacon in position:
On the bottom left corner you can see the remains of the landing plate. Right besides the staging indicator.
It's not really a big accomplishment I guess, but it still feels pretty awesome :D
In the long run I want to try and get a Mün-Station up and running, but we'll see what'll come of that. Right now I still lack the skill to get things safely exactly where I want them.
I'm currently in the process of building an orbital moon station. Slowly getting the hang of orbiting close to the station and docking the extension parts to it.
The core module with solar panels, safely in Mün's orbit
Docked the first extension part. Also a nice view in this one, seeing the Mün and the home planet Kerbin.
The next extension part would be a set of living quarters, already attached
In the process of attaching the second set of living quarters. Man, docking is hard and tedious.
The second set safely docked to the station. In the background you can still see the debris of the thrusters that brought it into space.
I bought it right before the moon update, haven't played it for a while but now i want to build a space station :D. Awesome little game if you are into astronomy/rockets :D.
Thanks for bumping the thread at the right time, when I was actually trying just to get tired and fall asleep. I ended up purchasing the game after 1h with the demo and played ~35h since saturday...^^
To anyone who isn't playing yet: If you like games that let you run into a brick wall at first, this is certainly a good one and there are lots of very good tutorials on youtube (search scott manley)
0.20 is out, memory usage has finally been fixed and some added features for convenience. Also, new parts, like a giant docking port to create more stable connections. I got around to create this really efficient (considering my first attempts) mission to Tylo. + Show Spoiler [images] +
I'm glad this thread I made is still going strong!
Currently, I'm working on a base on Minmus. Still in the planning stages though, so no pics just yet . In a previous version, I constructed a base in orbit, then landed it in one piece. But that had its own problems. Once on the ground, there was no way to add to it, so now I'm looking into terrestrial modular construction. Quite a challenge.
Just discovered this at the last steam sale. Actually missed the discount but my damn friends picked it up and just talked about it all day so I bought it. Absolutely worth full price if you're into physics games.
On July 21 2013 11:45 AndyJay wrote: Just discovered this at the last steam sale. Actually missed the discount but my damn friends picked it up and just talked about it all day so I bought it. Absolutely worth full price if you're into physics games.
>< It's going on sale again tomorrow.... You shoulda waited lol. Regardless yeah it's an absolute blast, even if you aren't big into physics games imo. Personally I have an outrageous amount of fun just trying to see how many gigantic rockets I can strap together and still get into orbit.
I got the game on sale. So far I've landed (read: crashed and stranded) two kerbals on the moon, and am currently attempting to dock two rockets in orbit with minimal success. It's a fantastic game in its unfinished state. I only wish the part placement was a little easier.
Completely agree with you about placing parts it can be very frustrating but otherwise it's a wonderful game that is constantly getting even better. It also has great mods especially mechjeb oncz you know how to do basic stuff. If you're interested in the game the subreddit r/kerbalspacepeogeam is a great place for anything ksp related the community is really friendly to newcomers
Patch 0.21 is out! First step toward career mode with the new Astronaut Complex where you can hire the Kerbals for your suicide missions now. Also, look at the pretty new Mün: + Show Spoiler +
I finally managed to make a rocket with enough fuel and maneuverability to get my lander to Mun and naturally I screw up the descent and crash
E: my second attempt accidentally had too much fuel, and also overshot Mun so i slingshotted towards the inside of the solar system. Luckily we are on an intercept course now with Eve. this will go well i can feel it
On July 31 2013 17:58 Blazinghand wrote: I finally managed to make a rocket with enough fuel and maneuverability to get my lander to Mun and naturally I screw up the descent and crash
E: my second attempt accidentally had too much fuel, and also overshot Mun so i slingshotted towards the inside of the solar system. Luckily we are on an intercept course now with Eve. this will go well i can feel it
Sounds like a mission worthy for Kerbals. Aim for the Mun, land on crash into Eve
I haven't played the game seriously in a while, just playing around and building stupid rockets/planes. But every update breathes new life into it for a while. Seriously looking forward to more future updates and how things will evolve.
The mission controller mod was quite fun to play around. I never really tried to build rockets that were efficient, but having a tight budget really makes you think about adding more parts to the rocket and you'll end up reaching your target with the bare minimum. It's also so satisfying to achieve your goal with little room for error.
So can't wait for the real carreer mode to be added the game.
Despite not having a parachute, and despite this being only my second lander attempt, and my first spacecraft out of Kerbal orbit, I safelyproperly technically landed the rover on the surface of Eve!
And by "rover" of course I mean "stationary science station that doesn't move"
It's not much, but I'll take it.
It was actually coming down pretty straight until the rocket I was using to descend (which had safely brought me from Kerbal to Eve in the first place) ran out of fuel. I had to use the skycrane for the last bit and boy was that a fiasco
E: oh man only one of the upwards-facing solar panels is functioning
Sky cranes can be really fiddly, saw on page 3 there are still pictures of my Mün beacon. I tried to land that one with a sky crane as well and it went spinning out of control several times. After 3-4 tries amazingly enough it somehow remained standing.
Hilarious result for your rover mission though, this game is just so amazingly fun. When I get home from work I'll try to get a rover mission done as well. Any ideas for targets?
Reminds me of my Duna mission a while back, the landing (thanks to parachute) was quite easy. The problem is that I don't have enough fuel to fly back. He's still quite happy though: + Show Spoiler +
On July 31 2013 19:44 PandaCore wrote: Sky cranes can be really fiddly, saw on page 3 there are still pictures of my Mün beacon. I tried to land that one with a sky crane as well and it went spinning out of control several times. After 3-4 tries amazingly enough it somehow remained standing.
Hilarious result for your rover mission though, this game is just so amazingly fun. When I get home from work I'll try to get a rover mission done as well. Any ideas for targets?
Reminds me of my Duna mission a while back, the landing (thanks to parachute) was quite easy. The problem is that I don't have enough fuel to fly back. He's still quite happy though: + Show Spoiler +
The best part is the last panel implies that there were three kerbals in the command pod, so nobody was gonna get rescued anyways.
On August 01 2013 01:12 stormtemplar wrote: Can someone link me to a guide on how all these new things work? I last played this game in beta when there were only three engines, and mun was the only orbital body.
Things began to spiral horribly out of control as I tried to get a crew habitat up to my space station. luckily i always put parachutes on (a reasonable precaution given my shipbuilding and navigation skills) or Jeb the endlessly happy astronaut would have died horribly
oh man, I managed to get it up out of the atmosphere again. tried to get into an orbit but ran out of fuel. jetissoned deadweight. Looks like we'll be braving the atmosphere with just parachutes.
Second attempt and Jebediah has been united with his fellow astronauts~
you're probably wondering why there is a solar panel on the additional crew pod. The answer is that i'm so bad at maneuvering that ordinary batteries are not enough for me to successfully dock.
The next pod will probably contain some science facilities, communication devices, and a generator.
finally got a rover onto the moon. got him down to about 10 meters off the ground using just rockets
the skycrane got him the rest of the way before decoupling and blasting off into space
The Navball and map are your friends, learn to use them at all times. First thing you will need to learn is getting into a stable orbit, there are many video tutorials for that. Personally, I recommend Scott Manley, he is an astronomer and you can pick up lots of stuff about rocket science, astrophysics, etc. in his videos, which will help you design and fly better.
Just crashed a probe into on of Jool's moons. I put on xenon thrusters on it, so it had crazy long burn times. Spent hours on the burns to get it into orbit. Then I sent it a bit too close to one of the moons. Hours of work, gone.
I bought this game awhile back. Played it a bunch but could never get a rocket off into space. Or when I do, I no longer have any more rocket fuel to get anywhere ):
On October 17 2013 06:24 Torte de Lini wrote: I bought this game awhile back. Played it a bunch but could never get a rocket off into space. Or when I do, I no longer have any more rocket fuel to get anywhere ):
Here's the simple trick I learned. Launch up to ~10000m, turn 15 degrees east, switch to map mode, watch your projected path, and cut your engines when your projected path hits 75000m. Then angle your ship so that it points due 90 degrees east. Just before you get to the apex, turn your engines on again.
On October 17 2013 06:24 Torte de Lini wrote: I bought this game awhile back. Played it a bunch but could never get a rocket off into space. Or when I do, I no longer have any more rocket fuel to get anywhere ):
Here's the simple trick I learned. Launch up to ~10000m, turn 15 degrees east, switch to map mode, watch your projected path, and cut your engines when your projected path hits 75000m. Then angle your ship so that it points due 90 degrees east. Just before you get to the apex, turn your engines on again.
Not quite
Before you launch, change to map view and toggle the navball on the bottom of the screen, you don't want to search for it in panic mode. Go straight up to 10km, but keep your speed below 200m/s until you are there, otherwise you waste fuel fighting against the atmosphere. An easy way to keep track of the speed is to go in steps of 10m/s per 1km, i.e. 110m/s at 1km, 120m/s at 2km and so forth. That is not perfect but easy to remember and do. Go into map view if you aren't already. Once you are up at 10km start turning slowly eastwards (90° on your navball), but don't go too far away from your prograde vector (the yellow circle indicator) and throttle up slowly until you reach 45° and 100% thrust. Check your apoapsis and time until apoapsis. You don't want to shoot straight up to 70km+, but rather pick up as much horizontal velocity as possible, a good indicator for that is your time until apoapsis. Keep it between 40-50s and you can be sure that you have a good balance of vertical and horizontal velocity. Once your rocket reaches 35km turn over to 0° east to pick up orbital speed and shut down your engines once your apoapsis is as desired. You can get into a stable orbit at just above 69km, but I recommend going a bit higher (say 100km) to give you more leeway for your circulization burn. Once you are out of the atmosphere, create a maneuver node directly at apoapsis and pull the prograde vector until apoapsis and periapsis begin to switch sides (means that their numbers are close to equal), that will be your orbit. Do the burn and enjoy space.
On October 17 2013 06:24 Torte de Lini wrote: I bought this game awhile back. Played it a bunch but could never get a rocket off into space. Or when I do, I no longer have any more rocket fuel to get anywhere ):
Here's the simple trick I learned. Launch up to ~10000m, turn 15 degrees east, switch to map mode, watch your projected path, and cut your engines when your projected path hits 75000m. Then angle your ship so that it points due 90 degrees east. Just before you get to the apex, turn your engines on again.
Not quite
Before you launch, change to map view and toggle the navball on the bottom of the screen, you don't want to search for it in panic mode. Go straight up to 10km, but keep your speed below 200m/s, otherwise you waste fuel fighting against the atmosphere. An easy way to keep track of the speed is to go in steps of 10m/s per 1km, i.e. 110m/s at 1km, 120m/s at 2km and so forth. That is not perfect but easy to remember and do. Go into map view if you aren't already. Once you are up at 10km start turning slowly eastwards (90° on your navball), but don't go too far away from your prograde vector (the yellow circle indicator) and throttle up slowly until you reach 45° and 100% thrust. Check your prograde and time until apoapsis. You don't want to shoot straight up to 70km+, but rather pick up as much horizontal velocity as possible, a good indicator for that is your time until apoapsis. Keep it between 40-50s and you can be sure that you have a good balance of vertical and horizontal velocity. Once you reach 35km turn over to 0° east to pick up orbital speed and shut down your engines once your apoapsis is as desired. You can get into a stable orbit at just above 69km, but I recommend going a bit higher (say 100km) to give you more leeway for your circulization burn. Once you are out of the atmosphere, create a maneuver node directly at apoapsis and pull the prograde vector until apoapsis and periapsis begin to switch sides (means that their numbers are close to equal), that will be your orbit. Do the burn and enjoy space.
Yes, but what I said is simpler and will also work for someone unable to get into orbit. Once youve gotten it once, then go for more complex methods.
On October 17 2013 06:24 Torte de Lini wrote: I bought this game awhile back. Played it a bunch but could never get a rocket off into space. Or when I do, I no longer have any more rocket fuel to get anywhere ):
Here's the simple trick I learned. Launch up to ~10000m, turn 15 degrees east, switch to map mode, watch your projected path, and cut your engines when your projected path hits 75000m. Then angle your ship so that it points due 90 degrees east. Just before you get to the apex, turn your engines on again.
Not quite
Before you launch, change to map view and toggle the navball on the bottom of the screen, you don't want to search for it in panic mode. Go straight up to 10km, but keep your speed below 200m/s, otherwise you waste fuel fighting against the atmosphere. An easy way to keep track of the speed is to go in steps of 10m/s per 1km, i.e. 110m/s at 1km, 120m/s at 2km and so forth. That is not perfect but easy to remember and do. Go into map view if you aren't already. Once you are up at 10km start turning slowly eastwards (90° on your navball), but don't go too far away from your prograde vector (the yellow circle indicator) and throttle up slowly until you reach 45° and 100% thrust. Check your prograde and time until apoapsis. You don't want to shoot straight up to 70km+, but rather pick up as much horizontal velocity as possible, a good indicator for that is your time until apoapsis. Keep it between 40-50s and you can be sure that you have a good balance of vertical and horizontal velocity. Once you reach 35km turn over to 0° east to pick up orbital speed and shut down your engines once your apoapsis is as desired. You can get into a stable orbit at just above 69km, but I recommend going a bit higher (say 100km) to give you more leeway for your circulization burn. Once you are out of the atmosphere, create a maneuver node directly at apoapsis and pull the prograde vector until apoapsis and periapsis begin to switch sides (means that their numbers are close to equal), that will be your orbit. Do the burn and enjoy space.
Yes, but what I said is simpler and will also work for someone unable to get into orbit. Once youve gotten it once, then go for more complex methods.
Well, your post was too imprecise in my opinion. If you go above 200m/s before 10km and then only turn 15°, you will hardly be better off than before. To be blunt this sounds like the flight path I imagine he took before now. I don't think simplifying it so much is wise, at least the fundamentals of orbital ascent should be clarified. My post is mostly explanation and not a whole lot of instruction. At least I hope so.
Tried a variety of missions. I forgot to collect soil samples with my kerbals.
Did sundiving(~600 science), mun missions(~700) and minmus(900), as well as some eve orbits(~800)(I hadn't unlocked solar panels yet so repeated transmission was out of the question). Pretty proud of doing that without anything larger than 1.25m
I'll probably be able to unlock the rest of the tree tomorrow now that I have solar panels though. Shouldn't be too hard.
Played around a bit yesterday too, but was pretty late when I got to it. Looks quite promising and it's nice to have some sort of progression.
I think playing with the science system is probably better for a beginner now, since you're forced to make do with less parts in the beginning. When I started in sandbox mode I just built huge rockets that got nowhere because they were too big. It took quite some time before I really thought about fine tuning the rockets and be fuel efficient.
Though that gets negated by the fact that it's not properly explained yet. While it is nice to figure out things on your own for an experienced player, an overview of things that generate science or some sort of "missions" would be nice.
But all that's probably planned for the future updates. (Or maybe I missed it, was quite tired when I played)
The carreer mode is shaping up to be really fun, can't wait to play it again, basically i play for 10h or so every update, and it never cease to amaze me. The best I was able to do was to land on the Mars planet but I wouldn't be able to do it reliably, and I'm far from being able to do a roundtrip. I haven't managed to do an orbital rendez vous yet as well..
Just bought this a couple days ago and had some time today to really get into it (after losing all my money at Saltybets). I picked up getting into orbit pretty quickly and decided to try to go to the Mun. First attempt resulted in me overshooting the Mun. The second time around was successful, albeit after a frantic landing attempt. I was elated much like my astronaut friend until we discovered that he did not have enough fuel to get back. No problem, we're just going to have to rescue him.
I designed a new rocket to fit the 3-person Command Pod and our rescue mission was on its way. We get into orbit around the Mun with no problems. I plot a landing point near our first Mun landing and we've entered the critical part of the mission. Unfortunately, my calculations were horribly wrong and we ended up landing pretty damn far away from our stranded brethren.
There isn't enough fuel in the rescue lander to go pick him up then fly back to Kerbin and the distance is far too big to walk. I figured, "Hey, we've still got a little fuel in the first lander, let's just use it to fly towards the rescue crew." What I didn't realize until our friend was on his way to his imminent death, was that I had no way of slowing it down from 500 m/s as it descended towards the surface. As a last ditch effort, I took the brave man out of the command pod and tried using his RCS to slow him down. He is now dead.
Having failed to achieve our mission objective, I took one of the two Kerbals sent on the mission and had him plant a flag in memory of our friend who had a need for speed. He then hopped into the lander and I brought them home safe and sound.
This game is too damn fun. I can't believe I didn't get into it before.
Got back into the game with the update, science is fun eventhough some parts are a bit grindy. I think they'll tweak it but the concept is good and it really makes the game more enjoyable to have a purpose to your mission. So far i'm trying not to kill my kerbals, unfortunately I ran out of fuel in an excentric Kerbin orbit with one of my earlier ships (before I unlocked unmaned vehicules). I'll try to rescue him eventually but it's going to be hard considering the orbit. This sacrifice though allowed me to unlock the parts that I needed to send a probe. I started by going to the mun, then got into kerbol orbit. I could have orbited minmus the way there but for some reason i thought about it too late. Then from my kerbol orbit I reached Duna, but before orbiting it I orbited its moon Ike for some science. My mission then ended on a low Duna orbit, all in all i probably got more than 2000 science from this mision. My next step is going to send a rover to the mun and minmus and then of course manned missions. I love this game :D. The feeling you get when you realize how little fuel you need to make interplanetary travels if you're smart about it.
So, because SCIENCE!! I played risky with Jebediah in a starting tech ship. Jebediah is now orbiting and has been for 139 days, in an elongated orbit with a periapsis of about 62km (and falling gradually) and an apoapsis of just over 2.2 million km.
He started at 68km and 4.2 mil km, respectively. I would just terminate the flight, but there's no comm equipment and I want the science.
are you out of propulsion? you could try to dip him a bit further into the atmosphere or deploy a parachute or something to bring him down when he's in the air
At apoapsis, you can get jeb out and have him push retrograde if you're out of fuel. Just 10m/s difference and you'll pretty easily be in the lower atmosphere.
On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote: Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote: Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.)
I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently.
On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote: Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.)
I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently.
On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote: Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.)
I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently.
7700 deltaV should be enough for a round trip.
To break the delta-v cost down
- 4500 to get to LKO (Low Kerbin Orbit) - Around 830-850 to get to Mun's SOI - Around 230 to get into Low Mun Orbit - Around 580 or a little bit more to land and another 580 to get back into orbit - Getting back to Kerbin should only be around 300 if you burn retrograde respective to the Mun's orbit.
So around 7100 dV should be enough for a round trip if you are very good at flying.
On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote: Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.)
I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently.
7700 deltaV should be enough for a round trip.
To break the delta-v cost down
- 4500 to get to LKO (Low Kerbin Orbit) - Around 830-850 to get to Mun's SOI - Around 230 to get into Low Mun Orbit - Around 580 or a little bit more to land and another 580 to get back into orbit - Getting back to Kerbin should only be around 300 if you burn retrograde respective to the Mun's orbit.
So around 7100 dV should be enough for a round trip if you are very good at flying.
I believe you have just conclusively proven that I am bad at flying.
For further proof, I took the same rocket, copied it into a sandbox save. This allowed me to use MechJeb in all it's automaton glory. Even using wasteful planning (get to LKO, transfer to the Mun, circularize around Mun, then land, take off, enter new orbit at Mun, return to Kerbin, waste fuel burning to slow down in Kerbin orbit and ensure successful parachute deployment) I still had over 600 m/s dV on return. All dV listed are atmospheric.
I finally managed to rendez-vous two of my ships in orbit. Took advantage of this to rescue the kerbal that I had stranded in orbit, now I can safely say that no Kerbanaut was left behind! I'm trying to reach eve, for some reason I find it harder than duna.
On November 13 2013 08:19 Jetaap wrote: I finally managed to rendez-vous two of my ships in orbit. Took advantage of this to rescue the kerbal that I had stranded in orbit, now I can safely say that no Kerbanaut was left behind! I'm trying to reach eve, for some reason I find it harder than duna.
Eve is hard to get to, period. Don't feel too bad. Make sure you pack plenty of parachutes and lots of landing gear!
Eve actually requires slightly less dV to reach and is very easy to land on, assuming you have parachutes. Returning from the surface, though... that's one of the 3 big challenges in the game. (getting to and returning from Moho, landing on Tylo, returning from Eve)
Unfortunately I forgot to put a parachute on my probe but I managed to go to Eve then Gilly (sweet science) . I did a few pass in the high atmosphere before deorbiting so I could have the time to do science. I thought i might be able to slow down my descent enough with engines only but that was clearly not the case, i was not even able to keep the rocket pointed in the correct direction :D. Well at least it was only a probe, my next challenge now is to get a kerbin to duna and back. How much dV do I need to come back from the surface of duna?
Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot: ~1100 transfer orbit maybe 50 for corrections 100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's) 1300 from surface to orbit 500 for returning to Kerbin Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it.
On November 14 2013 02:40 nimbim wrote: Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot: ~1100 transfer orbit maybe 50 for corrections 100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's) 1300 from surface to orbit 500 for returning to Kerbin Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it.
I have a ship with 7k dV in LKO but I messed up my transfer to duna big time so I had to burn way too much to get a capture, so in the end I only did a flyby of duna's moon and a couple of orbit around duna before burning back to Kerbin. But once again my capture was bad and I wasted of lot of dV for it . I also realized that the landing legs were too short anyway for a landing with a nuclear engine ... My maneuver nodes are acting weird not sure what I should do about that. On another note what mod do you use/recommend? I'm using Kerbal Engineer and FAR so far (it greatly improves the aerodynamic model)
On November 14 2013 02:40 nimbim wrote: Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot: ~1100 transfer orbit maybe 50 for corrections 100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's) 1300 from surface to orbit 500 for returning to Kerbin Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it.
I have a ship with 7k dV in LKO but I messed up my transfer to duna big time so I had to burn way too much to get a capture, so in the end I only did a flyby of duna's moon and a couple of orbit around duna before burning back to Kerbin. But once again my capture was bad and I wasted of lot of dV for it . I also realized that the landing legs were too short anyway for a landing with a nuclear engine ... My maneuver nodes are acting weird not sure what I should do about that. On another note what mod do you use/recommend? I'm using Kerbal Engineer and FAR so far (it greatly improves the aerodynamic model)
Actually I prefer to play without any mods. FAR sometimes produces some very strange results, so I'm not fond of it at all.
In terms of information, I find MechJeb far superior to Kerbal Engineer, since you can create custom windows with all kinds of info (suicide burn countdown ftw). You can also use the auto-pilot to do the boring stuff like 10min burns for you, but don't use it to plot your maneuvers for you, that will take the fun out of the game and they will be inefficient anyway.
One really helpful mod is the enhanced navball, an improvement that the devs wanted to add in 0.18 or so, it will be in a future version for sure.
On November 14 2013 02:40 nimbim wrote: Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot: ~1100 transfer orbit maybe 50 for corrections 100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's) 1300 from surface to orbit 500 for returning to Kerbin Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it.
I have a ship with 7k dV in LKO but I messed up my transfer to duna big time so I had to burn way too much to get a capture, so in the end I only did a flyby of duna's moon and a couple of orbit around duna before burning back to Kerbin. But once again my capture was bad and I wasted of lot of dV for it . I also realized that the landing legs were too short anyway for a landing with a nuclear engine ... My maneuver nodes are acting weird not sure what I should do about that. On another note what mod do you use/recommend? I'm using Kerbal Engineer and FAR so far (it greatly improves the aerodynamic model)
The easiest way to get a capture around a celestial body is to set the periapsis as low as you can when you enter a new SOI by burning directly to the point where you want periapsis is (i.e setting the periapsis to the east of the body by burning at 90 on your navball because the trajectory would be a hyperbolic one when you enter the SOI. If the body has an atmosphere then put it slightly under the edge of the atmosphere. Then burn at periapsis to get a capture then stop when you get into an eccentric orbit for necessary plane change and just let the aerobraking by atmospheric drag reduce your apoapsis to your desirable altitude.
For mods, I would say FAR is very good. Also KW rocketry or Novapunch if you want some new parts. If you want some more challenge, then deadly reentry is a good mod.
I sent a new rocket with landing legs in the correct position and I was able to do a two way trip to Duna . I had to save/load a good number of time for my landing because my aerobraking trajectory was sending me into high moutains (5k, hard to aerobrake considering the thickness of this planet's atmosphereo) and i wasn't able to slow my ship enough to prevent it from getting ripped in half when the chutes opened fully. However after altering my trajectory a couple of times i was able to find the sweet spot and land that felt great. I had plenty of fuel left so the return was really easy, now i have to plan for new missions. I'll probably try to build a base on the moon.
"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.
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!
You only need to get below 1million km to get "near the sun" science.
Most efficient way is to escape from Kerbin to raise your solar apoapsis. The higher your apoapsis, the less fuel it costs to lower your periapsis. Getting close to the sun and returning to Kerbin is possible with less than 7km/s delta v from LKO. (You can probably do it with a lot less)
Oh and Ion Engines have really bad thrust:weight ratio, so using more than 1 is super inefficient.
On January 19 2014 03:23 nimbim wrote: You only need to get below 1million km to get "near the sun" science.
Most efficient way is to escape from Kerbin to raise your solar apoapsis. The higher your apoapsis, the less fuel it costs to lower your periapsis. Getting close to the sun and returning to Kerbin is possible with less than 7km/s delta v from LKO. (You can probably do it with a lot less)
Oh and Ion Engines have really bad thrust:weight ratio, so using more than 1 is super inefficient.
The four Ion Engines are more a testament to "I really don't want this trip to take 80 hours of manual acceleration". The weight of them isnt really an issue since I'm just using a booster designed to carry a lot more weight into orbit, then using ions from there. But thanks for the advice, i'll try to stay around 900,000km above the sun and return home, with a manned mission to follow if it works
Ion engines are nice, but there are drawbacks to their use - especially since their thrust is so low, any burn using them is going to take hours if not days and the best you can do is 4x time warp while under acceleration. (Assuming, of course, your ship is stable enough to not shake apart under time acceleration that high.)
Ion engines are great things, but seem like a strong argument for MechJeb.
Anyone wanna take a wild when Squad will put this game into beta and when they're gonna release it?
I mean, if the game is this fun, polished and addicting when it is only in alpha, I can't imagine what the final product will look like. Or is KSP the new DotA2?
On January 26 2014 23:56 WindWolf wrote: Anyone wanna take a wild when Squad will put this game into beta and when they're gonna release it?
I mean, if the game is this fun, polished and addicting when it is only in alpha, I can't imagine what the final product will look like. Or is KSP the new DotA2?
I don't think they have a firm timeline nailed down - and it's only on 0.23. I'd expect at least another year, they have a lot of things they are looking at doing (implementing economic costs, refining science, etc).
It is pretty awesome for an alpha, but then I think they focused on getting a decent core to the game (building/flying) and are adding around that while tweaking. If all people ever want to do is Sandbox mode, the game is pretty much done.
A downloadable mission pack, made in partnership with NASA, is in the works that will allow players to put Kerbals on an asteroid. It will be one of the most complex and dangerous missions in an already difficult game.
Players will first have to launch a spacecraft to fly alongside the asteroid, the equivalent of parallel parking one missile next to another. Then they will have to push the giant rock into a stable orbit around the Kerbal's home planet without creating an extinction-level impact below. Finally, they'll need to safely land on it.
I'm on the mun. Can I make it back to Kerbin with this or do I need a rescue mission (It's career BTW)
Hmm. I think so. It takes less dV to return from the Mun than to get there - mostly because you only need to escape the Mun back into Kerbin such that your Kerbin orbit has a periapsis under 29km. (You aerobrake to your landing, and it looks like you've got a parachute ready.)
There's a trick to it - a specific direction to burn. lemme see.
"To get back to Kerbin the easiest way (as suggested by Scott Manley) is to burn prograde at the point in your orbit where you're moving opposite to the direction the Mun is going in its orbit around Kerbin. If you are orbiting around the Mun in the same direction as the Mun is around Kerbin, then burn prograde when you are between Mun and Kerbin, otherwise you need to burn prograde on the far side of the Mun."
I think it's enough. Only way to know for sure is calculating delta v or quicksaving. I recommend MechJeb or KerbalEngineer to avoid confusion about remaining delta v.
That linked info in the wiki is pretty questionable.
Your most efficient return begins from a very low orbit (7km), not a 200km one. Get only enough vertical velocity to not crash into a crater's edge and turn directly east. Keep your apoapsis as low as possible to save some fuel.
You can also return directly from the surface (assuming you are landed more or less equatorial), using the same launch profile but accelerating to escape velocity. + Show Spoiler +
I'm on the mun. Can I make it back to Kerbin with this or do I need a rescue mission (It's career BTW)
Hmm. I think so. It takes less dV to return from the Mun than to get there - mostly because you only need to escape the Mun back into Kerbin such that your Kerbin orbit has a periapsis under 29km. (You aerobrake to your landing, and it looks like you've got a parachute ready.)
I have 3 parachutes The SC-9001 gets destroyed with only 1 parachute (tested this on Kerbin before going onto the mission properly), so I added two more
There's a trick to it - a specific direction to burn. lemme see.
"To get back to Kerbin the easiest way (as suggested by Scott Manley) is to burn prograde at the point in your orbit where you're moving opposite to the direction the Mun is going in its orbit around Kerbin. If you are orbiting around the Mun in the same direction as the Mun is around Kerbin, then burn prograde when you are between Mun and Kerbin, otherwise you need to burn prograde on the far side of the Mun."
I think your fuel level should be okay, although it may be tight.
It's a bit tight on fuel, yes, but I think that I'm burning it inefficiently when trying to re-orbit Mun. Any tips on what I should do on what heights.
The above should work too. The wiki page is pretty basic and "safe" when it comes to flying. Nimbim's comment on possibly taking off and returning directly from the surface is also not a bad idea.
I usually over-engineer heavily and don't run into fuel problems in-system with Kerbin. Depending on where you are on the Mun, the only suggestion I have is to take off and try to maintain a decent gradual turn to the horizon as soon as possible. You can either enter into a low orbit or just keep burning until you escape the Mun. As Nimbim says, make sure you clear any crater rims or mountains.
I bought this game long ago during a summer sale, just recently started playing it. The learning curve was a bit steep, but as fast as I got a hang of the maneuver tool it got a lot more fun. Currently building a space station! Definitely recommend the game to anyone willing to invest some time to learn it.
On February 04 2014 08:42 Epoxide wrote: I bought this game long ago during a summer sale, just recently started playing it. The learning curve was a bit steep, but as fast as I got a hang of the maneuver tool it got a lot more fun. Currently building a space station! Definitely recommend the game to anyone willing to invest some time to learn it.
Space station already? I'm just preparing my journey to Nimbus.
On February 04 2014 08:42 Epoxide wrote: I bought this game long ago during a summer sale, just recently started playing it. The learning curve was a bit steep, but as fast as I got a hang of the maneuver tool it got a lot more fun. Currently building a space station! Definitely recommend the game to anyone willing to invest some time to learn it.
Space station already? I'm just preparing my journey to Nimbus.
After I learned how to use the maneuver tool I got to the moon on the first try, without any asparagus design. Landed on Minmus too. Just got the docking ports so feeling like that's what I want to do. I have the nuclear rocket so I can go to Duna no problem though.
I hadn't remembered to make an abort sequence, but the very last "stage" of all my rockets is "detach everything and deploy parachutes" so I mashed spacebar hoping to save the lives of my brave astronauts!
Current I'm using KW rocketry, editor extensions(great functionality), orbital construction re-redux(because sending 300T of material to LKO at once is easier than sending 300T of spaceship), FAR and joint reinforcement and mechjeb. I used to use B9, but it was starting to get unstable due to the RAM limitations.
I currently only have Kerbal Alarm Clock (helps me nail down transfer windows, prevents over warping when I'm smart enough to use it) and MechJeb 2.0 (mostly for the dV stats and orbital/ship/surface info windows; I won't lie, I've used it to set up and execute Hohmann transfers, velocity matching, and planetary transitions as well but I'm not limping along with it like I once did). I've only been playing Career since it came out, with occasional testing in sandbox. I've considered Ferram's Joint Reinforcement because of the annoying habit of ships getting a massive jolt on loading and dropping tanks/engines without copious strutting and editor extensions because setting up precise angles is a pain.
I should really get enhanced nav ball, too. What I really want, and what doesn't seem to exist, is a mod that adds at least minimal instrumentation for planes/space planes so that I can have better guidance for vectoring in a landing at the KSC runway. Although I'm getting better at guessing where on Kerbin KSC is or how far it is for me to get there, I wouldn't mind something that implements an electronic "Jeppeson" chart for KSC and maybe a PAPI or extended runway landing lights. (Currently, I'm trying to figure out if I can use flags for that purpose, if I can make sure I can plant them on the extended center line of the runway.)
Ah well. Back to my quest to launch an SSTO space plane that can bring an entire, untouched orange fuel tank into LKO without breaking apart. Currently, it won't even get off the ground - but my first prototype planes have managed orbit with some airhogging.
I can't make an SSTO space plane that just brings ITSELF into LKO and back down again. Bringing one of those big orange fuel tanks up without using extra tanks/engines and jettisoning them sounds really hard. what do you do?
I have never used any mods but I'm running into a brick wall when it comes to landing ships on other planets and moons outside of kerbin, mun, and minmus. I guess I'm going to start having to do calculations myself or something, lol. I made it to Duna once, but I ran out of fuel.
BTW, I haven't looked too much into this yet, but how hard is it to build spacecraft in orbit?
On February 06 2014 05:21 Blazinghand wrote: I can't make an SSTO space plane that just brings ITSELF into LKO and back down again. Bringing one of those big orange fuel tanks up without using extra tanks/engines and jettisoning them sounds really hard. what do you do?
Well, I may actually get off my metaphorical ass and dig out some headphones so I can run a "quality" stream with some form of interaction later tonight or tomorrow in which case you could watch me flailing, but here's the trick as I understand it:
As many intakes as you can with as few engines as you can get away with and enough lift to get off the ground. There are... ways... of mounting more intakes than you would think is possible. (My orbit capable space plane has 25 ram intakes for 2 turbojet engines. My second revision, not shown, uses 24 intakes as the front one is swapped for a shielded docking port.) Pics: + Show Spoiler +
There's two small fuel tanks with rocket engines on them for the final circularization burn and space maneuvers as well as some RCS. Also, lots of inline stabilizers and that thing moves with authoritah.
So the sequence is like this - activate turbojets and throttle up (with SCS on), take off, and climb out at about 30 degrees angle of attack. Watch intake air like a hawk once altitude tops 15km. Level out to about 5 degrees above 20km altitude, continue monitoring intake air while speed (and altitude) continues to build. Keep on keeping on, throttling down if necessary as intake air drops to 0.1. The way the turbojets are set up, it will not flat spin if one flames out, but by the time it hits that altitude it should already be going pretty damn near orbital speed and around 40km altitude. (The red bow-wave is pretty.) Watch my apoapsis rise as speed rises, until it gets outside of atmosphere. To continue building speed, I may need to switch over to the rocket motors (I use action groups which toggle the engines on or off) but only at a low thrust. I'm kinda already in an orbit at that point, although the apoapsis is ~100km and the periapsis is ~30km. I try to not use any engines in the atmosphere, and set up a circularization burn at apoapsis to circularize the orbit. The model pictured can get to orbit with around 900 dV left - not good for much but crew transfers, and not even that since it has a crew of 1. It is however the first plane I've put into a stable orbit, so I was pretty excited.
Not pictured is the landing - which was a spectacular failure because I'm horrible at landing. Many boom, but German Kerman survived okay.
I'm kindof fond of biplane designs although I've made some planes that are large glider-type aircraft, and one oddity that breaks physics but is not quite infiniglide.
On February 06 2014 05:32 Chocolate wrote: I have never used any mods but I'm running into a brick wall when it comes to landing ships on other planets and moons outside of kerbin, mun, and minmus. I guess I'm going to start having to do calculations myself or something, lol. I made it to Duna once, but I ran out of fuel.
BTW, I haven't looked too much into this yet, but how hard is it to build spacecraft in orbit?
Not incredibly difficult, but you have to use docking ports which can create some issues. (Or, there are mods.) It's all fun and games until you apply thrust and watch your baby shake itself to pieces and create a giant debris field in orbit. That said, I've got a ship orbiting Duna after a landing on Ike waiting for its return window, and I've dropped a rover on Eve. Something like Kerbal Engineer Redux or MechJeb are useful for getting delta V information although of course MechJeb can do a lot more, and some purists hate it. My take is, if it's okay for Scott Manley, it's okay with me.
On February 06 2014 05:21 Blazinghand wrote: I can't make an SSTO space plane that just brings ITSELF into LKO and back down again. Bringing one of those big orange fuel tanks up without using extra tanks/engines and jettisoning them sounds really hard. what do you do?
Well, I may actually get off my metaphorical ass and dig out some headphones so I can run a "quality" stream with some form of interaction later tonight or tomorrow in which case you could watch me flailing, but here's the trick as I understand it:
As many intakes as you can with as few engines as you can get away with and enough lift to get off the ground. There are... ways... of mounting more intakes than you would think is possible. (My orbit capable space plane has 25 ram intakes for 2 turbojet engines. My second revision, not shown, uses 24 intakes as the front one is swapped for a shielded docking port.) Pics: + Show Spoiler +
There's two small fuel tanks with rocket engines on them for the final circularization burn and space maneuvers as well as some RCS. Also, lots of inline stabilizers and that thing moves with authoritah.
So the sequence is like this - activate turbojets and throttle up (with SCS on), take off, and climb out at about 30 degrees angle of attack. Watch intake air like a hawk once altitude tops 15km. Level out to about 5 degrees above 20km altitude, continue monitoring intake air while speed (and altitude) continues to build. Keep on keeping on, throttling down if necessary as intake air drops to 0.1. The way the turbojets are set up, it will not flat spin if one flames out, but by the time it hits that altitude it should already be going pretty damn near orbital speed and around 40km altitude. (The red bow-wave is pretty.) Watch my apoapsis rise as speed rises, until it gets outside of atmosphere. To continue building speed, I may need to switch over to the rocket motors (I use action groups which toggle the engines on or off) but only at a low thrust. I'm kinda already in an orbit at that point, although the apoapsis is ~100km and the periapsis is ~30km. I try to not use any engines in the atmosphere, and set up a circularization burn at apoapsis to circularize the orbit. The model pictured can get to orbit with around 900 dV left - not good for much but crew transfers, and not even that since it has a crew of 1. It is however the first plane I've put into a stable orbit, so I was pretty excited.
Not pictured is the landing - which was a spectacular failure because I'm horrible at landing. Many boom, but German Kerman survived okay.
I'm kindof fond of biplane designs although I've made some planes that are large glider-type aircraft, and one oddity that breaks physics but is not quite infiniglide.
On February 06 2014 05:32 Chocolate wrote: I have never used any mods but I'm running into a brick wall when it comes to landing ships on other planets and moons outside of kerbin, mun, and minmus. I guess I'm going to start having to do calculations myself or something, lol. I made it to Duna once, but I ran out of fuel.
BTW, I haven't looked too much into this yet, but how hard is it to build spacecraft in orbit?
Not incredibly difficult, but you have to use docking ports which can create some issues. (Or, there are mods.) It's all fun and games until you apply thrust and watch your baby shake itself to pieces and create a giant debris field in orbit. That said, I've got a ship orbiting Duna after a landing on Ike waiting for its return window, and I've dropped a rover on Eve. Something like Kerbal Engineer Redux or MechJeb are useful for getting delta V information although of course MechJeb can do a lot more, and some purists hate it. My take is, if it's okay for Scott Manley, it's okay with me.
When you're building in space, if you mount the engine module at the front of the vessel in a puller configuration, you'll get much less wobbling, as the joints will be under tension not compression.
Nice station. SSTO with no rapiers/jets? Pretty cool.
Reminds me, I really need to get off my butt and get going with my Jool-5 mission. (Hit Jool, land on all moons, one mission.) I need that sweet sweet science.
On February 17 2014 07:10 felisconcolori wrote: Nice station. SSTO with no rapiers/jets? Pretty cool.
Reminds me, I really need to get off my butt and get going with my Jool-5 mission. (Hit Jool, land on all moons, one mission.) I need that sweet sweet science.
Unfortunately it's not SSTO, I can't get the design I want working with SSTO because of no Oxidizer in the mk3/adapters fuselages
On February 17 2014 07:10 felisconcolori wrote: Nice station. SSTO with no rapiers/jets? Pretty cool.
Reminds me, I really need to get off my butt and get going with my Jool-5 mission. (Hit Jool, land on all moons, one mission.) I need that sweet sweet science.
Unfortunately it's not SSTO, I can't get the design I want working with SSTO because of no Oxidizer in the mk3/adapters fuselages
Hmm. I've got one SSTO currently (well, I've been working on another one but orange tanks are heavy as hell) that can make orbit, but without using rapier engines. It has two turbojets, a whole slew of questionably placed ramjet intakes, and two rockets. The rockets have their own fuel, as does the jets - just mark 1 fuselage sections.
I think that's one way to go - have jet fuel tanks for the jet stages, then some rocket tanks to provide the liquid fuel and oxidizer for the rocket burns. (You can get to very nearly orbit with just jets, but it's tough and requires massive air hogging. Still need plain rockets for the circularization burn.)
I need to try again now that I've unlocked rapiers.
On February 17 2014 07:10 felisconcolori wrote: Nice station. SSTO with no rapiers/jets? Pretty cool.
Reminds me, I really need to get off my butt and get going with my Jool-5 mission. (Hit Jool, land on all moons, one mission.) I need that sweet sweet science.
Unfortunately it's not SSTO, I can't get the design I want working with SSTO because of no Oxidizer in the mk3/adapters fuselages
Hmm. I've got one SSTO currently (well, I've been working on another one but orange tanks are heavy as hell) that can make orbit, but without using rapier engines. It has two turbojets, a whole slew of questionably placed ramjet intakes, and two rockets. The rockets have their own fuel, as does the jets - just mark 1 fuselage sections.
I think that's one way to go - have jet fuel tanks for the jet stages, then some rocket tanks to provide the liquid fuel and oxidizer for the rocket burns. (You can get to very nearly orbit with just jets, but it's tough and requires massive air hogging. Still need plain rockets for the circularization burn.)
I need to try again now that I've unlocked rapiers.
That's the thing, I don't want to spam ram intakes It works fine as SSTO on most moons/Duna/Moho/Dres/Eeloo
I have yet to get a space to any other body, but it's something I'm looking at trying. (Eve is a royal pain to land and return from, something I think I might be able to handle with judicious use of wings..)
I don't know... 12 intakes for an engine isn't spam, is it? It can be done with fewer, it's just that the transition around 20km gets to be finicky.
SSTO make sense on Kerbin because turbojets are so efficient (especially in combination with stacked intakes). Adding wings on Eve will sadly only increase your drag and there is no oxygen for turbojets.
On February 18 2014 14:49 nimbim wrote: SSTO make sense on Kerbin because turbojets are so efficient (especially in combination with stacked intakes). Adding wings on Eve will sadly only increase your drag and there is no oxygen for turbojets.
What, wings don't provide lift on Eve? (Most non-Kerbin aircraft seem to be rocket planes, from what I've seen.)
Wings provide lift, it's just that you want to achieve orbit from the surface. You have to fly through all of the super thick atmosphere for a long time and having wings wont help you there. Your gravity turn should happen very late (40km+++) and all that time your wings have just increased your drag. When you finally get to benefit from lift, you are in thin atmosphere where the lift from your wings is negligible anyway.
Huh. Well, considering I'm working on lifting 368 tons to orbit lately, I might not have the most efficient designs in mind. (The lifter, which gets it to orbit, is currently weighing in at 3,684 tons. And it's 660 parts total right now, but it needs more struts - if it sits on the pad more than a few seconds before launch, parts fall off.)
After enough tape to let it sit on the pad and not self-destruct:
Looks a like a lot of effort, nice. If you need more struts, you may be interested in downloading KW Rocketry. It contains 2 extra strong struts, they can help a lot with reducing the part count. You can simply not install all the other parts if you don't want them.
Initially I tried going bigger and bigger too. However, I feel that docking many small parts is a lot quicker most of the time, since there is no lag at launch and construction time is cut short by a lot. Even an Eve lander, which I first thought absolutely needs a giant launch vehicle, can be launched directly from Kerbin since you need a lot more delta v for Eve and dock with a booster in LKO.
I also think it's a more realistic idea to assemble a big ship in orbit. + Show Spoiler [pics] +
I agree that orbital assembly is more than likely the better route - I haven't been all that great at past efforts (primarily because of docking alignment issues and poor design) and it is something I plan on pursuing.
That behemoth is a mothership core I'm building to take five separate landers to the Jool system - the landers are launching separately and docking prior to the trip. Part of the problem of such a large ship, of course, is that because it's so large, it needs more fuel and engines to burn reasonably - something I could no doubt avoid with a more streamlined ship assembled in orbit.
On the other hand, even with 20 nuclear engines, the 5 full orange tanks provide nearly 11,000 dV in orbit, without taking into account any of the landers which will be much more reasonable.
I am glad I found this thread because even though there is no combat I still like the minecrafty build up over time feel. Right now I have just the demo till I get paid, but is it always normally easier to orbit the sun then the Earth? I seem to always over-build rockets and overshoot a lot. I also haven't completely understood the maneuver system but I have created a rocket that will perfectly shoot me into the suns orbit and its pretty cool just having 2 dudes randomly shoot around lol.
On February 19 2014 14:22 FromShouri wrote: I am glad I found this thread because even though there is no combat I still like the minecrafty build up over time feel. Right now I have just the demo till I get paid, but is it always normally easier to orbit the sun then the Earth? I seem to always over-build rockets and overshoot a lot. I also haven't completely understood the maneuver system but I have created a rocket that will perfectly shoot me into the suns orbit and its pretty cool just having 2 dudes randomly shoot around lol.
I felt that the whole game opened up a lot more when I learned maneuver nodes and how to set up encounters. Right now you are just burning max into prograde I assume ?
On February 19 2014 14:22 FromShouri wrote: I am glad I found this thread because even though there is no combat I still like the minecrafty build up over time feel. Right now I have just the demo till I get paid, but is it always normally easier to orbit the sun then the Earth? I seem to always over-build rockets and overshoot a lot. I also haven't completely understood the maneuver system but I have created a rocket that will perfectly shoot me into the suns orbit and its pretty cool just having 2 dudes randomly shoot around lol.
I felt that the whole game opened up a lot more when I learned maneuver nodes and how to set up encounters. Right now you are just burning max into prograde I assume ?
indeed, I have a 6 engine bottom part that I use to get to ~10,000 meters, then I engage a 5 rocket that takes me into my prograde.
The trick is to know when to stop burning - although that can depend on what parts you have available. (Solid boosters, man. Gotta be careful, you can't control their wild and free lifestyle.)
Now is the time to learn about the apoapsis (high point) and periapsis (low point) - if you have an apoapsis above 70km, you'll be in space. (Most people tend to shoot for 80-100km apoapsis.) To keep yourself from falling back to Kerbin, point yourself prograde and burn at or close to your apoapsis to raise your periapsis to orbital level as well.
Just burning all the way up, it can be very easy to find yourself on your way to a long vacation in the deep. A good idea is to burn up to about 10km, then begin to tilt towards your preferred orbit (90 degrees is most common for equatorial orbit). Check in map view that your apoapsis will be about 90 or so, and you can shut down and coast. (Assuming you're going fast enough, but that doesn't seem to be a problem here - you do lose some speed and height from atmospheric drag.) As you approach apoapsis, you align prograde and then you burn to raise your periapsis until you're in orbit.
Check out videos by Scott Manley, they do a much better job (and in a Scottish accent, no less!) of explaining the general basics.
Hi guys, fairly new to KSP and need some advice, Im playing the Career mode and made a small Sattelite/SpaceStation/Fuel Station thing, now im trying to fly another Spacecraft to it and fuel it some more(want to fill the first one for the next flight).
Is there a trick on how to reach it? I set it as a target and wonder what the new pink marker is, i presume its just a "pointer" to show me where the target it right now.
So im trying to have craft #2 orbit Kerbal at the same height as the STation, but what then? when I'll have the same speed as the Sattelite, wont I? if I go faster, then the orbit shifts and Id actually distance myself more from it wont I?
On February 24 2014 15:03 Daumen wrote: Hi guys, fairly new to KSP and need some advice, Im playing the Career mode and made a small Sattelite/SpaceStation/Fuel Station thing, now im trying to fly another Spacecraft to it and fuel it some more(want to fill the first one for the next flight).
Is there a trick on how to reach it? I set it as a target and wonder what the new pink marker is, i presume its just a "pointer" to show me where the target it right now.
So im trying to have craft #2 orbit Kerbal at the same height as the STation, but what then? when I'll have the same speed as the Sattelite, wont I? if I go faster, then the orbit shifts and Id actually distance myself more from it wont I?
How do I approach it smartly?
If you are behind your target you should setup a smaller orbit (lower ap/pe). If you are ahead of your target you should setup a bigger orbit (higher ap/pe). ie 130k orbit if your target is doing a 150k orbit. This will make you go faster (catch up) and make you go slower (let your target catch up).
When you get pretty close to your target just set up a maneuver node to get an orbital rendezvous of about <3km. From there adjust the navball to show velocity to your target and burn it of to 0 m/s by burning retrograde (still relative to your target). Then burn towards your target, that's the pink dot with two half circles around it, up to about 15 m/s. Then wait patiently until you close onto your target. Start using RCS only when you get close and reduce your speed. When you get close enough to dock, set the docking port as your target. Try putting the prograde in the same position as the target+ on the navball. That should do it, this is the method I use.
On youtube there are a bunch of videos on it. I think this is the one I used. youtube vid It's kind of complex but once you learn it's not too hard, just time consuming.
On a side note, any recommended mods? I just got MechJeb and its like heaven itself opened its gates to me.
On February 24 2014 15:03 Daumen wrote: Hi guys, fairly new to KSP and need some advice, Im playing the Career mode and made a small Sattelite/SpaceStation/Fuel Station thing, now im trying to fly another Spacecraft to it and fuel it some more(want to fill the first one for the next flight).
Is there a trick on how to reach it? I set it as a target and wonder what the new pink marker is, i presume its just a "pointer" to show me where the target it right now.
So im trying to have craft #2 orbit Kerbal at the same height as the STation, but what then? when I'll have the same speed as the Sattelite, wont I? if I go faster, then the orbit shifts and Id actually distance myself more from it wont I?
How do I approach it smartly?
If you are behind your target you should setup a smaller orbit (lower ap/pe). If you are ahead of your target you should setup a bigger orbit (higher ap/pe). ie 130k orbit if your target is doing a 150k orbit. This will make you go faster (catch up) and make you go slower (let your target catch up).
When you get pretty close to your target just set up a maneuver node to get an orbital rendezvous of about <3km. From there adjust the navball to show velocity to your target and burn it of to 0 m/s by burning retrograde (still relative to your target). Then burn towards your target, that's the pink dot with two half circles around it, up to about 15 m/s. Then wait patiently until you close onto your target. Start using RCS only when you get close and reduce your speed. When you get close enough to dock, set the docking port as your target. Try putting the prograde in the same position as the target+ on the navball. That should do it, this is the method I use.
Thanks, ill do that, I thought this was the way to do it, but the way you put it seems easier than i'd imagine, 1 question though. Before I set up my bigger/smaller orbit, I should adjust the Ascending/descending node, how do I do that correctly?
Edit: Tried it once now, came as close as 300m but I was too fast, was shooting passed it, tried to navigate to it again but then i hit it with my thrusters and it got dmged ;D Ill try to get a perfect circular orbit this time, then adjusting towards it slowly.
Another question: are there any quick tips on Making Efficient SpaceCrafts? My current Refuel Mission seems not very good xD I might reach my Fuel Station thing but with way less Fuel than I had hoped. I think all my Crafts were all a bit Inefficient...
I made it to the Mun 2-3 Times and to Minmus, all of these Ventures returned to Kerbal but the Fuel always ran out or was close to running out. Any quick tips on how to Launch/Fly/Build efficient?
Efficient spacecraft. If you are using a fairings mod(procedural, KW etc), stick fairings on and don't get rid of them until you reach very high altitudes or space.
Payload & spacefaring stages. Depending on payload size, and desired travel distance, you either want to use rockomax 48-7s/LV-909's/nukes for this stage. TWR is not important here so much as minimizing the weight of this stage for the amount of DV you want. Don't forget to add a way to get electricity.
As for the lift stages. Generally speaking, you want to maintain ~1.8-2.2 TWR starting TWR, and maintain that until you hit 10000m or so before speeding up due to air resistance. You may way to switch from 2.5m parts to 1.25m parts after your first stage
On February 24 2014 16:13 Amui wrote: Efficient spacecraft. If you are using a fairings mod(procedural, KW etc), stick fairings on and don't get rid of them until you reach very high altitudes or space.
Payload & spacefaring stages. Depending on payload size, and desired travel distance, you either want to use rockomax 48-7s/LV-909's/nukes for this stage. TWR is not important here so much as minimizing the weight of this stage for the amount of DV you want. Don't forget to add a way to get electricity.
As for the lift stages. Generally speaking, you want to maintain ~1.8-2.2 TWR starting TWR, and maintain that until you hit 10000m or so before speeding up due to air resistance. You may way to switch from 2.5m parts to 1.25m parts after your first stage
I dont use any mods and I think I dont have any of those engines yet, also I didnt understand 80% of what you said :O Whats TWR? :X Im not very far yet in the Tech Tree.
Well to get you started, here's an example I made really quickly of a craft that can land on the moon, fly around a bunch, and come back to earth with fuel to spare with very basic parts. You'll need to be very careful with electricity usage if you haven't gotten battery packs or panels yet though. This means turning off SAS before time warping, making minimal movements, etc.
First stage - Boosters. These guys should really be the first stage(or two) of any starter rocket. Very high thrust and TWR for their size and weight. Seconds stage. Outer 4 liquid fuel rockets. If you have a heavier payload, you may want to stick all 5(with equal fuel) onto the same stage, and add one more smaller stage to get it into LKO(low kerbin orbit). The reasoning behind the single inner stage is that by that point in flight, you've already gotten as much vertical velocity as you'll need for LKO, but you don't yet have enough horizontal velocity, and you can afford a lower TWR stage to complete it. Once you get into LKO, the lander module has enough fuel to get to mun/minmus with ease, fly around a whole bunch and collect science. Once you're done, junk the outer 4 tanks+engines+legs and use the remainder to get back to kerbin. You don't actually need the relatively large central fuel tank on the lander stage, it was there to simulate the weight of a smaller fuel tank+science equipment. You can actually make it back to kerbin with a tank 1/4 the size. I would recommend more than just the nose parachute though.
On February 24 2014 16:50 Amui wrote: Well to get you started, here's an example I made really quickly of a craft that can land on the moon, fly around a bunch, and come back to earth with fuel to spare with very basic parts.
First stage - Boosters. These guys should really be the first stage(or two) of any starter rocket. Very high thrust and TWR for their size and weight. Seconds stage. Outer 4 liquid fuel rockets. If you have a heavier payload, you may want to stick all 5(with equal fuel) onto the same stage, and add one more smaller stage to get it into LKO(low kerbin orbit). The reasoning behind the single inner stage is that by that point in flight, you've already gotten as much vertical velocity as you'll need for LKO, but you don't yet have enough horizontal velocity, and you can afford a lower TWR stage to complete it. Once you get into LKO, the lander module has enough fuel to get to mun/minmus with ease, fly around a whole bunch and collect science. Once you're done, junk the outer 4 tanks+engines+legs and use the remainder to get back to kerbin. You don't actually need the relatively large central fuel tank on the lander stage, it was there to simulate the weight of a smaller fuel tank+science equipment. You can actually make it back to kerbin with a tank 1/4 the size. I would recommend more than just the nose parachute though.
Damn, mine tend to get bigger than your example, I got the Bigger booster, the white one. Is that one efficient at all compare to the small one?
Staging: Is it less efficient to use the Boosters & engines at the same time?
On February 24 2014 16:50 Amui wrote: Well to get you started, here's an example I made really quickly of a craft that can land on the moon, fly around a bunch, and come back to earth with fuel to spare with very basic parts.
First stage - Boosters. These guys should really be the first stage(or two) of any starter rocket. Very high thrust and TWR for their size and weight. Seconds stage. Outer 4 liquid fuel rockets. If you have a heavier payload, you may want to stick all 5(with equal fuel) onto the same stage, and add one more smaller stage to get it into LKO(low kerbin orbit). The reasoning behind the single inner stage is that by that point in flight, you've already gotten as much vertical velocity as you'll need for LKO, but you don't yet have enough horizontal velocity, and you can afford a lower TWR stage to complete it. Once you get into LKO, the lander module has enough fuel to get to mun/minmus with ease, fly around a whole bunch and collect science. Once you're done, junk the outer 4 tanks+engines+legs and use the remainder to get back to kerbin. You don't actually need the relatively large central fuel tank on the lander stage, it was there to simulate the weight of a smaller fuel tank+science equipment. You can actually make it back to kerbin with a tank 1/4 the size. I would recommend more than just the nose parachute though.
Damn, mine tend to get bigger than your example, I got the Bigger booster, the white one. Is that one efficient at all compare to the small one?
Staging: Is it less efficient to use the Boosters & engines at the same time?
Whats TWR?
Either is fine, bigger one will last longer though, and if space isn't a concern you might as well go with those for the ability to lift larger payloads for various reasons.
Staging - Only if it causes your speed to go too high and you start fighting the atmosphere too much. That's the primary reason why I don't run the boosters at the same time as the other stages for smaller craft, For larger craft this is much less of a concern.
TWR is thrust weight ratio, or how much force the engines provide in comparison to the craft's weight(different than mass, this is gravity dependant). Note that while engine output doesn't vary depending on the amount of fuel left, the weight of the craft does due to the burning fuel so as a result, TWR at the end of a stage can be significantly different than the start.
So you've already made a close approach happen with your target. All that is left to do is switch to Target speed (you click on the Orbital/Surface speed display to switch modes, it changes automatically if you're close to the target). Burn the retrograde indicator (in target mode!) until it reaches 0. You are now not moving relative to your target, just point at it and move in that direction from there. Docking is pretty tough in the beginning, so be prepared to practice rendezvous and docking a lot.
Rendezvous is easiest if your target is in a circular orbit with no inclination. Then you can just increase the apoapsis for your refueling craft by a little bit, hit time warp and wait a few (or more) orbits until you get a close approach at periapsis. Remember you will have to use the same amount of delta v to change your orbit back to the target orbit, so small changes ftw.
This tutorial also covers rendezvous very well:
For docking everyone has their own method to help them. In the beginning I just watched MechJeb and learned from there. Basically, you want to find as many ways as possible to make it easier when you're still learning. How I made it easy for me: 1. Point the target docking port south, this has the advantage that the direction will never change 2. Get close to and underneath the target, with RCS or without 3. Point north and check where the target is shown on the navball 4. Use RCS controls (I-J-K-L) to move the target north on your navball. You know where to move via navball. For example, the target is to the top right of north on your navball, press K and L until your prograde marker is even more to the top right than your target. It will "push" the target on your navball to the north marker. Adjust the prograde until it is pointing north along with the target. This allows you to ignore the relative rotation, just the direction on the navball is important. 5. Use H (N to slow down) to move straight to the docking port. IRL docking happens at 3cm/s, in the game you can dock at 1m/s without worries.
For efficiency in space, you want to use the engine with the highest Isp and at most 2 engines. If you add 16 Nukes with Isp 800 for example, you're just screwing yourself over, because every engine beyond 1 will increase your mass+thrust, but not your Isp.
If you reach orbit with less fuel than desired, you probably just to need know beforehand how much delta v your rocket actually has. I recommend MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer for that. MechJeb can offer you more information (not necessary if you only want to know delta v or basic altitude stuff) and comes with autopilot and maneuver planner (not recommended since it teaches little and its maneuvers are suboptimal).
On February 24 2014 16:50 Amui wrote: Well to get you started, here's an example I made really quickly of a craft that can land on the moon, fly around a bunch, and come back to earth with fuel to spare with very basic parts.
First stage - Boosters. These guys should really be the first stage(or two) of any starter rocket. Very high thrust and TWR for their size and weight. Seconds stage. Outer 4 liquid fuel rockets. If you have a heavier payload, you may want to stick all 5(with equal fuel) onto the same stage, and add one more smaller stage to get it into LKO(low kerbin orbit). The reasoning behind the single inner stage is that by that point in flight, you've already gotten as much vertical velocity as you'll need for LKO, but you don't yet have enough horizontal velocity, and you can afford a lower TWR stage to complete it. Once you get into LKO, the lander module has enough fuel to get to mun/minmus with ease, fly around a whole bunch and collect science. Once you're done, junk the outer 4 tanks+engines+legs and use the remainder to get back to kerbin. You don't actually need the relatively large central fuel tank on the lander stage, it was there to simulate the weight of a smaller fuel tank+science equipment. You can actually make it back to kerbin with a tank 1/4 the size. I would recommend more than just the nose parachute though.
Damn, mine tend to get bigger than your example, I got the Bigger booster, the white one. Is that one efficient at all compare to the small one?
Staging: Is it less efficient to use the Boosters & engines at the same time?
Whats TWR?
Boosters are used to increase your thrust in the lower atmosphere, basically a quick fix if you notice you just needed a bit more thrust to get your rocket into orbit. Using fuel engines + fuel lines is more efficient.
HELL YES! I finally docked ;D Took forever, adjusting with RCS is freaking weird and difficult. I think ill get better at it with practice, and my RCS positioning was probably bad, should have either more of them or better placement. was close to the FuelStation for a very long time and burned a lot of Monopropellant ;D but Im there... im so happy ;D thanks everyone! ;D
On February 24 2014 16:50 Amui wrote: Well to get you started, here's an example I made really quickly of a craft that can land on the moon, fly around a bunch, and come back to earth with fuel to spare with very basic parts.
First stage - Boosters. These guys should really be the first stage(or two) of any starter rocket. Very high thrust and TWR for their size and weight. Seconds stage. Outer 4 liquid fuel rockets. If you have a heavier payload, you may want to stick all 5(with equal fuel) onto the same stage, and add one more smaller stage to get it into LKO(low kerbin orbit). The reasoning behind the single inner stage is that by that point in flight, you've already gotten as much vertical velocity as you'll need for LKO, but you don't yet have enough horizontal velocity, and you can afford a lower TWR stage to complete it. Once you get into LKO, the lander module has enough fuel to get to mun/minmus with ease, fly around a whole bunch and collect science. Once you're done, junk the outer 4 tanks+engines+legs and use the remainder to get back to kerbin. You don't actually need the relatively large central fuel tank on the lander stage, it was there to simulate the weight of a smaller fuel tank+science equipment. You can actually make it back to kerbin with a tank 1/4 the size. I would recommend more than just the nose parachute though.
Damn, mine tend to get bigger than your example, I got the Bigger booster, the white one. Is that one efficient at all compare to the small one?
Staging: Is it less efficient to use the Boosters & engines at the same time?
Whats TWR?
Either is fine, bigger one will last longer though, and if space isn't a concern you might as well go with those for the ability to lift larger payloads for various reasons.
Staging - Only if it causes your speed to go too high and you start fighting the atmosphere too much. That's the primary reason why I don't run the boosters at the same time as the other stages for smaller craft, For larger craft this is much less of a concern.
TWR is thrust weight ratio, or how much force the engines provide in comparison to the craft's weight(different than mass, this is gravity dependant). Note that while engine output doesn't vary depending on the amount of fuel left, the weight of the craft does due to the burning fuel so as a result, TWR at the end of a stage can be significantly different than the start.
Thank you ;D
So, if you build a slightly bigger one, do you add more to the sides ? Build it like a Pyramid and drop those off later or do you keep the same width ?
Lol, my Fuel Station + Docked Ship looks ugly as fuck ;D
On February 24 2014 17:41 Epoxide wrote: You should check out the asparagus design, you can get pretty small rockets to mun/minmus with the nuclear engine using that
ah yeah, ive seen that one once before, ty ill try that one out ;D
On February 24 2014 17:29 nimbim wrote: For efficiency in space, you want to use the engine with the highest Isp and at most 2 engines. If you add 16 Nukes with Isp 800 for example, you're just screwing yourself over, because every engine beyond 1 will increase your mass+thrust, but not your Isp.
If you reach orbit with less fuel than desired, you probably just to need know beforehand how much delta v your rocket actually has. I recommend MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer for that. MechJeb can offer you more information (not necessary if you only want to know delta v or basic altitude stuff) and comes with autopilot and maneuver planner (not recommended since it teaches little and its maneuvers are suboptimal).
Whats lsp?
I see that my LV-T45 has 320(ASL) - 370(Vac) but what does that mean? :o
also: I think im pretty far from having Nukes: (i presume its on the top right)
Nukes are just the prime example for efficiency in space, because they have the highest Isp in vacuum of all stock engines (apart from Ions, which have so low thrust that they are of little use gameplay wise).
Isp means specific impulse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse "It represents the force with respect to the amount of propellant used per unit time." A measure for efficiency.
ASL stands for at sea level. Low Isp, high thrust engines are better for the lower atmosphere, because you want to get out of there asap (every second you spend there is subjecting your craft to drag). High Isp, low thrust for space, because burn time is mostly irrelevant (no drag, only your patience matters).
So the small LV-909 is actually better to use while in Space. High Vac Isp, its more efficient in Space and its also less heavy, making the craft slightly easier to get off Kerbin :O
Am I right ? Thats the kind of Tip Ive been looking for. Very helpful ;D
Nuke engines are pretty terrible for just getting to the mun or minmus. They don't provide enough efficiency to justify the massive weight. For my lander craft above, a nuke would be a full third of the weight. The increased ISP wouldn't make up for the ability to drop off excess tanks and store much more fuel for the same weight.. If you want to send like 20 tons to Jool, or send 100t into orbit around the mun, then you can justify using the nukes.
On February 24 2014 18:10 Daumen wrote: So the small LV-909 is actually better to use while in Space. High Vac Isp, its more efficient in Space and its also less heavy, making the craft slightly easier to get off Kerbin :O
Am I right ? Thats the kind of Tip Ive been looking for. Very helpful ;D
Just be careful because that engine doesn't generate electricity. Also note that for very small craft(sub 5T) the tiny rockomax's can be even better than the LV909 because of the tiny weight.
On February 24 2014 18:19 Amui wrote: Nuke engines are pretty terrible for just getting to the mun or minmus. They don't provide enough efficiency to justify the massive weight. For my lander craft above, a nuke would be a full third of the weight. The increased ISP wouldn't make up for the ability to drop off excess tanks and store much more fuel for the same weight.. If you want to send like 20 tons to Jool, or send 100t into orbit around the mun, then you can justify using the nukes.
On February 24 2014 18:10 Daumen wrote: So the small LV-909 is actually better to use while in Space. High Vac Isp, its more efficient in Space and its also less heavy, making the craft slightly easier to get off Kerbin :O
Am I right ? Thats the kind of Tip Ive been looking for. Very helpful ;D
Just be careful because that engine doesn't generate electricity. Also note that for very small craft(sub 5T) the tiny rockomax's can be even better than the LV909 because of the tiny weight.
That's true. It all comes down to the rocket equation, so you can find out what is best for what via math. Or you can just try attaching different engines with Kerbal Engineer/MechJeb to see what gives the best result.
As a rule of thumb though, nukes are #1 for interplanetary travel.
Another question: is it normal that markers like Periapsis and Apoapsis are twitchy? that makes it rly hard to navigate sometimes.
God damn, RCS is so whoppy when you dont know where to put it >.< I should just try to put it around/into the Center of mass, right?
Ok guys, this is it, I need your help guys ;D. I've got a Mission for you... sort of... :O
My trusty Jebediah is in a Circular Orbit around the Mun(see pic above). His SpaceCraft is a 3 Parter, a Sattelite, a rover and a Landing Unit.
I want him to:
1. Put the Lander with the Rover on the Mun somewhere, get Science (Observing unit & mystery goo etc). 2. Return the Lander + Rover to Kerbin! 3. Leave the Sattelite in Orbit around Mun
The Problem is Jebediah has no fuel!
I can barely manage to refuel my Fueling station, I just couldnt get to my Station with Fuel until I made this Monster:
And this doesnt even has enough Fuel left to Fill my Station, and it "only" holds 1800 LiquidFuel. Maybe this is normal, but it feels like my Constructions are WAAAAYYY too inefficient and im doing something wrong :o
My Refueling Station is Orbiting Kerbin at ~80.000. This is my tech tree + Show Spoiler +
http://i.imgur.com/6FEDXo4.png
(i have 180 points to spend)
I would try to get another Massive monster to my Refuel Station, fuel up and then go to the mun, but I feel like thats so much work, there has to be a better way to construct Rockets, right? :< what would you build? If any1 wants to live up to the challenge, please build an example rocket and screenshot it ;D
The markers get twitchy when you get close to a circular orbit. That's perfectly normal; when it comes to the vast distances in space, even double floating point math starts to show imprecision when its predicting things 1000km away. The imprecision is always there, but on an elliptical orbit, moving the nodes up or down 5m doesn't move the nodes very far along the orbit, meaning it doesn't twitch around. But If you're in a nearly-circular orbit, the imprecision could move the node tens of kilometers, which WILL show up on the map as twitching.
RCS should be placed around the center of mass, yes.
As for your fuel problem, you should consider asparagus style staging. Use symmetry to place 6 liquid boosters around the outside, have fuel lines connect them to the central stack so the central engine takes fuel from the boosters.
On launch, accelerate slowly. You want to hit 200m/s right around 10km altitude. This works out be a TWR (thrust to weight ratio) of about 1.2 or so. Preferably, build your rocket so that is its maximum TWR, or you're wasting mass on overly beefy engines. You can tell you're at the right TWR when your G meter sits just over 1G. At 10km, slowly start heading East (that's toward the ocean). You can also throttle back up to full once you're past 10km altitude. The reason you want to accelerate slower in the lower atmosphere is that you take unnecessary drag from air resistance if you go too fast. After 10km the air is thin enough for it to not matter.
If you have trouble RCS balance, you may have expended a lot of fuel and shifted your center of mass. With the new and improved SAS it shouldn't be much of a problem, but I suppose if there was a massive shift it could be problematic. Since you are just trying to send a refueling craft for 1-time use it really shouldn't be a concern, anyway.
Launch profile is a bit tricky (circularization is done with super low TWR), since it is designed to leave behind no debris. That could be easily changed by adding another liquid booster. It even has ~70 m/s RCS delta v, so you can practice docking without worrying about running out of fuel.
An obvious improvement to the design would be proper asparagus staging in twos (built in 4s for time's sake) and adjusting TWR for each stage to increase efficiency.
I also finished constructing my Eve monstrosity. I have avoided doing Eve until now because the lag was horrific, but with the 0.23 improvements it seems tolerable. + Show Spoiler [pictures] +
On February 26 2014 02:59 nimbim wrote: If you have trouble RCS balance, you may have expended a lot of fuel and shifted your center of mass. With the new and improved SAS it shouldn't be much of a problem, but I suppose if there was a massive shift it could be problematic. Since you are just trying to send a refueling craft for 1-time use it really shouldn't be a concern, anyway.
Launch profile is a bit tricky (circularization is done with super low TWR), since it is designed to leave behind no debris. That could be easily changed by adding another liquid booster. It even has ~70 m/s RCS delta v, so you can practice docking without worrying about running out of fuel.
An obvious improvement to the design would be proper asparagus staging in twos (built in 4s for time's sake) and adjusting TWR for each stage to increase efficiency.
I also finished constructing my Eve monstrosity. I have avoided doing Eve until now because the lag was horrific, but with the 0.23 improvements it seems tolerable. + Show Spoiler [pictures] +
That can land AND take off from Eve? It looks a bit different from other craft I've seen built to perform that feat (although not as ridiculous as some I've seen built to land and take off from Jool) - good luck! (Someday, Eve, someday...)
The lander has 10.5km/s delta v in atmosphere. I will dock using the return vehicle to position an engine part and lander, so they can easily dock without RCS (and engine part is uncontrollable). Then I can de-orbit without wasting fuel. I didn't go completely overboard with chutes, so I will have to try and stay as long as possible in the upper atmosphere and use engines to brake before chute opening and touchdown.
At the bottom of the mothership is a probe science lander, that saved some weight. The kerbal can collect the science and I have already placed a rover on Eve. If I should fail with my landing precision, I won't have to walk across the surface for an hour.
The return pod is on top of the science module atm and has no engine. At the end of the journey I will transfer the rest of the fuel in one of the engine parts and dock with it. Since command pods have RCS fuel now, it saved me at least 1 part^^.
As you can see from my previous post, I had this little Problem with Jebediah Orbiting the Mun without fuel. Before you guys answered to my problem I just Launched my MONSTER Tank Truck to the Mun, Fueled up my Lander a bit and Landed on the Mun Successfully! yay.
I conducted some research on the Northeast Crater and have about 300 science docked up! I even drove around in my rover, wich I think looks pretty cool (my first manned rover that looked anything like an actual vehicle). But then I noticed: Neither my "Lander" nor my Rover had a Parachute to land on Kerbin... damn, I built that on my sattelite, I need to get back to my Sattelite...
I had very low fuel anyways... When I was returning to my Sattelite around the Mun I noticed that my Fuel is actually VERY short and that I had no Monopropellant left over for docking... fuck.
At least my sattelite had a bit of Monopropellant left. So I BARELY made it :D Now I have 9.55 LiquidFuel left. It was pretty close ;D
After much celebration I noticed... I have no Parachute on my Sattelite either... I dont have a parachute at all °_°... damn!
Now I will probably recreate nimbims design and get some fuel to the mun. Then Ill have to try and undock my science experiments, dock them to a craft that actually has a parachute and get it to Kerbin...
damn! If you fail to think about everything in this game, you have to be clever :D This is going to be the 3rd mission to save Jebediah...
On February 26 2014 02:59 nimbim wrote: If you have trouble RCS balance, you may have expended a lot of fuel and shifted your center of mass. With the new and improved SAS it shouldn't be much of a problem, but I suppose if there was a massive shift it could be problematic. Since you are just trying to send a refueling craft for 1-time use it really shouldn't be a concern, anyway.
Launch profile is a bit tricky (circularization is done with super low TWR), since it is designed to leave behind no debris. That could be easily changed by adding another liquid booster. It even has ~70 m/s RCS delta v, so you can practice docking without worrying about running out of fuel.
An obvious improvement to the design would be proper asparagus staging in twos (built in 4s for time's sake) and adjusting TWR for each stage to increase efficiency.
I also finished constructing my Eve monstrosity. I have avoided doing Eve until now because the lag was horrific, but with the 0.23 improvements it seems tolerable. + Show Spoiler [pictures] +
Are Nose Cones not a good idea? thought they had a positive effect in the frist stages.
edit: you forgot some rcs thrusters i think °_° im only able to navigate in 4 directions, makes it very hard to dock :D
On February 26 2014 02:59 nimbim wrote: If you have trouble RCS balance, you may have expended a lot of fuel and shifted your center of mass. With the new and improved SAS it shouldn't be much of a problem, but I suppose if there was a massive shift it could be problematic. Since you are just trying to send a refueling craft for 1-time use it really shouldn't be a concern, anyway.
Launch profile is a bit tricky (circularization is done with super low TWR), since it is designed to leave behind no debris. That could be easily changed by adding another liquid booster. It even has ~70 m/s RCS delta v, so you can practice docking without worrying about running out of fuel.
An obvious improvement to the design would be proper asparagus staging in twos (built in 4s for time's sake) and adjusting TWR for each stage to increase efficiency.
I also finished constructing my Eve monstrosity. I have avoided doing Eve until now because the lag was horrific, but with the 0.23 improvements it seems tolerable. + Show Spoiler [pictures] +
Are Nose Cones not a good idea? thought they had a positive effect in the frist stages.
In the real world they are. In this game, however, they actually increase drag and obviously have weight. So in KSP you're better off without, except aesthetically.
On February 26 2014 02:59 nimbim wrote: If you have trouble RCS balance, you may have expended a lot of fuel and shifted your center of mass. With the new and improved SAS it shouldn't be much of a problem, but I suppose if there was a massive shift it could be problematic. Since you are just trying to send a refueling craft for 1-time use it really shouldn't be a concern, anyway.
Launch profile is a bit tricky (circularization is done with super low TWR), since it is designed to leave behind no debris. That could be easily changed by adding another liquid booster. It even has ~70 m/s RCS delta v, so you can practice docking without worrying about running out of fuel.
An obvious improvement to the design would be proper asparagus staging in twos (built in 4s for time's sake) and adjusting TWR for each stage to increase efficiency.
I also finished constructing my Eve monstrosity. I have avoided doing Eve until now because the lag was horrific, but with the 0.23 improvements it seems tolerable. + Show Spoiler [pictures] +
Are Nose Cones not a good idea? thought they had a positive effect in the frist stages.
edit: you forgot some rcs thrusters i think °_° im only able to navigate in 4 directions, makes it very hard to dock :D
I made it though, was a real hassle though.
Yea, I just threw it together real quick for demonstration purposes. Maybe symmetry snapped back to 2 when I attached the RCS thrusters.
The aerodynamics currently used are very rudimentary. Nose cones and fairings only increase your weight+drag in the stock game. FAR (ferram aerospace research) makes it more realistic, but it's still far from perfect.
What they said. I used to think nosecones helped - then I learned about the stock aerodynamics model. With Ferram Aerospace, they make sense (as do fairings) but in the stock aerodynamic model, things are simplified in such a way that the actual equations penalize you for the mass and drag of these items more than you gain versus just having a flat surface shoved into the atmosphere.
Of course, the aerodynamics model is not as simple as the hydrodynamics model, but I've seen people make boats for ocean going. (Hint - water is practically as nice to crafts as a roiling tub of brick to the face.)
So... my Jool mission. Pushing more because the new version (0.23.50) coming "soon" (premiering on KSPTV on Monday) and my ship is now 1033 parts and 702.65t
I... have docked too closely. In order to detach the orange tail and put my last lander into place, I need to undock some things, add some adapters and length, and then re-dock.
I've already blown the thing up twice. Thank you quicksaves.
No cloud mod. I have enough trouble remembering where the KSC is from orbit.
I have to figure out how to get the large Tylo lander from the front (on a small docking port) onto one of the seniors at the back. Not going to be easy.
On March 23 2014 01:56 felisconcolori wrote: No cloud mod. I have enough trouble remembering where the KSC is from orbit.
I have to figure out how to get the large Tylo lander from the front (on a small docking port) onto one of the seniors at the back. Not going to be easy.
The docking was tough. But next... to Jool. Hopefully before Monday, when the Asteroid Redirect Mission marathon starts, and I think the updated itself will be not far behind.
On April 02 2014 05:33 Epoxide wrote: 0.23.5 is out :D! Gonna try it tomorrow ~~
It is! The new tanks/engines are glorious. Tweakable light colors. The Claaaaaw. I now have to hope all of the mods are being updated feverishly. (Although the only one I use that seems utterly borked right now is MechJeb.)
On April 02 2014 05:33 Epoxide wrote: 0.23.5 is out :D! Gonna try it tomorrow ~~
It is! The new tanks/engines are glorious. Tweakable light colors. The Claaaaaw. I now have to hope all of the mods are being updated feverishly. (Although the only one I use that seems utterly borked right now is MechJeb.)
You can get a .dll that makes MJ work (more or less) in the meantime: www.sarbian.com/sarbian/MechJeb2.dll Doesn't provide delta v for ions and suicide burn countdown doesn't work either. I only use it for custom info windows, so no idea what else is broken.
I haven't gotten around to trying the asteroid redirect fun, yet. I started a new save as with every patch, but I don't seem to enjoy the science grind as much as I used to and when I just edited the science points it felt even worse.
On April 02 2014 05:33 Epoxide wrote: 0.23.5 is out :D! Gonna try it tomorrow ~~
It is! The new tanks/engines are glorious. Tweakable light colors. The Claaaaaw. I now have to hope all of the mods are being updated feverishly. (Although the only one I use that seems utterly borked right now is MechJeb.)
You can get a .dll that makes MJ work (more or less) in the meantime: www.sarbian.com/sarbian/MechJeb2.dll Doesn't provide delta v for ions and suicide burn countdown doesn't work either. I only use it for custom info windows, so no idea what else is broken.
I haven't gotten around to trying the asteroid redirect fun, yet. I started a new save as with every patch, but I don't seem to enjoy the science grind as much as I used to and when I just edited the science points it felt even worse.
I decided to play some KSP again after a long time. I had not played the game since before science was introduced. I did not think that it was grindy at all to be honest and probably spent the most time figuring out how to get any science. After seeing the options it took me about 12 hours to unlock most things (needed only 2k more science for everything). Considering that my rocket designs were probably quite inefficient and the fact that I was forgetting to pick up easy science on every mission (in retrospect I believe I was missing about 20% science on everyone of my missions), I'd say 12 hours is a really short time for unlocking almost everything. Furthermore, unlocking only the most essential stuff (complete rocketry and science techs) is really fast. Sending a Vessel into the sun's orbit with some mystery goo and getting it back to Kerbin requires almost no tech, is really quick and unlocks science jr. and rocket propulsion up to heavier rocketry, which I felt was enough for doing easy roundtrips with landings on minmus (and mun). Each roundtrip to either of those yields around 1k science when visiting 2 biomes (you can easily visit 3 on minmus). All of that science is far more than enough to unlock all rocket propulsion systems and the whole science tech, which basically allows you to go anywhere in the system and collect max. science. Considering that you can use the same vessel for those roundtrips (30-60 min construction) and that each trip takes around 30-60 min depending on your piloting abilities, unlocking the aforementioned tech takes 2-3 hours. Afterwards, I was getting science just to see how much I can get on a single mission and not because I really needed it for anything. I'm really proud of my mission to Duna with a vessel not constructed in space, a landing with 8x science jr. on Duna (turns out I only needed 4...) and a return to Kerbin, which yielded 2.3k science ^^
Anyway, I really love the science system. It actually gives you a mission to do, while tech being unlockable in a reasonably fast manner. However, I remembered why I quit playing KSP in the first place. It's extremelly addictive and a huge time sink. My Duna mission (with construction and flight) took over 4 hours. I visited only 3 celestial bodies in 12 hours of gameplay. The amount of planets, moons and now also asteroids to visit already feels overwhelming. Additionally, the amount of vessels you can make (rockets, planes, space stations, rovers, bases) makes me feel like I could play 100s of hours without doing the same thing twice... and that's without taking all the mods into account. So, I just unistalled the game again, because I'm afraid that if I keep playing it, I won't be doing anything productive in the next few weeks.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think farming science takes too long. I have simply done it too often and in my last save I had the goal of collecting every science report in the game (almost finished). With the part connection overhaul it is actually a lot easier to do the science tree in 2-3 launches now.
First a launch 180° opposite to the target orbit, then another launch 180° opposite from the opposite side of Kerbin (genius, I know) and third time I left the ship in a highly eccentric orbit and it got hurled out of Kerbin SOI while timewarping for 100days. :D
This game, indeed, appears so simple and cute and fun and then next thing you know you're calculating the delta-V required for efficient orbital insertion from a poorly executed Hohmann transfer and/or creating your own shuttle with working doors (in stock).
I haven't tried the asteroid capture yet - I still have to finish up my Jool mission (launched pre-ARM, so I don't have any of the mighty power of the new parts) and then I'm going to start up a new career save - no removal of debris not on a launch pad or runway and no reverting to avoid death. Should be interesting.
And of course, if getting science isn't all that much fun... well, there's always Sandbox and self imposed challenges until they release 0.24.
I personally don't use procedural fairings or docking alignment ui.
Some things that I think make the game much better is: EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements (aka Clouds) FerramAeroSpace (more realistic aerodynamics) KWRocketry (for fairings and more rockets) DeadlyReentry (makes reentry more realistic)
Some other things that might add more fun to the game that I use: KSP Interstellar (bunch of technology stuff) Infernal Robotics (moving parts) B9 Aerospace (spaceplane parts) TAC Lifesupport (lifesupport, kerbals die without water/food/oxygen etc.)
MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer Redux are pretty handy to have as well as Kerbal Alarm Clock. Really handy for building and KAC helps make sure you never timewarp your way to disaster.
I'm really bad/new at this game, so whatever makes it a bit easier would be appreciative (:
Then you should start with only MechJeb/Kerbal Enginer and Kerbal Alarm Clock. Most of the other listed mods makes the game harder or more complicated. The information to take in from stock is more than enough
What Epoxide said. Do not worry about explosions, rather you should revel in them. It is from giant balls of fire that you learn what not to do, and from there you proceed to wisdom.
Also, you can always check out the KSPTV stream or look for some Scott Manley videos on YouTube to help get a handle on fundamentals. (Warning - both the streamers on KSPTV and Scott Manley can do things that boggle my mind without blinking. I have a clue, have returned from Duna and landed on Eve (no Jool yet) but those guys... woah. Then there's insanity in EJ's shuttle program (stock only, working shuttle cargo bay doors).
I'm of the opinion that MechJeb should only be used by players who already know how to do the stuff MechJeb can autopilot you through. Learning to do that stuff yourself is a big part of KSP and the autopilot feature is just so tempting after a dozen failures.
I'm really bad/new at this game, so whatever makes it a bit easier would be appreciative (:
Then you should start with only MechJeb/Kerbal Enginer and Kerbal Alarm Clock. Most of the other listed mods makes the game harder or more complicated. The information to take in from stock is more than enough
Yeah, I'm really looking for mods that adds more customization and/or makes things perhaps easier. OF course I love aestehtics too!
I think if you play Career mode, the Mechjebness is okay. Also, I'm not sure if they've gotten all the kinks out of the autopilot bits yet for the new version.
On May 04 2014 02:30 felisconcolori wrote: I think if you play Career mode, the Mechjebness is okay. Also, I'm not sure if they've gotten all the kinks out of the autopilot bits yet for the new version.
I think Kerbal Engineer is superior, auto-pilot feels a bit cheaty to me
On May 04 2014 02:30 felisconcolori wrote: I think if you play Career mode, the Mechjebness is okay. Also, I'm not sure if they've gotten all the kinks out of the autopilot bits yet for the new version.
I think Kerbal Engineer is superior, auto-pilot feels a bit cheaty to me
Some, but it won't rescue bad design or timing. Also, there are only so many times you can dock before it gets to the point that you can do this.
On May 04 2014 03:07 Epoxide wrote: Why didn't you build from one side to the other :D? That just seems unnecessarily hard
Order of launches was sub-optimal. Also, from previous dockings, I think I became a masochist.
Best part? The entire ship was too unstable to burn in a single direction - CoM was off, and the docked landers may have interfered with the thrust from the driving nuclear engines.
The concept was sound, the execution failed. Horribly.
So, maybe i don't get it, but how do you guys effectively dock anything?
I tried it once, having a seperate lander and a transport ship on my minmus landing, and it took me ages and probably more fuel then getting back to Kerbin to get the two things together, it appears to be incredibly fiddly to get something to within a few meters on an orbit even using the control thrusters. Once i got it done, i saved the game. Then it broke for some reason, so i reloaded, and the two parts started flying into opposite directions for no apparent reason. Once i got them back together, it turned out that apparently the docking apparatus somehow broke in the process.
So basically, after spending a few hours on that utterly failed experiment i didn't dock anything anymore. You guys make it seem like docking is something you can actually use to some effect.
On May 13 2014 08:12 Simberto wrote: So, maybe i don't get it, but how do you guys effectively dock anything?
I tried it once, having a seperate lander and a transport ship on my minmus landing, and it took me ages and probably more fuel then getting back to Kerbin to get the two things together, it appears to be incredibly fiddly to get something to within a few meters on an orbit even using the control thrusters. Once i got it done, i saved the game. Then it broke for some reason, so i reloaded, and the two parts started flying into opposite directions for no apparent reason. Once i got them back together, it turned out that apparently the docking apparatus somehow broke in the process.
So basically, after spending a few hours on that utterly failed experiment i didn't dock anything anymore. You guys make it seem like docking is something you can actually use to some effect.
Are you having more trouble rendezvousing or actually docking?
Well, i did it once. The rendezvous was annoying, but doable. The docking then was even more annoying and about half an hour of me being 1-2m off in some direction, trying to correct, but not knowing if ijkl is the right direction because i fly a symmetric ship and have to turn the camera constantly to get the right idea of the 3d space, that means a lot of bashing random keys to see which direction the ship goes in. Then getting close again, but having to correct over and over again until you finally get those 2 small parts of 2 ships which are IN ORBIT AROUND A FUCKING PLANET to actually get to within a meter of each other. And then you get rewarded with a wobbly connection that probably breaks on acceleration anyways.
Meanwhile we have guys with stations build out of 20 different docked parts here. It just makes me think that i must be doing something utterly wrong. And at this point, i am pretty sure that i spend more fuel trying to get a lander to rendezvous with a carrier ship than i would just landing the whole thing and taking off again. I just have to make everything bigger at the original launch. I managed to land a guy on Duna and bring him back to Kerbin without docking, because quite honestly it is just so fiddly to manually get those parts so close to each other after already spending shitloads of fuel to get them into a similar orbit that i dont wanna do it. Spending half an hour to try to finally get those fucking docking shits to attach is not a lot of fun. Maybe i am still a bit annoyed at how it then EXPLODED into different directions in my quicksave after i finally managed to do it for no apparent reason (It didn't do that in the original attempt where i somehow failed my landing on Kerbin), and then i spent so much time trying to get them back together until i finally realized that the docking clamps no longer work for some inexplicable reason. Then i just flew the lander back to kerbin itself from minmus, and left the transport ship in orbit around minmus, and never bothered to build anything that involves docking ever again.
It sounds like the rendezvous is an issue - and that's always going to take some work, especially if you launch to orbit at a bad time. Docking itself... well, it can be fiddly (check my twitch highlights, same name) but more often than not it is pretty straightforward. It takes some practice - making sure the ports are lined up, that kind of thing - but isn't too tough. Takes some patience, because if you are going too fast you'll just bounce off (if not outright explode) and you can stress the magnetism of the docking ports (or connected parts) to breaking points with strange wobbles or rotating the ship quickly. (Example - docked like "T", the stress on the joint is pretty considerable if you try to move too fast.)
And, of course, it's possible there was a null ref somewhere. The game still is in active development, so sometimes things happen.
Still, if I can get a decent rendezvous with my target ship (say, matched orbits around 200-500 meters apart) I can usually dock okay using the "control from here" on the docking port and "target" the docking port I want to connect with. (I have, actually, used The Claaaaawwwww to forcibly latch on to a ship I forgot to put docking ports on for a fuel transfer, but that is a mess - the target point was nowhere near where I wanted to grab. Took two loads from quicksave and I still used most of a large monopropellant tank.)
But... practice. And take it slow - if you can get close enough, the docking port magnetism will bring you in. The biggest thing is being pretty stable as you approach and not make large corrections if you can make smaller ones further out.
I was on a matched orbit and very close to the target. I guess most of what i remember might just be trying to rendezvous with a ship with broken docking thingies. Which i am pretty sure broke because of some bug in saving after docking. I remember spending most of the time within 10 meters of the target trying to get the ports to actually match up.
On May 13 2014 09:16 Simberto wrote: I was on a matched orbit and very close to the target. I guess most of what i remember might just be trying to rendezvous with a ship with broken docking thingies. Which i am pretty sure broke because of some bug in saving after docking. I remember spending most of the time within 10 meters of the target trying to get the ports to actually match up.
This game is kicking my butt so much. I've been playing for 10 hours and all I've managed to do is crash land into the moon a few times. How I'm ever going to have enough fuel to land safely and lift off to come back is beyond me. Loving every minute of it though.
I have no idea, it was a while ago. As i said, i didn't dock anything afterwards because the whole thing just felt entirely shitty and not useful in any ways whatsoever.
But in this thread apparently everyone always docks everything, so i get this feeling that there must be some use to it that justifies the utter fiddlyness and all the annoyance it leads to. I mean, i tried a simple docking procedure to use a lander, and it took ages and was very, very annoying, then it didn't work and the savegame completely broke it. Meanwhile people apparently built ships out of many parts in orbit. Doesn't that take 10 hours or something to even get started?
Docking is indispensable because it allows you to build huge structures somewhat more efficiently. As you've probably noticed, the bigger (and heavier) your structure gets, the more rockets you need to strap onto it to lift it into space. And those rockets have mass, so you need even more rockets, and so on...
Basically, it's far easier to assemble something in parts because you're lifting less stuff at one time.
Docking is also useful for interplanetary missions. If your intent is to land on a planet, then take off and return home, you don't want to take the the fuel you'll use in interplanetary flight down to the surface, because you'll just have to lift it back up again. It's much more efficient to just take what you'll need to land and reascend.
There are mods to aid the rendezvous and to aid in docking. They range from mechjeb automating the whole process to subtler mods which just help you line things up.
On May 13 2014 09:16 Simberto wrote: I was on a matched orbit and very close to the target. I guess most of what i remember might just be trying to rendezvous with a ship with broken docking thingies. Which i am pretty sure broke because of some bug in saving after docking. I remember spending most of the time within 10 meters of the target trying to get the ports to actually match up.
Did you have at least 4 RCS ports and were they placed on the center of mass? If that isn't the case, then it becomes really hard to control. If you lose mass before the actual docking, you may have to take that into account too. You can simply add more RCS ports (evenly spaced from the center of mass) to make it easier to control, even if the center of mass shifts a bit. Other than that, you just need to practice, practice, practice. My first docking without any Mechjeb help took me something like 30minutes and I needed ridiculous amounts of RCS fuel.
Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
On May 13 2014 21:04 Simberto wrote: Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
Spazer linked this great addon: http://kerbalspaceport.com/dock-align-indicator/ It makes lining up the docking port and knowing which direction to go a lot easier. I also posted a way of doing it without any help from this addon a few pages back:
For docking everyone has their own method to help them. In the beginning I just watched MechJeb and learned from there. Basically, you want to find as many ways as possible to make it easier when you're still learning. How I made it easy for me: 1. Point the target docking port south, this has the advantage that the direction will never change 2. Get close to and underneath the target, with RCS or without 3. Point north and check where the target is shown on the navball 4. Use RCS controls (I-J-K-L) to move the target north on your navball. You know where to move via navball. For example, the target is to the top right of north on your navball, press K and L until your prograde marker is even more to the top right than your target. It will "push" the target on your navball to the north marker. Adjust the prograde until it is pointing north along with the target. This allows you to ignore the relative rotation, just the direction on the navball is important. 5. Use H (N to slow down) to move straight to the docking port. IRL docking happens at 3cm/s, in the game you can dock at 1m/s without worries.
You should of course do what's fun for you, but I recommend not to give up docking entirely. Learning it is worth the effort in my opinion.
Imho, you can't really play ksp without docking. Everything "later" is pretty much dependant on that.
What helped me, was watching Scott Manley. Learned alot, especially regarding docking etc, and RCS placement (he doesn't really explain, but you can see). If you really have trouble aligning docking ports, it's most likely due to bad RCS placement.
Learned that the hard way when i was trying to line up a small "communications part" for my space station, with only 4 RCS on one end, none on the other.
In fact, there's an addon that helps with RCS placement somewhere, maybe that'll help. Then there's the docking alignment mod, and also, there's a camera-mod, which basically lets you play from the docking port in ego-perspective. I use that, since it looks more "realistic" than the aligner.
edit
Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
.. yet. In fact, there's a mod (mission command or something like that), which "fixes" that. If you look closely, there is already prices on items, it's just that the economystuff isn't in the game yet. Since they said that they're slowly wrapping up the campaign mode, my bets are on 0.24 or 0.25 adding currency.
Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_>
Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time.
Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships.
For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
On May 13 2014 21:04 Simberto wrote: Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
FYI, the inability to time warp during acceleration is a game engine limitation. The way time warping works is that your ship is essentially frozen in space and just moved forwards along its current trajectory. During this time, no physics calculations are done because it'd be too computationally complex. This is also why you lose all rotational momentum (if you had any) when entering time warp.
So yeah, it's a rather unfortunate limitation of using ions and nukes, but unless Squad comes up with a clever workaround, this isn't going to change for a long time.
On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote: Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_>
Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time.
Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships.
For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
If i might suggest, if you want to have fun with spaceplanes, install KAS as well. IR got updated to .23.5 as well, so that might be an option as well, especially for payload (on a hinge, good for tug-based spaceships as well). You could also look into "KSP Interstellar" for interplanetary stuff, couple of nice engines and new "economy" (need for special ressources, like anti-matter, thorium etc) - and some "speed bumps" in terms of wasteheat, stuff like that.
On May 13 2014 21:04 Simberto wrote: Yes, i had a lot of RCS on the ship. And yeah, i guess i should just get an addon for docking, because i just don't find it any fun to do that docking procedure. Spending half an hour fiddling and fiddling and trying to get 2 things to within a meter with controls that are obviously not designed for doing that is not my definition of fun. "Hm, 10 meters to far in that direction, better try to find out which direction that is for my craft by pressing random buttons as there is no way to see how the ship is orientated. Hm, now i am slowly moving in that direction. But while i aligned these axis, i am now a bit too far away again. So lets try moving forward. Hm now that axis is off. But which one is it? I turned the camera multiple times to get an idea of the 3d position of the two thing. So random button pressing again until i understand which one is which direction."
I already found the inability to speed up time during acceleration annoying. Even with full 4x speed up you sometimes have 5 minute long acceleration phases where you literally just stare at the screen doing nothing. It also makes it impossible to use Ion engines which should be clearly the thing to go to for interplanetary travel with the given stats. But even that is more fun than manually docking something.
And the thought of combining multiple parts into one spaceship in orbit just to fly someplace doesn't sound like something i want to do. I guess i'll just build even bigger launch vehicles instead. I already have a design that can land on Duna, and probably Eve, but i haven't tested that, and return to Kerbin, without any need of docking at any point. Sure, docking a lander would be cheaper then landing an interplanetary craft, but it's not like there is money in the game.
But basically, what i gathered so far is that i am indeed not missing anything, people who dock ships are just utterly insane and actually go through that procedure multiple times.
You know about docking control mode right? Just turn that on, hit space bar till you're on translation mode, and then WASD will translate you forward, back, left, and right as you'd expect, and shift and ctrl translate you up and down. This is with respect to the nav-ball, so there's no camera fiddling involved.
Docking is really not that hard. You only did it once, so of course it will seem tough to you. You have no practice.
I don't have a picture of it anymore, but I built a station in 10 construction launches, the parts had to be perfectly aligned once docked in order to work, fuelled the whole thing up in an 11th docking, docked a transfer stage to that, making 12 dockings, then landed the whole station on Minmus. The hardest part was aligning the parts where alignment mattered with no mods. I had to open solar panels, and aim the camera so I was looking at them edge-on, and when the panels were co-linear with the already attached panels, I was aligned to within less than 1 degree.
On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote: Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_>
Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time.
Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships.
For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
If i might suggest, if you want to have fun with spaceplanes, install KAS as well. IR got updated to .23.5 as well, so that might be an option as well, especially for payload (on a hinge, good for tug-based spaceships as well). You could also look into "KSP Interstellar" for interplanetary stuff, couple of nice engines and new "economy" (need for special ressources, like anti-matter, thorium etc) - and some "speed bumps" in terms of wasteheat, stuff like that.
FAR and DRE don't make it troublesome, but fun.
When I say troublesome, I meant that I managed to build an SSTO that got into orbit with fuel to spare, but on my (so far) two attempts at a return trip the ship disintegrated. The ship seems to flop over backwards at a certain point. Maybe it's got to do with the change in fuel distribution after the ascent. I dunno, I'll figure it out. Anyway, I didn't mean troublesome in the bad kinda sense, more in the I've yet to figure it out kinda sense. XD
Depending on what tanks you use, yeah, pump the fuel towards the nose before descending. Scott Manley had that problem in his "Interstellar" series, quite recently iirc. He pumped everything as much as he could to the front, and got manouverability back.
On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote: Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_>
Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time.
Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships.
For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
If i might suggest, if you want to have fun with spaceplanes, install KAS as well. IR got updated to .23.5 as well, so that might be an option as well, especially for payload (on a hinge, good for tug-based spaceships as well). You could also look into "KSP Interstellar" for interplanetary stuff, couple of nice engines and new "economy" (need for special ressources, like anti-matter, thorium etc) - and some "speed bumps" in terms of wasteheat, stuff like that.
FAR and DRE don't make it troublesome, but fun.
When I say troublesome, I meant that I managed to build an SSTO that got into orbit with fuel to spare, but on my (so far) two attempts at a return trip the ship disintegrated. The ship seems to flop over backwards at a certain point. Maybe it's got to do with the change in fuel distribution after the ascent. I dunno, I'll figure it out. Anyway, I didn't mean troublesome in the bad kinda sense, more in the I've yet to figure it out kinda sense. XD
as you burn fuel, your center of mass will shift backwards, and at some point will pass your center of lift. Then you die.
You need to pump stuff forward as far as possible, or have the engine be detachable and just glide in on re-entry. The engine is a huge percent of your total mass once the fuel's gone, so it'll be a nightmare to maintain stability, especially pitch stability.
On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote: For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
I think hitting the runway is the toughest thing. I always under/overestimate so either I smash into the mountain or go into the ocean >_<
On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote: For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
I think hitting the runway is the toughest thing. I always under/overestimate so either I smash into the mountain or go into the ocean >_<
This is without any fuel left
Yeah, I've been thinking of a ILS landing mod or something similar that could be helpful. I generally use a rover or a planted flag to create an "extended center line" for the runway so I have a good idea of how my craft is lined up on approach and then try to make sure I'm at an altitude that I can (if I have to) make a "hot" landing by dropping my nose and then flaring out to try to hit the runway.
Of course, I did just find out that MechJeb's got an option to put some guidance on the navball under the spaceplane menu so that might make things easier in the future. (I'm not convinced the "autoland" on the menu is something I trust - it's crashed every plane I've tried to use it with.)
On May 13 2014 23:16 a_flayer wrote: Good grief, I rediscovered this game after trying it once and putting it aside about 2 or 3 years ago ... After rediscovering the game 4 weeks ago, I bought it, and now I have about 300 hours invested on steam. I can't stop playing it >_>
Last week I added three mods to make the experience more interesting (FAR, DRE and TAC) and I'm about to rediscover interplanetary travel. It's gonna be interesting to see if I have planned it out correctly - my Kerbals will rely on a supply mission to be sent during the next window to keep them supplied with life support, allowing them to stay near Duna for an extended period of time.
Also, regarding docking, iirc this Scott Manley video explained it for me. I've gotten quite handy at it over the past few days. I try to get the ports lined up exactly at about ~300 meters while closing in at about 5.0m/sec. Even if I am off by a little bit, I can usually just turn either the ship or the station to make sure the magnets attach. RCS placement hasn't been much of an issue, but I tend to make pretty simple ships.
For me the next challenge will be to bring back a spaceplane from orbit (it seems like it might be slightly troublesome with both FAR and DRE installed).
Regarding your docking, closing in at 5 m/s is way too fast. You might want to keep it under 2 m/s or better 1 m/s for better connection.
For SSTO, FAR intruduce the aerodynamic failure back into a mod so if you have too high dynamic pressure (aka going too fast and atmosphere is too thick), things will be torn apart. Couple with DRE that make things disintegrated, reenty can be really really difficult. The best way is to aim the ap abouve 30km and skip the atmosphere a couple of times (at least once) before going for the final landing. FAR should tell you when the dynamic pressure becomes high so try not to move your craft too quickly at that point.
a few weeks ago I finally finished my Duna mission, got a bit frustrated with the game and stopped playing it as much. Gathered a lot of Science Points and researched Nuclear Engines. Holy damn they make the game waaaaay easier. Also the other Engines with extremely powerful Thrust make launching so easy °_°
This 1 research closes 1 giant gap it feels like I entered a Cheat code or something ;D
Since then I fell in love with Planes °_° building spaceplanes and doing Science with them is incredibly fun. Launched a staged spaceplane to Minmus and came back, by sheer random luck my return path was perfectly timed and angled so I could easily land on the Runway without flying around too long. Amazing ;D
This game is one of my best Steam-investments so far.
64-bit Windows support coming with 0.24. This is awesome! When I get my new computer, I actually might start modding this game
Quite excited to use all the small redundant mods after the patch ^^, I haven't bothered installing the new version of Better Atmospheres because of the Texture Replacer dependency.
64-bit Windows support coming with 0.24. This is awesome! When I get my new computer, I actually might start modding this game
Quite excited to use all the small redundant mods after the patch ^^, I haven't bothered installing the new version of Better Atmospheres because of the Texture Replacer dependency.
I haven't used any mods yet, but with a new high-end computer and 64-bit support incoming, I'm sure as that I'm going to mod this game quite a bit
On June 26 2014 13:40 r.Evo wrote: I wish all devs would make 64bit versions by default nowadays, sooo much better. <3
64-bit Windows support coming with 0.24. This is awesome! When I get my new computer, I actually might start modding this game
Quite excited to use all the small redundant mods after the patch ^^, I haven't bothered installing the new version of Better Atmospheres because of the Texture Replacer dependency.
I haven't used any mods yet, but with a new high-end computer and 64-bit support incoming, I'm sure as that I'm going to mod this game quite a bit
64-bit Windows support coming with 0.24. This is awesome! When I get my new computer, I actually might start modding this game
Quite excited to use all the small redundant mods after the patch ^^, I haven't bothered installing the new version of Better Atmospheres because of the Texture Replacer dependency.
I haven't used any mods yet, but with a new high-end computer and 64-bit support incoming, I'm sure as that I'm going to mod this game quite a bit
On July 13 2014 01:25 r.Evo wrote: Holy shit that was worth the wait.
Modupdatespls.
Did you see the reddit post on additional solar systems :D? Really excited for that with interstellar and 64-bit
Ohmygod. - I don't see it, link?
Remotech, life support, interstellar and that. This is gonna be insane. Build bases everywhere, explore everywhere and never crash due to RAM restrictions. ;;;
On July 13 2014 01:25 r.Evo wrote: Holy shit that was worth the wait.
Modupdatespls.
Did you see the reddit post on additional solar systems :D? Really excited for that with interstellar and 64-bit
Ohmygod. - I don't see it, link?
Remotech, life support, interstellar and that. This is gonna be insane. Build bases everywhere, explore everywhere and never crash due to RAM restrictions. ;;;
I got this game during the steam sale. It seems really fun, but it is definitely not the easiest in terms of figuring out what is going (speaking mainly about earning science and the finer points of controlling your vehicle). Look forward to spending some time on it though
Sciencing is pretty easy, but badly explained, probably due to the fact that there isn't really a tutorial of any kind yet.
Basically, go to place, use sciencing equipment, bring data back to kerbin. Stellar Objects(including Kerbin) have multiple Biomes, which are relevant for some sciencing (I think for most except for Crew reports). At the beginning, your only sciencings are EVA reports, crew reports while in capsule, and soil samples. Later you get more, but they all function more or less the same. Transmitting science is only a good idea if you have no way of getting your ship back to Kerbin and landing it safely, because you get a lot less science that way.
Quite excited about the no revert to launch/VAB, no cheating :D
I'm a bit torn about this. I feel a huge part of the fun is trying to launch something which then results in UPS LOL THAT WASN'T PLANNED -> revert to VAB. Getting rid of that sounds so super srs.
Quite excited about the no revert to launch/VAB, no cheating :D
I'm a bit torn about this. I feel a huge part of the fun is trying to launch something which then results in UPS LOL THAT WASN'T PLANNED -> revert to VAB. Getting rid of that sounds so super srs.
You can keep the default settings if you like I just wish the wait was over.
Quite excited about the no revert to launch/VAB, no cheating :D
I'm a bit torn about this. I feel a huge part of the fun is trying to launch something which then results in UPS LOL THAT WASN'T PLANNED -> revert to VAB. Getting rid of that sounds so super srs.
You can keep the default settings if you like I just wish the wait was over.
======= First Contract (v0.24.0) =====================
New:
* Currencies: - Added Funds and Reputation as new Career Mode Currencies. - Funds are required to launch vessels. - Part Costs are now in use in Career Mode. - Resources like Liquid Fuel and Mono Propellant now have costs of their own, which figure into the cost of a launch. - Tweaking a part's resource sliders in the Editors will adjust the cost of the vessel accordingly.
* Mission Control: - The Mission Control Facility is now active in Career Games. - Mission Control allows you to select Contracts, review them, and either accept or decline them. - Added Gene Kerman as advisor in the Mission Control screen, ready to give his opinion about what you're doing. - The Mission Control screen also features an 'archives' tab, where you can review previously-completed contracts.
* Contracts: - Contracts require you to complete objectives, in order to gain Funds, Science and Reputation - Once accepted, contracts must be completed before the deadline expires. - Contracts will fail if the deadline expires or if some critical parameter fails (like killing a Kerbal in a mission to rescue him). - Added procedurally generated 'mission briefings' for contracts, which may even make sense sometimes. - Contracts come in three levels of Prestige ("Trivial", "Significant" and "Exceptional"). Higher levels offer greater rewards and are usually more ambitious. - Reputation regulates the amounts of each level of contracts on offer.
* Early 'Starter' Contracts: - First Launch: Launch any vessel. - Altitude Records: Set a new altitude record. - Reach Space: Escape Kerbin's atmosphere - Achieve Orbit: Achieve a stable orbit around Kerbin.
* Dynamically Generated Contracts: - Part Test: Perform a test of a part in a specific location, situation and within given flight parameters (when applicable). - Collect Science: Return or transmit any scientific data from a specific location. - Rescue Kerbal: Rescue a Kerbal who is stuck in orbit. - Plant Flag: Plant the Agency's flag on the surface of a given location. - Explore: Complete several exploration goals for an unexplored location.
* Agencies: - Added Agencies, which offer contracts. - Each agency has its own personality traits, which affects the generation of the contracts they offer. - Agency Logos added from the winners of the Community Logo Design Contest. - Clicking the agency logo in the Mission Control screen will display extra info about the Agency.
* Vessel Recovery: - Recovering vessels now refunds you for the value of recovered parts and resources. - Recovered value varies based on distance from the Space Center. Land at the Runway for 100% value.
* Space Center: - Added a universal time clock to the KSC scene UI. - Added a Pause Menu to the KSC scene, instead of leaving to the main menu immediately on pressing the Quit button. - The KSC Pause Menu allows saving and loading with a custom filename.
* UI: - Added new UI Toolbar, which exists in all game scenes and is mod-friendly. - Added new UI Widget to display state of ongoing Contracts in Flight, KSC and the Construction Facilities. - Added new UI Widgets to display the current amount of Science, Reputation and Funds. - Added Messages UI App, shows messages about contracts and such. - Redesigned the Resources Panel from flight as a toolbar app, overhauled panel graphics. - Overhauled the old 'Science Summary' dialog into a complete 'Mission Summary', displaying information about recovered Experiments, Parts and Crew.
* Parts: - Added new "Vernor Engine", a very powerful RCS module powered by Liquid Fuel + Oxidizer. - Added new O-10 Maneuvering Engine, a low-thrust main engine powered by Monopropellant. - Gimballing Engines now respond to roll input. - 4x Engine Cluster and RAPIER Engine have gimbal roll authority even if stacked over the centerline (due to multiple nozzles).
* Builds: - Added Windows 64-bit executable.
* Tutorials: - Added several new tutorials.
* Game: - Added 'Science' Game Mode, where Science is the only currency and Mission Control is closed (as in pre-0.24 'Classic' Career).
Bug Fixes and Tweaks:
* Flight: - Asteroids are now able to collide with other asteroids. - New launches now start with throttle set to 50%, like in the old days. - Saving restriction when throttled up removed. - Timewarp restriction when throttled up removed. Engaging time warp now automatically cuts throttle. - Improved logic for detecting a vessel in 'orbiting' situations.
* Editors: - Fixed a bug in the editors where dragging a part off the ship and deleting it straight away would not generate an undo state. - Fixed a bug where ctrl+clicking over a part in the build area would not reveal the part in the parts list. - Orientation of VAB scenery rotated so spacecraft orientation is consistent at launchpad. - VAB Flag moved to the opposite wall. - Redesigned the Parts List UI 'Footer' section.
* Tracking Station: - Fixed a bug where map objects were created but never removed, leaving dozens of 'leaked' objects behind.
* Space Center: - Launchpad and Runway Launch Dialogs now show vessel costs. - Added 'Edit' Button to Launch Dialogs, which takes you to the VAB or SPH to edit the selected vessel. - Launch Dialogs and Craft Browser now allow selecting vessels with 'invalid parts' (for editing). - Added new Pre-Flight Checks to prevent launching vessels containing invalid parts or with costs exceeding available Funds.
* Solar System: - Kerbin's Solar Day is now exactly 6 hours long (sidereal day is now 59 seconds shorter). - Slight optimization to Kerbin, Mun and Eve surface shaders.
* Parts: - Resource flow mode can now be defined for each propellant on Engine, EngineFX and RCS Modules in the part config. - Previously useless Engine Nacelle and Radial Engine Body parts repurposed as air intake + fuel tank combos. - Tweaked Costs for almost every part. - Tweaked Mass for several parts, especially spaceplane fuselage sections and structural components. - Fixed a potentially gamebreaking issue when activating a Separator if it was the root part of a vessel. - Fixed a bug where some particle FX (mainly on newer engines) would cause a stream of errors when the vessel was unloaded with the FX active. - Fixed a bug where StrutConnectors could cause hierarchy issues if linked in certain configurations. - ModuleRCS can now use multiple resources.
* Tech Tree: - Revised R&D node layout so 'control' type nodes have a more logical progression. - Moved basic RCS parts to tier 4 (from tier 5). - Added more connections into aerodynamic parts from other nodes on tiers 5 and 6.
* Progress Tracking: - Fixed an issue introduced in 0.23.5 where unowned vessels could complete progress nodes. - Fixed AltitudeRecord progress node (now used for contract generation).
* Crews: - Fixed crewmembers not being properly flagged as dead if their vessel was destroyed while unloaded. - Crewmembers are now keyed by name in the roster, and can properly be added and removed. - Added reputation reward and penalty for recovering and killing crewmembers. - Added new unique names for Kerbals, suggested by the Community Logo Design Contest winners.
* Misc: - Fixed issue with persistence when reverting to flight. - Added rich text support to several UI text fields. - Fixed several cases of texture point-filtering issues resulting in crooked text. - Fixed potential crash related to reentry FX on Linux when no depthtexture hardware support is available. - Overhauled all UI screens and text. All text fields using Arial font now use proper Calibri. - Exposed Gameplay difficulty options to the Alt+F12 Debug Toolbar. - Updated Credits Scene. - Fixed permission issues with KSPLauncher which prevented it from properly launching the game on Linux. - Messages displayed on the upper-right corner in flight are now displayed above the crew portraits instead. - Removed a 'rogue' tooltip from the Staging Reset button at the VAB and SPH.
I already encountered a bug when I cancelled a part test contract, that huge ARM SRB is still available to me without unlocking. I just wonder how a bug like that could escape the testing lol.
I'm still having fun with the free demo after all these years. Everytime I want some KSP I just play it for some hours and then I'm satisfied. I'm even afraid of the full game at this stage as it would add so many things I'm unfamiliar with. I like it simple.
Even with the barebones parts of the demo you can always try to succeed with completely different designs (mostly they fail horribly ^^)
Funnily enough my most successful rocket to this day is the giant RVR "Reichs Vergeltungs Rakete" with rows of rocketpods arranged as swastikas. Somehow the swastikas stabilized that big fat fucker in a "self-stabilizing rolling motion" and I could get pretty much everywhere with it.
(I was very drunk when I built the first draft and I was very ashamed when I found that design the next morning as I strongly oppose any fashism. But it was working so well that I had to stick with it then - sometimes you have to go to uncomfortable places to win)
======= First Contract (v0.24.0) =====================
New:
* Currencies: - Added Funds and Reputation as new Career Mode Currencies. - Funds are required to launch vessels. - Part Costs are now in use in Career Mode. - Resources like Liquid Fuel and Mono Propellant now have costs of their own, which figure into the cost of a launch. - Tweaking a part's resource sliders in the Editors will adjust the cost of the vessel accordingly.
* Mission Control: - The Mission Control Facility is now active in Career Games. - Mission Control allows you to select Contracts, review them, and either accept or decline them. - Added Gene Kerman as advisor in the Mission Control screen, ready to give his opinion about what you're doing. - The Mission Control screen also features an 'archives' tab, where you can review previously-completed contracts.
* Contracts: - Contracts require you to complete objectives, in order to gain Funds, Science and Reputation - Once accepted, contracts must be completed before the deadline expires. - Contracts will fail if the deadline expires or if some critical parameter fails (like killing a Kerbal in a mission to rescue him). - Added procedurally generated 'mission briefings' for contracts, which may even make sense sometimes. - Contracts come in three levels of Prestige ("Trivial", "Significant" and "Exceptional"). Higher levels offer greater rewards and are usually more ambitious. - Reputation regulates the amounts of each level of contracts on offer.
* Early 'Starter' Contracts: - First Launch: Launch any vessel. - Altitude Records: Set a new altitude record. - Reach Space: Escape Kerbin's atmosphere - Achieve Orbit: Achieve a stable orbit around Kerbin.
* Dynamically Generated Contracts: - Part Test: Perform a test of a part in a specific location, situation and within given flight parameters (when applicable). - Collect Science: Return or transmit any scientific data from a specific location. - Rescue Kerbal: Rescue a Kerbal who is stuck in orbit. - Plant Flag: Plant the Agency's flag on the surface of a given location. - Explore: Complete several exploration goals for an unexplored location.
* Agencies: - Added Agencies, which offer contracts. - Each agency has its own personality traits, which affects the generation of the contracts they offer. - Agency Logos added from the winners of the Community Logo Design Contest. - Clicking the agency logo in the Mission Control screen will display extra info about the Agency.
* Vessel Recovery: - Recovering vessels now refunds you for the value of recovered parts and resources. - Recovered value varies based on distance from the Space Center. Land at the Runway for 100% value.
* Space Center: - Added a universal time clock to the KSC scene UI. - Added a Pause Menu to the KSC scene, instead of leaving to the main menu immediately on pressing the Quit button. - The KSC Pause Menu allows saving and loading with a custom filename.
* UI: - Added new UI Toolbar, which exists in all game scenes and is mod-friendly. - Added new UI Widget to display state of ongoing Contracts in Flight, KSC and the Construction Facilities. - Added new UI Widgets to display the current amount of Science, Reputation and Funds. - Added Messages UI App, shows messages about contracts and such. - Redesigned the Resources Panel from flight as a toolbar app, overhauled panel graphics. - Overhauled the old 'Science Summary' dialog into a complete 'Mission Summary', displaying information about recovered Experiments, Parts and Crew.
* Parts: - Added new "Vernor Engine", a very powerful RCS module powered by Liquid Fuel + Oxidizer. - Added new O-10 Maneuvering Engine, a low-thrust main engine powered by Monopropellant. - Gimballing Engines now respond to roll input. - 4x Engine Cluster and RAPIER Engine have gimbal roll authority even if stacked over the centerline (due to multiple nozzles).
* Builds: - Added Windows 64-bit executable.
* Tutorials: - Added several new tutorials.
* Game: - Added 'Science' Game Mode, where Science is the only currency and Mission Control is closed (as in pre-0.24 'Classic' Career).
Bug Fixes and Tweaks:
* Flight: - Asteroids are now able to collide with other asteroids. - New launches now start with throttle set to 50%, like in the old days. - Saving restriction when throttled up removed. - Timewarp restriction when throttled up removed. Engaging time warp now automatically cuts throttle. - Improved logic for detecting a vessel in 'orbiting' situations.
* Editors: - Fixed a bug in the editors where dragging a part off the ship and deleting it straight away would not generate an undo state. - Fixed a bug where ctrl+clicking over a part in the build area would not reveal the part in the parts list. - Orientation of VAB scenery rotated so spacecraft orientation is consistent at launchpad. - VAB Flag moved to the opposite wall. - Redesigned the Parts List UI 'Footer' section.
* Tracking Station: - Fixed a bug where map objects were created but never removed, leaving dozens of 'leaked' objects behind.
* Space Center: - Launchpad and Runway Launch Dialogs now show vessel costs. - Added 'Edit' Button to Launch Dialogs, which takes you to the VAB or SPH to edit the selected vessel. - Launch Dialogs and Craft Browser now allow selecting vessels with 'invalid parts' (for editing). - Added new Pre-Flight Checks to prevent launching vessels containing invalid parts or with costs exceeding available Funds.
* Solar System: - Kerbin's Solar Day is now exactly 6 hours long (sidereal day is now 59 seconds shorter). - Slight optimization to Kerbin, Mun and Eve surface shaders.
* Parts: - Resource flow mode can now be defined for each propellant on Engine, EngineFX and RCS Modules in the part config. - Previously useless Engine Nacelle and Radial Engine Body parts repurposed as air intake + fuel tank combos. - Tweaked Costs for almost every part. - Tweaked Mass for several parts, especially spaceplane fuselage sections and structural components. - Fixed a potentially gamebreaking issue when activating a Separator if it was the root part of a vessel. - Fixed a bug where some particle FX (mainly on newer engines) would cause a stream of errors when the vessel was unloaded with the FX active. - Fixed a bug where StrutConnectors could cause hierarchy issues if linked in certain configurations. - ModuleRCS can now use multiple resources.
* Tech Tree: - Revised R&D node layout so 'control' type nodes have a more logical progression. - Moved basic RCS parts to tier 4 (from tier 5). - Added more connections into aerodynamic parts from other nodes on tiers 5 and 6.
* Progress Tracking: - Fixed an issue introduced in 0.23.5 where unowned vessels could complete progress nodes. - Fixed AltitudeRecord progress node (now used for contract generation).
* Crews: - Fixed crewmembers not being properly flagged as dead if their vessel was destroyed while unloaded. - Crewmembers are now keyed by name in the roster, and can properly be added and removed. - Added reputation reward and penalty for recovering and killing crewmembers. - Added new unique names for Kerbals, suggested by the Community Logo Design Contest winners.
* Misc: - Fixed issue with persistence when reverting to flight. - Added rich text support to several UI text fields. - Fixed several cases of texture point-filtering issues resulting in crooked text. - Fixed potential crash related to reentry FX on Linux when no depthtexture hardware support is available. - Overhauled all UI screens and text. All text fields using Arial font now use proper Calibri. - Exposed Gameplay difficulty options to the Alt+F12 Debug Toolbar. - Updated Credits Scene. - Fixed permission issues with KSPLauncher which prevented it from properly launching the game on Linux. - Messages displayed on the upper-right corner in flight are now displayed above the crew portraits instead. - Removed a 'rogue' tooltip from the Staging Reset button at the VAB and SPH.
I already encountered a bug when I cancelled a part test contract, that huge ARM SRB is still available to me without unlocking. I just wonder how a bug like that could escape the testing lol.
Relatively minor bug compared to what they concentrate on pre-release of a new version - IE, game crashes, sun explodes, Jebediah gets scared, etc...
So I just started the 64bit Version and I noticed something rly annoying: Whenever I do something that requires right clicking an object, all the stuff that I want to do is slowed down, When I right click my goo experiment, do an experiment and then keep the data, I have to click 5 times to select another thing on my ship OR I have to wait 5 seconds im not sure what it is exactly.
This unresponsiveness is annoying the heck out of me :X Not even sure if its just a 64 version problem but I hope the devs take a look at that.
However when I go Full Throttle on this thing the Nuclear Engine overheats and explodes after 18 Seconds of runtime (I actually counted)), how come? The only difference I see is that my NE is directly attached to the Orange Tank, is that it?
On August 09 2014 14:01 Daumen wrote: So I just started the 64bit Version and I noticed something rly annoying: Whenever I do something that requires right clicking an object, all the stuff that I want to do is slowed down, When I right click my goo experiment, do an experiment and then keep the data, I have to click 5 times to select another thing on my ship OR I have to wait 5 seconds im not sure what it is exactly.
This unresponsiveness is annoying the heck out of me :X Not even sure if its just a 64 version problem but I hope the devs take a look at that.
However when I go Full Throttle on this thing the Nuclear Engine overheats and explodes after 18 Seconds of runtime (I actually counted)), how come? The only difference I see is that my NE is directly attached to the Orange Tank, is that it?
First question: That is a known bug with the 64bit version, sometimes rightclicking just doesn't work. It's very annoying. Until it is fixed, i'd suggest using the 32bit thing instead if you can. That one doesn't have that problem.
Are you sure the Nuclear engine is throttled to full? You can throttle it to ~90% without it exploding easily. Or maybe he uses some mods? I'm gonna watch that video now i guess.
On August 09 2014 14:01 Daumen wrote: So I just started the 64bit Version and I noticed something rly annoying: Whenever I do something that requires right clicking an object, all the stuff that I want to do is slowed down, When I right click my goo experiment, do an experiment and then keep the data, I have to click 5 times to select another thing on my ship OR I have to wait 5 seconds im not sure what it is exactly.
This unresponsiveness is annoying the heck out of me :X Not even sure if its just a 64 version problem but I hope the devs take a look at that.
However when I go Full Throttle on this thing the Nuclear Engine overheats and explodes after 18 Seconds of runtime (I actually counted)), how come? The only difference I see is that my NE is directly attached to the Orange Tank, is that it?
First question: That is a known bug with the 64bit version, sometimes rightclicking just doesn't work. It's very annoying. Until it is fixed, i'd suggest using the 32bit thing instead if you can. That one doesn't have that problem.
Are you sure the Nuclear engine is throttled to full? You can throttle it to ~90% without it exploding easily. Or maybe he uses some mods? I'm gonna watch that video now i guess.
Right clicking in 64bit is a problem with Unity, will probably take a long time to fix.
Overheating of engines depends on the part the engine is attached to. Orange fuel tanks have some weird anomaly due to their mass (a Unity problem iirc), which makes mainsail and nuke overheat. You can easily avoid that problem by attaching one of the smaller fuel tanks at the bottom of an orange one.
On August 09 2014 14:01 Daumen wrote: In Scot Manleys Video (...) he uses a Nuclear Engine and throttles it up to max without any problem.
However when I go Full Throttle on this thing the Nuclear Engine overheats and explodes after 18 Seconds of runtime (I actually counted)), how come? The only difference I see is that my NE is directly attached to the Orange Tank, is that it?
I have the same issue. Is it possible that he changed the thrust limiter setting for the engine in the hangar? That's usually what I do when I want the nuclear engine to work with other engines without blowing up. It seems possible to increase it back to 100% without overheating once your vessel has lost some weight.
Let's say you dock part A with part B and then connect B to C, it is sometimes not possible to disconnect A from B again. It's a weird bug, but I thought it was fixed. You can solve the problem by undocking B from C, then A should be usable again.
On August 18 2014 03:50 nimbim wrote: Let's say you dock part A with part B and then connect B to C, it is sometimes not possible to disconnect A from B again. It's a weird bug, but I thought it was fixed. You can solve the problem by undocking B from C, then A should be usable again.
Not sure wich ones are A B & C in my example but maybe If I describe the Situation better you can help me. This is the Craft in question. My Lander is connected with the Docking ports 2 & 3. If I right click #3, it just says "Control from here", Docking port #2 has the option "Undock" as usual, but it just doesnt work.
During Stage 1 I had 2 Landers on port #1 and on the Port that is on the opposite side of #1 (other side of the orange tank). Also: During Launch there was nothing attached to docking port #2 1 of the Crafts undocked and flew away, I relocated the other to the tip of the Orange Tank to maneuver with it.
After flying to a Duna Orbit I tried to undock #2 but nothing happened, except the Docking port on the opposite side of the Orange Fuel Tank just fell off and slowly floated off °_°
So there are no docking ports that I can undock :X
So, is the current career mode playable by people who know what they are doing? For me, it looks like the missions are so random, that most of them can only be done by very specific setups that are mostly more expensive then the reward for the mission. Like, staging something at 4500m and 400 m/s. Let it be a parachute as well, so that you can fling it directly into the fire. Or staging an engine when splashed down. I mean, it's possible to do those things, but the money i have to invest means i will be broke when i try. If it's pointless, i will just try science mode and feel less incompetent
The career mode is playable, you just need to pick and choose the missions that actually make sense. Usually, money is not that much of a problem if you choose smartly, and the basic "explore xyz" missions bring in lots of cash too.
Great cash cows are anything involving the larger engine types, i think i made 1mio in one mission by testing one of the larger engines in flight over kerbin. You can also always cost efficiently save Kerbals from orbit, a mission to do that costs maybe 20k and brings in 60k. But generally speaking, money was never a problem in my playthrough so far. Just take a look at the missions and see which ones you can accomplish together, or together with something you already wanted to do. Test a detachment thingy in orbit? Sure, why not, i am flying to the moon anyways, might as well throw an additional one on there just to test it. Gather science data or plant a flag on X when i was going there anyways? Free science + money.
Remember that you don't have to do all missions, you can choose which ones fit what you want to do. I am not going to design a spacecraft to test a large solid fuel booster in orbit around duna for 80k. Or all those "Here, have 50 bucks for testing our shit splashed down" missions.
I think i currently have ~3million in the bank after unlocking the complete tech tree, most of that from 2 missions to test some really large rocket while flying at kerbin, which each gave me ~1M for 100k. Generally speaking, most of my missions were cost efficient anyways.
On August 21 2014 22:55 Broetchenholer wrote: So, is the current career mode playable by people who know what they are doing? For me, it looks like the missions are so random, that most of them can only be done by very specific setups that are mostly more expensive then the reward for the mission. Like, staging something at 4500m and 400 m/s. Let it be a parachute as well, so that you can fling it directly into the fire. Or staging an engine when splashed down. I mean, it's possible to do those things, but the money i have to invest means i will be broke when i try. If it's pointless, i will just try science mode and feel less incompetent
The career mode does seem like it would be challenging for new players, some of the velocity windows are especially narrow. My advice would be to build stuff as simply as possible, strap a bunch of SRB's around an empty small fuel tank along with your test item and a capsule and you should be good to go.
You can make all the money and science you'll ever need without ever touching the "test part" contracts, and just do the science and exploration contracts.
Like, to break the career, easy mode, just keep a guy on the Mun, and take contracts to plant flags on the Mun. The guy can just hop out and plant a flag every time you need 75k.
So to be honest, they need to scale the economic difficulty up a bit, or at least make some sort of exemption from using vessels to repeatedly complete the same type of contract.
I agree, career mode is very easy if you take the extra minute to choose profitable contracts. You can also decline contracts until you get one with a big reward (you can't go below x available contracts). Also, when you visit a new planet, go to the space center as soon as you are in the SOI and get the "plant flag" etc contracts, so you won't need to go there a 2nd time.
On August 22 2014 01:57 Leporello wrote: You can make all the money and science you'll ever need without ever touching the "test part" contracts, and just do the science and exploration contracts.
Like, to break the career, easy mode, just keep a guy on the Mun, and take contracts to plant flags on the Mun. The guy can just hop out and plant a flag every time you need 75k.
So to be honest, they need to scale the economic difficulty up a bit, or at least make some sort of exemption from using vessels to repeatedly complete the same type of contract.
Okay, so i'll just have to cherry pick the test missions cause some of them are horrible and some of them are easy. I can do that. I tried to do them all and this bankrupted me several times now.
Yeah. There are a lot of missions that pay ridiculously low for what they need, and some that pay ridiculously good. Always take a very close look on what is expected. Testing a solid fuel booster at any place that is not landed should better give you a hefty sum, because you can't really do anything else with that mission. And make sure you use the staging to test stuff, i failed a few missions by using the parts manually or through action groups, which doesn't work.
One more information you will need: If you are close (~3km or less) to another ship/kerbal floating in space, you can swap to and control it by using the ß key. This is necessary for the rescue missions, and it took me a while to find this small fact that is necessary to complete them.
On August 22 2014 07:52 Simberto wrote: Yeah. There are a lot of missions that pay ridiculously low for what they need, and some that pay ridiculously good. Always take a very close look on what is expected. Testing a solid fuel booster at any place that is not landed should better give you a hefty sum, because you can't really do anything else with that mission. And make sure you use the staging to test stuff, i failed a few missions by using the parts manually or through action groups, which doesn't work.
One more information you will need: If you are close (~3km or less) to another ship/kerbal floating in space, you can swap to and control it by using the ß key. This is necessary for the rescue missions, and it took me a while to find this small fact that is necessary to complete them.
There's another option besides staging to test parts. If you right click on a part while the test parameters are filled, you should get a "Run Tests" option.
I've been doing a SSTO that can haul up a small satellite into LKO with only jet engines. A design similar to a U2 spy plane tons of air intakes and a single jet engine at the back. It costs 120000 credits including the probe and I recover 99000 once I land the plane at the KSC. The probe is Ion powered and is slow as hell but it gets the job done with something like 9000 Delta V.
Building normal rockets is way too easy now so I have been obsessed with SSTO's
On August 22 2014 10:44 tokicheese wrote: I'm sure they will tweak values for missions.
I've been doing a SSTO that can haul up a small satellite into LKO with only jet engines. A design similar to a U2 spy plane tons of air intakes and a single jet engine at the back. It costs 120000 credits including the probe and I recover 99000 once I land the plane at the KSC. The probe is Ion powered and is slow as hell but it gets the job done with something like 9000 Delta V.
Building normal rockets is way too easy now so I have been obsessed with SSTO's
This is why the spaceplane/SSTO is such a holy grail for any space industry. The economic aspects are mouth watering. And it may get better when eventually they roll in the space plane mod to stock.
Ion powered satellites can be done - I've put three into stationary orbits using only ions. It does, however, take a long time.
On August 22 2014 10:44 tokicheese wrote: I'm sure they will tweak values for missions.
I've been doing a SSTO that can haul up a small satellite into LKO with only jet engines. A design similar to a U2 spy plane tons of air intakes and a single jet engine at the back. It costs 120000 credits including the probe and I recover 99000 once I land the plane at the KSC. The probe is Ion powered and is slow as hell but it gets the job done with something like 9000 Delta V.
Building normal rockets is way too easy now so I have been obsessed with SSTO's
This is why the spaceplane/SSTO is such a holy grail for any space industry. The economic aspects are mouth watering. And it may get better when eventually they roll in the space plane mod to stock.
Ion powered satellites can be done - I've put three into stationary orbits using only ions. It does, however, take a long time.
SSTO's are the way of the future.
My small probe had an hour long burn to get into Jool orbit.... Needless to say in true kerbal style I put some boosters on to cut down the time
Yeah, that is the problem with Ion engines. Technically they would be ideal for pretty much any spaceship due to their high ISP, but you can't accelerate time during a boosting phase more than 4x, and thus they are reallly annoying to use because noone wants to sit at his computer for 15 minutes watching a bar go up while playing a game.
On August 22 2014 10:44 tokicheese wrote: I'm sure they will tweak values for missions.
I've been doing a SSTO that can haul up a small satellite into LKO with only jet engines. A design similar to a U2 spy plane tons of air intakes and a single jet engine at the back. It costs 120000 credits including the probe and I recover 99000 once I land the plane at the KSC. The probe is Ion powered and is slow as hell but it gets the job done with something like 9000 Delta V.
Building normal rockets is way too easy now so I have been obsessed with SSTO's
This is why the spaceplane/SSTO is such a holy grail for any space industry. The economic aspects are mouth watering. And it may get better when eventually they roll in the space plane mod to stock.
Ion powered satellites can be done - I've put three into stationary orbits using only ions. It does, however, take a long time.
SSTO's are the way of the future.
My small probe had an hour long burn to get into Jool orbit.... Needless to say in true kerbal style I put some boosters on to cut down the time
If its small enough, they generally don't need much monitoring. Just set a timer and go do something else for an hour.
On August 22 2014 10:44 tokicheese wrote: I'm sure they will tweak values for missions.
I've been doing a SSTO that can haul up a small satellite into LKO with only jet engines. A design similar to a U2 spy plane tons of air intakes and a single jet engine at the back. It costs 120000 credits including the probe and I recover 99000 once I land the plane at the KSC. The probe is Ion powered and is slow as hell but it gets the job done with something like 9000 Delta V.
Building normal rockets is way too easy now so I have been obsessed with SSTO's
This is why the spaceplane/SSTO is such a holy grail for any space industry. The economic aspects are mouth watering. And it may get better when eventually they roll in the space plane mod to stock.
Ion powered satellites can be done - I've put three into stationary orbits using only ions. It does, however, take a long time.
SSTO's are the way of the future.
My small probe had an hour long burn to get into Jool orbit.... Needless to say in true kerbal style I put some boosters on to cut down the time
If its small enough, they generally don't need much monitoring. Just set a timer and go do something else for an hour.
Alternately, if you're a real heathen like myself, you set up the burn using MechJeb and then watch Anime.
In reality, Ion engines would be amazingly wonderful for a lot of uses, if only they had enough thrust to hit a decent acceleration. The ones we have now exert incredibly low amounts of thrust, which still isn't that bad - but they are a long way from use on a manned flight. (Constant acceleration transits can shave literally months off of a trip to Du-err, Mars, and free us a bit from the tyranny of needing specific planetary alignments. L'sigh.)
On August 22 2014 18:53 Simberto wrote: Yeah, that is the problem with Ion engines. Technically they would be ideal for pretty much any spaceship due to their high ISP, but you can't accelerate time during a boosting phase more than 4x, and thus they are reallly annoying to use because noone wants to sit at his computer for 15 minutes watching a bar go up while playing a game.
There's a mod that gives you faster physics warping. People were using it to make Ion only SSTO's bearable lol.
I've been stacking ion engines by putting cubic octagonal struts and attaching the ion engines to those. I don't clip them into each other so I usually end up with about 4 on the bottom of the science module. That way I have a whopping 8Kn of thrust instead of just 2.
On August 22 2014 18:53 Simberto wrote: Yeah, that is the problem with Ion engines. Technically they would be ideal for pretty much any spaceship due to their high ISP, but you can't accelerate time during a boosting phase more than 4x, and thus they are reallly annoying to use because noone wants to sit at his computer for 15 minutes watching a bar go up while playing a game.
There's a mod that gives you faster physics warping. People were using it to make Ion only SSTO's bearable lol.
I've been stacking ion engines by putting cubic octagonal struts and attaching the ion engines to those. I don't clip them into each other so I usually end up with about 4 on the bottom of the science module. That way I have a whopping 8Kn of thrust instead of just 2.
Ion engines have such a terrible TWR that adding more isn't really helpful for most uses.
one quick question. How do i ge my burns to actual do what the manoever says? I am currently trying toorbit the moon and it gets a little frustrating. I've seen the tutrial on orbiting by Scott Manley, but he just randomly starts the burn seconds before the manoever. There probably is a good reason for that, but i don't understand it.
My orbits usually go like that. I start going just up until 10k, then i slowly bring the ship int a 45° eastern angle, wait till the apo is at 100k, make a manoever there. Now, depending on things i don't understand, i end up with manoevers that reduce the periapsis to 80 and the apoapis to 120k or something similar. Sometimes it's better but it seems to be predefined how close to a circular orbit i can get. Then i try to guess how many seconds of my burn are half the distance and start burning t-those seconds in advance. Then i look at my actual orbit and it's fucked up, 170k to 80k or stuff like that. when i correct the orbit afterwards, it's mostly circular, but i lose too much fuel due to the adjustments. Any tips?
On August 25 2014 01:49 Broetchenholer wrote: Hey fellow Rocket Scientists,
one quick question. How do i ge my burns to actual do what the manoever says? I am currently trying toorbit the moon and it gets a little frustrating. I've seen the tutrial on orbiting by Scott Manley, but he just randomly starts the burn seconds before the manoever. There probably is a good reason for that, but i don't understand it.
My orbits usually go like that. I start going just up until 10k, then i slowly bring the ship int a 45° eastern angle, wait till the apo is at 100k, make a manoever there. Now, depending on things i don't understand, i end up with manoevers that reduce the periapsis to 80 and the apoapis to 120k or something similar. Sometimes it's better but it seems to be predefined how close to a circular orbit i can get. Then i try to guess how many seconds of my burn are half the distance and start burning t-those seconds in advance. Then i look at my actual orbit and it's fucked up, 170k to 80k or stuff like that. when i correct the orbit afterwards, it's mostly circular, but i lose too much fuel due to the adjustments. Any tips?
Lets say you set up a maneuver node, the estimated burn time is 2 minutes, then you should start burning 1 minute before time to maneuver node. So you burn 1 minute before and 1 minute after.
If your maneuver node isn't exactly on the apoapsis, accelerating along your prograde vector isn't enough to make a circular orbit. While you are in the atmosphere, your trajectory is still changing because of atmospheric drag, so only create the node after you have left the atmosphere. Concerning the actual burn, there should be a timer for how long the burn will take. Simply divide by 2 and you know how much earlier you need to burn. In general, the shorter the burn, the higher your accuracy will be. It is btw completely common for maneuvers to not be entirely accurate in real life, that's why NASA etc plan ahead for 2-3 correction burns (if neccessary), although your problem seems to be more related to properly placing and executing the maneuver. Just don't expect perfect accuracy, even if you do it right.
What's keeping you from getting a circular orbit is that when you thrust prograde at apolapse, the apolapse will get moved further ahead if you do it too soon and backwards if you do it too late. If you don't watch the map while you do it, you'll have no idea how well you did it. The manouver nodes on the "map" screen assume that the shift in speed is done instantaneously which does not happen when you actually do it. And because you are so close to Kerbin (or whatever other planet) it makes a big difference when the manouver takes longer. In order to get the closest result, you should start the manouver at max thrust about 1/2 the time before the total burn time. That means if the estimated burn time is 30 seconds, start the manouver 15 seconds before you reach the node.
Another way to achieve a circular orbit after takeoff is to watch the map screen while you burn and adjust your thrust so that the apolapse is always about 30 seconds ahead of you (you can use your nav ball by clicking the tiny tab at the bottom of the screen). Eventually you will need to speed up the time and make small thrusts. This gets you a circular orbit without wasting fuel. If you want to restrict how far up apolapse gets while still raising your periapsis you need to aim your nose slightly under the horizon on the nav ball and make the burn before apolapse (but this wastes fuel and is more a technique to compensate if you put your apolapse too high for whatever reason).
On huge burns near planets and towards targets far away, you'll never get exactly the same trajectory that you mapped out with your manouver nodes. You'll need to learn how to make the right adjustments as you get closer to the target and you are less affected by gravity without being wasteful.
I hope that is helpful to you. If you just want to make a circular orbit with no other concerns, you shouldn't need to use manouver nodes at all.
And another question by me Let's see i have a small lander on the mun, and there is a kerbal in it, but it lacks about 100m/s of delta-v to actually get back to earth. And let's say i was so happy that i landed it, that i saved the game afterwards. Now i am stuck on the mun and i want my heroic kerbal to come home. Just hypothetical, mind you, i would never do such shenanigans. My initial idea was to land at the roughly same spot, which would be hard enough, and then transfer fuel from a slightly bigger ship. I know that it's possible, but it's either deeper in the tree then i would want or it's a mod, i saw some streamers do it. Or am i just missing a simple trick?
Second thought, get there with a ship with more then one seat, but that seems hard as well, cause i would first have to earn a ton of science to get the 2,5m diameter parts and then create a whole new rocket :/ Any other options?
On August 26 2014 07:07 Broetchenholer wrote: And another question by me Let's see i have a small lander on the mun, and there is a kerbal in it, but it lacks about 100m/s of delta-v to actually get back to earth. And let's say i was so happy that i landed it, that i saved the game afterwards. Now i am stuck on the mun and i want my heroic kerbal to come home. Just hypothetical, mind you, i would never do such shenanigans. My initial idea was to land at the roughly same spot, which would be hard enough, and then transfer fuel from a slightly bigger ship. I know that it's possible, but it's either deeper in the tree then i would want or it's a mod, i saw some streamers do it. Or am i just missing a simple trick?
Second thought, get there with a ship with more then one seat, but that seems hard as well, cause i would first have to earn a ton of science to get the 2,5m diameter parts and then create a whole new rocket :/ Any other options?
If it's only 100m/s you can get out and push(EVA kerbal) once you're out of fuel. It'll take you about 10 minutes of pushing, but you can make it back to earth. Just make sure to not run out of kerbal juice(reenter capsule to refuel).
Alternatively, if you don't want to do something that ridiculous, there are multiple options.
If you have a docking port on your lander, you can get it into munar orbit, and rendezvous with a new carrier vessel to carry it back to Kerbin. (This also allows to easily transfer fuel. If you have never docked anything before, i would highly suggest getting a docking alignment indicator mod because without it docking is just pure horror.) There is also a grappling arm in the base game, but i have never used it.
If you do not have that, you could build a second ship, and land it close to there. I would suggest wheels on one of them to drive over, because distances on the ground are a lot bigger than they seem from space. Save often while driving on the Mun, shit tends to fall over. You could either put two capsules on it, and leave one empty for your heroic Kerbal, or if you already have remote tech, use a Stayputnik + Lander capsule for less weight (make sure that the capsule is empty when launching, the game has a tendency to fill them up randomly). You do not need 2.5m parts to get more than one person onto a rocket. You should be able to build one right now, even if it looks slightly ridiculous with two lander capsules on top of each other.
For the actual landing close maneuver, try getting into an orbit that goes kind of close to the point you want to end at (best is already planning this when approaching the Mun, because turning an orbit around a lot is rather expensive fuelwise. Polar orbits go to every spot if you wait long enough), than kill lateral velocity when above it. (Basically, burn retrograde, but instead of aiming at the retrograde spot aim at the nearest blue/orange border of the steering sphere). Correct your approach while landing, because even a few km off is a lot of ground to cover on the surface. Remember to bring enough fuel, you probably won't be able to transfer.
Edit: Oh, also you could consider a more fuel efficient return route, but i don't know if you could scrape off more than 100 m/s. The direction you launch from at the Mun is relevant and can save you a lot of fuel if you plan it correctly, also the point at which you burn to leave munar orbit is relevant too. Sadly i don't know which combination is ideal. And once you get into Kerbin orbit, the most fuel efficient way to land is to burn retrograde at apoapsis. All you need is to somehow lower your periaps below 70k, and you will eventually land due to air pressure. A bit lower is better though, so you don't have to do too many orbits to get caught in the atmosphere.
On August 26 2014 07:07 Broetchenholer wrote: And another question by me Let's see i have a small lander on the mun, and there is a kerbal in it, but it lacks about 100m/s of delta-v to actually get back to earth. And let's say i was so happy that i landed it, that i saved the game afterwards. Now i am stuck on the mun and i want my heroic kerbal to come home. Just hypothetical, mind you, i would never do such shenanigans. My initial idea was to land at the roughly same spot, which would be hard enough, and then transfer fuel from a slightly bigger ship. I know that it's possible, but it's either deeper in the tree then i would want or it's a mod, i saw some streamers do it. Or am i just missing a simple trick?
Second thought, get there with a ship with more then one seat, but that seems hard as well, cause i would first have to earn a ton of science to get the 2,5m diameter parts and then create a whole new rocket :/ Any other options?
There's no way to transfer fuel between two separate, distinct ships without either docking or the Kerbal Attachment System mod. (At least, that I have ever found.)
A third option you might be missing is to launch the same ship (with maybe some extra fuel) empty but with a <s>drone controller </s> probe core attached. (Example, the Stayputnik or Octo cores.) Make sure to remove all crew before you launch (Kerbals like to sneak onboard), then launch and land within about 5 km of the original ship. (It's relatively easy to cover, if a little time consuming, using the Kerbal's backpack system.)
Pushing is an option if you can get to orbit, but can be a pain if you accidentally tumble the craft.
For epic recovery, I think there was a challenge that was proven theoretically possible of using the Kerbal's backpack system to get a rendezvous with an orbiting spacecraft from high elevation munar surface.
I don't know how much delta-v exactly is missing, but i guess it can't be that much. I get to 500m/s speed and roughly 5k apo, but it's not enough to orbit. I think i'll try the double command pod design, although it really looks stupid. Some more fuel in the ship instead of the material bay and this should work. I will mess up the landing though and be very very sad
On August 26 2014 07:52 Broetchenholer wrote: I don't know how much delta-v exactly is missing, but i guess it can't be that much. I get to 500m/s speed and roughly 5k apo, but it's not enough to orbit. I think i'll try the double command pod design, although it really looks stupid. Some more fuel in the ship instead of the material bay and this should work. I will mess up the landing though and be very very sad
Remember to snag your science out of the old ship before you take the long walk. SCIENCE!
Oh, if you can't even get into Munar orbit you are missing a lot of delta-v.
Btw, if you already can't launch from the Mun, you might as well use the remaining fuel in that launcher to do a few hops into different biomes. You probably don't have additional sciencing equipment on board, but you can still grab a few soil samples, crew reports and EVA reports. Try landing your final hop on a flat surface that is easy to home in on with your next launcher. And on the light side of the Mun. Landing on the dark side of the Mun is really annoying.
On August 26 2014 07:07 Broetchenholer wrote: And another question by me Let's see i have a small lander on the mun, and there is a kerbal in it, but it lacks about 100m/s of delta-v to actually get back to earth. And let's say i was so happy that i landed it, that i saved the game afterwards. Now i am stuck on the mun and i want my heroic kerbal to come home. Just hypothetical, mind you, i would never do such shenanigans. My initial idea was to land at the roughly same spot, which would be hard enough, and then transfer fuel from a slightly bigger ship. I know that it's possible, but it's either deeper in the tree then i would want or it's a mod, i saw some streamers do it. Or am i just missing a simple trick?
Second thought, get there with a ship with more then one seat, but that seems hard as well, cause i would first have to earn a ton of science to get the 2,5m diameter parts and then create a whole new rocket :/ Any other options?
Personally I would probably use the lander as a launcher. I think with the 100m/s of the lander and 600m/s of the EVA, you can get into a low orbit at the very least. There is no practical value in bringing the lander back to Kerban. Leave the lander behind in a suborbital trajectory and make the rest of the ascent in an EVA suit (bring all the science with you), then use the EVA fuel to get into a stable orbit. Then I would rescue him (or maybe just the science) with a different vessel. Navigating with the EVA suit can be a little tricky though since you have to do it visually. Rescuing someone from orbit is much faster and easier than needing to land at a specific location. Remember to leave a little EVA propellant so that the poor guy can get the last few meters over to the rescue ship.
Noooo! NOOOOOOOOO! Why game, why? I burned too much fuel in my approach of the second try, but i thought, land the thing, as training. For some reason the game now won't let me revert to launch. WHY? Now i have two kerbals stuck at the moon. I hate this game :D
Edit: And i was able to bring Jebediah home. He wants to address his eternal gratitude towards you guys, but he is a Kerbal, so, meh. In the end, i was able to reload the quicksave an use your sugestion to burn the spacecraft as high as possible, then use the jetpack to get him into orbit. As Oxygen does not seem to be a problem for kerbals, it worked :D And now i know how to rendezvous in space as well, yay.
I really want to play this game but every time I do, it gets really complicated and difficult. I haven't even left the atmosphere because something goes wrong.
I enjoy a challenge, but I wish some of the finer details were smoothed over for more arcade people like myself.
On September 07 2014 03:33 Torte de Lini wrote: I really want to play this game but every time I do, it gets really complicated and difficult. I haven't even left the atmosphere because something goes wrong.
I enjoy a challenge, but I wish some of the finer details were smoothed over for more arcade people like myself.
any advice?
Just keep trying and have fun :D There are many tutorials for the basics. It's like you're playing your first games of starcraft, getting nowhere because you don't even know to build workers, but later on it's so obvious and easy.
Scott Manley is the most popular/known youtuber with plenty of great tutorials:
On September 07 2014 03:33 Torte de Lini wrote: I really want to play this game but every time I do, it gets really complicated and difficult. I haven't even left the atmosphere because something goes wrong.
I enjoy a challenge, but I wish some of the finer details were smoothed over for more arcade people like myself.
any advice?
Don't make your rockets too complicated. Don't try to make a 5 stage rocket before you've made a 2 stage rocket that works because adding size and complexity to your rocket usually adds more problems that you have to deal with. So it's better to encounter these problems one at a time by incrementing the complexity of your designs with each success.
The same with goals. Don't design a rocket to get to the Mun before you've managed to get something into orbit around Kerbin. And likewise, if you are having trouble just getting into space, don't try to get into orbit.
Some general not-so-obvious advice would be:
- Don't use solid fuel boosters (well, you can, but don't do it past the 1st stage of the rocket) - If your craft is larger than small, use struts - LOTS of struts. - Nose cones increase drag. - Wide craft don't create more drag than thin ones. - Press T before every takeoff to activate SAS.
On Kerbin, The Mun and Minmus there are many different biomes. You can get science from multiple of them. Try to science as often as you can to get more parts to build bigger rockets. There is a lot of nearly free science to be had at Kerbin, like surface samples from the launch pad, EVA reports and Crew reports in/above different biomes, etc...
Build SAS into everything as soon as you can.
Full acceleration is usually not the optimal mode of ascend. You want to have a speed of ~160 m/s at 5k and 260 m/s at 10k, more is usually suboptimal because you burn too much fuel to fight high air resistance.
Playing the Tutorials should teach you at least enough of the basics to get a rocket that launches and might get into orbit kinda.
Once you get to more complex missions like trying to land on the mun, F5 quicksaves, F9 quickloads. Alt+each gives you a list of saves. This allows you to not have to restart the whole mission if you fail to land on the Mun (read: explode all over it)
On September 07 2014 03:33 Torte de Lini wrote: I really want to play this game but every time I do, it gets really complicated and difficult. I haven't even left the atmosphere because something goes wrong.
I enjoy a challenge, but I wish some of the finer details were smoothed over for more arcade people like myself.
any advice?
At first you just need to be bloody minded about doing a little better. How high have you gone? See if you can add 10k to that. You probably also need to enjoy watching stuff go wrong, at least a little bit.
How are you rolling? Demo? Sandbox? Science on?
I started with the demo and I think that really helped, if I had started out with sandbox I would have been overwhelmed. Make something very simple, because that can get you to orbit.
How about this:
Start a demo game or a science on (but not money on) game and put a pointy command module at the top and a butt ton of rocket fuel under that, then put more rocket fuel under that. Then more rocket fuel, then, for good measure: More rocket fuel. Now put an engine under it, press the green launch button, wait for loading, press "T" (to turn on sas), hold down shift until the throttle is maxed and press space to fire the engine. One of the following things will happen:
a. It falls over, this means you have too much rocket fuel. Go back, take a bit away. b. The engine fires and you don't move. This is fine, you have too much rocket fuel but if you just leave the engine on for a while eventually you'll burn enough that you will become light enough and start to take off, this will be followed by c. c. You take off and some time later you leave the atmosphere. PROGRESS. d. You take off and you don't leave the atmosphere. You need more rocket fuel.
It's worth mentioning that at the end of this process you will, almost certainly, have a dead Kerbal. If you want to get fancy you can try looking at putting a parachute on top, but that means staging which is more than I want to write. Here is the short version: Stage 1: fire engine. Stage 2, open parachute.
Dead Kerbal or not, if this works you can start to look at burning sideways at some point because that's how orbits happen.
any1 else got weird bugs with the new update? I tried to play Hard Mode on KSP , hardest difficulty, no loading etc.
this 1 time my Rocket had 2 extra fuel boosters that I ddint even put on my spacecraft and they fire up immediately after I loaded the launch pad.
Now I Lost because i was low on Funding, took some extra contracts for the advance funding... my last chance was to get a rocket to the moon!
I built it, hit the "to the launchpad" button and BOOM, after the game finished loading, my Launchpad explodes and is unusable ;D costs 128.000 funding to rebuilt it ... damn it!
On October 10 2014 21:47 Daumen wrote: any1 else got weird bugs with the new update? I tried to play Hard Mode on KSP , hardest difficulty, no loading etc.
this 1 time my Rocket had 2 extra fuel boosters that I ddint even put on my spacecraft and they fire up immediately after I loaded the launch pad.
Now I Lost because i was low on Funding, took some extra contracts for the advance funding... my last chance was to get a rocket to the moon!
I built it, hit the "to the launchpad" button and BOOM, after the game finished loading, my Launchpad explodes and is unusable ;D costs 128.000 funding to rebuilt it ... damn it!
haven't tried 0.25 yet, still waiting for some mods to be updated before I start a new hard mode career
I haven't encountered any launchpad bug, but I've also only done 1 launch for the first 4 missions. Are you using the 64bit version?
I'm also not too sure about the hard mode settings. No revert/quickload etc is great, but LKO EVA reports yielded almost no science. I think I might start over with 100% science rewards to prevent it from turning into a grind or just wait for .26 biomes.
On October 11 2014 03:27 nimbim wrote: I haven't encountered any launchpad bug, but I've also only done 1 launch for the first 4 missions. Are you using the 64bit version?
I'm also not too sure about the hard mode settings. No revert/quickload etc is great, but LKO EVA reports yielded almost no science. I think I might start over with 100% science rewards to prevent it from turning into a grind or just wait for .26 biomes.
I'm definitely playing on custom with standard science rewards. It isn't hard, just a tedious grind.
Something about the new destructible facilities to keep in mind - I saw this during a stream. Probably don't want to have any rocket parts "clipped" through the floor. It might cause collision explosions. (Sadly, I think this means no more "rockets bigger than the VAB".) That's what we think happened - needs more testing.
Like the new space plane parts, although I'm sad the cargo bays won't hold an orange tank.
Yesterday I build the perfect rocket on my laptop. Very stable and very good reach.
Today I rebuild the same rocket on my Desktop and it is completely unstable.
Ah - I found the error! I attached the upper boosters about 5m too high - which in turn made a higher center of mass which added instability at launch.
KSP is one of the greatest single player games ever made, but this thread on TL - my gaming forum of choice - is pretty slow, these things make me sad. In my perfect world this thread would be more active in some way so I could see what other TLers, of all levels of proficiency, wrestling with / learning / enjoying the game.
I was wondering if I'm alone with these thoughts...
On October 16 2014 05:50 Dapper_Cad wrote: KSP is one of the greatest single player games ever made, but this thread on TL - my gaming forum of choice - is pretty slow, these things make me sad. In my perfect world this thread would be more active in some way so I could see what other TLers, of all levels of proficiency, wrestling with / learning / enjoying the game.
I was wondering if I'm alone with these thoughts...
I don't think there are a lot of TL'ers that play this game. I can start posting my progress when I start a new career when B9 updates for 0.25~
Do they know they are wrong re: not playing Kerbal?
Would it be fun for me to knock out a Team liquid flag for screenshot purposes? Never made a flag but it can't be that hard...
edit: And I'm not playing a game just now, that's sort of why I'm here, I have time right now and I'm interested in the new patch, I'm just looking for a little kick to start again.
On October 16 2014 10:20 Dapper_Cad wrote: Do they know they are wrong re: not playing Kerbal?
Would it be fun for me to knock out a Team liquid flag for screenshot purposes? Never made a flag but it can't be that hard...
edit: And I'm not playing a game just now, that's sort of why I'm here, I have time right now and I'm interested in the new patch, I'm just looking for a little kick to start again.
Little kick - rebuild every plane you've ever thought of building because new, better wing parts.
On October 16 2014 10:20 Dapper_Cad wrote: Do they know they are wrong re: not playing Kerbal?
Would it be fun for me to knock out a Team liquid flag for screenshot purposes? Never made a flag but it can't be that hard...
edit: And I'm not playing a game just now, that's sort of why I'm here, I have time right now and I'm interested in the new patch, I'm just looking for a little kick to start again.
Little kick - rebuild every plane you've ever thought of building because new, better wing parts.
Meh, I've never been a huge fan of the planes.
On October 16 2014 14:59 Epoxide wrote: get FAR because of soup
FAR worries me profoundly. Not only because half the crazy shit I build later on would probably crash and burn... I'm also a leery of futzing with more than some very light modding. I fell in love with Kethane and KAS a ways back, but the instability and general buggyness made the already semi unstable play experience vaguely nightmarish.
On October 16 2014 10:20 Dapper_Cad wrote: Do they know they are wrong re: not playing Kerbal?
Would it be fun for me to knock out a Team liquid flag for screenshot purposes? Never made a flag but it can't be that hard...
edit: And I'm not playing a game just now, that's sort of why I'm here, I have time right now and I'm interested in the new patch, I'm just looking for a little kick to start again.
Little kick - rebuild every plane you've ever thought of building because new, better wing parts.
On October 16 2014 14:59 Epoxide wrote: get FAR because of soup
FAR worries me profoundly. Not only because half the crazy shit I build later on would probably crash and burn... I'm also a leery of futzing with more than some very light modding. I fell in love with Kethane and KAS a ways back, but the instability and general buggyness made the already semi unstable play experience vaguely nightmarish.
You should at least get NEAR, you're fooling yourself if you are playing with stock aerodynamics
On October 16 2014 14:59 Epoxide wrote: get FAR because of soup
FAR worries me profoundly. Not only because half the crazy shit I build later on would probably crash and burn... I'm also a leery of futzing with more than some very light modding. I fell in love with Kethane and KAS a ways back, but the instability and general buggyness made the already semi unstable play experience vaguely nightmarish.
FAR only makes flying planes harder, but launching rockets becomes very easy. If you want to launch something oddly shaped, just use fairings and you'll have no trouble. I've never really cared about spaceplanes, especially since it's common practice to stack air intakes for SSTOs. Although one cannot deny the fact that FAR is more realistic than stock, it's not that amazing in my opinion.
I find that the new parts Mk2 parts make space planes much better. Also, you don't have to stack air intakes - engine management can be an issue. (They did add new intakes, though, which look far better.)
In general, the new space plane parts just work better, and look better. Also, if you are worried about the soup, after 0.90.0 I think they are going to be working on the kinks in their aerodynamic model.
(KSP going "beta" as of 0.26, being "scope complete".)
On October 19 2014 13:12 Rotodyne wrote: I just bought this game yesterday. Most fun I've had in a while with a video game!
Yep. It's a game where the only limitation is your imagination TBH. If you want to build a battlecruiser, or a stardestroyer, or anything else really you can probably do it in this game.
When people have made stuff like an autocalibrating missile guidance system in KSP(probably getting on some watchlist in the process), or a jaeger, or even a rollercoaster, there are really no limits apart from your creativity.
So i've just tried the new career mode in hard difficulty, seems quite fun! I've been playing this game for a long time but sending my first kerbal in orbit was fun again .
On October 20 2014 16:29 Jetaap wrote: So i've just tried the new career mode in hard difficulty, seems quite fun! I've been playing this game for a long time but sending my first kerbal in orbit was fun again .
I find it difficult to actually play career mode. I have a tendency to try to run before I can walk so the limited options are murder on my plans. X-D
Way, way back when I first bought the game. My very first project when was a moon landing with a full Apollo-style lander/command module setup. I think that rocket had about twenty staging points. It was a hulking monstrosity with at least five separate launch phases (which had to be jettisoned bit by bit and with great care) and was unstable as all hell.
But hey after I worked out how to stop it falling apart on the launch pad, crashing into the launch tower upon lift off (yeah this was a LONG time ago now when the launch tower was still there) and falling apart during atmospheric rotation...well, it still didn't go smoothly because I had to learn docking, soft landing and orbital rendezvous for the return journey. At least I learned a lot, and I got there eventually and back all in one piece; though it did take a lot of design revision and reloads to practice various steps.
Tried that Carrer mode in Hard too but the Launchpad Exploding bug is annoying as hell :X
I just built a Craft that makes the launchpad explode, its an Asparagus design with LV-T45 engines, tried it out in Sandbox and no matter where I put it in the Construction menu, it always spawns a bit too low on the launchpad (small part of the LV-T45 engines are CLIPPED through the ground, i believe thats why the thing explodes all the time)
On October 20 2014 20:08 Daumen wrote: Tried that Carrer mode in Hard too but the Launchpad Exploding bug is annoying as hell :X
I just built a Craft that makes the launchpad explode, its an Asparagus design with LV-T45 engines, tried it out in Sandbox and no matter where I put it in the Construction menu, it always spawns a bit too low on the launchpad (small part of the LV-T45 engines are CLIPPED through the ground, i believe thats why the thing explodes all the time)
Just wait until you get launch clamps? And do you have Kerbal Joint Reinforcement?
So im trying to play on Hard mode (cuz thats how i roll, dont advice me otherwise!) and I keep losing lots of Science points because I land in Water.
My first Moon mission return is always kinda screwed because when I realize I Land in water its too late, (last landing was about 400 meter off the shore :<).
Any1 have any tips?
I cant predict where I land when I have an Orbit or a Sub orbit from the Mun to Kerbin, its just so far away. I heard a 360° turn of Kerbin is 4h 30min but for some reason I still cant predict it xD How do you guys make sure you Land safely?
And yes, the main question is how much fuel you have left after your return burn. The more fuel, the more wiggleroom for adjustment maneuvers.
One of the more fuel-efficient maneuvers to get more control over where you land would for example let you just scratch the upper atmosphere of kerbin, maybe ~50km (I don't really know the exact numbers that work), slowing you down and greatly reducing the excentricity of your orbit on that passthrough, but not so low that you directly land on Kerbin. This would mean that you have a much smaller orbit to work with for the actual approach to landing on orbit later, which might make hitting land easier. If you have even more fuel to burn, you could do a similar trajectory, only a bit lower so you would get slowed down enough to hit Kerbin, and do some additional upwards/downwards adjustment burns while in the atmosphere to alter the amount of land you cover.
You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea. I am still doubting it. About the landing thing, I guess you could set up a maneuver node on the surface of kerbin when you are heading that way to check how long it will take you to get there. Then you could try to estimate how much Kerbin will rotate in that timespan. Kerbin rotates once per 6 kerbin hours by the way. If it's very important that you don't land in the water and you're still not able to estimate the rotation properly, just aim for one of the poles.
One thing i found that greatly helps with navigating is driving a van called KSP in front of the KSP, that way you have a node from orbit telling you where the KSP is.
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
One of the more fuel-efficient maneuvers to get more control over where you land would for example let you just scratch the upper atmosphere of kerbin, maybe ~50km (I don't really know the exact numbers that work), slowing you down and greatly reducing the excentricity of your orbit on that passthrough, but not so low that you directly land on Kerbin.
That's why i'm asking for FAR/deadly reentry, especially deadly reentry would make a single return burn from the mun to kerbal pretty impossible (you'd burn up due to the steep re-entry).
The idea and numbers are correct btw. It depends on your speed (i'm again assuming deadly reentry, since i never played without it), but the "braking dip in atmosphere" is generally between 40k and 50k, depending on speed (higher speed = less deep in atmosphere). After two or three "braking orbits" you should be slow enough to pinpoint where you want to land.
edit: your science junior breakes in water, but not on land? Did you put it on top of a relatively high vehicle? The easiest way to circumvent that is simply, redesign your lander.
On November 11 2014 22:52 m4ini wrote: It depends on your design, do you have fuel left after the burn to return to kerbal? And do you play with FAR/deadly reentry?
I dont use any addons ;X maybe i should get them xD
So, my basic problem is, My last Lander had fuel, and I tried to burn towards the shore but it wasnt enough OR I noticed the problem too late. The thing is, Id like a good rule of thumb so I can burn earlier :X
So on my return path, right after I had a Mun Escape, I had NO idea where I would land since Kerbin turns around its axis, so I now assume that if I make a maneuver node at the end I can see the "Reach node in X time". If thats 6h, then I expect to land right where my blue line shows me(minus the slowdown during reentry).
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
Oh. You need more parachutes. The Science Junior has a lesser impact tolerance than a capsule, and you can't use landing struts in water. If you add a few more parachutes and you don't have an absurdly spaceships that breaks by falling over after landing in water, your descent rate will be below 8m/s and thus not break the thingy. I would always configure anything that is designed to return to Kerbin so it can land in water, that saves a lot of trouble.
On November 11 2014 23:29 m4ini wrote: edit: your science junior breakes in water, but not on land? Did you put it on top of a relatively high vehicle? The easiest way to circumvent that is simply, redesign your lander.
Since I'm still at "low tech", all thats returning from my Mun mission is/was the starter COmmand Module, Science Junior, 1 Fuel Tank, engine in that order (and the parachute on top of the command module).
I dont use any addons (HARDCORE MODE, lol). So I cant even really tell if my ships efficient or not ;D My Mun Lander Mission costs 60k funds, i believe there are cheaper designs (with low tech AND it has a science junior & 2 mystery goo).
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
Oh. You need more parachutes. The Science Junior has a lesser impact tolerance than a capsule, and you can't use landing struts in water. If you add a few more parachutes and you don't have an absurdly spaceships that breaks by falling over after landing in water, your descent rate will be below 8m/s and thus not break the thingy. I would always configure anything that is designed to return to Kerbin so it can land in water, that saves a lot of trouble.
oh, in that case I could actually also use my engine to burn before landing. Just a slight burn to get below 8m/s ? I tried that one time I think and it didnt work (probably because I didnt go below 8m/s) and thought it doesnt actually work! ill try that next time, ty
On November 11 2014 22:52 m4ini wrote: It depends on your design, do you have fuel left after the burn to return to kerbal? And do you play with FAR/deadly reentry?
I dont use any addons ;X maybe i should get them xD
So, my basic problem is, My last Lander had fuel, and I tried to burn towards the shore but it wasnt enough OR I noticed the problem too late. The thing is, Id like a good rule of thumb so I can burn earlier :X
So on my return path, right after I had a Mun Escape, I had NO idea where I would land since Kerbin turns around its axis, so I now assume that if I make a maneuver node at the end I can see the "Reach node in X time". If thats 6h, then I expect to land right where my blue line shows me(minus the slowdown during reentry).
FAR and Deadly Reentry are the two mods i can't play without. But be warned, it doesn't make the game easier, quite the opposite. Aerodynamics (well, more or less) start to play a role, and heatshielding for your vessels.
I still don't really understand what you're doing, so i'll just describe how i return from the mun.
After the return burn from the mun (~450dV) i'm in an extremely eccentric orbit around kerbin. I then burn a tiny bit retrograde (i assume you know pro/retrograde, if not, tell me) to get my periapsis to around 45-50km above kerbin, to use the atmosphere to slow down a bit - two or three times, until i have a relatively stable orbit. And from there it's just shooting fish in a barrel, you can't really miss your target from there.
edit:
Since I'm still at "low tech", all thats returning from my Mun mission is/was the starter COmmand Module, Science Junior, 1 Fuel Tank, engine in that order (and the parachute on top of the command module).
Do you have the radial parachute unlocked already? And, just by imagination now, put a decoupler between the capsule/science jr and the rest, so all that lands is the capsule with the science jr - saves weight (not sure if it matters in stock ksp actually oO). Then the what, MK16 on the nose should be enough to slow you down enough.
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
You could always have your Kerbal fetch the science from the science junior and bring it back to the command pod.
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
You could always have your Kerbal fetch the science from the science junior and bring it back to the command pod.
From what i gather, the problem is that the lander is designed to land on land, not water. Thus it probably descends at ~10m/s with its one parachute, and the landing struts make it not explode on land. However, on water they are useless, thus the stuff explodes.
Btw, second workaround if you do not wish to redesign or aim where you land: Spacewalk, grab the data out of the science junior and the mystery goo, and put it into the capsule. This means that you don't have to waste fuel carrying used-up sciences back, which can make interplanetary missions a lot easier because you need a lot less fuel to return after dumping your science facilities onto Duna, while still getting all the science because you took it out of the thingy first.
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
You could always have your Kerbal fetch the science from the science junior and bring it back to the command pod.
True. But honestly, i really dislike breaking things on my rockets, i want to have everything refurbishable as much as possible. It's a bit OCD, but still. ^^
On November 11 2014 22:52 m4ini wrote: It depends on your design, do you have fuel left after the burn to return to kerbal? And do you play with FAR/deadly reentry?
I dont use any addons ;X maybe i should get them xD
So, my basic problem is, My last Lander had fuel, and I tried to burn towards the shore but it wasnt enough OR I noticed the problem too late. The thing is, Id like a good rule of thumb so I can burn earlier :X
So on my return path, right after I had a Mun Escape, I had NO idea where I would land since Kerbin turns around its axis, so I now assume that if I make a maneuver node at the end I can see the "Reach node in X time". If thats 6h, then I expect to land right where my blue line shows me(minus the slowdown during reentry).
FAR and Deadly Reentry are the two mods i can't play without. But be warned, it doesn't make the game easier, quite the opposite. Aerodynamics (well, more or less) start to play a role, and heatshielding for your vessels.
I still don't really understand what you're doing, so i'll just describe how i return from the mun.
After the return burn from the mun (~450dV) i'm in an extremely eccentric orbit around kerbin. I then burn a tiny bit retrograde (i assume you know pro/retrograde, if not, tell me) to get my periapsis to around 45-50km above kerbin, to use the atmosphere to slow down a bit - two or three times, until i have a relatively stable orbit. And from there it's just shooting fish in a barrel, you can't really miss your target from there.
ye I know what you mean, guess I am just too lazy/impatient (or too cocky?) to do that ;D But can you give me a basic summary on what FAR & deadly reentry is? I assume deadly reentry just makes the reentry burn do dmg to your vessel and you need to worry about it (with new parts?).
On November 11 2014 23:42 Simberto wrote: From what i gather, the problem is that the lander is designed to land on land, not water. Thus it probably descends at ~10m/s with its one parachute, and the landing struts make it not explode on land. However, on water they are useless, thus the stuff explodes.
Btw, second workaround if you do not wish to redesign or aim where you land: Spacewalk, grab the data out of the science junior and the mystery goo, and put it into the capsule. This means that you don't have to waste fuel carrying used-up sciences back, which can make interplanetary missions a lot easier because you need a lot less fuel to return after dumping your science facilities onto Duna, while still getting all the science because you took it out of the thingy first.
I feel like I have opened a Portal to a WHOLE NEW WORLD!
Im still pretty much a total noob even after 380h of playtime ;X
On November 11 2014 23:26 stenole wrote: You lose science from landing in the water? I had no idea..
I lose it because my Science Junior gets destroyed like 80% of the time I land in water ;D If you land in Water and all your parts are still intact then you dont lose any science.
You could always have your Kerbal fetch the science from the science junior and bring it back to the command pod.
True. But honestly, i really dislike breaking things on my rockets, i want to have everything refurbishable as much as possible. It's a bit OCD, but still. ^^
You gotta think enviromentally friendly. Carrying used-up science facilities back to Kerbin wastes absurd amounts of fuel, and fuel to get that fuel into orbit, etc....
On November 11 2014 22:52 m4ini wrote: It depends on your design, do you have fuel left after the burn to return to kerbal? And do you play with FAR/deadly reentry?
I dont use any addons ;X maybe i should get them xD
So, my basic problem is, My last Lander had fuel, and I tried to burn towards the shore but it wasnt enough OR I noticed the problem too late. The thing is, Id like a good rule of thumb so I can burn earlier :X
So on my return path, right after I had a Mun Escape, I had NO idea where I would land since Kerbin turns around its axis, so I now assume that if I make a maneuver node at the end I can see the "Reach node in X time". If thats 6h, then I expect to land right where my blue line shows me(minus the slowdown during reentry).
FAR and Deadly Reentry are the two mods i can't play without. But be warned, it doesn't make the game easier, quite the opposite. Aerodynamics (well, more or less) start to play a role, and heatshielding for your vessels.
I still don't really understand what you're doing, so i'll just describe how i return from the mun.
After the return burn from the mun (~450dV) i'm in an extremely eccentric orbit around kerbin. I then burn a tiny bit retrograde (i assume you know pro/retrograde, if not, tell me) to get my periapsis to around 45-50km above kerbin, to use the atmosphere to slow down a bit - two or three times, until i have a relatively stable orbit. And from there it's just shooting fish in a barrel, you can't really miss your target from there.
ye I know what you mean, guess I am just too lazy/impatient (or too cocky?) to do that ;D But can you give me a basic summary on what FAR & deadly reentry is? I assume deadly reentry just makes the reentry burn do dmg to your vessel and you need to worry about it (with new parts?).
In short, deadly reentry makes your stuff burn up if on reentry (you need to shield your vessel for that), and FAR (Ferram Aerospace Research) makes aerodynamics work in the game. Meaning, for example, you have to build your rockets UP and not sideways to get somewhere (asparagus). Nosecones on top of rockets make sense, etc etc - you can read that in the links. It makes the game alot harder though (fuel can now unbalance your rocket/plane when you use it, because of weightshift etc).
I'd say, these two addons are pretty mandatory for anyone who actually is into rocketry. There's two other mods i can't play without (TAC Fuel Balancer because of FAR, and TAC Life support - you need to feed/warm etc your kerbals or they die).
edit
You gotta think enviromentally friendly. Carrying used-up science facilities back to Kerbin wastes absurd amounts of fuel, and fuel to get that fuel into orbit, etc....
Enviromentally friendly.. Well.. I often use a DT Vista Inertial Fusion Engine (Interstellar), so that ship is sailed. :D
Also, now you guys got me to want to play KSP again. I'd like to try a modded experience this time, however i am a) uninformed and b) lazy. Are there any good packs with loads of mods that make everything awesome and where i don't have to think about anything to use them?
On November 11 2014 23:49 Simberto wrote: Also, now you guys got me to want to play KSP again. I'd like to try a modded experience this time, however i am a) uninformed and b) lazy. Are there any good packs with loads of mods that make everything awesome and where i don't have to think about anything to use them?
So you're in the place where i was 3 weeks ago.
I didn't find complete packs, i found and installed every single mod myself. It's really simple though, you just have to ask yourself what you want. Do you want as many parts as possible? As realistic as possible? Space Stations? Colonies?
Meh, and then you get all the "Does x mod break y mod, why does everything explode and there are dozens of error mistakes" stuff that you always get when you mix multiple mods from different places that are not designed to work together. I hate dealing with that stuff.
On November 11 2014 23:54 Simberto wrote: Meh, and then you get all the "Does x mod break y mod, why does everything explode and there are dozens of error mistakes" stuff that you always get when you mix multiple mods from different places that are not designed to work together. I hate dealing with that stuff.
Tell me what you want, i'll tell you what you can use without breaking your game.
Minor sidenote though: mods to 95% only work on the 32bit client. The 64bit is so wonky that mod-developers abandoned it for now.
On November 11 2014 23:48 m4ini wrote: (fuel can now unbalance your rocket/plane when you use it, because of weightshift etc).
but that happens in the Unmodded game as well, doesnt it?
As far as i know, it doesn't. Weight/drag doesn't really play a role in terms of aerodynamics iirc. You need more dV for heavier rockets, yes. But that's as far as it gets. Maybe they changed that, but i doubt it (there's too many mods out there for that).
Good example are shuttles, if you burn through your fuel in the front-tanks, you won't be able to get the nose back down after reentry until you pump fuel back in the front (happens for me all the time, and the other way around as well - can't get nose up if fuel in the back is burned through and front still has fuel). I started with balancing manually (alt-click on fueltanks), but then went on to TAC Fuel Balancer, makes it easier because i also have to pump around food/oxygen and waste.
On November 11 2014 23:48 m4ini wrote: (fuel can now unbalance your rocket/plane when you use it, because of weightshift etc).
but that happens in the Unmodded game as well, doesnt it?
As far as i know, it doesn't. Weight/drag doesn't really play a role in terms of aerodynamics iirc. You need more dV for heavier rockets, yes. But that's as far as it gets. Maybe they changed that, but i doubt it (there's too many mods out there for that).
I meant that the weight shifts towards the back of the plane as you burn your fuel.
On November 11 2014 23:48 m4ini wrote: (fuel can now unbalance your rocket/plane when you use it, because of weightshift etc).
but that happens in the Unmodded game as well, doesnt it?
As far as i know, it doesn't. Weight/drag doesn't really play a role in terms of aerodynamics iirc. You need more dV for heavier rockets, yes. But that's as far as it gets. Maybe they changed that, but i doubt it (there's too many mods out there for that).
I meant that the weight shifts towards the back of the plane as you burn your fuel.
See my edit. I don't think it happens in the stock game, but on that one i might be wrong. Apart from that though, FAR adds aerodynamics to everything. Means, you can actually fly a brick, as long as you go fast enough. Makes some things easier, but other things really hard. ^^
edit: if you want to get deeper into understanding KSP and especially deadly reentry and FAR, i would tell you to take the time and watch scott manleys "Interstellar Quest". It's absolutely worth it.
edit2: to elaborate, he's very knowledgable about KSP and rocketry in general. He explains things, and he tries to do things "realistic", more or less. Meaning, no asparagus or other things like that. And he explains/plays with DR and FAR, so you can see what it does (sometimes pretty spectacular).
edit3: i also like his accent. But that's just me.
On November 11 2014 23:48 m4ini wrote: (fuel can now unbalance your rocket/plane when you use it, because of weightshift etc).
but that happens in the Unmodded game as well, doesnt it?
As far as i know, it doesn't. Weight/drag doesn't really play a role in terms of aerodynamics iirc. You need more dV for heavier rockets, yes. But that's as far as it gets. Maybe they changed that, but i doubt it (there's too many mods out there for that).
I meant that the weight shifts towards the back of the plane as you burn your fuel.
I am pretty sure the weight does shift if you remove fuel from a tank. I distinctly remember an episode in stock KSP where i had lander on Duna that comprised of 4 flat tanks in a square, all of which were linked, but i think i only had one or two engines in the middle. That thing was pretty stable when launching, and then suddenly started to spin and became uncontrollable, because the engines burned fuel from one of the tanks first, making the whole thing utterly unbalanced. It took me quite a while to figure out that that was the reason, and then i had to basically cut thrust while launching and shuffle the fuel around to stabilize the thing. Luckily i brought loads of extra fuel and somehow managed to get that silly thing into orbit.
On November 11 2014 23:48 m4ini wrote: (fuel can now unbalance your rocket/plane when you use it, because of weightshift etc).
but that happens in the Unmodded game as well, doesnt it?
As far as i know, it doesn't. Weight/drag doesn't really play a role in terms of aerodynamics iirc. You need more dV for heavier rockets, yes. But that's as far as it gets. Maybe they changed that, but i doubt it (there's too many mods out there for that).
I meant that the weight shifts towards the back of the plane as you burn your fuel.
I am pretty sure the weight does shift if you remove fuel from a tank. I distinctly remember an episode in stock KSP where i had lander on Duna that comprised of 4 flat tanks in a square, all of which were linked, but i think i only had one or two engines in the middle. That thing was pretty stable when launching, and then suddenly started to spin and became uncontrollable, because the engines burned fuel from one of the tanks first, making the whole thing utterly unbalanced. It took me quite a while to figure out that that was the reason, and then i had to basically cut thrust while launching and shuffle the fuel around to stabilize the thing. Luckily i brought loads of extra fuel and somehow managed to get that silly thing into orbit.
Yup, you two are right. The thing with FAR is that the consequences are worse now thanks to stalling mechanics. My bad.
edit: and the aerodynamics model - drag/lift now is based on every single part, so an empty fueltank at the wrong spot on your plane/shuttle means it'll brake apart even subsonic.
edit2: worth mentioning: Gravity turn in stock KSP has no risks behind it (turn 45 degree west at 7500m and throttle up) - with FAR your rocket will blow up because the upper stage now has drag, if you turn in atmosphere with FAR you will violently flip the rocket. As it would in real life, the KSP gravity turn doesn't work in RL, in fact rockets would selfdestruct. ^^
So if the KSP community for some reason hates Modpacks (I don't understand this in the slightest, but apparently that is the case), where would be a good place to find mods? Basically, i have no idea what i want. I just want stuff that adds to the game. More this, cooler that, better x, fixed y, whatever. I have no idea what mods exists, and i really just want a pack of 20 mods that work together and give me a whole new game.
I have no interest in the whole hardcore modding scene where you spend more time modding than actually playing the game. I want stuff that enhances the game with a minimum of effort on my side. And i have no idea where to find that, because when i google KSP mods i just find hundreds of sites with mods, i have no idea which of those actually work with the current version, which are utter shit, which are completely broken and don't work at all. To be honest, this is the main reason i don't usually mod my games. Sure, there are good mods out there. But it is usually so much effort to actually filter which ones work and which ones work together that you don't really play the game anymore, you just fight mods. And that is not something i enjoy. What i want is basically something that is as close as possible to an addon. Click this link, it does all the annoying stuff, and then it works and changes everything.
Or at least a list of mods that are tested together and actually work and are generally regarded as good additions to the game (Though if that exists i don't get why they don't just get repackaged together and save me from having to install 20 mods each on it's own.)
I don't want to mod for moddings sake, i want to mod so the game gets better, and that is pointless if you can't play anymore due to all the modding.
On November 12 2014 00:40 Simberto wrote: So if the KSP community for some reason hates Modpacks (I don't understand this in the slightest, but apparently that is the case), where would be a good place to find mods? Basically, i have no idea what i want. I just want stuff that adds to the game. More this, cooler that, better x, fixed y, whatever. I have no idea what mods exists, and i really just want a pack of 20 mods that work together and give me a whole new game.
I have no interest in the whole hardcore modding scene where you spend more time modding than actually playing the game. I want stuff that enhances the game with a minimum of effort on my side. And i have no idea where to find that, because when i google KSP mods i just find hundreds of sites with mods, i have no idea which of those actually work with the current version, which are utter shit, which are completely broken and don't work at all. To be honest, this is the main reason i don't usually mod my games. Sure, there are good mods out there. But it is usually so much effort to actually filter which ones work and which ones work together that you don't really play the game anymore, you just fight mods. And that is not something i enjoy. What i want is basically something that is as close as possible to an addon. Click this link, it does all the annoying stuff, and then it works and changes everything.
Or at least a list of mods that are tested together and actually work and are generally regarded as good additions to the game (Though if that exists i don't get why they don't just get repackaged together and save me from having to install 20 mods each on it's own.)
I don't want to mod for moddings sake, i want to mod so the game gets better, and that is pointless if you can't play anymore due to all the modding.
Every mod with [0.25] in the title works. Cursegaming also has apparently a modsection for KSP, but the forum is by far the most complete modlist.
In all honesty, there's no "without effort". You'll always have to unzip shit, configure stuff (toolbar springs to mind). It's like modding any game. WoW is no different, for example - there's not many mods that work out of the box the way you expect them to.
edit: also, the only trouble i had with my installation this time was my fault (overwrote firespitter,dll and modulemanager.dll with older versions) - and crashes thanks to 32bit client (out of memory), which was fixed by installing the texture-fixer (ActiveTextureManagement).
edit2: safe to say, it took me roughly two hours to find and install/cfg all the mods i wanted. And now i have roughly 100 hours on that installation without fault. I think that's acceptable, especially considering that mods add SO much to the game.
In my opinion the only mods you need are Kerbal Alarm Clock and MechJeb or Engineer for delta v (unless you enjoy doing tedious math for every rocket or being completely clueless if your mission will work).
Part packs contain mostly insanely overpowered engines, either they have magnificient TWR or Isp (or both).
There are mods for various issues, like docking port and joint stability, but that shouldn't actually be a problem if you simply take the time to learn how to build a stable rocket.
Disagree. Yes, there are op engines in some packs, but part packs are not just about engines - B9 comes to mind, or Interstellar. Especially Interstellar actually. There's some pretty OP engines in Interstellar, but first you have to get them - and then you have to be able to fuel them (antimatter etc) - which in fact takes you longer to get where-ever you want than just a duna-tug. You can literally build that with 1000 science total, and off you go.
Not to mention, that i actually didn't really see a really OP engine. Karbonite comes with an engine that produces insane thrust for it's weight/size, but it also goes through a tank in a matter of seconds. Yes, you still can build something that hops around the mun, gathering science and fueling itself by drilling karbonite - but in all honesty, you can do that with stock LV-Ns too. Just that you don't need to refuel, they're simply efficient enough for that. Not indefinately, but you can hop through 4-5 biomes easily before returning to earth.
Visual Enhancements are fun at the beginning, but as soon as you have something big in orbit above kerbin, your fps go down to single digits - that's why i stopped using it.
edit: Mechjeb equals cheating in KSP. The amount of automation (ascent, circularize orbit, hothman transfer to mun, return from mun - done in 4 clicks) is ridiculous. Now you can say "well don't use it then" - which would invalidate your argument about OP engines. Don't use them then.
Well, if you don't have the self-control you can simply use KerbalEngineer. Mechjeb just comes with the custom info windows, which are more convenient. MechJeb/Engineer and KAC are quality of life mods, they don't change how "difficult" it is to achieve x, they just remove a lot of tedium. Overpowered parts on the other hand can make everything trivial.
I'm not trying to say it's wrong or whatever to use part mods. If you like the parts, go ahead and have fun with them.
MechJeb/Engineer and KAC are quality of life mods, they don't change how "difficult" it is to achieve x
That's simply wrong. I remember vividly how much trouble i had the first time playing KSP, trying to get to the mun. If you can do that with two clicks (literally, it's not a figure of speech - it takes TWO clicks) - i'd say it removes alot of difficulty from the game. And that's just the mun. You can do Moho, Duna, etc etc in two clicks too.
KAC on the other hand, i agree. That's a quality of life mod. Mechjeb is too, but if you're arguing that op engines make stuff trivial and then go on to defend to the single mod that actually literally makes the whole game trivial, that's just weird.
Still doesn't change the fact that you can simply ignore op engines (whichever engine you'd like to deem so) if you don't want to use them. I yet have to see an engine that makes things trivial. May i ask which ones you're talking about?
On November 12 2014 05:29 Epoxide wrote: I assume he meant MechJeb without using any of the autopiloting stuff.
If he argues that partpacks make the game trivial because of engines, that argument doesn't count. If you can ignore the autofeatures on mechjeb, you can also ignore "allegedly" op engines in partpacks.
edit: apart from the obvious question which engines out there actually are op. All stong engines that i've seen need a specific setup beforehand (like antimatter collectors etc) - which in itself takes longer than just using stockparts to get whereever you want. Putting 4 LV'Ns and a crapton of fuel into orbit isn't exactly hard either, anyway (you can get there in like an hour playtime). And that's all you need to get anywhere if you don't use mods like TAC Lifesupport.
I mentioned KerbalEngineer in the same stroke, obviously I'm only referring to the information MechJeb+Engineer provide. If you're using autopilot, I don't see how you are actually playing, that's more like watching a movie that you direct. MechJeb's autopilot is rather inefficient anyway.
Part packs contain mostly insanely overpowered engines
I'm not discounting the possibility that there are part packs with nicely balanced engines and definitely not saying that 100% of the contents of a part pack are bad.
Maybe this is an exaggeration by now, but the last time I tried a part pack (0.21 or so) I didn't find any engine that wasn't op in my opinion. KW Rocketry comes to mind, it is widely used and the first 1.25m engine you get is more efficient than all stock engines (except LV-N ofc) while providing decent thrust.
KWR has nice stuff too, the fuel tanks for 2.5 to 1.25 connections instead of 0.1t of dead weight are very nice for making a good looking rocket, but the engines are too good.
So i'm back into modding, my main focus is to have an improved vanilla experience, so i think some might be interested on TL.
So far i've installed:
- kerbal engineer (makes your life easier with delta V readouts, phase angle etc..) - kerbal alarm clock: allows you to timewarp without worrying about missing your waypoint, also usefull to do multiple mission at once wich can be required in career mode. - kerbal renaissance: a mod compilation, cosmetic improvement to the game makes it much prettier - precise nodes: amazingly usefull mod, allows you to have complete control on your maneuver nodes - fineprints: improves the contract system and gives much more interesting missions.
So far i'm really happy with my choices, definitely a big improvement while staying true to the core game. If your PC is a bit weak though Renaissance is a bit power hungry though, but it's still reasonnable.
It is very smexy from what I viewed on the "suddenly preview beta streams" yesterday. (Some 24k people watching KSP on twitch? Unheard of! But then 20k was on one popular streamer. All of the other streamers did get some nice bumps though.)
... And then they release it today while people are thinking "maybe next week?" Sneaky sneaky.
On the down side, I had a nice Apollo-style Mun mission set up that I think I'm just going to scrap. Also, Kerbal Engineer and Kerbal Alarm Clock haven't been updated yet - and those are the only two mods I think of as "should be stock". There's even a new feature that is similar to MechJeb Smart A.S.S., which renders that into "totally optional" categorization. (But MJ has been updated.)
I quite like the new features, but I feel like the game is quite a bit harder, at least to start out from scratch now. Hard in a good way though, like I'm always worrying about money, science, and actually doing things, where the previous versions with money I felt like money was too easy to get.
Yeah, I can't wait to try this new version (after all the mods are updated). I spent like more than 800 hours on KSP already and I bought it for like less than $20. This game surely was one of the best value game I got in my life time.
The new editor gizmos are awesome, just did a new clean install (wiped all my saves as well) as i like to start fresh whenever a big update hits. I'll probably play a bit of vanilla and mod it again after a while, i've looked into CKAN (https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN) which is a mod manager for KSP, and it looks like something very promising to make modding easier to manage. Now if only the 64bits client worked that would be awesome, but i think it's something on unity's end .
On December 16 2014 23:38 Jetaap wrote: The new editor gizmos are awesome, just did a new clean install (wiped all my saves as well) as i like to start fresh whenever a big update hits. I'll probably play a bit of vanilla and mod it again after a while, i've looked into CKAN (https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN) which is a mod manager for KSP, and it looks like something very promising to make modding easier to manage. Now if only the 64bits client worked that would be awesome, but i think it's something on unity's end .
I'm sure stuff like that is going to get a lot more focus now that the game is scope complete
On December 16 2014 23:38 Jetaap wrote: The new editor gizmos are awesome, just did a new clean install (wiped all my saves as well) as i like to start fresh whenever a big update hits. I'll probably play a bit of vanilla and mod it again after a while, i've looked into CKAN (https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN) which is a mod manager for KSP, and it looks like something very promising to make modding easier to manage. Now if only the 64bits client worked that would be awesome, but i think it's something on unity's end .
You can always get an Ubuntu to play KSP! Unity x64 run quite smoothly on Linux.
I am going to install Ubuntu in my desktop tonight just to set it up for playing KSP (and if I am proficient with it enough it might becomes my OS of choice in the future).
Damn, I started a new game with funds penalties at 200% and now I've realized that building costs scale with it. 420k for the first VAB upgrade is not nice, I can't afford to do anything except simple orbit missions. The 30 part limit makes it even harder since you can't spam science modules and without the tracking station upgrade (a mere 280k) you only see a grey orbit and can't create maneuver nodes. I will try to do a Mün mission under these conditions and probably start a new game with less funds penalties after that lol.
On December 20 2014 07:26 nimbim wrote: Damn, I started a new game with funds penalties at 200% and now I've realized that building costs scale with it. 420k for the first VAB upgrade is not nice, I can't afford to do anything except simple orbit missions. The 30 part limit makes it even harder since you can't spam science modules and without the tracking station upgrade (a mere 280k) you only see a grey orbit and can't create maneuver nodes. I will try to do a Mün mission under these conditions and probably start a new game with less funds penalties after that lol.
I play on custom, most of the things on hard doesn't actually harder, just more of a grind ;_;
On December 20 2014 07:26 nimbim wrote: Damn, I started a new game with funds penalties at 200% and now I've realized that building costs scale with it. 420k for the first VAB upgrade is not nice, I can't afford to do anything except simple orbit missions. The 30 part limit makes it even harder since you can't spam science modules and without the tracking station upgrade (a mere 280k) you only see a grey orbit and can't create maneuver nodes. I will try to do a Mün mission under these conditions and probably start a new game with less funds penalties after that lol.
I play on custom, most of the things on hard doesn't actually harder, just more of a grind ;_;
Yea I don't play with lowered rewards, just the building cost scaling caught me by surprise.
Both were updated to .90 very quickly, but technically FAR can make the game easier, not harder. It can be harder at first when you don't know how to control your rockets, and for stuff like flying, but you will be able to get into orbit with less dV. I personally don't really care about how they did the difficulty levels because I couldnt really think of a better alternative.
What I do think would be cool is a rocket simulator inside the game. Just something that allows you to test stuff without wasting all your money in rocket parts, you really don't have that much to spare. When you are starting out you probally end up save scumming or reverting flights all the time. Plus it could be set up just to practice landings or other manuevers at other planets without waiting for the right time slot and wasting all the time needed to get there.
It kinda messes with the idea of trying things out by exploding your kerbals, but career mode doesn't really allow you to keep crashing into the mun until you get the hang of it.
On December 28 2014 05:51 Alcathous wrote: The hard part of Ferrum is that your entry vehicle can be pulled apart if you hit the wrong angle and go too fast.
Donno if you need more or less dV.
The whole testing doesn't work from very well from a gameplay point of view. Often hard to hit the right speed and altitude at the same time.
Blasting a rocket fixed in some concrete testing structure for science/money would be really lame gameplay.
Pretty sure he means simulator as in a "game" within the game. Build a rocket, "load it in the simulator" to test fly some aspects before actually putting the Kerbals in it and sending it to the launch pad.
That is essentially what the game IS in the first place, but in career mode you can't always afford to lose kerbals/rockets if something weird goes wrong after a few stages
Yeah, it's just something you can load and test stuff for no cost and no reward, maybe even set up scenarios such starting from the orbit of another planet/moon. It doesn't matter if it's a probe or a Kerbal, you can't afford to crash a few rockets into the mun until you are able to do it correctly. Or dozens of planes if you are using an aerodynamics mod. It's not really a huge deal but the game basically forces you to keep reverting flights instead of accepting the failure, and the alternative could make actual failures more impactful.
You can just copy+paste the craft into a sandbox save and test it there. Also, you can accept the consequences when things went wrong, it's certainly possible to fail missions in career mode and still progress.
On December 28 2014 08:43 nimbim wrote: You can just copy+paste the craft into a sandbox save and test it there. Also, you can accept the consequences when things went wrong, it's certainly possible to fail missions in career mode and still progress.
Yeah, but considering that my average mission explodes at least 5 times before even leaving the launchpad, and maybe brings in a 50-100% profit at the end, i would have to do shitloads of routine "save idiot from Kerbin orbit for a 20-30k profit" missions to actually progress, and that is exceedingly boring. I don't think i would play the game without the "revert to launch" button. Some failures, especially if they create additional missions with weird profiles that you need to accomplish, are fun. Most failures would just be "Yeah farm another 20 Kerbins from orbit because you forgot to change the crew around and KSP changes them back ALL THE FUCKING TIME FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER, or you forgot to attach food and noticed 200 m in the air, or you attached the decouplers to the first stage, or any other of the 100 random things that you do wrong from time to time and are really punished enough by having to go back to the drawing board, but would just be absurdly annoying if you had to do farming runs to pay for them."
On the other hand, one of my best experiences was noticing on the mun that i kind of forgot to attach engines to my munar rover that would allow the Kerbal in it to return to its return vessel in munar orbit, AND forgot to actually build the rover in a way that would allow docking with it. So i decided that its probably nice on the Mun and he could stay there, and sent a second vessel to fullfil his original mission. For which i didn't take enough fuel to return to Kerbin and thus Jeremiah got stuck in munar orbit. So i refueled on the original return vessel that was still in orbit around the mun. Crashed the shitty empty return vessel into the mun, and landed an unmanned direct Mun-Kerbin return Vessel rather close to Bill so he could return with all his science, too. And luckily, his rover even had wheels so he could drive the 5 km that i missed his spot by when landing to reach that vessel.
:D fails like that are impossible to enjoy if you quickload and revert everything. Obviously to each their own, I've played KSP so much that I rarely really fail something, so I like to be properly punished when it happens. For the simple mistakes like adding parachutes I keep a checklist next to my monitor^^
Rescuing Kerbals is very low income btw. I've always picked the "test x in sub-orbital/orbit" contracts which easily pay 100k+ for launching a part into orbit, depending on what it is you can even recover it close to KSC and get back however much that part costs.
Eva reports (rightclick on kerbal outside of ship), crew reports (rightclick on crew capsule, Mystery goo, Science Labs etc...
Get that stuff back to Kerbin and you get juicy, juicy science to spend on sciencing. The first few are free to grab from the launchpad, but there are lots of sciencings to be done at all sorts of places.
I've been playing a career with some of the financial settings on harder but my starting science cranked up to the point where I essentially don't have to worry about it. I played the game a ton when the science patch hit that I don't have much love for the process as much anymore and would rather just see new missions and have the capability to travel farther sooner without grinding out science/parts at certain times. It's been entertaining in a more casual way.
Game's come so far, and I'm excited to see what else they're still going to include and improve.
* New Drag Model * New Lift System * Aerodynamic Stability Overlay * Engineer’s Report * TimeWarp To * Deep Space and Planetary Refueling * Game Over * New Landing Gears * New, Larger Wings * Kerbal Clamber * Female Kerbals * Economic Systems Rebalance * Part Stats Rebalance * New Contracts * Tier 0 Buildings * Sound Overhaul * Bugfixes
Unfortunately my potato internet here won't let me stream. But let me suggest DasValdez that streams on both his own channel and the KSPTV channel, especially his Kerbal Space Academy slots, as good for learning. Also, EJ_sa is good at explaining things although that's not the main focus of his KSP streams. Most of the other "big" KSP streamers (by big, I mean regularly hits the 300 or so mark) are pretty good at explaining things.
Also, I see from your rocket that perhaps you have yet to see the glorious wonders of struts, aka space duck tape.
On March 27 2015 22:00 felisconcolori wrote: Also, I see from your rocket that perhaps you have yet to see the glorious wonders of struts, aka space duck tape.
In fairness struts can't solve everything.
Most things, but not everything. I know from experience that some of my rockets wouldn't work regardless of how many struts I put on them (usually when they totally collapse under their own weight on the launch pad...I've got a very bad tendency to constantly "build up" and if something doesn't work just strap more rockets on it).
Although zooming in seems to indicate that there are struts holding the side-rockets in place. If this is the case then the problem is simply top stability. Its hard to set up struts to stabilise something so long and the top of the rocket is just way too long compared to the base launch part. The side rockets need extending up the side, bracing against the upper part and staged with separation boosters to prevent it from crashing in on itself when ejected. Then it should work fine as the top will be properly braced against the accelerating first stage.
One thing i notice that is not related to the whole "falling to pieces" problem is that your rocket engines are all at different stages of burning through their fuel. That is usually not ideal. Ideally you would want some sort of booster stage, that burns out at roughly the same time (That isn't hard if you just attach 4 similar boosters or something like that, usually via the symmetry tools), which you can then discard to use your higher stage propulsion system, from which you ideally didn't waste any fuel onto burning while the first stage is still active.
On March 27 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: That rocket is such a glorious mess.
:D The learning curve is the best part of the game imo. If you have any specific questions I could actually stream/upload explanations for you or point you to an existing tutorial that I know.
On March 27 2015 22:00 felisconcolori wrote: Unfortunately my potato internet here won't let me stream. But let me suggest DasValdez that streams on both his own channel and the KSPTV channel, especially his Kerbal Space Academy slots, as good for learning. Also, EJ_sa is good at explaining things although that's not the main focus of his KSP streams. Most of the other "big" KSP streamers (by big, I mean regularly hits the 300 or so mark) are pretty good at explaining things.
Also, I see from your rocket that perhaps you have yet to see the glorious wonders of struts, aka space duck tape.
I meant me streaming, since can do it with a ~5 second delay :D watching an expert is good for some stuff but no practical experience doing the flying stuff
On March 27 2015 23:24 Simberto wrote: That rocket is such a glorious mess.
It actually worked completely fine and gets to mun (maybe minmus too) with alright flying. For that pic though, i had just tripled the engine power with no other considerations because the thrust to weight ratio was too low (friend talked me through building it, but he usually uses a huge list of mods to display stats). The stability was fine with a few struts added, was completely solid until dropping all boosters aside from the biggest one (had to drop throttle to around 200-400 thrust from it after detaching other engines, 650 was too much)
One thing i notice that is not related to the whole "falling to pieces" problem is that your rocket engines are all at different stages of burning through their fuel. That is usually not ideal. Ideally you would want some sort of booster stage, that burns out at roughly the same time (That isn't hard if you just attach 4 similar boosters or something like that, usually via the symmetry tools), which you can then discard to use your higher stage propulsion system, from which you ideally didn't waste any fuel onto burning while the first stage is still active.
That rocket has many stages. It has asparagus staging for dropping fuel from 2 of the side boosters into the other 2 boosters (then discarding the empty fuel tanks), then the last 2 side boosters into the main fuel tank + engine. That burn is enough to get to a stable orbit if flown correctly, then that stage is discarded for another stage which can make the burn to mun and then slow down and decrease orbit a lot (or even land), but there's another very light stage with an engine if that runs out of fuel or for easier landing
I saw some people like scott manley using asparagus staging in some videos, but i didn't really know what it was. That friend said to use it over a bunch of solid fuel boosters strapped together for actually getting out of the atmosphere
The idea is to create a rocket with a lot of parallel rocket engines with fuel tanks on top of them. All engines ignite at the same time. The trick, however, is that each rocket engine isn't depleting its own tank, but they are all draining their fuel from the outermost tanks. When these are depleted, the outmost tanks with their engines are decoupled and the next fuel tank takes over which is still completely full. The result is that the rocket always flies with the minimum number of tanks required to transport the fuel it has left while also constantly using all engines it has on board.
This concept can be realized through fuel lines which connect the stages in the order they will be dropped. It uses the fact that engines will always take their fuel from the most distant fuel tank available.
The main use of Asparagus Staging is to lift heavy payloads with higher mass to thrust ratio, mainly in the form of fuel, to orbit for the purpose of missions to the Mün and beyond. It can also be used effectively for the purpose of Space Station launch.
Only four engines though. Would be better with 6-12 i think. If it's not the most effective or easiest way of bringing stuff up to orbit while having half of the stages left for doing useful stuff, then that's why i'm here :D
Falcon Heavy has been designed with a unique propellant crossfeed capability, where some of the center core engines are supplied with fuel and oxidizer from the two side cores, up until the side cores are near empty and ready for the first separation event.[24] This allows engines from all three cores to ignite at launch and operate at full thrust until booster depletion, while still leaving the central core with most of its propellant at booster separation.
If you have any specific questions I could actually stream/upload explanations for you or point you to an existing tutorial that I know.
I kinda wanna get to Mun and back without just copy/pasting some craft, with several kerbals :D there are two stuck there now that didn't have quite so glorious landings, but the last one was very close
One thing i would suggest is instead of having a long thin top thingy, have more of a broader top. Broader and flat is much easier to land when compared to long and thin.
I'd recommend against anything involving docking for the beginning. Docking, especially without some sort of dock alignment mod, is incredibly hard and the whole maneuver will probably cost you roughly as much fuel as simply flying back to Kerbin would anyways.
You can consider bringing another Pod to rescue your Kerbins, but that is heavy and will require a very precise landing unless you want to spend ages wandering Kerbals about. Even one km off the spot will take ages to walk. Possibly consider making this a later mission and build a rover for picking up your Kerbals. Make sure that extra pod is actually empty when launching, Kerbals have this tendency to sneak in when you are not looking.
(Also, just to make sure, you do know that a quicksave feature exists? I would probably have went mad if had to spend one hour for getting something to the Mun for each of my initial landing attempts until i kinda learned how to do it)
I just wanted to repeat a few times. I didn't have major issues with the landing, just a bit of iteration to learn how it worked and some silly mistakes
it was stuff like first one ran out of fuel due to awful launch and way too bad thrust to weight ratio while in the atmosphere, second one i misjudged that the ground level was actually ~4.5km and decellerated too late, third one i was doing that very precise landing but i used too much fuel messing about to get the position perfect and fell ~4km away from the first pod (didn't get final adjustments in) but half-survived the landing
Accurate radar height above ground is one of the reasons I love Kerbal Engineer (I think it's "Redux" now). Judging distance to ground by eye from an exterior view is a pain, and the IVA view gives you a meter to see height above actual ground but makes any other piloting a pain.
Also, despite what Simberto is saying with regards to Kerbals moving, if you use their EVA fuel judiciously, you can actually get around pretty well on the surface of the Mun. It still might take awhile to go a few kilometers, but it beats walking.
Accurate radar height above ground is one of the reasons I love Kerbal Engineer
Yea, i'm just installing that one now. Stats are good. Dropping from 70m/s to 35m/s at 6km because you have the wrong thrust to weight ratio is very very bad :D (tripled thrust and it was going like 15 times faster)
Just thought I would drop this Kerbal story here, it happened a while ago but it was one of my greatest moments in gaming.
As a newish player, I was attempting to leave the surface of the moon and fly back to Kerbin. I blasted off pretty carelessly and I had a huge odd shaped orbit round Kerbin which was like 100000km at it's closest point and pretty much as far away as the mun at it's furthest point.
In short, I would endlessly orbit. I was out of fuel, running out of power and had all this juicy science lost in space for eternity. I knew that if I could just get into Kerbin atmosphere then the drag would slow me enough each pass round to eventually bring me out of orbit. I made a cup of tea and evaluated my seemingly minimal options.
When I got back, I suddenly had a brainwave, I have fuel in my jetpack! I also knew from my limited space knowledge that to alter my periapsis I needed to make the move at my apoapsis and I also needed to make it back to the ship because I needed the parachutes to land safely.
I got out and did some haphazard faceplanting with the jetpack trying to scrub off as much speed as possible, I missed a few times and flew away from the ship but kept on burning into the nose to slow it down. When I was nearly out of fuel I got back in and hit the 'M' key... 47000km.
See that's the problem, it's close enough to my field (astrophysics) that it feels like im actually studying, and far enough that it doesn't help me prepare any exams
On March 28 2015 00:54 Cyro wrote: I kinda wanna get to Mun and back without just copy/pasting some craft, with several kerbals :D there are two stuck there now that didn't have quite so glorious landings, but the last one was very close
I was recording a short video on this, but then I realized it can be summed up in a few sentences, especially since you're already using KerbalEngineer.
All you need to know are 2 things: what do you want to do and how much delta-v do you need for that. You want to send a bunch of Kerbals to the Mun, so add parts to give them a place for the ride. After the payload add enough fuel+engines to reach the delta-v requirements. For a round trip to the Mun from LKO you need 2600m/s (including a margin of error) - 1100m/s from LKO to Mun orbit, 600m/s to de-orbit, 600m/s to achieve orbit from the surface, 300m/s for the transfer from Mun orbit to Kerbin. Add a touch more delta-v if you are unsure about your piloting skills and there you are. No need to copy any design, just match the numbers and fly (but don't forget the landing legs and pack a parachute).
Piloting that is another story, but before I put together a decently narrated Mun video, you will have watched this one a couple of times:
That's true. The biggest things in craft design are dV (it takes roughly 4600m/s dV to get to LKO, although it can be done with less I believe) and TWR - make sure it's over 1 and ideally for launch stage be around 2.2. Kerbal Engineer in the SPH and VAB have a neat feature that lets you also look at TWR under different conditions - for example, on the Mun, or at Laythe, Duna, etc. Very handy when designing lander payloads.
For a round trip to the Mun from LKO you need 2600m/s (including a margin of error) - 1100m/s from LKO to Mun orbit, 600m/s to de-orbit, 600m/s to achieve orbit from the surface, 300m/s for the transfer from Mun orbit to Kerbin. Add a touch more delta-v if you are unsure about your piloting skills and there you are.
Thanks for the numbers. I'm overbuilding some ATM (actually going to try and build myself to roundtrip minmus) but those are way below the numbers i think i can fly safely and with good thrust to weight ratios :D
just built with 6-way asparagus
Launch stage says 8225m/s, not sure how accurate it is with asparagus stuff. Thrust to weight ratio starts at 2.14 then goes up to 2.97 if engines/tanks are dropped - might limit some engines or not throttle to full if that's too high
stage 2 = nuclear engine with huge tank 4692m/s (total 12899) - for transferring orbit to orbit and maybe slowing down before ditching
stage 3 = lander and returner, 2 small fuel tanks that can be detached: 1509m/s before the detach, then 2818m/s more for 4327m/s thrust to weight ratio is huge for on minmus, ~16-27. I was going to add some of those tiny mini engine things on the extra fuel tanks to level it out, but i don't think it's necessary at all
Total delta-v = 17226m/s
Some issues with detachment, pretty annoying to fix. Might have to re-do a lot of the rocket or just not use asparagus. Other stuff seemed good though, i could probably just make it 6>1 fuel (all fuel into main tank, detach all other tanks+engines at the same time) and it would work
On March 28 2015 02:46 Simberto wrote: I'd recommend against anything involving docking for the beginning. Docking, especially without some sort of dock alignment mod, is incredibly hard and the whole maneuver will probably cost you roughly as much fuel as simply flying back to Kerbin would anyways.
Pff. Go big or go home is my view. ;P
My first Mun mission was a full Apollo-style setup with a separate lander slung underneath a command module for launch that had to be manually decoupled and docked with in order to fly there. Was the devil itself to get to work and learn how to do everything but by the gods did I learn a LOT about how to do things in KSP.
I should really get back to playing that. I still have to re-engineer my interplanetary cruisers so I can actually get it off Kerbin safely. Once its up there its going to be amazingly useful for interplanetary transfers but until I figure out a way its just a large, very expensive, firework.
All of this talk made me play again, moved my 4-contract thing to Duna - explore Duna+Ike, Duna satellite, Duna space station. + Show Spoiler +
On March 30 2015 11:19 Cyro wrote: Total delta-v = 17226m/s
That's way too much for Minmus. Obviously having more delta-v won't exactly hurt you, but that should be enough to do a round trip to Moho (hardest to visit). In terms of efficiency though, don't detach a nuclear engine to switch to a less efficient one unless you really need the TWR from something else. With a nuke you can land on most bodies without atmosphere, only for Tylo it can be tough to the achieve the TWR.
On March 30 2015 20:35 -Celestial- wrote: I should really get back to playing that. I still have to re-engineer my interplanetary cruisers so I can actually get it off Kerbin safely. Once its up there its going to be amazingly useful for interplanetary transfers but until I figure out a way its just a large, very expensive, firework.
If you can't launch it without fireworks, try splitting it up into several launches and construct in LKO. That's also more realisitic than launching one giant thing into orbit.
On March 30 2015 20:35 -Celestial- wrote: I should really get back to playing that. I still have to re-engineer my interplanetary cruisers so I can actually get it off Kerbin safely. Once its up there its going to be amazingly useful for interplanetary transfers but until I figure out a way its just a large, very expensive, firework.
If you can't launch it without fireworks, try splitting it up into several launches and construct in LKO. That's also more realisitic than launching one giant thing into orbit.
To be honest my SOLE issue right now is that decoupling the launch vehicle from the ship itself tends to result in the engines exploding because of engine covering collisions. I was using quad engine mounts with nuclear engines to pack some more power onto each housing. But that meant when I hit the button to release the engines the side panels would fly off to free them and smack straight into the other engines.
I tried to do it carefully but there were always problems with it. Very frustrating after pulling off what was a fundamentally tricky launch procedure.
On March 30 2015 20:35 -Celestial- wrote: I should really get back to playing that. I still have to re-engineer my interplanetary cruisers so I can actually get it off Kerbin safely. Once its up there its going to be amazingly useful for interplanetary transfers but until I figure out a way its just a large, very expensive, firework.
If you can't launch it without fireworks, try splitting it up into several launches and construct in LKO. That's also more realisitic than launching one giant thing into orbit.
To be honest my SOLE issue right now is that decoupling the launch vehicle from the ship itself tends to result in the engines exploding because of engine covering collisions. I was using quad engine mounts with nuclear engines to pack some more power onto each housing. But that meant when I hit the button to release the engines the side panels would fly off to free them and smack straight into the other engines.
I tried to do it carefully but there were always problems with it. Very frustrating after pulling off what was a fundamentally tricky launch procedure.
Use timewarp immediately after hitting the stage button, makes the panels disappear.
On March 30 2015 20:35 -Celestial- wrote: I should really get back to playing that. I still have to re-engineer my interplanetary cruisers so I can actually get it off Kerbin safely. Once its up there its going to be amazingly useful for interplanetary transfers but until I figure out a way its just a large, very expensive, firework.
If you can't launch it without fireworks, try splitting it up into several launches and construct in LKO. That's also more realisitic than launching one giant thing into orbit.
To be honest my SOLE issue right now is that decoupling the launch vehicle from the ship itself tends to result in the engines exploding because of engine covering collisions. I was using quad engine mounts with nuclear engines to pack some more power onto each housing. But that meant when I hit the button to release the engines the side panels would fly off to free them and smack straight into the other engines.
I tried to do it carefully but there were always problems with it. Very frustrating after pulling off what was a fundamentally tricky launch procedure.
Use timewarp immediately after hitting the stage button, makes the panels disappear.
Honestly did not know that. I'll try it. Thanks for the tip.
I'm just having weird detachment issues.. releasing the second set of 2 engines caused the rocket to split in half further up with no evident collision. Maybe i was just throttled up too high?
On March 31 2015 05:44 Cyro wrote: I'm just having weird detachment issues.. releasing the second set of 2 engines caused the rocket to split in half further up with no evident collision. Maybe i was just throttled up too high?
Unless the stage you're detaching is still firing, throttle shouldn't matter. I guess the stock question is if you're using the 64bit client? That's the most common source of errors.
On March 31 2015 05:44 Cyro wrote: I'm just having weird detachment issues.. releasing the second set of 2 engines caused the rocket to split in half further up with no evident collision. Maybe i was just throttled up too high?
Unless the stage you're detaching is still firing, throttle shouldn't matter. I guess the stock question is if you're using the 64bit client? That's the most common source of errors.
On March 31 2015 05:44 Cyro wrote: I'm just having weird detachment issues.. releasing the second set of 2 engines caused the rocket to split in half further up with no evident collision. Maybe i was just throttled up too high?
Unless the stage you're detaching is still firing, throttle shouldn't matter. I guess the stock question is if you're using the 64bit client? That's the most common source of errors.
On March 31 2015 05:44 Cyro wrote: I'm just having weird detachment issues.. releasing the second set of 2 engines caused the rocket to split in half further up with no evident collision. Maybe i was just throttled up too high?
Unless the stage you're detaching is still firing, throttle shouldn't matter. I guess the stock question is if you're using the 64bit client? That's the most common source of errors.
I'm using 32 bit client. Was detaching engines that were off - but i tried it and it indeed broke several times at 100% and 25-50% throttle, but worked fine when i went into a slight roll and slowed throttle to 0%. I just took the same craft and launched it like 8 times and eventually it didn't randomly disconnect all of the fuel tanks from eachother (not even decouples, but like the glue of the ship between parts suddenly disappearing with no explosion as soon as i decoupled the second set of 3*2 engines)
I got to minmus and back with a kerbal :D
..alive :D
i would rate that harder than mun though. It's much further out and then you have to correct for inclination and time it to dodge mun on your way out, and then the gravity is so weak it was quite confusing for me to actually get into a proper orbit. I didn't have an orbit, just a line that said minmus escape in X time (when i was in the SOI) and i ended up using twice as much fuel as i actually needed for the transfer stage (around 2000m/s of delta v) but i had 4x as much as i needed, so all good
I'm really not convinced the decoupler issue is a bug. I think people who are having problems with separated stages torquing in are attaching the booster too high on the decoupler.
If the decoupler is below the center of mass of the booster, it will create a torque that rotates the bottom of the booster away and the top of the booster towards the ship. If the booster is long enough, that could easily overcome the horizontal velocity of the booster.
To fix this, place the booster as low on the decoupler as possible.
It's a design flaw in your rockets, not a bug in the game.
On April 03 2015 12:55 Millitron wrote: I'm really not convinced the decoupler issue is a bug. I think people who are having problems with separated stages torquing in are attaching the booster too high on the decoupler.
If the decoupler is below the center of mass of the booster, it will create a torque that rotates the bottom of the booster away and the top of the booster towards the ship. If the booster is long enough, that could easily overcome the horizontal velocity of the booster.
To fix this, place the booster as low on the decoupler as possible.
It's a design flaw in your rockets, not a bug in the game.
If it's a torquing issue, though, wouldn't placing the booster as low as possible then lead to the opposite problem with the decoupler kicking the upper part of the booster stage out and causing the bottom of the booster to rotate around and colliding with engines?
Actually, I've seen that happen, so decoupler placement might be really finicky. I generally just add sepratrons to push the decoupling booster away and down from the primary stage.
On April 03 2015 12:55 Millitron wrote: I'm really not convinced the decoupler issue is a bug. I think people who are having problems with separated stages torquing in are attaching the booster too high on the decoupler.
If the decoupler is below the center of mass of the booster, it will create a torque that rotates the bottom of the booster away and the top of the booster towards the ship. If the booster is long enough, that could easily overcome the horizontal velocity of the booster.
To fix this, place the booster as low on the decoupler as possible.
It's a design flaw in your rockets, not a bug in the game.
If it's a torquing issue, though, wouldn't placing the booster as low as possible then lead to the opposite problem with the decoupler kicking the upper part of the booster stage out and causing the bottom of the booster to rotate around and colliding with engines?
Actually, I've seen that happen, so decoupler placement might be really finicky. I generally just add sepratrons to push the decoupling booster away and down from the primary stage.
Placing the booster low will indeed torque the bottom of the rocket in, but that's generally not as bad as the top torquing in.
On April 03 2015 12:00 Cyro wrote: I got to minmus and back with a kerbal :D
..alive :D
i would rate that harder than mun though. It's much further out and then you have to correct for inclination and time it to dodge mun on your way out, and then the gravity is so weak it was quite confusing for me to actually get into a proper orbit. I didn't have an orbit, just a line that said minmus escape in X time (when i was in the SOI) and i ended up using twice as much fuel as i actually needed for the transfer stage (around 2000m/s of delta v) but i had 4x as much as i needed, so all good
edit: Mission success. I recorded from the first time i pressed button to go to launchpad (missed struts on some part, instant fireworks) and it actually worked right out from the second time going to launchpad. I tested the lander+transfer stage quickly before building that launch monstrosity, but still surprising :D
an hour and a half later, got to the mun with 1 kerbal and came back with four, in one launch. One of them was 40km away from the others, and all of my kerbals were in the middle of the dark side of the mun (i landed them on light side and thought it was tidally locked? :0) so there was some added challenge and derp reloading there. Also i had another bug where my SAS just didn't respond while i was trying to pick up the last kerbal and i had to manually maneuver and land without it >____>
uploading whole thing to youtube if i can anyways in case anyone wants to see the launch and/or skip through it :D
t;t youtube does not accept videos longer than ~10-15 min without talking to them on phone to verify account
Tidally locked means that the same side of the Mun faces Kerbin at any given time, and that is correct. It does not mean that the same side of the Mun is facing the SUN at all times, which is what makes it light up. You can easily watch this phenomenon in real life, too. It is the reason why there is such a thing as half-moon, full-moon, new moon, but the craters are always at the same spots.
If you wait for half a month, the dark side and the light side will have changed places.
As to your SAS not responding, were you out of electricity?
And that thing is MASSIVE overkill to get to the Mun. You should be able to easily get to Duna and back with something that size. Don't get me wrong, it is definitively cool. But with a few tweeks you should be able to do much larger missions with it.
Can you get more powerful engines w/ any popular mods? Asparagus feels weak on crafts that heavy because you can't do the usual trick of having the main engine 2-3x as powerful as the booster engines when the booster engines are the highest thrust ones available. Doing that allows you to maintain TWR in the ~1.5-2.2 range, while this craft fell gradually to barely over 1.0 TWR as it dropped engines
i'm sure you could design a craft for the same mission that was smaller and worked fine with smaller than max size engines for asparagus stages, but where's the fun in that?
Tidally locked means that the same side of the Mun faces Kerbin at any given time, and that is correct. It does not mean that the same side of the Mun is facing the SUN at all times, which is what makes it light up.
Ah yea. Shit~
As to your SAS not responding, were you out of electricity?
nop i don't think so, i leave the meter open and i could still use the reaction wheels fine. The SAS just stopped adjusting my craft towards the heading i told it to (retrogade) even when clicking on/off of it
And that thing is MASSIVE overkill to get to the Mun.
And back with three extra kerbals, plus 2-3x redundancy for fuel for fun and shit piloting? :D maybe, but more/bigger engines is always cool. It was like my fifth attempt at a return trip and needing a bunch of pods (or in this case 1 small pod and 1 huge pod) to fit them in. It was pretty awesome aside from some control issues in one stage and lack of TWR for the second half of main stage (if there was an engine with 6-10k thrust, that would be fixed with one part swap)
I think you overestimate how important TWR is. TWR is only important for landing and starting maneuvers. Anything out in space you can easily do with lower TWRs (albeit it being slightly annoying if it is too low due to maneuvers taking longer acceleration times which you can not accelerate time to get through. Which allows you to use effective engines like the nuclear ones.
As soon as you are even on a suborbital course, TWR is usually no longer a big issue.
On April 06 2015 21:17 Simberto wrote: I think you overestimate how important TWR is. TWR is only important for landing and starting maneuvers. Anything out in space you can easily do with lower TWRs (albeit it being slightly annoying if it is too low due to maneuvers taking longer acceleration times which you can not accelerate time to get through. Which allows you to use effective engines like the nuclear ones.
As soon as you are even on a suborbital course, TWR is usually no longer a big issue.
It makes a huge difference if you're dipping that far below and you're nowhere near a stable orbit. A 0.73 TWR on the ground might be higher if you're using that engine at 30-35km, especially after you partially empty fuel tanks - but it's still awful and barely usable for the second half of orbital insertion
i'm sure at 1.8 TWR it would fly like a dream~ "start slow, get slower" is just icky design. Functional TWR of ~1.6 - 1.1 (average ~1.2) is just too low to get out of atmosphere efficiently
xD well there is nothing efficient about that design. Just look at all the reaction wheels you needed to compensate for its insane mass (don't use nose cones unless you've installed FAR btw). There's nothing wrong about what you're doing ofc, but it's not efficient^^
It's like Simberto said, you only need a certain TWR for the critical burns, i.e. while fighting gravity and atmosphere. Once you're in LKO you definitely don't need a specific TWR anymore and the Mün has very low gravity obviously (1.63 m/s²). It's perfectly normal IRL that rockets have a TWR barely above 1 after decoupling boosters, they pick up speed while the fuel depletes.
On April 06 2015 23:23 Epoxide wrote: You should look for engines with high ISP when outside of the atmosphere, typically the nuclear engine is the most efficient for transfers between planets/moons.
Also, using just 1 engine while you don't need the extra thrust is always best in terms of efficiency. Don't attach 8 LV-N to get more thrust, that's actually less efficient than another single engine with lower Isp. I can't find the table right now, but iirc anything above 4 LV-N is less efficient than using 1 LV-T30 (Isp=370s). There are some cases when a smaller engine will be more efficient than a LV-N, but in general just use them for space. http://imgur.com/a/iNqmQ#0
You should look for engines with high ISP when outside of the atmosphere, typically the nuclear engine is the most efficient for transfers between planets/moons.
Another thing is that engines with high TWR generally have low ISP so it means that you will need to carry more fuel in upper stage to get the same amount of the delta-v, therefore need more fuel and higher TWR in the lower stage (Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation is a bitch). Moreover, high TWR engines also have shapes that are not suitable for landing as the engines are generally very long.
So after seeing your "slightly overkill" mun mission i designed a 3 man mission for mun, trying to be as simple as possible
It goes to the moon and back without any issue, 17 parts ( the aim was just to have a rocket that is as simple as possible, it's of course possible to do much better as far as efficiency goes) It has 9.5k delta V
On April 07 2015 07:18 Teoita wrote: Cyro's stuff is the definition of "slightly overkill"
For the definition of "oh my goodness what have we done" overkill, I think there's a guy named Whackjob on the KSP forums. Not sure of his recent activity, though - last I saw he killed his computer from insanely high part-count constructions.
The tyranny of the Rocket Equation means that sometimes less is more - but then it can be a lot of fun to just throw efficiency out the window and see just how big of a monster you can get into orbit.
On April 06 2015 23:23 Epoxide wrote: You should look for engines with high ISP when outside of the atmosphere, typically the nuclear engine is the most efficient for transfers between planets/moons.
What's ISP and what does it mean/do?
On April 06 2015 23:16 nimbim wrote: xD well there is nothing efficient about that design. Just look at all the reaction wheels you needed to compensate for its insane mass (don't use nose cones unless you've installed FAR btw). There's nothing wrong about what you're doing ofc, but it's not efficient^^
It's like Simberto said, you only need a certain TWR for the critical burns, i.e. while fighting gravity and atmosphere. Once you're in LKO you definitely don't need a specific TWR anymore and the Mün has very low gravity obviously (1.63 m/s²). It's perfectly normal IRL that rockets have a TWR barely above 1 after decoupling boosters, they pick up speed while the fuel depletes.
On April 06 2015 23:23 Epoxide wrote: You should look for engines with high ISP when outside of the atmosphere, typically the nuclear engine is the most efficient for transfers between planets/moons.
Also, using just 1 engine while you don't need the extra thrust is always best in terms of efficiency. Don't attach 8 LV-N to get more thrust, that's actually less efficient than another single engine with lower Isp. I can't find the table right now, but iirc anything above 4 LV-N is less efficient than using 1 LV-T30 (Isp=370s). There are some cases when a smaller engine will be more efficient than a LV-N, but in general just use them for space. http://imgur.com/a/iNqmQ#0
ISP is essentially the efficiency of an engine. It is short for specific impulse. Basically, the higher the ISP, the more delta V you get from a unit of fuel. Efficient engines tend to have a high ISP and low rate of change of fuel. Booster tend to have low ISP and get rid of fuel hella quick.
A few areas ISP is used : Thrust = g0 (surface gravity at Earth/Kerbin) * ISP * dm/dt (rate you're getting rid of fuel) delat V = g0 * ISP * ln(m/m0) (the last term in the last equation is the natural log of final mass divided by initial mass)
Can anyone explain to me or link good resources for how air breathing engines work in this game? I'm clearly missing some stuff with the physics simulation, because i don't understand why my crafts are flying (or more importantly, not flying)
in particular, thrust to weight ratio not being at all representative as ability to pitch up. I can put my nose straight up with a TWR of 3.6 at full throttle and i drop like a rock - but more importantly i have no indicator in my UI for why this is happening, my air intake is completely fine and i'm not sure what mechanism with the game physics simulation is causing the drop off in thrust, or how to game it.
i first noticed that trying to ascend at an angle (like 30-40 degrees up from the horizon) and my effective thrust just wasn't where it should have been
Some of my craft with air breathing engines can fly up at steep angles or even straight up, others can't
I was in a skype call with friend who is more experienced with the game when i was trying to figure it out, he said maybe the rapier engine TWR was displayed wrong as it switches modes but it wasn't that at all. I can post the craft in question (that has reached orbit and landed again safely without a chute) if it helps.
---
I had some theories like drag, but that doesn't make sense - pitching down the nose towards the horizon would make me gain altitude way faster than flying up at a steeper angle, while also gaining speed on that axis too. It's like the engines just don't work properly at certain angles on certain craft because of some mechanism that i should be taking into account but i'm not even aware exists
I know that aircraft rely on relatively flat angles to get lift from wings - but also that with a good TWR, planes IRL (and in-game, i tested it) should be able to go straight into a vertical climb
I think the disparity you are experiencing is related to air breathing engines have a "velocity curve". You can find the values of this in the cfg-files for the engines. It causes the engine to give a fraction of its maximum thrust depending on the velocity (relative to the atmosphere). For example at 0 m/s turbojets will at most give you 50% of maximum thrust. But it will be able to reach maximum thrust at 1000 m/s, 50% again at 2000 m/s and 0% at 2400 m/s.
With a max TWR at 3.6 you should still be able to ascend even at 50% so there is probably something else going on too. If you are pointing straight up and falling down without backwards pointing air intakes, your engines are likely to get air deprived. But that usually makes your craft spin uncontrollably because it tends to happen asymmetrically. Maybe not all engines are activated or aren't getting fuel. Maybe the TWR calculation was wrong...
On April 07 2015 23:53 stenole wrote: I think the disparity you are experiencing is related to air breathing engines have a "velocity curve". You can find the values of this in the cfg-files for the engines. It causes the engine to give a fraction of its maximum thrust depending on the velocity (relative to the atmosphere). For example at 0 m/s turbojets will at most give you 50% of maximum thrust. But it will be able to reach maximum thrust at 1000 m/s, 50% again at 2000 m/s and 0% at 2400 m/s.
With a max TWR at 3.6 you should still be able to ascend even at 50% so there is probably something else going on too. If you are pointing straight up and falling down without backwards pointing air intakes, your engines are likely to get air deprived. But that usually makes your craft spin uncontrollably because it tends to happen asymmetrically. Maybe not all engines are activated or aren't getting fuel. Maybe the TWR calculation was wrong...
I snapped my wings off by jerking the plane to the sides on the ground and then took off, and the same craft then flies with a similar TWR but magically manages to go straight up.
They're not air starved AFAIK, my air intake was completely overpowered to allow for only ~2-3% intake usage at a few KM altitude, and to allow for air powered engines to around 35km. The intake looks waaaaaay into the green from any stats i can see, and the actual thrust displayed on the engine is unchanged.
The plane in question has a rapier and two basic jet engines, but i'm talking about a variety of altitudes from right off the runway to about 20km in the air
I've noticed that behavior (change in thrust and maybe efficiency with altitude) but i don't think it explains it.
The craft that has those troubles has a long wingspan, maybe that's related - or maybe it's a combination of things, like only 60% of the thrust working at 200-1000 meters (yet not being displayed properly on TWR) coupled with air drag from the wings themselves being much, much higher than i anticipated
overall i think i'd like better stats if i can be falling while pointed straight up with a "TWR" of 3.6. Staring at horizontal and vertical velocity numbers isn't as fun or effective as having better stats to go on
Here's the craft falling out of the sky at 3.59 "TWR" and full throttle. I pitch the nose down - and suddenly it starts accelerating upwards AND horizontally
ship with some modifications (added fuel links, changed the wings in a way that might actually be bad, IDK) http://puu.sh/h53iX.craft
I took a look at the craft file. Full throttle, pointed it up and it reached 26 kilometers when the jet engines were finally air deprived, and a final apoapsis of over 40km.
Edit:
On April 08 2015 03:17 Cyro wrote: I changed the wings to dodge the engines because of a message that wings were being damaged
edit: You're actually right and it was just the engine vs wing position completely fucking up the craft/s. It flies fine now.
I think what might be happening is that because you put wings behind 2 of your engines, all their thrust is getting absorbed by the wings (which should eventually destroy them). This means that 300kN of your thrust is pushing against your own craft. Your craft effectively has a thrust of 95kN which translates to a TWR of 0.85.
That is my theory, even though logically you would think that thrust could get around the wing...
I didn't think it would be an issue with kerbal physics, but aparantly it is so
The funny thing is that i got to orbit and back for a clean landing with it broken in that way. I'd like to see what's doable with a fixed up and improved craft! :D
Full throttle, pointed it up and it reached 26 kilometers when the jet engines were finally air deprived, and a final apoapsis of over 40km.
Gotta turn off the basic jet engines at a certain altitude. When i first flew it, they had their 40 fuel and no more so it fixed that for you automatically, but it wasn't optimal
Full throttle, pointed it up and it reached 26 kilometers when the jet engines were finally air deprived, and a final apoapsis of over 40km.
Gotta turn off the basic jet engines at a certain altitude. When i first flew it, they had their 40 fuel and no more so it fixed that for you automatically, but it wasn't optimal
Well, yeah. I just went full vertical to test if it has the thrust to do so.
Kinda funny that i fixed it without even realizing >_______>
so i've been thinking, gotta check wing mass etc. With any significant mass on wings, it's probably better to ascend at like 15-20 degrees ish with a spaceplane?
how do people usually do that, or generally make craft capable of maneuvering in orbit for a while and returning? I can get to orbit but the fuel costs with rocket engine are so huge compared to air breathing engines
On April 09 2015 18:52 Cyro wrote: fuel costs with rocket engine are so huge compared to air breathing engines
I don't know about that. Then again, I've never built an efficient spaceplane. I can build a standard rocket that can get to a stable 2000km orbit with around 12k. The spaceplane you uploaded earlier costs 41k.
I wonder how much reusability comes into play in the long run?
On April 09 2015 18:52 Cyro wrote: Kinda funny that i fixed it without even realizing >_______>
so i've been thinking, gotta check wing mass etc. With any significant mass on wings, it's probably better to ascend at like 15-20 degrees ish with a spaceplane?
how do people usually do that, or generally make craft capable of maneuvering in orbit for a while and returning? I can get to orbit but the fuel costs with rocket engine are so huge compared to air breathing engines
I play the game mod-less, so if you have any physics altering mods like FAR this might not apply. I assume you're wondering how to get to space in a normal space plane. The problems lie mostly in the design and not so much the flying.
If you have a plane that has enough lift, enough thrust, enough fuel and enough fuel intake, you should be able to gradually ascend to 30000m+ at orbital speed using only air breathing engines. If you want to fly around in space, you need to add rocket fuel and rocket engines as well which means you need to add more lift, air breathing thrust, liquid fuel and air intake. The same goes for if you want to deliver a package into space. You'll need more of the same 4 things.
Your design needs to be able to function in the atmosphere, so you need to make sure you have your center of lift always a little bit behind your center of mass. That means you need to make sure that fuel usage and package delivery doesn't move your center of mass too much. This gets a little harder for a larger craft. If you want your craft to be controllable in space (and the transition into space) you need to make sure that the center of mass is right in front of your center of thrust. If you start putting parts assymmetrically, this will force the plane to pull in some unwanted direction. You can somewhat compensate with RCS and SAS modules. Or you can rotate your engines slightly to keep things lined up. What will happen when your engines start running out of air in the upper atmosphere is that they will fail one engine at a time instead of failing evenly. Because the atmosphere is thinner up there, it also means your wings can't compensate as much. So unless you watch your engines carefully while going up, and throttle down, you'll lose control of the craft. You can make all your engines point individually at the center of mass to fix this.
What I usually do is ascend at 70ish degrees up until about 10000m, then flatten out to 20 or so degrees. Once your plane is going fast enough or your air intake is starting to get low, you flatten your trajectory even more. It might be better to watch the vertical speed meter than your angle at this point. Eventually your engines will start to die and you need to lower your throttle to keep some life in them. Once your engines are running at such low power that they aren't helping you get into space, you switch to rocket engines and close all the intakes (best done with hotkeys). At this point you pull up to go steeper until you are at about 50000m. The drag should be low enough that it doesn't affect your climb as much. After this, use your rocket engines to push your apolapse etc etc.
If you want to fly around in space, you need to add rocket fuel and rocket engines as well which means you need to add more lift, air breathing thrust, liquid fuel and air intake.
I found the RAPIER engine fit nicely there. A single one was sufficient for lighter plane. I could manually disable air engines symetrically or all at once when approaching high atmosphere, then that engine switches automatically when it's too starved
I'm also interested in building a space station, but IDK what to make it out of, what to generally do with it or exactly how to make it (i know basic theory for rendezvous but not the little details and i suck at manually docking)
Yeah, basically the idea is probably that of a spaceplane as a reusable launch vehicle instead of rockets, which should be able to get stuff into orbit cheaper if you make it work well. And once you have stuff in orbit, you can do anything you could do from orbit anyways. It would probably be a smart idea to detach your mission vehicle, land the plane, and continue on your space mission, since there is not really a point to carrying your gigantic wings and other stuff you require to fly in the atmosphere to the Mun.
Especially for launching satellites into lower orbits it should work very well, but theoretically you should be able to scale it up to get much larger stuff into orbit. And once you are in orbit, there is no difference in how you got there.
I would highly suggest against using Ion Engines. Their Thrust is just so incredibly low that any relevant maneuver takes ages to perform. I am talking about 60+ minute burns, which even at *4 physics acceleration means that you have to just SIT there for 15+ minutes not doing anything just watching an acceleration bar go up. Which is not a lot of fun in a game. I would suggest just grabbing a few Nuclear engines instead.
But generally, building some sort of propulsion device and putting it into orbit first, then docking your spaceplane to it for missions would totally be possible (Also needlessly complicated, but that is a different question entirely) I am not quite sure if any of the other bodies in the Kerbol Systems do have an atmosphere with enough oxygen to use air-breathing engines in it. If that were the case, you could use that idea to do a mission to one of those. (Looking it up, apparently Laythe has Oxygen in it's atmosphere). So i guess this would actually be a viable (And cool) concept for a Laythe mission.
For any other mission, while this could work (And be cool) it would also be kind of pointless, as there is really no point in dragging all these Jet engines across the system just to drag them back to Kerbin afterwards.
This would be cool to do a laythe mission like that but that's a very challenging mission: spaceplanes and orbital assembly/rendezvous are 2 of the most difficult things in this game. But after all this is what this game is about, setting your own challenges
As i said, for a Laythe mission this actually makes sense. Get Propulsion thingy into orbit, Spaceplane into Orbit, Dock with Propulsion, Nucleardrive to laythe, Spaceplane down, land, SCIENCE FOR THE SCIENCE GOD, start, Spaceplane back to Laythe Orbit, Dock again, Fly back to Kerbin, Spaceplane down.
You just need to make sure you have enough fuel on board the propulsion System to Carry your Spaceplane to Laythe and back, and possibly to refuel your Spaceplane for multiple Starts/Landings. Also build a plane that can Land rather well without a runway, it would really suck if it explodes on Laythe.
I've never done an orbital insertion to a different planet in system before, is it much harder than kerbin to moon transfers?
Ion engines (would need a huge array of them though) are still interesting to me, because they should give much more delta V if you expend a large percentage of the fuel. I'm thinking a LOT of engines though, like 16-32 ish or maybe more - depends how much weight they add to the craft. If i'm doubling thrust on the ion stage for only a 50% increase in overall craft mass, sure that sounds awesome.
I do not know how lack of TWR would impact transferring into a planetary orbit. It might make it difficult to do any more than minmus flyby's with a dockable ion engine array :D
The maneuver itself is not hard to do, the critical part is designing a spacecraft with the necessary amount of Delta-V to achieve that mission, as you require quite a lot of that.
TWR does not affect your ability to do anything on a planetary scale. You always have enough time for your maneuvers, it just becomes annoying if your TWR is too low because you will have to wait for ages of real time. The only situations where TWR is relevant is landing and starting. And possible some sharp brakes for orbital insertion, but usually it doesn't matter.
Yes. The work with nodes and stuff is a bit trickier but that isn't really a big deal, the issue is the timing so that you actually hit the planet. There are calculators out there that can show you when to start the mission.
Multi planet missions often use a similar concept as the Star Wars pic. You have a stack of rockets and fuel to move from orbit to orbit and a small lander to get down to each planet that is refueled after each mission.
It just doesn't make much practical sense to use a spaceplane because it isn't helpful in most planets and the whole point of the moving refueling station is being able to go anywhere.
On April 10 2015 01:44 Cyro wrote: I've never done an orbital insertion to a different planet in system before, is it much harder than kerbin to moon transfers?
Ion engines (would need a huge array of them though) are still interesting to me, because they should give much more delta V if you expend a large percentage of the fuel. I'm thinking a LOT of engines though, like 16-32 ish or maybe more - depends how much weight they add to the craft. If i'm doubling thrust on the ion stage for only a 50% increase in overall craft mass, sure that sounds awesome.
I do not know how lack of TWR would impact transferring into a planetary orbit. It might make it difficult to do any more than minmus flyby's with a dockable ion engine array :D
It takes a bit of practice to get decent encounters with your target, but getting into the SOI should be easy. Duna and Eve are obvious first targets because you can use their atmosphere to aerobrake. If you want to bring your Kerbals back home from the surface better try Duna first and Eve after every other planet.
Don't stack ion engines like that, that would increase the mass more than it increases the thrust, thus diminishing the efficiency. Basically if you want to use more than 2 ion engines because low TWR is boring, you should rather use a LV-N or maybe a Rockomax 48-7S depending on the rocket's mass.
Low TWR does not hurt at all during interplanetary transfers. Multiple burns while you are at your periapsis will make full use of the Oberth effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect
Don't stack ion engines like that, that would increase the mass more than it increases the thrust
with a heavy craft you can double the number of ion engines +fuel without doubling the mass, you get more TWR and more delta-v - but i see it's hard to do anything useful with them on heavy craft :D
Don't stack ion engines like that, that would increase the mass more than it increases the thrust
with a heavy craft you can double the number of ion engines +fuel without doubling the mass, you get more TWR and more delta-v - but i see it's hard to do anything useful with them on heavy craft :D
Increases mass, increases thrust and decreases efficiency. The decrease is so immense that it really isn't worthwhile to do. http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/ Every additional ion engine will increase the total mass and dry mass by 0.25t - this is essentially dead weight. If you want to try some numbers the larger xenon tank has 0.07t of fuel and ion engines an Isp of 4200s.
and lol not really any slow climbing - just abusing intake spam and the insane efficiency of air breathing engines around 15-25km. That thing went FAST to the point where i had to pull up way harder than i wanted to due to air resistance and re-entry flames
four turbojets and four rapiers firing at once with some fuel tanks to discard
My biggest problem is losing half of the ship mass on the way up (and particularly, when using jet engines) because i'm eating all of the fuel, and then on the way back down the center of lift vs mass is probably horribly set up and the whole plane feels like paper and goes into wild spins with almost no provocation (but that happened to everything that i put into orbit, spent fuel with and then came back down using..)
maybe i should just add fuel tanks on decouplers, leave the liquid fuel as the core body of the plane and decouple the liquid+oxidizer mixed tanks - anything plane-like that i build is just spinning like a top and getting thrown everywhere with way more force than i can reasonably counteract and if/when i stabilize it on the way down, it's then really awkward and hard to fly
The abuse is because you spammed air intakes in order to be able to use jet engines at higher altitude that you should be able to . Anyway, no matter what you do getting into orbit from kerbin is going to take a lot of fuel, once you're in space you need very little fuel comparatively to manoeuver.
The abuse is because you spammed air intakes in order to be able to use jet engines at higher altitude that you should be able to .
Isn't that what everyone does?
You need to double intake to fly like 3.5km higher. There's no penalty for stacking intakes so i don't see a problem with running 4x as much intake to get that last 7km, it's really important :D
Anyway, no matter what you do getting into orbit from kerbin is going to take a lot of fuel, once you're in space you need very little fuel comparatively to manoeuver.
Yeah, but i have like an hour of fuel in atmosphere and 90 seconds of fuel when i switch engines. Even if it's 50x easier to maneuver you still run dry almost immediately
On April 10 2015 14:08 Cyro wrote: If they're 55% as fuel efficient but there's twice as many of them, you still go faster and further
You will never go further with more than one engine once you're in space. 2 engines have the same ISP as 1, but they weigh twice as much. You will also end up faster with only one engine, as you'll have more delta V. Two engines will allow you to accelerate quicker, but your top speed will be lower.
The abuse is because you spammed air intakes in order to be able to use jet engines at higher altitude that you should be able to .
Isn't that what everyone does?
You need to double intake to fly like 3.5km higher. There's no penalty for stacking intakes so i don't see a problem with running 4x as much intake to get that last 7km, it's really important :D
It's just what every individual feels is okay to do. Stacking thing doesn't feel right to me, also I play with FAR anyway.
The abuse is because you spammed air intakes in order to be able to use jet engines at higher altitude that you should be able to .
Isn't that what everyone does?
You need to double intake to fly like 3.5km higher. There's no penalty for stacking intakes so i don't see a problem with running 4x as much intake to get that last 7km, it's really important :D
It's just what every individual feels is okay to do. Stacking thing doesn't feel right to me, also I play with FAR anyway.
If it's unintentional, why is it still in the game? etc
if you're going to fly higher in the atmosphere, you need a LOT more intake because oxygen income drops as fast as atmospheric drag. I think that's a nice correlation but flying a plane with minimal intake would probably not really work well at all in comparison, so maybe there should be a tweak to mechanics.
Overall because of the huge fuel consumption once you rely on oxidizer, i'm having trouble justifying using a spaceplane for anything even though i think they're really cool. My simpler designs got into orbit and back again, landing safely. The more complex ones got into better orbits with more fuel quite easily - but then they can't land without chutes, so what's the point? Having to shut down air engines at 22km instead of 30km just makes that issue feel much worse~
On April 10 2015 14:08 Cyro wrote: If they're 55% as fuel efficient but there's twice as many of them, you still go faster and further
You will never go further with more than one engine once you're in space. 2 engines have the same ISP as 1, but they weigh twice as much. You will also end up faster with only one engine, as you'll have more delta V. Two engines will allow you to accelerate quicker, but your top speed will be lower.
Aha makes sense, i was probably thinking about it wrong. In this case, you'd suggest adding the extra fuel but not the extra engines, right?
though the higher the fuel to engine ratio, the worse acceleration rate is. Running 100 hours of fuel on 1 engine would suck, but running 5 minutes of fuel on 50 engines should also be terrible
also i think it's better to lean on the side of more thrust instead of less, because that actually does benefit you for abusing oberth effect and generally applying the thrust where it's most effective
Yeah, as i stated before multiple times, the main reason to have multiple engines is not efficiency, or even the ability to perform specific maneuvers. If you have more engines, you are less efficient, and you can perform most maneuvers in space with minimal acceleration.
The reason you use multiple engines is because you don't want to stare at your screen through a 30 minute acceleration phase. You are playing a game, and it should be fun, and watching a bar very, very slowly go up isn't a lot of fun for me. Thus i throw in enough engines to make sure that any maneuver i want to do is at most 5 minutes of acceleration.
The abuse is because you spammed air intakes in order to be able to use jet engines at higher altitude that you should be able to .
Isn't that what everyone does?
You need to double intake to fly like 3.5km higher. There's no penalty for stacking intakes so i don't see a problem with running 4x as much intake to get that last 7km, it's really important :D
It's just what every individual feels is okay to do. Stacking thing doesn't feel right to me, also I play with FAR anyway.
If it's unintentional, why is it still in the game? etc
The abuse is because you spammed air intakes in order to be able to use jet engines at higher altitude that you should be able to .
Isn't that what everyone does?
You need to double intake to fly like 3.5km higher. There's no penalty for stacking intakes so i don't see a problem with running 4x as much intake to get that last 7km, it's really important :D
It's just what every individual feels is okay to do. Stacking thing doesn't feel right to me, also I play with FAR anyway.
If it's unintentional, why is it still in the game? etc
On April 13 2015 05:38 Simberto wrote: Yeah, as i stated before multiple times, the main reason to have multiple engines is not efficiency, or even the ability to perform specific maneuvers. If you have more engines, you are less efficient, and you can perform most maneuvers in space with minimal acceleration.
The reason you use multiple engines is because you don't want to stare at your screen through a 30 minute acceleration phase. You are playing a game, and it should be fun, and watching a bar very, very slowly go up isn't a lot of fun for me. Thus i throw in enough engines to make sure that any maneuver i want to do is at most 5 minutes of acceleration.
I suppose there might be some certain windows where you do need a high TWR to get the maneuver right. For instance, a trip to Moho could have stupidly high velocity at your closest approach. If you use a single ion engine on a large ship, you really might not have enough acceleration to enter orbit.
But they're definitely not the norm. 99% of the time, you only want one engine.
Yeah, but i am not gonna do 5 hour single Ion engine burns just for some more efficiency. Even at max acceleration that means just staring at the game doing nothing for 1:15. Which is a waste of time.
On April 13 2015 06:31 Cyro wrote: How are you guys time warping while accelerating? Game won't let me go past 1x when engines are on
Physical time warp is allowed under acceleration or with engines on (and the game will tell you that things may behave oddly, especially with large ships, under physical time warp greater than 2x) and I there's a key to force physical time warp. I think it's alt, ctrl, or shift, but I haven't had to use it in awhile so I'm not sure which it is.
Physical time warp allows 1, 2, 3, and 4x time warping. As I mentioned above, though, large part count ships under acceleration can behave in peculiar fashion because of the stresses applied in the way that the physical time warp is handled. (Unsure of specifics, I can't tell you exactly how it works - but it involves calculating the physics and sometimes a small jiggle very quickly becomes OH MY GOD IT'S EXPLODING.)
On April 13 2015 05:39 Epoxide wrote: They are changing the aerodynamics model in 1.0.
Any details on that? (or how it affects intakes)
What I've heard so far is that drag will be modeled more like in FAR. All parts will have aerodynamic properties meaning not only wings apply lift to your craft. There will be no drag on things inside the fairings or inside cargo bays. And parts that have parts in front of them will apply much less drag. Engines and wings, all parts in general, will be rebalanced to fit the new drag model. Parts are likely to get ripped off if you put too much stress on a craft, perhaps mostly when reentering the atmosphere. Also temperature will be simulated for all parts and they will be destroyed if they get too hot.
So, the main consequence I guess is that pancake rockets with asparagus staging will no longer be the way to go.
Space planes from 0.90 might no longer work.
You'll have to be more careful on your return to Kerbin. Maybe use and orbit or two for aerobraking before landing.
If I were to guess, stacked air intakes wouldn't work anymore (but you can spam 0.90 intakes anyway without needing to have them on top of each other.) Maybe the way they work will be tweaked to make them harder to exploit.
The 1.0 version is coming out pretty soon. It is currently in the experimental stage which means that people outside the development and QA team who have signed a secrecy agreement are playing it. The next stage is release. Previous experimental stages have lasted about 2 weeks. This one is estimated to last a little longer. So maybe the end of April or beginning of May.
Maybe now is not the perfect time to learn exactly how the stock aerodynamics works.
So, the main consequence I guess is that pancake rockets with asparagus staging will no longer be the way to go.
:D
I built one recently not too complex that put 10km/s of delta V (remaining, unspent) into a ~150km circular kerbin orbit from a single launch
could have maybe made it more, though. A huge fraction of that was a nuclear engine with some fuel stacked on it, not pushing much weight after all of the staging.
I just used it to crash into the sun at 94km/s :D
asparagus staging is the result of many things though. IIRC some of the BIG reasons;
---
Engines too heavy in KSP compared to reality
empty fuel tanks too heavy in KSP compared to reality
fuel transfers instant, too effective
TWR much more easily controlable with asparagus. If you want to hit golden TWR's without asparagus, you have to use a low ratio like 1.35 at takeoff with an engine, using the knowledge that you'll use a lot of your fuel and your TWR will rise towards 2.2-ish. The only other alternative is to get an engine that's too powerful and throttle it down - but again - engines are too heavy in KSP compared to reality, and that adds a huge amount of dead weight to your craft.
---
^Unless they hit some of that stuff above, asparagus will always dominate anything involving boosters or side-engines and such - there's just no reason not to do it, and lots of benefits. It's no less aerodynamic just because there's a few fuel links there, it'll still be great unless they punish people for putting stacks of fuel+engines (or boosters) on the sides of their rockets and stop anything looking like that from happening effectively at all, or hit the core mechanics that make asparagus extremely effective in KSP although it's pretty crap in real life (where engines and empty fuel tanks are less of a burden, transferring fuel is harder, TWR can be controlled more easily without screwing yourself)
It's not about not doing fuel links anymore. It's about not stacking 20 linked rockets in an absurd configuration. It's less about the aspargus and more about the pancake.
Low thrust engines can perform an approximation of a Hohmann transfer orbit, by creating a gradual enlargement of the initial circular orbit through carefully timed engine firings. This requires a delta-v that is up to 141% greater than the two impulse transfer orbit (see also below), and takes longer to complete.
On April 16 2015 17:03 Osmoses wrote: I bought this game three days ago and I've lost so much sleep. Best timesink since minecraft.
Welcome to KSP, i bought this game when the only planets beside kerbin were the mun and minmus (planets were added in 0.17 back Sept, 2012 i can't believe it's been almost 3years) and I still love it :D. I'm waiting for 1.0 to start a new KSP session, between the updates and mods it's always a pleasure to come back to the game.
About ion engines, this is the only "sucessfull" thing that i did with it besides small satellites: And eventhough it was very light it was not that great to manoeuver with, and it wouldn't work for long without sunlight... I liked the way it looked though :D
I ran into that problem with light craft. The 24/7 generators were heavy (perhaps too heavy?) but solar panels quite reliant on positioning. I had to afk for like 10 minutes waiting for mun to line up in the right place because i couldn't accelerate time any further and i had to accelerate while in LOS to the sun
I once had an interplanetary ship based on Ion engines on a Duna mission (I think it was a flybye), and i distinctly remember getting so annoyed with the 60+ minute burns that i swore never to do that again. Now i usually throw one onto my satellites just in case i need to move them a bit after throwing them out, but that is it. Everything that needs to maneuver gets nuclear engines.
How does that thing launch? I see no landing gear! (Then again, I have been guilty of creating spaceplanes that are launched from docking clamps and you have to really hope the engines get it up to speed before it hits the runway.
Re:60+ minute burns - that to me is an acceptable use of MJ's autopilot functionality.
It launches vertically. I added more stuff to it, but it has a TWR of 3 from the runway and no problem getting off the ground after a few seconds to throttle up the turbojets, then you can turn to whatever angle you want by ~200-1000 meters
Lands vertically too (or with parachute, slowed to ~7m/s on kerbin first time i tried it) - i forgot power generation on my first flight though, RAPIER does not generate any power in either mode
You need some addon that allows you to move those wings up and down, just so it looks even more like an X-Wing. And how could an X-Wing NOT be a Space Plane. An X-Wing is THE Space-Plane
That would be Infernal Robotics. It lets you add controllable hinges and pistons and moving parts. Not sure how well it works in the most recent build, but people have done crazy things with it.
It would appear that release of the 1.0 version and departure from "early access" status is on april 27th. Although not officially announced one of the staff members with regular contact with the community has been strongly hinting about it.
My level of hype is tempered by the certain knowledge that my usual modus operandi for getting things to orbit (add more boosters and struts) may not work as well in the upcoming aerodynamics.
Also that plane is moving FAST. I made a fast plane this morning and reached ~1900m/s horizontal speed in atmo - but that was at a high altitude. My actual airspeed was more like 750m/s. The engine designs, intakes and other plane stuff is nice
New atmosphere balance seems awesome, less of the "fly straight up to 12km" on rockets
LOL this das guy on ksptv is having so much fun, i love it :D :D
Mach 1.5 at 1/3'rd thrust
Ilmarix: That airplane has 4 engines when it needs half an engine
:D dat timing for accidental sweet recovery - no SAS either
totally needs a freeze frame with the plane driving away, explosions in the background and sunglasses falling from the top of the screen onto the cockpit :D
The new aerodynamics look really cool. I like that you can finally get over mach 1 at ground level and that doing any manouvers in this state means instant death. And goodbye to air intake spam! Reentry looks really interesting too, perhaps not as dangerous as I had imagined it would be (although I haven't seen anyone enter an atmosphere faster than a low orbit velocity).
The mining aspect still looks a little unfinished and exploitable, but with all the trouble setting up mining operations, maybe infinite fuel is a reasonable reward. At least it helps setting up crazy projects without having to send a million fuel packages to the target body.
Re-entry is actually quite dangerous, just not in certain circumstances. If you re-enter at perfect angle and let yourself slow down or even thrust to slow down your re-entry, it's fine. It's impossible to do certain things though:
1; just hit the atmosphere of a planet and stop
2; maintain a high airspeed in atmosphere
also heat buildup appears to happen quite slowly sometimes, but still lead to stuff exploding. A guy on stream had to run his nuclear engines at like 1/4 throttle for a really long burn because otherwise they would overheat the fuel tanks that they were attached to and blow them up
Do you have an exact time that 1.0 will be released tomorrow?
[–]Maxmaps[S] 156 points 4 hours ago
Roughly seconds after we hit the giant red button at the office labeled 'release 1.0'. We will try to make sure its up as early as possible, but we have to make sure everything is perfect before we do.
Its kind of a buggy mess. 1) the Space Plane Hangar has tons of broken textures. If you look out the main door, big sections of wall on the other buildings are transparent.
2) If you enter the VAB, then back out to the Space Center, you can't enter any other buildings, or in fact do anything. It stops detecting your mouse clicks.
3) I've tried to launch 3 times, each time the game goes nuts on load. Remember how for an instant in the previous version, you could see the scene partially loaded before you had control? Well it stays like that. Big sections of the ground are transparent, none of the gauges display anything, and even the pause menu doesn't work.
On April 28 2015 03:52 Jetaap wrote: Weird i don't have these issues. Did you make a clean install? ( they advised to remove the previous install and save and download the new version)
Just tried a clean install. Still have the problems. I don't mind the buggy SPH textures too much, but I can't even launch. This is what it looks like.
Edit: NVM, got it to work. You need to be absolutely sure you have a clean install. Get rid of all traces of KSP. Simply using Steam's "Delete Local Content" isn't enough. For some reason, it doesn't remove everything in steamapps/common.
What OS are you using? Did you make sure you don't have some mods that persisted in your ksp folder even after the uninstall? That's weird it's working fine for me :s
That is an odd problem. I saw some of the experimental builds that streamers were using for the stream were doing that, but they would load the textures after a second or two. Maybe it's related to specific GPU or drivers? I am not having any issue - and I use Steam.
While thinking of that, there were rumors that going insanely fast and maneuvering with a plane could cause problems. I didn't notice any with this plane, until I was too low and flagpole'd it by the launch pad. Weird thing, the aero effects lasted longer than the exploding of the plane or the water tower behind it.
On April 28 2015 05:17 felisconcolori wrote: That is an odd problem. I saw some of the experimental builds that streamers were using for the stream were doing that, but they would load the textures after a second or two. Maybe it's related to specific GPU or drivers? I am not having any issue - and I use Steam.
While thinking of that, there were rumors that going insanely fast and maneuvering with a plane could cause problems. I didn't notice any with this plane, until I was too low and flagpole'd it by the launch pad. Weird thing, the aero effects lasted longer than the exploding of the plane or the water tower behind it.
What do you mean "could cause problems"? Do you mean bugs or loss of the vehicle? I think loss of the vehicle is realistic, you're overstressing the airframe.
On April 28 2015 05:17 felisconcolori wrote: That is an odd problem. I saw some of the experimental builds that streamers were using for the stream were doing that, but they would load the textures after a second or two. Maybe it's related to specific GPU or drivers? I am not having any issue - and I use Steam.
While thinking of that, there were rumors that going insanely fast and maneuvering with a plane could cause problems. I didn't notice any with this plane, until I was too low and flagpole'd it by the launch pad. Weird thing, the aero effects lasted longer than the exploding of the plane or the water tower behind it.
What do you mean "could cause problems"? Do you mean bugs or loss of the vehicle? I think loss of the vehicle is realistic, you're overstressing the airframe.
Loss of vehicle; any bugs I've noticed are unrelated so far. Above Mach 2 apparently heating becomes a problem. But regarding stress - maneuvering at high speed requires making small control inputs mostly although I've also been able to use airbrakes as additional "control" surfaces for some quick turns. I haven't disintegrated yet, although I have gone into some very questionable situations. I'm looking forward to seeing how much stress it can survive.
On April 28 2015 05:38 felisconcolori wrote: I've also been able to use airbrakes as additional "control" surfaces for some quick turns.
You can actually set the airbrakes to act as proper control surfaces in the assembly building.
I saw that, in addition to the proper control surfaces having a new "deployed" toggle to act as flaps. Truly, lots of great things going on for planes.
Well, in Career mode, there are contracts that require you to go to different points on Kerbin to conduct some scientific tests, which gives planes some utility. But I wouldn't mind having more landing strips and such.
If you play career mode doing nothing but trying to math out the way to get the absolute most science per hour within a certain $ budget, you'll probably be bored soon.
My friend just put wings on a solid rocket booster and ESCAPED KERBIN
awaiting pics and laughing my ass off at him :D
The wings snapped off
ahh non-stock booster
I started a new career game, it's pretty much immediately obvious that atmospheric heating is a thing. I got to the mission to leave atmosphere, with weight/part limit i just went for getting over 70km - but it burned up on the way down. i had to save part of the rocket for burning retrogade on the way down
On April 28 2015 06:54 Cyro wrote: If you play career mode doing nothing but trying to math out the way to get the absolute most science per hour within a certain $ budget, you'll probably be bored soon.
Pff. I just want my designs to actually do something useful, too.
Here's my standardized and cost effective glider for recovering kerbals from low Kerbin orbit:
I'm unable to get stuff past mach 2 or so - at all - with the new aerodynamics, it just heats up and explodes. Am i missing something or is that just how it is?
Have achieved mach 4-5 with it disabled :D
You can achieve higher ground speeds higher in the atmosphere - but your actual air speed is what matters for mach numbers, and at air speeds needed for mach 2 stuff seems to like to set on fire
I think spaceplanes are going to be very difficult in the new aerodynamic model - I can get above mach 2 but it's difficult to keep from overheating and maintaining speed while you get into upper atmosphere. Air intake drops pretty steeply even if the air is still thick enough to cause you to explode. Haven't tried being ridiculous with air intakes, though - not sure it would work at all.
My heat is going up too fast past about 600m/s airspeed. I can't sustain mach 2 at 0-15km - not sure if that's my design flaws or just the aero engine.
If your navball says 1000m/s, that's just measuring the ground speed and you can have 1km/s ground speed while being way below mach 2 depending on your altitude
Hmm. I've almost made orbit twice now in a plane. It's very tricky to fly, and mostly works by taking off and immediately climbing on the power of it's four engines. (The trick is of course doing so without performing a back flip.) Coming back in after suborbital flight, though, it disintegrates. Either due to overheating along the leading edges, or because any maneuver is enough to take off a wing once in atmosphere. Maybe a high altitude drogue chute...
On April 28 2015 13:09 felisconcolori wrote: Hmm. I've almost made orbit twice now in a plane. It's very tricky to fly, and mostly works by taking off and immediately climbing on the power of it's four engines. (The trick is of course doing so without performing a back flip.) Coming back in after suborbital flight, though, it disintegrates. Either due to overheating along the leading edges, or because any maneuver is enough to take off a wing once in atmosphere. Maybe a high altitude drogue chute...
Yea try drogue chutes. I've heard they're OP for re-entry even putting them out at 60km
Das is experimenting with D-V to orbit on stream, he has a pod with some fuel tanks and an engine on it, he seems to be able to do it with 3300 or so for a rocket
my planes are giving crazy delta-v readings, like 15k. I immediately had problems getting to altitude with them, though.
When i turned off heating and put joints to infinite strength, i just accelerated to basically orbital velocity near sea level and then threw myself out of the atmosphere lol
I think you should use more swept wings since it actually matters now. They perform better at supersonic speeds that you'll be hitting to leave or enter the atmosphere
Sound travels slower at higher altitudes so achieving a higher mach count is easier there. I've found that if you want a plane that is less prone to heating up, it helps to have it be pretty much tube shaped with very small wings that are long instead of wide and the smaller tail fins. Also putting a fairing on seems to help since it can withstand 2400 deg instead of 2000. You eventually start to realize that you have created a rocket and not a plane since you are stripping away lift surfaces.
I've been playing around with reaching orbit using only liquid fuel (then you can build a craft with no oxidizer usage at all) and i realized i could just leave oxidizer in some of the fuel tanks and make orbit easily with rapiers. It was.. a bit of a weird design though
If multiple "planes" can carry a payload (4.5k delta V of liquid fuel +atomic rocket motor capable of transferring and landing on moons for EVA) without that much difficulty (and i was actually at terminal velocity at like 15km) we should be able to make actually functional planes.
The fuel tanks there (on the payload) are full but i had fuel transfer disabled on them to stop the first stage eating them, so broken DV reading
You eventually start to realize that you have created a rocket and not a plane since you are stripping away lift surfaces.
That's fine, because making a rocket that has 50'000m/s delta V in atmosphere is ridiculously hard - those air breathing engines are way too efficient
so.. that's one way to get the engines to work at a good altitude (just accelerate fast enough to throw yourself out of the atmosphere before they cut off)
The thrust and the efficiency from these things is beyond insane though. Rocket can't compare, but they need a kick to get towards mach 1+ if the TWR isn't high
I think you can totally make a launch platform using rapiers that could potentially throw huge payloads to the heights where you can take over with nuclear engines. The nukes are actually very efficient already by 40km-ish, but that plane gets to 100-200 easily if i fly straight up
They're like 20% more efficient, but there's no reason to care if they use 4% of your liquid fuel instead of 5%
Efficiency was the only advantage i saw from a quick glance, but it just doesn't matter when they're that efficient. The "inefficient" Rapier is 8x more efficient than nuclear engine as long as it has air
Looking at the config files for the engines, the rapier performs better at high speeds and at high altitude. The atmosphere and velocity curves are slightly nicer. The advanced jet engine has the entries "machLimit = 2.5" and "machHeatMult = 6.0" whereas the rapier engine has the friendly comment "// no mach limit". The best use of the turbojet is probably as a launch booster and not as an SSTO engine.
My engines always seem to shut down around 15-20km (thrust just falls off to nothing) even if i use a ton of intake, i'm not sure why but it makes it very difficult to achieve orbit without accelerating to huge speeds in the low atmosphere
The max thrust of all jet engines are heavily affected by atmospheric pressure and velocity. They will all gradually weaken at higher altitudes. At 20 km the rapier will have 9% of the thrust that it has at ground level if going the same speed.
Jet engines also have a velocity (meassured in mach) where they are able to provide the most thrust. For the rapier that is mach 3,75 where they are able to provide over 8 times as much thrust. At mach 6 they can't provide any thrust. More air intakes won't help (thankfully). I'm not sure how ksp calculates mach numbers. In real life sound travels slower at high altitudes compared to at sea level.
One problem that can arise because of the increased thrust of engines is that if you are going at a speed that will break your aircraft, the engines will also be reving up causing even more speed, heat and death... unless you are prepared for it and throttle down fast enough.
At 20 km the rapier will have 9% of the thrust that it has at ground level if going the same speed.
This is just removing intake stacking by making them useless because the engines don't work anyway. What altitude does rapier give max thrust on? just as low as possible?
IDK how to get to orbit if you don't switch engines at 15km~ I was switching engines at twice that height before
Did this earlier~ just experimenting. I had heat on 50% and it almost blew up, so would be useless full stock:
The boosters lasted a lot longer than i intended, i just wanted to get kickstarted to ~200-300m/s+ for the air breathing engines to kick in. In the end it was too fast, but i'm not sure if slowing it down would actually help.
I could take off with air breathing engines only and use them to throw it out of the atmosphere - it had 1.0 TWR without the liquid fuel boosters attached at 0m/s so i could just double up on the engines and it would probably be 1.5+TWR quickly rising far far higher with some speed.
No reason to use this over an asparagus rocket though. I can't figure out anything useful to do with air breathing engines aside from fly around atmosphere quite fast for a really long time >__<
Maybe you could make two planes with very very high TWR, strap a couple onto a payload and fly with them, decouple and have 3 pilot able craft. That seems pretty adventurous though
So, I managed to get to space in a plane. Despite many different candidates being theoretically viable, they all had heat-related achille's heels in at least one part. I then trolled the KSP forums and found two different very minimalist designs. The first blew up repeatedly when attempting to fly the profile described, or else the picture didn't give me enough information to adequately recreate it.
The second actually survived, but as I have the heat colors currently enabled, I can tell you it was a near thing for the shock air intake at the front. It's basically a shock air intake on a MK 1 inline cockput with two of the medium LFO+O tanks, a precooler, and a rapier engine. Delta wings on either side, on small delta wing with elevon for a tail, and some gear. It actually survived a 45 degree climb at full throttle until the rapier engine kicked over to rocket mode, at which point it then was a 0 degree horizontal acceleration until apo was up around 90k. Circularize, and in orbit. Haven't brought it back down yet, it's late.
It kills me that this survives, while a well thought out MkII space plane using Big-S strakes and delta wing never fails to have the strakes explode rapidly upon hitting 800 m/s at any altitude. (To say nothing of fast ram-air intakes turn yellow and fail.)
I then trolled the KSP forums and found two different very minimalist designs. The first blew up repeatedly when attempting to fly the profile described, or else the picture didn't give me enough information to adequately recreate it.
I've copied several designs, a few very simple and found completely different behavior to what they described. One of them was literally an intake, a control part, a pre cooler, an engine and 3 fins in radial symmetry and it behaved so differently to what was described+screenshotted that i don't think it could have been down to user error, we were just playing two different games physically.
Maybe some people still have some mods enabled that mess with 1.0 physics
Landing a mun probe without SAS proved to be suprisingly stressfull but i made it without reloading :D (low tech missions are always a bit sketchy). Next mission should to send a probe to minmus, maybe try to biome hop a little bit.. and then i'll start the interesting stuff with manned missions and interplanetary robotic missions!
I think it is odd how in career mode, things start off relatively hard and then gets much easier. Not until you have struggled through the Kerbin system do you get your manouver node abilities, less restrictions on how big you can build, a runway that is actually flat, ability to asparagus stage, bunches more celestial bodies filled with cheap science and parts that are progressively much better than the ones your start out with.
I was a little dissapointed today after spending lots of time creating the ultimate air breathing recoverable single stage launch booster. It was tricky to get into orbit with the payload I had chosen, but I did it. After getting it to work, I tested it against a haphazardly put together liquid-oxi engine with a single tank which was done in less than 10 seconds with no planning or testing. The liquid-oxi booster beat my complicated air powered booster by 600 m/s of deltaV which not only gets the payload into orbit but almost sends it all the way to the Mun.
On April 30 2015 07:57 stenole wrote: I think it is odd how in career mode, things start off relatively hard and then gets much easier. Not until you have struggled through the Kerbin system do you get your manouver node abilities, less restrictions on how big you can build, a runway that is actually flat, ability to asparagus stage, bunches more celestial bodies filled with cheap science and parts that are progressively much better than the ones your start out with.
I was a little dissapointed today after spending lots of time creating the ultimate air breathing recoverable single stage launch booster. It was tricky to get into orbit with the payload I had chosen, but I did it. After getting it to work, I tested it against a haphazardly put together liquid-oxi engine with a single tank which was done in less than 10 seconds with no planning or testing. The liquid-oxi booster beat my complicated air powered booster by 600 m/s of deltaV which not only gets the payload into orbit but almost sends it all the way to the Mun.
The point is supposed to be that you should be aiming for a higher challenge. At first getting into orbit or building an efficient rocket to land a probe on the moon may be a challenge, but making that step easier when you are trying to land in another planet or trying something harder is fine, they are quality of life improvements for things you should already know how to do.
It's not like the lategame is easier than the early game, multiplanetary missions or making a return trip from eve are far more complicated than anything you do early on. It also makes sense, if you are able to send people to mars you should have a much easier time sending people to the moon than you did when you started the space program.
As technology gets better things get easier, it's hard to design around that. And for people that don't want to deal with tech progress, there is always the sanbox mode.
So, I wound up landing my copycat from the forum into the ocean. RIP Valentina. So then I thought about it, and did some reworking on my more beefy space plane. It is now in orbit, although I'm really low on fuel. Should be able to de-orbit burn and then land it. The only part lost to overheating was sadly my strake/elevon tail. I think I can compensate however, and I have enough airbrakes to slow down on the way back into atmosphere. Hopefully. I don't want to lose two more Kerbals, but testing continues.
Flight profile was take off, ascent at 45 degrees, tail strake blows off as Sabre engines transition to rocket power, gentle down angle to just above horizontal. I think the plane could use some refinements still.
I recently bought this game and am enjoying it quite a bit. Yesterday I got Jeb stuck on the moon, so I sent Valentine to trade places with him, and she died due to an unfortunate EVA incident. So I sent another kerbal there to get him, and.. long story short, I restarted my career game.
@felis do you mean Rapier? my friend mentioned Sabre's quite a bit but i thought that was a mod part.
@Jeeve nice :D
I think Jebediah and Valentina respawn, maybe a few others too.
In other news i actually hit EVA on my valentina while at 20km doing ~1.5km/s, slowed her down with air resistance and EVA fuel (but ran out before hitting the ground) and dropped her into the ocean at terminal velocity. She actually bounced and was fine
i've killed kerbals with far less, maybe it has to do with having a horizontal velocity of effectively 0 and landing feet first. It was like 50m/s straight down
Sorry, yes, I meant Rapiers. (It's confusing, because the same engine concept being developed in actual aerospace engineering is called a Sabre engine - basically a hybrid engine that can function as both an open cycle and closed cycle system. I don't think the Sabre engine has ever actually been flown, but it's been test fired a few times.)
Kerbals are tough. One of the KSPTV streamers during the launch marathon somehow didn't kill Bob a few times after having him jump out of an aircraft at 20km+ and landing in the ocean. Meanwhile, I've killed a Kerbal on the Mun during extended EVA of about 5km because he came in with too high of a horizontal velocity after a long jump. Also, I think Kerbal heads are some kind of insanely resistant material.
Meanwhile, I've killed a Kerbal on the Mun during extended EVA of about 5km because he came in with too high of a horizontal velocity after a long jump.
I've done that, but i was doing >20km EVA travels. If you go UP and then accelerate in one direction continuously, you can actually get to exteme velocities (in the hundreds of meters per second IIRC) - gotta save two thirds of the fuel to cancel that out though and land safely with a big margin for error (if it takes you 90 seconds to reach that speed, it'll probably take you 80-85 seconds of decelerating to not go splat when you arrive)
Getting used to the new physics and different launches / gravity turns. Fun to re-experience the game again. Trying to do some challenging career contracts for a while before grabbing MechJeb and building more wild stuff. I'm actually eager to mess around with planes again too, with the aerodynamics changes.
Meanwhile, I've killed a Kerbal on the Mun during extended EVA of about 5km because he came in with too high of a horizontal velocity after a long jump.
I've done that, but i was doing >20km EVA travels. If you go UP and then accelerate in one direction continuously, you can actually get to exteme velocities (in the hundreds of meters per second IIRC) - gotta save two thirds of the fuel to cancel that out though and land safely with a big margin for error (if it takes you 90 seconds to reach that speed, it'll probably take you 80-85 seconds of decelerating to not go splat when you arrive)
I think, last I checked, if you are on the right part of the Mun's mountains, you can EVA a Kerbal to orbit around the Mun. It was a forum challenge awhile back.
Also, general update - even without my vertical stabilizer, I was able to safely land my spaceplane at Kedwards (aka, the desert). The airbrakes may be overkill - never once got any aerodynamic heating or mach effects on descent back into the atmosphere.
On May 01 2015 13:44 felisconcolori wrote: I think, last I checked, if you are on the right part of the Mun's mountains, you can EVA a Kerbal to orbit around the Mun. It was a forum challenge awhile back.
The EVA pack barely doesn't have enough delta v to achieve orbit, but you can try to get a boost from an engine on the surface.
On May 01 2015 13:41 Duka08 wrote: Getting used to the new physics and different launches / gravity turns. Fun to re-experience the game again. Trying to do some challenging career contracts for a while before grabbing MechJeb and building more wild stuff. I'm actually eager to mess around with planes again too, with the aerodynamics changes.
I did some testing just now with a thin rocket going straight up
1.31 TWR = 70.9km apoapsis
1.62 TWR = 90.5km apoapsis, peak 78% of terminal velocity
2.02 TWR = 104.8km apoapsis, peak ~85% of terminal velocity
2.51 TWR = 113.9km apoapsis, peak ~91% of terminal velocity
3.0 TWR = 118.2km apoapsis, peak ~98.5% of terminal velocity
3.49 TWR = 119.8km apoapsis, was higher than terminal velocity for part of lower atmosphere
4.01 TWR = 119.8km apoapsis
It's obvious that low TWR was bad. The rockets at high TWR (>3) tended to hit terminal velocity around 2km and drop below it again around 15km - with manual control, they could throttle to full for takeoff, throttle down and then throttle back up at a bit higher altitude to stay slightly below terminal velocity for longer and get higher than the 3.0 TWR rocket.
Terminal velocity is extremely different depending on the cross sectional surface area of your ship as seen from the prograde vector (that decides your drag, maybe with other factors too) - some engines sticking out of the side of your ship and creating drag can cut your terminal velocity in half.
I'd say overall it's best to stay very close to your terminal velocity (>90% if possible but not passing ~98% for safety) and it's very hard to do that without a mod - IMO grab kerbal engineer and stare at the atmospheric efficiency stat. Throttle up to full 24/7 unless you're gonna hit >98% on that number, in which case pull back on throttle until you can apply more thrust higher in the atmosphere. With a thin ship, you can easily benefit from >2.5 TWR - comments talking about using a TWR in the ~1.3 - 1.8 range are simply uninformed or flying pancakes.
If you want a simple and easy number to play with without worrying about it, i'd say 2 is good because 1.5 is too low and 2.5 is a bit harder to control and not necessarily efficient if your rocket is fat but light.
Remember that this is also surface TWR. The actual TWR increases during flight.
Also generally if two stages get you to X amount of km (and is below terminal velocity) but at different speeds when you decouple them, you'd want to go with the faster one - especially if your rocket drags less after staging (most probably do)
So, just for completeness' sake, this is what it is supposed to look like in orbit. It made it up, and made it back okay. Only a slight tail strike on landing took out the lower brakes (top/bottom symmetrical airbrakes on engines). It's got TWR to spare, but it has very little dV once it's in orbit. Enough to deorbit, as long as it's not a really high orbit. May need a station to go to, and a docking port with a little RCS.
They just increased drag by 1/3'rd and lift by 1.44x. My first impression of this is... hm, it helps low speed planes (which were already extremely powerful) and fucks over everything else, probably fucking over SSTO spaceplane designs the hardest.
They don't really use that lift that much. If they can't accelerate in the low atmosphere and they can't thrust past 15km, how are they supposed to carry a payload to orbit? I don't understand.. I can strap a payload to some solid rocket boosters or asparagus engines and get it up there no problem (it only takes ~3km/s of delta V if you have a thin ship and perfect trajectory) but it takes 15x longer to design a plane to carry 1/5'th of the weight up there. IDK, just feels wrong/imbalanced
Cool design, are those pre-coolers? Why would you use those over ramjet intakes?*
*after some thought, pre-coolers don't tend to explode as much at aggressive supersonic speeds
I think maybe in order to make space planes work, you need to build BIG. Since the new aero checks for the drag profile of your craft instead of mass, big vessels take more advantage of this. With larger vessels, a smaller percentage of your craft needs to be non-fuel/engine parts which further increases efficiency. As a test, I made the biggest monster of a plane I've ever made.
I expected it to make the game run slower than it ever has before, but because the plane consisted mostly of large parts, the frame rate held up surprisingly well on my laptop. Reentry was not possible with the plane, but with some few adjustments like drogues and brakes, it should be possible. With all the fuel drained, the mass balance was not ideal which helped destroy the plane. I also expect landings to be difficult without aiding the process with vertical thrust. Large landing gear can handle a lot, but they have their limits. Taking off horizontally drained a lot of fuel. So possibly a vertical takeoff would be more reasonable. It should be noted that there were no heating effects during reentry, so perhaps all it needs is more struts.
More struts, and possibly you tried to turn it. The amount of stress applied to the frame if you're not heading into the atmosphere straight on is very high. Even a little twitch the wrong way, maybe boom. I dunno.
And those are Shock cone intakes and pre-coolers, because pre-coolers really seem to help dissipate heat. Still doesn't help my vertical stabilizers, though - that one is fine, but it seems like strakes like to burn off.
Use airbrakes from outside of the atmosphere, that way when you start to hit the thinnest air they'll slow you down slowly and have less chance of ripping stuff in half. They're more versatile and fun than parachutes i think
airbrakes behind the center of mass should leave you pointing prograde. I think. Maybe.
Just raising more questions lol - why shock cones instead of ramjets?
The brakes are fully deployed for re-entry, keeps me slow and I don't get any heating/mach effects. They do tend to pull me slightly prograde, but that helps to keep me leveled out on my descent.
Shock cones, for reasons I don't fully understand (maybe their profile? A lot more blunt than shock cones) seem to deal with heat on ascent without exploding whereas the ramjets pretty much go straight to yellow and boom.
Always the earthshattering kabooms. Rarely lose the entire hull though, usually just the vertical stabilizer goes during re-entry.
My ramjets always explode, but i don't think you actually need them. There seems to be little need for intake, instead of limiting thrust at altitude based on intake and atmospheric density, they just have an arbitrary and unchangeable curve where your engines will stop working
i expect patches in the next 12-48 hours dealing with atmosphere anyway. I don't view that much KSP media but there are a lot of complaints out there
i made a new craft quickly, the first thing that i immediately noticed was very low takeoff speed and very difficult to land again (like 0.9, you can just sort of awkwardly glide 500 meters off the ground at ~20-80 meters per second for like half an hour and the lift almost completely counteracts gravity while maintaining your speed)
the second thing i noticed was that my little plane with a rapier plateu'd at mach 1. The drag increase when hitting it (paired with soupy atmosphere) prevented it from going faster which prevented the engine from revving up further which prevented it from going faster etcetc.
Overall i still have pretty much exactly the same feeling here: "Wtf are you doing, revert to 1.0".
Luckily that's quite easy to do, requiring only a minor edit to a config file
you can revert it to the 1.0 aerodynamics until Squad patches it by going to the physics.cfg in the Ksp folder and replace the old numbers with these new ones
dragMultiplier = 6.0
dragCubeMultiplier = 0.06
liftMultiplier = 0.038
bodyLiftMultiplier = 8
I feel that in the 1.0 atmosphere, air breathing engines are overpowered at 0-15km and underpowered for SSTO's due to that very aggressive height cap.
I'd feel much better if they went back to 1.0 atmosphere, drastically reduced the thrust on the air engines (even by 1.5x) but let them fly at 1.5 - 2.5x higher altitude on the thrust dropoff curve.
They can figure out a solution for heating and parachutes. It doesn't have to be perfect, just relevant sometimes and fun.
So, one of my favorite KSP streamers is EJ_sa. He just built a 747 shuttle carrier aircraft. He then mounted his shuttle on it. And then performed a touch and go at the island runway, before successfully detaching his shuttle from the 747, landing the 747 on the runway, and landing his shuttle on the runway to pull up next to the 747. (Max altitude never went above 5km, and the 747 flew like the actual NASA shuttle carrier.)
That would have been absolutely impossible (due to physics render range, among many other reasons) before now.
I think the impact of 1.02 is exaggerated. It was a small tradeoff in favour of rockets over space planes.It's probably not easy to balance realistic planes with capsules which are supposed to have trouble with heating when arriving from interplanetary travel. In real life things enter the atmosphere at much higher speeds than we deal with on Kerbin.
I think the impact of 1.02 is exaggerated. It was a small tradeoff in favour of rockets over space planes.It's probably not easy to balance realistic planes with capsules which are supposed to have trouble with heating when arriving from interplanetary travel. In real life things enter the atmosphere at much higher speeds than we deal with on Kerbin.
I don't think it's over-exaggerated at all, a 44% increase in lift is huge and ridiculous. It was fine before and stuff behaved as it was supposed to at low speeds. I would argue that engine imbalance was the main reason for issues at high speeds.
In favor of rockets? It fucked rockets too, it just screwed up planes more.
The stall speed of my new Mach 3 cruiser is ~38m/s when pointed flat to the horizon. It's just too low, it looks and feels silly. I'm going to try it on 1.0 atmo now, to check how behavior is at high and low speed.
@ felis - cool, any VOD?
---
Checked my speeds, my max speed is a good 30-40% higher with 1.0 aero and i'm stalling out at higher speeds. I think a good test would be to do would be a glide duration test - that's the biggest difference in feel, stuff just glides forever in the thick atmo and you can tab out and forget you were even playing the game and then hear an explosion 15 minutes later when it finally slows down to 35m/s and stalls out.
Takeoff speed is closer to 80m/s, while before it was ~50.
---
Mach ~4.5 cruiser. I just ripped it in half by activating air brakes at mach 1.6
Brakes work at mach 1.3*. I'l say for safety, drop below mach 1 for use :D
*AS LONG AS THE CRAFT IS STABLE, if it's already under a bit of shock and bouncing back and forth it can be ripped in half at lower speeds. Trust the g-force meter~
funny how top speed scales. The brakes stop it from getting fast enough for the engines to ramp up their thrust, so it's stuck at 1/8'th of its max speed when they're open. Good for re-entry, too. This thing re-enters like a dream, i think it'd be fine with heating enabled.
Tested re-entry with 1.0 atmosphere, 100% heating and -1.35km/s vertical velocity. That's a steep descent and one of the more dangerous profiles i think. It barely heated a few degrees and fell in a stable way :D
..and then i accelerated through mach 3 and blew up my shock cone intakes. Oops :D
edit: I'm not getting it to orbit. Haven't even tried yet without oxidizer taken out of the tanks, they're just sub-orbital trajectories done entirely with liquid fuel. When i originally started design, i wanted a supersonic atmospheric craft and kinda nudged it towards spaceplane capability.. but i'm not sure if it's good enough for that.
The biggest design flaw i seem to have is too big cross section viewing from underneath. When i pitch against prograde, the air resistance slams the plane to a halt and it can stall it out (or worse, flip it momentarily out of control)
pitched nose down slightly too hard and air resistance took over (g-force meter starts to rise from 3 and jumps up to 9 then drops back again~ you can see quite clearly when i had control and when i didn't from looking at it)
can't fall out of the sky like that in 0.9 and 1.0.2 atmosphere :D i was only ~300m above the surface so if i played perfectly i might have recovered but it would have been close
It looked more like it flipped because of being back heavy than it looked like a stall. Stalls happen because of lack of speed so that your wings stop giving sufficient lift and as a consequence stop responding to your controls. That looks like an unbalanced aircraft wanting to fly backwards.
---
After some prototyping cycles, I have created a successful SSTO cargo plane design: + Show Spoiler +
- It takes off like a dream - Gets up to orbit without any staging - Tested to bring 20t of cargo fitted in an Mk3 large cargo bay (for reference, the large orange tank weighs 36t) - Reenters LKO without burning up or breaking apart - Has turbojet engines to get itself back to KSC without needing too much fuel - Easily controllable and has enough lift to comfortably land at 100 m/s on return - Should be able to do everything with 10% liquid fuel left over and 5% oxidizer - Stalls at about 55 m/s - Weighs 60t and carries up to 65t of propellant
I played sandbox when like 0.2 or some early build was out until "campaign" came out (science mode or classic campaign in release version) and decided to stop playing until the game was released.
Is flying like 100x harder now? I understand the heat mechanic actually exists and that's cool but it feels like when I'm trying to get a rocket into orbit I have to clear the entire atmosphere before angling my ship. What's the plan for getting a basic rocket to mun now? Use to be that I could pitch to 45º at 9000m and have a really easy trajectory for getting into orbit. Now if I can get 20º without my ship spiraling out of control I feel accomplished
On May 07 2015 09:02 Fecalfeast wrote: I played sandbox when like 0.2 or some early build was out until "campaign" came out (science mode or classic campaign in release version) and decided to stop playing until the game was released.
Is flying like 100x harder now? I understand the heat mechanic actually exists and that's cool but it feels like when I'm trying to get a rocket into orbit I have to clear the entire atmosphere before angling my ship. What's the plan for getting a basic rocket to mun now? Use to be that I could pitch to 45º at 9000m and have a really easy trajectory for getting into orbit. Now if I can get 20º without my ship spiraling out of control I feel accomplished
You want to smoothly pitch over while in the atmosphere. You can't pitch over all at once anymore, or aerodynamics makes you its bitch. What happens if you pitch too quickly, is that your pointing vector becomes too different from your velocity vector, and since rockets tend to have all their weight towards the bottom, it will tend to want to point the wrong way. As long as you don't get too far from your velocity vector, the aerodynamic forces that try to flip you stay small. The further from your velocity vector you get, the stronger those forces get, and the more likely you are to flip out of control.
Start pitching basically as soon as you leave the pad, such that you reach 45º at around 10,000m. Once you're around 20,000m, aerodynamics won't screw you up anymore, so you don't have to be so careful.
On May 07 2015 09:02 Fecalfeast wrote: I played sandbox when like 0.2 or some early build was out until "campaign" came out (science mode or classic campaign in release version) and decided to stop playing until the game was released.
Is flying like 100x harder now? I understand the heat mechanic actually exists and that's cool but it feels like when I'm trying to get a rocket into orbit I have to clear the entire atmosphere before angling my ship. What's the plan for getting a basic rocket to mun now? Use to be that I could pitch to 45º at 9000m and have a really easy trajectory for getting into orbit. Now if I can get 20º without my ship spiraling out of control I feel accomplished
You want to smoothly pitch over while in the atmosphere. You can't pitch over all at once anymore, or aerodynamics makes you its bitch. What happens if you pitch too quickly, is that your pointing vector becomes too different from your velocity vector, and since rockets tend to have all their weight towards the bottom, it will tend to want to point the wrong way. As long as you don't get too far from your velocity vector, the aerodynamic forces that try to flip you stay small. The further from your velocity vector you get, the stronger those forces get, and the more likely you are to flip out of control.
Start pitching basically as soon as you leave the pad, such that you reach 45º at around 10,000m. Once you're around 20,000m, aerodynamics won't screw you up anymore, so you don't have to be so careful.
It could be helpful to press F12 to see the force vectors working on your rocket. It shows pretty well what is happening when your rocket flips. Fins can be helpful if keeping the rocket stable becomes a problem. It should also be noted that the air applies more forces on the rocket at mach 1 (around 350m/s when the cloudy streaks show up around exposed surfaces).
Like Millitron says, point the rocket roughly in the direction it is going and manouver very gradually. If you need your rocket to go more towards the horizon than turning regularly will allow, you can throttle down a little bit.
... So, my potato internet caught up to me and I have seen 1.0.2. No SSTO I built previously can get to orbit any longer, and my plan to make an SSTO that can lift an orange tank (plus docking port, battery, RCS, and solar panels) to orbit seems laughable.
Further, my TWR changes greatly during flight - in the SPH, it reads 1.5ish. On the runway, the same. Throttle up and fire the engines, it drops to 0.7. Then climbs above 1, but on pitch up it drops back below 1. A little frustrating, when it's got upwards of 8 rapiers - and that used to be a lot of thrust to weight. Like, yesterday.
Also, when I turn on aerodynamic forces... my payload is causing a LOT of drag. From inside of the MK3 long cargo bay, with the door closed. It looks like the cargo bay is not occluding the air flow from the cargo, and it appears (from what I've seen and what I've seen on streams) that engines currently are also not occluded from airflow by the aircraft.
On the plus side, I can go pretty fast under 1000m and not explode, or even heat up, for some time.
I think there is some balancing still to go with the aerodynamic model.
There are 3 differents classes for your kerbals: engineer, pilot and scientist. They get experience while doing missions in space (ex: orbiting the mun, minmus etc...) and when they level up they get new skills according to their class. Pilots can help stabilise your ship (works like SAS), but more interestingly he can also point it to the prograde/retrograde marker, or according to your manoeuver node. If you've used mechjeb in the past it works like SMARTASS. Engineers can repack chutes, repair parts (rover wheels i think?), scientist can improve the science you get and even reset parts like the goo container/lab when they are high level.
Concerning the facilities you need to upgrade then otherwise you'll have restriction on how many parts your ship can have and how much it weight, you also need to upgrade to be able to EVA in orbit (upgrade to the kerbal recruitement facility), as well as see your trajectories and use manoeuver nodes (upgrade the radar facility), or get more contract active at the same time.
edit: hum i can swear i saw a post asking about pilot skills :D
edit: hum i can swear i saw a post asking about pilot skills :D
yes I thought maybe my pilot wasn't going to be able to decouple all my radial decouplers at once. Turns out it was some weird bug or misstep on my part. That info is still useful ty
It looked more like it flipped because of being back heavy than it looked like a stall. Stalls happen because of lack of speed so that your wings stop giving sufficient lift and as a consequence stop responding to your controls. That looks like an unbalanced aircraft wanting to fly backwards.
It stalled after the flip, dropped below the speed needed to comfortably glide and it would have fallen out of the sky no matter which way it was pointing. Maybe it's back heavy - i didn't really think about that causing flips, but i think it's the air resistance that pulls it out of my control as the flip is starting because of the other effects on the craft (when i do it at 300-400m/s, it loses a huge fraction of its speed almost instantly and faces huge structural stress). It has a lot of pitch control through reaction wheels and airbrakes, but the force that throws it up/down is quite large (9g's at 150m/s) once it gets caught
for that design, it's actually balanced so the center of lift is perfectly inside the center of mass with that amount of fuel in too - and the center of thrust is perfectly lined up with them - so i'm not very worried about those causing issues. Overall it seems like a great plane aside from having to pitch up/down slowly because the nose then gets thrown up/down and it then stalls at low speed or gets ripped into many pieces at high speed
Nice plane, i will try something like that and another idea i had recently~ been busy yesterday and will be for a while today
---
It should also be noted that the air applies more forces on the rocket at mach 1
This is quite a significant effect - especially if you have plane engines. I added a big of drag to one of my planes and the max speed dropped from mach ~2.7 to below mach 1, even though it was a pretty small change - just because it couldn't get over that big air resistance bump that happens when you're very close to mach 1 (it goes away again afterwards AFAIK)
Further, my TWR changes greatly during flight - in the SPH, it reads 1.5ish. On the runway, the same. Throttle up and fire the engines, it drops to 0.7. Then climbs above 1, but on pitch up it drops back below 1. A little frustrating, when it's got upwards of 8 rapiers - and that used to be a lot of thrust to weight. Like, yesterday.
It will depend on your airspeed and your height. You can see airspeed by clicking on an intake, height is obvious but the drop off in thrust as you get to higher altitudes is craaaaazy. You're probably in same situation as me and just stuck below an air resistance bump because of the higher drag, so you can't go faster so engines can't increase their thrust so you can't go faster so engines can't increase their thrust etc. I'd suggest going back to 1.0 aero, but meanwhile a basic jet engine or two will probably give more thrust than a rapier when you're at mach 0.95. They have much less total thrust, but their curve is way more friendly towards low speeds.
---
for the rocket talk, fins will stabilize you (and control surface fins help you angle where you want even more) but the aerodynamic forces that cause your rocket to flip will still happen with the fins there, they're just controlled. If you're practicing an efficient flight, you should be very aware of those forces to the point where you're able to fly without fins, and just use the fins for a little bit of extra control - so you're not flying the wrong way into the airstream and wasting a ton of delta-v.
If you're -not- trying to be efficient, just fly further up. You only have to go 3.5-10km further up before turning - that way you have only ~50-15% of the air resistance on your rocket trying to flip you when you turn too aggressively. Don't just jam the nose 45 degrees over (that never made sense unless you have an aero model which doesn't actually model drag anywhere near correctly) and it shouldn't be hard. It's mostly the bad habits from pre-1.0 getting people stuck, i think.
Rockets are much easier to fly now - you can get up there with 70% of the delta-v that used to be required. You can basically use 1.4 - 1.45x more fuel than needed because you flew a completely awful terrible ascent profile and you'll still be better off than 0.9 - but if you turn too slowly, you might actually only use ~5-10% more fuel, not 45% more
Another thing to take into account is that the most fuel efficient TWR to use is way higher than it used to be in 0.9 and earlier. In 1.0.2 it's not as high, but in 1.0 atmosphere i'l be using 2 - 2.5 TWR on my rockets if possible. I don't have much play time with 1.0 rockets TBH, been focusing on planes
AFAIK, Drag is proportional to the cross section of your rocket seen from prograde - making your rocket twice as long while pointing perfectly at prograde won't increase your drag at all, but adding 2 big boosters on the side might more than double it. You can see that with Kerbal Engineer mod.
The torquing forces working on the nose of a rocket could be seen as the front of your rocket having a big wing stuck to it (which will not show up as lift in the VAB or SPH, but is still very real once you're flying around). If you've played around with planes, you'll know that lift in the front of your center of mass will make you flip. Fins at the back counteract the torque at the front. The more torque that is working on the nose, the more will also work on the fins.
If placed right, the forces counteract each other and you won't flip and you'll be able to steer (even if the fins aren't control surfaces). Put them further back than that will make your rocket very stable and hardly steerable. Since fuel drain and staging moves the center of mass, the optimal fin placement isn't constant.
Fins are not needed as long as your engine and reaction wheels are able to provide enough torque.
Further, my TWR changes greatly during flight - in the SPH, it reads 1.5ish. On the runway, the same. Throttle up and fire the engines, it drops to 0.7. Then climbs above 1, but on pitch up it drops back below 1. A little frustrating, when it's got upwards of 8 rapiers - and that used to be a lot of thrust to weight. Like, yesterday.
It will depend on your airspeed and your height. You can see airspeed by clicking on an intake, height is obvious but the drop off in thrust as you get to higher altitudes is craaaaazy. You're probably in same situation as me and just stuck below an air resistance bump because of the higher drag, so you can't go faster so engines can't increase their thrust so you can't go faster so engines can't increase their thrust etc. I'd suggest going back to 1.0 aero, but meanwhile a basic jet engine or two will probably give more thrust than a rapier when you're at mach 0.95. They have much less total thrust, but their curve is way more friendly towards low speeds.
... All of the above changes I've seen between 1-5000m of altitude. I would understand it better if the thrust of the engines was changing, also, when I wasn't standing on my tail after taking off from the runway and flying straight up and watching my TWR change from "can accelerate straight up" to "falling down".
I'll still need to work at it. But the biggest problem I have with what I saw in the aerodynamic forces is the drag from occluded parts. (A cargo bay should be the same as a fairing, right?)
I haven't had any trouble with cargo bays. And I'm not able to recreate the problems you seem to have. I do notice that forces acting on the cargo bay fuselage have arrows pointing from its center which might be mistaken for arrows originating from the cargo. Have you confirmed that the forces are working on the contents of the cargo bay by using the debug menu (alt F12) -> physics -> aero -> "display aero data in action menus", then right clicking the parts you think may erroneously be subjected to aerodynamic forces? You'll get the drag and lift values etc, which should be 0.0.
The engine cluster is 9 rapier engines. It seems that the TWR seems to vary largely as a function of speed.
I tried to see how it looked after jettisoning the payload, but when the rear fuel tank is mostly full and the cargo bay is empty, it just won't fly. (Too much weight to the rear of the center of lift.)
... All of the above changes I've seen between 1-5000m of altitude. I would understand it better if the thrust of the engines was changing, also, when I wasn't standing on my tail after taking off from the runway and flying straight up and watching my TWR change from "can accelerate straight up" to "falling down".
I'll still need to work at it. But the biggest problem I have with what I saw in the aerodynamic forces is the drag from occluded parts. (A cargo bay should be the same as a fairing, right?)
Make sure that your engine exhaust is not hitting anything.
My TWR increases by like 8x by varying my speed with rapiers. I've seen it over 25 on the plane in videos above, yet i don't think it's more than ~2.5ish with engines at full power when it's not moving.
TWR will vary wildly with altitude too. Even at 1km vs 5km you might see it drop by a quarter or more, i think. I don't have the exact numbers but it's a pretty disgusting drop-off rate. I actually fly just as fast in the lower atmosphere even though the drag is WAY higher
I can't explain that if the engine exhaust is not hitting anything and they're fed with intakes (you can see intake air usage % from kerbal engineer in flight, below 50% is good)
I made a new plane today. Can carry a payload to a stable orbit, i'm not sure how high - but not a very big one. Parts count is too high to fly comfortably, the game runs ok but the physics get more and more wonky as you add more stuff.
center of lift is too far forward when fuel is low, i will keep that in mind for edits and future designs. My plane with COM that falls forward onto the center of lift @0% fuel flies a lot better
That's a ridiculous amount of engines. And I note that it is using Mk2 parts.
How large of a payload can it lift? And is there a reason why I'm not seeing a lot of Mk3 parts in successful spaceplanes? (I know that EJ_sa's not flying his shuttle currently, as it appears it no longer functions well.)
To a 75km circular orbit.. maybe a mk.2 fuel tank or two (regular size, like the two in the middle of the plane) so not much at all.
The engines stopping working well at so low heights really hurts. If you make an orbital trajectory, your engines will cut off and then you have to drag through the atmosphere from ~15km-30km and lose hundreds of meters per second. Going too steeply gave me worse results than going up more sharply, but if you go up too sharply you need like 1km/s of delta-v to circularize entirely from oxidizer and it's all a mess.
If i took off the side wing engines, i don't think it'd be able to easily break through mach 1. I saw a graph recently, the drag there is actually drastically higher than at mach 1.1 and if you can't get some more airspeed, your engines won't give more thrust and you're stuck at mach 0.95 all day instead of 3.5x faster
The Mk3 plane parts have some oddness with them. They seem prone to falling apart somewhat easily, and I think there's still something up with that Mk3 cargo bay.
I think I'll try a ridiculous pancake rocket to see if they have actually become totally useless.
I think I'll try a ridiculous pancake rocket to see if they have actually become totally useless.
Not useless, but less efficient - especially if you have a decent TWR (like 2.5)
You can watch the atmospheric efficiency display in kerbal engineer. It gives you your speed as a % of terminal velocity.
The moment you stage, you can see it jump - so it might say 150% then drop to 30% when you remove some huge stuff sticking out of the sides of your rocket. For fuel-efficient ascent, you'd vary your thrust to keep it above 85% but below 100% at all times AFAIK.
A kick to get off the launchpad is nice (some rt-5 clusters that burn and detach almost immediately are good, you don't need to worry about them being aerodynamic as there's little air resistance going from 0m/s to ~250m/s) and then it's fairly reasonably easy to stay at >90% of terminal velocity for ~2km-15km, but after that the more thrust, the better. The faster you're going, the less energy you are wasting to gravity and the more effective your thrust will be due to the oberth effect and they actually has a fairly huge impact on your ability to set an orbit - it's visible when comparing 0.5 TWR to 2.0 TWR to 6.0 TWR (in-flight TWR is higher than initial because of fuel consumption, check it out on kerbal engineer display)
Since terminal velocity is much higher with a thinner rocket, it's probably best if possible to have a fairing (or nose cone) and then have it go down in a stack, i think, with nothing huge (like big size fuel tanks) sticking out of the sides. That does limit your ability to do stuff like asparagus staging though, which is still extremely powerful. If you stack straight down, there's nowhere to put more engines so you can easily have less thrust than desired
I think I'll try a ridiculous pancake rocket to see if they have actually become totally useless.
Since terminal velocity is much higher with a thinner rocket, it's probably best if possible to have a fairing (or nose cone) and then have it go down in a stack, i think, with nothing huge (like big size fuel tanks) sticking out of the sides. That does limit your ability to do stuff like asparagus staging though, which is still extremely powerful. If you stack straight down, there's nowhere to put more engines so you can easily have less thrust than desired
Well. I can get three orange tanks to orbit full with only a little effort.
This one is being a little more difficult, but I think if I can solve the spent boosters slamming into other portions of the rocket on the tricky stage 4, it could get much more to orbit. Also, launching is touchy - light the engines, then must QUICKLY release the launch clamps (I could stage the engines and clamps at the same time, I guess) or my rocket launches out of the flames of my exploding launch pad.
This is a night launch. The launchpad did not survive.
The view from below - the asparagus staging is tricky to get that circle, because there is one unmatched stack that has to feed into the next stage and then across a small gap to the stack on its right - not enough space for another stack in there to keep it "even" and fully symmetrical.
Post-launch in the daylight. Viewed from above, with data.
The current issue comes in when the "T" at the end of the main six spokes releases both side tanks at the same time. Inevitably there's an unbalanced collision of the dropped spent stacks into one of the arms. Oh, and SAS? That's turned off pretty quickly as the "gyrating" to keep it in one spot induces lots of wobble I can avoid by manually nudging it.
Why build this? No reason - putting fuel into orbit.
On May 10 2015 08:48 Cyro wrote: I made a new plane today. Can carry a payload to a stable orbit, i'm not sure how high - but not a very big one. Parts count is too high to fly comfortably, the game runs ok but the physics get more and more wonky as you add more stuff.
Cool plane.
On May 10 2015 09:11 felisconcolori wrote: And is there a reason why I'm not seeing a lot of Mk3 parts in successful spaceplanes
I think it's mostly a problem of scale and how they will fit awkwardly with other parts. Mk3 parts are so much heavier than mk2 but only really offer twice as much area real estate for engines. So you are forced to be more creative when placing the extra engines you need. In the same way you need more wings, but the old 0.90 wings are a little flimsy and the new mk3 wings make for bad building blocks for building bigger wings. If you want things to look pretty you also need to use the adapter parts which are also bulky and parts don't clip on nicely to them. In order to keep the large plane from flexing too much and breaking apart when landing you need lots of struts. The end result is that you get a high part count which can cause the game to run slowly.
What I've seen from other people's spaceplanes is they don't make planes that deliver cargo to orbit, but instead fly to other worlds. So if you don't need the mk3 cargo bay, why not use parts that are easier to build with. Personally, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to carry around air breathing engines and wings in space.
On the plus side, mk3 parts hold the most fuel per ton of the tanks in the entire game (mk2 almost holds the least per ton being almost as bad as the oscar and donut tanks).
On May 10 2015 12:39 felisconcolori wrote: Why build this? No reason - putting fuel into orbit.
Seems like a great reason to me. Sometimes, you want to refuel in space instead of sending a giant craft into space with its own fuel.
On May 10 2015 09:11 felisconcolori wrote: And is there a reason why I'm not seeing a lot of Mk3 parts in successful spaceplanes
I think it's mostly a problem of scale and how they will fit awkwardly with other parts. Mk3 parts are so much heavier than mk2 but only really offer twice as much area real estate for engines. So you are forced to be more creative when placing the extra engines you need. In the same way you need more wings, but the old 0.90 wings are a little flimsy and the new mk3 wings make for bad building blocks for building bigger wings. If you want things to look pretty you also need to use the adapter parts which are also bulky and parts don't clip on nicely to them. In order to keep the large plane from flexing too much and breaking apart when landing you need lots of struts. The end result is that you get a high part count which can cause the game to run slowly.
What I've seen from other people's spaceplanes is they don't make planes that deliver cargo to orbit, but instead fly to other worlds. So if you don't need the mk3 cargo bay, why not use parts that are easier to build with. Personally, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to carry around air breathing engines and wings in space.
On the plus side, mk3 parts hold the most fuel per ton of the tanks in the entire game (mk2 almost holds the least per ton being almost as bad as the oscar and donut tanks).
On May 10 2015 12:39 felisconcolori wrote: Why build this? No reason - putting fuel into orbit.
Seems like a great reason to me. Sometimes, you want to refuel in space instead of sending a giant craft into space with its own fuel.
That's what you can't see underneath the fairing at the top. It's got a probe core, Sr. Docking port, some RCS, and solar panels. I put it into orbit, then leave it there with all the fuel available for future missions or emergency topping up. Also makes for a cheap refueling station or interplanetary propulsion section. I'm thinking, with the amount of dV that's still in orbit, I could make a pretty sloppy transition to Moho and still manage to get into orbit.
The strength of the Mk3 part node attach (or lack of it) seems like a pretty significant thing. But the Mk3 wet wings and the cargo bay are pretty important to the shuttle enthusiasts out there. You're right, they don't really scale well when you're looking at larger craft - and making large wings from wing parts can be all kinds of pain, as the stock Stearjet shows so painfully.
Would it be worth dragging one to orbit to mine for fuel or is it easier to just dump huge fuel tanks with docking ports up there?
I kinda took a break from building rockets for a while, now i'm having an issue with side-attached engines smashing into the rest of the rocket after detaching. The hydraulic detachment manifold seems to have insufficient force for big parts in atmosphere. I was looking to make a reasonably big (but simple) rocket using parts just bigger than mk.1 with ~5km/s (ish) of delta-v for someone new to the game. Maybe more vertical staging
On May 11 2015 07:52 Cyro wrote: Would it be worth dragging one to orbit to mine for fuel or is it easier to just dump huge fuel tanks with docking ports up there?
I kinda took a break from building rockets for a while, now i'm having an issue with side-attached engines smashing into the rest of the rocket after detaching. The hydraulic detachment manifold seems to have insufficient force for big parts in atmosphere. I was looking to make a reasonably big (but simple) rocket using parts just bigger than mk.1 with ~5km/s (ish) of delta-v for someone new to the game. Maybe more vertical staging
Launching some orange tanks to orbit is significantly easier. Getting a big asteroid (they have only limited ressources, so you'd want a type-E for a refueling station) into a precise orbit is a real pain, turning them is a struggle, getting the camera in the direction you want is annoying because the center of mass will be inside the asteroid while you are attached to it. It's just a question of would you rather launch fuel tanks again and again or combine an asteroid redirection contract with building a refueling station.
Something to keep in mind is how laggy it gets once you combine something heavy like a station with multiple ports and some stocked fuel with a heavy asteroid. I built this station when asteroids first came out, but it got eaten by the kraken shortly after I finished construction and I made no quicksave after I attached the type-D (which took about 40minutes from a 500m rendezvous to docking) + Show Spoiler +
total mass: 3200t
For your staging problem, I'd try sepatrons, but don't point their exhaust at your rocket, rather shoot them off sideways. Also, you can try to attach the decoupler directly at the center of mass of the empty fuel tank, otherwise it may flip in one direction or the other and destroy the rocket.
I wish we had stronger rapiers. A lot of the cool spaceplanes simply have to use a ton of them. My plane uses like 22, i saw a skylon-based craft that can actually carry an orange tank to orbit but that also uses like >20 rapiers and a huge parts count.
I made a rocket with rapiers and put 16 of them on - but the TWR was too low to get anywhere near breaking the mach 1.0 air resistance cliff. I couldn't add more, because there was nowhere to put them - the entire cross section of the rocket was just rapier exhausts. If i stuck more out the sides, i'd be increasing resistance and maybe not actually helping?~ (perhaps it's doable if you build a rocket and then use an adapter to get the base of the rocket bigger than the fuel tanks you're using above, but that would still drag a lot)
Everything cool generally seems to be small (with like 3-5 rapiers) or big (with like 20+) and i'd just like a version that's like four times as big with eight times more kick
One possible use for an asteroid, could be as a giant heat shield for a craft during some extreme aerobraking. It's something I've wanted to test but haven't gotten to yet - as I first have to build something to grab an asteroid.
I think using an asteroid to refuel might be workable but it'd have to be pretty situational - in a lot of cases, you can just as easily land on the body you're going to find them around and mine that for fuel.
The fuel mining capability should make it a little bit easier to land on and take back off of places like Tylo and Laythe, though. The landers I had built in the past for those planets were monster rockets capable of getting orbit from Kerbin unassisted.
For some reason I am finding career mode to be much more enjoyable in 1.0 than it has been in the past.
The tech tree seems better somehow. Instead of there always being obvious choices, now there are different paths you can choose depending on what kind of things you want to do. The new aerodynamics also give you new concerns that need to be handled.
The missions reflect the choices you've made and the milestones you've reached. The percentage of nonsensical missions is much smaller. Flying tourists around is surprisingly rewarding.
The scientists are also suddenly very useful now. Instead of just getting a percentage boost, restoring single use experiments yields a whole lot more science and gives you further reason to keep sending kerbals and not probes to space.
Career is still not perfect. Unless you pick exactly the right difficulty, you often end up too rich or progressing through the tech tree too fast. The engineer is still relatively useless. I don't know why you're allowed to remove carefully placed satelites 10 seconds after putting them in the right orbit. And why are new kerbals so expensive but rescuing new kerbals from space is free? The game also encourages you to drive or hover around your space center for easy (but boring) science because there are 1000 biomes there. The limitations of the VAB and launch pad are also pretty harsh at the start which forces you to make dumb rockets until you get them both to level 2. I don't understand how adding an extra thermometer counts as much as adding a giant SRB.
Those limitations were added because it used to be pretty silly once you unlocked the 1st tech node, which didn't even require you to leave the launchpad. It was possible to collect Duna+Ike (or Eve+Gilly) orbital science with the 2nd launch, after that you could unlock pretty much everything.
Can someone give me a run-down on how to properly rescue kerbals from orbit? I can fly to duna and back but managing an orbit around kerbin has me frustrated beyond belief
On May 13 2015 08:57 Fecalfeast wrote: Can someone give me a run-down on how to properly rescue kerbals from orbit? I can fly to duna and back but managing an orbit around kerbin has me frustrated beyond belief
I don't know if I can do a run down exactly, but when rescuing a kerbal floating in space, you have to treat it as you would any other orbital rendezvous. Get into low Kerbin orbit, hopefully somewhere close to where the hapless kerbal is (think of it as similar to transferring to Duna - try to time your launch so that you are circularizing your orbit close to where the kerbal will be in its orbit). If you miss, you can also try for a phasing orbit (an orbit higher or lower than the kerbal depending on whether you want to approach from the front or the rear) to decrease your distance, but it might take awhile for you to get close. Set the Kerbal as a target, and try to get the closest intercept you can with the Kerbal. Once you actually get close enough to the Kerbal (it was <1k last time I did it), you should be able to "switch vessel" to the Kerbal using the bracket hotkeys. Once you can control the lost Kerbal, you then use its RCS to maneuver it into position to board the ship.
I'm assuming you can get a stable orbit around Kerbin... I mean, you're not doing a direct burn for Duna, right?
On May 13 2015 08:57 Fecalfeast wrote: Can someone give me a run-down on how to properly rescue kerbals from orbit? I can fly to duna and back but managing an orbit around kerbin has me frustrated beyond belief
Make an elliptical orbin with the periapsis at the same height as the kerbel's orbit and the apoapsis at a point further. Then set a manuever node near the periapsis such that you match the kerbel's orbit (which will make you match speeds as well) and that you are close enough to the kerbel in his orbit. It may take a few rotations around your system to get the timing close enough. After executing the manuever, you should be on a trajectory that leads you near the kerbel going the same direction. Switch to the kerbel, and have him thrust his way to your ship.
On May 13 2015 08:57 Fecalfeast wrote: Can someone give me a run-down on how to properly rescue kerbals from orbit? I can fly to duna and back but managing an orbit around kerbin has me frustrated beyond belief
The lazy way is to get an orbit that is similar but not identical, then go to the tracking station, timewarp until your rescue craft is close to the kerbal, then use a manouver node to get yourself within 2km whereupon you gain control of the stranded kerbal. If you are unable to get within 2 km, but are still somewhere in the 10km range, you can click on your speed display on the navball until it says "target". Then you use the navball to make your ship always go towards the target.
Adjust speed by pointing prograde or retrograde. When you thrust in a forwardish direction, the prograde vector moves towards where you are pointing. If you thrust retrogradish, the retrograde vector will move away from where you are pointing. If you use these to push and pull your prograde and retrograde vectors so they are always pointing at the pink target markers, you will eventually rendez vous. Be careful to watch your speed though. You don't want to slam into the target.
You'll save a little time if you take off 20ish degrees in front of the target, That should put you nearby by the time you reach orbital speed as long as your launch trajectory is reasonable.The number might not be 100% optimal, but taking off too early is better than taking off late since it is harder to catch up than it is to slow down when chasing an object in LKO.
On May 12 2015 21:39 stenole wrote: For some reason I am finding career mode to be much more enjoyable in 1.0 than it has been in the past.
The tech tree seems better somehow. Instead of there always being obvious choices, now there are different paths you can choose depending on what kind of things you want to do. The new aerodynamics also give you new concerns that need to be handled.
The missions reflect the choices you've made and the milestones you've reached. The percentage of nonsensical missions is much smaller. Flying tourists around is surprisingly rewarding.
The scientists are also suddenly very useful now. Instead of just getting a percentage boost, restoring single use experiments yields a whole lot more science and gives you further reason to keep sending kerbals and not probes to space.
Career is still not perfect. Unless you pick exactly the right difficulty, you often end up too rich or progressing through the tech tree too fast. The engineer is still relatively useless. I don't know why you're allowed to remove carefully placed satelites 10 seconds after putting them in the right orbit. And why are new kerbals so expensive but rescuing new kerbals from space is free? The game also encourages you to drive or hover around your space center for easy (but boring) science because there are 1000 biomes there. The limitations of the VAB and launch pad are also pretty harsh at the start which forces you to make dumb rockets until you get them both to level 2. I don't understand how adding an extra thermometer counts as much as adding a giant SRB.
I'm having too much fun to care, though.
This is obviously just a bunch of thoughts and not fact but... maybe it will help flush some of the niggle...
- Engineers can repair stuff. It's not often useful but a busted wheel on a rover is disastrous. Busted lander legs can be a pain but generally I've found I can get by without them being able to retract in nearly all situations. Also if you use kerbal engineer (and decide not to use the parts that do the same job) you need an engineer to see the info anywhere outside th VAB.
-Yea, you can move satellites, but it's mostly pointless to so... why would you?
-I guess they just want you to explore the immediate area. I didn't but... maybe they are proud of Kerbal Space Center? Ultimately I really think they need to give you wheels earlier. Honestly having a rocket powered car during the early game would be enough to make me ride round and gather science there.
-The dumb rocket bit I liked, it's a (different kind of) test of creativity . And there's a weight limit on the pad so a thermometer isn't quite the same as an SRB.
There are other things that nag me but... I try not to think about them or rationalise them out of existence (see above).
So, remember that insane rocket I was trying to launch? Yeah, it needed some modifications, and along the way I discovered that when bits of fairing get trapped inside the rocket structure, the game behaves strangely. ("Cannot go faster than 1x when moving over terrain!" But I'm in orbit!)
Also, for some reason I have yet to determine, the fuel flow on the rocket leaves two of the early stages very slightly out of sync - half the stacks don't run out of fuel at exactly the same time, which lead to me having to throttle back and drop some tanks with residual fuel still inside. It's not elegant, it's not efficient, but I do now have 16 full orange tanks with six empty orange tanks, in orbit. (500+ parts on the pad, 108 parts in orbit, for a mass of 636.15 tons.)
As I don't think I want a spoiler that large, this is a link to the imgur album of the first successful launch to orbit. (I say that because the launch previous wound up in orbit... without the upper part of the center stack, which includes the probe core.)
that's not really a fat/pancake rocket, it's just a bit wide. The cross section looking down on it is not that bad at all, and you're not even going for a particularly fuel optimal ascent there as long as it gets up
also:
tl;dr basic jets only really useful for fuel economy. Best when moving at ~200-250m/s-ish at ~6-7km.
Rapiers will get you faster and higher than turbojets, but they're a bit less efficient, don't generate electricity and - because of lower thrust to pressure ratio at low speeds/heights - tend to get stuck more at the mach 1 air resistance cliff unless your craft is pretty light and non-draggy - which means that you're not going to space today (or anywhere in a timely fashion)
Is anyone else having problems with kerbals kinda slipping through the ground and then exploding?
It looks like their feet just clip a bit then whole body falls through and poof, dead
it happened to the only kerbal i sent on a recent minmus mission, but now again today and it's kinda anticlimactic after an hour-long almost failed mission, though quicksave saved the day the second time
aaaaaaah
Not even related to time warp, i have a quicksave before it~ just sat and watched it for 3 minutes before SOI switch at 1x speed and it still dumps me in this unusable orbit (and apparently fixes itself a few minutes later, yay)
Very quickly designed minmus-capable spaceplane.
first flight out of the spaceplane hangar, looks like experimenting with mk.3 parts will bear fruit
But uh, there wasn't enough fuel left for minmus orbit with the way i flew it that time. Sorry Tanrey~ xd
edit: I actually landed him too! Even at a similar place. The plane is going back 'round near kerbin, but not low enough. Flown a bit more optimally, it's probably capable of a free-return trajectory that lets kerbals land on minmus using EVA suit propulsion only - and that's just the "hey, lets put 20 rapiers on this thing and hit launch to see if it gets off the ground" version.
It has a pretty crazy 5.2km/s of delta V - just as a cockpit, fuel tanks and that one rocket engine. It would be insane if it -wasn't- orbit capable.
Nowadays, for a circular 75km orbit you need about 2.1km/s of speed, plus ~1km/s to combat drag and gravity if you build a sleek craft with a very nice TWR. It's actually much less DV needed than 0.9, because the atmosphere was so crazy thick you wasted probably over 2x as much fuel between fighting against it and having gravity ruin your day a lot more due to your low TWR's (appropriate for thick atmosphere)
Bugs like the ones you mention is the main reason why I change the standard settings in hard difficulty to allow reverting to launch and quicksaves. If you crash and kill the kerbals due to bad planning or execution is one thing, but when the kraken eats your kerbals (or spaceships) is quite another.
I've had ships that are on rails disappear because the way crashing into the ground is calculated there is different (and stricter) than ships that are actually simulated. It really sucks when your lander has finished gathering science and is about to go back to the orbiter and the orbiter is mysteriously gone. If you are smart keep orbiters around Gilly, Pol and Bop flying at high orbits.
Ships on the ground have also exploded when they got wihin range and got simulated. This has been in sandobox mode on the KSC buildings, so it hasn't been a big problem.
The funniest bug though is when I clicked the EVA button and then instead of the kerbal grabbing the ladder outside, he got violently propelled into space so fast that he couldn't get back with the EVA monopropellant he was carrying.
Something I saw during my ascent with the big rocket... I kept on regenerating launch clamps at altitude, which would suddenly then fall to the ground and explode. Except for the one launch where launch clamps suddenly reappeared at about 10k, and two of them stayed with the rocket for about another 4k.
And Cyro... what the hell, no nosecone on that Mk 3 cockpit?
Something I saw during my ascent with the big rocket... I kept on regenerating launch clamps at altitude, which would suddenly then fall to the ground and explode. Except for the one launch where launch clamps suddenly reappeared at about 10k, and two of them stayed with the rocket for about another 4k.
YES, you can be in space and like some fucking crazy launch clamps fly past you at 5km/s :D
And Cyro... what the hell, no nosecone on that Mk 3 cockpit?
Ahh fuck. I forgot to make it aerodynamic
I didn't even check the ISP on the rapiers vs the other engine, i should have disabled them at least after establishing a stable orbit (but probably before then?) if the big rocket engine is notably more efficient (i think it is)
can make that a lot better. I was half asleep and just wanted to see what mk.3 could do (spoiler: pretty much everything)
Been playing around for a few hours. There's a part with the procedural fairings mod which is very useful for connecting engines etc, basically you can connect it to something and then it has ~4-16 connectors on the other side, you can decide how big it is, how far apart the connectors are etc. Pretty customizable so you can just dump 16 engines on something instead of having to deal with stacking quad-couplers and them taking up 5x as much room as they're supposed to and fuel crossfeeds breaking etcetc.
Wrote a small rant here
tl;dr
GIVE US AIR BREATHING ENGINES THAT ARE 4-8X MORE POWERFUL AS A SINGLE PART (squad or just modders, plz)
i'm putting 20 engines per wing on my actually good planes and then they need 2-3 intakes each and thats 160 parts for the wing engines alone and 20fps on any available hardware and blargh
You should try that mod that allows you to change the size of every part in the game (tweakscale), you can make a 3m diameter rapier with it and it scales the power accordingly.
And if you check the Devnote Tuesday message that came out from Squad today, at least performance improvements may be coming once they finally get the game geared and moved to Unity 5. (Apparently they're also re-writing the GUI. Or using the Unity Native GUI tools instead of what they have now.)
I got a few mod part packs for now, like 5m wide stuff for rockets and additional mk.2 parts/engines etc. Also some more engine-attachment plates. When i played a bit earlier, i lifted the biggest tank in the stock game (the max length ~3.5m one) to orbit with a single stage using:
2 huge fuel tanks
1 engine array
~5 reaction wheels (they were pretty cool, they're actually set up to fit outside the side of the 5m stuff)
1x 5m control part
1 decoupler+fairing
ran at like, 150fps which was cool. Lifting that kind of load before would cripple my system no matter what i did.
A rendezvous with such a highly eccentric orbit is just difficult to do and it takes a lot of patience to set up a maneuver node for that. It's even harder if you don't use a mod that allows you to fine-tune the node. How did that situation even come up?
A minmus not-quite-return apparently involving several trips through munar SOI
edit:
This mod that i'm using actually has decoupler-sepratrons, it's really nice. It holds stuff a little distance away then when you activate, it kicks them away and then stays attached with a mini-SRB in it.
Feels pretty balanced in the stock game, but just bigger. When you have engines twice as powerful and fuel tanks twice as big as the stock game max, it's much easier to get a payload of a certain size to X orbit/location, because the % of the craft that is fuel/engines can be much larger without lagging the game.
This guy did some testing in the 1.0.2 atmosphere with ascent profiles for rockets. It actually seems extremely powerful to pitch over very sharply and quickly - he got improving results with sharper and faster turns, down to as sharp as 80 degrees (so only 10 off the horizon) at 500 meters.
With his test rocket (5.17km/s delta V) it cost only ~3.4km/s to get to orbit - but that's in 1.0.2 and carrying the extra fuel. Without that increased drag and payload (reducing fuel until it only has enough fuel to get to orbit, and doesn't arrive there with useless fuel weight) i can see getting ~3km/s to orbit with that kind of ascent profile. Have to test myself, it's pretty wildly different from what i've been doing so far.
He also used a launch TWR of ~1.5, so i guess 1.7-ish would be equivalent in 1.0? Though there was evidence of higher TWR increasing efficiency - the only time that's really in question is when you're creating excessive drag that's enough to cost even more than the losses to gravity would cost you during a slower ascent (not a problem past low atmosphere, especially in 1.0) or adding engine weight to achieve it
Really, you only need ~2.1km/s. The rest of the delta-v is just how much you're losing to gravity and drag on the way up there, which is non-zero but highly variable. With a very very thin and fast rocket, like with a 1m design, nosecone and a single modified engine for huge thrust - it could allow for TWR's much higher so that you lose almost no energy to gravity and drag and probably make orbit with some silly amount like 2.6km/s of delta V ~ i'm not sure of the math really and how much energy is lost to one vs the other with a typical ascent
On May 21 2015 13:18 Cyro wrote: This guy did some testing in the 1.0.2 atmosphere with ascent profiles for rockets. It actually seems extremely powerful to pitch over very sharply and quickly - he got improving results with sharper and faster turns, down to as sharp as 80 degrees (so only 10 off the horizon) at 500 meters.
I'd like to see the source of that. You would think that drag would eat up a lot of speed with such an ascent profile.
Really, you only need ~2.1km/s. The rest of the delta-v is just how much you're losing to gravity and drag on the way up there, which is non-zero but highly variable.
With an atmosphereless Kerbin, you would need to at least reach the orbital speed at 0m altitude which is about 2426m/s. The initial planetary rotation only gets you a 174 m/s head start. Lets pretend you still want to reach a 70 000m altitude orbit. The Hohman transfer would add 130 m/s of delta v. So you would need a minimum of 2.4km/s of deltaV. Because you don't have infinite TWR, it would be reasonable to add at least 100 m/s of delta v lost to gravity drag for a high TWR engine.
With an atmosphereless Kerbin, you would need to at least reach the orbital speed at 0m altitude which is about 2426m/s
I'm in a stable orbit atm as low as i can realistically get (70.1km to 70.2km) at under 2300m/s. That's a little higher than i thought but still not 2426, unless the rotation speed is not counted there but still makes the orbit work
Yes, orbital speeds become lower the higher you are. You still need more deltaV to achieve a higher orbit, though, as you need to expend energy (which is related to DeltaV) against the gravitational potential.
He was talking about a theoretical orbit at height 0 on Kerbin, which can be easily calculated for spherical orbits if you do know the gravitational constant in KSP (which i do not, but it is really easy to find out) or based on already known higher orbital velocities. Equating the centripetal force and the gravitational force leads to
m1v²/r=G(m1*m2)/r²,
with m1 being the orbiting mass, v the orbital velocity, r the orbitalradius (including radius of Kerbin, not the height above ground), m2 being the mass of Kerbin
This leads to
v²=G*m2/r v²=G*m2/(Rk + h)
G and m2 being constants let you easily calculate the necessary speed of any orbit with the information that Kerbin's radius Rk is 600km. h being your height above Kerbins surface here.
As can be seen, the kinetic energy necessary for such an orbital speed = m v²/2 increases antiproportionally with a single radius, while the energy you need to spend to escape the gravitational potential to that height from Kerbins surface is
Epot(Rk)-Epot(r)
G*m2*m1/Rk-G*m2*m1/r =G*m2*m1*(r-Rk)/(r*Rk)
Thus, the total energy needed to achieve a certain orbital radius from 0 velocity at Kerbin surface height = dEkin+dEpot
getting a hair below 2.3km/s at periapsis @70,010m (but the orbit is behaving very strangely, changing without me doing anything or time warping.. it fell into the atmosphere randomly by itself - i guess it's dangerous not to have a significant safety margin because the calculations and predictions don't seem to be exact even at 1x time)
wanted to test that anyway
orbital speed at 0m altitude
Didn't catch this part :0 Thanks for corrections, i guess that all makes sense. I was off on the speed @ low orbit by >100ms as well (i usually establish orbit @ like 80km)
It seems like the guy in the reddit post uses angles relative to the horizon, not relative to straight up. That being said, figuring out this new atmosphere is quite a challenge. It's not something you can easily plug into an equation like most other things in this game. It's a good thing there are grunts out there willing to run tests so the rest of us don't have to.
I think this new atmosphere doesn't have the cutoff it used to have in 0.90. So if you are timewarping, you will be on rails, but if you are flying or using physics timewarp, you will experience some drag even if it is very small. I'm not 100% sure, but I've seen the cutoff values in the wiki are marked "deprecated".
The Atmosphere-without-Kerbin-scenario is what you have to deal with on Tylo. Landing there makes you appreciate that Kerbin has an atmosphere.
On May 22 2015 22:17 stenole wrote: It seems like the guy in the reddit post uses angles relative to the horizon, not relative to straight up. That being said, figuring out this new atmosphere is quite a challenge. It's not something you can easily plug into an equation like most other things in this game. It's a good thing there are grunts out there willing to run tests so the rest of us don't have to.
I think this new atmosphere doesn't have the cutoff it used to have in 0.90. So if you are timewarping, you will be on rails, but if you are flying or using physics timewarp, you will experience some drag even if it is very small. I'm not 100% sure, but I've seen the cutoff values in the wiki are marked "deprecated".
The Atmosphere-without-Kerbin-scenario is what you have to deal with on Tylo. Landing there makes you appreciate that Kerbin has an atmosphere.
It would be interesting to see, although if there is drag acting beyond or just on the fringe of the atmosphere, I haven't seen it utilizing the aerodynamic forces overlay. To the debug data....
It seems like the guy in the reddit post uses angles relative to the horizon, not relative to straight up
That's what i thought at first too, but idk how he's getting to orbit with those angles. Wouldn't that depend highly on how much your rocket flops over? That would require reducing your thrust and making yourself less aerodynamically stable. None of my designs would reach anything even remotely resembling a circular 75km orbit if i flew like that, but they fly surprisingly well if i pitch over sharply as soon as i've got a bit of speed going.
It would be interesting to see, although if there is drag acting beyond or just on the fringe of the atmosphere, I haven't seen it utilizing the aerodynamic forces overlay. To the debug data....
I don't think it's that, i'd guess the calculation to estimate your path is just slightly less exact than the actual flying, or something weird with time warp. I came out of a small warp at below 72km and then my periapsis started falling, it dipped below 70km and then i lost like 100 meters in 1 orbital revolution after hitting the atmosphere so it would have de-orbited after that
I think a lot of the problem with small spaceplanes is just achievable delta-v numbers when you treat them more like a rocket than a plane. If you build the basic shell of the craft and then put a rocket engine on and lock at delta-v, it's no surprise that mk.1 and mk.2 guys are barely making orbit while mk.3 can do a lot more (carry a payload, actually fly somewhere without refuelling etc)
edit:~
I'm having a lot more success treating them like rockets with wings rather than planes with rocket engines. I have moved a bit away from single stage designs though - drop tanks are quite useful. Overall i'm probably doing silly things with no cost benefit. If you truly want to carry something to orbit and get back with no cost aside from fuel expenditure, mk.3 is the way to do it
this is one of the best KSP vids that i've seen :D (pre-1.0)
What are aerospike engines actually used for? I mean the rocket engines with "good" efficiency in and outside of atmosphere. SSTO's that need more TWR than nukes? edit: i guess they probably weigh waaaaaaaaay less than nukes. That could be a huge factor.
---------------
Recent trip to minmus~ even with poor and unplanned flying i was able to pick an awkward landing site and hit it very accurately~ This is how my recent spaceplanes look (mostly because i didn't find a better way to keep the center of mass where i want it while spending fuel, probably due to lack of creativity). I used some drop-tanks for more delta-v there. Guess i'l try a landing on duna or eve next? :D
Maybe even aerobreaking and a visit to Gilly
^that thing in the background of that pic is a previous plane, not a rock
That same plane i was flying earlier, a slightly earlier revision of it when i mistimed an orbital insertion burn and messed up the orbit, eventually being forced to completely re-enter or waste like 1k delta v. I went from almost orbit (150km apoapsis with lots of horizontal speed)to 5km off the ground and 250m/s (on purpose) and then i throttled to full and tabbed out~ i tabbed back in and my plane was actually like 15km up at a good angle, so i took a shot at getting it back up. It made it no problem to a stable orbit :D pretty impressive and resilient beast
nukes are very effective even at like 7km, they just can't get off the ground. They have like 1/4 thrust at 0km, 3/4 thrust at 7km but they are so heavy.
With basic plane shell, adding a second nuke increased wet mass by ~18% but dry mass by like 45%. I didn't really realize that in the past, i would look at the mass numbers before and after adding the engine with all of my tanks full - having 1.18x as much mass with 2 engines didn't mentally add up to "single engine has >1.3x as much delta-v" at first
playing a singleplayer game for hours without ranting about a bunch of mostly useless crap is haaaaardd
took me 9 days to get enough ore for my mission (only had a little above 13 electricity intake, the drill needs 15). Forgot that Engineers make the mining process faster.
edit: Now Im mining from another place, one that was lit up brighter by my scanner, now my mining rate is lower °_°
so the lit up areas are actually areas with less ore? thats kind of unintuitive :o
I don't think that's how it's supposed to be. Isn't there two types of scanners, that one orbital one used to get an idea of general areas that ore is in - and then another higher resolution scanner that hits a smaller area to tell you good places to mine? I have not done mining/scanning at all yet
there is a orbital scanner that looks like a big duck beak. You need to use that together with an antenna while in a polar orbit around a planet or moon. There is a minimum and maximum altitude for it to work, but they are far enough apart that you can do it with a pretty eccentic orbit. Once you have done that, you will be able to get an overlay which will show where you can find ore on the planet.
There is another scanner that looks like a hexagon which lets you see the ore on the surface underneath your craft. This only works after using the big scanner. It also tells you your coordinates and which biome you are over. You get a better resolution image of where the ore is. I have no idea if there is a lower or higher altitude limit the scanner, but I've never had any problems with it, so I'm guessing not.
The last one is a surface scanner which works up to an altitude of 1000m. This tells you exactly how much ore is on the surface under you and works in real time, so you can hover or drive around until you find a number you like.
My own impression is that as long as you get to somewhere that has some ore, regardless of quantity, you have access to unlimited fuel. You might have to time warp for quite a bit of time. It's important to bring enough solar panels though because both the drills and converter use a lot of power. Having an engineer on board makes the process go a lot faster. Also remember to have a tank for the ore otherwise you won't be mining anything.
I haven't done it too much yet because my missions can usually be done without needing to refuel along the way. But the little I have done has made me learn better how to land next to things that are already on the ground. I'll probably mine more when I finally decide to do a return mission from Eve or if I decide to fully conquer Laythe.
But the little I have done has made me learn better how to land next to things that are already on the ground.
I'd kinda like a minmus mining base, but i'm dreading trying to actually dock useful craft to it :D
I just opened game and went from launchpad to mun landing and back to kerbin using craft i built for a newbie friend easy with no worries or even being close to needing a quickload, that was nice. I took off a bunch of mods to make a few stock craft, but i'm immediately missing the SpaceY radial decouplers. They're really useful, adding a bit of room between the two parts you are attaching and then acting as both a decoupler and sepratron
On June 14 2015 05:25 Cyro wrote: I'd kinda like a minmus mining base, but i'm dreading trying to actually dock useful craft to it :D
I think the easiest thing would be to not actually dock while landing, but instead land near and use rover wheels to move them up against each other. It might be better to have a dedicated craft to bring the fuel up to orbit so that you don't need to equip everything to be capable of landing on Minmus. If I were to make this myself I would probably have a module with fuel storage capabilities, rover and a klaw to go between the mining/conversion module and refueling vessel.
A big problem with the rover idea is that you need to make sure your docking ports are all situated in such a way that it is possible to attach them while driving about minmus. With Infernal robotics you could make the docking port on the mining station height-variable, i remember doing that once.
And instead of having a vessel that carries stuff into orbit, you could also just have the whole refueling station be launchable for a rendezvous in orbit. You needed to land it on Minmus anyways, so it should be able to achieve orbit. Problem here is finding juicy ore spots again afterwards.
On June 14 2015 17:55 Simberto wrote: A big problem with the rover idea is that you need to make sure your docking ports are all situated in such a way that it is possible to attach them while driving about minmus. With Infernal robotics you could make the docking port on the mining station height-variable, i remember doing that once.
And instead of having a vessel that carries stuff into orbit, you could also just have the whole refueling station be launchable for a rendezvous in orbit. You needed to land it on Minmus anyways, so it should be able to achieve orbit. Problem here is finding juicy ore spots again afterwards.
You can use a klaw which means you don't need to worry about aligning docking ports unless you think that would be cheating. Even if you use docking ports I don't see how that is a big problem since you only have to take it into consideration when designing the base and refueling vessel.
The reasoning for having a separate orbit delivery craft is that you don't waste fuel carrying all the mining gear up and down. You will often also want to have a research lab connected to the base when you take the trouble to put a base there anyway. If the base was made because of a mission, you might also have living quarters. The more parts the more impractical it is to launch the whole base into orbit, especially so if you have built your base one piece at a time.
So after the 1.0.2 patch and immediate fallout over the aerodynamics on forums, i expected a patch pretty fast to change it again (the whole never release software on a friday night then go home for the weekend thing) but it's now 6 weeks later and no patch or talk of a patch
..can i klaw a random fuel tank that's just floating in space?
There is a test version of 1.03 out for a selected few. It release won't be before the devs are back from vacation to fix new issues and apply balance changes. I am thinking 1.1 development is also draining resources away from 1.03.
i can't imagine not playing it on PC, though. Running on a CPU with cores 1/4 as powerful and potentially not having mod support as well as having to build everything with thumbsticks on a controller sounds awful ;p
On June 18 2015 01:34 Cyro wrote: KSP for ps4 announced
i can't imagine not playing it on PC, though. Running on a CPU with cores 1/4 as powerful and potentially not having mod support as well as having to build everything with thumbsticks on a controller sounds awful ;p
There might be a chance that the ps4 version will use mouse and keyboard despite this not being the norm with console games. Hopefully it won't affect the PC version in a negative way. I can't imagine the ps4 version will be a huge commercial success. However since the game uses the unity engine, porting the game might not be as complicated as it seems.
I think the sad thing is that this ps4 version will benefit from all the good press the game has been getting while delivering an inferior product. Unless the game has a lower price tag than the PC version, it does not seem fair.
It's worth mentioning though, that our moving to U5, which I think is fair to say is something everyone has been asking for quite a while, has been largely sped up by our collab with FlyingTiger, who are developing the PS4 version. The first step for them was to move the game into U5, and because that was something that affected the entire project, we felt the best way to go about it was to work together on upgrading the project, so the PC version wouldn't be stuck on Unity4 as they moved on. So contrary to popular belief, the move into PS4 is actually giving PC development a boost, not hindering it.
Magic aside, i don't think KSP is very API bottlenecked, it seems to die from the physics load on 1 thread. That would mean that "console optimization" or switching to another PC API wouldn't improve performance much - and it would also mean that an overclocked 2-4 core 6'th gen core CPU* could run the game five times faster than a ps4 could. Talking benchmarks here, actual real numbers and not just "olol it's quite a lot faster, maybe 5x"
That's like console having 12fps when PC has 60.
20fps when PC has 100
etc. Those are some very scary numbers unless they're limited to low part counts and part of the game is redesigned, they can't afford to run a pc-like build with all of its inefficiencies on such hardware
Will unity 5 improve physics performance much?
*releasing in 2 months
No, not by any means. Our UI overhaul will indeed support development of a console-friendly UI, but that will be for the console version only. The PC UI will work just the same as it does now, maybe even get a few improvements for itself in the process.
Remember, KSP is a PC game being ported to run on a console. The port is branching off the main PC development code, not the other way around. We did need to work together for the Unity5 part though, because that affects everyone.
Cheers
Unity 5 uses PhysX 3.3 rather than 2.8.X. This means two things. First, 3.3 is much more optimized than 2.8.X. We'll see a physics-simulation throughput of as much as 50% just because of this. It will probably not be the full 50%, but it should be noticeable.
Second, PhysX 3.3 allows for multiple threads to do physics simulation at the same time. This is limited in that you can't break down a single craft across multiple threads, but it will at least help cases where you have multiple craft within the physics bubble (docking, landing at a base, etc).
On a non-performance view, 3.3 is supposed to have fewer problems like phantom forces. a few more knobs to tweak things, etc.
The Unity 5 changes that don't involve PhysX have mostly been covered here, but an important one that hasn't been touched on is that the development environment can now run in the Win-64 environment, which will enable Squad to debug the Win-64 Squad client far more effectively, which means that we're much more likely to get a stable Win-64 version of KSP.
this patch introduces a big revision to the thermal system for parts. The heat simulation has been greatly improved, heat from reentry is now handled in a totally new (and more accurate) way, and we've also added five new Radiator parts, so you can have much more control over how your ship deals with excess temperatures.
Fuckton of changes. Looks like drag was significantly reworked, i'l have to stop using 1.0 atmosphere stats and try out 1.0.3 stuff!
pic from imgur
Is Squad trying to kill me? WoW 6.2 releases tomorrow and i'l already have to play that for like 8 hours today because i'm a procrastinating idiot
RAPIERs seem to have an effective top speed of 1.5 to 1.6 km/s at a steady 24km altitude, Turbojets top out at around 1.3 km/s at 22km. This seems to be a rather sizable buff to SSTOs.
thank fucking god. That's gotta be what, 6km higher than before? Yea, about that. I can't compare speeds (i usually flew very fast and very shallow craft that would burn up ), but simply maintaining speed to the higher altitude should be a huge buff (:
AERYN SEAL OF APPROVAL
turning feels better in atmosphere too
Another thing that i've noticed immediately is the heating/convection remodel actually cools you down really fast when you're moving at considerable but not dangerous speeds through atmosphere. As you can see in the vid, high speeds at low altitudes are quite instantly fatal - but there's quite a gap, one speed might be not really dangerous at all but if you go a bit faster or a bit lower in atmosphere it can overheat you very quickly. You seem to have good control over that when flying though, you can just adjust throttle when going up. Coming down, you can brake with a spaceplane but should probably be careful with trajectory with a rocket
1300m/s might be fine at 16km for example, but kill you in 1 second at 12km if you're going straight down
So, I just updated KSP and decided to take an SSTO spaceplane that I know failed to make orbit in both 1.0 and 1.0.2 - and it hit orbit the first flight, with some decent time spent engulfed in flames on the way up. So, even with a horrible ascent profile and bad flying, it made orbit with 120 m/s of spare d/v.
On June 24 2015 07:12 felisconcolori wrote: So, I just updated KSP and decided to take an SSTO spaceplane that I know failed to make orbit in both 1.0 and 1.0.2 - and it hit orbit the first flight, with some decent time spent engulfed in flames on the way up. So, even with a horrible ascent profile and bad flying, it made orbit with 120 m/s of spare d/v.
I am cautiously optimistic concerning this patch.
Image of triumphant craft in orbit Soon (tm)
I too have made a successful SSTO rocket in this patch. Just waiting for all my mods to update
I tried to use turbojets, but the additional height, speed and the ability to give yourself a bit of a kick with like one oxidizer tank using rapiers is too valuable i think.
75km apoapsis, 1550m/s is much easier to circularize from than 45km apoapsis, 1300m/s (and that's just when the air breathing function cuts out)
also as a side effect, we probably need a few more intakes. They halved intake air usage but because of the additional height we could still need more, as much as twice as many per rapier to fly at ~24km instead of ~18km with maximum thrust.
Two precoolers with a shock cone intake on the front should be about fine? Needs testing~
On June 24 2015 10:10 Cyro wrote: I tried to use turbojets, but the additional height, speed and the ability to give yourself a bit of a kick with like one oxidizer tank using rapiers is too valuable i think.
75km apoapsis, 1550m/s is much easier to circularize from than 45km apoapsis, 1300m/s (and that's just when the air breathing function cuts out)
also as a side effect, we probably need a few more intakes. They halved intake air usage but because of the additional height we could still need more, as much as twice as many per rapier to fly at ~24km instead of ~18km with maximum thrust.
Two precoolers with a shock cone intake on the front should be about fine? Needs testing~
I have never made a spaceplane, what are the advantages over a rocket?
On June 24 2015 10:10 Cyro wrote: I tried to use turbojets, but the additional height, speed and the ability to give yourself a bit of a kick with like one oxidizer tank using rapiers is too valuable i think.
75km apoapsis, 1550m/s is much easier to circularize from than 45km apoapsis, 1300m/s (and that's just when the air breathing function cuts out)
also as a side effect, we probably need a few more intakes. They halved intake air usage but because of the additional height we could still need more, as much as twice as many per rapier to fly at ~24km instead of ~18km with maximum thrust.
Two precoolers with a shock cone intake on the front should be about fine? Needs testing~
I have never made a spaceplane, what are the advantages over a rocket?
Uhh.. you can like...
......
..............
..........
they're kinda useful for putting small stuff in orbit with reduced cost (much higher recovery money when you land the whole craft instead of staging or with minimal staging)
otherwise not so much, maybe more now than the engines are stronger
If you can reach Laythe it's very nice because air breathing engines work there (only other body with an oxygen atmosphere). You're basically just using overpowered engines instead of having lower stages in order to reach orbit. It might be easier to design a spaceplane that can get to laythe now; i'll have to spend a while on one though, making a decently flyable spaceplane with enough TWR, that much delta-v and a weight balance that will make it easily flyable when full of fuel or empty is quite difficult
On June 24 2015 10:16 Fecalfeast wrote: I have never made a spaceplane, what are the advantages over a rocket?
You can more easily control where you want to land (with some experience and practice). A spaceplane is also capable of entering atmosphere with less stess compared to a rocket with parachutes because you can more easily soften your decent. You can better control the trajectory and drag while aerobraking. In career mode there are missions to test part X at altitude Y and velocity Z. These are often more easily executed when using a spaceplane, partly because of better control and partly because wings allow you to fly at lower velocity experiencing less gravity loss compared to a wingless craft.
SSTOs (which doesn't necessarily have to be a spaceplane nor use air breathing engines) allow you to get things into orbit and return to the surface expending only fuel. SSTOs will save you money as long as you never get stranded, crash or burn up. SSTOs are also essential for reusable operations away from Kerbin. A mining station on another planet can supply fuel, but can't replace parts.
Air breathing engines and liquid fuel with their excellent specific impulse makes them a natural choice for missions to Laythe. An equivalent fully LOX driven craft with similar specs in Laythe's atmosphere will be much heavier and that mass will make every preceeding stage heavier also.
I think the main "advantage" is the fun involved and the satisfaction of completing a spaceplane that does something really well that other craft can't. It can feel as great as landing on the Mun for the first time.
I realized recently how easy it is to get to duna (and took a basic trip there) and also learned some more stuff about adjusting orbit and how to go interplanetary much more cleanly and easily. I think i'm gonna throw some parachutes on one of my craft and take a trip to ike + duna properly
when i first came towards the planet with test craft, i was amazed at the size of ike compared to duna, it's actually way bigger than i thought (and duna smaller than i thought)
maybe the lander and KO/transfer craft that i have could even do a return trip, but if it's possible it'd probably need some nice flying. It's extremely over-engineered but it's a mun/minmus lander, not an ike+duna+return lander (:
I like going to outer planets more - the speeds involved in low orbit of the sun are extremely high and 1km/s of delta-v suddenly doesn't mean as much any more - harder to adjust trajectory in a significant way or really do anything
I tried a yolo docking maneuver(super high approach speed since nobody got timefor that shit), ran out of electricity since I forgot that mod engine doesnt produce electricity and managed to crash into the target from like 5km away. That aim though.
I have not been playing much on the new version, have people figured out SSTOs again? And related to that how good is the vanilla atmosphere now are mods still needed?
I'm trying to get back into this game after not playing for several months. Back in the day my crowning achievement was landing on Duna's moon so while I'd say I'm not a complete rookie, I was never very good (never could get to Jool's moons)
I'm having some problems with heat and parachutes. I'm playing career mode and the two things I'm trying to do are get into orbit and break 2500m/s, both of which I can do, but not complete. Each time I either burn on reentry, I deploy my parachute(s) too early, or I deploy my parachute(s) too late. So I ask:
How do I prevent my ship from burning up? I've been putting a heat shield on the bottom of the main part of my ships (command pod and science stuff). Do the radiator panels actually do anything, and how many do I need?
When should I deploy my parachutes? I know I should only deploy them at around the 1k-2k altitude mark but last time I deployed at about 900m and it didn't slow down at all.
Also, every time I use the thumper rockets (long white solid fuel boosters) my ship tips over in the air, is there an easy fix to this?
On June 30 2015 04:46 Erandorr wrote: I have not been playing much on the new version, have people figured out SSTOs again? And related to that how good is the vanilla atmosphere now are mods still needed?
Spaceplanes were buffed in the most recent patch. I like the new atmosphere, but as always there are people who complain loudly about change. Just play it and decide for yourself.
On June 30 2015 06:33 Chocolate wrote: How do I prevent my ship from burning up? I've been putting a heat shield on the bottom of the main part of my ships (command pod and science stuff). Do the radiator panels actually do anything, and how many do I need?
When should I deploy my parachutes? I know I should only deploy them at around the 1k-2k altitude mark but last time I deployed at about 900m and it didn't slow down at all.
Radiator panels are for temperature management in space, probably mostly useful to keep nukes from exploding. Your craft shouldn't explode if it's protected by a heat shield, just don't rush steeply into the atmosphere. 30-35km periapsis is usually sufficient to slow you down without explosions, unless you're coming in at interplanetary speeds.
You can deploy parachutes as soon as reentry effects stop. <1km is a bit low I think, the parachutes deploy more gradually now. You need more chutes for a massive craft obviously and as always just ignore drogue chutes unless you have a very specific reason to use them. I can't think of other reasons why parachutes wouldn't slow you down enough.
On June 30 2015 04:46 Erandorr wrote: I have not been playing much on the new version, have people figured out SSTOs again? And related to that how good is the vanilla atmosphere now are mods still needed?
Spaceplanes were buffed in the most recent patch. I like the new atmosphere, but as always there are people who complain loudly about change. Just play it and decide for yourself.
On June 30 2015 06:33 Chocolate wrote: How do I prevent my ship from burning up? I've been putting a heat shield on the bottom of the main part of my ships (command pod and science stuff). Do the radiator panels actually do anything, and how many do I need?
When should I deploy my parachutes? I know I should only deploy them at around the 1k-2k altitude mark but last time I deployed at about 900m and it didn't slow down at all.
Radiator panels are for temperature management in space, probably mostly useful to keep nukes from exploding. Your craft shouldn't explode if it's protected by a heat shield, just don't rush steeply into the atmosphere. 30-35km periapsis is usually sufficient to slow you down without explosions, unless you're coming in at interplanetary speeds.
You can deploy parachutes as soon as reentry effects stop. <1km is a bit low I think, the parachutes deploy more gradually now. You need more chutes for a massive craft obviously and as always just ignore drogue chutes unless you have a very specific reason to use them. I can't think of other reasons why parachutes wouldn't slow you down enough.
Thanks, this was super helpful, in the older versions a shallow reentry wasn't necessary but I see that now it is
I tried a yolo docking maneuver(super high approach speed since nobody got timefor that shit), ran out of electricity since I forgot that mod engine doesnt produce electricity and managed to crash into the target from like 5km away. That aim though.
I have not been playing much on the new version, have people figured out SSTOs again? And related to that how good is the vanilla atmosphere now are mods still needed?
Nice aim :D :D
SSTO's are pretty good now. They were getting kinda figured out and then they got buffed, so it's all good.
I think it's good to use a nuclear engine or 2, you need a moderate TWR but not really high. Could try something in the ~0.5 range from kerbal engineer.
3 stages for orbit that seemed to work well for me
1; get to a decent height and then ascend maybe 20-25 degrees up from horizon at full throttle, try to get to max speed. Rapiers should carry you to around ~1600m/s at 24km, IIRC. If your thrust to drag ratio is too bad to speed up and get the rapiers going, a turbojet or two performs better at lower speeds and will get you up there.
2; (optional) small-medium sized burn using oxidizer and rapiers, maybe a booster
3; nukes to circularize and do spacey stuff
pretty sure i've gone up using entirely liquid fuel with a pretty conventional design post-buffs, but i took a note to take a small oxidizer tank to get a bit higher/faster before relying entirely on nuclear engine
-------------------------------
Chocolate, since 1.0 atmosphere changes (maybe not in 1.0.2, but i skipped 1.0.2 atmosphere using only 1.0.0 and 1.0.3+) it's been pretty fatal to do suborbital straight up/down flights.
Previously there were many cases where it was better to fall through the atmosphere steeply (rather than being at a narrower trajectory and at a higher speed for longer; you heated up over time) but now after changes, steeper re-entry is even more fatal. If you're falling like that then you need to slow yourself down to control your speed through the lower atmosphere (below 20-25km especially) - putting a bunch of airbrakes on your craft is probably fine but maybe not available in career
simplest way i think is to simply use retrograde burns to control your speed. Save some fuel, point your engine towards the ground (or locked retrograde) and just throttle up to lower/control speed - under ~1km/s by 20km should be mostly fine, i think. If you get heat indicators, as long as your speed is in the ballpark right area and your TWR is pretty good, you should be able to adjust. If not, note the approx speed and altitude that you had problems and try to slow down some more after a quickload/reset
Going straight up/down at a very high speed is quite dangerous and inefficient, if you're going straight up/down it's best to stay slower i think and if you're going close to orbital velocity (~2km/s+) it's probably safer/easier to do it sideways
I'm in the midgame now (doing flights to mun/minmus) so I usually have enough angular velocity upon escape to just do a shallow reentry; it's actually the most fuel efficient way of reentry from their orbits.
It's really not a big deal that I can't go straight down anymore, I just wasn't used to it.
I'm kinda pissed at how expensive the science center upgrade to allow you to research techs costing more than 100 points is, though.
On July 03 2015 04:26 Chocolate wrote: I'm kinda pissed at how expensive the science center upgrade to allow you to research techs costing more than 100 points is, though.
You can adjust the variable FundsLossMultiplier in your save file, that actually affects building costs and you will most likely never fail a contract anyway, so there is no point in putting in a "punishment" for that. I think 0.5 or lower makes the building upgrades more reasonable. If you want something to deter yourself from cancelling contracts, just increase RepLossMultiplier. Having only awful contracts available is far more punishing than losing a tiny amount of funds.
Well fuck. My first SSTO to Laythe (note the speed on navball)
HAHAHA
i thought maybe i could skim the outer atmosphere, aerocapture and have a chance after that speed was twice as high as i anticipated (can always quickload and increase periapsis)
LOL NOPE
I do like the 1.0.3 physics, but i think if this speed is too high to live half a second when crossing some arbitrary threshold (50km) - they should maybe increase the height of atmospheres to make up for it. Going from kerbin for example, if the edge of the atmosphere was technically 85km instead of 70km and everything else stayed the same, you'd be able to skim the edge of it safely at around four times the speed.
On July 04 2015 02:31 Cyro wrote: That's what rescue missions are for
have you tried to take a SSTO to laythe and back without refuelling?
That's almost a challenge. Would docking with external tanks be considered "refueling"? Or maybe just having some drop tanks?
I kindof want to try this now, but I haven't built a decent SSTO that can get to orbit with enough fuel left over.
The one in the video after one reset and not even any iterations on building (i copied a reddit design and made some edits when building that i thought were better) is capable of getting to orbit and on a jool intercept with as much as ~700m/s of delta-v remaining. ~2.8k DV at 80km circular or so
getting BACK is probably the hard part. You can probably get there and back using gravity assists; i saw a post recently where a guy dropped periapsis to eve orbit, used eve gravity assist and then edited trajectory at apoapsis to get another eve gravity assist to reach jool. That saves maybe >500m/s? Just guessing, but it should be a fair amount
Would docking with external tanks be considered "refueling"? Or maybe just having some drop tanks?
By SSTO i meant literally no staging, just go
a refuel rendevous in LKO would be fun, though. Maybe even carry a drop tank up there and drop it during the transfer burn
rocket partway through construction, added more fuel tanks, engines and asparagus for maximum overkill
Duna landing
Ike landing
Re-entry. Didn't come in optimally (was gonna see if i could use gravity assist to slow down but it didn't seem so; i ended up just going in at ~3km/s without quickloading to adjust trajectory from further out) - heat was close but manageable; going in nose or ass first seemed to be suicide but flopping around sideways actually slowed the craft down so that it wasn't still going fast enough to explode when reaching lower altitudes, also spreading out the heat across everything
Safe return (:
I'm a pretty slow player so this took like two hours to actually execute without rushing lots of fun!
As one addition, i figured out that when using SRB's like that (on the lander) i could put some small fuel tanks on top of them, fuel lines to the main tank and set the thrusts so that i could run the main lander engine at 100% for the whole time the SRB's were burning, but then have full fuel after decoupling the SRB's + small tanks. Not sure what's optimal but it felt pretty cool
Also.. i think a lot of the stuff people thought about having to use fins and such on rockets post 1.0 could largely be put down to people being unfamiliar with weight distributions and TWR's that work well (bad habits from previous versions with wildly unrealistic aero) - i never even bother with that stuff any more - if it's aerodynamic at all, as top heavy as you can reasonably make it and using a TWR of like 1.7 at launch to 2.5 by 15km, it seems pretty easy to fly
On July 05 2015 23:32 Cyro wrote: As one addition, i figured out that when using SRB's like that (on the lander) i could put some small fuel tanks on top of them, fuel lines to the main tank and set the thrusts so that i could run the main lander engine at 100% for the whole time the SRB's were burning, but then have full fuel after decoupling the SRB's + small tanks. Not sure what's optimal but it felt pretty cool
It won't be optimal. This is because you need to lug those SRBs to Duna. Optimally you will burn the fuel that gives you the worst specific impulse first. Well done executing a mission with landings both at Duna and Ike though. My first return mission from Duna was much less elegant.
Also.. i think a lot of the stuff people thought about having to use fins and such on rockets post 1.0 could largely be put down to people being unfamiliar with weight distributions and TWR's that work well (bad habits from previous versions with wildly unrealistic aero) - i never even bother with that stuff any more - if it's aerodynamic at all, as top heavy as you can reasonably make it and using a TWR of like 1.7 at launch to 2.5 by 15km, it seems pretty easy to fly
Putting fins on a craft is less work than a total redesign if you see (or experience) the weight distribution is wrong. And since this usually only applies to stage 1 and stage 2, the actual loss in delta V is minimal. Also, for those who choose not to use KER or mechjeb the TWR will always involve a certain bit of guesswork (or tedious manual calculation).
It won't be optimal. This is because you need to lug those SRBs to Duna. Optimally you will burn the fuel that gives you the worst specific impulse first
I was not worried about that, with cost not being much of a factor and that craft dropping like 2.5km/s of delta-v unused from the transfer stage after coming in for duna landing but it's something to consider
I bought this game on monday cause I used to play around with Orbiter quite a bit a couple of years ago. I didn't even watch any youtube videos nor check any reviews. Guys, I am having such a blast playing this game. Almost 50 hours logged already and I just start to realize some of my ideas. The first space station, 3 modules, all manually docked (!!! this is hard for a beginner, wow) is finally in space.
And if you ever want to see the lengths to which the stock game can be pushed with regards to shuttles, check out EJ_sa's twitch stream. He builds and flies shuttles completely stock, and has for a couple years now. His latest what did he do moment has been in building a "Canadarm" style KrakenArm, utilizing stock "hinges" made out of cubic octagonal struts, plates, and various other things.
Also, rendezvous are a royal pain unless you get into the right orbit to start with.
I always found that getting to ~10m distance of the docking target takes me at most 5-10 minutes (From any orbit around the same body), and from that 10m to docking takes me half an hour at least. One of the big problems is that i constantly forget which direction which buttom RCSs towards, and due to constantly having to change the PoV that never stays the same and is always trial and arrow.
Docking indicator addons make that process A LOT easier though.
On July 10 2015 18:36 Simberto wrote: I always found that getting to ~10m distance of the docking target takes me at most 5-10 minutes (From any orbit around the same body), and from that 10m to docking takes me half an hour at least. One of the big problems is that i constantly forget which direction which buttom RCSs towards, and due to constantly having to change the PoV that never stays the same and is always trial and arrow.
Docking indicator addons make that process A LOT easier though.
There are a few tricks you can use to help with docking.
If both bodies are turnable, you can have them both face each other using the convenient target circle that pops up when you activate SAS if you have an experienced enough pilot or an advanced probe. Manually aiming will also work pretty well, but may require you to stop your approach and re-aim a couple times. This works well if you forgot to bring an RCS system.
Another way is to always have all your docking ports either face north or south since those are easy to find on the navball and will not change during orbit. That way you can perform docking only using translation and not have to worry about rotation.
If you use your navball instead of looking at the docking bodies, you won't ever get confused about direction.
What complicates docking is if your docking bodies have their RCS thrusters poorly placed so that rotation causes translation and translation causes rotation. If one body lacks stability control and has some unwanted rotation, that also complicates the process. You can use timewarp to stop all rotation, but that is cheating.
I have just somewhat randomly exceeded my dreams for stock completely single-stage delta-v
The extra boost from using oxidizer tanks for the rapiers (a middle-stage burn between air breathing and relying entirely on nuke) let me use some extra fuel tanks while still flying up on a single nuclear engine - it also got to orbit much easier than the other craft, where i actually failed to reproduce achieving orbit on the second and third flight.
The fuel tank on the nose lets you put center of mass pretty much wherever you could want it and it's pretty reasonably balanced, it's hard to get much better control than that.
LKO with ~3.7km/s DV using mk.1 parts. Wow.
The 1.0.3 rapier buffs (goes higher before cutting out) really worked their magic :D
It's actually slower than i originally wanted (i think it was ~1050m/s@22km) but speeding it up with more engines would probably increase the weight enough to lose even more delta-v from the oxidizer+nukes. It gets up with that speed and that's what matters :D
On July 22 2015 12:18 Cyro wrote: LKO with ~3.7km/s DV using mk.1 parts. Wow.
That's pretty impressive. I can't say I've pushed the limits of SSTO design myself, but it is nice to see that it is possible to go interplanetary without dropping parts.
On July 22 2015 12:18 Cyro wrote: LKO with ~3.7km/s DV using mk.1 parts. Wow.
That's pretty impressive. I can't say I've pushed the limits of SSTO design myself, but it is nice to see that it is possible to go interplanetary without dropping parts.
I already went to laythe, but i hit it completely wrong and was going way too fast for entry. I think the previous design could (with excellent route planning) land on laythe safely with zero staging but this one might have as much as 1km/s more usable delta-v
With gravity assists, it might even be laythe-return capable (but i don't know hard it would be to get to laythe orbit, how much delta-v the transfer back would take or how fast you'd come into kerbin, heat is a real problem on both ends of the journey)
My mk.1 craft with a similar design to this seem to be somewhat unstable on the roll axis, they sometimes tilt and i have to manually correct, they also oscillate back and forth some especially at high throttles or when trying to move the prograde vector. I'm not really sure exactly why but it might be harder to make them stable with mk.1 (unlike mk.2 and mk.3) body parts not providing any lift
Quad post but thread is very slow moving so i guess it's ok to bump
just did my first rendezvous and docking! I've tried both things before but neither succeeded. I took the orange tank+enginepods from the previous post, adjusted its orbit to 100km circular and launched another module to attach to it. This one has more fuel, some of the biggest stock solar panels and that cute observatory pod thing~
same apoapsis, lowered periapsis allowed me to catch up gradually and then make the orbits more similar as the distances got closer to get a close pass. The pic is slightly wrong and i actually got within ~200m with no further adjustment that orbit
alligning and closing!
docked! RCS controls are still a bit of a nightmare but magnetic docking ports ftw
you can even see the KSC from up here~
ok did my third rendezvous and docking, rcs translation controls are starting to make sense but it's confusing as fuck sometimes without letters marked on keyboard~ *push button* NO THAT WAS THE WRONG BUTTON *push 5 more buttons trying to find reverse button but actually messing up a bunch more things*
Rendezvous and docking can be troublesome. I've done some crazy docking maneuvers in the past (see my twitch channel highlights) but it's something you need to figure out if you ever want to build large modular space stations or even ground bases.
There's also the "docking" mode to consider, as opposed to "staging" mode (which is the normal way of controlling things) - although I don't use it. What kills me is that I know the RCS controls pretty decently, but I'm not always in the right orientation for them to be what I think they are. But if you're going slowly and don't over-correct, you can get in there decently well.
I am sure you are the only one to send SSTOs to Laythe before trying to rendezvous and dock.
I am currently in the midst of a career mission, where I sent two vessels on the same transfer vehicle to Duna. My problem is that I forgot to put probe cores on both of them. So I have to figure out if I have enough deltaV and TWR to do everything I wanted with both probes glued together.
On August 17 2015 02:52 Cyro wrote: can you claw another probe core onto one or isn't that unlocked until later in career?
you could also put them in orbit somewhere and then undock one, do a bunch of things with it, come back, dock and then do some of the rest
I will probably end up sending a probe core. It has a docking port, so I won't need a claw. The reason this all happened is that the part that is missing a probe core had two uncrewed pods to satisfy mission requirements, so it was not obvious that it was a dead module before I was going to separate. Your idea about detaching, doing stuff, reattaching and doing the rest probably would have worked, but the functioning module does not have a docking port so they can't be reattached once they have been separated.
On August 17 2015 10:51 Cyro wrote: I need some fun stuff to do. Maybe a Tylo return? Station stuff is fun but i don't really have the imagination to build them
Those kind of missions are a little easier these days, I think, if you take along an ISRU, an Ore tank, and some drills.
I just remember building landers for all of the different bodies and having to develop a "super heavy lander" that was able to safely land, and take off, from Tylo. These days, you don't need to drag ALL the fuel with you, which may make it easier. I haven't tried it since 1.0.
I do remember though that the lander in question was easily SSTO from Kerbin.
On August 17 2015 10:51 Cyro wrote: I need some fun stuff to do. Maybe a Tylo return? Station stuff is fun but i don't really have the imagination to build them
Those kind of missions are a little easier these days, I think, if you take along an ISRU, an Ore tank, and some drills.
I just remember building landers for all of the different bodies and having to develop a "super heavy lander" that was able to safely land, and take off, from Tylo. These days, you don't need to drag ALL the fuel with you, which may make it easier. I haven't tried it since 1.0.
I do remember though that the lander in question was easily SSTO from Kerbin.
Kerbin launch requires ~3.2km/s of delta-v
going from a 100k x 100k orbit of tylo (which takes energy to get to) to land and then get back to orbit probably takes like 5k, not sure exactly. There's no atmosphere to mess up your ISP or waste delta-v fighting on the way up, but you have to do a huge burn on the way down so that you don't hit the ground at near-orbital velocity because of no air
i actually delivered the second half of my satellite to a 100k x 100k kerbin orbit with a single stage, maybe the SpaceY parts are a bit overpowered. Hard to say exactly because more smaller parts of comparable mass might be just as good? I don't have that much problem getting quite a lot of delta-v out of rockets with no budget. Maybe i should do an eve return
On August 17 2015 10:51 Cyro wrote: I need some fun stuff to do. Maybe a Tylo return? Station stuff is fun but i don't really have the imagination to build them
Those kind of missions are a little easier these days, I think, if you take along an ISRU, an Ore tank, and some drills.
I just remember building landers for all of the different bodies and having to develop a "super heavy lander" that was able to safely land, and take off, from Tylo. These days, you don't need to drag ALL the fuel with you, which may make it easier. I haven't tried it since 1.0.
I do remember though that the lander in question was easily SSTO from Kerbin.
Kerbin launch requires ~3.2km/s of delta-v
going from a 100k x 100k orbit of tylo (which takes energy to get to) to land and then get back to orbit probably takes like 5k, not sure exactly. There's no atmosphere to mess up your ISP or waste delta-v fighting on the way up, but you have to do a huge burn on the way down so that you don't hit the ground at near-orbital velocity because of no air
i actually delivered the second half of my satellite to a 100k x 100k kerbin orbit with a single stage, maybe the SpaceY parts are a bit overpowered. Hard to say exactly because more smaller parts of comparable mass might be just as good? I don't have that much problem getting quite a lot of delta-v out of rockets with no budget. Maybe i should do an eve return
Have you considered going for the full grand tour of the Jool system? Hit all the moons and return.
I watched a few Scott Manley videos recently and decided that Real Solar System was a good idea. Now instead of ~3.5 km/s delta-v to get to Low Kerbin Orbit, its ~10 km/s to get to Low Earth Orbit... in a fairly inclined orbit... that isn't coplanar with any moons or planets... and most of the engines can only ignite between 1 and 3 times, with 5 being a rarity consigned to mediocre vacuum engines.
Needless to say that so far, only having gotten a few missions to orbit the moon, space planes aren't yet a gleam in my engineers' eyes.
On August 17 2015 10:51 Cyro wrote: I need some fun stuff to do. Maybe a Tylo return? Station stuff is fun but i don't really have the imagination to build them
Those kind of missions are a little easier these days, I think, if you take along an ISRU, an Ore tank, and some drills.
That would only make it harder, since you have to carry all that equipment over there. For a Tylo lander you should go for the lightest possible design. Don't try to land with a mainsail like Scott Manley did in his Tylo or Bust series, just use a command seat and 1 engine with high TWR.
Tylo and Eve are 2 very different challenges. Tylo is the hardest to land on, because of the high gravity and no atmosphere to slow you down. You need to be rather precise with your landing or you will waste a lot of delta-v that you need to get into orbit again. Eve is super easy to land on and launching from the surface isn't exactly hard either, the problem is actually building something with enough delta-v in atmosphere and getting it to Eve without losing your sanity (have fun with 1fps).
On August 17 2015 17:25 Mordanis wrote: I watched a few Scott Manley videos recently and decided that Real Solar System was a good idea. Now instead of ~3.5 km/s delta-v to get to Low Kerbin Orbit, its ~10 km/s to get to Low Earth Orbit... in a fairly inclined orbit... that isn't coplanar with any moons or planets... and most of the engines can only ignite between 1 and 3 times, with 5 being a rarity consigned to mediocre vacuum engines.
Needless to say that so far, only having gotten a few missions to orbit the moon, space planes aren't yet a gleam in my engineers' eyes.
Meh, RSS makes the game too slow and repetitive, imo. Much prefer building crazy self-sustaining Eve colonies and Jool orbital outposts than spend 15 minutes staring at Kerbin orbital insertion burns with every launch.
I consider an Eve return to be much harder than a Tylo one. Tylo only requires you to have enough TWR and deltaV. The only "magic" you can do is utilize gravity assists to save fuel to and from Tylo.
Eve has killed more Kerbals than I can count.
On August 17 2015 18:52 nimbim wrote: (...), the problem is actually building something with enough delta-v in atmosphere and getting it to Eve without losing your sanity (have fun with 1fps).
The deltaV requirement is not terrible as long as you are able to land it on a mountain.
8km/s in atmosphere is still a lot. Landing on the highest point is actually next to impossible, you would rather use a lander with wheels and drive up there after landing in relative proximity. The drive will still take an hour or more IRL.
The delta-v on eve doesn't seem that hard with unlimited budget, i saw an imgur album recently with a fairly medium sized launcher that got up with ~3.5km/s left
it might be more like 6km/s of atmospheric delta-v from a fairly realistic landing height (3-5km) now. Not sure exactly, if i go there i'l be overbuilt to hell anway
eve ascent because of the 5 atmospheres is probably much more sensitive to your craft design, TWR and ascent profile now; that could make 2 different players need different amounts of delta-v
also, you can SpaceY/KW the parts up there with kerbal joint reinforcement and you'll have like 5x more FPS than playing stock. I recently noticed atmospheric effects killing FPS and lowered them, now my FPS around ~300-1000m/s is not even comparable to before as well, maybe twice as high
Manual flight to LKO with ~2.92km/s of DV, so 3200 shouldn't be that hard. Good video to link to people when they say ascent takes way more
SpaceY continuously impresses me with its power. Aero effects still kills FPS - even there, you see it drop a ton as i speed up and increase a lot as i drop the 2 tanks at 1:52~ you can disable them, but i didn't take them back too far yet
The timing was semi-accidental but pretty amazing. It was my second launch, so i knew the distance i tried the first time would have me far ahead of the station but i hit it dead-on without even looking at the map view :D
Overkilled on the rocket. That thing had enough delta-v to take that 100-ton station section to Jool (2150m/s after dropping fairing 200 meters away from the main station) and by the time all the tanks were dropped, it had a 5.0 TWR while holding the station section in LKO - i could have added a smaller engine with a decoupler under it, maybe even a bit more fuel on top of that and it would have been much more efficient after the huge crazy engine doesn't have to carry the weight of all of the drop tanks any more and has been able to empty the fuel stored in the engine part itself
can't wait for the even-bigger-sized SRB's (the biggest ones are the moment are 2.5m i think; SpaceY is soon adding ones equivelant in thickness to the biggest stock fuel tanks)
Finally got around to continuing my career save and spent ~500k setting up a Minmus station for science generation(I'm at a point where stockpiling money isn't hard, but somewhat science starved).
Notable things include ~6000 electricity storage - enough to last for the dark side while processing, and easily enough generation to refill batteries. -3.5 ton lander module fully stocked with science gear, ~1.2k dV(enough to hit a polar biome and return, or hit surface twice without refueling) - enough fuel to make a couple dozen trips to the surface and back with the lander(~3000 total capacity)
I still need to make a SSTO or mostly reusable craft for transporting kerbals to and from the station though, which is probably next on my list of things to accomplish.
Probably my most complex station to date, and definitely one of my laggiest with around 6 launches worth of parts and stuff. Next on the list is to get both my scientists up there to land on minmus plant a flag, and return to get my level 2 kerbals.
Every time in career mode I end up at around where you are with extensive activity at Minmus and some exploration of Duna and Eve. Then a new patch is released which makes career different enough that, and I "have to" restart because of new features. The same thing will happen with the 1.05 release which should be out very soon. The update promises contextual missions which involve things you already have in space. There will also be new and redesigned parts. I'm not sure if constraints on communication will be part of this patch or the next, but it should be interesting too.
On October 25 2015 21:36 stenole wrote: Every time in career mode I end up at around where you are with extensive activity at Minmus and some exploration of Duna and Eve. Then a new patch is released which makes career different enough that, and I "have to" restart because of new features. The same thing will happen with the 1.05 release which should be out very soon. The update promises contextual missions which involve things you already have in space. There will also be new and redesigned parts. I'm not sure if constraints on communication will be part of this patch or the next, but it should be interesting too.
Are you sure the update will be save breaking though? You won't necessarily have to restart.
On October 26 2015 04:43 Epoxide wrote: Are you sure the update will be save breaking though? You won't necessarily have to restart.
I said "have to" restart. I did not mean that it was save breaking (although this could be a possibility). It feels wrong to continue on a career that started out with different rules and conditions. If activity on Eve gets harder in a patch, it will not feel right to have lots of equipment there from an earlier version. There might also be changes you miss out on if you don't replay the early game.
Hey guys! :D I just got back from seeing The Martian (very good and accurate to IRL, orbital mechanics, launches etc but it's obvious where they cut some sciency stuff from the book in some places - also it doesn't have any watchable trailers because of the abundance of huge spoilers; i'm glad to have gone in blind!)
thinking of playing KSP with ~4 - 6.4x scale now on a seperate save for a bit, at least for a few cool missions. RSS is a bit hardcore and perhaps not even fair without differnet part stats but the default KSP feels way too small and also too easy in some ways IMO.
I got better at the game now, did Tylo return, got a lot better at launches and rendezvous. I also learned more about orbital mechanics! Actually checked some numbers because i was curious:
If you do a burn from LKO to Jool intercept, it takes ~1900m/s. That's the equivelant of escaping the kerbin SOI (930m/s) + 970m/s to put you on a hohmann transfer orbit to Jool.
If you do that 930m/s burn to escape the SOI and then burn for jool transfer from outside of the kerbin SOI, instead of taking 970m/s to transfer, it takes 3515m/s. You have a total burn of ~4445m/s instead of ~1900m/s because of the Oberth Effect alone
I also borked one of my launches (went more horizontal earlier than intended, didn't reach >70km apoapsis or turn off engines until over 2300m/s) and it actually turned out even more efficient: + Show Spoiler +
2932m/s vacuum delta-v to get to 73x72km orbit on my first flight. That was a bit of a shock, an autopilot mod with a bunch of iterations on the same ascent and some good programming could probably get into the 2800's. I feel very comfortable with 3250 now using gravity turn trajectories with a wide range of TWR's! (gets up there smoothly 10 times out of 10, especially if the launch vehicle is in a certain configuration that i like)
I'm interested in this but feels a bit intimidating.
Is there a guide at the start that lets player ease into the game? What's the most important skill required to play this game? Creativity? Patience? Pen, Paper and Math? I got to level 4 of Besieged and got kicked in the face by lack of creativity, so am slightly intimidated by sandbox games.
On November 03 2015 09:49 spritzz wrote: I'm interested in this but feels a bit intimidating.
Is there a guide at the start that lets player ease into the game? What's the most important skill required to play this game? Creativity? Patience? Pen, Paper and Math? I got to level 4 of Besieged and got kicked in the face by lack of creativity, so am slightly intimidated by sandbox games.
The hard part IMO is the presumed knowledge of aerodynamics and/or orbital dynamics. Without reading some guides and talking to some people who know their stuff, it's very hard for some people without prior knowledge to get into. The career system is not great IMO and the tutorials don't cover that stuff particularly well - it makes it more of a sandbox with an obligation for you to do research, talk to other people and take inspiration from outside of the game, though it's still an excellent game if you do so. I would hate to be trapped in a room with KSP, lacking some knowledge/inspiration and no internet connection but if you enjoy looking outside the game (go post on www.reddit.com/r/kerbalspaceprogram ) then it's a lot of fun and a good way to learn and actually put the knowledge of orbital mechanics and everything else to work.
maybe this is a good place to start:
Math is important but most of the players are using pretty basic understandings and doing fine. There are mods to calculate and display some numbers for you automatically so that you're not pressured into using spreadsheets or anything like that, even for more complex craft. You can use a lot of math or a little, is up to you
On November 03 2015 09:49 spritzz wrote: I'm interested in this but feels a bit intimidating.
Is there a guide at the start that lets player ease into the game? What's the most important skill required to play this game? Creativity? Patience? Pen, Paper and Math? I got to level 4 of Besieged and got kicked in the face by lack of creativity, so am slightly intimidated by sandbox games.
I would say the most important "skill" is perfectionism. Because you can play the game very inefficiently and still complete the missions you set for yourself (or missions gotten from contracts). Perfectionism is what will drive you to design optimized vessels and fly optimized trajectories. That same perfectionism is what will drive you to learn the math required to play the game well.
In a sense, the game is like Starcraft. You can can be playing terribly and not know it. A perfectionist will be able to find what can be done better. And as with Starcraft, those seemingly tiny details have a huge impact on the quality of your play. In Starcraft small inefficiencies quickly compound and propagate until the game is lost. In KSP, tiny inefficiencies will also compound and propagate but for different reasons.
Most important skill is curiosity and ability to spot and learn from mistakes.
KSP is easy to play. Hard parts, like figuring out the best window for a flight to duna, can be done by mods like Mechjeb. The actual flying part is very easy, the game boils down to being able to understand basic aerodynamic (actually, only about drag), and build things accordingly. Meaning, put fins on the bottom of your rocket, and you got the ascend pretty much covered.
My first moon landing i had after roughly 2 hours, back then without mod-support (didn't know about them). It's really not rocket science, no need to be intimidated by it.
edit: math is pretty much a nonissue too, no shame in using Mechjeb or Engineer to calculate your DeltaV (happens automatically). Most of the famous and respected KSP players (Scott Manley, DasValdez) use them too.
edit2: actually, check DasValdez' series called "Kerbal Space Academy". I assume it's on youtube. That'll help you (enabled my girlfriend to get to the mun too) - he's very beginner-friendly and focuses on teaching the game to beginners.
It literally is rocket science but it's simplified in some ways, a lot of stuff that's neccesary IRL does not apply at all and as a whole it's made easier by the small size of the kerbal solar system
It literally is rocket science but it's simplified in some ways, a lot of stuff that's neccesary IRL does not apply at all and as a whole it's made easier by the small size of the kerbal solar system
There's pretty much no rocket science in unmodded KSP mate. Like.. none. Neither do you have to chose fuels, nor do you have to worry about re-ignites, fuel pumps or anything that actually is rocket science and not orbital mechanics. Which are not rocket science, yet again.
There's pretty much no rocket science in unmodded KSP mate. Like.. none. Neither do you have to chose fuels, nor do you have to worry about re-ignites, fuel pumps or anything that actually is rocket science and not orbital mechanics. Which are not rocket science, yet again.
I think since rocket science is not a well-defined term, people should be allowed to decide what is and what isn't rocket science for themselves. I would say it is a very restrictive view to say that orbital mechanics is not an element in rocket science. I will agree that KSP abstracts and simplifies away the majority of what goes into rocket engineering though.
There's pretty much no rocket science in unmodded KSP mate. Like.. none. Neither do you have to chose fuels, nor do you have to worry about re-ignites, fuel pumps or anything that actually is rocket science and not orbital mechanics. Which are not rocket science, yet again.
I think since rocket science is not a well-defined term, people should be allowed to decide what is and what isn't rocket science for themselves. I would say it is a very restrictive view to say that orbital mechanics is not an element in rocket science. I will agree that KSP abstracts and simplifies away the majority of what goes into rocket engineering though.
Even if you'd include orbital mechanics in rocket science, then you're left with, well just that in KSP. It's not simplified rocket science, it simply is not rocket science.
It's like saying "Surgeon Simulator 2013" is "literally neurosurgery, just simplified in some ways". It's not, i'm sorry.
That doesn't make it a bad game or anything (i poured roughly 500 hours on steam into it - and more to come) - it just doesn't make it rocket science.
Just because you simplify it does not mean it is not there at all.
KSP is a lot better in portraying the actual science of space travel than any other game i have seen so far. Designing crafts in stock KSP still has a lot of the relevant aspects to it. Staging reasonable engines in a way that allows you to boost loads into orbit by dropping some parts of the rocket once they burn out, aerodynamic designs (Though stock aerodynamics are not the best, they are still relevant to keep in mind), dealing with reasonable space physics, designing landers, stuff like that.
The things you mention that are not there are not really core parts of rocket physics. Yes, they are important in actual rocket design, as are a host of other things that neither you or i know about. Sometimes it is important to not get bogged down in details and look at the broad picture, especially when talking about what is fundamentally still supposed to be a game and not a job at NASA.
Enthusiasts sometimes have this tendency to get bogged down in details and start to believe that those details are actually the big picture. Yes, fuel selection, reignitions and who knows what else become relevant to rocket design once you have actually understood the basic principles of multi-stage rockets, orbital insertions and the likes. But at that point you are already learning a lot about the science of rocketry (which one might call rocket science). Just because there are some parts of rocketry that are not simulated does not mean that none are there.
Them new shuttle engines... oh my. I was able to get a shuttle (mostly intact) to orbit in under 15 minutes and 4 launches. Then had to rescue the crew because the wings got knocked off by the main tank separating.
One of the first thing I tested was to have a controlled crash in the ocean with a simple plane. I hit the water much harder than intended but the plane was still in one piece. This was not at all designed to be a sea plane, but the plane was still able to take off by throttling up.
I managed to rip stuff off even when using kerbal joint reinforcement and below ~70m/s. It might be quite friendly to controlled crashes if your vertical speed is minimal to none
If they make the jets/rockets not work under water, how else will we move our submarines around? It's not like they'll give us a prop any time soon. (Unless Porkjet gets bored.)
Surviving on water is probably based on the vertical speed, from quick testing with KJR on i seemed to be able to survive at very high speeds at long as vertical speed was controlled
these panther engines seem to like to flame out when disengaging the afterburners and sometimes even stay flamed out for a few seconds. If you're relying on the thrust vectoring for stability aid (COM not far in front of COL) and that happens then it can be fatal, i've had a plane yaw slightly to the side and then snap backwards @ >50g's :D
They also asymmetrically flamed out on me and i was under the impression that it wouldn't happen any more like that
fully reusable rocket to put 100t in LKO, at revision 1.03 ATM
It seems tricky to land. I'm surprised it could handle a 12 m/s touchdown, especially for such a large object. Are you playing 1.03 because of mods or because you disagree with the current reentry heat/drag in 1.05?
Mods in this game are an addiction. Once you install, it's hard to go back because some of them completely change how you play.
12m/s was too fast, i didn't handle the landing that well. RCS got it covered :D
Legs don't seem to work in large sizes, i tried a dozen times and a 6m/s touchdown would make it bounce and flip - one attempt i forgot to put landing legs back on and landed perfectly then was able to reproduce it, the addition of RCS just made it much easier. Should have always had RCS on it but i underestimated the power and overestimated the fuel consumption of those things
I just crashed a plane into another plane that was stationary on water. Most of the shattered plane ended up ~500m underwater, i was moving the camera around between them and some were getting nudged randomly by invisible forces. One of them suddenly accelerated to 1.7 million meters per second and went from underwater to out of the atmosphere in 1 physics tick :D
The question is if this is a new bug caused by the water or if this is an older quirk in the game engine. I've noticed the game is very liberal in its simulation of things you are not controlling. Some of them will just spontaneously explode when they get into physics range.
Oh, well, it's an aerodynamic part. It may have been bonked by spooky forces.
I've also noticed that some of my craft will randomly shimmy themselves apart, usually upon load or on exiting timewarp. These are all craft which seemed fine previously. I'm told that it may be an issue with too much clipping with gizmos, and some things (the Kraken bay) are more affected by others.
Of course, if you make a game that lets players do things in interesting and unorthodox ways, it does get tough to lock down all the possible permutations of "They did WHAT?" from tender loving Kraken tentacles.
Never had much trouble with timewarp exit disassembly, so I always wondered why Kerbal Joint Reinforcement makes it such a big selling point. Now I know, and have no intention of removing it
My save bugged out when looking at one of those pieces outside of the solar system and all of my craft (stations, fuel depots etc) disappeared, had to revert to earlier version
Can anyone tell me what to do with chutes and the reentry physics? I played last time before reentry heat and all that stuff was in and i can't figure out when to deploy my chutes. You are too fast for them to not malfunction until the very end when it's too late and when you open them in low orbit they just burn on reentry. How is that supposed to work?
Try a less aggressive re-entry. I usually go for something like a 100km ap 30km pe. Apply a drogue chute if you're deorbiting something heavy and aerodynamic that punches through the atmosphere regardless.
On December 19 2015 19:51 Broetchenholer wrote: Can anyone tell me what to do with chutes and the reentry physics? I played last time before reentry heat and all that stuff was in and i can't figure out when to deploy my chutes. You are too fast for them to not malfunction until the very end when it's too late and when you open them in low orbit they just burn on reentry. How is that supposed to work?
Parachute icons in the staging will tell you when it is unsafe, risky and safe to open them colorcoded red, yellow, grey. Drogue chutes can be opened at higher speeds than the normal ones and you can use some of those to slow you down to use the regular chutes. Air brakes can be even better since you can safely deploy them already at 1000ish m/s.
You should always choose a shallow entry into the atmosphere. Apo does not necessarily need to be low depending on what you are trying to get to the ground. Heavier, sleek craft will have a harder time slowing down. Some may be so heavy that they need some thrust to not burn up. In my experience, you will want one or more heat shields if you plan to get anything bigger than a pod to the ground. An alternative is to have enough wings to make the reentry very shallow and therefore very safe. This implies a high angle of attack.
It can be hard to determine what you need without trying and failing a few times.
Hm, i am in my first attempts at career mode and just wanted something to reach the upper atmosphere, so, the second ship basically. It flies up to 110km and then comes down and there is no way to open the chutes. This is really irritating. Is it really physically problematic to free fall from that distance and open a parachute?
Edit: I reach safe speeds at around 300-500m. I don't have air brakes or special chutes. Do i have to do low orbit missions until i can research better chutes?
You can improve your reentry so you don't just fall straight down, although I don't think that should be an issue with your mission profile. You can open the parachutes as soon as the reentry effects stop, that should be well above 500m. Are you turning your cockpit retrograde? If the pointy end points at your velocity vector, you will of course have less friction and slow down less.
On December 20 2015 04:05 Broetchenholer wrote: Hm, i am in my first attempts at career mode and just wanted something to reach the upper atmosphere, so, the second ship basically. It flies up to 110km and then comes down and there is no way to open the chutes. This is really irritating. Is it really physically problematic to free fall from that distance and open a parachute?
If you go straight up and down like that, you end up being supersonic until you get very (too) low. So unless you have some retro thrust, it's a suicide trajectory only suitable for probes. Manned missions should mostly have a very horizontal decent which you manage by making a gravity turn during ascent. It won't get you as high though.
Early career is the trickiest part of the game. You're restricted to few resources and have difficult ship constraints. You also don't get to use manouver nodes.
Dumb question: what exactly comes down for you, just the capsule or a whole rocket? Because even if you go straight up, and then straight down, the capsule itself should easily be able to apply enough drag to be at safe speeds around 2500m.
I'm guessing now, but a capsule from 110k straight down reaches around 1700-1800ms, that should easily be stopped by drag (if you keep the capsule retrograde, or "nose pointing up").
edit: actually gonna try now, to make sure i don't say something wrong.
edit2: yup, capsule itself slows down to safe speeds (280ish ms) at 2400m. Shot a Mk1 straight up to 111000m, decoupled and let it fall straight down. Only 1x Mk16 on top of the Mk1.
I'm going to guess from experience before you get results that it's not enough to slow the capsule down. You really need more of an arc with your trajectory.
On December 20 2015 08:03 Ljas wrote: Nope, stock 1.0.5 KSP. One of the first flights of my career mode.
Hum. I had quite a few problems to get used to the new stock flight model (and even longer to get used to voxel based FAR), but that never happened to me.
Is there a difficulty setting that fiddles with drag other than the F12 menu?
I don't think so, and if there was I didn't fiddle with it. I've had a couple of deaths from not being able to safely open the chute early enough so now I always pack a drogue just in case.
On December 20 2015 07:39 m4ini wrote: It still should work though.
Dumb question: what exactly comes down for you, just the capsule or a whole rocket? Because even if you go straight up, and then straight down, the capsule itself should easily be able to apply enough drag to be at safe speeds around 2500m.
I'm guessing now, but a capsule from 110k straight down reaches around 1700-1800ms, that should easily be stopped by drag (if you keep the capsule retrograde, or "nose pointing up").
edit: actually gonna try now, to make sure i don't say something wrong.
edit2: yup, capsule itself slows down to safe speeds (280ish ms) at 2400m. Shot a Mk1 straight up to 111000m, decoupled and let it fall straight down. Only 1x Mk16 on top of the Mk1.
It's just a capsule, a heat shield and the chute (or 2 additional radial chutes, which does not work). The ship i used had a hammer as first stage and then as 2nd stage a reliant with two 200 tanks, then third stage heatshield with MK1. It goes up to 140 km i think, then falls and dies. I had tried to get some more science by doing biome hops, but i don't have the manoevering capabilities to actually steer anything bigger then the smallest ships. It has become really hard
Edit:
On December 20 2015 08:09 m4ini wrote: Video on last page, edited in. Quality still sucks, but yeah.
edit, finally 1080p now. Forgot to turn on sound recording, hmph.
Guess i just need to park the capsule lower in orbit, my fall seems to be too much. There is no need for that altitude, i just experimented with my first staged rockets in the new version and wondered how to solve this. Thanks for the help.
Stages before that are not important for re-entry, that's why i just used a booster and infinite fuel to check. At 140km it might not be possible anymore, that's true.
Biome hopping never really works, all you can do is basically build a small "lander", then basically ballistically shoot it at the biome you wanna check, land and retrieve. Easier when you get an actual working plane, but that's so far down the line that for the same amount of research needed, you could just fly to duna.
At the start, all i do basically is get all the science from launch pad and runway (they count as different things), also important: if your capsule lands, and you go EVA for an EVA report, do two. One while hanging on the capsule (counts as "flying over x"), and one of the ground. Then just shoot stuff randomly in all directions, one into water (again, one hanging on ladder, one in water), etc etc. That'll get you going.
edit: by small lander i mean just the capsule, one goo and later one science bay (then you need more than the Mk16 chute though, otherwise the bay will blow up).
edit2: also, of course, see to it that you get at least the science bay and thermometer quick. It's easy and "light" science that you can take most places. Also, upgrade, uhm.. I think it's the radar station? To be able to go EVA in flight? I can't remember anymore, fact is though, there's two buildings, one upgrade gives you the ability to go EVA in flight (two more options per planet/satellite to get science, low orbit and high orbit/space near x), and the other one enables you to get ground samples. That's the more important one, that's extra science in every biome (120 science extra on mun every landing).
edit3: sigh, should stop "updating post" before finish thinking. You could also use the rocket you're using right now, fly straight up until on the mapview it shows your apoapsis (highest point on the curve) at 110km (or 100km, for that matter), and then flop the rocket just 90 degrees sideways, picking up horizontal speed. Gives you longer time on descent for drag to work.
Yeah, that's what i meant by biome hopping, taking all the science out of the runway, the landing area, grasslands, shores, water etc. The EVA report ability is the astronaut complex. Now i just realised i need the vehicle assembling building updated as well, as it's really really hard to orbit with a space-craft with less then 18t. This game has gotten really really hard.
Edit: And i am rambling again, the vehicle assembling building is only responsible for the number of parts, the weight limitating come from the launchpad, which is way less expensive to upgrade
Yep, these are pretty much two of the most important upgrades for going to space. After these are upgraded, you can basically brute-force your ships into orbit with boosters.
And, it's not really hard. The only problem i have with the difficulty is that it's somehow inverted. It's hard-ish at start, and once you get your first mun-flyby, the game's pretty much over. From there on, science for days (because landing is easy on the mun, each flight nets you around 300 science), and money never was an issue in the first place.
Only difficult thing from there is basically "spotting" the transfer windows for Duna etc.
On December 21 2015 06:52 m4ini wrote: Yep, these are pretty much two of the most important upgrades for going to space. After these are upgraded, you can basically brute-force your ships into orbit with boosters.
And, it's not really hard. The only problem i have with the difficulty is that it's somehow inverted. It's hard-ish at start, and once you get your first mun-flyby, the game's pretty much over. From there on, science for days (because landing is easy on the mun, each flight nets you around 300 science), and money never was an issue in the first place.
Only difficult thing from there is basically "spotting" the transfer windows for Duna etc.
Eh. Throw enough money and dV at it and transfer windows aren't that important.
On December 21 2015 06:52 m4ini wrote: Yep, these are pretty much two of the most important upgrades for going to space. After these are upgraded, you can basically brute-force your ships into orbit with boosters.
And, it's not really hard. The only problem i have with the difficulty is that it's somehow inverted. It's hard-ish at start, and once you get your first mun-flyby, the game's pretty much over. From there on, science for days (because landing is easy on the mun, each flight nets you around 300 science), and money never was an issue in the first place.
Only difficult thing from there is basically "spotting" the transfer windows for Duna etc.
Eh. Throw enough money and dV at it and transfer windows aren't that important.
While true, i really dislike orbital construction, so single launch to duna (with return) doesn't really work in 1.0.5 if you don't hit a decent window.
Can someone here bring a little clarity in aircrafts? The intakes confuse me to no end. Intake air is 2.0 and intake area is 0,1 m², what does that mean in terms of efficiency? My first designs were planes with 2 to 4 small radial intakes connecte to a MK0 fuselage connecte to one Juno jet engine and those attached to the body of the plane. Worked somewhat good, i reached 10k meters altitude and top speeds of 280 m/s.
Now i got the next tech and tried to implement the new generation of stuff. The thing is though, the physics don't make any sense any more. the bigger jet engine should have more thrust then 4 junos together, yet, the plane just is not faster, it reaches less altitude and it behaves worse with a lighter construction... I every sort of air intake to provide the engine with air, they all did basically nothing. One small circular intake seems to suffice for the whole new big engine. If i install more, i don't get more thrust.
So, i checked the thruster and saw the thrust decline with every meter higher above sea. It amkes no sense. The Engine should not lose thrust the higher i am if i provide it with enough air which does not seem to cap. At the same time, i should get faster if i am higher due to less drag. The drag never is a problem though, i am just getting slower and slower. Is the engine limited to height? The engine is barely better on sea level compared to the 4 junos, do these jet engines have different ISPs on different heights as well?
Every air breathing engine in KSP has a constant Isp and has thrust (and fuel consumption) dependent mostly on air speed and air pressure (or altitude). Somewhere on the internet you can find curves which show the effects of each of these on the thrust. How much air is provided only matters if you are underfeeding the engine.
This varying thrust is also normal in a lot of real life engines which dictates their normal operating speed and altitude. When the air is thinner, you can't just push more air into the engine. The more air you compress the more heat is created. An engine despite being designed to handle heat, has its limits.
Why your more advanced jet engine is underperforming can't be well explained from what you've written in your post. A reason a plane would be going slower could be drag and/or mass. No matter what, there will always be a bump in drag around mach 1, the sound barrier. Engines like the Juno, whesley and goliath will have trouble exceeding this speed.
On December 20 2015 08:01 Ljas wrote: I swear I've killed a kerbal like that by bringing just a capsule down from a suborbital flight.
When that happens, it's due to re-entering too steeply. You need to do suborbital more sideways than up - if stuff goes really wrong, you can also jump out of the capsule with your kerbal and it'll slow down to about 50m/s by itself. If you burn upwards with RCS (shift hotkey i think) you can slow it down to about 37m/s and i have not died hitting water at that speed since the 1.0.5 water rework!
-----
While true, i really dislike orbital construction, so single launch to duna (with return) doesn't really work in 1.0.5 if you don't hit a decent window.
At least i couldn't do it.
Study the rocket equation and don't be afraid to build large rockets (:
-----
The thing is though, the physics don't make any sense any more. the bigger jet engine should have more thrust then 4 junos together, yet, the plane just is not faster, it reaches less altitude and it behaves worse with a lighter construction... I every sort of air intake to provide the engine with air, they all did basically nothing. One small circular intake seems to suffice for the whole new big engine. If i install more, i don't get more thrust.
So, i checked the thruster and saw the thrust decline with every meter higher above sea. It amkes no sense. The Engine should not lose thrust the higher i am if i provide it with enough air which does not seem to cap. At the same time, i should get faster if i am higher due to less drag.
All air breathing engines have thrust curves against two things: Speed and Altitude.
The basic engines have most of their thrust below mach 1 and have a lot of trouble exceeding it, but can get through it and cruise around mach 1.4 if you have a lot of TWR or if you dive a bit to pick up speed to get from ~300 to ~380m/s.
The other engines like different speeds. For the Whiplash and Rapier this speed is around mach 3.2 and 3.8 IIRC, but you have to get up to a decent speed before the real thrust starts to kick in, especially for the Rapier. The other engine with the thrust vectoring is a middle ground, not super fast but better than the basic engines and can use afterburner to break mach 1 easily.
As you gain altitude, thrust decreases. The amount of drag on the aircraft decreases faster than the thrust drops off up to a certain point - the peak thrust to drag. That happens around 7km for the wheesley and about 15km and 18km for the Whiplash and Rapier. That's the altitude where peak speed is reached, though it's important to note that acceleration is easier at lower altitudes due to the higher thrust.
Intake air is not important as long as you have enough. If you're not flaming out, don't worry about it.
To help visualize some of the stuff said, here's a few old pics that may no longer by entirely accurate:
The basic jet performs well up to like ~mach 1.7 actually, but it has a very hard time accelerating through the ~300-380m/s barrier because of the increased drag there.
-----------
I'm thinking of putting one of these things into low kerbin orbit - beautiful :D
can fly into the middle and dock, then it has ~4km/s of delta-v at high thrust. Plus with a mass like that, carrying the fuel to refuel one of these planes once or twice wouldn't impact the delta-v that much.
This is the type of plane that can technically almost certainly do a laythe return by itself, but you'll have to do 25 gravity assists. That's true for any laythe and back SSTO really - long burns, terrible TWR's and gravity assists again and again and again. Having some lovely engines to dock to really makes the experience a whole lot simpler and more enjoyable! :D
A nice view of the falcon 9 launch yesterday (to see the angles of flight etc) - recommend max resolution and fullscreen, it's pretty small from that distance
Study the rocket equation and don't be afraid to build large rockets (:
Yeah, no. Has pretty much zero to do with "study the rocket equation". Has to do with the fact that i think building rockets wider than the space center is kinda stupid. Launching 20k-30k (even more actually) delta-v isn't fun to me.
Well, you have to settle for something if you want to play this game at all. If we are talking just about Duna, it's really not that hard to get there and back in a single launch without building a monstrosity, but if you look at Jool and Moho the delta-v requirements are simply too high. Either you construct in orbit or launch gigantic stuff from the launchpad, there is no alternative except maybe timewarp for 200years to get a perfect gravity assist transfer.
Study the rocket equation and don't be afraid to build large rockets (:
Yeah, no. Has pretty much zero to do with "study the rocket equation". Has to do with the fact that i think building rockets wider than the space center is kinda stupid. Launching 20k-30k (even more actually) delta-v isn't fun to me.
So if you don't like launching monster rockets that make the game run at 0.1 fps and you don't like orbital construction, you do things in the game you think is fun instead. Designing each stage for what it needs to do instead of overengineering is one way of reducing size, Making sure your manouvers are are close to optimal is another. Sometimes mods can help make previously tedious tasks in the game less tedious. Orbital construction might be more fun if an autopilot did 90% of the work for you.
Well, you have to settle for something if you want to play this game at all. If we are talking just about Duna, it's really not that hard to get there and back in a single launch without building a monstrosity, but if you look at Jool and Moho the delta-v requirements are simply too high. Either you construct in orbit or launch gigantic stuff from the launchpad, there is no alternative except maybe timewarp for 200years to get a perfect gravity assist transfer.
I do, i wouldn't have 600 hours on steam otherwise - plus countless hours before that. And no, obviously it's not hard to get to Duna and back without building monstrosities - if you wait for a decent transfer window.
So if you don't like launching monster rockets that make the game run at 0.1 fps and you don't like orbital construction, you do things in the game you think is fun instead. Designing each stage for what it needs to do instead of overengineering is one way of reducing size, Making sure your manouvers are are close to optimal is another. Sometimes mods can help make previously tedious tasks in the game less tedious. Orbital construction might be more fun if an autopilot did 90% of the work for you.
The performance partially is the reason why i don't build "big things". Might change with 1.1, which i hope fixes all the things. And i certainly do things that i think are fun, even though nowadays it's mostly dicking around with weird plane designs.
I am certainly in the "optimal", "streamlined" and "precise" camp though. Autopilot, well i used mechjeb before but i think it starts to get boring rather quick - only using Kerbal Engi Redux nowadays for the data.
Btw i'm not complaining, i just said it's not possible to go to the "more advanced planets" without a decent transfer window. Maybe i should've added "without launching 50k dV".
Study the rocket equation and don't be afraid to build large rockets (:
Yeah, no. Has pretty much zero to do with "study the rocket equation". Has to do with the fact that i think building rockets wider than the space center is kinda stupid. Launching 20k-30k (even more actually) delta-v isn't fun to me.
I have no idea why you would want 20-30k delta-v for a duna return, even if you have no idea what a transfer window is and completely screw it up.
LKO is 3100m/s Duna transfer is 1040m/s aerobraking and landing without parachute is 350m/s return to orbit and to kerbin is 2000m/s
that's 6.5km/s.
If you take a completely horrible launch time, you may have to add 1 or 2 km/s onto there but unless you're launching completely at random, that much shouldn't be neccesary - a direct transfer to Jool takes 1950m/s, why would Duna take 3000m/s? You can timewarp to a vaguely correct window and wing it without checking the angles at all by that point. You can even do some of those more direct transfers to get a fraction of the travel time that it'd take with a hohmann transfer.
Increasing payload mass requires a linear increase in rocket mass while increasing delta-v requires an exponential increase - that's why it's legit to carry heavy stuff around, but crazy to try to get 20-30km/s of delta-v for no reason with chemical engines. In KSP balance, that takes about ten stages to do "properly", each one multiplying your mass.
For a sane duna return, you can go orbit on one stage, transfer + land on another, orbit+return on third. For an insane one, you can dedicate two stages to transferring and landing - then you're done in 4 relatively simple stages.
I made a rocket to demonstrate this. Quick and simple 3 minute build, no solar panels etc but i overbudgeted the delta-v in transfer and landing stage by 3km/s, 100% stock no scaling. I didn't have to go beyond a relatively simple 2.5m rocket in order to achieve a single launch duna return with such huge margins left.
^I launched with a crazy phase angle so that hohmann transfer was inviable. A single-orbit bi-elliptical transfer cost about 1km/s more, as shown in this picture - still 2km/s reserved in the tanks. Might use a little bit of them capturing at duna, i don't know how tricky that will be.
---------
The performance partially is the reason why i don't build "big things".
I launch absolutely huge things all of the time and run at triple digit FPS. The key is to understand that you can make a perfectly good stage with a fuel tank, an engine and maybe a couple SRB's; you can use one of them instead of using 15 smaller ones and they'll give the same weight, thrust etc but not break the physics system or your CPU. My 10 meter rockets run just as well as my 1.25 meter rockets because of that, but they carry 512x as much payload.
I launch absolutely huge things all of the time and run at triple digit FPS. The key is to understand that you can make a perfectly good stage with a fuel tank, an engine and maybe a couple SRB's; you can use one of them instead of using 15 smaller ones and they'll give the same weight, thrust etc but not break the physics system or your CPU. My 10 meter rockets run just as well as my 1.25 meter rockets because of that, but they carry 512x as much payload.
It's not the size, but the partcount that screws the physics. And i'm certainly not going to argue with you there, it's a well known fact through the whole of the KSP community that the performance tanks horrendous as soon as your partcount goes to 200 and god forbid above. You won't build interesting, or even working rockets with 20 parts if you have a couple of difficulty-mods installed (TAC, DR, ISA, KAS/KIS, IR, RTech). DasValdez (one of the best builders in KSP) constantly struggles to "obey" the "soft" partlimit. On pure stock KSP.
The only way to get around it is to either use plenty of physics-less parts (not really working anymore), or to just stay small.
And no, before you start it: it has nothing to do with configs, settings or anything but a bad engine. Which squad sees the same way, hence the 1.1 engine update, possibly (finally) with a (edit: working) 64bit client.
But i stand corrected on the duna issue, you can go whenever if you don't play with mods like TAC.
In other news, 1.1 actually went experimental this week, which (that's me guessing) means that if nothing goes wrong, in around 4 weeks they'll throw it out.
I'm well aware of the partcount limitations. You can do this fine with TAC and similar mods, i assure you
100 parts runs fairly well, 200-300 does not (CPU demands are nonlinear with part count, more parts add disproportionately more load)
This rocket that i linked you is 20 parts, but i can do it in 10 or so if i'm scaling parts. The ground-to-LKO stage is 8 parts (3 decouplers - 2 fuel tanks - 1 engine - 2 srb's) when it could easily be 2 (decoupler, booster)
I can do it with a launch FPS in the 100 to 300 range.
Yes. And i said, if you don't play with mods, that works. Clearly.
I do. My install is quite highly modded, i just don't have much stuff that outright requires increasing the part count of rockets by a huge amount and i'm not really aware of mods that require that.
Pretty much any science mod, supply mod, tech mod?
But lets agree to disagree, if you can play fine - fine. I'll stick with my opinion (and squads, and the rest of the community) that ambitious stuff in the current engine is not possible while playing "normally".
You could also ask Scott Manley on that, which openly said what i just said, too.
There are some limitations that have important effects and performance is not where i'd like it to be (i sometimes spend more time benchmarking games with different configs and situations than i do playing them!) but it's not anywhere near the extent of a problem that you say it is - you can do single launch return to duna with a small rocket and run at 200fps, like i've shown. You can add a bunch of science parts, life support and drop a colony while you're there without killing performance.
Everyone agrees more parts = less performance = bad, but your experiences are not everyone's. Agreeing to disagree on something when you can easily check the facts and prove one side isn't the right thing to do - i don't mean that in a mean way, am happy to solve any problem that you present. I'm also on a fun little duna return mission at the moment to see if i can do it with a haphazardly thrown together rocket and transfer :D
On March 07 2016 02:41 Cyro wrote: There are some limitations that have important effects and performance is not where i'd like it to be (i sometimes spend more time benchmarking games with different configs and situations than i do playing them!) but it's not anywhere near the extent of a problem that you say it is - you can do single launch return to duna with a small rocket and run at 200fps, like i've shown. You can add a bunch of science parts, life support and drop a colony while you're there without killing performance.
Everyone agrees more parts = less performance = bad, but your experiences are not everyone's. Agreeing to disagree on something when you can easily check the facts and prove one side isn't the right thing to do - i don't mean that in a mean way, am happy to solve any problem that you present. I'm also on a fun little duna return mission at the moment to see if i can do it with a haphazardly thrown together rocket and transfer :D
I have to side with m4ini on the performance issues of KSP. It comes down to how the parts interact with each other. Each part you add will need more calculation than the previous one. The CPU cost of a 20 part rocket is in a whole other universe than a 400 part rocket. And this is something you can't get around by changing how pretty the graphics are or how beefy your computer is. Eventually you will reach a soft part limit where everything becomes slow and unplayable. The number of parts between a smooth, perfect experience and a game that is essentially paused is surprisingly few.
The scaling is not linear AFAIK (every part added costs more performance than the one before it) which means great performance with a small number of parts - lets say 40 or 50 - but completely unplayable with 300 parts.
The argument that i was using is just that you don't have to go to those part counts to do almost anything in the game. For that one example, a single launch duna return, you can fly that in a fun and efficient way with 10-20 parts. For some of the more crazy missions like a single launch mothership to the jool system with landers for tylo and laythe you can break 100 parts, but otherwise you don't have to or have much incentive to.
It's very annoying and limits freedom of expression but it doesn't break the game.
---
For the launch window thing - I think personally with life support, dealing with transfer windows is part of the fun. As an example for not needing transfer windows even for single launch low part count return ships, i took one of the most awkward windows possible for Duna and did a bi-elliptical transfer. Total cost from LKO (75x75km) to low duna orbit was about 1920m/s (1250 and 670 burns), so 880m/s more expensive than a perfectly optimal transfer.
The return was at a very awkward time as well, but that's much cheaper. It was ~660m/s (hohmann) and wait a few years or ~1km/s and don't.
I remember back when 1.0+ SSTO was considered to be hard - people just didn't understand the air breathing engines. Stats & thrust curves (with altitude and speed) helped a lot with that.
I remember back when 1.0+ SSTO was considered to be hard - people just didn't understand the air breathing engines. Stats & thrust curves (with altitude and speed) helped a lot with that.
Nice. If we translate your remaining fuel into cargo it can haul about 60 tons to orbit (a little less to account for the return flight and margin of error). That assumes it was fully fueled at launch. It's probably a good work horse for a space station project.
My only recent KSP achievement is almost getting Jeb up from Eve on a vessel launched from Kerbin. In other words, Eve remains undefeated...
Yeah. w/ a roughly 60t payload capacity, instead of carrying 60 tons of liquid fuel and having a huge range on a spaceplane, you can instead carry a 50 ton craft with its own engines then that can have much, much more delta-v. That smaller craft can fly around, do stuff, fly back, redock into the cargo bay of the plane and land again for 100% recovery. If you're going 100% recovery, you can do so much more that way. It gives the benefits of staging, but you "unstage" again with redocking - the dry mass of the plane is huge and not good to carry around anywhere.
Space station project - i enjoy using far bigger launchers. I have a 100% recoverable rocket that can put 100t in LKO but that's a medium sized rocket for me
Off to Moho with 3m/s² and the most experienced team. Training crew in career mode takes forever. Mun, Dres and Duna landing aren't enough to fully train a Kerbal.
KSP 1.1 looks like it's going into open beta around today or tomorrow. From the content we've seen so far it looks like there will be significant performance improvements, especially to high part count stuff. A lot of that could come from changing the algorithms behind stuff like fuel flow, which previously had an exponentially increasing demand as you increased part count (every part would check every other part for resource flow) and as such would guarantee that systems of any performance would slow to a crawl past a certain point. That point seems further away now; I've seen someone with a CPU half as fast as mine launch a 280-part plane practically in real time.
Single craft still seem to be on one CPU thread as expected because squad are not wizards. There's also a huge loading pause when staging or loading a lot of parts which may be related to CPU and/or storage performance (guy with HDD was having 5 second pauses, but otherwise running at 20+ fps). This is understandable from an optimization point of view as they may have to consider each craft seperately and do a costly "rebuild" of everything that they're considering for it in order to drastically improve performance of those craft - having a 2-5 second pause but then having 50% more FPS when you're playing with hundreds of parts seems worth it.
There are a lot of minor new features (exception to that is the wheels IMO, they seem a LOT better!) that are hard to go into without forgetting anything but working 64-bit and improved performance are on the top of the list ^_^
The performance improvement seems to be bigger than the developers suggested early into the project. I guess they didn't want to promise too much. I'll wait until release though so I don't have to see the ugly new bugs that are sure to be there.
The performance improvement seems to be bigger than the developers suggested early into the project. I guess they didn't want to promise too much
They didn't know and didn't have much control. It's Unity's world, they're just living in it :D
People have previously suggested that KSP could get 5-10x improvements like Besiege, which i was always very skeptical of. The devs were very quiet even late in the development process which was weird. It got to the point where they had said basically nothing, but we got footage of version 1.1 which showed an Xbox 1 flying a stock craft - the Kerbal X with 72 parts - at about 0.5 - 0.7x realtime speed during launch which did not excite many people.
XB1/PS4 cpu is very bad - worse than a 6600k by like 6x if you're running 4 or fewer threads - but this news did not seem to imply strong performance improvements. It turns out they may help the most on craft that the XB1/PS4 can't run well anyway, and systems like mine may have performance functionally doubled on 250-part-craft or perhaps more with multiple craft. I'l be taking a much closer look once i can actually play the game and not just sift through hours of footage from the 24-hour-marathon VOD's on ksptv!
Overall console experimence so far doesn't look good considering that performance and the lack of console UI & mods. They're placing their parts with a thumbstick-controlled-mouse-cursor.
On March 30 2016 02:08 Cyro wrote: You'll have it very soon (but no working mods.. lol)
It wouldn't surprise me if several of the most notable mods will be ready by release. Modders have had special access to experimentals and they have previously been very quick to update their mods with previous releases. The visual improvement mods might take a while to get working though.
Pre-release is live as of about 1:30am UTC (thanks squad.. ) & a small list of mods have working versions including kerbal engineer and spaceY AFAIK.
Right click the game in steam, go to properties - beta - prerelease. You should probably copy/paste your KSP folder somewhere as a backup before doing that.
First impressions: The game looks a little weird. Without testing, i'd guess that frametimes are substantially more consistent so that any given FPS on this new version of the game will look better than the same FPS on older version, which had quite inconsistent frametimes. It's a bit weird because it feels better at ~40fps, but i'm also getting the "woah this is smooth" feeling at framerates way into the triple digits.
Also a little weird. I just dropped 4x110 part craft at the side of the runway and launched a 200 part craft. I get ~65-80fps when not looking at them, but 40fps while i'm looking at them.
The FPS counter ingame does not seem to be accurate when under physics warp or when simulating slower than real time, it looks like it's linked to the physics system (x4 physical timewarp will say that the 180fps cap is 45fps, but you're still at 180fps visually)
There are some interesting things happening in 1.1. From some testing, it looks like some parts of physics are ignored in some situations. I staged away 300 parts and my FPS immediately went to ~150-180 while they were within a few hundred meters of me and clearly in physics simulation range, they were ragdolling around due to drag etc (RIP kerbal joint reinforcement) but they seemed to lose the ability to collide with other parts that were attached to them. Parts of the stage were clipping or flying through other parts quite obviously
First time experimenting with aircraft! I wish I had done this earlier, it's super fun. In typical crasy KSP fashion, this monstrosity is the first stable man-portable tier 1 design I came up with :D
using yaw is a bit tricky, but at least it keeps its course without diving/climbing!
On April 05 2016 21:52 shin ken wrote: First time experimenting with aircraft! I wish I had done this earlier, it's super fun. In typical crasy KSP fashion, this monstrosity is the first stable man-portable tier 1 design I came up with :D
using yaw is a bit tricky, but at least it keeps its course without diving/climbing!
Usually yaw control is something you do not need for a normal plane. You'd probably be better off taking away the front fins that stick straight up. You get better stability if your center of lift in the yaw direction is as far back as possible.
On April 05 2016 21:52 shin ken wrote: First time experimenting with aircraft! I wish I had done this earlier, it's super fun. In typical crasy KSP fashion, this monstrosity is the first stable man-portable tier 1 design I came up with :D
using yaw is a bit tricky, but at least it keeps its course without diving/climbing!
Usually yaw control is something you do not need for a normal plane. You'd probably be better off taking away the front fins that stick straight up. You get better stability if your center of lift in the yaw direction is as far back as possible.
Yes! That was also one of my conclusions after further testing. That's what I love about KSP - the progress. At the end of the day, still using only basic parts, I was able to come up with a design that could fly further (400 units fuel instead of 300) without relying on gimmicks like above! And I learned quite a bit about aerodynamics and fuel efficiency along the way.
Although gimmicky designs can be fun as well :D - I'm still proud of my rocket with boosters alligned in a swastika that could spin itself to orbit ^^ (at that time, I wasn't really understanding SAS, so my solution was building my own SAS by spinning the rocket while climbing through the atmosphere - swastika boosters are ideal for that)
Curiosity got the best of me and forced me to try the pre-release version of 1.1. The new wheel physics model does a lot to keep rovers upright. My bulky top heavy rover/lander/interplanetary vessel could drive almost unattended on Ike at 15m/s. I haven't used rovers much in 1.05, but I vaguely remember that Ike was very cruel to anything with more than 0 wheels.
I still can't figure out rovers at all. I built one for a test and even though it was very basic in design, the wheels kept getting destroyed with small impacts. Drove one of the stock ones around, same thing. It was way too fragile to be fun but i'm not sure if i'm missing anything with the designs
On April 10 2016 19:51 Cyro wrote: I still can't figure out rovers at all. I built one for a test and even though it was very basic in design, the wheels kept getting destroyed with small impacts. Drove one of the stock ones around, same thing. It was way too fragile to be fun but i'm not sure if i'm missing anything with the designs
They're actually working as intended now (apparently there was a bug with collisions/impact damage). Meaning, weight distribution and wheelslip can and will break wheels.
Impact damage is currently kind of buggy, and we are looking into it. Deflection stress (pressure) is still working, as well as slip stress.
In all fairness, i didn't try it yet. Maybe i should, but i always were more interested in "hoppers" than in rovers, mainly because a rover is rather boring to chuck around on a surface. And you can't quicksave while moving, which is the biggest reason.
edit: what wheels are we talking here? TR-2L seem to work fine? edit2: well, on slopes it's rather.. interesting. Tested with a PPD-12, orange tank and big ore container (all loaded) - and 8 wheels. Works fine as long as you don't hit a slope too fast (<10m/s).
Haven't tried the big wheels yet. edit: same. All fine and dandy, until you hit something with 10m/s. Which is 36km/h to be fair, so things should break. Only tested on kerbin, not on lower gravity bodies.
last edit: the bug with impact damage could also play into that, i assume that "hitting a slope" counts as impact. If that's buggy, it would explain why wheels blow up.
They're actually working as intended now (apparently there was a bug with collisions/impact damage). Meaning, weight distribution and wheelslip can and will break wheels.
I made a little car with basically no weight (structural fuselage, 4 wheels) but when i drove off the little hill next to the launchpad at a slow speed (like 5m/s) it would accelerate enough to break the front wheels on the bottom of the hill. Easy enough for unmanned to be a nightmare and annoying even with an engineer kerbal to fix
Otherwise was fine driving around around 30m/s+ IIRC but i'd like a design that works alright on off-road terrain
Yeah ran into roughly the same problem, and i think that's due to the "impact force" on the wheels. That appears to be buggy.
I personally tested with the slope on the runway, i guess that's where the 10m/s come from (not as steep). And yeah, especially since KSP is really not that realistic (who would've thought) when it comes to a broken wheel, with bubblegum joints. No fun at all, given up on rovers long ago.
On April 10 2016 22:23 m4ini wrote:No fun at all, given up on rovers long ago.
Rovers are a pain to get working and spamming quicksave while using one is nearly mandatory, but I get such a kick out of just cruising over various planets, even if there isn't all that much to see most of the time and graphics aren't exactly candy to look at either. Add in the fun of having a pair of rocket engines strapped on at the back and... whooooooooooa!
On April 10 2016 22:23 m4ini wrote:No fun at all, given up on rovers long ago.
Rovers are a pain to get working and spamming quicksave while using one is nearly mandatory, but I get such a kick out of just cruising over various planets, even if there isn't all that much to see most of the time and graphics aren't exactly candy to look at either. Add in the fun of having a pair of rocket engines strapped on at the back and... whooooooooooa!
Playing with EVE, Scatterer, SVE, Planetshine - rockets definitely have the better view compared to a stinky rover.
But yeah, i know what you mean. And it's not that i think rovers aren't fun (i had my share of weird hopping RCS rovers going 100m/s across the mun), it's just not worth the effort. To me, anyway. Dicking around with them, sure - but that's where my rover-journey ends. The spamming quicksave is btw what annoys me the most. Because you have to stop the rover for that, and that can be a real pain on mun, or even worse, minmus.
Worked fine for me, but i didn't install RSS+RO (used RSS+SMURFF). The install is a bit weird too, you need to install an RSS texture pack. I can't wait for proper 1.1 RSS save using the fullsize instead of quarter size textures now :D
The game needs to be changed to allow for caching more data now that there's way more memory headroom and hopefully non-shit asset management. The texture quality is poor til you get too close to stuff and then it stutters loading in alright-quality stuff
On April 12 2016 02:43 Epoxide wrote: maccollo's videos are great, sick sound effects + music + editing
I'd love for rockets to actually sound like that. I mean, i have yet to listen to an actual big booster going off (only heard mediumrange-artillery rockets, they sound different) in real life - but the KSP sounds in that regard are really lackluster.
Now the 3-4 week waiting period for all the mods to update has begun. ._.
edit: second video, the launch abort - that sound i've heard in real life way too often. Every time we trained with artillery rocket launchers (MARS), pretty much.
Ksp is awesome when you keep trying until you get it done
I flew to the mun, but I didn't had enough battery to properly navigate back (and probably not enough fuel as well) The rescue mission was more complicated than everything I have done so far in the game, but now I really know how to do maneuvers in space (it was more like guessing before) and I have a much better rocket that can maybe even fly to the minmus!
On May 23 2016 22:27 shin ken wrote: Ksp is awesome when you keep trying until you get it done
I flew to the mun, but I didn't had enough battery to properly navigate back (and probably not enough fuel as well) The rescue mission was more complicated than everything I have done so far in the game, but now I really know how to do maneuvers in space (it was more like guessing before) and I have a much better rocket that can maybe even fly to the minmus!
If it can get to the Mun and back, it can do the same for Minmus. Minmus is actually the easy target for new players, you just need to make the rendezvous.
On May 23 2016 22:27 shin ken wrote: Ksp is awesome when you keep trying until you get it done
I flew to the mun, but I didn't had enough battery to properly navigate back (and probably not enough fuel as well) The rescue mission was more complicated than everything I have done so far in the game, but now I really know how to do maneuvers in space (it was more like guessing before) and I have a much better rocket that can maybe even fly to the minmus!
If it can get to the Mun and back, it can do the same for Minmus. Minmus is actually the easy target for new players, you just need to make the rendezvous.
I've played a lot of the pre-release, the addition of KerbNet makes the whole thing fun again for me. You could always mod it with RemoteTech but that was pretty buggy and cumbersome iirc. Losing control right before a critical maneuver while deploying communication satellites was great. I recommend turning the additional surface transmitters off, otherwise you get a direct KSC link most of the time.
There are some interesting settings that are oddly disabled by default even on the harder difficulty levels. So, it's a good idea to look through the advanced options so you get the gameplay you want. The Advanced Tweakables option should be on so you get more control over fuel flow without needing to resort to a mod. Plasma blackouts, G-limits, pressure limits etc also brings in some more flavour. I agree about turning off aditional ground stations. I also think the occlusion values should be increased.
A bunch of them are that way because savefiles are compatible back to 1.0, enabling them by default would mess up a lot of them
Ground stations isn't really a difficulty change for many people, it's just about if you enjoy making a more extensive sat network or not - one extra area to cover
The formula is d=sqrt(dish1*dish2). The distance between Jool and Kerbin fluctuates between 52 Gm and 86 Gm.The best antenna with fully upgraded ground station will have control up to 158 Gm distance (100G antenna, 250G ground station).
On October 14 2016 21:49 nimbim wrote: The formula is d=sqrt(dish1*dish2). Say dish1 has 100M (Mega Kerbalwatts?) and dish2 is the ground station fully upgraded, which is 600M. The probe with a 100M dish would have control up to a distance of ~245 Mm from Kerbin. The distance between Jool and Kerbin fluctuates between 52000 Mm and 86000 Mm. Different antennae are combinable, so you could easily have 10x100M on your probe and that would get you ~774 Mm. Unless you have 12300G antenna power, you will need several relays to reach Jool with a signal.
You have your numbers wrong. The ground station is more powerful and so is the most powerful antenna. (I believe the numbers are 100G and 250G.) A fully upgraded tracking station can get a signal out to Eeloo if the probe has the best antenna. If you play above normal difficulty or have manually altered the DSN settings, the range will be lower.
My very brief look at going from a standing start, only KSC ground station, is that while I was putting up the first communications satellite (I dropped it back into atmo; placement was horribly difficult because Apo was in occluded part of the orbit) I noticed that it seems like the occlusion of Kerbin is kindof weird. I had a good signal for about 3/4ths of my orbit, with the signal line cutting through about a quarter of the planet where I would have reservations that any line of sight existed.
Guess I'd have to try and figure out how to increase the occlusion to fix it.
On October 15 2016 13:28 felisconcolori wrote: My very brief look at going from a standing start, only KSC ground station, is that while I was putting up the first communications satellite (I dropped it back into atmo; placement was horribly difficult because Apo was in occluded part of the orbit) I noticed that it seems like the occlusion of Kerbin is kindof weird. I had a good signal for about 3/4ths of my orbit, with the signal line cutting through about a quarter of the planet where I would have reservations that any line of sight existed.
Guess I'd have to try and figure out how to increase the occlusion to fix it.
Yeah, i got that too. It's in the difficulty settings. The problem there is that they put a lower value for bodies, particularly atmospheric bodies w/ the justification that signals travel further / bend in the atmosphere(?) but the GUI just draws a straight line between the craft and the next connection.
It's particularly obvious for suborbital flights or re-entry, i had the GUI line drawn through a large chunk of the planet. Can easily set it higher (1.0 etc) but that may break the ground station placements if you're playing with them
It's a slider in the difficulty settings, isn't it?
A bunch of sliders - occlusion, atmospheric occlusion, range multiplier etc
You can argue that you can in fact bounce radio signals over the horizon in an atmosphere assuming the proper conditions are set up for it (HAM radio operators do it all the time) but those conditions change and do not always allow for the bounce. I don't think ground to space radio works quite that way though. Radio is Line of Sight, or you can at times use specific portions of the atmosphere to reflect radio waves - but I don't see how you'd be able to wrap a signal not only around the planet but also to an object outside of atmosphere.
I mean, sure, it might be possible (I don't have an expert radio license) but I don't think that's how NASA does it.
Yesterday I watched a Kerbal streamer by the name of DasValdez create an intercontinental christmas tree canon inside this game. If you want a ton of laughs I highly recommend you watch the VOD for last night. Too funny.
Felt great, landing burn went much better than expected other than the hard touchdown (~7m/s). I'd like to fly more but half of the time i get within 200 meters of the droneship it flips out and deletes Earth so it takes a long time to get set up again after that
Hey guys, quick question, is there a simple way to parachute your first stage boosters down to get the refund? The game is dead set on making me fail in this regard, it seems enirely possible to strap chutes on a booster and have them open on seperation, which seems to work somewhat okay. However, as soon as the boosters are out of 25 km range of the second stage, they disappear. I have seen one mod that calculates if the might make it, and then simply gives you the money back, but that is kinda lame. I put probes on top of the boosters, thinking that might make them real vessels and not debris. But that did not work. I have seen some videos that somehow managed to do it, but not sure what they changed. Even if i switch to the boosters and then back to my second stage, the boosters disappear. Any tips?
You'd have to switch back to the boosters and land them. The 25km is render distance, and once they are out of that range if they are in atmosphere the game automatically removes them. You'd have to have you second stage ascending and heading out of atmosphere, able to ride by itself for a bit, and switch back to the boosters to land them. Once they're landed, they'll stay and you can switch away to get the second stage up and into orbit; then come back and recover them.
That works with falcon style launchers in stock - the thing is you have to stay with the boosters all the way down until they're landed, and that might not work if you have multiple boosters coming back down after separation.
There's a way to change the physics rendering range. I think it's a mod? Just keep in mind that as you push the limits of this range, rounding errors may shift things around enough to make things go boom.
I think people have also tried putting probe cores on their boosters, but I don't remember if that works. If you can get your boosters out of the atmosphere, but on a suborbital trajectory (with a parachute pre-deployed), I think it might survive. Obviously this is silly and horribly inefficient though.
Damn, that is annoying. How does the game determine what is a valid ship an what is just a probe? If you have a mothership in space and send a probe down to Duna for example, the mothership stays in orbit, so do satellites and probes. Would the probe disappear as soon as you switch back to the mother ship as well or is that only a problem on Kerbin? I mean, the kickback booster has the mention of chute recovery in the flavor text It's not really needed as money isn't the biggest problem in career mode anyway but it was one of the things i simply wanted...
The problem is not the definition of the ship, but that it is in the atmosphere.
The game treats stuff in space as basically save, and assumes that something that you don't control will just burn up in the atmosphere. That is usually a good way of handling things to avoid having to track to many tiny broken parts that no one cares about, but in the specific case of landing boosters, is incorrect. Thus, you need either a mod to prevent stuff from despawning when it is to far away from you, or you need to make sure that the thing you want to land is outside of the atmosphere when you are more than 25 km away from it.
It isn't relevant if it is a ship or a probe or even debris. Stuff sticks around while it is in space or while it is within 25km of you.
The boosters are on a sub-orbital trajectory after decoupling. Once they are out of the physics range of your active vessel, the game will decide whether to remove them or not. Since they are in the atmosphere and on a sub-orbital trajectory, they will be removed. You can notice the difference if you decouple your boosters in a (Pe) 30km-80km (Apo) orbit, the boosters will either be debris or probes, depending on the parts you've used. There is a hard cut-off here (maybe 25km on Kerbin), the vessel will be automatically "crashed" into Kerbin once it's inactive and below height x.
I'm not entirely certain if this is considered a necro, but 1.6 just released.
Anyone tried it? I had a "brief" break, purchased the addon/DLC yesterday for a fiver, and am currently trying to figure out why my landing gears seem to be made out of spaghettified pogosticks.
Still playing sometimes, yeah. Landing gear / legs and a few other things were broken beyond what i'd consider playable on 1.5 so i've been sticking to my 1.3.1 installs as they're the last place that i can confirm that everything works well and some essential mods work perfectly.
1.6 should be an improvement over 1.5 but might still have the wonky legs/gear and ridiculously wobbly craft
Well, the memory leak got fixed by the looks (according to videos i saw on YT showing it) in 1.6, so that's why i went for that. And so far, it runs stunningly well even with some big ass crafts.
Downside being that you can't really land them on "stock" landing gear but have to, as far as i can tell, make your own out of struts and steelbars etc. Well.. You can, kind of, if you manually set the dampening all the way to max, it does somewhat work. But nowhere near as well as it should, i don't really understand it either.
Sadly, the now implemented DeltaV calculator etc doesn't even remotely work as a KER replacement, but i think for someone starting out, that'll do.
Currently playing vanilla, but hoping that most importantly kerbal joint reinforcement is already updated so i don't need to look at these floppy noodles ascending anymore.
You can, kind of, if you manually set the dampening all the way to max, it does somewhat work. But nowhere near as well as it should, i don't really understand it either.
A friend of mine investigated a while ago and figured out that making the physics timesteps smaller (like running the game in 4x slow motion) eliminated most of the weird shit with legs so it looks like something that they've changed since 1.3.1 is making the physics engine misbehave in game breaking ways - conditions that used to give minor physics errors/inconsistency lead to legs and wheels snapping or teleporting around and craft being shredded.
After like the 20'th touchdown at basically perfect 0m/s vertical speed where half of my craft snapped off i decided that i was done with that shit, 1.3.1 works fine
EPT
got to 50 million meters altitude before i aborted mission o.0
Surprisingly, it's pretty demanding and shot up my temperatures quite high. To low graphics I go.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/K1IkWl.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp2.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp4.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp6.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.element-zero.de/scr/ksp7.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i43.tinypic.com/4zx6o9.png)
![[image loading]](http://i44.tinypic.com/es193m.png)
![[image loading]](http://i44.tinypic.com/35ncumc.png)
![[image loading]](http://i39.tinypic.com/2u5q105.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IiiEVLC.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MnnfvTRl.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.kerbalcomics.com/comics/2012-06-22-episode-ten-stranded-squared.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/six_words.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dOvKw3W.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cC1SwaFl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7kbPxfcl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jpwrr0ql.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/91kg1wil.png)
![[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)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1WihML4.png)
![[image loading]](http://i58.tinypic.com/16hq848.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lyK3Uucl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QKGHZGAl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/44w5nUj.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9lZ4zBt.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1DqySwx.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yva72Wk.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FncmBvw.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CE8myDW.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FtumC1Q.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/paJVbbF.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qhGiwC8.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cXd79HN.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6FEDXo4.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nlCM1jz.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/VWd2FQg.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZbO65xV.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jjOFdQR.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tZzYiX0.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mvGDovg.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/j5xpMoO.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6jFOczU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IqKPh7u.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X7vWEpX.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/E9BXMuR.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ySDwJKd.png)
![[image loading]](/staff/Epoxide/Various/MoonOperations.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/S5scXTy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vjHHwLi.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/66mQQq3.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zuawuXC.png)
![[image loading]](http://oi61.tinypic.com/i24wtg.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/X07uMSB.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QcDkBnu.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SGHo722.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XJXjlAn.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QkU31X2.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XBpMtyM.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eJhLlf3.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Pm6SLYI.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/h52Zf.png)
![[image loading]](http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080121180934/starwars/images/3/3e/HyperdriveRing_ICS.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/khumxex.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/123wotd.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rv68gHi.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/w91y2mJ.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/j5CGH9C.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eIoO6t1.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/brx9ah3.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JYIke8X.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/w5Ugk3I.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/538521584425100119/5D0B33CE712E82D216CBC40974421F1E06242D39/)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IZFBDiT.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u0BTSDO.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5j0UR2Z.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vBTQhY7.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IcqSQUyl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/W9fVSqxl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xKcOvV5l.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u7hj6Qnl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uEV46UHl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cAsyPahl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/f4TDKGol.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RA7aeSP.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZcJu3Ko.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uBrHhm6.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FyyVJeo.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2gofHCo.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wK64aNB.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JCsu5ik.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zjSX4zh.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wnhGFbo.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/V4WN5iX.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xjD7ZhK.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wdEdEba.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/btkggvG.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SAxtK7a.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZByPqPB.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/K6FLsBi.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yciepgi.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AZZK1hp.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xfAYi7O.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/48lUuUP.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/hTJwv.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rEt5dht.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.gyazo.com/81790553624322f895e18a86bc845ffa.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.gyazo.com/cb3efbbc51630df69329beb190cafa8c.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.gyazo.com/471f72644cf4c21c3697bad411d6863f.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vCtnC5Z.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UlJmmFy.png?1)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/iM0SF.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/iNX5C.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/iNWXf.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/iNWXV.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/iNWZa.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/iNX2p.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/G8VMOSw.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rqfqwzF.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8QVB5Pv.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JiU2DHP.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pHRQwbX.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DdKDFe3.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UvAGLtN.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sftu2gd.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/E3n7ak5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uhgD6a6.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HVObuj0.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XoJM456.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8VrHa95.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vGbIRZk.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cQR8ZK0.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1vApdEo.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Cp3Hk6P.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xlBsqS5.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2XzbAph.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5Yr1pOQ.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0GVoFwn.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JpdaFxZ.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hVX3QeX.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gp2K8lU.jpg)
