Kerbal Space Program

MoreEpicThanYou said:

I've been focusing so hard on the new features of .18 that I've been ignoring .17. The entire KSP forums is doing the same thing.

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Hahaha yeah they have. I'm trying to master the game right now so that when the new features come out (orbital docking) I will be ready to use them.

Here's a look at my Duna lander:

My intial Duna rendevouz burn put me at a periapsis of something on the order of 500million km or something outrageous. I spent a lot of fuel bringing that in, which was trial and error at first.

I did have a quicksave for right after I got an encouter solution, so I just reloaded and kept trying to find a way to get it closer with a minimum amount of fuel. I found the further away from the target that you make the corrections, the less fuel it takes to do so. This meant I was making a correction burn right outside of Kerbin orbit.

Then I had to make crazy corrections because I was coming in from under the south pole, so it took a while to figure out which way I needed to burn to do it.

I also figured that since it was my first effort and I spent so much time and fuel trying to get closer, that I would just go for a dive straight towards the planet instead of trying to orbit and such. This bit me in the arse because when you do that with NERVAs, you don't really have the thrust to slow down adequately in a way you could if you orbited and just grazed the atmosphere for a bit and come in obliquely. It was straight down and they couldn't really kill my velocity in an efficient manner. Plus, bringing a trajectory in for a direct straight to ground path burns way more fuel then burning at periapsis and orbiting, so that also screwed me.

This is a pic of my Kerbonauts stranded on the surface (on an ice field at the pole):


So having drogue chutes deployed at the top of the lander does NOT straighten it out the way they said online. Or at least it doesn't when you are coming in at as high of a velocity as I was (>800m/s). After a few crashes and reloads, I figured it was best to just open all 7 at once.

A huge problem I faced was that I came screaming into the atmosphere and when the chutes deployed fully, the G strain was so high that it ripped off the NERVA's instantly. You can see that in this picture.

At first this ticked me off because I had made sure to reinforce them, but then I realized I wouldn't have had enough fuel to get back to Kerbin anyway.

Basically, this was a trial run for me to work on my techniques and to then apply that toward fine tuning my launcher and trying again. Hopefully next time I'll have a better encounter trajectory so I don't have to waste as much fuel.

Here's the best pic I could take of my stranded orbiter around Jool:


And here's my lone Kerbal stranded on Eve:


I also found out how to position sepatrons (use the A, S, W, D, Q, & E keys to position them, you only really need 2 or three per stack) and they are really great. I don't worry about staging collisions anymore.

Edit: Hey I just noticed but it looks like you landed next to a liquid mercury lake on Eve. What's it like? Can you swim in it?

hobbsyoyo said:

Hahaha you are, except I already got to Eve - one Kerbal counts!. But I highly doubt that lander will be taking off again. And I'm in orbit around Jool.

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So you are the Soviets in this analogy?

Seriously, I had some thoughts on how to go about building an Eve lander that is return-capable:

From a design perspective:
I think the key here is to use Kerbin as an Eve analogue for testing. While Eve has a thicker atmosphere, it also has less gravity. So I consider Kerbal a decent (and highly convenient) place to test landers.

I would focus on building a lander that can achieve Kerbin orbit on it's own. I'd construct the lander and save it separately when you have tested it and it is capable of getting to orbit with enough fuel for a transfer to Kerbin. Then, I'd focus on building a launcher capable of getting it into LKO and saving it separately as well so if it doesn't work, you can always go back to the lander file and start over without having to rebuild the lander.

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The gravity (or as I insist on calling it in KSP, grabity) on Eve is apparently stronger--my Kerbals can't even jump without immediately falling over. Overheating is probably going to be more of a problem because I think KSP models temperature effects on engines (hence all the recommendations not to use the easily-overheated nuclear engines for a Moho landing).

On the lander itself:
I think the small SRB's are going to be the only thing capable of getting a lander off of Eve. I would use just one NERVA for interplanetary transfer, but a ring of maybe 8 small SRB's around it. I would use as small of a tank for the NERVA as necessary since you won't need a ton of fuel, but going smaller than a 1600L tank may not give you enough space to radially attach enough SRB's, so that's something that will have to be played with. I would attach parachutes to all of the SRB's so that no burns are necessary on the decent to save fuel. To be really effective, but a parachute or two on the top of the lander that deploy first that will bring the whole lander perpendicular to the surface before deploying the rest - this will cut down on wobbling considerably after deployment.

I would asparagus-stage the SRB's. While they obviously can't cross-feed fuel, I would set it up so that two SRB's fire and then are ejected from the lander when they burn out and another two are activated. This will make most efficient use of the SRB's as they won't all be firing in the dense atmosphere and you'll be shedding weight as you go along. I don't know whether or not this will work - but it will at least give you a bit of control over your ascent profile because you can adjust your heading between firings. Trying to change heading while 8 SRB's are firing is very difficult.

Of course, if that isn't enough to get you to LKO (I wouldn't launch till you can have done this), then maybe you could add a second stage of SRB's under the first one, maybe have that whole stack fire at once just to blast you up to altitude.

The real challenge I see is trying to make a launcher than can lift this whole thing at once. That's going to be tough.

I guess an alternative to this would be to use a 3200L tank with a mainsail under it for the off planet boost along with radial mounted NERVAs for the transfer stage.

I'll play around and post anything that works.

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I thought asparagus staging only made sense for liquid-fueled rockets to try and minimize the weight of the attached liquid fuel tanks. The trash bins are a gutsy call--I was trying to figure out another way, but my lander tests on Kerbin are coming up short with alternative engine schemes.

My lander had no problem aligning itself so long as I disabled the SAS during the landing procedure when the parachutes were deployed--otherwise, it would wobble because the control would be fighting to return to the previous set point. I'd suspect that the weight of the SRBs would necessitate your additional parachutes.



Your Duna transit experience sounds a lot like mine, although it looks like your lawn-dart strategy didn't work too well. I find that the straight drop works best for moons and the long atmospheric air brake works better for planets. I'm starting to feel bad for all your stranded kerbals.

Thanks for the tip on separator rockets, I'm going to incorporate some of those into my next design to try and deorbit my middle stage. I'm getting a lot of junk around Kerbin that is not deorbiting or even decelerating despite passing under 40k m.

So I got this game yesterday after watching some LPs.
Enjoying my crashing and exploding rockets.

So far I managed to design a simple high-altitude jet for planetary travel and brought a rocket into Kerbin orbit. Landing was not so successful, unfortunately, since my parachutes keep ripping off due to high speed. Later found out that my landing gear is an excellent air brake.

Anyway, looking forward to visit the moon, but I guess I will have to read the wiki first. 14€ well spend so far.

Glad to have another new convert--I feel like I joined the thread after the diaspora.

Also, never had too much success with planes--I'm getting a lot of unintentional somersaulting. I'm pretty sure it's a weight imbalance from watching the Youtubez, but I can't figure out whether it's better to put fuselage up front without fuel so the weight doesn't disappear, or if mixing rocket fuel tanks and jet fuel tanks is a good idea because their filled and dry masses are different, and so on.

Antilogic said:

Also, never had too much success with planes--I'm getting a lot of unintentional somersaulting. I'm pretty sure it's a weight imbalance from watching the Youtubez, but I can't figure out whether it's better to put fuselage up front without fuel so the weight doesn't disappear, or if mixing rocket fuel tanks and jet fuel tanks is a good idea because their filled and dry masses are different, and so on.

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Yeah I've never built a spaceplane that didn't explode on the pad. From what I've read at this point, they really benefit from incomplete implementation and stuff to the point that any current working design is only slightly better than a straight-up hack. In other words, the game isn't very realistic with respect to spaceplanes because they haven't been fully coded or something. I expect they are going to get even harder to build as the game nears completion - there's a lot of reasons they don't really exist IRL!

I could be wrong about everything I said though, but that's the impression I get from youtube and the KSP forums on the subject.

GAGA Extrem said:

So I got this game yesterday after watching some LPs.
Enjoying my crashing and exploding rockets.

So far I managed to design a simple high-altitude jet for planetary travel and brought a rocket into Kerbin orbit. Landing was not so successful, unfortunately, since my parachutes keep ripping off due to high speed. Later found out that my landing gear is an excellent air brake.

Anyway, looking forward to visit the moon, but I guess I will have to read the wiki first. 14€ well spend so far.

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Hey if you need any tips on getting to the Mun or Minmus, just ask!

Antilogic said:

So you are the Soviets in this analogy?

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You laugh now, but you forget who put up the first space station irl (and soon to be released in .18).

The gravity (or as I insist on calling it in KSP, grabity) on Eve is apparently stronger--my Kerbals can't even jump without immediately falling over. Overheating is probably going to be more of a problem because I think KSP models temperature effects on engines (hence all the recommendations not to use the easily-overheated nuclear engines for a Moho landing).

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Are you kidding? Higher gravity and denser atmosphere? That sucks hard...

I thought asparagus staging only made sense for liquid-fueled rockets to try and minimize the weight of the attached liquid fuel tanks. The trash bins are a gutsy call--I was trying to figure out another way, but my lander tests on Kerbin are coming up short with alternative engine schemes.

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No it pretty much always makes sense.

I honestly can't think of a scenario where it isn't useful. For one, you do drop off empty tanks, which lowers the weight of the rocket. But it also leaves all of the tanks remaining with full fuel tanks upon separation, which is awesome.

But the main advantages it would bring to an SRB-based Eve takeoff are thus:

-It would allow just 2 or 4 engines to do all of the work of getting above the thick atmosphere. If you lit off all of them at once, then you are wasting quite a bit of thrust due to drag. This method will kick you up in the stratosphere and then let the rest of the engines burn more efficiently.

-You can drop the dead weight of the empty SRB's as they burn out, thus increasing the lifting efficiency of the remaining engines even higher

-Course corrections will be easier to manage between burns than it would be during one massive 8-engine burn.

My lander had no problem aligning itself so long as I disabled the SAS during the landing procedure when the parachutes were deployed--otherwise, it would wobble because the control would be fighting to return to the previous set point. I'd suspect that the weight of the SRBs would necessitate your additional parachutes.

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Yeah, that extra weight is going to be a killer both on launch and on Eve descent. I'd probably put a parachute on each one to be safe. You will probably also need a good RCS system to control a lander with 8 SRB's in space because it's going to be heavy.

Your Duna transit experience sounds a lot like mine, although it looks like your lawn-dart strategy didn't work too well. I find that the straight drop works best for moons and the long atmospheric air brake works better for planets. I'm starting to feel bad for all your stranded kerbals.

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The straight drop was a terrible idea and I even knew it going in. I just ran out of patience as I had tried and missed about 6 or 7 Duna injection burns and I had already wasted enough fuel that I knew I wasn't coming home so I just wanted to put the fat bastad down. I also forgot the 'optimal velocity' part that the online calculator computed for me. Because of this, I wasted a bunch of fuel on course corrections that would've required a lot less fuel if I had been at optimum velocity to begin with.

I'm still refining my methods. I had an epiphany in the shower this morning: before I set out for Duna, I would make sure my rocket was about about 600km in Kerbin orbit so that I could time warp till the planets were aligned.

What a massive waste of fuel getting into a big orbit! I realized that if I just sit on the pad, I can timewarp out to the proper alignment and then take off. I can completely skip the whole orbital phase and go straight from the ground to a Duna injection.

Not only will I save time and fuel, but this will actually allow my booster to do most of the work for the Duna injection (as opposed to the lander) because of all the fuel savings. This means I'll have more fuel left to play with @ Duna! Very excite XD !

Thanks for the tip on separator rockets, I'm going to incorporate some of those into my next design to try and deorbit my middle stage. I'm getting a lot of junk around Kerbin that is not deorbiting or even decelerating despite passing under 40k m.

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Sepatrons are absurdly powerful. People use them for all kinds of stuff, like taking off from the Mun and such - that's how much thrust they have. I've considered adding them to a lander as a way to rapidly slown down right before landing, kind of like a skycrane that just stops all velocity a few hundred meters up and lets me have a slow, controlled descent from there instead of using a lot of fuel trying to slow down with your main engine.

Also, don't over do it. Two pairs of them (one pari facing toward the central core and the other one facing straight up) are all you need for any stage separation/debris deorbit. Adding more will only create lag and make it more likely that you will damage critical systems (I've destroyed many an RCS thruster with sepatrons) with their massive blast.

Antilogic said:

Oops, thought I put the link in my prior post. It's at ksp.olex.biz.

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Thanks!

It'd still be an issue on the descent, but that poodle has pretty good thrust so I think you would be fine. I was trying to put 3 nukes and 3 aerospikes on a total of 6 exterior tanks, but for some reason the game won't let me put more than 2 aerospikes per rocket. That sucks.

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Yeah that's too bad about the nukes and aerospikes. I've ditched the poodle for interplanetary missions. It's great for Mun/Minmus but too inefficient for Duna and such. I'm using four NERVA's now but may cut that down to 3 or even 2 if I can find that 2 are enough to get back off Duna or if I use some SRB's to help.

It has 7 mainsails and 18 SRBs, and a crazy number of struts to hold it together. Wayyy too much power.

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Don't forget to throttle down in the lower atmosphere!

Below 10km, if you are burning at full thrust with your mainsails, then you are wasting a lot of thrust due to drag and lower ISP in the thick atmosphere. Cut them to as low as you can while still just barely accelerating. Then, above 10km or so, throw the throttle wide open. The only downside to this ascent method is that it will change your ascent profile so you are going to have to mess around with your timing for the gravity turn and such to make it all work. But it should work and leave you with either a higher orbit or more fuel left when orbit is reached, you just have to play with the timing a bit.

Speaking of massive SRB stacks, I have a launcher with enough SRB's on the first stage that it kicks me up to 10km before the main liquid engines are even activated. I don't use it much because the main stages aren't optimized with all the new tricks I've learned and because that kick up to 10km happens in about 10 laggy frames because there are so many parts and the lag is very frustrating.

I end up saving after each modification that went well, and reloading if I mess it up. Haven't gone to asparagus myself yet, still doing the onion launcher.

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Asparagus staging will give you maybe a 10-15% performance boost, even more on smaller rockets. The big ones don't get as big of a boost but it's still there and on interplanetary missions, every little bit helps.

Sounds like you had a space kraken damage your ship, or the stage that you fired didn't have the parachutes (i.e. they were all above the lander stage). You have a living kerbal on Eve, though, that's a first. I'm on my way there with my refit lander (side note: my rocket tends to explode on the pad if the RCS is relocated down).

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I've had the same problem with older designs when I tried to follow my own advice and move the RCS system down to the launcher and off the lander. For some reason, doing this makes the RCS system a weak point that breaks on the pad. I don't know why, it makes no sense.

I don't have any clue what happend to the parachute, but it was staged correctly. It was a stock Munar lander that only has one parachute for Kerbin return, and it's never had any issues.

Fair warning: be prepped to fire those engines. Parachutes are nice, but the atmosphere is still thin enough on Duna I was descending fast, and the slow down from 0 to 3 chutes doesn't lead me to believe my lander would be perfectly fine with 6 (although it would have been easier).

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Oh man were you right. I wish I had seen this before I went splat on Duna about 7 times.

Yeah 7 parachutes do not help you more than 3. Plus, the atmosphere is so thin that it alone will not decelerate you to a safe velocity before they deploy, so when they do the lander rips itself apart from the G force. So yeah a big slow-down burn is unavoidable.

I'm just leaving my kerbals on Duna for now. My last mission was a 20-day trip circling the Mun with the big lander lander looking for arches and munoliths, but I haven't found any yet.

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There are coordinates for them on the KSP forums, though it takes the fun out of the search.

hobbsyoyo said:

Are you kidding? Higher gravity and denser atmosphere? That sucks hard...

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Checked the wiki: Eve has 5 atmospheres of pressure and 16.68 m/s^2 grabity (Kerbin is Earth-standard at 9.81 m/s^2).

No it pretty much always makes sense.

I honestly can't think of a scenario where it isn't useful. For one, you do drop off empty tanks, which lowers the weight of the rocket. But it also leaves all of the tanks remaining with full fuel tanks upon separation, which is awesome.

But the main advantages it would bring to an SRB-based Eve takeoff are thus:

-It would allow just 2 or 4 engines to do all of the work of getting above the thick atmosphere. If you lit off all of them at once, then you are wasting quite a bit of thrust due to drag. This method will kick you up in the stratosphere and then let the rest of the engines burn more efficiently.

-You can drop the dead weight of the empty SRB's as they burn out, thus increasing the lifting efficiency of the remaining engines even higher

-Course corrections will be easier to manage between burns than it would be during one massive 8-engine burn.

Yeah, that extra weight is going to be a killer both on launch and on Eve descent. I'd probably put a parachute on each one to be safe. You will probably also need a good RCS system to control a lander with 8 SRB's in space because it's going to be heavy.

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Don't forget to throttle down in the lower atmosphere!

Below 10km, if you are burning at full thrust with your mainsails, then you are wasting a lot of thrust due to drag and lower ISP in the thick atmosphere. Cut them to as low as you can while still just barely accelerating. Then, above 10km or so, throw the throttle wide open. The only downside to this ascent method is that it will change your ascent profile so you are going to have to mess around with your timing for the gravity turn and such to make it all work. But it should work and leave you with either a higher orbit or more fuel left when orbit is reached, you just have to play with the timing a bit.

Speaking of massive SRB stacks, I have a launcher with enough SRB's on the first stage that it kicks me up to 10km before the main liquid engines are even activated. I don't use it much because the main stages aren't optimized with all the new tricks I've learned and because that kick up to 10km happens in about 10 laggy frames because there are so many parts and the lag is very frustrating.

Asparagus staging will give you maybe a 10-15% performance boost, even more on smaller rockets. The big ones don't get as big of a boost but it's still there and on interplanetary missions, every little bit helps.

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Yeah, I guess I haven't accounted enough for the effect of drag--I always figure it's better to generate the delta-V low rather than high to get away from the gravity well as quickly as possible. I do have to throttle down in the low atmosphere otherwise my rockets explode, though, so I have forced efficiency built into the system.

I find I don't need to do many course corrections in take-off, especially with a more responsive lander (well, more responsive than the initial launch system, anyway). I'd rate efficiency as a higher goal for the Eve returner.

The straight drop was a terrible idea and I even knew it going in. I just ran out of patience as I had tried and missed about 6 or 7 Duna injection burns and I had already wasted enough fuel that I knew I wasn't coming home so I just wanted to put the fat bastad down. I also forgot the 'optimal velocity' part that the online calculator computed for me. Because of this, I wasted a bunch of fuel on course corrections that would've required a lot less fuel if I had been at optimum velocity to begin with.

I'm still refining my methods. I had an epiphany in the shower this morning: before I set out for Duna, I would make sure my rocket was about about 600km in Kerbin orbit so that I could time warp till the planets were aligned.

What a massive waste of fuel getting into a big orbit! I realized that if I just sit on the pad, I can timewarp out to the proper alignment and then take off. I can completely skip the whole orbital phase and go straight from the ground to a Duna injection.

Not only will I save time and fuel, but this will actually allow my booster to do most of the work for the Duna injection (as opposed to the lander) because of all the fuel savings. This means I'll have more fuel left to play with @ Duna! Very excite XD !

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That's what I do--fast-forward on the pad. Unfortunately, the kraken attacks rockets on the pad, so I end the flight, GO TO THE SPACE CENTER, then start the flight. If you click restart flight immediately, the time is rolled back and you have to wait all over again. That sucks.

Sepatrons are absurdly powerful. People use them for all kinds of stuff, like taking off from the Mun and such - that's how much thrust they have. I've considered adding them to a lander as a way to rapidly slown down right before landing, kind of like a skycrane that just stops all velocity a few hundred meters up and lets me have a slow, controlled descent from there instead of using a lot of fuel trying to slow down with your main engine.

Also, don't over do it. Two pairs of them (one pari facing toward the central core and the other one facing straight up) are all you need for any stage separation/debris deorbit. Adding more will only create lag and make it more likely that you will damage critical systems (I've destroyed many an RCS thruster with sepatrons) with their massive blast.

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What do you mean by this? I've tried a "retro blast" with 6 separtrons, directly against my trajectory, as well as a series of separtrons to force the rocket to rotate counter-clockwise (using the right-hand rule and badly-remembered physics, this torque should apply a force that will slow down and eventually deorbit the rocket).

Yeah that's too bad about the nukes and aerospikes. I've ditched the poodle for interplanetary missions. It's great for Mun/Minmus but too inefficient for Duna and such. I'm using four NERVA's now but may cut that down to 3 or even 2 if I can find that 2 are enough to get back off Duna or if I use some SRB's to help.

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Once patched in future updates, they will be perfect for interplanetary returns. Light-weight, okay on efficiency, crazy-high thrust-to-weight ratio.

I've had the same problem with older designs when I tried to follow my own advice and move the RCS system down to the launcher and off the lander. For some reason, doing this makes the RCS system a weak point that breaks on the pad. I don't know why, it makes no sense.

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I think the RCS has less structural integrity/impact factor/whatever the property is named than the giant oil-drum fuel tank, so if your rocket is designed to push the edge of performance this will be an automatic weak point. It doesn't help that I solved my shattering problem by using struts to link my external lander tanks to the middle stage.

I don't have any clue what happend to the parachute, but it was staged correctly. It was a stock Munar lander that only has one parachute for Kerbin return, and it's never had any issues.

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Weird. Maybe the chute deployed and despawned--it sometimes happens if you accelerate time while its deploying, not sure what causes it.

Oh man were you right. I wish I had seen this before I went splat on Duna about 7 times.

Yeah 7 parachutes do not help you more than 3. Plus, the atmosphere is so thin that it alone will not decelerate you to a safe velocity before they deploy, so when they do the lander rips itself apart from the G force. So yeah a big slow-down burn is unavoidable.

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Well, that or a long de-orbit around 30-40k m so the atmosphere starts bleeding off the speed.

I seriously went from above the equator to the south pole in the atmosphere, bleeding speed, and then burned my engines while the chutes deployed.

There are coordinates for them on the KSP forums, though it takes the fun out of the search.

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I saw the coordinates, but I don't have a map, so they aren't of much use. I didn't look too hard for the map, though. I'm told there's a big munar arch at the edge of a big crater along the equator, but after several passes at different inclinations at 6k m I didn't spot it.

Antilogic said:

Checked the wiki: Eve has 5 atmospheres of pressure and 16.68 m/s^2 grabity (Kerbin is Earth-standard at 9.81 m/s^2).

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Holy horsehockye, that's not fair!

Yeah, I guess I haven't accounted enough for the effect of drag--I always figure it's better to generate the delta-V low rather than high to get away from the gravity well as quickly as possible. I do have to throttle down in the low atmosphere otherwise my rockets explode, though, so I have forced efficiency built into the system.

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The gravity well is nearly-constant all the way up into orbit - you don't get away from it the way you think. In fact, IRL, astronauts in orbit are being pulled with something like 85% of the full force of gravity, but they are moving so fast that can't fall straight down, they are in permanent free fall (and not actually in 'zero' G). So it won't matter much from that perspective, but yeah as long as you are throttling down for whatever reason you are maximizing efficiency.

I find I don't need to do many course corrections in take-off, especially with a more responsive lander (well, more responsive than the initial launch system, anyway). I'd rate efficiency as a higher goal for the Eve returner.

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What I meant by course corrections (should've been clearer, my bad) was actually the gravity turn. Imagine trying to pull one off while you've got 8 screaming SRB's pushing you up. One tiny misclick and you're doing cartwheels followed by death. This way, you can do your gravity turn by turning between burns a bit, then lighting an SRB pair and repeating as necessary.

That's what I do--fast-forward on the pad. Unfortunately, the kraken attacks rockets on the pad, so I end the flight, GO TO THE SPACE CENTER, then start the flight. If you click restart flight immediately, the time is rolled back and you have to wait all over again. That sucks.

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Hahaha you do know there is an actual space kraken in the game right?

What do you mean by this? I've tried a "retro blast" with 6 separtrons, directly against my trajectory, as well as a series of separtrons to force the rocket to rotate counter-clockwise (using the right-hand rule and badly-remembered physics, this torque should apply a force that will slow down and eventually deorbit the rocket).

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I meant that you could deorbit with just 4 sepatrons. Put two near the top facing directly up. They will slow it down enough that it should just fall straight down or at least keep it low enough to be dragged down by the atmosphere. The other pair should face toward the core, they will push the booster away from your rocket so that there is no collision.

Without knowing your exact flight profile, I can't be sure, but honestly that should be enough to deorbit your spent stages and keep them clear of the rest of the booster.

The thing about sepatrons is they can help cause lag if you use a lot of them and that's best avoided or you're flirting with a freeze up. Also, their exhaust plumes will scorch your rocket as they break away. So make sure they aren't lined up to burn towards any critical systems like RCS thrusters. The more you use, the bigger your risk of breaking something.

Once patched in future updates, they will be perfect for interplanetary returns. Light-weight, okay on efficiency, crazy-high thrust-to-weight ratio.

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That's whats unrealistic about them though. They are not light-weight IRL and don't have good thrust to weight ratios. Particularly single-stage-to-orbit prototypes are very heavy and have teeny tiny TWR margins. That's the principle reason why they don't really work. But again, I could be totally off on their present implementation in the game, I'm just going off of stuff I've read in the forums and seen on youtube that makes them look very realistic when compared to real life systems.

Weird. Maybe the chute deployed and despawned--it sometimes happens if you accelerate time while its deploying, not sure what causes it.

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That might have happened, though I tried reloading several times to see if it was a glitch. Same result every time. Parachutes are actually pretty glitchy overall in my experience.

Well, that or a long de-orbit around 30-40k m so the atmosphere starts bleeding off the speed.

I seriously went from above the equator to the south pole in the atmosphere, bleeding speed, and then burned my engines while the chutes deployed.

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Yeah I definately need to aerobrake next time.

I saw the coordinates, but I don't have a map, so they aren't of much use. I didn't look too hard for the map, though. I'm told there's a big munar arch at the edge of a big crater along the equator, but after several passes at different inclinations at 6k m I didn't spot it.

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Yeah I've never been there so I can't help you. I know there's also a Munolith and a tribute to Neil Armstrong as well.

In an earlier version of KSP they actually had a complete KSC on the Mun. The person who found it though just thought it was a glitch because it had grass around it and stuff. There's a video of it on youtube.

This man is a god amongst KSP players.

cardgame said:

This man is a god amongst KSP players.

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I got: HTTP 404 Not Found.

Then let me try again with a link to a video instead of profile.


Link to video.

Check out his others as well, everything he does is mind-blowing.

That was awesome!

Least Sensible Rocket is even better


Link to video.

Incredible. He must have spent months playing this game nonstop or is wicked smart.

Well, I managed to get to the moon (on my own, no wiki reading involved).
...okay, actually, the first time was a tiny bit miscalculated (700 m/s instead of 20 ).
...and during my second try I ran out of fuel during my landing approach.

Now trying to get my new landing vehicle into orbit, but have some problems with the additional top weight of the rocket.

Has anyone managed to fly a spaceplane to the moon, land it there and return safely?

GAGA Extrem said:

Has anyone managed to fly a spaceplane to the moon, land it there and return safely?

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Link to video.

@hobbs yes, he's a genius (or extremely patient).

GAGA Extrem said:

Well, I managed to get to the moon (on my own, no wiki reading involved).
...okay, actually, the first time was a tiny bit miscalculated (700 m/s instead of 20 ).
...and during my second try I ran out of fuel during my landing approach.

Now trying to get my new landing vehicle into orbit, but have some problems with the additional top weight of the rocket.

Has anyone managed to fly a spaceplane to the moon, land it there and return safely?

Click to expand...

Can you post a pic of your rocket? I *might* be able to help you.

My first thought without seeing it is that you've built the whole thing much bigger than it needs to be. In rocketry, you quickly reach a point where adding more fuel to go farther causes you to go shorter because you have all that extra weight to lug into orbit.

cardgame said:

Link to video.

Click to expand...

"Unfortunately this video contains music for which GEMA has not given publishing rights and is therefore unavailable in germany."

Three hoorays for germany.
*engages Furor Teutonicus*

Can you post a pic of your rocket? I *might* be able to help you.

My first thought without seeing it is that you've built the whole thing much bigger than it needs to be. In rocketry, you quickly reach a point where adding more fuel to go farther causes you to go shorter because you have all that extra weight to lug into orbit.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I dont have the original design anymore because I overwrote it with a newer (definately too big) version. I will try to recreate it and post a pic/setup here if I get the time. I think my biggest problem is the fact that my rockets get a slight tilt after launch once vertical speed gets high.

I use SAS (is it feesible to toggle it on before starting the launch sequence? Because I do that.) and usually quad-fins on top or bottom, but neither seems to prevent the tilt.

I also use the nuclear engine for space maneuvering, maybe it is too heavy for a MkI spacecraft?

PS: What is the difference between SAS and ASAS (aka SAS Mk.III)? I know ASAS can use RCS trusters to navigate, but it also seems to be stuck at MAX force during the liftoff sequence - is it any use at this stage?

GAGA Extrem said:

Sorry, I dont have the original design anymore because I overwrote it with a newer (definately too big) version. I will try to recreate it and post a pic/setup here if I get the time. I think my biggest problem is the fact that my rockets get a slight tilt after launch once vertical speed gets high.

Click to expand...

If you think it is too big, it probably is. In all seriousness, bigger isn't always better. In fact, if you have a huge rocket that underperforms, you may find that it all of a sudden works better if you take off some fuel tanks in each stage.

I use SAS (is it feesible to toggle it on before starting the launch sequence? Because I do that.) and usually quad-fins on top or bottom, but neither seems to prevent the tilt.

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You definately do want SAS on during launch until you get ready to do your gravity turn. Be careful though, depending on your rocket setup and how shaky it is, SAS may overcompensate and increase the wobblyness. While you can get away with this at very high or very low altitudes, there is a point called 'Max Q' you are going to hit where the velocity of the rocket, coupled with air drag puts the maximum amount of stress on your rocket. At this point, even a little overcompensating by the SAS can rip your ship apart.

My advice is to relaunch the same rocket a few times to figure out where (altitude and velocity-wise) the problem spots are and to get a feel for how it handles.

I have a design that reliably breaks apart at max throttle around 16km. Putting off my gravity turn till after that point or throttling down solved the problem. You just have to learn how the ship handles to get the most out of it.

I would add more fins to the rocket and possible launch at a lower than maximum thrust until you get up to 10km. This should help. Are you using thrust vectored engines? They can help you if your rocket isn't too wobbly. On that note, I also suggest adding more struts to stabilize the whole thing.

I also use the nuclear engine for space maneuvering, maybe it is too heavy for a MkI spacecraft?

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I don't know what you mean by a MkI spacecraft. Do you mean MKI capsule (as in a one seater)?

It shouldn't really matter though. A properly built rocket should have no problem whatsoever putting a single NERVA into space, so I doubt it's too heavy. People actually overstate how heavy they are. They are not themselves very heavy, the problem is they have such low thrust that people are compelled to put multiple ones on a lander. While you will have to do this for a Duna return, if you are just going to Minus, the Mun or just orbiting any planet doesn't require multiple NERVAs. Plus, the NERVA sips fuel and a single one can handle Mun and Minus missions easily.

PS: What is the difference between SAS and ASAS (aka SAS Mk.III)? I know ASAS can use RCS trusters to navigate, but it also seems to be stuck at MAX force during the liftoff sequence - is it any use at this stage?

Click to expand...

SAS puts a torque on a rocket by itself. What this means is that it can, all by itself without any other systems, help you turn your rocket or stabilize it.

ASAS uses RCS (when present and activated), thrust vectored engines and any fins or control surfaces to help steer the rocket.

SAS isn't usually necessary as the capsules have it built in. While this single, weak SAS unit makes steering a big stack in space rather difficult, you typically don't have a big stack in space, just your capsule or landing system. The built in SAS is more than enough for this. I only add extra SAS units for very big, wobbly rockets and as I'm getting better at building them, I am finding less and less use for extra SAS units.

ASAS is advised for any big booster. When used in combination with RCS, thrust vectoring and fins, this will give you good control over a large booster during the flight to orbit. It will help you stabilize it if it wobbles, keep it locked onto a heading and also help keep it from rolling. Not only are these things good for steering, they also help with structural integrity by keeping your rocket from having big stress due to an uneven flight path or unwanted spinning.

You shouldn't ever need to have ASAS on a capsule or landing stage. It just isn't necessary and would be dead weight. Put it on the booster and dump it with the rest of the stack.

Both the SAS and ASAS systems lack damping. What this means is that let's say you have a left to right and back wobble. The SAS/ASAS units will compensate with full force when it tilts to the left. But it won't use appropriate counterforce as the rocket heads back to the right. It just waits until the ship has tilted to the right by a specified amount and then applies max force to the left. This swings you back hard to the left, where it then max forces to the right, where it then swings back and so on.

It always does this at all stages of flight and it can be a problem. What I suggest is that you put more fins and struts on your rocket to keep it stabilized in the first place as it boosts so you don't get stuck in these oscillation cycles.

Also, when the rocket swings and the SAS/ASAS kicks on, it should hit a point where the rocket is completely stopped right before it swings back the other way. If you are quick and good at the controls, you can turn off the SAS/ASAS system at that instant, and then manually (and carefully) move the rocket back to the desired heading, stop it there and then re-engage the SAS/ASAS (the T button turns them both on, they aren't treated seperately) to lock it back on your heading.

Edit: I spent about an hour perfectly lining up a Duna injection and using airbraking to get a good landing trajectory. Right as I'm going for my final dive, the damn game froze up. This happens too darn much and always at the worst time.

Okay, here we go.
(edit: First of all: Thanks for you comments & hints!)

I managed to do a design that was able to go to the moon, drop my pilot off and return home (with an inch of fuel left). However, time acceleration didn't slow down enough, so my guy crashed into Kerbel.

(Although, tbh, he would probably have done so anyway - I had no seperator below the cockpit, so the deadweight would have killed the chute.)

I have attached the current version of my landing vehicle and the complete rocket. Used a mainsail engine for the ascending stage, works quite well with that ASAS. Probably not the most effective way (rocket is wobbeling quite a bit, but it doesn't tile).

My start procedure is to set mainsail to 25% at liftoff and slowly increase to 50% as the boosters burn out. Once the boosters are decoupled I fire to 100% and start tilting towards 90° once I reach the upper (dark blue) part of the atmosphere. Burn all fuel, disengage mainsail and it's fuel tanks and use the nuclear engine to get into a moon orbit (or just aim at the moon, actually, since I suck at that ). Slow the decent as much as possible, disengage the 3rd stage and use the lander to get down. Going home is a bit problematic because fuel is quite limited (guess I have to practice landing a bit more), but doable.

Awaiting your comments.

hobbsyoyo said:

I don't know what you mean by a MkI spacecraft. Do you mean MKI capsule (as in a one seater)?

Click to expand...

Yes, that was what I meant.

It shouldn't really matter though. A properly built rocket should have no problem whatsoever putting a single NERVA into space, so I doubt it's too heavy. People actually overstate how heavy they are. They are not themselves very heavy, the problem is they have such low thrust that people are compelled to put multiple ones on a lander. While you will have to do this for a Duna return, if you are just going to Minus, the Mun or just orbiting any planet doesn't require multiple NERVAs. Plus, the NERVA sips fuel and a single one can handle Mun and Minus missions easily.

SAS puts a torque on a rocket by itself. What this means is that it can, all by itself without any other systems, help you turn your rocket or stabilize it.
ASAS uses RCS (when present and activated), thrust vectored engines and any fins or control surfaces to help steer the rocket.

SAS isn't usually necessary as the capsules have it built in. While this single, weak SAS unit makes steering a big stack in space rather difficult, you typically don't have a big stack in space, just your capsule or landing system. The built in SAS is more than enough for this. I only add extra SAS units for very big, wobbly rockets and as I'm getting better at building them, I am finding less and less use for extra SAS units.

ASAS is advised for any big booster. When used in combination with RCS, thrust vectoring and fins, this will give you good control over a large booster during the flight to orbit. It will help you stabilize it if it wobbles, keep it locked onto a heading and also help keep it from rolling. Not only are these things good for steering, they also help with structural integrity by keeping your rocket from having big stress due to an uneven flight path or unwanted spinning.

Click to expand...

I really learned to appreciate ASAS. I am now also using less SAS (though probably still more than I would need...), since I found out they have quite some mass. >_>

Edit: I spent about an hour perfectly lining up a Duna injection and using airbraking to get a good landing trajectory. Right as I'm going for my final dive, the damn game froze up. This happens too darn much and always at the worst time.

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Sucks.
My brother also had a few crashes on his system (isn't there an "AUTOSAVE" feature?), thankfully I have been spared so far.