Kerbal Space Program

Leonel

Breakfast Connoisseur
Joined
Nov 2, 2001
Messages
10,350
Location
Seattle, WA
I discovered a cool game a few days ago that consists of constructing rockets and sending astronauts into space called the Kerbal Space Program! The way you build rockets and the world you launch from are very Spore-esk and really should have been what the beginning of the Space stage of Spore should have been in the first place.


Here's one of my capsules in orbit. Unfortunately the three astronauts exploded in a ball of flame as the capsule gently touched down.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/
 
Looks pretty interesting, I'll have to check it out.
 
This game is awesome :D

My first attempts yesterday.

Spoiler :


Weeeee!



To infinity and beyond!


Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!


Fireworks!


The swastika (actual meaning, not post-WW2 one) shape is one of the funnest I've made.


FOUR!


Spiral fireworks!


And thar she blows!


KABOOOOOOM!



And now for today after I installed a mod pack of some big space shuttle like stuff.

Spoiler :


I'm in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!


Landed in the center of the screen, waayyyyyy down there, nice and safely :D


982130 meters is a HUGE improvement over the 57k I did last night :)


Here's the ship.

 
Played it and made it into orbit with a traditional liquid rocket after much testing of whacky designs. Good game, can't wait for the final release.
 
Looks cool. Will try it out soon.
 


This game is addictive.



That flight made it over the million meter mark by a bunch.
 
I downloaded the game yesterday and WOW it's fun

Lift off
Spoiler :


Second Stage
Spoiler :


Third Stage
Spoiler :


Coming Home
Spoiler :


How did you guys get so far into orbit :(..
 
Imma blow stuff up as soon as it comes out for Mac! (which is in the works they said)
 
I downloaded the game yesterday and WOW it's fun

Lift off
Spoiler :


Second Stage
Spoiler :


Third Stage
Spoiler :


Coming Home
Spoiler :


How did you guys get so far into orbit :(..

You know the liquid fuel rockets have variable throttling, right? The boosters are just ignite and nothing can stop them but the liquid fuel rockets you can adjust high or low. It looks like you had it on half power.
 
Nothing screams fun like 40 solid fuel rockets flinging a capsule into space at 6000 m/s.
 
I was about to launch my first rocket when the power went out... :mad:


EDIT: my first sucessful flight reached 353231 m and had a top speed of 1760.4 m/s. I'll post a pic tomorrow. :D
 
My new record is 2.2 million meters (2,270,803 m to be exact) and 2570.7 m/s. Here's a pic from another flight with the same ship:

 
Is it possible to go so high as to not be within the planet's gravity anymore?

Oh, and I stink at this game, heh.

Yes, but I don't know what height you have to be at. Even 2 million isn't enough.

There's also escape velocity, but I don't know what that is either. :p
 
If you get over escape velocity of something around 3400m/s IIRC, you will keep going forever. And to get a stable orbit at 50000m you need a horizontal speed of 2330m/s and a lot of fine tuning.

Heres a great video guide by a real life astrophysicist on how to get into orbit with a very simple rocket.

Link to video.
 
If you get over escape velocity of something around 3400m/s IIRC, you will keep going forever.
Actually, escape velocity from Earth (wrt Earth's gravity anyway) is ~11200 m/s

this is impractical, though, so what you usually do is put something in low-Earth orbit and then accelerate to ~10900 m/s
 
Checked it and escape velocity in the game is 3430.27 m/s.

The planet is quite different from earth, just 600km in diameter and unrealistically dense to create better gameplay.
 
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