Kerbal Space Program

[Antilogic]

Cause you never busted out the calculator to figure out how many times you would have to purchase the maximum amount of coins necessary to trade them in for a Porygon.

Uh... no?

Not for a porygon at least, although I've done a lot of "work" for other games.

 

[ls612]

Hobbsyoyo, you need to check out the Kerbal Engineer mod on the Spaceport, it is a plugin that gives you all of the data you are getting from that spreadsheet in real time, and if you don't mind using mods it is insanely useful.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Hobbsyoyo, you need to check out the Kerbal Engineer mod on the Spaceport, it is a plugin that gives you all of the data you are getting from that spreadsheet in real time, and if you don't mind using mods it is insanely useful.

Thanks dude!
I've seen that and I only didn't download it because I'm not sure how mods work with my Steam copy of KSP and I also don't know if it's still compatible with .22. Do you know anything about those issues?

My first attempts at the mega-launcher were all disasters. First off, some major new .22 specific problems:

What they didn't mention in the changelog is that they redid the Launch Stability Enhancers, they now have 100% more sag. I believe they used the same bugged 'squish' model that they applied to the landing legs. So now when you load a craft with LSE's, they sag under the weight. What's worse, they sag unevenly so your craft starts at a tilted attitude, and they also bob around. It's unbelievably annoying and I've heard of people having issues with them even on small craft. I know they want to make the game more sophisticated and realistic, but the one thing I don't want to ever have to deal with and plan around is LES sag. It's stupid because if that were a problem in real life, you'd just get bigger/stronger LES's.

SAS is glitchy as a mofo as well. I missed the fun from the initial .21 release where they had serious SAS glitches that they patched in .21.1, but from what I'm reading on the forums the new 'improved' SAS in .22 has the exact same issues that .21 had. For medium/heavy rockets that worked perfectly in .21.1, they are now completely uncontrollable. My huge rocket can't fly straight, even with tons of winglets and thrust vectoring. Turning off the gimbals on some or even most of the engines doesn't help, the SAS is just bugged.

The subassembly function is also buggy as hell. It wouldn't let me attach things I loaded from it to my rocket. I clicked and clicked and it wouldn't let me attach them.

Specific rocket problems (probably unrelated to .22): well it just breaks. Over and over and over again. This is the most heavily strutted rocket I've ever built and it just randomly breaks at random points. What's really troubling is that the failures are unrepeatable and totally random. What that tells me is that it's an issue with the physics engine rather than the craft. Which I can't fix.

I put the side tanks on the ICS up too high, I can move them down and it should help with stability issues but probably not enough to make it fly right.

They model the mass of struts now (they started in .19 but I didn't notice). It's pretty stupid to be honest because a short, .0001m strut weighs 100kg and a long, 15m strut weighs...100kg. Worse, the physics engine tries to accounts for any asymmetry due to your struts. So if you have one strut misplaced on one side of a 1000ton rocket, that's enough to cause a weight imbalance which leads to rockets wobbling off course which feeds into the SAS issues.

Also, my spreadsheet failed me miserably. My initial launch (before it disentigrated) actually got pretty far into the flight but I don't think it could have made orbit. It's possible that it could have and I will never know because it blew up, but to be safe I added more fuel and engines. I think the refit will get to orbit, if it doesn't blow up.

The good news: the aerodynamic nose cones do help with aerodynamic stability, I'm happy to report, but not enough to make it worth the weight/drag penalty, particularly on large rockets.



So yeah, I'm pretty frustrated with the game in general and with this patch in particular. Especially with issues relating to LES sag and landing legs sag, I just don't even know how that escaped notice in testing and they should have waited to release this update.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Making large ships usually entails frustation. It is KSP universal law.

 

[warpus]

I've been doing missions and unlocking science. I'm at the stage now where I can finally fly to the mun and back.

Designing stuff with missing parts is fun. My rocket design has evolved into something a bit curious..

Spoiler :

It works well but has way too many overlapping stages that all expire at unique intervals.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Warpus - Isn't it fun to discover the joys of explosive decoupling?

Making large ships usually entails frustation. It is KSP universal law.

I know. I only really get frustrated when ships blow up at completely random points. When they blow up at the same point, I can usually figure out what the weak point is and address it, but when it's just random (and I've built it sturdy enough that it shouldn't have problems) I get really angry because I feel like the game is holding back my reasonably unreasonable designs.

Throw in the new bugs of .22 and you have one angry Hobbs

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I sent a mission to land on Mun, it landed as silk at first attempt and Jebediah sent a 25 points report and kept another 25 points one, however in the return it fell short on fuel so he ended in 2500-3500 km orbit around Kerbin. So i sent a sputnik mission with a empty mk1 pod to rescue him. ERROR, sputnik sucks a lot of electricity so dont even try to use it without solar panels. I ended with two dead ship floating around one with no fuel and another with no charge. Finally i sent a rescue mission with two MK1 pods in tandem, one crewed by Bill and the other empty, rescued Jebeddiah (first EVA evah!) and returned home safely. However the ship which landed at Mun continues orbiting around kerbin as a brick, loaded with a good bunch of science points and cant rescue it since it has not docking bays. I wonder if it would be possible to rescue it somehow. Any ideas?

Also be careful with the small LV909 engine, it does not recharge the batteries, so it is not of any use either until you unlock solar panels. I almost ran out of charge in the Mun mission since the lander engine was a LV909. "Fortunately" i ran out of fuel first.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Your ship is stuck forever, unfortunately.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Well, i thought so too, but nope! Just completed one of that missions that make you realize how awesome this game is.

It was an in-extremis rescue of my mun lander which after Jebbediah rescue by Bill Kerman was orbiting 3000 km around Kerbin, empty and without fuel but full of scientific data. The problem was there were no docking bays to transfer the needed fuel, so after a lot of calculations and engineering the technicians came out with this:

Spoiler :

The way of using it is very obvious: you must place the thing you want to resue into the basket, so it is a spacial bulldozer. It is crewed with two kerbals in mk1 pods, while approaching the target one of them go EVA and get into the target ship (It was needed to crew it in order to deploy the parachute, fortunately there was some residual electric charge still in the lander), then the bulldozer rams the target (softly) and while accelerating slighty to avoid the target getting out of the basket, maneuver to retrograde and performs the deorbiting burn. Sadly in the heat of the moment i was taking screenshoots using the PrintScreen buttton instead of F1, so no images of it, only to say that the lander was tiny composed only of the mk1 pod and a small fuel tank with legs which i forgot to decouple in order to fit it better into the basket. But it was as i tell you, you must believe me!!!

Said and done. It was not that hard indeed. After the deorbiting burn was completed both ships departed ways and while the bingo moon lander falls into atmosphere as a stone (thankfully temperature limits are not yet implemented) and Jebbediah activates the parachute to land safely, the rescue bulldozer performs one more orbit and lands too, however it was a bit problematic landing, since the basket didnt decoupled as expected and almost caused a catastrophe for messing with the parachutes, but all was fine at the end and i could have my precious science points (it is me getting better or KSP is more prone to forgive errors than in previous versions?)

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well done!

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I just had the most intense aerobreaking maneuver in my career:
Returned from a 3-man flight to Eve where I had made some science experiments in high and low orbit. During my escape burn from Eve I noticed that the node planner hadn't really taken Gilly into account, so had to slingshot around it. The maneuver took me still back to Kerbin, but with a direct collision course at ~4.000 m/s.

I basicially smashed so fast into the atmosphere that I reached "regular" speed roughly 300 m above the surface, barely enough time to deploy my parachutes. Awesome.

As for the tech tree:
The devs have stated a few times (e.g. in one of Scotts videos) that the tech tree has not been designed for realism's sake, but rather to act as a tutorial and step-by-step trial for new players. So that they start with basic parts and are not overwhelmed by the complexity of a full inventory.

And yes, the lack of early game decouplers and batteries is annoying, but it makes for a nice challenge.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

As for the tech tree:
The devs have stated a few times (e.g. in one of Scotts videos) that the tech tree has not been designed for realism's sake, but rather to act as a tutorial and step-by-step trial for new players. So that they start with basic parts and are not overwhelmed by the complexity of a full inventory.

And yes, the lack of early game decouplers and batteries is annoying, but it makes for a nice challenge.

Swapping a manned pod for a robotic one will hardly overwhelm new players. Ditto for a couple of science parts that should be swapped.

 

[warpus]

I really need to unlock nuclear engines, I wish I already had them.. For the most part I think I have enough parts other than that to build a stable successful interplanetary science mission... But I just did a landed minmus science return mission, and it seems like I'm going to have to do that once or twice to get all the parts I'd want for such an undertaking.. and 2 minmus missions feel "already done and feeling a bit stale"

Do you get much science by sending those labs in orbit? I've been only sending out 6 canisters of goo, collecting data, beating a bunch of it back, then sending my lander back for the extra science. Maybe I could be getting science via other means that I haven't explored yet

 

[Thorgalaeg]

You always can use the bulldozer method to bring them back home if you run short on fuel. It is easier than docking...

I just had the most intense aerobreaking maneuver in my career:
Returned from a 3-man flight to Eve where I had made some science experiments in high and low orbit. During my escape burn from Eve I noticed that the node planner hadn't really taken Gilly into account, so had to slingshot around it. The maneuver took me still back to Kerbin, but with a direct collision course at ~4.000 m/s.

I basicially smashed so fast into the atmosphere that I reached "regular" speed roughly 300 m above the surface, barely enough time to deploy my parachutes. Awesome.

4.000 m/s is crazy. After abruptly deorbited by my spacial bulldozer my Mun lander reentered at almost 3000 m/s and it was pretty scary too...

I have noticed that every part has a temperature limit in kelvin degrees now. Are they going to implement temperature soon? If so the days of our crazy reentries are over i guess...

 

[Chairman Meow]

I managed to land a spaceplane on Laythe today. Thought it was going well until I went to repack the parachutes and noticed a slight problem in my design (aside from the glitched-out struts, which occurred when I moved the spaceplane to a different location on my launcher and forgot to remove the struts)

Spoiler :

Always test your designs before leaving Kerbin...

 

[ls612]

Thanks dude!
I've seen that and I only didn't download it because I'm not sure how mods work with my Steam copy of KSP and I also don't know if it's still compatible with .22. Do you know anything about those issues?

Mods work fine with steam-based KSP. All you do is put the mod folder in the Gamedata folder and it should work. I am not sure if Kerbal Engineer has been updated yet, but if it isn't it will be soon.

 

[warpus]

Apparently my mun lander setup will almost get me to Duna and back. Except that I used up the parachutes landing on Duna, and the capsule my guy is in is smothered in goo canisters, so no way to get out for an EVA.. Ah well.. Crashed him into the north pole, for science.

I can't wait until these missions are partially or fully assigned to you. "Go to the mun, do this and that, for $X". Also will be cool once you have to discover the planets, one by one, or however that is going to work.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Anyone else having serious issues with the new Launch Stabilizers? I have had nothing but problems with them since .22. They like to bounce your rocket around now so it either takes off at an angle or it literally bounces your rocket apart.

Thanks ls612, I downloaded Kerbal Engineer and it works perfectly!

After messing around with stock parts and Kerbal Engineer, I realized I can't build a big enough rocket to be useful for my Laythe mission. Well, I can build it but the Launch Stability Enhancers bounce it apart 9/10 launches. Then, if it gets airborne, it still explodes. I've even been using a new girder/strut strengthening method pioneered by Whackjob on the KSP forums (he is notorious for building monstrosities) but nothing will keep my big rockets together.

So I downloaded NovaPunch to use the bigger selection of parts and it's been liberating. I've been able to design new and different rockets and it's been a blast. Unfortunately, I still have the same issues with giant rockets that I was having before. Everything either bounces apart because of the LSE's or explodes in mid-air. Also, the big Apollo-style 5m rocket parts in Nova punch are bugged and there's literally now way to get them to stick together on even a medium sized rocket, the engines will randomly break off when you hit the launch button even with 9E10 struts.

So I enabled the debug menu and clicked on 'unbreakable joint's. So now the thing will fly but it still has some stability issues with the new SAS. I guess this means I've dropped out of the 'official' (i.e. all-stock) Laythe Base race. I just got insanely frustrated with the limitations of the game and I found I spent way more time trying to make things not break when they shouldn't break to begin with. I'm only going to use the debug menu to launch mega rockets that are impossible to hold together otherwise. But I'll turn it off after that.

I'm not going to uninstall NovaPunch however, it's waaaaaaay to useful to have so many new parts; I've got lots of cool new designs that are a lot of fun. It's also easier to optimize your design with the new parts because you can find *exactly* what you need instead of having to use half-solutions. Oh and I also have to keep NovaPunch because it includes no-squishy landing legs. I think what I also really like about NovaPunch is that the parts are on the whole pretty balanced. There's no real lolwtf mega-OP parts in there which is great and makes me feel better about using mods for my mission. At the end of the day I just wanted to have fun and I wasn't having fun with all of the problems the game was throwing at me. It's probably 90% me in the form of bad designs, I don't know and I don't care anymore.

Seriously, the revamped landing legs are effed up.

Should also mention that old designs that used to work perfectly are now unusable thanks to SAS issues. Further, old designs fail on the launchpad now due to the LSE bounce issue.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

TL;DR

-Warpus wins the space race again; I am a terribad engineer
-Mods are fun
-Antilogic hates Pokemon (srsly WTH???)
-LSE's and Landing Legs suck donkey balls

 

[warpus]

Hobbs, maybe you need to rethink your "build big" methodology. It's awesome when it works, but it seems like you run into so many issues trying to make it work that it'd just be easier to launch smaller missions, and dock them together in space or whatever.

I have been using the new landing legs but haven't had any issues with them. I always make sure to touch down reallllly slowly, @ 2-4m/s or so. I haven't tried saving a game with something landed and returning to it later though, not in 0.22

I saw that the landing legs are fixable via EVA though, so maybe they're supposed to break if you abuse them.