Kerbal Space Program

[Antilogic]

I think what trips me up is that when you are orbiting a planet, and zoom out onto the solar system, the pulleys have a different effect, because most of the implications that are described above happen in the context of the planet.. In the context of the solar system, the implications will be slightly different.

Does that make sense? Or am I way off..

So, I think the handles/pulleys are defined with respect to whatever body you are currently orbiting. So, if you are orbiting Kerbin, the handles are defined relative to Kerbin. The moment you leave Kerbin's sphere of influence, the handles get re-defined relative to the Mün or Kerbol. So it'll change on you depending on where you are.

But I think they are always defined in the way I mentioned above. At least, I've been using this understanding and nothing in the game has contradicted it thus far.

 

[warpus]

So, I think the handles/pulleys are defined with respect to whatever body you are currently orbiting. So, if you are orbiting Kerbin, the handles are defined relative to Kerbin. The moment you leave Kerbin's sphere of influence, the handles get re-defined relative to the Mün or Kerbol. So it'll change on you depending on where you are.

But I think they are always defined in the way I mentioned above. At least, I've been using this understanding and nothing in the game has contradicted it thus far.

This would explain everything, although I have to admit I still fully don't understand everything you explained on the last page. I haven't gone through it in detail, having the game up at the same though, I think I'm going to have to do that.

Anyway, doesn't this sort of mess up this sort of plan:

1. Wait until the planets align
2. Get into orbit around Kerbin
3. Set up a maneuver node at the desired angle

?

That's what I've been doing, but if what we are saying here is true, you shouldn't set up your node until you get in orbit around the star instead.

So.. Should I be doing this instead:

1. Wait until the planets align
2. Get into orbit around Kerbin
3. Get to the desired angle, same as the last 3.
4. Burn until you achieve orbit around the star
5. Set up your maneuver node a couple hours in front of you

?

I know that some people forgo the maneuver node and just burn at that angle until the desired velocity, but I have tried that approach several times and find it very hit or miss.. With the maneuver node, you at least have some indication that you're going to be close after the burn is complete, which is why I insist on using it.. but am I doing it right? I thought I was, but my huge problems getting back from Dres and to Moho have made me rethink what I understand.

 

[warpus]

guys

This is what happens when you set CONIC_PATCH_DRAW_MODE = 0

in this example the camera follows Jool as it orbits around the sun, and shows me my upcoming maneuver's intercept and present trajectory. In the distance just to the left of the sun you can see the maneuver node, ready to be easily modified in whichever way I want.

It is really awesome. Check out my super close intercept and imagine how easy it is going to be to finetune it at the end.. I suppose at least in theory for now, because I haven't done it yet

Watching Jool go round on its rail is kind of mesmorising. This is going to be the best first mission to Jool ever

edit: I should note that I followed my 2nd step of instructions here. I burned at the ejection angle until I got out of Kerbin's SOI, and only then set up my maneuver... I think. I'm not exactly sober, I *think* that's what I did. Let's hope so

edit edit: I accidently swtiched my view to one of Jool's moons before timewarp and I think I'm going to throw up

edit edit edit: I remember what I did now. I DIDN'T follow the second set of instructions, but the first. I figured out that the prograde/retrograde pulleys work the same way in both planetary view and solar system view, if you are in orbit around a planet on a 0 degree inclination, so you can just combine "both" burns into one continuous one. At least that's what makes sense to me right now, so for all I know that is complete bollocks. But, for example, according to this hypothesis you would have to set up 2 burns if you needed to change your inclination to get an intercept, one for each SOI.

Anyway, the Muad'Dib mark IV science mission to Jool continues

 

[warpus]

Yep, this makes things a lot easier, at least for me

Spoiler :

Was very easy to set up myself for the first aerobreaking ever in the game - another historical achievement for Atreides space program! Even though it was tough to estimate at which exact altitude to come in.. I ended up trying the maneuver a whole bunch of times and ended up just skimming the through the top layers of the atmosphere a bit and then burning into orbit, which ended up not using that much fuel.

Spoiler :

I took a look around the Jool system and read up on all the moons.. and tried to figure out where to go.. when I realized that my scientific probe didn't have parachutes, which limited he somewhat.. it also actually turned out that its engines were installed improperly (don't ask) and I couldn't even use them.. so.. I decided to fly the probe into Jool and observe the data - it had every scientific instrument imaginable strapped to its body and a graphing mod that would graph all the data as it came in.

Unfortunately the game ended up discarding my probe as debris.. which was weird, because that didn't happen in my last mission. I'm not sure what I did wrong there - I *did* change the type of pod attached to the probe... it should have been fine to control it unmanned-like though.. I guess I'll have to take a look at it again *shrug*

My mothership completed half an orbit around Jool when it was caught in Tylo's SOI. After attempting many maneuver nodes all over the place to try to get an intercept with another moon, and succeeding several times, but not very efficiently, I decided to screw it and attempt to land on Tylo.. which I knew was going to be hard if not impossible, but what the hell..

During the burn to attempt to get into orbit of Tylo, I accidently stumbled upon a Vall intercept - my initial target in terms of something to land on. The mission parameters changed - a landing somewhere might be doable after all.

I ended up having to use up way too much fuel slowing down, had to drop the rover from about 20k up, then ended up using all my fuel trying to slow down enough to land.. ended up crashing into the ground at 80m/s with all my fuel just running out and my rcs not having enough thrust to counter the gravity.

So the first manned science mission to Jool was a huge failure, but even death can be fun, and so it was.

The Jool system is way harder to navigate in than I thought it was going to be. The things I sent there weren't designed for that sort of mission and I didn't have a good plan in terms of where to go and how to approach the entry. It gives me a lot of ideas for my next mission though

edit: sorry about the triple post, KSP kind of took over and nothing else mattered and I didn't realize what happened until it was too late

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Just did my first mission using a conventional three stage rocket, a couple of orbits including an EVA (the guy almost got lost in space) and a succesful landing.

A thing this game need urgently is some reentry physics, some red glow, smoke and the chance of get your capsule incinerated in the process.

BTW, I think this game deserves its own sub-forum.

 

[warpus]

Just did my first mission using a conventional three stage rocket, a couple of orbits including an EVA (the guy almost got lost in space) and a succesful landing.

A thing this game need urgently is some reentry physics, some red glow, smoke and the chance of get your capsule incinerated in the process.

BTW, I think this game deserves its own sub-forum.

Well done! I remember the feeling of accomplishment when I was able to do this for the first time.

What's next on your list, the mun?

 

[cardgame]

Re-entry physics is going to kill Jool aerobraking. Because you're going through at 9,000m/s or so, it gives you an incredible amount of G's even through the thinnest portion of the atmo (I think). Not to mention friction.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

BTW, I think this game deserves its own sub-forum.

It does. There are many subjects the deserve in depth-attention that can't be easily had in a general 'look at this!' thread.

I did try and start another thread on a specific subject here, if you are interested.

Here are some other KSP threads.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Great. We need more intelligent and original games like this.

@cardgame: Not need to touch Gs, but it would be nice to model temperature according to air density and speed and then put some Temperature limit for every module (or even model some part of the modules which are more temperature-resistant, so you must place it facing pro-grade in order to not get toast, but that seems more complicated). Also, there would be some special modules built to resist high temperatures. So if you do the reentry meneuver wrong or using the wrong ship you could see it burning out. It would be funny and much more challenging.

@warpus: I dont know, maybe some interplanetary flight to learn more about how things work, however after playing Orbiter for some time I am a bit more interested in the sand-box aspect and all the funny things i am not able to do in Orbiter rather than in spacial flights per se, i mean more role-oriented things as building ridiculous ships and orbiting spacial stations and such, so to explore the different possibilities of the game which seems many. For instance can you transport a ship, lets say a lander, inside or coupled to another ship and keep the mother ship orbiting in order to use it again later?

 

[Antilogic]

Thanks for the recent link, especially to the community space station. That construction module looked really cool.

 

[cardgame]

Great. We need more intelligent and original games like this.

@cardgame: Not need to touch Gs, but it would be nice to model temperature according to air density and speed and then put some Temperature limit for every module (or even model some part of the modules which are more temperature-resistant, so you must place it facing pro-grade in order to not get toast, but that seems more complicated). Also, there would be some special modules built to resist high temperatures. So if you do the reentry meneuver wrong or using the wrong ship you could see it burning out. It would be funny and much more challenging.

Re-entry heat is definitely coming soon™. I fear for the days of realistic G-forces though, I'll probably only ever use probes... hell, I already do that from weight considerations

@warpus: I dont know, maybe some interplanetary flight to learn more about how things work, however after playing Orbiter for some time I am a bit more interested in the sand-box aspect and all the funny things i am not able to do in Orbiter rather than in spacial flights per se, i mean more role-oriented things as building ridiculous ships and orbiting spacial stations and such, so to explore the different possibilities of the game which seems many. For instance can you transport a ship, lets say a lander, inside or coupled to another ship and keep the mother ship orbiting in order to use it again later?

You can absolutely do those things. Someone even made a floating colony on Laythe using tugboats powered by RCS and dropping in modules in his targeted location with about six flights of atmospheric planes for greater precision.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Then this could become the game i have been waiting for since Elite came out. I fear i am going to be very busy the next weeks...

 

[cardgame]

Larger size and more images here

 

[warpus]

Then this could become the game i have been waiting for since Elite came out. I fear i am going to be very busy the next weeks...

Watch out, it could easily spiral out of control.

After I had the basics of the basics down (with a lot of help from people here, but especially hobbsyoyo - he should direct you to all the things he's put together in terms of drawings and accompanying text - it will really help you - It might as well be combined into a "here's how you play the game!" type thing for new players on here) I found myself waking up at 8am on a Saturday after playing the game until 4am the night before..

.. and saying to myself "I'm up.. screw it, let's play".. and next thing I know it's 7pm and I haven't eaten ANYTHING yet and am still sitting there in my PJs flying around the solar system, my stomach growling.

It can definitely turn into a bit of a problem

The things that got to me were the possibilities (so many possibilities!), the seemingly tedious nature of space travel once you learn how it all works (#1 reason why I haven't learned how to dock yet - I prefer flying around and crap), and the frustration when something doesn't work and you have no idea why or how to fix it. There are so many variables that at times the task seems so daunting that it's easy to give up.

I had a stumbling block trying to upgrade my first successful mun return rocket into something that can do the same thing with a planet. I gave up the game for a week after a nightmare KSP session which involved nothing but exploding rockets and failed designs. Different people struggle with different aspects of the game, you seem to be off to a great start though, IIRC I needed a lot more help getting something into orbit.

The satisfaction you get after pulling off a big mission is totally worth it though, but, at least for me, the keys seem to be moderation and patience

@warpus: I dont know, maybe some interplanetary flight to learn more about how things work, however after playing Orbiter for some time I am a bit more interested in the sand-box aspect and all the funny things i am not able to do in Orbiter rather than in spacial flights per se, i mean more role-oriented things as building ridiculous ships and orbiting spacial stations and such, so to explore the different possibilities of the game which seems many. For instance can you transport a ship, lets say a lander, inside or coupled to another ship and keep the mother ship orbiting in order to use it again later?

This has already been answered above, but yes! So many possibilities......

I recommend a mun mission at some point before you try flying to another planet. It will make you practice getting into orbit around another body, landing, EVAs, you'll become more familiar with various aspects of the game, and.. it just taught me a bunch of things that really helped with my first Duna mission. Eve is easier to get to, but you can land on Duna and return home, so in my mind it's a more.. attractive target.

There's also Minmus you can practice with before you head out towards the planets - it's harder to get to but easier to land on.

 

[cardgame]

Oh yeah, mun missions (both of them) and arguably docking are crucial for interplanetary voyaging.

 

[warpus]

Docking isn't

 

[cardgame]

Not strictly so, no, but the lessons learned there are important.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

@warpus: Well, i already knew how to launch things into space thanks to Orbiter, plus i had some luck with my first sturdy and extremely simple design the cosa2 which you can see here:

Spoiler :

Which carried Jebediah Kerman (the guy is a brave chap obviously) to an almost perfect LEO and return.

However since my first success i have experimented with some more powerful and heaviest rockets with more fuel so i can go further beyond, but the results have been mostly suborbital flights plus some eccentrics and very inclined unusable orbits, and most of the time catastrophic and funny crashes. I have some problems controlling the rocket at launching mostly due to structural weakness.

BTW i have yet to read all the info around in this thread, but is there a way of "closing" the different fuel crossfeed capable connectors and decouplers, so they dont crossfeed fuel anymore?

 

[Antilogic]

Congratulations on your first flights! Looks like you are picking up on the basics quickly.

 

[warpus]

However since my first success i have experimented with some more powerful and heaviest rockets with more fuel so i can go further beyond, but the results have been mostly suborbital flights plus some eccentrics and very inclined unusable orbits, and most of the time catastrophic and funny crashes. I have some problems controlling the rocket at launching mostly due to structural weakness.

Larger rockets usually need struts connecting strategic places. You should also have an ASAs module installed - and press T before launching to turn it on