Kerbal Space Program

[Antilogic]

I'd love to see the balanced tanker myself.

 

[cardgame]

Hmm, you'll need a mod or two for it. Bobcat's HOME pack for its radial aerospikes and Bolt-On Probe System for a 1m probe core that pilots it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?89z98xg9pbdx8oo

 

[warpus]

Thanks, I think I should be good.

How do people dock large space stations with smaller approaching craft? Surely a big space station composed of multiple parts isn't balanced very well in terms of RCS placement, centre of mass, etc. Seems like something is always going to be slightly wobbling and/or spinning somewhere.

I think I'm going to return to this tomorrow

 

[trader/warrior]

That, and I'm not exactly sure which way my RCS is going to burn when I press IJKLHN. How are the directions determined? H and N seem starightforward enough, but the rest are useless to me because I never know which way they're going to burn. I must be missing some vital piece of understanding here

Press V and set the camera to chase mode, this aligns your camera so I=up K=down J=left L=right and same for WASD. This was a revalation to me.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Press V and set the camera to chase mode, this aligns your camera so I=up K=down J=left L=right and same for WASD. This was a revalation to me.

OMG OMG OMWHYDIDNTYOUTELLMETHISANHOURAGOG!!!!!!!
Frak me. It's been such a pain lining up this:

Spoiler :

with this:

Spoiler :

to make this:

Spoiler :

So I have the core of the station with 4 NERVAS and an organge fuel tank + 1 side wing with 1 orange fuel tank. I have to add one more side wing, then I'm going to add a living unit, an RCS fuel unit and then scientific/docking module. The final piece will be the lander(s). Oh and then I'm going to fill it up with crew, it has 4 now but I hope to get the compliment up to at least 10 kerbalnauts before I head off for duna.

So I'm maybe 15% of the way through my mission to send a space station and reusable lander to Duna.

I'll start on my write up of my progress so far tomorrow.

Oh and I saw you're having some problems with docking Warpus, I'll go through and reread the recent posts and try and fill in anything you aren't getting when I get a chance.

 

[warpus]

OMG, this V thing helps a TON

I am going back trying to attach my 2 Gurney Halleck space station components tomorrow.. Assuming that.. Oh crap, I ended my flight.. We'll see what's still in orbit

grumble..

Oh and I saw you're having some problems with docking Warpus, I'll go through and reread the recent posts and try and fill in anything you aren't getting when I get a chance.

Well.. I was able to get into position fine, so I think I have that part down. Pressing V and controlling things in that mode from there should do it! I think..

I get into orbit differently and do a H orbit injection type thing, instead of the way you do it btw. Works better for me in that when you end up 2km away from the other module, you will never drift much further from it than that. So basically when you get the orbit intercept, you don't have to worry about burning a lot to make your orbit circular - you can focus on trying to align stuff and get closer to the module you're trying to dock with. The one change is that you have to launch into orbit when the piece you're trying to dock with isn't overhead yet - and you don't really have to - if you end up far away from it, you just make a slightly larger orbit (or smaller) and catch up with the thing you're trying to dock with. I'm not sure if this approach is more fuel efficient or less, but it seems towork better for me

 

[Antilogic]

I always quicksave before going to the space center on the off chance I accidentally end the flight. Because that sucks hard.

(I'm going to have to skip out for a little while, gotta bail to hit the showers then bed.)

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Yep, that is one of the things in the game that is unrealistic and makes return back home (and landing on some other bodies) a lot easier.

Re-entry heat, wind/turbulence conditions, possibility of reentry heat weakening structural collections, clouds, and weather, are all things they have on their official "to add to the game at some point" list, and all those things would make landing on planetary objects a lot more interesting and realistic. Once the full game is out, we are all probably going to need to be ferrying around a bit more fuel than we're used to



The Dev mark 5 ant rover is cool - I like it more than the bobcat or whatever it's called rover - so far it's been my favourite lightweight rover. There's cool looking larger rovers out there, but I haven't tried any yet. I would get mechjeb once you've successfully completed your first get to and return from mission to another planet.. Once you get past that stage you will want to focus your attention to different kinds of problems and use mechjeb to get you into initial orbit more efficiently. At least that's what I ended up doing and I am glad I stayed away from Mechjeb until "I was ready". It can help you with almost anything. I use it to get a nice elliptic path when getting into initial orbit around Kerbin - that sort of autopilot is invaluable and saves me fuel. I control the thrust myself. I also use it for data readout purposes - there's a lot of graphs and hard data displayed.. such as all the angles you need to move between planets, which is very handy. There's been one emergency landing where I used mechjeb to land, but other than that I have been trying to avoid its other features.

The quantum strut mod seems very handy for space station design - which I'm in the process of trying to accomplish now.. I have one piece in orbit with living quarters for 13 and a whole bunch of solar panels and have a rocket design that would send up 10 more living quarters, a whole lotta rcs fuel, and a return ship/thrust helper. I haven't had a chance to try to get the 2nd piece in orbit yet.. There was one attempt last night that ended in comical failure, but .. yeah, the struts will probably end up being very handy. We'll see though

What else is there.. I like the mod that allows you to graph your data from your scientific instruments, or from wherever.

I really haven't used too many.. I installed a bunch of them in a batch process of sorts (open a bunch of tabs, download zip files, copy over folders, done), so I see new parts here and there, but the things I've mentioned are the only ones I've tried so far.

Thanks. I have finally installed everything. precissely the mechjeb mod was that i was looking for the most, not because the autopilot features but because i like to see a lot of data in screen, that way it looks more like Orbiter simulator which i am used to. Sadly it seems that some large mods like KW mod are discontinued and doesnt work properly anymore (some solid engines do not light up and liquid ones do not even need any fuel to work!), however i didnt find any rover after installing everything from that page only a very large one. Maybe i am doing something wrong? I have only tried a tiny portion of all the tryable things soi will comment more while i explore it all.

About my current projects now i am also trying to build a large lifter to carry heavy payloads into orbit and learn to do things in space, like docking and mounting things and finally to build my own space station if i can. I have built some heavy rockets using a lot of solid boosters and such, however if it is too wide it collides with the tower at the launch site and all ends in a huge fireball even before it take off. Is there a way to remove that damn tower?
Well, In general i see that building very large rockets is more complicated that i though first (which is a good realistic thing).

BTW @hobbsyoyo i see from your pics that adding nosecones and fairing walls for better aerodynamics is not that important isnt it?

Well, really there is a hell of things to o in this game, sadly it seems that i am going to be busy in the damn real world for a week or two and will have not time to develop my space program properly.

 

[warpus]

You can try using those red stability things to lift up your rocket a bit higher. If your rocket is too large at the base it might not help, but you might as well try. I don't remember what they are called, but the word "stability" is in their name IIRC, and they basically allow you to lift your rocket off the ground and start your launch from there by attaching these tower things to the sides of your boosters.

As for the rovers the mark5 ant will be in the pods section in the game. If it's not there then you did not install it properly - maybe you just didn't install it?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Warpus - to get an intercept do you just get a regular orbit and then do a burn to get an intercept or what? My method works but it definately can be very frustrating and I'd be happy to hear how you do it.

@Thorgalaeg - Unless they made some unanounced changes in 18.2, yes nosecones are pointless.

The things is that at this state, the game uses a very simplified and innacurate model for drag. To compute drag, the game looks at your total mass, and computes drag as a function of that. As of now, the game does not look at the shape or actual aerodynamics of your rocket to compute drag - it's all based on mass.

What this means is that those cool nosecones and such that are supposed to cut drag - well, they actually add drag. They add mass to the rocket, which means more drag. At some point they are going to fix it but as of now, they are pointless. They look good, but typically the kinds of massive payloads I launch have such thin propellent margins to get to LKO that I can't afford the extra weight and drag of nose cones.

 

[warpus]

@Warpus - to get an intercept do you just get a regular orbit and then do a burn to get an intercept or what? My method works but it definately can be very frustrating and I'd be happy to hear how you do it.

Here's my process:

1. I start my launch a bit before the 2nd piece is over the launchpad
2. Start getting into orbit until I get an apoapsis of ~100km, assuming that my other piece is orbiting at about 100km as well. This might mean burning at a 45 agree longer than usual.
3. Wait until I get to the apoapsis, then circularize my orbit.
4. If I launched at the right time, I'll be close to the space station, almost at the exact same orbit. If I'm behind it, I lower my orbit a bit, if I'm in front of it, I make it larger.
5. Fast forward until the 2 pieces are relatively close
6. Burn retrograte wrt to target, then burn towards it, then dock.

Does the "retrograde and prograde markers will fly around wildly once your relative velocity is almost 0" thing happen to everyone? It prevents me from stabilizing my relative velocity once I'm close to something. It'll be fine until I get like 0.6 m/s relative velocity, then all hell breaks loose. I was once able to somehow magically go from "markers flailing around like michael j fox * 9000" to "holy crap, my retrograde and target markers are magically lined up, and I didn't really do anything", but shortly after that I was back to the usual shaky and random movement marker shenanigans.

What's even worse is that say I mess up my relative velocity for some reason and it's back to 5-10m/s. My prograde and retrograde markers continue to act wild and jump all over the screen - not telling me where to burn to kill my relative velocity.

Bug, or did i just have bad luck? Or something else?

 

[Antilogic]

About my current projects now i am also trying to build a large lifter to carry heavy payloads into orbit and learn to do things in space, like docking and mounting things and finally to build my own space station if i can. I have built some heavy rockets using a lot of solid boosters and such, however if it is too wide it collides with the tower at the launch site and all ends in a huge fireball even before it take off. Is there a way to remove that damn tower?
Well, In general i see that building very large rockets is more complicated that i though first (which is a good realistic thing).

I downloaded a mod to remove the launch platform--it requires you to always use the little red launching gear, but that's a small price to pay for the ability to put 6 orange tanks in orbit with most of their fuel on a single launch.

Does the "retrograde and prograde markers will fly around wildly once your relative velocity is almost 0" thing happen to everyone? It prevents me from stabilizing my relative velocity once I'm close to something. It'll be fine until I get like 0.6 m/s relative velocity, then all hell breaks loose. I was once able to somehow magically go from "markers flailing around like michael j fox * 9000" to "holy crap, my retrograde and target markers are magically lined up, and I didn't really do anything", but shortly after that I was back to the usual shaky and random movement marker shenanigans.

What's even worse is that say I mess up my relative velocity for some reason and it's back to 5-10m/s. My prograde and retrograde markers continue to act wild and jump all over the screen - not telling me where to burn to kill my relative velocity.

I'll see a lot of jumping under 0.3 m/s, especially if I have my ASAS on. If I have any appreciable movement, I have a clear velocity vector with pro-grade and retrograde directions. If I rotate or adjust heading rapidly, the velocity vector will jump then return to its original position.

Your protocol requires some luck to line up the first launch, but it looks easier in the long run than mine.

 

[warpus]

I wonder why mine was jumping around like an idiot. Hmm we'lll see what happens on my 2nd attempt. As for removing the launch tower, that's a great mod, haven't seen it around

 

[Antilogic]

So, here's a link to the mod I'm pretty sure I installed. It says its for 0.17, but it's worked for me so far.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well I'm done for the day. It took me a long time to put this together:

Spoiler :

Y-Wing Duna Station

I have to add landers, drop off some kerbals to fill out the compliment, and top it off with rcs fluid. Then it'll be ready to go to Duna.

It's very wobbly now that I've added the cockpit, I'm a bit worried about it now. I may also add some torpedos to it using decouples and sepatrons, I don't know yet.

Anywho, classes start tomorrow so I'm sorry if I don't check in for a while.

Thanks for the tips Warpus.

After I get the landers attached, I'll do a full write up.

 

[warpus]

I use a mod that allows me to right-click on pods and add astronauts right on the launchpad. It is quite handy! That's how I sent 15 dudes to the gay sex colony on the Mun all at once.

Nice looking ship! How many launches did that take, so far? Following your mission with a lot of interest

 

[Thorgalaeg]

TY Antilogic, the no-tower mod works great! it is just that i needed.

@Warpus i installed some rovers individually and now they appear in the pod menu. Now i only have to go somewhere to use them.

I just managed to build an absurdly heavy rocket which works (sort of) but i had no time to test it properly so dont know how maneuverable is it, at least it is capable of reaching the scape velocity and go to deep space in a straight vertical line from the launchpad! a pic of the grotesque beast (with nosecones just for eyecandy purpose):

Spoiler :

 

[warpus]

I might just have to get rid of my tower as well..

As for the rovers, there is one that you need to attach a pod to, in order for it to work. It's not the ant, it's the other one.. I forget the name. I made the mistake once and sent a mission to the mun with a rover, or at least what I thought was a functioning rover - to the game it was just debris, since there was no pod attached .. so watch out for that.

and if you're using the ant (no extra pod needed for this one), don't forget to put solar panels on it AND do not forget to open the hatch before you plop it down on the Mun (or wherever). If you put it down without the hatch open, you will never get in.

Just 2 things I learned the hard way

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Warpus, my Duna station took 5 launches + several failed launches.

I only have one class today so I should be able to get in a decent write up of my progress so far. It has been an interesting project so far and I have used some new construction techniques.

The only things that I am really sweating is how wobbly it is with the added cockpit section and I am going to have to disable a ton of RCS ports. I needed them to manuever the large peices but now that it is together all they do is suck down RCS gas with marginal benefit.

Of and it's going to take at least 5 more launches to fully kit out the ship with landers, fuel and possibly 'defensive' torpedos for 'asteroid hunting'.

 

[warpus]

Hm I'm not sure, but the quantum strut mod have an EVA gun thing you can use to add new struts