Kerbal Space Program

[hobbsyoyo]

I see.

I am going to ask my professor about how these inclinations work because I suspect that your time of arrival (either ahead or behind Jool) plays some role here but I'm not sure.

____

I am really excited to get these rovers down, then I can send over the space station.

 

[Antilogic]

I see.

I am going to ask my professor about how these inclinations work because I suspect that your time of arrival (either ahead or behind Jool) plays some role here but I'm not sure.

____

I am really excited to get these rovers down, then I can send over the space station.

Eh... it might if you are going to a planet that has some inclination to start with, but I think arriving ahead or behind Jool determines whether you will be in a pro-grade or retro-grade orbit more than anything else. It's the minor errors when you are conducting your transfer burn that cause polar orbits.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You're prolly right

 

[warpus]

I was having a lot of problems setting up a straight-up Laythe encounter. How do you change the conics and what does that do again?

Find your settings.cfg file (in the KSP folder), edit it, and change the following 2 values as such:

CONIC_PATCH_DRAW_MODE = 0
CONIC_PATCH_LIMIT = 5

The second one isn't as necessary, but it will calculate more future intercepts for you than the default, although I've never seen this in action before (I don't think).

The first setting makes adjusting intercepts from a distance damn easy. It basically moves your intercept graphics to the actual body you are trying to orbit - instead of creating a phantom version of it at the exact intercept position - which you can't focus on. This way if you have a Jool intercept, and you zoom in on Jool by pressing tab a bunch of times, you'll see your intercept right there in the Jool system. So you can casually zoom in, move around, etc. while you fire your engines here and there (or use maneuver nodes to figure out where to fire) to move your Jool or Laythe periapsis to wherever you please.

For example, this is a really old screenshot of me using this technique to adjust my Jool intercept from a distance. My trajectory appears in the Jool system, instead of in butt frack nowhere. My maneuver node is visible in the distance, allowing me to tug at it while I watch how that affects my trajectory - right in the Jool system.

 

[trader/warrior]

Edit: Nevermind thought I had found an anomaly or easter egg but it was only a weird shadow effect. Heh.

I never get to find hidden exciting things.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Ok, so I'm not sure if I'm going to land the rovers today. I may take a swing at it but I only have a couple of hours before I have to go back to the University and I don't feel like spending all of it reloading after every crash.

So I think I will start work on one of my next projects: A platform for launching sounding rockets in Laythe's atmosphere and a jet plane for long-range/high altitude research missions on Laythe. Not sure which one first though.
Edit:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!111!!!!1!!~!1!1!1!1!!1

EAT IT WARPUS YOU CAPITALIST DOG

Spoiler :

It went so good I can even believe it REALLY HAPPENED. Sorry I'm just waaay too excited right now.

The orbit I was on nearly perfectly landed up with the island I wanted to target. A quick burn put me on a trajectory to land near some cool lakes, which are ~80km from the lander with the broken engine. System worked perfectly though it did tip over because it doesn't have RCS or reaction wheels and I landed on a slope. I pressed spacebar and all the rovers dropped off neatly.

One took off down the hill lightning fast (next time use action groups to deploy brakes automatically when they are dropped) and when I hit the hand brake it flipped over. So I took another rover and rammed it and it flipped right side up. All four rovers are operational. I'm probably going to drive them off this slope soon because it makes driving tricky. Just not right now. Don't want to jinx it and/or overload any lurking Warpii with the awesomeness. XD

 

[warpus]

I have been avoiding using rovers lately cause.. the last couple ones I've designed just flip over way too easily - the mod ones I was using in .19 and earlier were much easier to control.

I'm not too impressed by your communist Laythe mission, except for the rovers

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh yeah, not impressed by my commie rovers?
How's about my scientific sounding rocket platform/multiple-launch artillery rockets?

Spoiler :

Pressing 1-5 launches the rockets. You can launch them one at a time, or all at once as my last picture shows. They come in 3 sizes; 2 small, 2 medium and 1 theater ballistic missile large Van-Allen Belt sampler. Pretty sure the big one can hit orbit on Laythe, on Kerbin it gets to 19km.

It's portable and also has landing legs for enhanced launch stability. Oh and the legs definitely are bugged; they lean even on this 6ton machine. What's worse is that it's an intermittent lean that isn't easily reproduced.

Edit: While typing, the rockets I launched for the photo op came back down on my platform.

Commie engineering at it's best!!

Oh and stock rovers take a ton of work to make them stable, mine sure as hell are not so quicksave is going to have to save me.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

That missile launcher rover is seriously cool. And a very commie concept indeed. It gave me some ideas.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks. Putting it down on Laythe is going to be a challenge, I am going to have design a platform for it to roll off. The parts needed for that are going to make it a lag hound like the rover skycrane.

 

[cardgame]

Radial engines on your missiles? The proper half meter engine is way better.

 

[cardgame]

KERBAL MULTIPLAYER MOD EXISTS

http://reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1ph0od/kmp/

Now who wants to do an Apollo mission while one of us stays in the orbiter?

Put together an ISS?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Radial engines on your missiles? The proper half meter engine is way better.

I always forget about it.

_____

I'd be down to try multiplayer after I hear some reviews on how well it works fist.

 

[Antilogic]

Oh yeah, not impressed by my commie rovers?
How's about my scientific sounding rocket platform/multiple-launch artillery rockets?

Spoiler :

Pressing 1-5 launches the rockets. You can launch them one at a time, or all at once as my last picture shows. They come in 3 sizes; 2 small, 2 medium and 1 theater ballistic missile large Van-Allen Belt sampler. Pretty sure the big one can hit orbit on Laythe, on Kerbin it gets to 19km.

It's portable and also has landing legs for enhanced launch stability. Oh and the legs definitely are bugged; they lean even on this 6ton machine. What's worse is that it's an intermittent lean that isn't easily reproduced.

Edit: While typing, the rockets I launched for the photo op came back down on my platform.

Commie engineering at it's best!!

Oh and stock rovers take a ton of work to make them stable, mine sure as hell are not so quicksave is going to have to save me.

Back in .21 I had a pretty good worker bee that I converted into a starfighter. Too much like the F-4 Phantom for my taste, though, as it had no proper gun and only a tiny missile rack.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Finished design of my Laythe Atmospheric Research Attack Jet. It also happens to be the first jet I've ever built that actually works. It looks a bit funky with the double wings (which weren't even intentional but they somehow work) and the docking port up front (for refueling on the ground - gonna build a refueler truck next). It has a TWR of well over 3 so it's capable of a wicked zoom climb. Please note the second picture: that's how engineers land airplanes.

I have actually landed it manually once but it's not something I'm good at so I developed the parachute landing mechanism for enhanced survivability.

Spoiler :

 

[Chairman Meow]

I've gotten pretty good at landing spaceplanes lately. The trick is to use the instrument panel inside the cockpit, where you have a radar altitude indicator, rather than the heads-up display. Descend at around 10 m/s until you get to 100 m above ground, then angle up so you're only descending 5 m/s, and as long as the ground is relatively flat (keep an eye on the radar altitude), you'll have no problem landing.

edit -- oh, and remember to lower your landing gear. I splattered Jeb across the island runway once because of that.

 

[Antilogic]

I land my planes by firing the stack separators around the cockpit and opening a nice big 'chute. I guess I land a part of the plane.

My rockets are more reusable than my planes.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've gotten pretty good at landing spaceplanes lately. The trick is to use the instrument panel inside the cockpit, where you have a radar altitude indicator, rather than the heads-up display. Descend at around 10 m/s until you get to 100 m above ground, then angle up so you're only descending 5 m/s, and as long as the ground is relatively flat (keep an eye on the radar altitude), you'll have no problem landing.

edit -- oh, and remember to lower your landing gear. I splattered Jeb across the island runway once because of that.

I do not possess the piloting skill to do this. The plane is nice and stable I just can't land it. Also, it's just nice to not have to worry about the landing, I just open the chute and plop it down. It's also extremely precise this way in that I can pick an exact landing spot and nail it. Since I can repack chutes it's infinitely reusable as long as I have a pilot. I was going to send an unmanned version of this plane out there but not being able to repack chutes was a deal breaker on that.

Edit: Switched out the radial engines for the inline .5m engine. Holy crap balls! The extra efficiency of the engine allowed my large sounding rocket to go from a apoapsis of 19km to almost 50!

 

[ls612]

KERBAL MULTIPLAYER MOD EXISTS

http://reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1ph0od/kmp/

Now who wants to do an Apollo mission while one of us stays in the orbiter?

Put together an ISS?

Wait at least a month until it is semi-stable. Then maybe we can make a CFC-KMP server (I call the tylo lander).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I find it unbalanced, but not really broken. Not bad for the first version, IMO.

Oh, I just saw this. Not my game, I'm not this crazy:

Just figured out how this was done: that guy set off a Kessler Bomb.