Why not just use SRBs pointed the opposite direction to reduce your velocity?
well this is the final landing stage, so it already has one deceleration srb on the bottom, but even with that I can't get great speed control (I'm not that great at orbital stuff). So I need something that can hit the Mun at 100-200 m/s and survive enough to fly back to kerbal.
I'm sure someone really really good at plotting orbital paths and such could get a landing going much easier, but that's not me so I go for the brute force approach.
If I didn't want to do a return trip it would be so much easier, making a single capsule survive isn't too hard with a big cage of hardpoints, struts and landing gear.
Yeah. This is apparently part of the standard procedure for getting the larger aircraft off the ground - use B to hold the wheel brakes while the engines spool up so that you can get off the ground before the runway ends.
That's also used for real planes.
Yep. Someone needs to make a catapult launcher mod...that would be interesting.
Sent up a stripped down rocket, no landing gear or anything, specifically just to get practice manipulating orbits, but then I got a perfect opportunity for a moonshot.
Set it up, still have a full stage left to burn for a landing....
...and accidentally separate the last stage, making me overshoot the moon because I can't control the thrust anymore.
I've done that a lot of times. I need a sticky note on my monitor that says "Hitting space does not restart engines."
Hell, it needs to be a loading screen.
I've done it lots of times too, and it is just the worst feeling. The second I hear the *PSHH* my hand instantly leaves the keyboard and collides with my forehead.
I finally have a 3 man munshot (and minshot) rocket that I am happy with. I have to cut engines before jettisoning the liquid fuel boosters and throwaway tanks, or else they might take off my main engine. I also found the linear port RCS thrusters the only thing strong enough to rotate the rocket consistently after the main engine off (although I only really need 3 of those 4 RCS fuel tanks).
Well, using an insanely overpowered K&W rocket, I put my first lander on Minmus--an unmanned solar rover from Lionhead Aerospace.
The rocket was far too unmanueverable for MechJeb to steer it, so I resorted to the whole "come to halt over Minmus' orbit, correct my altitude, and fly directly into Minmus" strategy.
so. my phallus rocket has now become my best rocket design for reaching the moon. or minmus. seriously what the fuck, 15 fuselages to make it ridiculously tall is my best design?
edit: made it to the mun!
and then crashed on impact because i have no idea how to line up a munar landing.
elevation on the surface of the mun is much higher than elevation on the surface of Kerbin.
Good to know.
Definitely had a perfect munshot, coming in for a nice landing, still had some fuel in my main engine left so wasn't even on the landing pod, I was prepared to jettison that with a little big of fuel left, lower the gear, land, and head back.
yeah thats what happened the second attempt i made at landing on the mun, it was the dark side so i was flying entirely by tools, and i definitely hit the ground way before i thought i would and crashed
Yeah, that and the terrain all blending together makes moon landings pretty difficult. I finally got around to hacking up a new mun ship I dubbed the Thundercat I last night. Everything went swimmingly until I started my final moon descent, I had put on that dinky little rocket motor figuring it would be plenty slow me down, but nope, hit the ground at 500 m/s.... Going to have to redo the design a bit me thinks.
Yeah, that and the terrain all blending together makes moon landings pretty difficult. I finally got around to hacking up a new mun ship I dubbed the Thundercat I last night. Everything went swimmingly until I started my final moon descent, I had put on that dinky little rocket motor figuring it would be plenty slow me down, but nope, hit the ground at 500 m/s.... Going to have to redo the design a bit me thinks.
balls, I totally have a rocket halfway to the mun that i did this to, i figured part of my problem was my rocket was too frigging big and i wanted to land, so i added a small fuel container and the small rocket for the descent, guess thats not gunna go well
I just picked this up yesterday (Although I had played the previous free versions). So of course, I had to build a giant rocket:
Clearly the most elegant rocket around.
So, where are we headed? Mun? Minimus?
Hmm, we seem to be headed rather far out here.
Oh, that can't be good.
Hmm, maybe a manned mission to the sun wasn't that great an idea.
Had to retake some of the earlier screenshots since I was using printscreen instead of F1, and didn't want to go through the whole thing again since that high efficiency rocket on the center stage takes forever to burn through.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Successfully landing on the moon is indeed a tricky business. On my last attempt, everything went squirrely in about the last 10 seconds, resulting in the command pod snapping off and the engines zooming across the munscape for a couple kilometers before exploding.
Then the time before that, the engine stack grazed the surface of the moon at a bad angle, exploded and destroyed the whole stack, and sent the command pod flying off across the munscape. Thought it might make it, but apparently 50 m/s is a bit more than the command pod can handle.
I made it to the Mun again last night. Unfortunately I couldn't slow down fast enough and hit the surface pretty hard. I need to work on my landing a bit more, I can get in orbit around the Mun on a fairly regular basis but landing is still evading me.
I made it to the Mun again last night. Unfortunately I couldn't slow down fast enough and hit the surface pretty hard. I need to work on my landing a bit more, I can get in orbit around the Mun on a fairly regular basis but landing is still evading me.
my current strategy right now (i haven't successfully landed in 3 attempts yet) is once I get within 10,000 - 100,000 from the mun i start burning towards the periapsis? (the one that makes your orbit smaller)
since its the exact angle you are coming in at i figure you should technically be able to slow down quite a bit at that angle, hopefully getting yourself close to 10m/s when you are about 1500m off the ground, and then possibly adjusting your rocket directly up upon final descent
Just seeing the work they've put in this game since I last checked it... man, I finally want to get it. Maybe next week when there's some money around.
( < . . .
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Really, really want an orientation indicator for this. Getting tired of having to kinda guess where I should aim because I can't see my physical facing and the trajectories at the same time, and the goofy little ball is kinda maddening. Just a simple arrow showing the craft's orientation would be enormously useful.
Anyway, made my first successful round-trip to the mun and back. Simultaneously made the discovery that command pods float, which was fortunate since my planned trajectory to set down on dry land failed to take into account planetary rotations.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
The ball shows you where you're pointing in relation to the direction you're traveling.
Yeah the ball is quite literally the exact same thing as a gyroscopic attitude indicator/artificial horizon in an aircraft cockpit. Like this one:
It's hard to recognize it for what it is at first because if you're in a rocket, you are oriented directly towards 90+ degrees and can't see the land component. The only thing that's kind of different about this particular attitude indicator is that it is also a compass; also, in addition to a flight path marker, there is a corresponding marker for the exact opposite direction. Prograde and retrograde.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2012
As a technical item, yeah, the ball is fine, once I have any freaking idea where I'm actually pointing.
But take something like an orbital trajectory that isn't equatorial. With an arrow showing where the craft is pointing for the orbital screen, I could simply look at the arrow and put it 90 degrees "down" or "up" relative to the orbit at the spot I want it to in order to move the orbit to the equator. With the ball, I have look at my heading, then the retrograde heading, then which body the ball is oriented towards, where "up" and "down" are, then hope I've got it all figured right so my course corrections end up where they need to be. Then I still has a 50/50 chance of being on the wrong side.
The trial and error just consumes a lot of time unnecessarily. I'd still end up using the ball a lot simply because of how it displays your trajectory/reverse trajectory. Just a simple little thing that would be a nice help.
So I found a couple mods that make the new update even better. One is a relay satellite network for unmanned flights, and the other is an oxygen life support system for manned flights.
I used to use the "Zoxygen" mod, but at the time, it was rather too simplistic: basically, as soon as your solar panels weren't exposed to light, you started very rapidly running out of breathable air.
Maybe if it's gone a bit farther....though really, I think I'll wait till IVA/proper space stations are supported.
Anybody have tips for landing on Minimus or matching planetary rotations? The gravity is so slight that I couldn't gauge my approach and when I'd finally gotten close to landing an errant hill swept by and demolished my stack.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Use Mechjeb :-P
Otherwise, just use the map view to make your orbital path hit the ground in a decent area. I landed in a big flat plain area that looked almost white in the map view.
Posts
well this is the final landing stage, so it already has one deceleration srb on the bottom, but even with that I can't get great speed control (I'm not that great at orbital stuff). So I need something that can hit the Mun at 100-200 m/s and survive enough to fly back to kerbal.
I'm sure someone really really good at plotting orbital paths and such could get a landing going much easier, but that's not me so I go for the brute force approach.
If I didn't want to do a return trip it would be so much easier, making a single capsule survive isn't too hard with a big cage of hardpoints, struts and landing gear.
business as usual 8-)
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Sent up a stripped down rocket, no landing gear or anything, specifically just to get practice manipulating orbits, but then I got a perfect opportunity for a moonshot.
Set it up, still have a full stage left to burn for a landing....
...and accidentally separate the last stage, making me overshoot the moon because I can't control the thrust anymore.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Hell, it needs to be a loading screen.
I've done it lots of times too, and it is just the worst feeling. The second I hear the *PSHH* my hand instantly leaves the keyboard and collides with my forehead.
Me: So you want to deorbit?
Nick: Sure.
Me: Okay then, you've got your parachute and everything else you need to return to the planet. Turn your rocket retrograde first.
Nick: (does that)
Me: Good, now, just gently burn retrograde until you deorbit.
Nick: (hits space)
Nick's rocket: ka-CHUNK.
Followed by me and Nick staring at his spacecraft trapped indefinitely in mid-orbit.
I do pretty much the same flying to get there, I'm just not as experienced, or patient enough I think.
Still nice to know it is possible though, I'll keep trying at it for an hour a day or so, and get it eventually. Gotta have goals and all.
The rocket was far too unmanueverable for MechJeb to steer it, so I resorted to the whole "come to halt over Minmus' orbit, correct my altitude, and fly directly into Minmus" strategy.
edit: made it to the mun!
and then crashed on impact because i have no idea how to line up a munar landing.
elevation on the surface of the mun is much higher than elevation on the surface of Kerbin.
Good to know.
Definitely had a perfect munshot, coming in for a nice landing, still had some fuel in my main engine left so wasn't even on the landing pod, I was prepared to jettison that with a little big of fuel left, lower the gear, land, and head back.
And then at like 1300m the spaceship crashed.
balls, I totally have a rocket halfway to the mun that i did this to, i figured part of my problem was my rocket was too frigging big and i wanted to land, so i added a small fuel container and the small rocket for the descent, guess thats not gunna go well
Clearly the most elegant rocket around.
So, where are we headed? Mun? Minimus?
Hmm, we seem to be headed rather far out here.
Oh, that can't be good.
Hmm, maybe a manned mission to the sun wasn't that great an idea.
Had to retake some of the earlier screenshots since I was using printscreen instead of F1, and didn't want to go through the whole thing again since that high efficiency rocket on the center stage takes forever to burn through.
MADE IT! YEEEEAH. WHOOOOO....
......
......Oh shit my lander broke on impact. Sorry dude.
Then the time before that, the engine stack grazed the surface of the moon at a bad angle, exploded and destroyed the whole stack, and sent the command pod flying off across the munscape. Thought it might make it, but apparently 50 m/s is a bit more than the command pod can handle.
Until I get better at moon landings, that little guy gets to just watch other landers come and go. Or some miss. Or some crash.
Once I'm confident doing it with a one-man then I'll send a mostly-empty 3-man one to save that poor bastard.
Lucky for the Kerbal public, they can live for days on their suits. Longer, indeed.
my current strategy right now (i haven't successfully landed in 3 attempts yet) is once I get within 10,000 - 100,000 from the mun i start burning towards the periapsis? (the one that makes your orbit smaller)
since its the exact angle you are coming in at i figure you should technically be able to slow down quite a bit at that angle, hopefully getting yourself close to 10m/s when you are about 1500m off the ground, and then possibly adjusting your rocket directly up upon final descent
Anyway, made my first successful round-trip to the mun and back. Simultaneously made the discovery that command pods float, which was fortunate since my planned trajectory to set down on dry land failed to take into account planetary rotations.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Also, people, when speed is measured at m/s, you might have trouble gauging how fast this is. Just for reference, 50m/s is 112.5 MPH.
It's hard to recognize it for what it is at first because if you're in a rocket, you are oriented directly towards 90+ degrees and can't see the land component. The only thing that's kind of different about this particular attitude indicator is that it is also a compass; also, in addition to a flight path marker, there is a corresponding marker for the exact opposite direction. Prograde and retrograde.
But take something like an orbital trajectory that isn't equatorial. With an arrow showing where the craft is pointing for the orbital screen, I could simply look at the arrow and put it 90 degrees "down" or "up" relative to the orbit at the spot I want it to in order to move the orbit to the equator. With the ball, I have look at my heading, then the retrograde heading, then which body the ball is oriented towards, where "up" and "down" are, then hope I've got it all figured right so my course corrections end up where they need to be. Then I still has a 50/50 chance of being on the wrong side.
The trial and error just consumes a lot of time unnecessarily. I'd still end up using the ball a lot simply because of how it displays your trajectory/reverse trajectory. Just a simple little thing that would be a nice help.
I WALKED ON YOUR FACE.
THAT'S FOR NIEL.
Also, man getting back is waaaay easier when your rocket is still attached.
Maybe if it's gone a bit farther....though really, I think I'll wait till IVA/proper space stations are supported.
Find me on Steam.
Otherwise, just use the map view to make your orbital path hit the ground in a decent area. I landed in a big flat plain area that looked almost white in the map view.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst