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[Kerbal Space Program] Shiny new thread! Desperately seeking pictures of rockets
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I've done testing on engines without fuel.... wait... maybe I just had the throttle off.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
For example, this one:
After several tries, the highest Ap I could reach was a mere 50 km, and I didn't have nearly enough horizontal speed to hope to make it into orbit. I should mention that a lot of those tanks are only half full to start to try and cut down on weight.
I dunno, maybe I'm doing something wrong with my ascent? I've been climbing to ~10 km and trying to build up as much horizontal speed as I can as I slowly climb to 20 km, and then I sort of pull upward right when I'm running low on air, which tends to be around 1100 m/s and ~20 km. I noticed that increasing my speed even at lower altitudes reduces the input air after a certain speed, probably around Mach 3 I guess? I could try using a different engine than the LV-N I guess, but it's just so much more efficient that I'm inclined to think it's my best bet, otherwise I just have to carry so much extra fuel and oxidizer.
Any advice?
I've found that components that you can activate through staging (engines, decouplers, chutes, etc) all ask you to use the staging method, while items that you can't stage (heat shields for example) you need to right click and 'Run Test'. I don't know if this is always the case, but I don't think I've seen exceptions.
I'll always grab missions that have a test at the launchpad (even if it's only for a few grand) and most that require a splashdown. Super quick cash for throwing a few items together. Splashdowns you can usually do with a chute or two and a flea / hammer. Usually you don't even need batteries for the probe core, and you're close enough you recover everything at full value.
Hauling missions - unless they are something super-heavy or have some funky speed requirements are usually pretty easy too - get the ones that already fit your ascent profile and it's basically free money. Forget missions like testing an SRB in Munar orbit though unless it's paying huge bucks.
As for my mission yesterday that left Jeb in a terminal descent...I edited my persistent save to an altitude of zero and landed = true. The game blew up my pod once or twice for some reason, but I reloaded and was able to recover it - saving the science and Jeb. I'm not a huge fan of cheating to make it work, but I think it was fair to give myself a pass and not waste that whole mission.
Now I've built and next time I play will launch a serious Munar mission. Got a pair of good unmanned landing craft to complete the 'land and return science' and a few 'test on moon' contracts, two crew pods so I can carry ferry four tourists to Munar orbit, and some basic science stuff to 100% my orbital goo, material, and temperature studies. I think I've got enough DV for those unmanned landing craft to make it back to orbit, so I can get the full science value of their surface tests on Mun. I'm pretty excited to see this one go - if this one works I'll probably use another one to hit Minmus.
Then, onto manned missions to collect science on the Mun / Minmus, interplanetary probing, and space stations. Yay!
Once it was for an engine I hadn't unlocked yet, that was only available for the test, basically.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I did a contract to test that stock fairing (which now has multiple parts, and is way more customizable. Cool!) and I really liked it's new look so I kind of want to start using it...but not if it's totally useless or would actively hinder my progress.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Definitely nosecones. Testing has shown that they improve fuel efficiency through the atmosphere, easily earning their own weight.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Here is the current design. The fuel sitting on top of the boosters lasts just a second or so longer than the boosters do.
It's got a lot of control and is pretty stable. You really have to keep pushing it over to get horizontal though.
While doing some flight tests of the shuttle itself, I found out that this is possible without parachutes. Seems like it would be easier than finding a suitable place on land and then not screwing up the landing.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Right click the boosters and adjust their thrust to ~95%* to make the booster and fuel tanks end at the same time for maximum efficiency
*Use Mechjeb/Engineer to find the right percentage. If the stage burntime gets longer the percentage is too low and the booster will keep going after the fuel ends, and if it doesn't move it's still too high and the booster will die before all the fuel is used
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Adjusting the mainsail's percentage down to 99 could get you that extra second of difference and make the boosters end at the same time as the tanks empty, but there really isn't a finer scale than the slider's provide. There may be a mod that let's you set the percentage with a keyboard instead of the rather inaccurate slider
However, my advice was really meant for a rocket that hadn't adjusted anything yet, and if it's already as synced as you can get it then a second won't really mean anything.
Looks cool as hell though.
I should probably learn how the plane mechanics in this game work. I've always been more interested in the rockets.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
To be honest, ever since funds were added to the campaign, I haven't played it a lot (I know there's a science only mode in addition to sandbox).
Did the Munar flyby and suddenly had to dig through my brain for the old way of flying to the mun - no patched conics means eyeballing it again. My trajectory would have been a surface impact if I'd let it just go, so I guess I eyeballed it all right.
Built my first experimental SSO. Knew it wouldn't make orbit, but it was to complete a survey that I couldn't reach enough altitude using air breathing engines. Got the survey done, but ended up in a flat spin as soon as I throttled down the rocket engine and couldn't recover. However, I managed to slow my descent enough that when I crashed, Jeb survived.
I'm glad you mentioned this. Compared to what I normally do that's hardly any intakes at all. haha.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
1.1 can not get here fast enough. Come on, I just want to finally enjoy this
And in 1.1 I might finally be able to
I dunno why I enjoy them so much but the idea of making a science rover to drive around to check off several biomes per Mun landing is so appealing to me.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
To this (that little green orbit is Jool)
Doing a sandbox game right now so I won't feel too bad about ditching it when 1.1 drops and I don't have to worry about science or funds. So far I've gotten my Kerbin CommSat network up, the Orbital Tug, and the command section of a space station. No screenshot of the commsat network, but here is a description in the spoiler
2 satellites in a 450km orbit with inclinations of 60 and -60, respectively. They each have 1 5Mm antenna, and 2 50Mm dishes, one aimed at PDCS (Polar Deep CommSat) I and the other at PDCS II. They also are mapping Kerbin using the SCANSat mod.
PDCS I and II have just 2 50Mm dishes, each pointed at either of the mapping satellites, and 1 400Gm dish (the largest) that is set to point at the active vessel. PDCS I and II are in orbits with a ~90degree inclination, periapsides on the poles (I North, II South) at 150Km and apoapsides of 45Mm. This should leave me with near-zero downtime in communications up to Urlum's (OPM's Uranus analog) orbit. Past that I'll need to figure something else out.
First up after the network was put in place was the station's Central Command. The lifter pictured has a ~7000∆v on it's own, and ~5000∆v with the 30ton Central Command. Mun is is also peeking out over the VAB in the after sunset light, and Jool burns bright above. This was also the only part of the station that will be launched directly into it's orbit. Everything else gets launched to 2000Km, and then moved to the 4000Km orbit by the Orbital Tug.
And in it's 4000Km orbit. Now it just needs it's Habitat, Docking, and Extension sections which are all going up separately. After that will be the Communications and the Power extensions which may be included in the same launch together, depending on weight/size. Still not sure on that one, so another 4 or 5 launches for the station to be complete, as it was designed in the VAB.
But first, there needs to be an Orbital Tug, right? Well, here it is in it's 2000Km parking orbit.
Here's the mod list (from memory, might be forgetting a few and not at home to check at the moment); *'d are the mods I generally consider required for any install.
Outer Planets Mod*
Trans-Keptunian*
Filter Extensions*
Alarm Clock*
Transfer Window Planner*
Chatterer*
Tweakscale*
Final Frontier*
Crew Manifest*
Joint Reinforcement
Automate Vertical Velocity
Better Crew Assignment
Physical Time Ratio Viewer
Auto Balancing Landing Legs
Editor Time* (Did you know time is paused in Stock when in the VAB or SPH?)
Sensible Screenshots
Dynamic Texture Loader*
Distant Objects*
Planetshine*
Trajectories*
Smokescreen
Realplume
Portrait Stats
MechJeb*
RemoteTech*
SCANsat*
Fuel Tanks Plus
Color Coded Canisters
Stockalike Station Parts
SpaceY
VX Series Engine Pack
Near Future Tech
USI Core Reactors
Well, that's what I've been working on.
-My old chart of transition costs is now (or always was) extremely inaccurate that to takes 4500dv to escape Kerbin
-I am possibly reading the Kerbal Engineer data incorrectly somehow
-Kerbal Engineer Redux is giving me lower numbers than I actually have
Because I had less than 4000dv according to KER and made it into orbit just fine, and did a quick flyby of the Mun, did a round of science, then flew home.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
That rocket I designed up above had over 6000dv, nearly 2500 of that being in the final stage, and almost all of that was remaining AFTER the mun flyby.
Hmm... checking the wiki.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbin
Looks like its 2740 now. No wonder I was confused. That's much more in line with what I had. Looks like KER was accurate.
I need to track down a better transition costs sheet.
Unrelated, the 'warp to' feature is the best freaking thing.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I had about 3600dv total, still had a little gas in the tank when I got back, even with a fairly sloppy Mun intercept.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Do your injection burn just as Mun comes above the horizon. I've never figured out how do to Minmus (there's also that pesky plane change for Minmus.)
The way I figured it out way back in 0.12 was eyeballing the Mun's position relative to the where the Apoapsis would end up. Basically, I go into map view, go to a certain zoom level (Obviously this isn't exact) and put the Mun on the right hand edge of the screen. The point I want to start my burn is now centered on the screen, close side of Kerbin.
Because that's how I did it on my countless Munar trips back before we had anything like patched conics or persistence, I got pretty good at estimating a good position to start my burn.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
It's like the first upgrade, isn't it?
Yeah it just startled me that I couldn't do it from the beginning.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.