Can anyone here recommend me a planet pack? I've been feeling that space exploration bug recently but I've been to every planet in vanilla KSP multiple times. I tried the Galileo Planet Pack a few years ago and that was really cool, but it's also not updated for the newest version of KSP. Basically just a good mod that replaces the stock solar system with a new one. Or if not that, perhaps a mod that adds an extra, separate solar system to explore as well?
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Anyone got any experience with the ResearchBodies / Tarsier Space Technology mod? I installed it alongside a new planet mod (adds an extra solar system beyond the Kerbol system) with the intention that I'd have to discover the new planets. Cool, right? But I'm having trouble identifying planets in the Kerbol system. Ike, for example, I've managed to snap a photo with a small telescope (basically by pointing into the dark and spamming the button) but I can't find it with the Tarsier telescope to photograph and learn more about. Basically I know it exists, but I can't take the photos I need to identify its orbit or anything so it just looks like a gray blob.
I've heard the Distant Object Enhancement mod helps a lot with this, should I give that a try? Otherwise I might just disable this mod. It's a cool idea, but I've launched several space telescopes now and haven't really gotten much from them.
DOE helps a ton with both of those mods, and is a really good mod in general. You can essentially have iridium flares from satellites in space with it, and it really makes the actual planets really pop out against the background due to their brightness and color (Eve is purple, Duna red, Jool green, etc), which can be adjusted. I believe Tarsier without DOE just puts up an essentially fake image of what you are zooming in on, while with DOE it literally zooms in like it is a telescope and shows you the planet (or ships) as it exists at that moment in the game space. I remember it being pretty cool to watch one of the Jool's moons transit it.
Also, Research Bodies has to be configured for each mod pack individually. It may or may not work with the planet pack you have without setting up the config file. Hopefully you're using one of the planet mods it is set to recognize.
Thanks for the advice. I installed DOE and instantly found Ike.
Based on the planets I can see, it looks like Jool, Duna, and Eve (plus Mun/Minmus) start fully explored, and I have to find everything else myself. Since I've seen contracts for sending satellites to planets whose names I don't recognize, I have to assume that the mods are playing reasonably well together.
This career has been a lot of fun so far. Since USI Life Support has time limits for cramped quarters, I couldn't just send Jeb in a Lander Can out to Minmus and back. I got around it by establishing a little outpost space station in low Minmus orbit with a reusable lander. I send a crew to dock there, and two go down for a landing. Plus there's a Science Lab on board, so my Scientists can get a little extra juice out of those experiments.
It's enjoyable enough that I'm doing the same thing for the Mun, even though it's not necessary. I only did a couple of Mun landings before gearing up for Minmus, so there's a lot of science left there. It's also made tourism contracts much easier, since I typically have an open seat or two anyway.
I think my next major project will probably be a surface base. Both of Kerbin's moons have valuable ExoticMinerals and RareMetals available for extraction, and that would help me pay for more extensive surface operations leading to extraplanetary rocket construction. And if I'm lucky, Ike will have a similar bounty of resources. I've always wanted to build a self sufficient MKS Ike base.
Can anyone recommend a good explanation of SSTO flight paths? I've never been good at getting them into orbit and I feel like flight path has to be the problem. I built one last night in my test save with 4x Whiplashes and a single LV-N (it was otherwise pretty small). I took it up to 20km to try and build up speed, and I got to around 1100-1200 m/s, but I couldn't ever get my apoapsis up any higher without my engine performance cratering. I even tried taking the plane back down a bit to 17km or so and got a little more speed, but not enough to change anything. Long-term, I'd like to use an SSTO for transferring crew and extra supplies into orbit, as well as possibly to start recovering extraplanetary resources like RareMetals and ExoticMinerals from MKS.
I suppose if it came down to it, I could do some sort of SSTO rocket sort of thing. Still, spaceplanes are probably the one skill in KSP I haven't mastered, so I very much want to improve.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Can anyone recommend a good explanation of SSTO flight paths? I've never been good at getting them into orbit and I feel like flight path has to be the problem. I built one last night in my test save with 4x Whiplashes and a single LV-N (it was otherwise pretty small). I took it up to 20km to try and build up speed, and I got to around 1100-1200 m/s, but I couldn't ever get my apoapsis up any higher without my engine performance cratering. I even tried taking the plane back down a bit to 17km or so and got a little more speed, but not enough to change anything. Long-term, I'd like to use an SSTO for transferring crew and extra supplies into orbit, as well as possibly to start recovering extraplanetary resources like RareMetals and ExoticMinerals from MKS.
I suppose if it came down to it, I could do some sort of SSTO rocket sort of thing. Still, spaceplanes are probably the one skill in KSP I haven't mastered, so I very much want to improve.
I watch Matt Lowne on youtube and he has a bunch of SSTO content. He does lots of fun projects.
So, I'm playing with both expansion packs on for the first time, and I tried out the new deployable experiments on Mun. Now I get a message every few minutes telling me I've received 0.002 Science. Is there a way to stop those things? A single trip to Minmus and back and I've got 300 messages to clear out, it's a huge pain.
So, I'm playing with both expansion packs on for the first time, and I tried out the new deployable experiments on Mun. Now I get a message every few minutes telling me I've received 0.002 Science. Is there a way to stop those things? A single trip to Minmus and back and I've got 300 messages to clear out, it's a huge pain.
a. KSP 1.8 update was suppsoed to fix that. So make sure you're on the latest version (only generating science report every 30 days for deployables).
b. If you have the latest version, go into options so that you have advanced messages enabled (this should have been enabled by default). It adds lovely options such as
c. If none of this works it's time for some savefile editing and adjusting your savefiles ScienceTimeDelay (note, this is an old-fix used when Breaking Ground first came out).
In "\saves\default\persistent.sfs" (your main save) and in "\GameData\SquadExpansion\Serenity\Resources\DeployedScience.cfg", change the line
"ScienceTimeDelay" to "ScienceTimeDelay = 3000000".
The ScienceTimeDelay number is in seconds, 3000000 is about 25 days which is kinda close to the 30 day default for new and updated KSP savefiles. You can alter it whatever number you like (I don't recommend making it arbitrarily large).
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So KSP2's publisher pulled some real dick moves re the game..
One Friday evening last December, employees of game designer Star Theory Games each received the same unusual recruitment message over LinkedIn. It struck them as bizarre for two reasons. One, it came from an executive producer at the publishing company funding their next video game. Two, it said the game—in the works for the previous two years—was being pulled from their studio.
“This was an incredibly difficult decision for us to make, but it became necessary when we felt business circumstances might compromise the development, execution and integrity of the game,” Michael Cook, an executive producer at Private Division, a publishing label within Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., wrote in the message, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. “To that end, we encourage you to apply for a position with us.”
It was strange and disconcerting news to Star Theory’s employees. Normally, an announcement like this would be delivered in a companywide meeting or an email from Star Theory’s leadership team. The contract with Take-Two was the studio’s only source of revenue at the time. Without it, the independent studio was in serious trouble.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So from the discussion thread on the main forums, it seems like it might have been a little more complicated than "indie studio good, big company bad."
Star Theory was behind on their deadline (all of this was before the pandemic hit, by the way), and was apparently already trying to sell themselves to T2. T2 decided, coldly but logically, "why should we pay you when we can just take back the license and then hire all your staff?"
Apparently, most of the actual developers took the deal and are now working for the new, in-house studio on the same thing they were before. Now, you can say this is unethical negotiation, you can say the devs were coerced or had few/no other options... or that the owners of Star Theory tried to sell a company with no significant assets that weren't either already owned by T2, or couldn't be acquired by them without having to pay extra.
Apparently Take Two made them an offer. How much nobody knows but the owners wanted more, and T2 decided it was more than fair because they already owned everything of value in the place.
So from the discussion thread on the main forums, it seems like it might have been a little more complicated than "indie studio good, big company bad."
Star Theory was behind on their deadline (all of this was before the pandemic hit, by the way), and was apparently already trying to sell themselves to T2. T2 decided, coldly but logically, "why should we pay you when we can just take back the license and then hire all your staff?"
Apparently, most of the actual developers took the deal and are now working for the new, in-house studio on the same thing they were before. Now, you can say this is unethical negotiation, you can say the devs were coerced or had few/no other options... or that the owners of Star Theory tried to sell a company with no significant assets that weren't either already owned by T2, or couldn't be acquired by them without having to pay extra.
To be honest, this would not entirely surprise me (Frankly, from my look behind the scenes, Super Monday Night Combat's failure was entirely self-inflicted).
That said, it also still smells fucky, and it sucks that people are out of jobs
So with KSP2 on the horizon I wanted to clean up some of the RSS/RO career missions I've been working on since :checks watch: 1.2.2
First up, new launcher!
The Erebus launcher runs on four Space Shuttle Main Engines which, combined with the four RD-170 powered strap on boosters, makes this pretty similar in performance to the Energia. It can throw 50 tons at the Moon, and dat booster sep
This launcher lofted the various components of my low orbit Lunar space station, consisting of a habitation/docking module, science lab, fuel module, drone ferry, and reusable single-stage lander that was used to strip-mine the Moon of all available science. Here it is after arrival of the first crew in a Paladin Block II capsule, which restocks the station with a six month supply of life support. The year is 1969.
Also deployed was a communications network for the Moon so the station could maintain constant contact with Earth during critical science transmissions.
This Moon science was the last bits I needed to clear out the tech tree, allowing us to activate a strategy that converts 100% of science into funds. We're making it rain from here on out! Jeb was last seen peeling out in some sort of sports car. He hasn't had much to do since he was declared a Tourist several years ago.
In 1972 a crewed Venus flyby was launched, carrying two years of life support and a sincere hope that they wouldn't run out of supplies or fuel before they got back.
The crew made a pass low over Venus, performed a braking burn to reduce their trajectory from well past the orbit of Mars to only slightly past the orbit of Mars, and resumed snacking for the duration of the voyage.
Almost two years after launch, the crew re-entered over Antarctica. The heat shield even held up!
1973. An early 60s probe finally made it to Saturn and performed its orbital insertion inside the rings. It will fly by Titan next year.
Probes were sent to map the moons of Mars. This took entirely too many tries as one problem or another caused the mission to break down, including a communications failure just prior to orbital insertion. A comm relay has since been established around Mars to prevent this.
On to the Jupiter missions. Ever since we landed on the moon, the main goal of our space program has been to land a probe on at least one of Jupiter's Galilean moons. There is a reason we haven't done this IRL, and it's the stupendous delta-v requirements to maneuver around the Jovian system. This green guy here is one of a flotilla of four probes launched to Jupiter (and four more to Saturn) in the late 60s with the intent of testing various methods of using gravity assists to capture into orbit around one of the moons.
It... did not go well. Even with 5,000 m/s on entering Jupiter SOI, after capturing, matching planes to the moons (they are all within 1 degree of each other), and performing over a dozen flybys, each of these probes still failed to bleed off enough speed to capture around a moon, leaving them essentially glorified comm relays in low orbit.
We did make an exhilarating but monumentally hairy pass over Europa at a screaming 400-meter altitude though.
Before any of those probes had even hit the Jupiter SOI though, another flotilla of Jovian probes was launched, this time testing whether it was possible to aerocapture around the gas giant and conserve precious fuel by aerobraking the apoapsis down around the orbit of the target moon. Each probe sported a massive 5 meter heat shield and a retractable antenna to turtle up during atmospheric entry.
It... did not go well. One of the four probes was lost to the kraken in deep space, but the remaining three hit Jupiter's 1500km high atmosphere. The first made it to its pe of 750km (flying low over Jupiter!) at which point its heat shield melted and the probe was instantly evaporated. The second and third, with pes of 1,000 and 1,200 km respectively, failed to capture and also failed to reestablish comms with the low orbit relay, sailing off into interstellar space. In order to make this work we would have needed to stack three or even four heat shields.
Enter the Mark III. A single bus carried all four probes in one launch, using their ion engines to perform course corrections and hauling a vacuum-optimized solid rocket to capture into a Jupiter orbit that topped out just above the orbit of Callisto. After staging the SRB, the bus continued to maneuver with a supplemental xenon gas reservoir until all the probes were in the correct plane with an ap above Ganymede and a pe between Europa and Io. Then it was ditched that the probes scattered to their target moons on their internal tanks worth 18,000 m/s each.
Surprisingly the small RTGs provided plenty of power to the ion engines, allowing them to effortlessly capture into orbit of the moons, some with as little as 3 m/s capture burns.
Each probe carried a battery of science and ScanSat instruments, fully mapping the surface of each moon before deploying their landers at 50km.
Clockwise from top left: Callisto, Io, Ganymede, Europa.
All in all this one mission launched on one rocket hauled in over 60 million funds worth of contracts and science-to-funds return.
!!MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg) Backlog Challenge List
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
H hi guys I know this is a pretty defunct thread but I’m sure there are some hardcore fans here that still kick around in this thread.
I’ve picked up the game for my students to look at while they study rocketry. Does anyone have any concepts and an experiment with the game that the kids can look at?
Main ones I have are
Thrust to weight ratio of a single staged rocket increasing the fuel canisters and looking at max height.
Taking that rocket and just putting in a second stage and maybe a third stage and looking at the new max height of that rocket (though I did this last night as an experiment with a two staged rocket and just ended up in orbit of the sub)
Looking at the aerodynamics and how that affects max height.
looking at orbits and orbital speeds and how velocity changes with height.
Looking at more advanced staging (problem with multiple large stage rockets, radial staging and asparagus staging)
I want to play on campaign mode simply because doing it on freeplay simple means that there are too many parts for the kids to choose from. I've figured that I can get the kids to do two basic launches just to generate science and results in around 218 science (although thinking about it, I might be able to make that a bit higher) in total which unlocks the tree below.
Anyone have any one good ideas on concepts that can be played around with?
Rather than career, put it on Science mode. Basically bypasses all the facility unlocks and ignores money but let's you control what nodes are open so not dump a lot of parts into there at once, puts more focus on the orbital mechanics and exploration aspects and not the fiddly program management aspects.
Anyway, how different types of thrust change an orbit is a fun one. Prograde/retrograde falls into stuff you mention, but radial and normal are interesting ones, too. Science mode is really good for demonstrating this since the SAS feature unlocks right away and not with tracking station upgrades and pilot training, and it will lock onto whatever direction you want.
You can cheat a craft into a high circular orbit and have them go through prograde, retrograde, normal (perpendicular to the plane of orbit, parallel to the axis), and radial in and out, predicting what will happen to the orbit and then trying it. It's all seems counterintuitive at first but once you get out of the natural sense of a motionless frame of reference it starts making sense why different acceleration changes your orbit the ways it does.
Might be worthwhile to look at the differences between launching with the rotation of the planet vs. against its rotation, specifically the delta-v requirements.
Escape velocity might be fun to demonstrate.
The relationship between the height of an orbit and orbital velocity. Analyzing the periods of different orbits, especially elliptical vs. a more circular one, too.
And depending on how advanced/hard, you could maybe go into matching orbits and even orbital rendezvous.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
A couple simple demonstrations would be to show just how much fuel is required to reach orbit versus maneuvering in space itself. It's a nice, easy way to show why reaching orbit is such a thirsty climb and demonstrate why securing a fuel source actually in space would be monumental. And that would also link in nicely with demonstrating what a gravity turn is and how they boost launch efficiency. Most kids are just going to think rockets launch straight up and have no idea they start more lateral flight as soon as they can, so it might blow some tiny minds to learn how "falling" towards Earth during launch leaves more fuel for orbit; most adults aren't even going to know about it, even though it's a common thing for orbital launches.
I would also suggest trying to go from orbit to a landing as close as possible to the KSP launch center. It's something that is going to seem simple on its face, but when they inevitably miss provides the chance to explain aerobraking, how air resistance changes the flight path, reentry heat, etc.
And of course the kids will enjoy watching the landing craft splatter into the surface of Kerbin, plus it's generally just neat going from viewing the planet from space all the way down to standing on the surface.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
A couple simple demonstrations would be to show just how much fuel is required to reach orbit versus maneuvering in space itself. It's a nice, easy way to show why reaching orbit is such a thirsty climb and demonstrate why securing a fuel source actually in space would be monumental. And that would also link in nicely with demonstrating what a gravity turn is and how they boost launch efficiency. Most kids are just going to think rockets launch straight up and have no idea they start more lateral flight as soon as they can, so it might blow some tiny minds to learn how "falling" towards Earth during launch leaves more fuel for orbit; most adults aren't even going to know about it, even though it's a common thing for orbital launches.
I would also suggest trying to go from orbit to a landing as close as possible to the KSP launch center. It's something that is going to seem simple on its face, but when they inevitably miss provides the chance to explain aerobraking, how air resistance changes the flight path, reentry heat, etc.
And of course the kids will enjoy watching the landing craft splatter into the surface of Kerbin, plus it's generally just neat going from viewing the planet from space all the way down to standing on the surface.
Yea nothing beats a good demonstration of lithobraking. Especially because you forgot to set your altimeter to actual from sea-level and smash into a mountain.
Might be worthwhile to look at the differences between launching with the rotation of the planet vs. against its rotation, specifically the delta-v requirements.
Escape velocity might be fun to demonstrate.
The relationship between the height of an orbit and orbital velocity. Analyzing the periods of different orbits, especially elliptical vs. a more circular one, too.
And depending on how advanced/hard, you could maybe go into matching orbits and even orbital rendezvous.
Get them to design a rocket that can launch itself into the sun vs escape
ISP - I like the metaphor of throwing anchors overboard; the harder you through each anchor, the more kick you get out of a finite amount of anchors. Carrying more anchors only helps so much, as you've still got to accelerate the ones you're carrying
Gravity drag, and the degree to which a higher thrust means less time spent fighting it, and thus more wasted. I like to think of the difference between hovering (burning a lot and getting nowhere) and operation in orbit (where you don't have to worry about that at all), and that ascent is blending from the former to the latter.
The inverse square law, and how it effects solar power at different solar orbital altitudes, then how it diminshes radio signal strength the same way.
I forgot which mod it was, but it added Heat as a resource whose primary function is as something you have to actively get rid of - because we might think of space as cold, but it's a really great insulator. Objects in the dark are cold because they've had billions of years to slowly radiate their heat away via blackbody radiation. Blackbody radiation and the way rocket engines glow as they heat up. Basically, demonstrating heat as a system with sources and sinks. Also how ablative heat shields work and thermodynamics in general.
Ion engines and magnetism, NERVA engines and radioisotope generators and nuclear decay and fission, though the game doesn't really simulate these in any interesting way; more as a branching off point if the kids are old enough
Might be worthwhile to look at the differences between launching with the rotation of the planet vs. against its rotation, specifically the delta-v requirements.
Escape velocity might be fun to demonstrate.
The relationship between the height of an orbit and orbital velocity. Analyzing the periods of different orbits, especially elliptical vs. a more circular one, too.
And depending on how advanced/hard, you could maybe go into matching orbits and even orbital rendezvous.
Get them to design a rocket that can launch itself into the sun vs escape
This would be a great exercise! Everyone talks so casually about throwing something into the sun, it's actually quite difficult.
The other thing would be to have them observe how changes in velocity in an orbit impact the opposite side of the orbit the most. Something I always struggled with in physics, but once I played kerbal it all clicked.
Another would be to have an orbit that has an encounter behind the moon, and another that encounters in front of the moon and see how the orbits end up very different. This would give them context for how space missions use moons and planets to impact their orbits for free (see voyager I & II)
One of the neater quirks in orbital mechanics are the Lagrange Points, and it'd be interesting to install the mod that does multi-body physics and show them how they work. This would be topical as James Web is stationed in L2.
I guess a question is what level are these students at? If they're advanced enough you could get them to do calculations / estimates for eg Kerbin -> Mun transfer orbits (dV, ejection angle, etc) and then see in-game how close they were to correct
Launch-to-rendezvous is another cool thing to do, try to launch so that you have a minimal time to dock rather than waiting for 15 orbits to get close aka why launch windows are important
Launch-direct-to-mun without a separate circularization and trans-Mun burn is always fun, for bonus points do it with solid rocket boosters only, no throttle controls for you!
A minimal fuel return from a Mun landing emphasizes choosing a good return path since you want to eject backwards and not forwards or radial
Something I'm not sure has already been mentioned because I'm pretty basic at understanding.
Choosing different thrusts for the same Boosters, and how sometimes having less thrust increases efficiency because you arent fighting the atmospheric drag as early, saving more fuel for when you get to vacuum. But at the same time, you need enough speed and atmospheric resistance to act as a stabilizer.
I remember the Scott Manley video IIRC where he did the exact same rocket like 5 times, where it was the same Solid Fuel Booster on each launch, but edit the thrust in the design stage. Then showing how at the lowest end you are just hovering, at full thrust you are spending most of your fuel fighting air drag, and the most efficient spot is somewhere at the middle.
Sounds like some major features will be missing at EA release- no MP, no colonies, and no interstellar. Actually it'll have fewer features than KSP1, we're just getting the Sandbox mode at first.
It is early access for a reason (which is a bummer after this many delays, but oh well).
The lack of multiplayer is forgivable I think (at least they're not pulling a NMS and hoping no one checks whether or not it was actually implemented), but colony building and interstellar travel would be missed.
I bought KSP1 the first day I could, and will be doing the same with KSP2. It can make playing the fully finished product a little tedious in the end, but I needs this so bad
Edit: I haven't looked, but is there any word on initial mod support?
It is early access for a reason (which is a bummer after this many delays, but oh well).
The lack of multiplayer is forgivable I think (at least they're not pulling a NMS and hoping no one checks whether or not it was actually implemented), but colony building and interstellar travel would be missed.
Interstellar not being there is odd though considering they had promoted that specific feature with videos months ago.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
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I've heard the Distant Object Enhancement mod helps a lot with this, should I give that a try? Otherwise I might just disable this mod. It's a cool idea, but I've launched several space telescopes now and haven't really gotten much from them.
Also, Research Bodies has to be configured for each mod pack individually. It may or may not work with the planet pack you have without setting up the config file. Hopefully you're using one of the planet mods it is set to recognize.
Based on the planets I can see, it looks like Jool, Duna, and Eve (plus Mun/Minmus) start fully explored, and I have to find everything else myself. Since I've seen contracts for sending satellites to planets whose names I don't recognize, I have to assume that the mods are playing reasonably well together.
This career has been a lot of fun so far. Since USI Life Support has time limits for cramped quarters, I couldn't just send Jeb in a Lander Can out to Minmus and back. I got around it by establishing a little outpost space station in low Minmus orbit with a reusable lander. I send a crew to dock there, and two go down for a landing. Plus there's a Science Lab on board, so my Scientists can get a little extra juice out of those experiments.
It's enjoyable enough that I'm doing the same thing for the Mun, even though it's not necessary. I only did a couple of Mun landings before gearing up for Minmus, so there's a lot of science left there. It's also made tourism contracts much easier, since I typically have an open seat or two anyway.
I think my next major project will probably be a surface base. Both of Kerbin's moons have valuable ExoticMinerals and RareMetals available for extraction, and that would help me pay for more extensive surface operations leading to extraplanetary rocket construction. And if I'm lucky, Ike will have a similar bounty of resources. I've always wanted to build a self sufficient MKS Ike base.
I suppose if it came down to it, I could do some sort of SSTO rocket sort of thing. Still, spaceplanes are probably the one skill in KSP I haven't mastered, so I very much want to improve.
I watch Matt Lowne on youtube and he has a bunch of SSTO content. He does lots of fun projects.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
...metallic hydrogen engines. And here I thought Orion engines were dangerous.
Also a new status update video. Which seems like stuff we already knew?
a. KSP 1.8 update was suppsoed to fix that. So make sure you're on the latest version (only generating science report every 30 days for deployables).
b. If you have the latest version, go into options so that you have advanced messages enabled (this should have been enabled by default). It adds lovely options such as
c. If none of this works it's time for some savefile editing and adjusting your savefiles ScienceTimeDelay (note, this is an old-fix used when Breaking Ground first came out).
The ScienceTimeDelay number is in seconds, 3000000 is about 25 days which is kinda close to the 30 day default for new and updated KSP savefiles. You can alter it whatever number you like (I don't recommend making it arbitrarily large).
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
So KSP2's publisher pulled some real dick moves re the game..
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I had my issues with Uber ent/Star theory games (I helped alpha test super Monday night combat)
But I'd never wish something this gross on them. What the hell, take two
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
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Star Theory was behind on their deadline (all of this was before the pandemic hit, by the way), and was apparently already trying to sell themselves to T2. T2 decided, coldly but logically, "why should we pay you when we can just take back the license and then hire all your staff?"
Apparently, most of the actual developers took the deal and are now working for the new, in-house studio on the same thing they were before. Now, you can say this is unethical negotiation, you can say the devs were coerced or had few/no other options... or that the owners of Star Theory tried to sell a company with no significant assets that weren't either already owned by T2, or couldn't be acquired by them without having to pay extra.
To be honest, this would not entirely surprise me (Frankly, from my look behind the scenes, Super Monday Night Combat's failure was entirely self-inflicted).
That said, it also still smells fucky, and it sucks that people are out of jobs
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So with KSP2 on the horizon I wanted to clean up some of the RSS/RO career missions I've been working on since :checks watch: 1.2.2
First up, new launcher!
The Erebus launcher runs on four Space Shuttle Main Engines which, combined with the four RD-170 powered strap on boosters, makes this pretty similar in performance to the Energia. It can throw 50 tons at the Moon, and dat booster sep
This launcher lofted the various components of my low orbit Lunar space station, consisting of a habitation/docking module, science lab, fuel module, drone ferry, and reusable single-stage lander that was used to strip-mine the Moon of all available science. Here it is after arrival of the first crew in a Paladin Block II capsule, which restocks the station with a six month supply of life support. The year is 1969.
Also deployed was a communications network for the Moon so the station could maintain constant contact with Earth during critical science transmissions.
This Moon science was the last bits I needed to clear out the tech tree, allowing us to activate a strategy that converts 100% of science into funds. We're making it rain from here on out! Jeb was last seen peeling out in some sort of sports car. He hasn't had much to do since he was declared a Tourist several years ago.
In 1972 a crewed Venus flyby was launched, carrying two years of life support and a sincere hope that they wouldn't run out of supplies or fuel before they got back.
The crew made a pass low over Venus, performed a braking burn to reduce their trajectory from well past the orbit of Mars to only slightly past the orbit of Mars, and resumed snacking for the duration of the voyage.
Almost two years after launch, the crew re-entered over Antarctica. The heat shield even held up!
1973. An early 60s probe finally made it to Saturn and performed its orbital insertion inside the rings. It will fly by Titan next year.
Probes were sent to map the moons of Mars. This took entirely too many tries as one problem or another caused the mission to break down, including a communications failure just prior to orbital insertion. A comm relay has since been established around Mars to prevent this.
On to the Jupiter missions. Ever since we landed on the moon, the main goal of our space program has been to land a probe on at least one of Jupiter's Galilean moons. There is a reason we haven't done this IRL, and it's the stupendous delta-v requirements to maneuver around the Jovian system. This green guy here is one of a flotilla of four probes launched to Jupiter (and four more to Saturn) in the late 60s with the intent of testing various methods of using gravity assists to capture into orbit around one of the moons.
It... did not go well. Even with 5,000 m/s on entering Jupiter SOI, after capturing, matching planes to the moons (they are all within 1 degree of each other), and performing over a dozen flybys, each of these probes still failed to bleed off enough speed to capture around a moon, leaving them essentially glorified comm relays in low orbit.
We did make an exhilarating but monumentally hairy pass over Europa at a screaming 400-meter altitude though.
Before any of those probes had even hit the Jupiter SOI though, another flotilla of Jovian probes was launched, this time testing whether it was possible to aerocapture around the gas giant and conserve precious fuel by aerobraking the apoapsis down around the orbit of the target moon. Each probe sported a massive 5 meter heat shield and a retractable antenna to turtle up during atmospheric entry.
It... did not go well. One of the four probes was lost to the kraken in deep space, but the remaining three hit Jupiter's 1500km high atmosphere. The first made it to its pe of 750km (flying low over Jupiter!) at which point its heat shield melted and the probe was instantly evaporated. The second and third, with pes of 1,000 and 1,200 km respectively, failed to capture and also failed to reestablish comms with the low orbit relay, sailing off into interstellar space. In order to make this work we would have needed to stack three or even four heat shields.
Enter the Mark III. A single bus carried all four probes in one launch, using their ion engines to perform course corrections and hauling a vacuum-optimized solid rocket to capture into a Jupiter orbit that topped out just above the orbit of Callisto. After staging the SRB, the bus continued to maneuver with a supplemental xenon gas reservoir until all the probes were in the correct plane with an ap above Ganymede and a pe between Europa and Io. Then it was ditched that the probes scattered to their target moons on their internal tanks worth 18,000 m/s each.
Surprisingly the small RTGs provided plenty of power to the ion engines, allowing them to effortlessly capture into orbit of the moons, some with as little as 3 m/s capture burns.
Each probe carried a battery of science and ScanSat instruments, fully mapping the surface of each moon before deploying their landers at 50km.
Clockwise from top left: Callisto, Io, Ganymede, Europa.
All in all this one mission launched on one rocket hauled in over 60 million funds worth of contracts and science-to-funds return.
!!MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
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Backlog Challenge List
I’ve picked up the game for my students to look at while they study rocketry. Does anyone have any concepts and an experiment with the game that the kids can look at?
Main ones I have are
Thrust to weight ratio of a single staged rocket increasing the fuel canisters and looking at max height.
Taking that rocket and just putting in a second stage and maybe a third stage and looking at the new max height of that rocket (though I did this last night as an experiment with a two staged rocket and just ended up in orbit of the sub)
Looking at the aerodynamics and how that affects max height.
looking at orbits and orbital speeds and how velocity changes with height.
Looking at more advanced staging (problem with multiple large stage rockets, radial staging and asparagus staging)
I want to play on campaign mode simply because doing it on freeplay simple means that there are too many parts for the kids to choose from. I've figured that I can get the kids to do two basic launches just to generate science and results in around 218 science (although thinking about it, I might be able to make that a bit higher) in total which unlocks the tree below.
Anyone have any one good ideas on concepts that can be played around with?
Satans..... hints.....
Anyway, how different types of thrust change an orbit is a fun one. Prograde/retrograde falls into stuff you mention, but radial and normal are interesting ones, too. Science mode is really good for demonstrating this since the SAS feature unlocks right away and not with tracking station upgrades and pilot training, and it will lock onto whatever direction you want.
You can cheat a craft into a high circular orbit and have them go through prograde, retrograde, normal (perpendicular to the plane of orbit, parallel to the axis), and radial in and out, predicting what will happen to the orbit and then trying it. It's all seems counterintuitive at first but once you get out of the natural sense of a motionless frame of reference it starts making sense why different acceleration changes your orbit the ways it does.
Escape velocity might be fun to demonstrate.
The relationship between the height of an orbit and orbital velocity. Analyzing the periods of different orbits, especially elliptical vs. a more circular one, too.
And depending on how advanced/hard, you could maybe go into matching orbits and even orbital rendezvous.
I would also suggest trying to go from orbit to a landing as close as possible to the KSP launch center. It's something that is going to seem simple on its face, but when they inevitably miss provides the chance to explain aerobraking, how air resistance changes the flight path, reentry heat, etc.
And of course the kids will enjoy watching the landing craft splatter into the surface of Kerbin, plus it's generally just neat going from viewing the planet from space all the way down to standing on the surface.
Yea nothing beats a good demonstration of lithobraking. Especially because you forgot to set your altimeter to actual from sea-level and smash into a mountain.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Get them to design a rocket that can launch itself into the sun vs escape
Gravity drag, and the degree to which a higher thrust means less time spent fighting it, and thus more wasted. I like to think of the difference between hovering (burning a lot and getting nowhere) and operation in orbit (where you don't have to worry about that at all), and that ascent is blending from the former to the latter.
The inverse square law, and how it effects solar power at different solar orbital altitudes, then how it diminshes radio signal strength the same way.
I forgot which mod it was, but it added Heat as a resource whose primary function is as something you have to actively get rid of - because we might think of space as cold, but it's a really great insulator. Objects in the dark are cold because they've had billions of years to slowly radiate their heat away via blackbody radiation. Blackbody radiation and the way rocket engines glow as they heat up. Basically, demonstrating heat as a system with sources and sinks. Also how ablative heat shields work and thermodynamics in general.
Ion engines and magnetism, NERVA engines and radioisotope generators and nuclear decay and fission, though the game doesn't really simulate these in any interesting way; more as a branching off point if the kids are old enough
This would be a great exercise! Everyone talks so casually about throwing something into the sun, it's actually quite difficult.
The other thing would be to have them observe how changes in velocity in an orbit impact the opposite side of the orbit the most. Something I always struggled with in physics, but once I played kerbal it all clicked.
Another would be to have an orbit that has an encounter behind the moon, and another that encounters in front of the moon and see how the orbits end up very different. This would give them context for how space missions use moons and planets to impact their orbits for free (see voyager I & II)
One of the neater quirks in orbital mechanics are the Lagrange Points, and it'd be interesting to install the mod that does multi-body physics and show them how they work. This would be topical as James Web is stationed in L2.
Launch-to-rendezvous is another cool thing to do, try to launch so that you have a minimal time to dock rather than waiting for 15 orbits to get close aka why launch windows are important
Launch-direct-to-mun without a separate circularization and trans-Mun burn is always fun, for bonus points do it with solid rocket boosters only, no throttle controls for you!
A minimal fuel return from a Mun landing emphasizes choosing a good return path since you want to eject backwards and not forwards or radial
Choosing different thrusts for the same Boosters, and how sometimes having less thrust increases efficiency because you arent fighting the atmospheric drag as early, saving more fuel for when you get to vacuum. But at the same time, you need enough speed and atmospheric resistance to act as a stabilizer.
I remember the Scott Manley video IIRC where he did the exact same rocket like 5 times, where it was the same Solid Fuel Booster on each launch, but edit the thrust in the design stage. Then showing how at the lowest end you are just hovering, at full thrust you are spending most of your fuel fighting air drag, and the most efficient spot is somewhere at the middle.
MWO: Adamski
Only had to revert to assembly three times to get there, too!
Sounds like some major features will be missing at EA release- no MP, no colonies, and no interstellar. Actually it'll have fewer features than KSP1, we're just getting the Sandbox mode at first.
The lack of multiplayer is forgivable I think (at least they're not pulling a NMS and hoping no one checks whether or not it was actually implemented), but colony building and interstellar travel would be missed.
Edit: I haven't looked, but is there any word on initial mod support?
Interstellar not being there is odd though considering they had promoted that specific feature with videos months ago.