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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#48
Good work there. It is really great to see how others do things in this game. Firstly, great landing on the Mun, secondly re-docking to the previous stage was great. Also liked the touch of landing near mission control! Oh yeah - great accompanying text with the images!

'HowSerendipitous' - great mention of the VTOL mini cooper! I see there is also a landrover on there to play with too. Spaceplanes are somewhat beyond me at the moment, for some reason I can never get the control surfaces to attach how I want. I am however, very good at creating ground based supersonic fireballs when trying!

'Just_Ice_au': Nice return and I really like the pictures too - they completely tell the story for you. Congrats on making your first Mun rescues too.

Right-o, I'm off to watch some Youtube vids for some inspiration ;)
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#49
Sorry I couldn't think of better comments to go with the pics. It was getting late. I'll try to add more today.

Landing at mission control has always been a goal of mine. I've never gotten this close before It's either been short, landing near the mountains to the west or overshot and a water landing.
The trick, to me, is keeping enough fuel to fire, when you're overhead, and slowdown or stop your sideways motion. Similar to Mun landings. Just have compensate for atmosphere. :)
The whole landing at target thing just dawned on me last night. It's just like docking with another ship! :o
Well just like docking with another ship, with the added benefit of chance of certain, sudden death by impact with an huge immovable object! :shock:
But it's just like docking with another ship none the less. :D
"Exploration and discovery is not an option we choose—it is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation."
My KSP Videos
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#50
Went to Minimus today - used a modified version of my Mun lander, with room for 3 Kerbalnauts.

Had a couple of the guys go out and do some exploring on jetpacks, and then back in the ship for the return journey.
Image Got her back safe, too, and with a bunch of fuel to spare (new experience!).

Not sure of my plans next though. Either I maybe build a space station, or try and put together some kind of Duna mission - possibly a rover.

We'll see.
- The Snark Knight

"Look upward, and share the wonders I've seen."
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#51
Just_Ice:
Nice! Minimus can be quite a challenge. The low gravity can play havoc landing there, but at least you have a good chance to recover from a bad bounce or three. :D
If you haven't sent probes or satellites to other planets/moons already, my suggestion is to start placing re-fueling stations into orbit.
Kerbin for starters, Mun most definitely. Minimus, I'm still up in the air on that one :lol: .
I'm working on sending another refueling station to Duna replace the one I lost during the last mission there. Major design flaws caused massive structural failures when I undocked the lander. Just waiting for the next planetary alignment. I need to get the A-team, Bill, Jeb, and Bob, back together again. Bob is currently with the ground team on Duna.

Also hone up on your rendezvous skills. This will be a tremendous help for refueling your ships for interplanetary missions.
At first you'll think it's impossible but keep at it and eventually you'll be able to do it in your sleep (well one eye open).

Rendezvous Tips:
By using the maneuver nodes you can usually confugure your next target interception to within 5~10 km of your target. (KPT pic #20. I'm at 3.5km
separation).

Zero out your speed, relative to the target, then turn towards the target and burn until you reach ~20-30 m/s.

Next rotate your ship to have your engines pointing toward the target. That is unless you have a ship with forward facing rockets like my fuel tanker here: Image (I've since changed the triport adapters to two port adapters. 12 LV-N rear engines was a bit overkill. 8 is managable.
I still have 4 engines, LV-N's now, facing front.) It can bring a total of 2 orange tanks worth of fuel/oxidizer as well as 1 large monopropellant tank to Mun Station.

Album: http://imgur.com/a/TWhsF

Keep watching your distance. I try to keep my speed ~10x my distance. For instance at 1.5 km my speed would be 15m/s. Use small thrusts of your rockets to slow down until you are under ~15 to 20m/s.

Once your less than ~1.5km from your target rotate your ship to face torward your target. You can start using RCS from here on in.
RCS placement is critical and having too many forward/back can mess with lateral movement (I, J, K, L, N, M keys) causing your ship to pitch/yaw.

Continue to slowdown relative to your target 9m/s @ 90m, 5m/s @ 50m and so on, until you can see your orientation to the docking port.
Best to have your target docking ports facing North or South and the target's ASAS is ON. That way you don't have to deal with the pain of ports rotating due to orbit rotation or drift.

If you happen to be facing the wrong angle, relative to your target, you'll need to swing around to line up. Be patient and save often.
If you run out of RCS propellent, you're screwed. You'll need to reload or add more RCS tanks. I've read where people have docked without RCS but it's not easy and I don't recommend it. It must have been a small ship.

If you find you are overdoing RCS try press [Capslock] to toggle fine tune controls. You'll see the indicators (lower left corner) change from orange to light blue (I think).
"Exploration and discovery is not an option we choose—it is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation."
My KSP Videos
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#52
I'm finding 0.19.1 a bit crashtastic. Seems there's a bug that causes it to go down in flames when you unpause.

Just like my current rocket... It's a bit kerbal! Thus far I've spent the evening experimenting with NERVAs, with limited success.

Edit - It was a hard slog, but finally got it into orbit! I think I'll stick with conventional propulsion - NERVAs just don't have enough oomph for me

The look on their faces says it all. Image Above Kerbin and ready to go somewhere! Image
Image
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#53
HowSerendipitous:
LV-N's are indeed not good at all for launching on Kerbin. They should really only be used after you get into orbit. It's a love/hate relationship.
Once my ships are traveling about 1900 to 2000 m/s I shutdown the mains and finish off with the nukes.

They're slow as heck but they are the best at fuel efficiency for those transfer burns to get to other planets or moons. I attach the LV-N's radially, as shown on some of my pics.
I think I had 20 attached to my Duna mothership, and took something like 25-30 mins burn time from 500,000m Kerbin orbit to where the flight path intersected Duna!
But once I got there, a little over 100 days later, I still had 2/3s fuel remaining! :shock:

Having 800 isp they are only out done by the ion engine, which has the worst thrust of all, but highest efficiency in the game. I only use those on small satellites.
"Despite the big scary trefoil painted onto the side of this engine, its radioactive exhaust, and tendency to overheat, the LV-N Atomic Rocket Motor is harmless. Mostly."

Not sure when squad is going to change the way the LV-N's operate. If the nukes in the game operated like the ones in RL I have probably irradiated most of Kerbin by now! :twisted:
"Exploration and discovery is not an option we choose—it is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation."
My KSP Videos
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#54
Landge wrote:Just_Ice:
Nice! Minimus can be quite a challenge. The low gravity can play havoc landing there, but at least you have a good chance to recover from a bad bounce or three. :D
If you haven't sent probes or satellites to other planets/moons already, my suggestion is to start placing re-fueling stations into orbit.
Kerbin for starters, Mun most definitely. Minimus, I'm still up in the air on that one :lol: .
I'm working on sending another refueling station to Duna replace the one I lost during the last mission there. Major design flaws caused massive structural failures when I undocked the lander. Just waiting for the next planetary alignment. I need to get the A-team, Bill, Jeb, and Bob, back together again. Bob is currently with the ground team on Duna.
Landge wrote:Album: http://imgur.com/a/TWhsF
Wow, that is a really cool Mun Station.

I've been looking over your pics of the KYONORTHRUS, and thought the beast was pretty mass-intensive. I don't think I realised exactly how much of it was intended to be a Duna space station until now.

I might as well put something together in Kerbin orbit, it will probably be good practice at multi-rocket projects, and could probably act as a staging area for Duna missions.

But you're right, I've been reading up on the KSP wiki, and realise I need practice at docking. Actually, there's a good writeup on the basics at the Gemini mission tutorial page (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki ... i_6A_and_7 ).

Need to cook up some larger booster stages to put some serious payloads into orbit first thing, though.
- The Snark Knight

"Look upward, and share the wonders I've seen."
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#55
Landge wrote:HowSerendipitous:
LV-N's are indeed not good at all for launching on Kerbin. They should really only be used after you get into orbit. It's a love/hate relationship.
Once my ships are traveling about 1900 to 2000 m/s I shutdown the mains and finish off with the nukes.

They're slow as heck but they are the best at fuel efficiency for those transfer burns to get to other planets or moons. I attach the LV-N's radially, as shown on some of my pics.
I think I had 20 attached to my Duna mothership, and took something like 25-30 mins burn time from 500,000m Kerbin orbit to where the flight path intersected Duna!
But once I got there, a little over 100 days later, I still had 2/3s fuel remaining! :shock:

Having 800 isp they are only out done by the ion engine, which has the worst thrust of all, but highest efficiency in the game. I only use those on small satellites.
"Despite the big scary trefoil painted onto the side of this engine, its radioactive exhaust, and tendency to overheat, the LV-N Atomic Rocket Motor is harmless. Mostly."

Not sure when squad is going to change the way the LV-N's operate. If the nukes in the game operated like the ones in RL I have probably irradiated most of Kerbin by now! :twisted:
Yah, I used launched with Mainsails + a few little radial engines, then used the nukes to finish circularising the orbit... But the burn took ages and I thought they might overheat! Still, I've got a lot of fuel so I might just see what else I can do with them. Seen as though I put all that effort into getting there!
Image
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#56
WIP: Mobile Drilling/Mining Rig -
When resource collection gets emplemented, 0.20 release I think, I came up with this contraption while experimenting with new wheels, metal panels, parts, & pieces. It's so big I can't just drive it off the launch platform. It's wheels hang off the sides. :lol: Right now it's lacking booster stages, but with the help of 4 of the big SRB's, it can reach an altitude of around 7,000m for testing out powered assisted landings west of KSC. Comes equipted with 2 lander-can rovers for performing ground penetrating radar surveying. When satellites just aren't enough. Image Image Image
"Exploration and discovery is not an option we choose—it is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation."
My KSP Videos
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#57
Wow, Landge that thing looks awesome. I loved your run to pick up the stranded Kerbals

You guys have really inspired me. Just yesterday I finally had a successful round trip to the Mun. I had so much remaining fuel that I decided today to use the same rocket to make a try for Minimus. This was my first attempt at anything besides the Mun. Amazingly I made the run below with no F5 or F9.

Here is the mission album.
http://imgur.com/a/d2ibD#0

My rocket is the weirdest monstrosity but it got me there so I was happy with it.
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#58
I actually really like that. Looks more efficient than the insane constructions that I come up with. I just add more and more Jumbo fuel tanks and mainsails.

I'm still tweaking my current rocket, it's a real pain to get into orbit, but it ends out with ~6,000 units of fuel in orbit and 8 NERVAs if you do it right. Think I'll have to go with the kerbal solution of 'MOAAAAAAAR BOOSTERS'.
Image
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Re: Kerbal Space Program

#59
Solly wrote:Wow, Landge that thing looks awesome. I loved your run to pick up the stranded Kerbals

You guys have really inspired me. Just yesterday I finally had a successful round trip to the Mun. I had so much remaining fuel that I decided today to use the same rocket to make a try for Minimus. This was my first attempt at anything besides the Mun. Amazingly I made the run below with no F5 or F9.

Here is the mission album.
http://imgur.com/a/d2ibD#0

My rocket is the weirdest monstrosity but it got me there so I was happy with it.
Beleive it or not it actually made LKO last night. I'm at work and forgot my thumb drive. I'll post some pics later.
I've just started sending fuel tankers up to re-fuel the transfer stage. Thinking of doing a shakedown cruise to Mun before attempting Duna. I still have some things I want to add/change on the booster stages for that mission.

I :lol: at your commentary. Great read. Cudos for not having to resort to F9 reloads.
It seems that catastrofic failures occur more often to me when I don't save beforehand :cry:
"Exploration and discovery is not an option we choose—it is a desire written in the human heart. We are that part of creation which seeks to understand all creation."
My KSP Videos
Post

Re: Kerbal Space Program

#60
HowSerendipitous wrote:but it ends out with ~6,000 units of fuel in orbit and 8 NERVAs if you do it right. Think I'll have to go with the kerbal solution of 'MOAAAAAAAR BOOSTERS'.
Haha, that's the only way. You should be able to go pretty far with that much fuel. I couldn't believe how efficent those NERVAs were. That is my first rocket that has had them and I was able to have return trips from the Mun and Minimus for the first time.
Landge wrote: Beleive it or not it actually made LKO last night. I'm at work and forgot my thumb drive. I'll post some pics later.
I've just started sending fuel tankers up to re-fuel the transfer stage. Thinking of doing a shakedown cruise to Mun before attempting Duna. I still have some things I want to add/change on the booster stages for that mission.

I :lol: at your commentary. Great read. Cudos for not having to resort to F9 reloads.
It seems that catastrofic failures occur more often to me when I don't save beforehand :cry:
How much does that thing weigh? I can barely get a small capsule into orbit safely. I can't wait to see some pictures.

I really like adding commentary to the missions it makes them pretty interesting. Inspired from your Kerbal rescue run of course.

I read your earlier post about rendezvous so I am going to start trying to launch a Kerbin orbiting fuel/space station for my next goal. And then learn to dock with it. :shock: Should be fun.

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