Kerbal Space Program

[LaughingCheese]

Nice!



So I actually made my first legit orbit a few days ago, but the controls bug reared its head and I had to end the flight.




I managed to make orbit again Saturday or so but my inclination is way off, I'm having a heck of a time keeping my rockets on course. So now I have two probes in orbit of Kerbin but they're inclinations are off.




That's the first of the two. I didn't realize part of the orbit could be inside the atmosphere. Well, its the very tip of the atmospher, but still its like 115x40km orbit.

I'd think that would be a decaying orbit, or do some satellites do that regularly? Isn't the ISS at the tip of the atmosphere or something?



Also, I probably overreached just a tad, but this is my first experiment at launching a Translunar Space Patrol:

[Tyyr]

That orbit with a 43km periapsis isn't going to last long. The atmosphere of Kerbin goes up to 70,000m. So at 43km you're plowing through it. It's not the thickest part, but you're definitely going to see your speed bleed off a lot. I'd be surprised if it lasts more than two orbits before you're done.

Your lunar ship has some issues. I think you'd be better off going with the kerbal can in the utilities section than stacked lander cans. The transport module will handle 4 Kerbals and mass less than what you've got. You've also got no ASAS, and not enough parachutes to lower that thing without breaking. You do have a metric ton of monopropellant though. I think I see what you're going for and lemme see if I can help.

Top to bottom, try building this.

Coupla
Hitchhiker Storage Container (Use 4x symettry and attach the container to the coupla with struts)
Six radial parachutes around the very top of the container.
Stack Seperator XL
Large Advanced SAS (Use 2x symettry and put on the SP-B solar panels then use 2x again to attach the small z-100 batteries)
Rockomax X-200 32 Fuel tank
Skipper Engine

Now, unless you really want to do precision manuvers or dock there's not much point in having RCS. The ASAS module will give you control over your orientation with it's reaction wheels. If you absolutely must have RCS then attach six or eight of the small round tanks radially around the Rockomax and put a set of four RCS blocks on it and another set of four on the Hitchhiker can.

Now use another Stack Seperator XL
Rockomax X-200 16 Fuel tank
Rockomax Jumbo 64 (Use 4x Symettry and attach to the tanks above and below with struts)
Rockomax X-200 16
Mainsail engine
Four Delta Deluxe Winglets.

Now use a single TT-70 Radial decoupler on the side of the orange tank and attach to it:
Rockomax Jumbo 64
Rockomax X-200 16 (4x symettry and strut it to the 64)
Fuel duct from the booster to the central core
Skipper Engine

Now go back and pick the radial decoupler and hit X, this should turn on two times symettry and give you two boosters. Finally put a few of the support towers on it.

Go to your staging. Your last stage should contain all your support towers and both boosters and the mainsail in it. Your next stage should be the lowest Stack Seperator and the upper stage's skipper. Then the last stack seperator. Finally just the parachutes.

I dunno if that'll get you to the moon, but it should at a bare minimum get you into orbit. You'll probably have enough left over for a mun encounter and capture, maybe.

[LaughingCheese]

That orbit with a 43km periapsis isn't going to last long. The atmosphere of Kerbin goes up to 70,000m. So at 43km you're plowing through it. It's not the thickest part, but you're definitely going to see your speed bleed off a lot. I'd be surprised if it lasts more than two orbits before you're done.

Interesting. IIRC I have already time accelerated a couple of orbits so I'll have to watch it.

Your lunar ship has some issues.

Yes, I found that out right away!

Also, just so we're on the same page, I'm trying to build this:



Its actually not designed to land on the moon, but, as the description says, its basically a coast guard ship in SPAAAAAAAAAACE. So its designed to rescue crew from damaged ships in the Earth-Moon system. Its also powered by twin nuclear engines.

What I was trying to launch was the first stage (I had to break it up into stages of course).




Wat? KSP Spaceport* requires you to have an avatar?? That's an odd requirement.



Also, is sas/asas broken in 0.2? I thought we meantioned that somewhere. Certainly seems to be, can barely control my rockets. Although it could be me just not understand the physics.

[Tyyr]

I think ASAS/SAS is working more how it's supposed to now. Namely you can't just put in a SAS module and spin for free like you used to, you have to use RCS in space for gross orientation changes. A/SAS will only help you hold a heading, not really get you to it easy like it used to.

The Kraken has take up residence on Minmus for me. The whole planet is bugged to shit. I can get my first ship onto it ok. After that though, forget it. For example, ships will just spontaneously leap off the surface. As I was trying to land a habitat module I watched as my previously landed (landed, stable, engines shut down, RCS shut down) Science Lab just spontaneously start to drift off the ground. It wasn't going very fast, maybe about 0.2m/s, but it was drifting away. I couldn't get any control of it either. I switched to it and activated everything but the controls didn't respond and Minmus' gravity wasn't slowing it. Worse, I couldn't leave the ship because apparently it was under acceleration. I eventually quick loaded my save after the hab was on the ground only now my framerate went to pot. I built a similar base on the Mun, Science Lab, Habitat module, rover, two flags, and two return landers. The game was slow, but playable. Head to Minmus and as I try to land a return lander my framerate goes to shit when I get within load distance and it just keeps getting worse, turning into a slideshow before crashing the game.

Ok, tracking center and end all Minmus flights. So I try again. Science lab down fine but as I'm bringing the hab module in

So I end flights and start over. My science lab lands fine. I'm bringing in the hab module and I'm on final approach. Horizontal velocity is dead, I'm just lowering the hab to the surface. I get down to about 150m and my craft starts tipping south. Uhh... what? I've got SAS on, I haven't touched the controls, what the hell? I just keeps getting worse so I go to kill SAS and RCS, and my controls lock up. The hab module is tilting more and more but the controls are frozen. There's no reactions, no nothing. I can only watch as it tilts over on it's side, and drives into the ground at 25 m/s and explodes. The last middle finger to me. As I look over the wreckage I see my Science Lab in the background starting to lift off of the ground slowly.

Minmus is quarantined until further notice.

[LaughingCheese]

I think ASAS/SAS is working more how it's supposed to now. Namely you can't just put in a SAS module and spin for free like you used to, you have to use RCS in space for gross orientation changes. A/SAS will only help you hold a heading, not really get you to it easy like it used to.

I see. I guess I have to put wings on and RCS now then.

The Kraken has take up residence on Minmus for me. The whole planet is bugged to shit. I can get my first ship onto it ok. After that though, forget it. For example, ships will just spontaneously leap off the surface. As I was trying to land a habitat module I watched as my previously landed (landed, stable, engines shut down, RCS shut down) Science Lab just spontaneously start to drift off the ground. It wasn't going very fast, maybe about 0.2m/s, but it was drifting away. I couldn't get any control of it either. I switched to it and activated everything but the controls didn't respond and Minmus' gravity wasn't slowing it. Worse, I couldn't leave the ship because apparently it was under acceleration. I eventually quick loaded my save after the hab was on the ground only now my framerate went to pot. I built a similar base on the Mun, Science Lab, Habitat module, rover, two flags, and two return landers. The game was slow, but playable. Head to Minmus and as I try to land a return lander my framerate goes to shit when I get within load distance and it just keeps getting worse, turning into a slideshow before crashing the game.

So the Kraken strikes in different places for different installs?

Minmus is quarantined until further notice.

lol


Also, was there supposed to be pics with this post?

[Tyyr]

No, no pics.

For launch you really need control fins and RCS to help with later stages.

The Kraken is just shorthand for some terminal bug, something that happens that totally borks your missions through random bugs. I've had two ships just explode immediately upon achieving hard docking before. I had it happen to rocket carrying a pair of Kethan scanning probes to Duna yesterday. I go to load it and I get a speed of NaN and the altitude spinning as whole numbers 1111111, 22222222, 3333333... etc.

[Tyyr]

An Update! In which I got to Duna, build a nuclear tug, and put a fully fueled tank on the Mun just because.

[stitch626]

The biggest I made was 350 tons. And for some reason it used less fuel to leave Kerbin gravity going straight out than for achieving orbit then elongating the orbit out.

Also... that is an awesome tug.

[Tyyr]

I'm giving serious thought to scrapping the tug entirely. After pushing through two ships with TWR's of .2 and .15 I'm not wild about that 0.4 TWR unloaded. With 100 tons of load it'll be down to 0.15 TWR. I could be expecting too much but with a third set of nukes I could manage a 0.6 TWR and therefore get a 0.22 TWR with a hundred ton load.

Then again I'm bitching about having a low TWR with a 100 ton load while I've got the dV to push it to Jool and back. I may be expecting too much. Then again six 1.25m NERVAs and a 2.5m one and I could probably get a 0.8 TWR.

Ultimately though, I really, really, REALLY like how this tug looks. It's an honest to goodness space ship.

[Tyyr]

A word of warning, the 0.21 update which is now in final testing will wipe your save games. They are implementing a new crew management feature that is not compatible with their old save style so your old save will no longer function. You can either copy the whole KSP directory and keep a 0.20 copy running or at least copy your old ships. You can even go farther and with Hyper edit restore a lot of your old ships and stations if you want. But, the save game is going to be dead.

[LaughingCheese]

A word of warning, the 0.21 update which is not in final testing will wipe your save games. They are implementing a new crew management feature that is not compatible with their old save style so your old save will no longer function. You can either copy the whole KSP directory and keep a 0.20 copy running or at least copy your old ships. You can even go farther and with Hyper edit restore a lot of your old ships and stations if you want. But, the save game is going to be dead.

Fine by me. I recently reinstalled windows (XP 32 bit, but hey its better than nothing) so I lost my saves either way. Not that I had much going..

[stitch626]

Thanks for the warning, I'll do a ship backup now.

[Tyyr]

Yeah, your old ships should work fine. Heck better since the SAS update should eliminate all the jittery bullshit it's normally subjected us to. It's just missions in progress that are gonna be FUBAR. You might want to hold onto your save since I'm sure someone will come up with a conversion program at some point, probably.

Last night made me seriously consider downloading Hyper Edit. After putting my Kethan rig on the Mun I found out that it didn't work (fuel line routing) twice. I spent two hours just launching and flying the thing back to the Mun three times until I got it working properly. At least with hyper edit after I got the first one there I could have just replaced it with a fixed one instead of flying the mission all over again. Seriously, the guys who wind up with a Kethane deposit under KSC so they can test this shit in place are lucky.

[Tyyr]

It's not all doom and gloom

Kerbal Maps! Maps of every body in the Kerbin system including satellite, height, and slope maps as well as anomalies if you don't want to find them yourself.

[Tyyr]

0.21 Has been released and holy hell did they go all in on this thing.

Highlights:

Radically improved SAS. No more jittery rockets of doom. It's automatically included in your capsules. It also won't fight your control inputs. If it's turned on you can still make turns and when you release the controls it'll hold on course.

SAS Modules are now reaction wheels. No more free torque from your capsule. You need a reaction wheel module and it needs electricity.

Redesigned VAB and SPH - Bigger, longer, and uncut.

New Crew Management features.

All new Space Center, now with day/night cycle and free camera.

More KSPX parts now stock.

All new terrain for Kerbin, the Mun and others. Now you can fly around mountains on Kerbin or dodge craters on the mun.