Kerbal Space Program (in-dev retail game)

[Dantrithor]

Both are SSTO's with 15-20Ton payloads, but as you can see, they have quite a bit of leftover fuel for orbits of around 100Km. They have mechjeb units for automation.


This is a set of 4 "orbital building assistants" (mini spaceships). They are designed to dock to modules I need to dock into my in-construction stations and ships. The fixture which keeps them together can be docket at a station or ship to hold them during the construction process.

*WARNING: You may require to select the sputnik-like pod as the control unit before launching. It sometimes uses one of the small ships mechjeb unit, which causes it to turn sideways 90º. That's not good.

https://mega.co.nz/#!bVNSnCwK!IXL2aDvH7 ... dmjExGp6aQ

This is one of my station's habitation modules. As you see, I used docking ports instead of decouplers. I have a silly tendency of dropping important stuff along the way so... there you have. The last one with four arms going towards the front is for placement only. You can safely discard it later, although I usually keep it for some extra RCS fuel storage.

https://mega.co.nz/#!TRcC3SIT!O5zCHF2dH ... CzGkHNYX_0


I'd gladly share more, but I have not done much progress on my stations since 0.21.


{Links fixed with character codes, so editing this post will break them. - Terre}

[TSM]

Both are SSTO's with 15-20Ton payloads, but as you can see, they have quite a bit of leftover fuel for orbits of around 100Km. They have mechjeb units for automation.


This is a set of 4 "orbital building assistants" (mini spaceships). They are designed to dock to modules I need to dock into my in-construction stations and ships. The fixture which keeps them together can be docket at a station or ship to hold them during the construction process.

*WARNING: You may require to select the sputnik-like pod as the control unit before launching. It sometimes uses one of the small ships mechjeb unit, which causes it to turn sideways 90º. That's not good.

https://mega.co.nz/#!bVNSnCwK!IXL2aDvH7 ... dmjExGp6aQ

This is one of my station's habitation modules. As you see, I used docking ports instead of decouplers. I have a silly tendency of dropping important stuff along the way so... there you have. The last one with four arms going towards the front is for placement only. You can safely discard it later, although I usually keep it for some extra RCS fuel storage.

https://mega.co.nz/#!TRcC3SIT!O5zCHF2dH ... CzGkHNYX_0


I'd gladly share more, but I have not done much progress on my stations since 0.21.

Thanks will give these a play and report back later

[Bishop149]

1000m/s below 15km? wtf? You're wasting alot of fuel, caused by excessive drag. Maybe your rocket could get anywhere within the kerbol system ..

Oh no doubt . . . . I was being silly, but being silly did the job.

The problem I was having before seemed too be not making upper stages powerful enough to get nice high speeds above 15km and thus not raising my apsis enough. Usually as soon as I ditched my lower stage my speeds started to drop.

This meant I add weight / power to the upper stages . . which in turn meant I needed a bigger lower stage . . and I ended up in a vicious cycle of making progressively bigger rockets that started to look like complete overkill and STILL failed to make orbit.

Dialing it all the way back down to a single massively powerful stage seemed to work although is likely horribly inefficient. . . I will continue trying to optimise towards something between these two extremes!

On the plus side today I successfully achieved orbit around another planet (Eve)! More than enough DeltaV left for a landing so I anticipate my first successful interplanetary landing / rover deployment this evening.

Attempts at interplanetary missions to date have been a catalogue of either failing to make make encounters, or not having enough DeltaV left for orbit.
I also discovered that maneuvers make life a HELL of a lot easier.

Incidentally I am trying to play the game as entirely self taught. . . trying not to look at wiki's or use pre-made rockets. Which is probably why my progress is painfully slow, but each step quite satisfying!

[pjknibbs]

Dialing it all the way back down to a single massively powerful stage seemed to work although is likely horribly inefficient. . . I will continue trying to optimise towards something between these two extremes!

You could do worse than take a look at the stock Kerbal X rocket. It'll get its 16-tonne payload to orbit no problem, or even to the Mun and back (provided you don't try and land there). It's a pretty good basic rocket you could build on for future endeavours.

[Rug]

Yes, but Bishop149 did say he was avoiding wikis and pre-built rockets...

I was going to mention a handy hint until I read that bit.

Rug

[Fallen-Angel]

Just a hint @Bishop: Do not think landing on Eve is easy. That little piece of rock doesn't look like it, but it is by far the most difficult planet to land AND takeoff from. It's gravity and atmosphere are insane and require a thoughtfully engineered lander!

[EmperorJon]

Actually, I'd dispute that. The atmosphere makes landing rather easy indeed; parachutes.

If you want something difficult to land on, look at Gilly!

Note that taking off from Eve is, however, another matter... it's significantly harder than taking off from Kerbin!

[Samuel Creshal]

12km/s Δv versus 4.5km/s Δv for Kerbin. "Significantly" is an understatement.

[Bishop149]

Just a hint @Bishop: Do not think landing on Eve is easy. That little piece of rock doesn't look like it, but it is by far the most difficult planet to land AND takeoff from. It's gravity and atmosphere are insane and require a thoughtfully engineered lander!

I hope it goes ok, I have a really rather minimal lander with lots of parachutes that can land on Kerbin + deploy rover with minimal effort. . . I would assume if Eve's atmo is thicker then the parachutes will work even better.

Not planning on taking off again.

If it doesn't work, then back to the drawing board. . . this after all is the whole fun of the game.

[Fallen-Angel]

Oh as long as it's just bringing things down to Eve's surface => just stick enough parachutes to it.

Eve is the only planet in the whole kerbol system that needs a lander with a specialised ascent stage. At least, I did not succeed in building a 100% universal lander. I got 1 universal lander for all moons and 1 for all planets except Eve. *shakes fist at Squad for creating Eve*

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. Eve is special. Should have taken a picture of my rover with a heat shield for re-entery. Oh well another time I suppose. Anyways. Got a probe on what hopefully is a crash course to Kerbol (Sun).

[OmegaKnight]

...and I ended up in a vicious cycle of making progressively bigger rockets that started to look like complete overkill...

Yeah I know that feeling
building a heavy launcher with 7 mailsails in asparagus staging
and thinking, that's going to drink fuel like it's going out of fashion,
better add a few more tanks of fuel.

When I was trying to put 3 of my stackable landing habitats into orbit
I ended up with this monstrosity.
And while it worked,
I looked at it, sitting there on the pad, and thought this is nuts.
So I went back and stripped it down to this

The whole thing now only weighs 133.5 tonnes instead of over 700
51.2 of that is habitats another
12.7 is the orbital manoeuvring engine/ISA mapping satellite.
So the lifter only weighs just under 70 tonnes.

and I think using 70tonnes of lifter to put
50/60 tonnes of payload and a nose cone into orbit
ain’t too shoddy

[Dantrithor]

I really hate to use jet engines to put payloads into orbit. It looks out of place for me.

But that's only a personal thought

[OmegaKnight]

just think of it as a funny shaped spaceplane

[Aragosnat]

Agreed. Just think of it as an unusual space plane or rocket even though my anti-virus scanner will not let me look at the pictures. Something about a rouge scanner.

[Bishop149]

Yay, successful Eve landing + Rover deployment!

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w71/ ... 6c25fe.jpg

Same craft should get a rover to Duna + next, then I'll think about a manned return trip. . . and a rover to Moho.

Edit: Quite proud of my rover design BTW very compact but has everything it could possibly need except a self righting system. . . I just couldn't work out how to cram one in.

[pjknibbs]

Self-righting systems are not really necessary so long as you don't go mad while driving the thing (and also make sure you go into docking mode while doing so, so that the torque generated by the WSAD isn't trying to tip the thing over at the same time as you're turning).

[esd]

I rebound rover controls completely - I found the wheels spinning during ascent and transition seemed to cause rotation of the entire vessel. Though that may also have been the fuel lines, it seemed to diminish when I rebound the rover.

[Bishop149]

I rebound rover controls completely - I found the wheels spinning during ascent and transition seemed to cause rotation of the entire vessel. Though that may also have been the fuel lines, it seemed to diminish when I rebound the rover.

Yeah so did I. . . . I have still managed to overturn a few rovers with a combination of impatience / speed and overly enthusiastic cornering.

[Aragosnat]

Sounds like I should re-bind those keys as well.