Kerbal Space Program (in-dev retail game)

Fallen-Angel · Post by **Fallen-Angel** » Sun, 8. Sep 13, 15:55

pjknibbs wrote:I like the fact they're finally going to have some sort of nuclear fuel which means you don't have to carry useless oxidizer in your tanks when you're using nuclear rockets. As for Kerbal food, I think that might take things a bit too far out of the fun region--imagine how much food you'd have to supply for a typical mission to the outer planets, for example, and how much weight that would add to your rockets!

I'm playing with the Ion Cross Crew Support Plugin, it definitly adds to the fun ..

Aragosnat · Post by **Aragosnat** » Mon, 9. Sep 13, 20:57

Yeah. More challange is always good. Hence why I'm thinking of trying out the TAC Life support mod. Some of use are masochistic in nature. Steam DiD start game + Hub Plot + all the achievements seems to be a dream come true. =^.^=

TradinCajun · Post by **TradinCajun** » Tue, 10. Sep 13, 06:15

Ioncross? I'll have to take a look into that one.

OAN:
Just spotted this on KSP facebook page. Get ready for 0.22.
Better put your Raybans on... They blinded me with science!

Fallen-Angel · Post by **Fallen-Angel** » Tue, 10. Sep 13, 11:27

hm nice video, finally a stock sub assembly tool

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 11:21

I've noticed something odd.

Rockets with trilateral symmetry (ie 3 tanks / boosters around a central 4th tank) are a nightmare to control. They often pick up a spin all by themselves and will certainly do so if you try and make any kind of course adjustment.

They are less stable than a 2 booster arrangement which seems counter intuitive and if you really want nice flight you seem to need either 1 or 4. . . the former being pretty impractical with anything even a little bit heavy!

Anyway in other news, due to a **** up with fuel line placement, whilst testing a spaceplanes range on sub orbital flight it ran out of fuel on the other side of Kerbin from KSP (I was hoping to make a full global circumnavigation at altitude between 15 and 25km).

I have been trying to launch a refueling rover over to it with a sub orbital rocket and its turned out to be about the most difficult thing I've attempted in KSP!
Sub orbital hops like this turn out to be VERY difficult to control your landing point. . . you get it lined up right and it drifts off. . . line up. . drift . . . line up . . . drift . . . etc etc it uses a more fuel that it takes to get to orbit just to keep your landing zone is roughly the right place.

And then you have to guess at what point in you trajectory you will areobrake, because the projected course doesn't take this into account and you can't even check altitude a points of the projected course.

Best attempts to date:
50km away, failed to drive there due to terrain difficulties.
<5km away

. . . in the sea

imperium3 · Post by **imperium3** » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 11:26

You could try going fully into orbit and then deorbiting down onto the site? Aerobraking will still be a pain but at least you get a little more control over what's going on.

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 11:39

Yeah but then I need a rapidly accelerating ~4500 DeltaV from my orbital stage (up to orbital speed and back again to zero).

That would be a damn big rocket for something as simple as dropping something on a different bit of Kerbin. . .

I have tried to make my fuel rover into a limited jet aircraft to control the final stage a bit better but thus far my simply designs haven't flown well. . . . I'd have to do a extensive redesign making something that looks more like a plane than a rover. . . . I'd have to test that it docks nicely with the target as well, which I know the current design does. . .

I might revisit that idea but think I'll just keep trying my sub orbital hop for a bit . . . well until it drives me totally loopy!

softweir · Post by **softweir** » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 15:38

About the trilateral symmetry. I find the same problem with control surfaces: if I put three around the base of a rocket I often get spin, though less so because control surfaces are coded with roll authority, whereas engines are not!

I suspect this spin happens because some combinations of pitch and yaw lead to one engine vectoring, leaving the other two near to straight thrust.

The cure (if you have an inner engine or lots of inertial wheels) is to lock the gimbals on the outer engines!

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 15:51

Yeah, it may well be the surfaces. . . I tend to put a big wing at the base on all the outer most tanks (however many there might be) as a matter of course. Partly because it helps a lot with stability . . . and partly because it then looks like a proper rocket!

I don't usually have a central thruster unless I really need it, the central tank just feeds to the outer rockets . . . so locking gimbles would remove a lot of control . . . although perhaps in the case of trilateral rockets I would be a good idea to add the central one.

Aragosnat · Post by **Aragosnat** » Wed, 11. Sep 13, 23:36

Yeah. Remember a while back in this thread(?)... You need a lot more struts then you think you need to prevent the spinning as well as locking down the gimbals.

Got this SSTO pure rocket craft into oribit:
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/110 ... 88959400A/

Nice little orbit it has achieved:
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/110 ... EBAFEBF57/

And this is what happens when I do water landings:
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/110 ... 80DDE77E8/

I was wondering if I had all my parachutes along one side would that help? Going to try that. I'll let you know if it works.

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Thu, 12. Sep 13, 12:34

So I finally managed to rescue Bob Kerman in his stranded spaceplane with a sub-orbital hop rocket delivering the refueling rover.

Here is a picture series of the operation

Best landing I got, on land and less than 20km away

[ external image ]

Target in sight!

[ external image ]

Bob oversees the hook up of the fuel lines

[ external image ]

Fuel Transfer underway

[ external image ]

Lift off!!

[ external image ]

This one shows the various positions of everything from the air:

[ external image ]

After much flying KSP is in sight! Bob never looks very happy in flight!

[ external image ]

Coming in, don't screw up now Bob!

[ external image ]

Yay! Bob celebrates his global circumnavigation fight (+ stop over) with a flag.

[ external image ]
[ external image ]

Conclusions:
- Sub-orbital hops are a nightmare, avoid!
- My plane works very well, it flies beautifully and is very stable / easy to maneuver. Operational ceiling of around 22km, top speed over the ground achieved ~1000m/s, at which point I started getting flames so slowed up!
Also seems able to take off / land with not much space and on fairly rough ground. An unmanned version (unfortunately still with the fuel line problem!) is on route to Laythe.
- Add the missing fuel lines and it probably could make it all the way round Kerbin without the refuel.

red assassin · Post by **red assassin** » Thu, 12. Sep 13, 23:36

Found on the internet somewhere:
http://i.imgur.com/Ndg8I5t.png

{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

TradinCajun · Post by **TradinCajun** » Fri, 13. Sep 13, 02:31

@Bishop: Awesome spaceplane and refueling technique. Landing planes is the hardest obstacle for me to master. Congrats!

@Red: LMAO! Great find! My sides hurt!

OmegaKnight · Post by **OmegaKnight** » Fri, 13. Sep 13, 06:10

Lol Red Assassin nice find.

Nice rescue mission Bishop149,
I know that pain, I too can't do precision landings with re-entries
lots of F5ing and a fair bit of luck for me.
I’ve also had to juggle fuel in mid air,
with Alt-Rclick, after forgetting a fuel line.
The new SAS helps way more with unbalanced craft
One question though,
did it really take 4 hours to fly on to KSP after refuelling?

Aragosnat: Aye water doesn't like my craft either,
which is why I still find this so cool

DaddyMonster · Post by **DaddyMonster** » Fri, 13. Sep 13, 10:29

Love the application form!

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Fri, 13. Sep 13, 10:59

OmegaKnight wrote: One question though,
did it really take 4 hours to fly on to KSP after refuelling?

Ah yes, there were a few stop overs . . .

At one point I randomly lost control and ended up in a spin, had to deploy the emergency parachutes to avoid fiery death. Bob then repacked them and took off again.

I also don't much like flying in pitch black, can't see what I'm doing! So Bob landed and fast forwarded through most of the night.

Landing site was the little node in the middle of Kerbins biggest crater. . wondered if there might be an Easter Egg there. . . not that I could see.

Heres take off from there:

[ external image ]

Aragosnat · Post by **Aragosnat** » Fri, 13. Sep 13, 21:00

Bishop149 wrote:
[ external image ]

Fuel Transfer underway

You don't need the yellow fuel lines at all. All parts transfer fuel. But, yeah. It does feel wierd without them.

Landed 4 of these craft on Gilly yestarday. Needless to say needed to turn orbit info off and switch to surface as it will always stay in orbit info:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/110 ... 0D8FDF23B/

Yeah. Did try it with all chutes onn one side. Needed to do the same on the other. Just to bad I cannot add chutes to the engine block, already have 8 struts connecting them to tank:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/110 ... B09190BCC/

I know if it was a staight up and down it would have stayed on.

Anyways. Here is my SSTO that has landed successfully back on Kerbin:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/110 ... 22B55F540/

While one vesrion did use aerospikes. I found them to heavy for my needs when I reached space. The LV-909 worked like a charm and had 1/3rd the weight.

AgamemnonArgon · Post by **AgamemnonArgon** » Sat, 14. Sep 13, 18:52

red assassin wrote:Found on the internet somewhere:

{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

Damn.

Has the application date closed yet....

Usenko · Post by **Usenko** » Sun, 15. Sep 13, 02:56

I have just started using my new rig, so suddenly KSP runs at an insanely high speed.

This means that I've had an incentive to start playing again.

I have therefore begun the process of building a space station. For inspiration I have looked at the real life ISS, so the first two modules are [very rough] Kerbalisations of Zarya and Unity.

I am building Zvezda now.

Chips · Post by **Chips** » Mon, 16. Sep 13, 23:55

A bit late, but I've finally bought it after it was on offer, so from £18 down to £10.

They're too cute

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Kerbal Space Program (in-dev retail game)