Author Topic: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"  (Read 372725 times)

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I've seen many people build space stations with a bunch of command modules in them with no apparent ill effects, though nuke is using quite a few more of them than I've typically seen, so who knows.  Maybe it's a lesser form of the Space Cthulhu?

Yeah, there's some new, more violent, variant of the space kraken in 0.18.  It hit me, when I was sending Lanbald back to the stranded oiler.  When I got within two kilometers (the maximum range at which the physics engine is active), the oiler jumped to another hill, and when I got within two kilometers again, it exploded.  Fortunately, the game auto-saved, when Lanbald got out of the rover, so I was able to reload, and when I approached the second time, everything was fine.  Might be worth saving, when you're getting within a few kilometers of your space stations and shipyards.

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Girders are awesome.

So far, I've attempted building a girder-based Enterprise, girder-based gravitron station, and an abortive attempt of a Zeppelin (too much CPU load).

However, this is probably my most bestest creation in the realm of KSP aviation so far.



This is the A-1 variant which didn't have a skin on the fuselage, so you can see the underlying structure. The exact positioning and angle of wings has also changed a little, main landing gear are now doubles instead of single wheels, the control surface layout is different, but the basic structure remains unchanged.

She flies quite a bit like a medium-sized jet should. Here be a video.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2012, 07:11:06 pm by Herra Tohtori »
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline FlamingCobra

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Cleanup on launchpad three!
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Orion test variant unsuccessful.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline Pred the Penguin

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Any good Youtube channels of lots of KSP stuff? (Hopefully instructional ones as well. :nervous:)

 
Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Scott Manley

Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg/videos
Newbie's first tutorial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgPr4q5tj-Q
Rendezvous and docking tutorial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHkY3FusJIQ

He's also very good about explaining what he's doing in his non-instructional videos, so you'll stand to learn quite a lot, even when you're not on his channel to sit through a tutorial.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
He's my favorite goon :allears:

 
Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Scott Manley

Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg/videos
Newbie's first tutorial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgPr4q5tj-Q
Rendezvous and docking tutorial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHkY3FusJIQ

He's also very good about explaining what he's doing in his non-instructional videos, so you'll stand to learn quite a lot, even when you're not on his channel to sit through a tutorial.

You'll stand to learn quite a lot about pretty much everything astronomy related really, the man is a Scottish encyclopedia of information. Listening to his videos made me many times better at KSP than I can count.
'yo my domestic skillets, who put swarm torpedoes on the Tev bombers?'
~Nighteyes

 

Offline newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
So I was thinking on how to put a probe on each of Jool's moons without having to send over 5 interplanetary missions. I already pulled a two-docked-probes mission to Eve, having successfully landed a probe on both Eve and Gilly, so now I wanted to test this on a larger scale. As a result, project Jool Orbital was born. It consists of the Jool Orbital herself, with 5 probes docked to it.

After 135 days in orbit, the ship is finally complete, with all the probes and equipment docked to it, she's fully fueled up and as ready as she'll ever be.




How it began: delivering the core of the ship into orbit.




Atlantis 4 docked, having just delivered a probe and a drop tank.






Advanced stages of construction..




Last of the probes docking.








Ship complete, doing last EVA checks...




..and the obligatory tacky postcard shot of the completed vessel.


Flight plan and mission objectives are as follows:

1) Jool Orbital will leave Kerbin's SOI and proceed on a trans-Jool trajectory via a Hohmann transfer maneuver.

2) The aft drop tank has been equipped with a small probe core, limited battery power with a few fixed solar panels, parachutes, scientific instruments and comm equipment. Upon entering Jool's SOI, the Jool Orbital will set a collision course with Jool. If there will be any fuel remaining in the aft drop tank, it will be pumped over to the main body tank, at which point the aft drop tank will be detached from the ship.

The drop tank will proceed on a collision course with Jool. Comm equipment will be deployed to transmit information about various layers of Jool's atmosphere to Jool Orbital, which will relay this information to Kerbin when it's in a position to transmit. The Jool impactor probe will continue transmitting data until it is destroyed. The parachutes will hopefully slow it's descent and extend it's useful life time.

3) After separation of the aft drop tank, the Jool Orbital will then perform a correction burn to set Jool periapsis at some 115km altitude for an aerobreaking maneuver.

4) Having achieved Jool Orbit, the Jool Orbital will commence deploying probes to each of Jool's moons.

5) Upon completion of all mission objectives, the Jool Orbital will settle in a final orbit around Jool. If enough fuel remains aboard, it will be possible to use it as a refueling depot for a future manned mission to one of Jool's moons (probably Laythe).


If this all works, I will have a probe on each space object in the Kerbol system in 0.18. Two concerns are, one, the 4 NERVAs have their work cut out for them, having a lot of mass to push; it may have been better to use a 6 engine layout. A manned interplanetary ship will probably use just such a setup. Another is, the ship has lots and lots of parts fully assembled, FPS takes a bit of a hit, and I do hope it won't all fall apart at full thrust. So, wish me luck :)


You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
That's one hell of a mission plan; good luck to you indeed! 
So far the only interplanetary thing I've done is abandon a 3-man command capsule on the surface of Eve.  I need to learn how to be more awesome. :(
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
So many kerbals are alive because I DON'T have a working system capable of running 0.18.....
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
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Offline newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
So many kerbals are alive because I DON'T have a working system capable of running 0.18.....

0.18 is finally capable of unmanned missions without using mods, so not necessarily :)
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

  

Offline NGTM-1R

  • I reject your reality and substitute my own
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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
0.18 is finally capable of unmanned missions without using mods, so not necessarily :)

Killing my crew is part of the fun!
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Killing my crew is part of the fun!


Well, I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news: With this, not only can you kill your crew, but also your passengers!





This particular configuration seats ladders 26 kerbals in cabin + one man crew (pilot) in cockpit.

My ultimate goal is a wide-body airliner (diameter 3 metres)... Some day...




The bad news: See all those girders? Yeah, those. They are bad for performance.

Really bad. You wouldn't believe how much time this sucker takes to load up in the game. And once it starts simulating it, it lags the game to at least 0.5 x normal simulation rate, at about 8-10 FPS, so I need to figure out some way to optimize the construction...
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Create custom fuselage parts with the shape predefined?
NGTM-1R: Currently considering spending the rest of the day in bed cuddling.
GTSVA: With who...?
Nuke: chewbacca?
Bob-san: The Rancor.

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Yes, that's probably the only way to make these things performance-efficient. I found some ring parts; I suppose I'll be scaling them to right size. Still need to get some fuselage skin and tail cone fairings that snaps radially to the girder mesh, rather than faking it with the silly fairing factory fairings which are only there for the looks.

I don't want to create specialized parts for a certain aircraft design, though. I want to create a lot of airplane designs from simple basic parts.
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 
Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
The second Ike rescue attempt is underway and has reached Ike orbit.  The rover has been removed and the lander redesigned.  Of course, I managed to arrive, again, while the stranded vessel was on the night-side of Ike, so I'm endlessly waiting for the sun to rise again, before I attempt a landing.  That and the inevitable screenshot dump will have to happen later this weekend, though.

 

Offline newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
The Jool Orbital mission has been carried out, and most mission objectives have been successful. Having spent 135 days being readied in a 250km high orbit of kerbin, the ship left Kerbin's SOI and initiated a Jool transfer burn as planned. Ship's systems performed as expected, and after the 22 minute long (!) burn the ship was injected on a collision trajectory with Jool.






The Jool Orbital, making it's escape burn.


This ship carried the last 5 probes of my Zond program, the first 6 already landed on Duna, Ike, Eve, Gilly, Moho, and Dres. It's mission objective: probe Jool's atmosphere and each of it's natural satellites.




Detaching the aft drop tank that has been drained of fuel, while on a collision course with Jool. The tank was equipped with basic systems needed to operate scientific instruments, chutes, and comm equipment to transmit it's findings for as long as the onboard instruments remain operational.




The Jool Orbital making a correction burn after deploying the probe / tank. This burn put it on an aerobreaking trajectory and also had a purpose of delaying it's contact with Jool's atmosphere in relation to the probe / tank (in further text, I'll refer to is as the Jool Impactor), allowing me to focus on the probe while the Jool Orbital is still roughly two hours away from atmosphere contact.




The Jool Impactor, getting closer to Jool's atmosphere. Comm equipment deployed, all scientific equipment operating.






I monitored the Jool Impactor as it descended. As expected, atmospheric pressure and temperatures began to rise exponentially as it got below 20km altitude. Just a few meters (one, actually) above the surface, it was picking up some 15 atmospheres and approximately +980 degrees (I assume °C since the rest of the units are metric). Yikes, whatever comes down there isn't coming up.. Unless you let the game glitch; in previous versions some of my dropped tanks which I allowed to impact Jool proceeded straight through it and ended up on some weird, extremely elongated elliptical orbits around the Sun. So this time when the probe went below surface, I hit "end flight" and focused back on the Jool Orbital.




The Jool Orbital after having made a successful aerobreaking maneuver. The down side of me being focused on the Jool Impactor probe while the Jool Orbital was approaching was that I failed to correct for a 12 degree orbital inclination in time. Correcting this took a lot of Δv, which in turn cost a lot of fuel. Due to this development, I was unable to manually carry the probes to some of the more.. problematic to reach Jool's moons. Instead, I deployed one to Laythe and Vall, and then used the remaining fuel aboard ship to settle the Jool Orbital in a 14 million km circular orbit around Jool, hoping the high orbit would give the probes enough of a head start to reach their destinations.






Deploying the Zond 11 to Laythe. Incidentally, I love sunrises over Jool.






First of the probes reached it's destination. So far, so good.




Time to put another one on Vall.





Reached it with enough fuel to spare to light a zippo. Briefly. Scientific analysis: it's blueish grey and kind of boring. On to the next one!








The next one attempted to reach Tylo. I say attempted, because after the probe reached a 50x50km, landing on Tylo safely would require over of 2km/s of Δv. The probe simply didn't have that much left, so I left it in orbit instead.











The next one went to Pol. Pol is further than Tylo, much smaller, and on an inclined orbit. So why, you might ask, would I even try to reach it when I couldn't land on Tylo? The answer is, the further away you get from a body you orbit, the less fuel you need to climb literally millions of km. And Pol is much smaller so once you do reach it, you actually need very little fuel to land. In fact, my distinct impression is it's entirely doable with RCS only, and it probably wouldn't take more than a few units of monopropellant. Main problem in reaching Pol (and Bop) was that their orbits are very much inclined. I didn't have enough fuel to do plane change burns of that magnitude and reach the targets, so I had to catch both moons while they were on a point where their orbits intersected my own. The new node system makes this a bit easier, since you now have ascending and descending nodes that tell you exactly where those orbital intersections are.

BTW, I love Pol. It's surface isn't grey and boring, it's small but really irregular which makes landings interesting, and sunrises over it are awesome with Jool appearing larger than the Sun :)








Lastly, using the same method I used to reach Pol, the final probe arrived safely on Bop. It's gravity is very, very low and it's surface is very uneven, which makes landings fiddly. If you touch the surface that is angled in relation to your probe, it will bounce back, and it will take some fine RCS control to make it settled down. Scientific analysis: cool tiny irregular asteroid captured by Jool, but not as interesting as Pol.


Final mission results:

- probe Jool's atmosphere with a disposable drop tank turned probe: success;
- land a probe on Laythe: success;
- land a probe on Vall: success;
- land a probe on Tylo: failure. Probe low on fuel in a stable 50km circular orbit. Probe is equipped with a docking port so future refueling operations would enable it to land.
- land a probe on Bop: success.
- land a probe on Pol: success.

Status of Jool Orbital: in a stable 14 million km circular orbit around Jool. Very little onboard fuel remains, so it will not be possible to use it as a refueling depot. Other systems operational, and the ship is now used as a comm relay between the probes and Kerbin.




The Jool Orbital after having deployed all of it's probes and spent a vast majority of it's fuel in a high orbit over Jool.

All in all, I'm calling this a win as I'm considering ways to refuel the Tylo probe, enabling it to land on it's intended target.




« Last Edit: December 16, 2012, 05:20:23 am by newman »
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 
Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
In this mission that has been characterized by fuel shortages, the knackered rover from the first rescue mission predictably ran out of fuel, ten kilometers away from the second rescue lander.  That's alright, though, because on a moon like Ike, ten kilometers is a pretty quick EVA hop.  Now, I get to take the lander up and dock it ass-first with the interplanetary stage.