Author Topic: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"  (Read 372687 times)

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Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Built a new orbital station for 0.19.



Thanks to the awesome power of the Tesseract Blue LEDs ****ing magic, it can go just about anywhere, at a snails pace anyway. ;)

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 FlamingCobra

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
there's no way you made that without mechjeb

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I've never used mechjeb. :V
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 Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
these days mechjeb screws up more launches than it saves.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nuke's Scripting SVN

 

Offline watsisname

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

One of our engineers insisted that our station had a lot of dead weight which was robbing some of its delta-v potential.  Since sending up a team of Kerbonauts to remove unneeded bits and bring them home would make a lot of sense, we instead shoved the whole multi-billion dollar structure into Kerbin's atmosphere and built a new one from scratch.  Not content to only reduce the dry mass, we also added bunch of extra engines and fuel. 
The result:  Delta-v budget from LKO jumped from 7.2 to over 10.7 km/s.  Our top scientist characterized this improvement as "totally sweet I guess."

After a careful selection process, we have crewed the new station with our best and brightest:
Maclo, pilot and all-around badass.  Selected for surviving the catastrophic explosive disintegration of a rocket in an earlier mission.
Feremy, commander.  His actions saved the command capsule from destruction during the aforementioned event.
and Bartemy, mission specialist.  He discovered the cause of that mission's failure -- Maclo's enthusiasm for !!MAXIMUM THRUST!! while still low in the atmosphere had lead to forces in excess of the rocket's structural limits.

Here we see our brave crew docked with the ass end of the station.  Hope you're comfortable, guys, 'cause you're gonna be there for a while.


Maclo turns on the engines and is immediately disappointed by the lack of WHOOSH.  Instead a soft hum fills the air as the engines glow with a strange blue aura.  The station accelerates imperceptibly.  The crew seem to be confused by this technology, which is okay because quite frankly nobody in mission control understands how it works either.


Whelp, so long, boys.  You're not going to be going anywhere fast, but you'll go somewhere for sure.

:SEVERAL MONTHS LATER:

Holy **** guys, we're at another planet.  Wat do?


These engines are super efficient, but mission control still likes to save delta-v.  (Money and lives on the other hand are immaterial.)  So we shall aerobrake.  Bartemy, being the thinker, decides he should retract the solar panels first.

Down we go, and the sun sets beyond a strange purple horizon.  Hopefully, this will not be the last sunset they ever see.


****, the purple is getting inside.  Maclo succumbs to it immediately and starts laughing hysterically.  Feremy gets a contact high.  Bartemy dares to be drug-free and looks the other way.


Hot plasma envelops the ship.  Bartemy and Feremy become nervous.  Maclo is too busy having a Stanley Kubrick 2001 visual experience.


Good thing we put the command module in the back...


Aerobrake complete and orbit achieved!  Their next stop:  Gilly, so that Mission Control may finally find out what the hell a Gilly is.


This is your Kerbal mission coverage team, signing off.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2013, 12:48:50 am by watsisname »
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 Mongoose

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
In case anyone hadn't heard, KSP was one of several games added to Steam's new Early Access program, which allows people to buy titles that are available to the public while still undergoing active development.  I've been meaning to try this out for a while, and now that it's on the service, I might finally get around to doing so.  Of course they've come up with a suitably-Kerbin trailer, too. :D

 

Offline newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
there's no way you made that without mechjeb

Way. Some of us did some pretty damn complex stuff without ever having the thing installed :)
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 Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
i only really use it to move assets into space while im watching tv. it frees up time that i need to yell at the voices in my head, which my ksp has been seriously cutting into as of late.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nuke's Scripting SVN

 
Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
MechJeb elitists are probably the most annoying element of this game's community.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline TwentyPercentCooler

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
MechJeb elitists are probably the most annoying element of this game's community.

Yeah, it's almost like real astronauts don't have these fancy, newfangled things called computers to help them with calculations and to autopilot when the time is appropriate! Don't those computer things take up a whole room or something? BAH!

Edit: just to clarify, I'm agreeing with you.

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I literally do not give a **** as to how anyone else likes to play a game, and I do not understand why other people apparently do.
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 headdie

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I literally do not give a **** as to how anyone else likes to play a game, and I do not understand why other people apparently do.

I believe it relates to "ugg, me better than you"
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Offline FlamingCobra

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I'm guessing you built it piece by piece instead of launching it all at once?

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I'm guessing you built it piece by piece instead of launching it all at once?

No, I did it all at once.  I don't think it's that difficult to do for something of this size (it's mostly solar arrays, anyway.)  Anything much bigger would be pretty hairy to launch though.

This the later version of the station, which I sent to Eve, but it's basically the exact same thing as the original, which I still have in a high orbit around Kerbin.






The orange tanks get it well above the atmosphere, then the last liquid tanks bring it almost into orbit.  In fact they would put it in orbit if I allowed it.  Instead I put it in a very elliptical trajectory with periapsis just below the surface -- that way I can ditch the tanks without cluttering the orbital space, then use the xenon/RCS to bring periapsis above the atmosphere.  Finally a little liquid-powered tugship docks with it, shoves it into the final circular orbit, and tops off the xenon tanks.
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 newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
MechJeb elitists are probably the most annoying element of this game's community.

No, people who keep suggesting the same things over and over in the development board take that title :)

Also, if that was a jab at me, Mamba's comment suggested there are some things in the game you can't do without mechjeb, which is patently wrong; I've launched some pretty big monstrosities, and done manned return missions to pretty much everywhere including Eve without using mechjeb. That's not "uhh me better than you" - that's just a simple statement that you can do it with vanilla.

Should you do it with or without mechjeb? Up to you, who cares? It's how you play a computer game, not exactly life changing stuff - so if someone gets his feathers ruffled by that it's just a sign that someone has some growing up to do. The reason I never bothered with mechjeb is that I started with KSP fairly early (since before we had the Mun) and version after version I kind of stopped bothering with mods that'd need to get updated before you can use them with the new releases, and the vanilla game got a lot of new parts and features so my need of additional mods diminished. Once I figured out mechjeb even existed I could already do pretty much anything with vanilla so I haven't bothered. As someone who's spent some serious time with this game I can say you can, if you so choose, do pretty much anything without mods, without getting into "should you" or "shouldn't you". If someone's fragile ego translates that as "that guy is an annoying elitist", well tough **** :)
« Last Edit: March 29, 2013, 08:18:45 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

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
^ Well said. 

Nobody that I have seen here has suggested that there is a right way or a wrong way to play, or that people who play vanilla are somehow superior to those who use a flight-assisting tool.  Whether or not you should use one is a matter of personal preference and it is extremely silly for anyone to to get huffy about it.  (This reminds me of a similar and very dumb argument a while back on the minecraft thread regarding creative vs survival play-styles.)

As for myself I just never even got around to trying mechjeb.  There was never a scenario where I thought it was necessary to use, and honestly I just prefer doing everything myself, anyway.  (I am tempted to use it to do those long-ass ion-drive burns automatically, but eh.  I can just point the ship in the right direction, activate S.A.S if I have it, estimate the time it takes to do the burn, then open throttle and enjoy a beer.  If the ship is balanced well, there's no problem.)
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 Dragon

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I only used MechJeb occasionally, mostly on craft which literally couldn't fly without it (early versions of BobCat's Buran come to mind). Even then, I only let it do ascent and menial things such as orientation. I have poor experiences with letting it do more complex things, so I do everything important manually. Data displays are nice though.

 

Offline pecenipicek

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
i work with either lazors or mechjeb, depending if i'm working on spaceplanes or rockets.

also, i'll be dropping this here and laugh with glee :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1s67QxUaIM
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and many miles be still to go,
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
While I do use MechJeb from time to time (and even then, mostly for data and simple things), Lazors are too much for me. I only use the docking cam and robotic arms from the set. IMHO, Lazor system is a magical autopilot which is only one step below using Hyperedit to just put a ship right into orbit, plus a set of other, physics-defying features.

  

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
only one step below

Everyone who ever used god mode was GAMING WRONG and SHOULD BE PUNISHED.

Kind of like everyone whoever played and enjoyed Rifts on the tabletop was having BADWRONGFUN.

Seriously people, in a single-player there is no cheating unless you deny using something to achieve the desired result.
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