Author Topic: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"  (Read 372702 times)

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Offline Rodo

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Now I know why I didn't make it, my mine is nearly half the size of those successfully munar rockets :p

edit: achieved munar orbit!...
and a few moments later lost my mission to an issue with the controls locking up and getting me in a weird orbit around the sun.
meh, they were not going to make it back anyway.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2011, 02:33:38 pm by Rodo »
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
there is kind of a glitch with the time compression, you can turn it all the way down to 1x in the orbital view, and when you switch back to normal view you still need to turn it down one more time because it thinks its still at 2x.
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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
So I am optimizing my Big Munar Lifter (all stock, ofc). It's been an evolving process. As of now, it's a lot faster then my old Big Lifter Mk III. I'm curious about the effects of removing the top booster stages--are they even worthwhile? I'm going to play around with a highly eccentric orbit by blasting straight up and then modifying my direction at the top altitude.
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Offline Rodo

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Big Lifter Mk III

No kidding!, well I guess it's a common name after all.... the one that got me into munar orbit is called Lifter II :P
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
i think i called mine the lunar lander of doom. granted i shoulda called it the munar lander of doom. but at least its something. most of the time i just write in some profanity and save my rocket as that. such as the "douchebag lesbian anal probe", "the ****ing stupid retard piece of **** that crashes", and my favorite "the **** encrusted ****hole of cthulhu". ive just never been good at naming things. most of the stuff in nukemod is named after metal bands.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2011, 02:35:08 am by Nuke »
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Offline Bob-san

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


So I've made it to the Mün and landed successfully. I even made it off the Mün and into Münar orbit. (Highly eccentric but orbit none the less.) My problem now is that I've run out of LF and am relying upon RCS propellant. To be fair, I didn't even reach orbit with liquid fuel--I a good bit of my take to get there. Now the task is getting OUT of the Mun's sphere of influence. Any ideas? :lol:



Periapsis: 005,645m
Apoapsis: 204,255m

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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
use your rcs fuel and plot your trajectory for aerobreaking, aim for a perikerb of like 39k, it will decay over several orbits until you finally re-enter.

of course that would be fairly difficult with your current orbital inclination. im thinking burn prograde at perimun until you loose capture. save some fuel to tweak your trajectory though. its a shame you cant drop all that dead weight. like if you put your rcs system directly onto the capsule, you could jettison the engine, tank and sas. but it looks like you get to drag it, so you probibly wont get home.

you know what we should do? we should build an official hlp community mod pack. we could do freespace themed parts (like shivan parts or vasudan parts) and perhaps community themed parts as well bosch beer engine!. everyone go make a part. its easier than modding fs. its only a dae and a and a part file.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2011, 04:35:14 pm by Nuke »
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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I think I figured it out. It just takes a while. The Mün has an orbital period of like 38 hours so I have a window to increase my apoapsis and leave Münar orbit (and be back in the Kearth's sphere of influence). After that it's using the RCS to lower my new apoapsis beneath the Mün's sphere of influence (so it can't recapture me) and hopefully lowing the periapsis to <35km. I think it's possible, if I have enough patience. I just don't want to be stuck in orbit. I forgot that I could release the four radial decouplers (and the winglets I used as lander legs) for a while and that lost me some potential.

Orbital inclination doesn't help me but I'm not sure if it'll kill me.
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
well at least the rcs doesnt take hours to change your orbit like an ion engine :D
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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
well at least the rcs doesnt take hours to change your orbit like an ion engine :D
Actually it kinda does. Low thrust and you gotta hold down the thrust-forward key to get anywhere.

Anyways, I don't think I'll get there. I must keep trying though!

EDIT: Got there again and lithobraked by accident. Damn center of gravity.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2011, 06:11:42 pm by Bob-san »
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
just did my first mun landing on chemical engines. i kinda botched my lander design though. it had ample descent fuel and rcs capabilities (2 tanks 8 thrusters). unfortunately the srb i used for my ascent engine sucked. on takeoff i had some fuel in the descent stage, and it was enough to clear the ground. i dumped it and light my srb. it runs for 2 seconds then stops and i dont even have a quarter of an orbit yet. so i dump the useless engine and turn on the rcs system. so i just barely manage to make orbit, and it took an entire rcs tank to do it. i tested my burn opposite of the muns orbital path strategy and make my orbit a large elipse and eventually break it with half a tank to spare. eventially kerbin took over as my primary gravitational influence and pull off an aerobreak manuver. all in all a nice little trip that proves the 2 rcs tank return strategy.
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Offline Retsof

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Guh, trying to get my stock lander (legs made from decoupleres/wings) to the Mun.  Can't even get to a Kerbinian orbit without using the lander's own engine.  Perhaps I rely too much on the tri-coupler core?
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Offline MR_T3D

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
just finishing up a kerpallo 2 (kerpallo 1 failed with not enough boosters) flight with almost all stock parts (only mod part is a stronger nuclear engine that has no gimball, 300 thrust, 5 burn rate, and a minimum of 30 thrust)

Everything looked good, got into orbit, set up intercept with the mun, began burn to get there.
Still had some fuel left so the engine kept burning, and I had to eject the stage or I'd overshoot and leave kearth
I separate stages, but I didn't have enough force, so the nuclear stack pushed my liquid engine. I couldn't risk lighting the detached stage, so I turned the nose down to let the nuclear stage keep going off to the sun, but it clipped my guiding wing/strut and broke off the stage's liquid engine.

I thought they were lost in orbit, until I realized I had sever RCS thrusters which might do the trick.

I warped to apoge, then set all the RCS thrusters to reverse thrust to slow me down enough that my orbit would put me in atmo, and it just barely worked, nearly ran into the Mun as well

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
some of my latest exploits with my 19-coupler




return home failed because of the lagrange point of death. which is a shame because i wanted to do a powered landing on kerbin.
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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I got back to Kearth with RCS propellant to spare. I changed up my design of course: the Big Munar Lifter Mk V was highly successful (unlike its prior incarnations).

I used direct ascent with a gravity assist from Kearth. I was luckily captured by the Mun near my apogee and did a retroburn at my new periapsis. I did a direct descent to the Munar surface and was able to land on the side of a crater. The Mk I lander was a coffin. The new Mk II lander is a spaceship.



After landing, the lander's engine was again needed. It provided much of the velocity needed to escape from the Mun. A direct ascent soon followed and, despite being at an escape velocity, the remaining RCS fuel was more than sufficient to move my perigee within Kearth's atmosphere. The command module (and attached parachute & RCS tank) aerobraked and, around 10km, the parachute was deployed. The command module touched down rather softly (assisted by RCS) off the shore of a continent.



Overall, the mission was a resounding success.



tl;dr: I landed on the Mun and returned to Kearth using only stock parts.
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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Overall, the mission was a resounding success.

Your success is puny and weak!  Real men's success involves fire and casualties!

Seriously, though, that's an impressive feat.  I hope to duplicate it at some point, though I think it's going to take a while to progress from smacking into the lunar surface at 600 m/s to a successful lunar landing, with return.

 

Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Landing on the Mün is half the battle. The other half is getting off it.

Otherwise, experiment a bit with different rocket designs. A neat trick I've learned is that it's possible to have more than tri-coupled engines. Use a radial decoupler, SRB, stack decoupler, and then you can attach LF tanks and an LF engine. Just remember to manually set your stages. I've found that it's usually best to combine decouplers and firing new engines into the same stage. Of course, that rule isn't absolute--I've run into situations where you just have to drift away from jettisoned parts (lest you collide and sustain damage) meaning either an engine shutdown or split stages. At least on lower stages, definitely best to combine radial decouplers.

Other thing is to remember that any decoupler is really quite heavy. Use them sparingly. Struts, on the other hand, are lightweight. That said, when using radial decouplers at least, attach SRB's directly to each other and, if they're too powerful for the radial decoupler, use some struts. Stiffened rockets are easier to fly and far less dangerous.

BTW: here's a picture of the rocket I used for that mission:

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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
you know you can add stability and avoid spin by cross coupling your engine clusters. instead of a single spar, you can put 2 in an x pattern. so if one twists left the one next to it will twist right and compensate. this is less necessary now that we have gimballed engines, these can actually be combined with more powerful engines (like srbs) to add stability to more powerful thrusters.
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
i created 4 new parts today. need textures but they work. i figure there isnt enough half meter hardware and thats sad.
they are all half meter tanks, large, small and rcs, as well as a half meter rcs nosecone. i still want to add half meter to meter adapters and perhaps an engine or two to complete the half meter pack, and i figure il thow in my 19-coupler for the lulz.
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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Two new tips...

First, landing on stock legs is a tough task. It takes a bit of finesse. You MUST kill any horizontal velocity while you're landing. That's a really tough task. Either retroburn and come in flat from high altitude or get good at manual RCS control.

Second, try simplifying your craft. Many are overengineered and that decreases efficiency. Try removing parts for better performance. If you add something, it must be for a specific purpose. Even when thought uncontrollable, spinning (so long as you don't lean over) is not necessarily a bad thing.
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