Author Topic: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"  (Read 372760 times)

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Offline newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
So, I've been out most of the day. Before I left I was fiddling with a rocket design I cobbled together so I did a test launch. After separation of the last stage (just the capsule left) I just left the computer running. The speed peaked at 4122.3, then dropped to 3402.5 m/s. The capsule was still moving away from the planet at that same speed when I came back, so I guess this planet's escape velocity is a lot lower than Earth's.
So, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is, there's no way to alter the capsule's trajectory which appears to be unstoppably hurtling directly into the Sun (oops?). The good news is, there is no danger of the three astronauts being cooked alive by the sun - they'll run out of air long before that happens. Even if that wasn't a factor, they'd run out of consumables way sooner then they'd get cooked alive by the Sun, so that's a good thing then. Not even sure they're actually still alive since "maximum G-Force endured" section states 24459.7G. If they survived that they're a lot thinner than before.. but I'm sure their families will be glad they gave their lives for the advancement of science!
Now I need to abduct off the street into the van train another three astronauts but finding victims
volunteers shouldn't be a problem... Who wants to go to space? There's free candy in space..

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Offline MR_T3D

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I see several of you have made it out of orbit: The way it's set up, 3KM/s is escape velocity, according to the developer/spur-of-the-solid-boosters-for-all-stages tests.
THe planet is only 600km in diameter, but made of denser stuff so that gravity is similar to earth at surface level

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
from what ive learned atmosphere ends at 40k, good orbital velocity is around 2300. do a small prograde burn at apogee to stay out of the atmo. so if you have a rocket with sufficient dv you shoot straight up till about 10k. start your roll. you should be at about 45 degrees by 30k and fully horizontal at around 50 k. accelerate to 2300 and kill your thrust. you will slow down as you reach apogee, this is ok. when you get to apogee, re-orient your craft to point prograde and increase your velocity again to 2300, this should trim you out to a nice circular orbit. de-orbit is just a matter of providing enough kick to get you into the atmo, and let drag do the rest, so just wait for appogee and burn the remainder of fuel retrograde. this should do the trick, provided you still have enough fuel. one of the mod packs contains a small srb which is perfect for a de-orbit engine.
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Offline headdie

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Slightly off track, but has anyone build (accidentally or on design) a design that nukes itself on the launch pad, just activate you first stand an go boom before gaining any height?  funny to watch the first few time :lol:
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Offline pecenipicek

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



*insert huge grin here*
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Offline headdie

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



*insert huge grin here*

Not sure about insert big grin, bob don't look too happy
Minister of Interstellar Affairs Sol Union - Retired
quote General Battuta - "FRED is canon!"
Contact me at [email protected]
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Slightly off track, but has anyone build (accidentally or on design) a design that nukes itself on the launch pad, just activate you first stand an go boom before gaining any height?  funny to watch the first few time :lol:

yep. ive managed to blow up the entire stack by adding way to many srbs.
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Offline pecenipicek

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



*insert huge grin here*

Not sure about insert big grin, bob don't look too happy
this is just the highest i got it to go :D
Skype: vrganjko
Ho, ho, ho, to the bottle I go
to heal my heart and drown my woe!
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
and many miles be still to go,
but under a tall tree I will lie!

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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
My own highest thus far:



Still climbing. I forgot a parachute and that separator between the capsule and those fuel tanks. Ooops. It's probably a good thing it's still going.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2011, 02:45:57 am by Bob-san »
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Offline pecenipicek

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
5 hours?!?
Skype: vrganjko
Ho, ho, ho, to the bottle I go
to heal my heart and drown my woe!
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
and many miles be still to go,
but under a tall tree I will lie!

The Apocalypse Project needs YOU! - recruiting info thread.

 

Offline newman

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
5 hours?!?

Um.. take a look at the mission time / altitude / speed in the last pic I posted in this thread ;)
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Offline pecenipicek

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
5 hours?!?

Um.. take a look at the mission time / altitude / speed in the last pic I posted in this thread ;)
:shaking:




 :warp:
Skype: vrganjko
Ho, ho, ho, to the bottle I go
to heal my heart and drown my woe!
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
and many miles be still to go,
but under a tall tree I will lie!

The Apocalypse Project needs YOU! - recruiting info thread.

 

Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
5 hours?!?
I was asleep for 4 of those.

Kinda funny though how my ridiculously-overpowered rockets keep burning yet Old Faithful made it, by far, the farthest and fastest.
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
seems to me the more elaborate and well designed your rocket is the more likely it will fail catastrophically. ive yet to see lateral supports for srbs to stay connected or release correctly. the ship editor needs to allow for the insertion of arbitrary stages to better set up triggering of components. like i want to light my main engine in flight because it causes the srbs to explode on the pad. even using modded parts, including the larger engines and fuel tanks from one of the packs. even when the stack works as expected i still can get higher with my stock parts 6 srbs and 4 tank lf rocket. its kinda sad actually.

of course i recently had a fairly good flight with 8 srbs, 2 big fuel tanks, big engine, nuke engine, small de-orbit motor. had a bad early release with my srbs, nost control with the big engine and tanks, ejected the tanks early with a quarter tank of gas in one of them and managed to regain control at 15k, brought the nuke engine online and made several orbits while watching reruns of breaking bad, then managed to return with the de-orbit engine deployed chute at 2k. only problem was the capsule must have been made out of sodium because it blue up when it soft landed in a lake and killed my kerbonauts. this game has potential, once they squash the bugs.

is anyone else having this game rape their videocard and chipset. this thing makes my computer fans spin all the way up worse than starcraft 2 does. its quite sad indeed.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2011, 06:28:29 am by Nuke »
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.

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Offline Bob-san

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
seems to me the more elaborate and well designed your rocket is the more likely it will fail catastrophically. ive yet to see lateral supports for srbs to stay connected or release correctly. the ship editor needs to allow for the insertion of arbitrary stages to better set up triggering of components. like i want to light my main engine in flight because it causes the srbs to explode on the pad. even using modded parts, including the larger engines and fuel tanks from one of the packs. even when the stack works as expected i still can get higher with my stock parts 6 srbs and 4 tank lf rocket. its kinda sad actually.
I agree to some extent.

I've completed 12 purely experimental launches with stock parts. My most successful completion thus far has been tricoupled SAS modules, LF engines, 3 tanks (1/ea), and for a second stage, a forth SAS module, 1 LF engine and 2 tanks. Using purely ring separators. That setup got me to 657,001 meters and max speed of 2,070.8 m/s. A new variation (quite similar to the 5-hour post) has a third tank for Stage 2.

2 of my experimental launches have 100% failed. Launch 6 was done with a Booster at the bottom and a single Engine & Tank above it. That one ended when the single booster couldn't take off. Launch 9 was tricoupled Engines and tanks (1/ea) and, above that, a booster. That one (probably for poor balance) resulted in the ship making a complete loop.
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Offline Kszyhu

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
I use similar setup, but there is only one SAS, connected with the third stage (4 LF fuel tanks and an engine). Middle one uses tricoupled LF engines, with 2 tanks for each, and finally, booster array (four connected to the last stage, and six at the bottom of the rocket). Unfortunately, it needs stage redesign after each loading of the setup. For some reason, it's unstable on one computer, but on the other one there are almost no problems.


That's the moment when three brave (ok, two frightened and one slighty retarded) astronauts realized that they forgot to take some board games with them.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2011, 10:20:58 am by Kszyhu »

 

Offline pecenipicek

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
seems to me the more elaborate and well designed your rocket is the more likely it will fail catastrophically. ive yet to see lateral supports for srbs to stay connected or release correctly. the ship editor needs to allow for the insertion of arbitrary stages to better set up triggering of components. like i want to light my main engine in flight because it causes the srbs to explode on the pad. even using modded parts, including the larger engines and fuel tanks from one of the packs. even when the stack works as expected i still can get higher with my stock parts 6 srbs and 4 tank lf rocket. its kinda sad actually.

of course i recently had a fairly good flight with 8 srbs, 2 big fuel tanks, big engine, nuke engine, small de-orbit motor. had a bad early release with my srbs, nost control with the big engine and tanks, ejected the tanks early with a quarter tank of gas in one of them and managed to regain control at 15k, brought the nuke engine online and made several orbits while watching reruns of breaking bad, then managed to return with the de-orbit engine deployed chute at 2k. only problem was the capsule must have been made out of sodium because it blue up when it soft landed in a lake and killed my kerbonauts. this game has potential, once they squash the bugs.

is anyone else having this game rape their videocard and chipset. this thing makes my computer fans spin all the way up worse than starcraft 2 does. its quite sad indeed.
i never managed to get the nuke engine to work... -.-


also, yes, the game heats up my GPU like no tomorrow.
Skype: vrganjko
Ho, ho, ho, to the bottle I go
to heal my heart and drown my woe!
Rain may fall and wind may blow,
and many miles be still to go,
but under a tall tree I will lie!

The Apocalypse Project needs YOU! - recruiting info thread.

 

Offline ChaserR

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
With the mods i've reached 5490m/s but windows crash stoped that atempt. Same setup as before the crash, but I missfired last stage so max speed only 5320m/s. Currently i'm 38 min in flight, speed 4913 m/s alt 9580k.

 

Offline -Sara-

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
Not with the intent of reaching altitude, but still something I wanted to experiment with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zgCq-bHAyU

A prototype missile, using 3x3 (total of 9) liquid fuel engines fed by 3 fuel tanks to make for a rapid take off, with at the bottom of the centre fuselage a tripple balancing/maneuvering device.

Then, ejecting and destroying said device and the 3 liquid fuel engine clusters, 3 additional large solid fuel rockets complement the now exposed and activated central single liquid fuel engine to gain the desired altitude!

Upon running out of fuel, the 3 large solid fuel rockets deploy parachutes to assist their descent when they are ejected from the hull. While the single central liquid fuel engine propels the missile to it's goal, the maneuvering winglets on front are ejected once the desired descent is achieved, no longer being required when initial re-entry is completed.

Finally, when following the trajectory back to the surface. the liquid fuel engine and fuselage holding fuel are shed and a final high-velocity solid fuel engine should bring the front of the missile through a controlled trajectory to it's destination. It is then released so that the front pod or package may touch down safely.

Now if only I were a bit more skilled at keeping that missile straight, it'd reach a perfect altitude (and to stop spinning around when re-entering once the 3 rocket pods are ejected)! The frame itself is quite stable however.
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Offline Nuke

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Re: Kerbal Space Program or "Rocket science is harder than it looks"
maintaining stability on a large stack is very difficult, real rockets get around the issue by gimballing the engines. but this game just kinda uses the imaginary rcs thrust from the sas modules and capsule. one of the mods contains an rcs module, that produces a lot more thrust for manuvering. but it doesnt prevent wobble very well. using one with an sas is a good way to stabilize first stage srbs, and if i use 3 meter tanks il stick one on the upper 1 meter to 3 meter adapter thingie below the decopler to the upper stages. on upper stages where you have say 4 tanks an lf engine, capsule, and not a whole lot else, i find you dont even need an sas or an rcs module, because you get almost no atmospheric interference to throw you off course. the capsule seems to come with an sas which is good enough to kill your rotation.

that said the modded parts arent very good. 3 meter tanks like to disconnect a little too easily. one launch left the 3 meter engine quad behind, i had to fix this by igniting the lf engine first, throttling down and then lighting the srbs. of course this can also cause an overheat which will destroy your entire stack. i presume the game developers did actual math to come up with values for tank size, fuel capacity, thrust, and structural integrity, etc, where as modders just fudged the values.

another game where you can assemble a space ship (thought he focus more on combat maneuvers) would be space combat, which is a lot more intuitive. lets you configure each part's size, and dimensions, but then goes and correctly computes its mass for you. of course space combat is also a lot less fun, despite the fact that you get to shoot things.
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.

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