KSP Weekly: The flight of the Norge and forging missions

[RoverDude]

1 hour ago, Majorjim! said:

It is an official mod. 

No.  It is an expansion.  Not a mod (official or otherwise).  Words are important, and words have meaning.

[PocketBrotector]

1 hour ago, cfds said:

Will the expansion add some kind of "real solar system"? For the stock system, a Saturn-5 is _slightly_ overpowered (unless you do want to visit Mun, Minmus, Bop, Pol and Vall in one go...) and a F-1 engine seems quite pointless as a consequence.

This is what I'm most curious about in the DLC. The stock Kerbin-Mun system is so lightweight that we can do a direct-ascent "Kerpollo" mission on a three-stage 2.5m stack.

From the previews, we've seen that the Making History Saturn-Apollo stack will be 5m wide, and if it follows real-world mission architecture it'll have ~six stages (plus lunar orbit rendezvous) - even with kerbalized engine and tank stats, surely that'll be vastly more delta-v than required for the kerbal system. If we're not getting a scaled-up system (perhaps one that resembles the real solar system), we'll probably be leaving every stage 3/4 full when we decouple.

Edit: my theory on DLC Apollo stack sizes:

• First two stages: 5m (confirmed)
• Third stage: 3.75m (unconfirmed, but reasonably inferred from the shape of the real Saturn V)
• CSM: 2.5m (confirmed for command module)
• LEM: 1.875m (confirmed for the pod itself, though the descent stage could be e.g. 1.25m)
• Lunar ascent engine: probably 0.625m (based on the previewed LEM nodes)
• Docking ports: the top of the LEM has a 0.625m node, and the top of the command module has a 1.25m node. Either the command module is getting a 1.25m-to-0.625m parachute adapter module thing, or there's going to be some kind of new 1.25m-to-0.625m docking port.

Edited May 14, 2017 by PocketBrotector

[regex]

53 minutes ago, cfds said:

Will the expansion add some kind of "real solar system"? For the stock system, a Saturn-5 is _slightly_ overpowered (unless you do want to visit Mun, Minmus, Bop, Pol and Vall in one go...) and a F-1 engine seems quite pointless as a consequence.

It'll almost certainly (I'd say 100% chance but I don't work for Squad, so subtract like 0.000000001%) be scaled accordingly, it won't be a "realistic" F-1.

[Raptor9]

Piggy-backing on the last couple posts, that too is something I was curious about.  Possible ideas to keep a 5m Saturn V analogue from being grossly overpowered for a Mun mission might be a combination of the following:

- Saturn-inspired engines (like the F-1 or J-2) might be less efficient than contemporary engines of similar power.  Or, the F-1 engines are just really efficient at sea level, and have a really large dropoff of Isp by the time they reach the upper stratosphere; and the J-2-styled engines are just the opposite, really inefficient at sea level, but really good at those upper atmospheric altitudes.  This might drive the need to stage from S-IC to S-II mid-ascent.
- Saturn-inspired tanks may have a higher dry mass and/or less fuel capacity due to some reason like "thicker walls to be stronger".
- Engines modeled after the F-1 and J-2 engines may have a lower tolerance or service life.  This is a stretch, but if Squad is working on part failures, maybe if you run a set of five F-1 engines at full throttle for an entire ascent to LKO they'll have a higher chance of failing.  Therefore you'll need to switch to the next stage, meaning you'll be carrying the additional mass of five more engines during the stage 1 ascent, further impacting your performance.

I'm just spit-balling here, these are all pure speculation based on what little information we have thus far.

[tater]

Seems like having a space race would be hard when anyone can simply built the typical mk1 pod lander stick and do Mun direct a few minutes after inventing spaceflight.

[regex]

Put together an SLS Block 1 look-alike from the available parts. Measure tonnage to LKO. Multiply by 2 and you'll get about what a Saturn-V-alike will put into LKO. What you do with that is entirely up to you, whether it is properly scaled for perfect "replicas" doesn't really matter since the two systems are comparable only on an art level.

I find this hand-wringing about proper scaling hilarious in light of earlier rants against "realism".

[PocketBrotector]

17 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

- Saturn-inspired engines (like the F-1 or J-2) might be less efficient than contemporary engines of similar power.  Or, the F-1 engines are just really efficient at sea level, and have a really large dropoff of Isp by the time they reach the upper stratosphere; and the J-2-styled engines are just the opposite, really inefficient at sea level, but really good at those upper atmospheric altitudes.  This might drive the need to stage from S-IC to S-II mid-ascent.

Surely there are no rocket engines that are actually less effective in vacuum than atmosphere? Only those that are optimized for atmospheric performance over vacuum performance, and therefore don't benefit as much from lower air pressures.

17 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

- Saturn-inspired tanks may have a higher dry mass and/or less fuel capacity due to some reason like "thicker walls to be stronger".

I suppose that the DLC parts could be arbitrarily worse than stock parts in order to shoehorn the need for a large stack into the existing tiny solar system. If they go that route, I hope the bad stats are specific to the Making History scenario/mission/thing, or else all of the shiny new parts are going to be completely useless in normal gameplay. 

17 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

- Engines modeled after the F-1 and J-2 engines may have a lower tolerance or service life.  This is a stretch, but if Squad is working on part failures, maybe if you run a set of five F-1 engines at full throttle for an entire ascent to LKO they'll have a higher chance of failing.  Therefore you'll need to switch to the next stage, meaning you'll be carrying the additional mass of five more engines during the stage 1 ascent, further impacting your performance.

It'll be interesting to see what direction they take with the part-failure mechanic. I suspect it'll be less along the lines of DangIt and more along the lines of Apollo 13 and Skylab recreations (i.e. scripted and specific). 

9 minutes ago, regex said:

Put together an SLS Block 1 look-alike from the available parts. Measure tonnage to LKO. Multiply by 2 and you'll get about what a Saturn-V-alike will put into LKO. What you do with that is entirely up to you, whether it is properly scaled for perfect "replicas" doesn't really matter since the two systems are comparable only on an art level.

I find this hand-wringing about proper scaling hilarious in light of earlier rants against "realism".

You do realize that there are different people "ranting" about realism than there are "hand-wringing" about scaling, right? More to the point, scaling and realism don't have all that much to do with one another. The whole DLC is explicitly themed around replicating historical missions, so it's not unreasonable to anticipate that Squad is taking some measures to ensure that those mission replicas actually make some sense... regardless of whether the vehicles or setting are "realistic."

Edited May 14, 2017 by PocketBrotector

[regex]

6 minutes ago, PocketBrotector said:

More to the point, scaling and realism don't have all that much to do with one another. The whole DLC is explicitly themed around replicating historical missions, so it's not unreasonable to anticipate that Squad is taking some measures to ensure that those mission replicas actually make some sense... regardless of whether the vehicles or setting are "realistic."

You're talking about scaling to real, historical missions what actually took place, how can "realism" not be a factor?

If the Saturn V-alike is to be 5m then it will take some tremendous thrust to get its tank off the pad with payload. If it is intended to be used with comparable mass items in KSP (2m lander can, Mk1-2 pod) then that 5m stage will end up being incredibly squat if the intended target is the Mun. That means it will put quite a payload into orbit if it is scaled to be "realistic".

[PocketBrotector]

4 minutes ago, regex said:

If the Saturn V-alike is to be 5m then it will take some tremendous thrust to get its tank off the pad with payload. If it is intended to be used with comparable mass items in KSP (2m lander can, Mk1-2 pod) then that 5m stage will end up being incredibly squat if the intended target is the Mun. That means it will put quite a payload into orbit if it is scaled to be "realistic".

... yes, that's exactly what we're discussing. Given what we know about kerbal rocket stats, the size of the kerbal system, and the previewed size of the kerbal Saturn stack, we're speculating about how-and-whether it will make sense to use a Saturn V to launch an Apollo mission. There are a number of possibilities as discussed above, including a larger solar system.

Also, the reason I kept the word "realism" in quotes is because it's an incredibly vague term. When people talk about "realism" in KSP they could mean pretty much anything, depending on context. (At this point it's a cliche, like when Skyrim modders discuss "immersion".) So in that sense, "realism" is both a factor and a non-factor no matter what's being discussed.

[tater]

34 minutes ago, PocketBrotector said:

More to the point, scaling and realism don't have all that much to do with one another. 

Actually, they have everything to do with each other.

Within the flaws in the game engine, all the "unrealistic" stuff most of us whine about is in fact a direct result of Squad being forced to force a square peg into a round hole to account for the fact that the solar system is tiny. Make Kerbin reentry artificially hard, for example (and it's still trivial), because orbital velocities are so very low, then  watching how that has an effect on other worlds. Rockets would be even smaller than they are, so  they made tanks over heavy, as well as the rocket engines. Seriously, many of the "realism" issues are a direct result of having to add fudge factors to try and make stuff seem real on mini-kerbin, which makes balancing KSP much harder than it would if it were full-sized.

Remember that the rationale for the mini size was originally location error due to rounding (right?).

Edited May 14, 2017 by tater

[regex]

4 minutes ago, PocketBrotector said:

we're speculating about how-and-whether it will make sense to use a Saturn V to launch an Apollo mission.

Sure it'll make sense. You're "recreating" a historical mission in a tiny little solar system, probably using parts that are going to end up way overblown for the task. Seriously, I was under the impression that players had already determined that two-stage Mun landings were aleady way overblown for stock, especially now that delta-V to LKO came down so much. Those SLS parts we have are also massively overblown for being an SLS, they're just there to look pretty and give more options.  That's what these parts will be, only players will have much more freedom to go about the historically-inspired mission in an information-starved environment with so much extra fuel. And who knows, maybe Kerbals used their "Saturn V" to go to Duna witg the SLS parts taking them to the Mun...

[klgraham1013]

If there was a super-secret-you'll-just-love feature of a real scale Kerbol system, I would eat my hat in joyous glee.

[tater]

I have a Saturn V replica I made with SSTU (for a rescale game, actually, but SSTU parts are set up for stock). I loaded it up in the stock solar system, and I can make low munar orbit without even firing stage 3. I think I could land the entire LEM/CSM S-IVB stack on Duna, actually. Dunno what I'd use the LEM for... Ike?

Edited May 14, 2017 by tater

[regex]

Now let's contrast that with the average newbie who may not understand transfer windows or how to calculate delta-V by hand and you realize just how much of a boon these parts become when "recreating" the moon landing. Not everyone is a steely-eyed 2000+ hours KSP player.

[passinglurker]

10 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

If there was a super-secret-you'll-just-love feature of a real scale Kerbol system, I would eat my hat in joyous glee.

The historical mods worked out a long time ago that if you want a real rocket scaled proportionally to kerbal size (basically 1m = ~0.625m) to perform with in their real world limits you'd need to either upscale the kerbal solar system to about ~x3 or down scale RSS to about ~1/4

 

I'm curious to see what approach if any squad takes to solve this conundrum. It will make for an interesting read in the coming months. Though something like what regex expects with historical craft being more cosmetic than balanced wouldn't surprise me either.

[tater]

48 minutes ago, regex said:

Now let's contrast that with the average newbie who may not understand transfer windows or how to calculate delta-V by hand and you realize just how much of a boon these parts become when "recreating" the moon landing. Not everyone is a steely-eyed 2000+ hours KSP player.

True, particularly given that they are somehow to learn what to do with a blindfold on (no dv readout).

 

BTW, I left munar orbit with the thing, and just went to Duna, lol. Not terribly efficient, but it made it...

A bit tippy*, but it indeed lands easily on Duna with more than 1/3 tank left over on the S-IVB itself, more than enough to make orbit, and then orbit Ike. The CSM/LEM can make it back to Kerbin no problem (aside from life support issues which even without a LS mod I would never send a craft that small to Duna).

So a 64% scale Apollo is pretty overkill for the Mun.

*because I landed on the J-2 engine bell (because KSP).

Once I was comfortable with KSP and started messing with rescale, I quickly realized that you could play otherwise stock KSP at 3.2X with no other changes, and barely notice it, except that everything was better  (before Kopernicus that was one of the sizes available, along with 2X, and 6.4X, short of RSS)

 

Here's the replica in case anyone cares (roughly, this is an old screenshot, I think I shortened it slightly, since the craft file I have included "rescaled"):

 

Edited May 14, 2017 by tater

[Majorjim!]

16 hours ago, RoverDude said:

 Words are important, and words have meaning.

Here endeth the lesson.

 Joking aside (it's good for morale) personally I think it's too early for KSP DLCs, there are so many things that need doing to the core stock game that I feel this time could be better spent. For KSP of course. Not Squad.

I am well aware Squad exists to make money. Cheers.

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Majorjim!

[PocketBrotector]

17 hours ago, regex said:

You're "recreating" a historical mission in a tiny little solar system, probably using parts that are going to end up way overblown for the task.

Fair enough. 

Even if scaling isn't addressed, there's still a chance that Squad will add support for a second launch site, so our Soviet missions are required to deal with a high inclination. Or so we could hope.

[John FX]

I would still like to know what differences there are between a contract and a mission.

This is one area I cannot fathom, so far there has been nothing said to show any meaningful real world differences apart from one is called a contract and the other a mission, and we have been reminded in this weekly by @RoverDude that words mean things so I would like to know the differences in meaning between the words `contract` and `mission` at least according to @SQUAD

[basic.syntax]

My understanding based on what they've said so far, is the expansion's "missions" will each be stand-alone efforts: in order for them not to be "contracts," the missions can't show up in the contract system, and by extension should not contribute anything to a career-mode game. A separate game mode. The concept of giving the player a numerical score at the end, is also new.

[John FX]

3 hours ago, basic.syntax said:

My understanding based on what they've said so far, is the expansion's "missions" will each be stand-alone efforts: in order for them not to be "contracts," the missions can't show up in the contract system, and by extension should not contribute anything to a career-mode game. A separate game mode. The concept of giving the player a numerical score at the end, is also new.

So exactly the same except you can't use them to progress your career?

I would expect there to be an actual difference not arbitrary restrictions.

You say in order for them not to be "contracts," the missions can't show up in the contract system. If they did show up there would they play just like a contract? Would any difference be apparent?

Is the difference `they are called something else, can be shared, and don't count towards career`?

Because if so that is no difference to me.

I would still like to know.

[passinglurker]

34 minutes ago, John FX said:

So exactly the same except you can't use them to progress your career?

I would expect there to be an actual difference not arbitrary restrictions.

You say in order for them not to be "contracts," the missions can't show up in the contract system. If they did show up there would they play just like a contract? Would any difference be apparent?

Is the difference `they are called something else, can be shared, and don't count towards career`?

Because if so that is no difference to me.

I would still like to know.

There is a reason they've been talking about programmable events and part failures. Basically it could be a tool kit to recreate events like apollo 13, fiction like the martian, or even your own original stories. So yeah basically its like a contract but is outside career mode, doesn't count for career mode and whoever gave you the user generated mission file probably programed in a bunch of part failure type events.

I wonder if we will have a problem like happy wheels and mario maker has where the vast majority of user created content for it will be super hard "all the parts fail rate 5 stars to fix parts" type content.

[tater]

Yeah, part failures only on scenarios is sort of useless, unless the technique can at least be used by modders to use on career.

 

[regex]

28 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, part failures only on scenarios is sort of useless, unless the technique can at least be used by modders to use on career.

Having a failure mode implies some way to trigger it programatically. So long as the method doesn't involve something ridiculous like the first efforts at custom asteroid spawning modding failures with some sort of random generation should be fairly easy, on the order of calling a "fail" function on the part (much like the destroy function).

Edited May 16, 2017 by regex

[klgraham1013]

Personally, I'd like failures to be attributed to the lifespan of the part, starting at low to zero, while steadily increasing as the part ages.  Additionally, engineers could use spare parts as preventive maintenance.  The part would be good as new, but the failure rate would increase much faster.  The oldest parts would gain little benefit from preventive maintenance, as the failure rate would increase so quickly.  

This would also mean parts would need replacing.  So KAS / KIS would need to be added.  So maybe this sort of thing shouldn't be stock.  Food for thought.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by klgraham1013