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Tweeker

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Everything posted by Tweeker

  1. I can't see everything you've got on that lander, but I can see some of the stats, If you swap the poodle for a 48-7S you can make the lander shorter, lighter, and still have the same delta V. I think you have a docking port on top, so I assume that you can use a quad adapter, on the bottom. This gives you the same Delta/v and TWR in a shorter, lighter, lander. about 6T VS 11.2T If you mount 2 or more fuel tanks radially you can make the lander even wider, and more stable. Doing this has the added bonus of allowing you to jettison expended fuel tanks, and the landing legs after you land. Meaning you have a better TWR and Delta v when returning. 4 LV-909 mounted in this way effectively replace the poodle and add several additional benefits. The poodle can be serviceable as a lander engine, but the are better choices.
  2. I'm with Jouni on this, the Poodle is too heavy to be a lander engine, and too tall. For landers it is best to use the 48-7S or the LV-909. If your lander is heavier mounting multilpes of these radially will give your lander a wide base, and lower the CG enhancing it's stability. 4 LV-909s will give similar performance to the Poodle with the added benefit that the CG is lower, and the lander is wider, and more stable.
  3. if I build a 3 stage rocket with a 10.9 ton payload, 81 tons total, total delta v 4637m/s and the smallest 2.5m fuel tank above a Poodle I end up with: 1st stage Mainsail a, X200-64 fuel tank 42 tons, Delta V 1759 m/s TWR 1.87, 3.08 empty 1min 15 sec burn time. 2nd stage Skipper, and a 200X-32 fuel tank, 1min 29 sec burn time. 6.9 tons, Delta V 974 m/s TWR 1.26, 162 empty 3rd stage poodle, and a 200X-8 fuel tank, 21 tons, Delta V 1905 m/s TWR 1.69, 2.85 empty 1 minutes 9 sec burn time. That's the smallest 2.5M fuel tank and the poodle in the last stage, In this rocket the poodle works, but if you remove it, and add the X200-8 to the 2nd stage the Total delta V increases to 4676 m/s, so once again the poodle falls short, even using less fuel as you suggest. More fuel makes the burn time too long, and less makes the poodle expendable. If you work at it you can make the poodle work, but it is quite simple to remove it, and end up with a better rocket.
  4. In the end function trumps form, When you build landers with " A single 48-7S engine with an X200-8 fuel tank" you are making a lot bigger step down than swapping a lv-t30 for a poodle, and Not worrrying about the mismatch between a 2.5m tank and a .625m engine. For an upper stage burn time is the critical issue, with a 30t payload, with about 1080 fuel and 1162 D/V the Poodle has a burn time of 3 minutes 30 sec. to reach LKO you need to start circularizing at about 40,000 and 1:45 before apoapsis. If you swap in a Skipper your D/V drops by 84 m/s, but the rocket's TWR goes from .49 to 1.41 and you can start burning much later, about 33 sec before apoapsis. With no change to your rocket's form. If you radial mount 2 lv-t30s you see similar improvement. D/V drops by 65, or 5%, but TWR of the rocket is .95 and the burn only takes 1min 45 sec. 3 lv-30s give you similar performance to the skipper. The TWR of a poodle powered rocket doesn't go above 1.0 until the entire rocket is below about 26 tons. To keep the burn time reasonable, >2 minutes, you can't lift more than about 10 tonnes More than this and the poodle take too long to make the burn. If you lift the rocket higher you might as well circularize with your transfer engine.
  5. With a 10t payload, I put a poodle and a -16 fuel tank under it. This gives me a last stage of: 21T 1770 m/s delta V Below this I put a -64 and a -32 Fuel Tank and a Mainsail, that gives me Total 80 T 4884 m/s of Delta v so: 1st stage 60 t 3112 m/s D/V 2ND stage 10 t 1772 M/S D/V 300 M/S Spare d/v 10 tones to LKO 2 points however: A) I can swap in a LV-T30 with no, or little change and gain a small amount of Delta-v, using an LV-T45 I loose a small amount, but they are both lighter and cheaper than the Poodle. Additionally as the payload gets heavier the Poodle falls behind in it's ability to deliver enough D/V quickly, time is more critical at this point than ISP, cost, or form. It is easier, to add lv-30s or -45s radially, or to switch to a Skipper. The poodles real flaw is that there are 2 engine that easily replace it in it's intended role. The area right around 200 KN thrust is crowded, unlike the rest of the range. There are 3 engine within 10% of each other thrust wise, but you have to go up 300% to get to the next engine the Skipper. Increasing the Poodles thrust would take it out of this cluster, and give it a place to shine on it's own.
  6. Every time I've tried to use the poodle in this role it ends up coming up short, It just doesn't have enough thrust to perform in this role. I usually end up replacing it with a skipper, or 2 or more of radially mounted lv-t30s. It isn't a matter of TWR or ISP it's just a matter of not being able to get enough velocity quickly enough to make orbit. This is only true to a point. For the smallest lightest payloads, at 1 ton the lv-909 surpasses the 48-7s beyond ~4900 m/s delta-v for 2 tons the LV-909 is superior beyond ~2400 m/s delta-v as the landers get heavier the trend continues. The 48-7s may rule the probe world, but if you land anything other than the lightest lander anywhere except Gilly the LV-909s ISP will trump the superior TWR of the 48-7S. I don't want a 4th rockomax engine, I really, really, don't. I suggest that the Poodle be given more thrust and it's weight be raised to maintain it's TWR.
  7. All this is true, but the poodle's problem isn't it's TWR, or ISP. The update raised the poodle'sTWR, but the TWR could be 30 and it would still be hard to find a use for it. Once you are in orbit you want the lightest engine with the highest ISP. That is the LV-909, until the lv-N comes along The LV-909 is the choice for interplanetary travel. This is a good progression, and short of raising the poodle's ISP no amount of tweaking will make the Poodle a better choice for interplanetary travel. If the ISP of the LV-909 is lowered or the Poodle raised then the Poodle might have a place as a gap filler between the LV-N and the LV-909, but this would make it a real niche engine, existing only to replace the LV-909 and then to be replace by the LV-N As a lander engine it is ok, but it would have to be lifting a very large lander, most of the time smaller engines have plenty of lift with less weight, or more weight for fuel. Additionally using 4 radially mounted LV-909s has the added benefit of making the lander fatter radially, so the landing gear can be farther out, making the lander more stable. Again tweeking the TWR, ISP, ETC. will not compensate for this. If the thrust of the Poodle is raised it moves out of the lv-t30, lv-t45, Aerospike thrust cluster. This is important because it giving the poodle it's own role, upper stage lifter. One reason I suggest 300-500 thrust is that in the past a single poodle proved to be too anemic to lift the last stage of a rocket into orbit. Another reason is that this moves it out of the thrust range of multiple LV-909s. If it's weight is increased to maintain it's TWR the only problem is that it gets too close to the Skipper. There is plenty of room to push the Skipper's weight and thrust up without stepping on any other engine.
  8. I posted about this some time ago in another thread, http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75661-The-7-Balance-Points-of-engines-in-a-Full-Career-Mode/page2 basically I think the problem is that the poodle is too small thrust wise, it needs to have it's thrust raised enough that it isn't competeing with the lv-t30/45 It seems to make a poor choice for a lander engine, as it can be replaced by clusters of lighter more efficient engine such as the lv-909, every time I've tried to use the poodle I end up swaping it out for something else that ends up working better. I think the real key to balancing it is giving it a roll where it isn't competing with other engine. such as a 350-500 thrust engine with good efficiency.
  9. I'd worry about contamination. It would be hard to get a clean sample from the surface after then glue had set and out-gassed
  10. Life support, More EVA activites such as strutting, better science
  11. I really hope not, there are a lot of features still missing. Life support, probes, better EVA (more eva activities), better spacesuits (progression).
  12. I'm sitting here waiting for the update to download, But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that .25 update will be underwhelming
  13. I think it would be a good idea if spacesuits showed some amount of advancement. They would start as a flight suit with a parachute, and advance from there. The advancement might be something like: Parachute---->Tethered---->RCS---->Rocket Pack. I would also suggest an "Airlock" where you could change suits. It would also be interesting, if life support is ever added, to have advancing amounts of life support.
  14. They really need to be radial mountable, I hate having to stick a monoprop tank on and then stack Oscar-b tanks on it when building landers. It is a crude work around that is unnecessary. It would also be nice to see some taller tanks in this parts range.
  15. I watched a video this weekend on the new B9 experimental, I noticed that they let you choose among variant parts by using a button in the tweakable menu for the part. So this would be basically the same. I thought that you might differentiate between the variants by putting a stripe on the exhaust nozzle
  16. I don't have strong feelings on this either way, but I was thinking that since it easy to skip the mun and go to minmus it might be a good idea to reposition minmus. Thought?
  17. I suggested this awhile back, but tweakables have been added since then, so this might make a little more sense now. I think that it would add a lot of variety if you could customize engine by adding or removing features from them, such as generators or gimbals. Also possibly tuning the isp to a usage range, Surface, middle stage, or vacuum. Maybe even have an XL (+25%) or a mini (-25%) version of the engine This would allow a greater variety without adding parts.
  18. The point is not to reduce the testing conditions for all contacts, only that the conditions for testing to unlock nodes should be limited in scope so as not to become irritating. I am not suggesting any change to the current contract mechanic.
  19. Not every part, only one part representative of the nodes. I think it is silly that someone can fly out and grab 20 soils samples and go from start to nuclear rockets. This doesn't mirror, or simulate, or even form caricature of how advancement is made in space flight technology. I agree that some of the test conditions in the contracts have bizarre and annoying conditions. If this is done right the conditions should be set to a more reasonable level, nothing beyond kerbin orbit should be required. The test conditions, and part should be matched to the node.
  20. I have been watching "from the Earth to the Moon", one of the things that made an impression on me was the "want my job?" scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZVe8N5uICI In particular the part where they lay out the milestones they will need to pass before they can get to the moon. I think that something like this would add a lot to career mode, One way that this could be implemented in game is requiring at test flight, with a part that is representative of the node you want to unlock before the node can be unlocked. For example before the 2nd node can be unlocked you would need to do a test of the tr-18a decoupler. This would also prevent unlocking large parts of the tech tree in a couple flights.
  21. Yeah, I stuck a stayputnik on top of a single seat pod, with a radial parachute.
  22. That is a bug not a feature, If the game is unbalanced in a certain way the answer shouldn't be "well your not supposed to play it that way" Instead try to make these "science trawling" missions harder. 1) Decrease the return on science for repeated experiments, the first EVA report from the moon shouldn't be worth the same as the 15th. 2) add a mechanic to penalize "burn-off" staging. 3) add some sort of life support mechanic. Requiring a small amount of electricity for life support, and having a finite mission duration would cut down on certain unrealistic mission profiles. such as putting a kerbal in low orbit and waiting months for him to pass over every biome to do eva reports.
  23. It's not that I dislike any one set of the controls, rather that switching between multiple sets of controls causes confusion.
  24. There are 3 different RCS control schemes, Flight, EVA, and docking. This cause a lot of control confusion, and makes docking and EVAs seem a lot harder than they are. I think it would make EVAs and docking a lot easier if they had the same controls as flight.
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