[KSS Orbital Construction Now With Part 4!!!]

Question: Doesn't covering the hatches on the hitchhiker can make it pretty much impossible to get kerbals out of it?

(I think you could still transfer them into it, but I don't think you could get them out)

[Has anyone seen Orbiting the Sun contract?]

I wonder how much of that 5000 escape d/v or 6000 deoribt d/v you could save if you start in a low-Minmus orbit when Minmus is in the correct orbital position...

(I like launching my interplanetary missions from Minmus because that makes it easy to have practically full fuel+ore tanks without adding additional stages. Not sure if it actually helps me at all though... especially when Minmus is in the wrong orbital location relative to Kerbin)

[KSP Caveman Challenge!]

I kind of expected that Science alert would not be permitted, but I wanted to check just in case.

Created a new 1.0.4 directory last night and only 6 tech tree nodes short at this point(~520 science needed).

Checking what is needed(1188 total science) vs what is available(23.4/landed biome(20?), 31.2/splashed biome(6?), 9.1/flying low biome(9)[+5.6 per jumping kerbal eva if still possible], and 277.9 global(some flying low, all flying high, all orbital+high orbital), I will need either at least 17 jumping kerbal EVAs(possibly up to 21 available, possibly only 9) or to find a way to get badlands/splashed, mountains/splashed and highlands/splashed. Replacing one of those 3 with water/landed would still leave me short by 5.3, assuming any of them are even possible)

note: I am assuming that I can get icecaps both /landed and /splashed but I have not yet verified this. (I have successfully gotten shores, grassland, and tundra both /landed and /splashed)

At worst I could need to get an additional 88 science from testing contracts(4 points so far)

[KSP Caveman Challenge!]

Is the Science alert mod permitted? https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/424/ScienceAlert

Seems like it would help make sure you did not miss any science.

(I am hoping to manage the challenge without going more than 260km from Kerbin(just into high orbit)

[Career mode missions worthless?]

The ones that I usually avoid are the ones that call for 3000 units of monoprop (or whatever).

If landed or in orbit of the moon/minmus these are not so bad(monoprop is the worst though as I do not use it very often)

I just make sure I have large enough containers for the ISRU on a mission I was sending anyway to fill it up near by...

[Career mode missions worthless?]

If there is a need to explain how rescue contracts come to be, make it up yourself. I get the feeling that a good portion of them aren't so much rescues as they are appropriations. When you rescue a kerbal, you are pressing them into service with the KSC, and there is no going home for them. It may sound sinister, but it definitely adds a lot of flavor to the game.

I always figured it was hobbyists who got in over their heads(Bill, Bob, Jeb and Val started in their 'barn' and their success has inspired other Kerbals with an interest in space to start their own programs, some with less success(LKO rescue) then others(Landed Mun Rescue)).

Not quite sure how they managed to signal home that they needed a rescue though... might be their mothers/families watched in horror as they crashed then called the KSC administration building for help...

I don't know about you, but if I was building rockets in my back yard, got stuck in orbit and NASA came to rescue me, then NASA asked if I wanted to work for them as an astronaut, I would most likely say yes...

[Career mode missions worthless?]

In theory I don't feel like that, but in practice I tend to start losing interest very soon after I do unlock the whole tree. For one thing, I get so used to flying missions in order to pull all the science out of one biome or even multiple biomes. Then once science is "done", I start wondering what to do when I visit a body. If I'm not there to suck up all the science I can, what am I there for?

I thought that is what challenges are for.

I know that I plan to start running through the various forum challenges once I have gotten proficient at interplanetary missions.

Also, I downloaded the community tech tree, so I have plenty of high-price nodes to unlock even after emptying the Kerbin SOI of science(not that there is anything in those nodes, mind you)

[Contracts at their finest :)]

At this point I think Squad can improve the game most by focusing on functionality, stability, and efficiency.

There are *lots* of contract packs and other ways to adjust your contracts to fit your tastes.

I would rather have Squad work on things that are harder to mod like Unity 5, Bug fixes, processing optimizations, Multiplayer(even though I doubt I would ever use it), 64 bit, Heat and Aerodynamics(I think this is already pretty good, but I don't fly a lot of planes), Physics(Kraken attacks are less common, but still occur, vibrating orbit predictions as well), etc as opposed to things that are relatively easy to tweak and extend like the contract system(Just takes a text file, I think, less if you use the Contract Configutator mod)

Once KSP has rock-solid stability for multi-player 64 bit builds on Windows and Mac that can handle every mod you want to throw at it without crashing after weeks of up-time flying Whack-job inspired ships without appreciable lag, it would be nice for them to address the contract system a bit(perhaps even have a switch to have silly/serious contracts depending on your preferred play style), until then, I feel that they have bigger fish to fry and should leave it mostly to the Modders.(of course adding tools for new types/styles of contracts could be done sooner)

[The KPS vs the KSP]

I suppose it depends on how you run your space program.

Early on, I had a number of one Kerbal flights, but none more than a few days long.

Except for my Duna mission (currently on day 55 with ~200 days until Duna SOI), my longest missions were my Minmus+Kerbol training missions which were probably in the neighborhood of 2 weeks(14 kerbal days so less than 100 hours), and there was plenty of company. (Currently on day 110)

I would need to check, but I think the first Duna mission was gender balanced. My second Duna mission (less than 6 hours old) is somewhat less balanced(F engineer, M+F scientists, F tourist + 5M tourists), but that is primarily due to the tourists(with the male tourists mostly relegated to the Hitchhiker can), so I don't feel too bad about those who are paying for cheap seats to go on a long trip without all the comforts of home.

My professionals(press-ganged or not) are well taken care of and well trained(> 30 at 3 stars with none hired).

I just need to find something to do with the ones staying in the Kerbin SOI besides rescues, or there may not be room left at the KSC for the Duna explorers when they come home...

[What did you do in KSP1 today?]

Took a couple 5-kerbal contracts. 4 of them just wanted Kerbin SOI stuff, with perhaps a Kerbol visit, but the other 6 want to go to Duna.

First sent off the locals off using an existing multi-moon vehicle(along with some kerbals who are not yet at 3 stars), landed on Mun, refilled and currently sling-shotting around Kerbin for Minmus.

Then I re-designed my old Duna mission ship(the old one launched on day 55 and is now 55 days out, with another 200 to ETA), swapped out the horizontal mining apparatus(lots of Verners on the tip along with drills in the Mk3 bay, large landing gear near the nose, small landing gear and rover wheels on one pair of landing legs) with a drill on each of the 4 landing legs. Also remembered that the large ore tank is much more weight-efficient than the MkIII short fuel tank(2T for 6K fuel vs 1.8T for 2.5K fuel), so I swapped out all but the adapter(2.5K fuel) for Ore tanks for slightly better range/speed.

Unfortunately I had some problems with my launcher(Main engine wanted to over-heat) so I used q fair bit of fuel for circularizing. When approaching the Mun I realized I might not have enough fuel to land for refueling(next time: stock an ore tank at least half full).

A little checking showed that I was ~30-60m/s short for my normal landing process.

While checking to see if my RCS fuel would help, I noticed I did not have as many thrusters as I thought, but I also found another vessel coming in for a Munar capture less than an hour after the Duna Cruise circularized. The other ship had full fuel and plenty of ore as it has just returned from a base mission on Minmus and was just stopping by to collect an abandoned Pod that I still needed to bring back for a contract.

With any luck I will be able to claw my Cruise ship without knocking anything off anything vital(festooned with radiators and solar panels), and transfer it as much fuel as it could possibly need to land some time tonight.

(I'll probably land them both for a full refueling anyway as I am still experimenting with how to get my current ship designs landed safely near KSC in 1.0.4 as they generally only have a 0.3 TWR on Kerbin)

Only at the end of the night did I realize that one of the tourists does not want Kerbol orbit, but suborbital at Kerbol, so not sure if I will complete that one or not...

[Squadcast Summary 2015/07/10]

The talk of Ring worlds and O'Neil cylinders gave me visions of Wackjob building a launcher for a fully assembled Cylinder or (Halo-sized) ring world.

You know he would...

[You Will Not Go To Space Today - Post your fails here!]

Launched a Duna Cruise ship last night, less fuel and more ore tanks than the first Duna mission because I noticed how much more weight efficient it was to add a large ore tank(3k ore= 6k fuel @ 2tons empty) vs MK3 small fuel tank(2500 fuel for ~1.8tons empty), and as I already had ISRU, swapping out fuel tanks for ore tanks made sense.

Unfortunately I did not do a good job getting into orbit(the ore drill on the landing legs let me drop all the 'drop to horizontal for mining' gear but seems to add a fair bit of drag, and my first stage engines wanted to explode before I got high enough to deploy radiators to cool them, even with a dozen large fixed radiators on it), so I was a bit low on fuel when I got to the Mun.

approximately 30-60m/s low to be exact.

The only saving grace was that approx 30 in-game minutes after the Munar capture burn, I had a station returning from Minmus that was stopping by to pick up a capsule in Munar orbit with full fuel tanks(at twice the capacity) and ore to spare. With luck I can find a place on the skin of my Duna Cruise ship with is not festooned with Gigantors or radiator panels and will be able to claw them together to transfer enough fuel to land and deploy the drills/ISRU. Not quite sure what I will be telling the 5 tourists(especially since I only noticed after launch that one of them wants sub-orbital on Kerbol)

[Contracts at their finest :)]

BTW : I don't ask to filter-out all "simply difficult" mission, I just want them to not appear over illogical progress.

Even if you lived in a Heinlein's Rockpunk wet dream, you wouldn't have Tourist asking for flight to the Mun or Duna minutes after you did it with a probes.

Someone said "you can just refuse". True, but (1) it mean I wont have anytime soon intelligently-made Kerbin-suborbital tourists I can actually build an economy on, (2) It do horrible things to our Immersion and self-esteem. (like "Why do I keep having suicidal tourists and useless satellite ?! Is my Space Program that pointless ?! Am I considered a Firework-factory ?")

Are you suggesting that NASA does not regularly get people asking to go to the Moon, Mars, or Venus?

I suspect they even received requests to go to Pandora after Avatar came out.

I figure that you don't usually get tourists trying to go to Duna until you have put a probe there because hey are filtered out by your lower-level minions.

I am sure they also filter out the people who want to go somewhere for prices that are too low to make a real contribution to the cost of the mission(like people asking NASA for a first class ticket to the Moon for ~$2000).

Once your reputation is high enough, you will get tourists wanting to go places you have not even placed a probe.(last night I launched a Duna Cruse mission with 5 Duna tourists (note: my first Duna probe is still ~180 days pre-Duna SOI and my first manned Duna mission is roughly 220 days from the Duna SOI) I assume that this is due to my underlings drinking the Koolaid and my 100% survival rating thus far.

-----

As far as internal missions, it seems reasonable that those missions would have a low or zero funds pay-out and a high prestige/Science pay out. Much like the Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity Rovers provided prestige and science, but any funding boosts were probably more of an indirect effect.

[Misconceptions you used to have]

I made the fatal mistake to think that "Space planes were easy".

Some of my other mistakes was instead of starting a gravity turn in the atmosphere, I would burn straight up till my Ap came to 100Km, then, upon reaching this, burn straight 90 degree's sideways. So many weird orbits because of that.

Another one, when landing on the Mun, i would burn straight sideways at about 25 Km up, till i was dropping straight down. Then suicide burn vertically.

I thought that just because I had Rapier engines I could make a space plane.

Even now, I rarely have more than a 15 degree tilt when I hit ~24Km. 24Km is important because that is a height where I can start turning and be done shortly after 35Km where the atmosphere is thin enough I can thrust horizontally to get to orbit.

Similarly I generally orbit Mun and Minmus between 6 and 10km, burn down to ~10m/s horizontal velocity and then use stepped burns to land. (I keep some horizontal speed because far too often the place I came to a stop above was too steep to land on).

These vertical/horizontal burns are not at all fuel efficient, but they are very forgiving as far as aerodynamic and horizontal landing stability are concerned.

Perhaps once I get a space-plane into orbit(and back) I will be more confident with the less forgiving types of launch and landing, but as I have ISRU and nuke engines on all of the vehicles I currently send beyond LKO, burning a lot of fuel to circularize or land is not a big deal.

[What did you do in KSP1 today?]

After my extended RL EVA(life-support is a royal pain, I was never able to stay away from the ship for more than 50 minutes, on the plus side I saw octopi, squid, sharks, rays and lots of fish)

I forgot which missions my existing Kerbin SOI vehicles were doing, so I pointed them all towards home after rescuing anyone near-by and built a new ship for completing my outstanding 'build a station' missions.

Orbited Mun for a rescue(and landed for a station and a large ore mission), then did a low-efficiency burn for Minmus for a second station mission and a flag mission. Only mined enough ore to refuel then started a sling-shoot around Kerbin to Klaw a ship that needs to be returned to Kerbin from Munar orbit.

Got a couple more station missions and launched a new ship, stopping to collect the occupant of the skip to be Klawed by the other ship, so that they can get Minmus XP when I go to do the second station mission.

Planning to mine/refuel/plant XP flag then head off to Minmus this evening.

I am starting to wonder if I should launch another interplanetary mission or two and then just time-warp until I get to Duna.

Interplanetary takes a very long time if I keep running missions in the Kerbin SOI during the transit.

[Stupid things you noticed too late in a Mission]

No rcs on parts that need to dock, no control on mission essential modules, no landing gear on landers.

Meh, RCS is optional for docking/Klaw maneuvers. Just make sure you do not approach so fast that your reaction wheels cannot turn you in time for your braking burn.

Half the time I send up a rescue-probe(tiny rocket with a Klaw and chutes, just enough fuel to Klaw and deorbit), I don't even use RCS if it is installed(the other half it seems to malfunction and some or all of my thrusters do not work)

[Contracts at their finest :)]

For clarity, I don't mean a scripted story, I mean that in retrospect the player can create a story in their mind that makes some sense. If the contracts are or seem entirely random, their is no way to rationalize them into a sort of storyline in your head. For example, when you send a probe to Eve, then immediately start getting contracts to rescue kerbals there, ore transfers to or from Eve, or tourists asking for rides there. Sure, you ignore them, but as "director" of a space program, you are turning down contracts which are telling you "other kerbals are already at Eve," "Acme Corp needs ore Moved to Gilly from Eve" (which implies they must have a base or something on Gilly which bizarrely needs ore from Eve, and you as player have only managed a probe at this point), or that many tourists demand trips that are effectively suicide trips since you've not demonstrated the ability to get there, much less return. All of those examples kill immersion, which kills the internalized "story" of your space program.

Yep, no one would ever pay to go one-way to places that professional astronauts have not yet gotten to...

I have yet to see a contract mission that I could not easily explain as reasonable scientific curiosity(if perhaps a bit short-sighted or overly-enthusiastic some times).

Sub-oribtal Kerbol: We want to do some Kerbol observations, but we need to be going slower than a sustainable orbit to make them

Ore from eve to Gilly: we want to do some material comparisons to determine the origin of Gilly, (large volumes of ore): we also want to test long term storage/out-gassing/low-pressure weathering/etc

Components in odd/specific places: testing design tweaks in specific environments that should highlight the effects of the changes that were made(and where the analysis tools are set up to observe them)

Components in places where they 'can't' work: Testing adaptation technologies in hopes of designing more effective rockets or some sort of material science experiments

Remember: Rocket science is not the *only* type of science out there, and not even the only type of science done by NASA.

I think the only ones that really need to be avoided are the non-possible ones(stability enhancer in orbit), and those seem much less frequent than they were in 0.90 (I saw some in 0.90 but none since 1.0)

[Just why is KSP Physics so slow? (NOT a Rant)]

Ok, I understand that, but my point is... is it really worth it to count 300 solar panels when they are attached to 80t vehicle?

IMO it should be dynamic solution (no idea if it is possible in unity) , if root part is very heavy and child parts are relatively light is it really worth to decrease performance and waste CPU on those parts?

If I connect two 80 tons tanks and put 300 different very small parts on each of those tanks, maybe it would be better from performance perspective to do not count those little parts?

Sounds great, it is not like those 20 deployed drogue parachutes, 4 tail small fins, 4 small control surfaces, small nose cone, small tail cone, or 50 basic fins(for lift) should have any impact on how that 80t tank flies...

[Devnote Tuesday: Chugging Along]

The ability to set inner wheels to turn less then outer wheels(divider) would also be nice, large multi axle vehicles with more then 1 set of steering wheels have different ratios to them. 2 sets of front wheels, the first set turn fully the second set turn based on the distance to front and rear tires.

Sounds like you are asking for 'Ackermann steering'

From June 23rd Dev notes:

Felipe (HarvesteR)

(...) The new steering module uses a new method to calculate which way each wheel should turn based on the steering input, which is used to figure out where the commanded turn ‘pivot’ point would be, and that is then used to make each wheel rotate to face sideways to that point, so regardless of where or how they are mounted on a vessel, wheels will always respond properly to steer the right way (There will still be steering invert and toggle tweaks though, just in case). Another benefit of this approach is that Ackermann steering happens as a consequence.

So looks like this is something that is not only planned, but mostly or completely implemented for 1.1 already.

[Contracts at their finest :)]

How difficult is it to make automatic missions like the altitude and orbit ones?

I think it would be nice to have a comprehensive Flyby then Explore script starting from the current 'Achieve orbit' auto-mission.

Basically add a Fly-by mission any time you enter a SOI that touches a new SOI, and add an Explore mission any time you complete the fly-by mission.

Ideally, any ore/tourists/test at location/etc missions would only become available for a location after the 'Explore' mission is completed, but that would probably take a lot more work than just adding the above missions with their pre-conditions.

The only exploit I see coming from this is sending out a probe to visit as many SOI as possible, except that this 'exploit' sounds an awful lot like most NASA interplanetary missions...

Even if the payout is low, it is still an encouragement to all career players to go and visit all the planets and moons.

[What are your quirks?]

My main quirk is that I don't let Kerbals die/stay dead.

Any deaths must be reverted or have a previous save loaded, even when it has bee a long time since I saved.

(loss of bits and pieces of hardware don't matter much, just the Kerbals)

[Is hiring new kerbals too expensive?]

I find that I am quite happy with my 30+ rescued Kerbals, most of which are level 3(mun flag, Minmus flag, pop out to Kerbol).

The only thing I am less than happy about is that I now have 3 extra scientists on their way to Duna above and beyond what can be of use in the lab.

Fortunately I have plenty to spare now that the Kerbin SOI has been pretty much science-depleted.

May need to send out an expedition to Gilly, or even Moho to keep them occupied... they seem to be getting bored with all the tourist and rescue missions...

(I wonder if it would be more time-efficient to top off at Gilly or go straight to Moho)

[KSP Performance again]

I totally agree here. KSP performance has drastically worsened and Squad remain tight lipped on the issue. This is a major problem that needs fixing. As currently I can only see the game running slower and slower.

On the issue of GC stutter, two years ago when this issue raised it head I did a 30 second google search and discovered many other Unity devs with the same issue. they fixed it by using a third party UI program.

The stutter in Unity is caused by the UI GC. If Squad changed the UI the issue would most likely be resolved as others have done so successfully.

In that case it sounds like the complete re-work of the UI for 1.1 should solve the stuttering problem.

Performance on the other hand is a much harder problem.

Especially when so many are complaining about/asking for better aerodynamics.

Any time you ad more detail/precision to a physics engine you will be slowing it down as there is more work do be done.

While almost any code can be optimized to a certain degree, you get diminishing returns. You also tend to get harder to maintain code as well as often being buggier.(Example: when you saftey-check everything in each function it can take much longer to process but you will get fewer unhandled exceptions, if you remove all the checking that is 'not currently needed' then any tweak/improvement you make in the future can easily break your system because you forgot to check something that can now be an unexpected value)

As optimization and stability are often an either/or proposition, I would suggest that any performance optimization beyond the low-hanging fruit variety should probably wait until the stability is a little better(unless you happen to think that the current stability of KSP is good enough that it can afford to be reduced by Squad doing an optimization pass)

While a project that as been built up with an iterative process over a long period will often get both speed and stability improvements from a through code-refactoring, this is something that Squad already said they were doing for 1.1, so asking for speed optimizations beyond what is already being done is not likely to be good for stability.

[[1.0.x] Heat Management Development - 1.0.4 Beta version available]

Just as an FIY:

Using the second beta you provided, the radiators are keeping the lighbulb from heating as quickly as it did before, and are helping it cool off more quickly afterwards. (I have seen it over to 1200 degrees but I don't think it has gotten close to 2000 as of yet, even for burns over 2 minutes)

I am not 100% sure, but it looks like if a radiator is active but not extended, it continues to work as well as it did when extended.

It also seems that for most burns inside the Kerbin SOI 4 large radiators are enough to keep the AHMS from using coolant except near the tail end of the burn.

(not sure where you want that balance point, but in the past the AHMS used a lot more coolant in the same configuration)

Not sure if this is related but I tried to insta-cool at 1000x warp a couple times last night and it did not work(I do not remember trying this since I upgraded to 1.0.4, and I later noticed that I had a couple small nuclear generators running and producing heat in a different part of the ship, so there are several possible sources of this behaving differently, but I thought I would mention it just for the sake of completeness)

Thanks for your work, I am now much more confident that the upgrade to 1.0.4 will not cost me my Duna mission(I just hope I finish it before 1.1 is released...)

[Influence of reputation on game?]

Yup. The contracts get better as the rep rises.

Though I wish it didn't work like that. Sometimes when you're low on rep and already landed on other planets it completely doesn't care and gives you part testing missions and nothing else.

On the other end, I have lots of rep and keep getting missions for other planets(tourists, ore from one to another, etc), whereas my first interplanetary mission is still a good 150 days away from entering my first SOI outside the Kerbin SOI aside from Kerbol.

It is nice that they have confidence in me, but being good at bringing tourists along on rescue missions does not mean I am prepared to take them to Eve...