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Garius

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Everything posted by Garius

  1. You can do pretty much whatever you want now. Try to land on the Mun, go check out Minmus. Do some satellite contracts (need Electrics), some rescue missions, build a space station (need Minaturization and Advanced Flight Control), build some planes. You'll want to accumulate funds for at least level 2 on the science complex, launchpad, VAB, tracking station and Astro complex. There is plenty of science to be had on the Mun and Minmus with no need for more tech, so just take what looks fun and play with it. Eventually you'll want to go interplanetary, the bigger Rockomax engines and working towards Nuclear Propulsion are very helpful for this as medium term goals.
  2. You are getting mostly tourist contracts right now because you haven't achieved orbit. Each contract type has a minimum progress to appear and a maximum number that can be available (usually 3 offered, up to 6 doable at once, but part tests have effectively no limit, they're limited instead by testable parts) I believe pre orbit only visual surveys, part tests, and tourists are available. Once you achieve orbit you will get rescue missions and science from space missions, and when you unlock solar panels you'll get satellite contracts as well. Until then you'll just get more parts and tourist contracts. If you decline enough you'll eventually get all part contracts (though I don't think two contracts for the same part can exist, so there is that limit) My careers ignore contracts for the first few flights, taking only the world first contracts. I take one rescue mission just to spawn something in orbit to rendezvous with for that world first.
  3. Yeah and I see launchpad upgraded as well. I'd definitely grab the Swivel and Terrier and use those to try to get to orbit. Have you upgraded the Astro complex for space EVAs? Can get a fair bit of science from those. Once you can consistently get to orbit you can try to orbit the Mun and get a ton more science there.
  4. My first priorities are always getting to advanced rocketry to get the Terrier (and picking up the Swivel on the way). Gimbaled engines make reaction wheels less important at this stage in the game. Should easily be able to make orbit with these, even orbit the Mun or Minmus (landing and returning is possible as well but requires careful planning and piloting until you upgrade the VAB)
  5. You can get temperature scans in different biomes when landed or in low atmosphere. Above that its global. Crew reports and temperature are biome dependent when flying low or landed, global otherwise (one experiment in high atmo, one in low space, one in high space). Goo and lab are biome dependent landed only, global everywhere else. EVA is like crew and temperature except also biome dependent in low space. The wiki (first hit when googling ksp science) appears to have up to date info on all this for reference as you unlock more experiments.
  6. Shift and control thrust up and down. I'm not aware of anyway to change the orientation plane, which can make boarding an uncontrollable ship tricky if it's aligned awkwardly. You can thrust your kerbal into the ship to force it to rotate if all else fails (this can also be used to push an out of fuel ship back to Kerbin... Last night I had to push my peri down from 1.2mil; took a long time)
  7. Anything between 70 and 250km will do. At this level, the only thing that cares about biomes in orbit is EVA reports, so no need to send experiments if you already did them in low space, however everything cares about biomes when landed so you could still bring them and land somewhere far from KSP and do them there (eg ice caps, badlands, desert). Getting all 9 EVA reports from space should give a decent sum. Alternatively an almost equatorial orbit a few degrees south will hit 7 biomes in a single orbit (8 if you can find the small patches of tundra near ksp) Unlock the top node (Advanced Rocketry), as it has the 909, a great vacuum engine, which can get you into orbit of the Mun or Minmus where you can use the same trick for tons more science. Also if you haven't yet, you can get some good science from doing experiments/EVA/crew in high space (more than 250km). None of them are biome dependent so you only need to go once.
  8. To answer directly, it depends on how heavy your lifter is and how much fuel it has. It's not nice clean formula. Indirectly though, I don't think that's a good way to think of it. As the above poster said, you should design your lifter with a particular payload weight in mind. The DV of the lifter with 0 payload isn't a particularly useful number. I generally aim for about 20% payload delivery, so my lifter will be about 4x as heavy, two stages. So eg a 5T lifter would weight 20T, for 25T total. This means I probably want 2 Reliants for liftoff. DV is usually optimized around roughly equal weight stages but it's pretty flat so I prefer more weight in the first stage to minimize TWR issues in second stage. So I'd probably do something like 12T/8T, with a single swivel on the second stage (this setup can be asparagus staged which gives the bonus of gimbal from takeoff). This gives about 1400 m/s in the first stage and 2200 in the second stage, which makes orbit on a good ascent. Tossing some BACCs on gives a bit more leeway.
  9. You need calculus to derive the Tsilkovsky rocket equation (though nothing more than some simple integration by substitution), but don't need any to actually use it. It's just Isp * 9.81 * ln(Wet mass/Dry mass). You don't need any knowledge of what ln is, you just press the button on your calculator (but a very very general idea is that ln tells you how many digits a number has, except it's smoothed out so that it doesn't jump, and it's multiplied by a useful constant that makes it work in things like this). It adds up between stages, and it's not so much a miles per gallon (that's closer to Isp) as it is a miles before empty (though not a perfect analogy) Having a mod is definitely helpful, I recommend KER, but it's not at all hard to do it with a pocket calculator, just not as instant. It can get a bit complicated when you have different types of engines firing at the same time, but still doesn't need any calculus. Googling KSP Delta V map gives a lot of good pictures showing how much DV is needed for various trips. Most will have too high values for achieving orbit from atmospheric bodies (eg Kerbin) but will be accurate enough for anything without atmosphere, but you'll get some variance based on piloting (just like if you plan a 100mi trip, you might not make it on 100mi of gas if you take detours)
  10. There's unlikely to be a nice closed form formula even for reasonably simple ascent profiles, you'd most likely need to use numerical methods. Even in the old model with fixed 0.2 drag, optimal delta v speeds could only be calculated in closed form for vertical ascent, and I'm not sure if the amount needed could be computed algebraically. Spitballing some ideas, you could start by using energy to calculate a minimum, and then try to add in Gravity, drag, and steering losses, but, as I said, you'd likely be using numerical methods to find the latter three.
  11. Having a pilot should allow you to turn SAS on, but they will only have Stability assist to start (ie it will kill rotation but won't prograde/retrograde/etc hold). As the pilot gets experience you get Prograde/Retrograde at level 1, Normal and Radial (and their Antis) at 2 and manoeuvre/target at 3. If you have a pilot and pressing T gives the error message that no SAS is available... That sounds like a bug
  12. The minimum tech I've succeeded with for Kerbin SOI: Break atmosphere: Just the T30 (5 science) Orbit: Both 5 point nodes (10 science total, Astro complex upgrade useful to collect tons of EVA science while in orbit, can be purchased in flight as you should get tons of money breaking records and achieving orbit) Flyby Mun and return: Add general rocketry (30 science total) Orbit Mun/Minmus and return: Add advanced rocketry (75 science total) Land and return from Mun/Minmus: Add survivability and stability (108 science total) and Launchpad upgrade Just started a new hard career to test this, first launch got low atmo goo and crew report plus he science from the world first science contract. Second launch orbited with goos and bay with Bob piloting to reset. Bought Astro upgrade in orbit, got bay flying low, high and in space near, goo and crew high and in space, EVA high and all biomes in space except tundra and ice caps. Also picked up the Return from Orbit contract which is easy to miss. Upgrade launchpad and bought the tech listed above, third launch landed and returned from the mun. No experiments as I was at 30 parts with just enough fuel, though my design wasn't optimized and my ascent was not the best. Bringing experiments might be possible with very careful design and flying. But just orbital EVA spam on the Mun, plus one biome landed, plus crew reports and high space over Kerbin and Mun, netted enough science to fill out the rest of the tier and then some. In particular, this was done with no ground science and no contracts other than world firsts. Edit, just realized you are playing science mode, so you aren't limited to 30 parts, but the above mostly still applies. If on hard you'd need one extra experiment to unlock both 5 pt nodes (no WF contract), could conceivably land on then mun without the 909, but you'd either need to land on the engine bell or make landing legs out of struts, as the T30/45 is too tall for the microstruts.... Conceivably you could do it with only the T30 and radial decouplers, I might try that, but I imagine it will end up mad wobbly.
  13. Might I suggest trying to get to orbit with your current tech instead of trying to grind out more around Kerbin? It's possible to get to orbit with just the two 5pt nodes, and figuring out how to do so will help you understand how to design and fly more complex missions. If not, you can do as the above posters say and hop around KSC, and do some suborbital flights to get enough science for most if not all of the 45pt nodes, at which point you'll pretty much have to go to orbit and beyond to progress.
  14. If you put fins as far down on your rocket as possible, it will want to stay prograde. The only steering (including SAS, turn it off if you use fins) required is the start of the gravity turn and then once you are in high atmosphere. Incidentally, the old "go up to 10k, turn to 45, burn until apo is high enough" is not a gravity turn, the name simply got applied as it shares some very general features. A gravity turn has your engines firing prograde 100% of the time after the initial tilt of a few degrees. Whenever you aren't flying straight up or down, gravity will cause your prograde to move downwards. Thus gravity alone literally turns your velocity vector, the engines can then apply all of their thrust prograde with no steering losses while still following a good ascent profile. The shape of the profile can be tweaked by adjusting thrust, going faster will cause you to turn downwards more slowly, and vice versa. I aim for horizontal between 35 and 40 at which point I end my gravity turn and start steering again. With fins, the atmosphere will happily keep you pointing prograde, without, you'll need to ensure you have enough control between reaction wheels and gimbaling to stay prograde. The closer to prograde you stay the easier it is, as the torque from atmosphere increases the more you are off of prograde. Also the faster you go the more torque. But really, just use fins so that the torque keeps you pointing forward.
  15. Just tested last night, orbit on second flight with no building upgrades is possible, with only the 5pt nodes unlocked. First flight just a flea, pod, chute and goo to get science for the two 5pt nodes Second flight is basically what's posted above, except no bay and with fins: pod, chute, 2 goo, 2 decoupled, 2 reliants, 6 fins (3 on each stage, upper stage could probably be dropped) and 16 100 unit fuel tanks. I think it was 5 on the top stage and 11 on the bottom. This made orbit successfully on three launches in a row, but remaining fuel varied as I tried to tweak ascent profile. One time I got 70/69 and had to get out and push a bit to get orbit.
  16. You can get enough science from a flyby or two to unlock the 909. If you don't need to orbit, my design above should be able to bring a goo and a lab (and thermometer if you have it). Centre the goo in a service bay, don't bring 2 of anything, just use a scientist to reset. You can grab Kerbin high and mun high and low on both goo and lab, which should net you a couple of nodes.
  17. Are you trying to land on the mun or just orbit it? For your first orbit I'd suggest leaving most of the science at home, crew reports and EVA spam can unlock quite a few of the early nodes. And minmus is the same DV away so you can get even more by going there second (or even first) A small rocket with just a 909 on the upper stage and a T30 on the lower should be able to orbit the mun at about 12T launch mass. Not at my computer, but I think I used 600 units of fuel on the upper stage and 1200 on the booster stage. (The same design with a T45 on the upper stage should work for a flyby, maybe an orbit if you are efficient with your ascent). This gives a bit over 5k DV, 3500 to orbit, 900 to fly by, 250 for orbit and another 250 to escape, and a couple hundred to set up aerocapture. Fins on the booster stage are helpful but not necessary. Don't put fins on the upper stage, you should be in pretty light atmosphere by the time you stage and then they're dead weight.
  18. I find alt f4 and reload the game (love the faster launch) is sufficient for krakens (which are much less common now). Reverting is tempting, but it's too easy to fall into abusing it. My compromise is that I duplicate my career and test allowing reversions in the copy, but the main progress has to be done without the option.
  19. Parachutes are OP atm. Set a peri below 24k, deploy chute and heat shields are unnessary. I've returned from 60Mm apos with 0 peri and survived with just a MK16 chute and capsule.
  20. The first two unlocked nodes are plenty for orbit. The records and first science contract vomit funds on you. Upgrade Astro Complex and spam Eva reports in orbit. Getting science junior and goo readings in atmo and low space should be enough to get the LV909. A simple two stage rocket with the 909 and a T30 can orbit the mun at 12 tons. EVA spam gets all you need to land on the Mun. I imagine a Mun landing can be done in 18T, but at this point the launchpad upgrade is easily available. Alternatively the same rocket can be used to grab EVA spam from Minmus and finish much of the 90 science tier. I have no landed science off of the launchpad (ground science is boring and unnecessary) and landed on the mun on my 9th successful launch (Val was tragically killed in a poorly balanced mun shot that promptly flipped over and crashed into the KSC, a couple of other rockets had to abort and made no progress)
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