Volix

From the Astronaut Selection and Training document: Just 1 inch too tall . Of course I'd also need a couple years to finish my doctorate as some of the others here:D.

Even 400+ hours in I do this all the time:D. Although at this point I've been to the Mun/Minmus so many times I'm often launching interplanetary as early in my career as possible. I never just time warp directly and choose to do some missions (or hit other transfer windows) in the meantime, so I often find out about the missing part when I have no option of reverting. Still, I find it fun to try and work around the missing piece and see if I can perform the mission anyway.

I've gotten an illness outbreak, and their heads did indeed turn green. However, the head did not look like any of those sprites.

There isn't really any benefit to it, no. The only thing I can think of is hitting a transfer window for a different planet while your probe is on its way to Duna. Anything within the Kerbin system can be done pretty much any time for the same effect, just a different time-stamp as you mentioned. For myself, I tend to keep launching missions, but the result is I often finish the tech tree before many of my probes reach their destination. Don't be afraid of time-warp. While I agree there needs to be more incentive to run multiple missions once you go interplanetary, first the game needs a better way of managing multiple missions. If you're open to mods there are things like Kerbal Alarm Clock, but right now in vanilla it's really easy to time-warp a craft to Minmus, and on the way fail to notice your probe has arrived, passed, and left Duna. EDIT: Welcome to the forums!

Yes, those numbers agree much better . The calculation I did was something of a shot in the dark. It probably still represents something, just maybe not something useful. All around fun discussion though, I hadn't taken the Oberth effect past "burning at higher speeds changes energy more for the same dV".

I wasn't satisfied with my qualitative look so I tried something more quantitative. I calculated the potential energy difference between the edge of a SOI in patched conics and infinity to get an idea of the size of numbers we're looking at. I'll put the math in a spoiler for those who are curious or want to check my work and post the relevant results below that. None of the math is beyond introductory physics or calculus 2 (there's a simple integral). We'll start with the general work equation W = F*d where W is the work done (potential energy change), F is the force exerted on the craft, and d is the distance traveled along the direction of force (in this case radial from the planet, d is the altitude in this case). The force due to gravity is given by Fg = G*M*m/r2 where G is the gravitational constant 6.674×10−11 N⋅m2/kg, (capital) M is the planet mass, (lower-case) m is the mass of the craft, and r is the distance between them. We put this into the work equation and turn it into a differential so we can integrate. This integral will be int(G*M*m/r^2 dr) with limits corresponding to the altitudes we're traveling between. In this case I chose "x" (edge of the SOI) and infinity. (sidenote: Is there a good way to get an integral symbol on these forums?) The result is the energy that isn't being accounted for by using the patched conics model W = G*M*m/x Notice that as x gets larger this energy gets small, so the larger your SOI the more accurate the approximation. Of course, what we're really after is the dV, which can be found by setting the kinetic energy equal to the work done KE = (1/2)*m*v2 = G*M*m/x = W which yields v = (2*G*M/x)1/2 This is the difference between the velocity you'd have at infinity for patched conics vs N-body. G*M and x are both given by the wiki for Kerbin as G*M = 3.5316000×1012 m3/s2 x = 84 159 286 m Putting these numbers in the equation yields v = 289.57 m/s. So, the "free" velocity gained by turning off gravity at the SOI for any planet of mass M and SOI at altitude x is (G is the gravitational constant 6.674×10−11 N⋅m2/kg) v = (2*G*M/x)1/2 For Kerbin this works out to 289.57 m/s! Another way to think of this is if Kerbin was the only other thing in the universe, and you were very very far away. If you started "falling" toward Kerbin due to gravity you'd be going 290 m/s when you crossed it's "SOI". This is pretty significant, and due to the inverse square law most of this would be gained within the Kerbol system. I did the integral again but used 1.1*1011 m instead of infinity (around the distance from Kerbol to Eeloo) and got 288.57 m/s, the rest of the way to infinity would only slow you by another 1 m/s from the edge of the system (again, if Kerbin is the only other thing in the universe, I'm neglecting every other planet and the sun). Back to the issue at hand, how does this compare to the difference in Slashy's testing and the theoretical numbers? Slashy was finding a difference of 10-20 m/s. Compared to the 290 m/s difference from the patched conics that I've calculated his numbers are pretty much identical to theory. So, did I make a mistake in my math? Is Kerbin to Eve just not that far? Does the game somehow throw in some constant offset when you cross SOI to account for this? Something else?

I took a qualitative look at this problem and think the patched conics can explain the difference, but there are a couple issues. In N-body (real world) physics the gravity from any body is felt out to infinity. In patched conics however, there is some "cutoff" altitude where one body's gravity is "turned off", and the second's is "turned on". Leaving Kerbin then, once you reached this altitude any extra altitude from Kerbin does not come with a potential energy increase, letting you keep more kinetic energy than you otherwise could. This savings wouldn't be much, but Slashy's numbers aren't that much different. I mentioned there are some issues. I spent some time manipulating the OP's equations and let Vesc be a little lower than predicted to account for patched conics. I found the effect increased V∞, but when the two are added later to find dV (rather their squares are added) the effect cancels. This is likely because these equations are N-body equations and need more modification to properly handle patched conics. Of course this also happens when arriving at a body. Energy you would have gained "falling" from infinity to the cutoff altitude is now not gained and your arrival velocity is a little lower than it would have been. This should show a small savings in the capture dV as well.

Had a campfire while looking for it. Mostly clouded out, but we got a few looks at it in some breaks.

Just a guess, but it's possible that comes in play by giving you less data. Off the top of my head I believe a gravity scan in low orbit around kerbin gave 22 data with 90% gains (did that last night). I could be off on the number, but not by 3x. If you're getting 10 data or less for that experiment then the percentage is applied there.

I actually just noticed this last night. I was timewarping to my Eve window, about 250 days. When I checked my LKO station after the time warp the rate was about 1/3 science per day, but I had over 300 science! I know the rate would have been higher at the beginning, but it was never over 1 science per day, not that much data in it. EDIT: The timewarp was Kerbin days, I'm assuming the lab is in Kerbin days as well. If it was in science/Earth days we would be gettingless science than predicted, not more.

Nothing to the level you just described in the OP, but Duna has been cursed for me as well. First probe lander didn't have enough solar panels to maintain my remote tech link, so I got science until the battery drained. I also learned atmospheric scattering reduces solar panel efficiency in 1.0. Second lander I had in orbit, but noticed I didn't have landing legs.... No problem, I think, as long as the solar panels are retracted it can fall over. I decouple and switch back to the parent craft to boost its PE up (it's meant to return to Kerbin). Forgot the probe core on that side....

You can also do a "turn based" style multiplayer by passing a save file among a group. The forum is a great place to find or start something like that.

I tend to do lots of small specialized craft, so my build times for a single craft are pretty small. Maybe a half hour to build each rocket, then time to fly of course taking longer the further it goes. My most recent expedition to Duna used three craft in the same window. One went into a high polar orbit to carry my RemoteTech signal from Kerbin and relay it to the other craft, and one craft for Duna and Ike, each with it's own detachable lander. On the other hand, I've finally gotten pretty good at the black magic known as spaceplanes, and these take much longer. My first spaceplane (0.24 FAR) took an entire day (10 hours or so) to build and tweak. Now it takes a minimum of an hour for a simple one, up to 10 hours still for especially large or heavy ones. Once built to my liking I tend to fly it to orbit and back a few times so I can get my flying to building ratio more to my liking (I like them both about evenly).

I didn't even notice! Welcome!

This pretty well sums it up for your question, but I enjoyed reading the story you laid out. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.