Vegvisir
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Posts posted by Vegvisir
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9 hours ago, capi3101 said:
/snip
Phwoaah, that is why I want to keep trying with Pathfinder (and KSP overall), that's impressive. Thanks for the tips, that's helpful. I'll look at perhaps rolling back my KIS version, but also tweaking how I use resource distribution.
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Just wondering if someone has put together a further tutorial or Pathfinder-for-dummies? I really want to get into this, because I kinda need something else for my little missions to be about. Big interplanetary ISRU operations are beyond me, and this just looks pretty cool, there's a lot to it. I like the inflatable parts, the extra modules and science bits that come with the whole Pathfinder/Buffalo/MOLE/DSEV package. But I just can't get my head around all the various UIs, which does what, and the resource distribution, too.
My latest attempts ended with flummoxed semi-defeat. I assembled a Ponderosa (as Geo Lab) and a Doc (as Science Lab) attached to the Ponderosa. I had Resource Distribution on Share between both the plane and the base - I dunno if that's how it should be. After assembly, I saw the Equipment in the plane decreasing every second or so, until it was all gone, but it didn't look like it was going into the base. Maybe it was but just wasn't displayed due to Ponderosa configuration. I needed to generate a bunch of lab time so I could do experiments for a contract. As I understand it: Doc Lab (as Commercial Science Lab config) + Scientist + Electric Charge + Research Kits = Lab Time. Does it generate automatically when the Lab is manned by a Scientist and has access to the resources, or do I need to start it? And which "start" - in the Operations UI is it the "Start Research" button on the "Mobile Process" screen or the "Start" button on the "Experiment Lab" screen? I had two single-sized Buckboards full of Research Kits (all gone now) and my base only has 0.84 Lab Time, I thought it would have resulted in more.
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What causes timers ("Time remaining") to reset?
Pilots going EVA does. Some other things, too, but I didn't notice what. Only that my alarm went so I expected the "Kick off Space Tourism" mission to be done and ready to descend, but it was back at just under 4 hours again. I'd since been controlling other vessels in the meantime, though had also flicked back and time warped a bit on the tourist vessel.
EDIT: Possibly a red herring, but I think that maybe physics timewarp might have had something to do with the timer resetting. I've got an orbit of 75100x75050, and when I was on physics timewarp ( [alt]+[>] ) at some point in lower part of the orbit the timer switched back to 4h. But it was fine as it was wizzing around in normal timewarp.
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Hey! If you haven't, you may want to check out the in-game Tutorials section, and I just looked this up : Guide to Kerbal Space Program...for Complete Beginners! - Part 1 Also, "bucket with the green alien" that's brilliant
You asked about what you should unlock with your Science points next. It depends a bit on what you'd like to do next. Do you want to make aeroplanes, or more rockets? However, early on, a basic aeroplane (or even a jet-engine-powered car thing) let's you travel around Kerbin a bit easier, and cheaper - though vessel cost doesn't matter in a Science game mode - and get a lot of Science points that way. Then you have many more points to get more rocket parts. Even the Kerbal Space Centre has lots of Science points available, check out the buildings.
I usually get "Aviation" (the plane picture one) as soon as I can. Then I build a science car or a small plane, get enough points for "Flight Control" (the fourth one down, picture of a rocket with arrows around it). That gives you the first "Inline Reaction Wheel" part which lets you use SAS as well as some little wing parts called control surfaces, all of which you need for keeping you rocket or plane stable.
I think it's "common" for the heat shield (round yellow-brown thing that stops explosions when you come back in the atmosphere) to go on the bottom of the crew pod (the bucket with the alien
). A lot of my rockets though, have stuff on the bottom of the crew mod, and end up coming down head first, so I put mine on the roof. When parachutes open, it flips back round to land bottom-first.
Another thing you'll probably want to use is "drogue" parachutes. They're the smaller yellow ones. You activate them when you're in the atmosphere, but higher up and still going really fast. They're meant to slow you down enough that you can use the main parachutes. I often use the "radial" parachutes, they're the blue rectangle ones, because I might have a heat shield on the roof.
On the bottom left of your screen is the "staging" menu. If the parachute icons there are red, that means you're too fast for them to open and they'll break. Then you're in trouble! If they're orange, I don't know, but the game says it's "risky". You'll probably want to open them when the icon is white.
This is a fairly similar rocket to yours, I think. Might give you some ideas?
KSP can be quite hard to get in to. It may have the basic concept of putting pieces together to make something else such as you might find in say, Minecraft or Empyrion, but there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes. If you think it could be the kind of game you'd get a kick out of, stick at it a bit and when you find your groove, I hope you'll see it's very much a gem. The threads where people show off what they've done are pretty inspiring. And if you play for a bit, then check out the extent of player-made mods available...it blows up from there - in a good way.
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I found out yesterday, quite by accident, that you can move maneuver nodes with the mouse scroll wheel. Good for a bit more precision, or to not have to mass-drag your mouse around.
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I since sent the refueler plane back down and landed at KSC. Still didn't have as much fuel as I kinda wanted. So built a prototype probe-controlled refueler and sent that up, and docked with the orbiting plane. The plane then had around 1200m/s dV and I sent it off to Mun. Deorbited my probe with RCS power and came down 24km from KSC - that in itself was pretty cool; still guessing and learning to control that. I compared the launch cost and recovered funds of both my refueler-configured plane and the probe, the difference is pretty amazing.
Throughout building, flying and refueling this thing, I think I can say I've learned how to plane - a lot more than before - and was good docking practice. I currently have only Jeb and Val as pilots and both are unavailable right now, and a contract I'd like to fulfill without waiting for Jeb. So I've built a little barebones plane and sending it off with an Engineer. With better aero design and giving it a go using trim controls, I can fly it. Before was like, no pilot, no SAS, nope!
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7 hours ago, AeroGav said:
@Vegvisir Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I took something based on your craft to produce the next step - a Panther/NERV SSTO.
Eventually, after some imid course corrections and over corrections, we end up here -
Plenty enough fuel to land and go back to Kerbin, though you need a horizontal landing vernier system for a really stylish rolling touchdown on the flats. Could drive to several biomes this way, it doesn't use much fuel on the ground !
https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Krakenskimmer-Mandalay-class-SSTO file here !
Wow, yeah! That's awesome! Definitely gonna download it and check it out. I like the style of it, and if you got to Minmus and back in it, it's got function too!
Last night I took 3 Kerbals up in Tempest. There wasn't very much fuel left, not enough to get to Mun orbit where there's a probe I'd like to take my scientist and engineer to meet. So I tweaked a fuel transferring version by swapping the cabin and the cargo bay contents for two of the second-smallest LF tanks. Got up to orbit easily, and after rendezvous managed to dock! I've hardly ever docked so that was cool. Used quite a bit of the monoprop in one to do that, and there could probably be a benefit to a couple more RCS thrusters. But it totally worked, even if the two ships look quite a mess joined together!
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Hello again! So, "Pre-Whiplash SSTO Spaceplanes: Possible?" Yes, they are. Possible for me? Yes, now they are!
On 6/26/2018 at 11:19 AM, swjr-swis said:I just now noticed I completely missed this part. This means you do not have the delta wing section unlocked yet, or the elevon-2/3. My apologies, that makes the rear section of the wings invalid.
Luckily, two small delta wings and a type C wing give us a composite delta wing too, and the elevon-1 can fulfill the task of the others. The Prototype 2B (link updated) should now only use parts from the tech nodes you have available.
It's a few more parts in total, and a tiny bit less efficient/rigid, but performance and handling is for all purposes identical to the 2A.
Very cool you tried to make the same plane - and you got it to work (albeit with the other aero parts) but points for trying!
I've got something I can stop calling a prototype
It has more wing, yet I was able to keep the visual proportions and overall concept to what I was going for - though through a bit of a cheaty offset clipping which isn't quite so nice for the "achievement" factor - the second set of wings came after. Maybe I'll try re-placing/re-ordering the parts and see if it still works. I re-added forward strakes, and as well as the canards, with increased incidence compared to the main wings. Swapped the nacelles for FL-T100s. Swapped the nose cone/NCS adapter combo for a cone and a Mk1 fuel tank behind "economy". I saw that the nacelles/ncs/cone did indeed weigh more, and carried less fuel than the cone/mk1!
It got to orbit far easier than every other iteration. AoA was far more sensible. Lift-drag ratio was better - though not as good as what you were talking about with your plane @AeroGav - so overall drag forces are still quite high. But I've opted to leave some things on the exterior, so there's that. I don't have to use afterburners to retain acceleration for the first ~5km altitude, if I keep a shallow pitch. I got to ~750m/s without activating the Swivel, and didn't have a very hard time getting to ~15-16km (I'd let it go a bit before I noticed and lowered pitch to keep acceleration). After I cut engines at around 75km apoapsis before circularising, I had 239 lf / 210 ox left, and after that seems a decent amount leftover, for that size craft, to do a bit more without a refuel operation.
I checked out KerbalX, and it's very cool. Craft file here if anyone's interested to play around with it - interested to see what else could be done with it
Whether it can carry much in the way of transferable cargo or fuel to something in orbit remains to be seen; at least whether it's more "efficient" than a pile of boosters. But it seems more elegant and maybe more fun, though! Also, I've learned kind of a lot of stuff. Thanks a lot everyone who has given me tips and advice; it will probably help other people, too.
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Hey, could I please have my username changed to Vegvisir. Thanks
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Hah those are some cool planes, and showing how it's done!! After following suggestions, moving components around, there were definite improvements. Not quite there; but much closer. I am starting to think, this is becoming as much about stubbornly "solving" it than any major in-game gains this will achieve
Test runs have either ended with fuel out at an impressive, but decidedly sub-orbital trajectory; or orbit was not quite there, but possibly within reach - yet resources were so low I thought nah.
BUT. I went and installed Editor Extensions Redux (props to @linuxgurugamer for the flag-carrying and @AeroGav for the suggestion in your Mk2 guide thread). I snapped my main rear-most wings and front canards to 2 degrees. I don't know what the wings had before, but it was fine-rotation guess work, and I'd not applied it to the canards either. When I replaced the wings I'd left off the two 4-way wing-tip RCS thrusters, so that was a test a few less drag-inducing parts I suppose. But the little docking port's still there.
@Andetch You were right about the balance, all previous test runs were very much threatening to backflip. I think that's improved now.
Here's what I ended up with - for the moment, at least. That graph though....
Nice graphical anomaly at launch.
It still has very high drag values, and AoA is often >4.5ish at the lowest, but I can't help but think that little bit of more-precisely-controlled incidence to both canards and wings made a huge difference. Before AoA was quickly >6 at the lowest, and more when faster and higher. I watched control surface authority limits too, and that seemed to also have a fairly large impact.
And
IJeb made it to an orbit, at least. He says thanks, I think. I don't speak his language, but he looks rather chuffed.
I say many thanks, too, for the tips here and other threads, mods, tools, videos. Now to uh, take it back down and see how it handles that.. Assuming it doesn't end with fire, I'll put RCS back and beyond that look at modifying payloads. It's exciting.
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Thanks again for the input.
I moved the two spherical RCS tanks from the top and bottom of the tail into the cargo bay (I don't have the stack mounted ones yet). Dropped one of the LV-T45 Swivels and changed the bi-coupler to the 2-1.25 adapter like I have at the front. Mk1 cockpit to the inline version, with a third intake on the nose. I don't know if that's too many intakes and would be bad for drag? I know as much that you don't need to "spam" intakes anymore and in fact too many is bad. I'd simply forgotten solar panels, but there's a Communitron 16 snug inside the cargo bay that's hard to see in the image. I don't quite know the degree, but I've added a little incidence to the back wings. I think I'll need to add a bit to the front-most strakes. Not sure if I have a replacement for the tail wing, other than a smaller, but non-control winglet, then I figure I'd have no (effective) yaw control?
With adjustments based on the replies, and looking more at the thread by AeroGrav that I linked above (may be a little old, but it seems pretty good info), I think this craft certainly can do it. At least, I've got it to space altitude with a fairly long sub-orbital trajectory. I'll perhaps need a bit more fuel and/or a better-executed flight profile. I also found the Aero GUI, and so many things make so much more sense now, haha!
It's pretty cool to see the impact a small change can have. I was just getting frustrated
That said, aren't spaceplane SSTOs one of the harder things to do and get right?
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Thanks a lot for the replies, all. This is my prototype design. I have Supersonic Flight researched, but not Advanced Aerodynamics.
The basics of what I've intended for it to do, is to get to orbit with a "pretty small" payload, and a 3 Kerbal capacity. I guess 3 because I've had a tough time flying with any but a Pilot, a Scientist to operate the experiments that need restoring, and an Engineer to let me play around with KAS and I'm anticipating working on a station of sorts.
In my career I recently upgraded to Level 3 SPH, and also have Level 2 VAB and R&D. So I guess really, funds aren't too much of a "concern" going forward, though I use the setting where I have to buy my parts once researched. But I just like the concept of the efficient, reusable spaceplane to LKO and beyond, so that's what I'm trying to do.
It's interesting the different designs in the Caveman and Tech level 7 threads. Seems fairly common for engines and some of the fuel to be on the wing tips, for example.
A definite observation I have is that I don't know a lot about the drag model, the lift values of the parts (other than the "Relative Lifting Area" in the hangar view), what sort of TWR and Delta-V values I should be looking for. So, I'll go to further tutorial and how-do-even-KSP threads
I looked through Basic Mk2 Spaceplane Guide and it was very interesting.
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Hi! One thing I've always tried to do, and most always failed at, is "SSTO" spaceplanes. In probably 1.0x, or even 1.2x, I achieved it using a design from a Scott Manley vid. It was pretty close resource-wise, the fuel left over once orbit was achieved made the whole thing fun, but rather pointless... I've got the KSP bug again and got back into a new career game. I've unlocked the afterburning "Panther", and I seem to remember it being possible to reach orbit using two of those, with two LV45s (or 30s... not sure). The plane had ~1800 liquid fuel total.
So since then I've tried again, with less fuel, to see if that's a change in 1.4.4, total vessel weight is 29 tonnes. I ought to post my design, will do later on.
But, it just doesn't seem remotely possible, at least for me
anymore. With trying to minimise wing drag, it barely has enough lift. Forward canards helps that, but all my planes have an annoying pitch-bounce with that. Thrust drops so much, at such a shallow ascent angle (5-15 degrees), I can barely get to 10,000m, much less ~300m/s at such an altitude in preparation for going higher and faster.
It's kinda dumb, I'd really like to spaceplane
How do you do it these days, in an early-ish career?
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Has anyone else had Ponderosa bases disappear, rendering the Kerbal inside KIA? It was attached to the Muncrete Saddle, which was attached to the ground.
Edit: Reloaded a save I had with a vehicle parked outside the base. The Ponderosa and everything "crashed into the ground", so that's what it was.
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On 1/7/2017 at 10:45 AM, akardam said:
snippity -
As it reads them, it stuffs them as key => value pairs into what I'd call a hash or associative array and what C# apparently calls a Dictionary (you say potato...). When it encounters a duplicate (say, it already recorded a definition for KerbinInSpaceLow, and now found another one) it will postpend a ( * ) onto the key name. Each additional duplicate gets another ( * ) (e.g KerbinInSpaceLow, KerbinInSpaceLow*, KerbinInSpaceLow**, etc).
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So it's a KSP 1.2 bit that's broken for this to work, to do with the "WTHAI" string and all that comes from that? That's a shame.
I don't know how much manipulation room we have but I immediately thought, why not make the value of the key-value-pair a collection... so e.g. KerbinInSpaceLow is the key, and remains so for any duplicate entries found, none of the * appending, but the experiment text for subsequent "KerbinInSpaceLow"s is just added to the value collection. TBH I haven't looked at this any further than this page of posts, however...so...dunno what background there is or isn't.
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Ah awesome, this looks like it'll be cool to try out! Just want to say thanks again for all of this Angel-125, it's become a mod I don't much want to play without
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1 hour ago, Sudragon said:
I think you need to put ther T.E.R.R.A.I.N. scanner into orbit.
1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:Do you have a screenshot?
Did you scan the planet from orbit with a TERRAIN or M700?
Nope, I have not. I was wondering if that was it from some of the other bits and pieces I've read on the wiki. Perhaps I thought I could take core samples without the orbital scan first, I seem to think I had in an earlier version at least.
Thanks for your answers
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Hello again
I've deployed a Ponderosa as GeoLab and Performed Biome Analysis. I still get a message to perform a surface scan when I try and use the Gold Digger. In my GeoLab UI it still says to unlock the biome, too. I'm not sure what I need to do :S
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Last time I played around with this I had troubles with getting it to work. I've since figured some stuff out, resources are distributed and it's all looking pretty cool.
Nothing fancy by any stretch compared to many of the awesome screenies that have been posted. But this is Kerbal...if flying is an achievement, now putting up a tent is, too!
As well as a Pathfinder n00b, I'm also a photo inserting n00b... http://imgur.com/a/gVO3q
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Hmm, yeah, I'll put it down to "local" weirdness. My Ponderosa inflated no trouble, other things are recognised, I even attached a battery-configured Buckboard to it, and still only 200 charge recognised. So...yup hahaha. I'll perhaps try delete and re-install of the Pathfinder and/or KIS stuff. I've been using CKAN more-or-less exclusively for a while now, for convenience, so that could be part of it also (I think you mention not using that in your first post
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EDIT: Maybe I should clarify? What I mean by "not recognised" is in the Resources tab of the Management screen. Stayed at /200 no matter what batteries are attached or not. Have I incorrectly assumed that would change based on if more batteries are attached?
Cheers. Nice work again. It's really cool, gives us something more to do when we get to places
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13 hours ago, Angel-125 said:
Do you have screenshots? The base modules should recognize batteries like vessels do with any other parts.
Sure. This is what I tried doing. It may be I'm just doing it wrong
Tried attaching (by holding [h] with node SrfAttach) and plonking the battery on the erm...door block thingy... I've put solar panels on the top side, and they generated the charge, so it is recognising things. I've also attached a Buckboard containing TAC LS resources to the other side, and those resources were recognised also.
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I've had this installed for a while, but I've only just started to play around with it.
So. Awesome. Hah! Just set up that first Ponderosa on a Kerbin mountainside, and the team all got inside to crank the Ghetto Blaster and have a cool Beer after the hard work. That IVA is gorgeous.
Again, so awesome. Thanks
EDIT: Since the Ponderosa's resources didn't register them after I stuck them to the side of the entry block, I'm assuming that "normal" batteries can't be used for power?
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Murdered some Kerbals. Quite unintentionally - as always! Used a quick load so no reverting, which I guess is a "proper" way to play. Only I totally underestimated the reentry speed and how little I could slow it... Bye Jeb, Bill and Seanbean, err I mean Seanbur. Space program careers aren't meant to be 100% successful all the time....
And found this as excellent Kerbal-ing music. https://youtu.be/j4ZPMC9ofmk. A band called Seas of Years. "Post-rock".EDIT: This actually is the first time I've had a decent go since the 1.0.5. Loving the new cockpit models. Floating in space , those glow-lights make me feel like my Kerbals must be cosy and having a great adventure. Til they burn and smash into the sea at >300m/s, that is.
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With 1.0.5 I started anew as well, and I'm playing on a custom Normal+ level. I leave reverts on because I use it, depending on circumstances, though no Kerbal respawn. I've increased the Contract monetary returns to 200% and enabled buy in costs for tech. That makes it interesting. Perhaps a bit more grindy, but I have to think about which parts do I actually need each unlock. The mods I use are just for extra stock-a-like parts, and life support. Nothing there that I thin is "cheaty". Plus, I have to buy them in the first place as well.
). A lot of my rockets though, have stuff on the bottom of the crew mod, and end up coming down head first, so I put mine on the roof. When parachutes open, it flips back round to land bottom-first.
anymore. With trying to minimise wing drag, it barely has enough lift. Forward canards helps that, but all my planes have an annoying pitch-bounce with that. Thrust drops so much, at such a shallow ascent angle (5-15 degrees), I can barely get to 10,000m, much less ~300m/s at such an altitude in preparation for going higher and faster.
How do you do it these days, in an early-ish career?
[Most 1.12.x] Near Future Technologies (August 26)
in KSP1 Mod Releases
Posted
Heya. I'm wondering how easy it is to revert the capacitor textures? Or at least just the 0.625 one? I poked around in the files and saw now they are on a single image sheet; couldn't really tell which bit to replace. I'm really fond of the blue texture and how it looks making my probes' battery-and-capacitor "power core".