bewing

Does it excuse you, for arguing with me, when I take it slower?

For me, the whole point of the game is about roleplaying being a Space Agency. And a space agency would be frugal with funds and science points. And take things step-by-step. First Kerbin. Then LKO. Then the Mun. Verifying safety and functionality at every step. Maybe sending off a scientific probe into orbit around the Sun early on. But certainly not just sending a kerbaled mission hither and yon to gather some low-hanging science points because they could. For me, it's not about efficient use of my gaming time. I have plenty of that. And anyway, for all you explorers out there, Kerbin is a celestial body too. Don't you want to explore it?

The weight discrepancy comes from the mass of the solid fuel for the two Hammers, I think. The mass of the fuel is not added into the base mass of the part. The easy way I use to figure launches to orbit is: Use enough SRBs in stages to get you sub-orbital. Then, once you are up there, you need about 400 fuel (or a little more) to get to 2300 m/s and into orbit. Your design would get 3 kerbonauts to orbit. That's a lot for just starting out. It's much easier just to get an OKTO into orbit. A command pod and crew cabin + fuel tanks + engine takes about 540 fuel to close your orbit and then get back down safely, after the SRBs have gotten you above the atmosphere. SRBs may be a little less efficient, but they cost a lot less than liquid fuel stages, at the same time.

Then you missed this quote from the wiki: " and if the experiment is from the same body as the one the lab is orbiting or landed on the data value is greater. "

Yes, but you only get a reasonable deal on the experiment->data conversion if you process it in the same SOI where it was taken. Kerbin data in Kerbin SOI, Mun data in Mun SOI, etc. Almost all experiments turn out zero data when landed on Kerbin. The last few other ones produce one point worth of data. You can collect Highlands landed, Highlands splashed, Badlands landed, and Badlands splashed all at the same location. It takes a couple hours of flying time to get to the Badlands and back, if you don't mind flying. You get 218 points of science for doing it. You only have to make three flights to collect every last bit of science on the ground on Kerbin -- is that really so hard? And anyway, career mode is supposed to involve a little bit of grinding. Is everyone really so impatient these days?

Yes, the ladder car is fun, and silly, and cheap. I switched out all the pegasus ladders for telus ones and knocked 1000 kash off the price. Foxster's solution is more elegant, I think, but uses some tech I don't have yet in this career (and is a bit more expensive). But, as I said above, the science data will not transfer with the crew if you use a crew transfer -- so that "simplest solution" is non-functional.

Time warping to avoid electrical drain is cheating. And when you send an MPL to a new SOI, its plane gets all messed up anyway. So I dock with them after they have moved. And I have lots of time to spare and don't care about the difference between "real world time" and game time. I don't find polar orbits particularly difficult to dock with, either. You just have to wait until the timing is right. And it only takes a handful of hours to gather all 470+ samples from Kerbin. It's not that bad. It certainly takes less time than doing 10 docking maneuvers in a row. Or trying to drive a rover a few kilometers on the Mun -- now that's tedious.

Hmmm. You've been confused by an oversimplification. The numbers on the navball are the degrees of a compass. 0 is north, 90 is east, 180 is south, 270 is west. All celestial bodies rotate east, by definition. So if you go east, you are going prograde with the planet. But going east is only "equatorial" if you happen to launch from the equator -- which we do on Kerbin, but nowhere else. If you launch north or south, you will always put yourself in a polar orbit. "Inclination" is measured by the value of the Ascending Node, when compared to a pure equatorial orbit -- for example, compared to the orbit of Mun around Kerbin. The way you have been given is just a quick and dirty calculation that gives the right answer -- but do not look deeper for any meaning in it, because there is none to be found.

Yes, well. If you only have a limited number of blocks of a limited number of shapes, then sometimes you have to start getting wacky about putting them together if you want to do something unusual.

Yes, but how do you get the science from the rover into the rocket? That's the detail I'm asking about. Polar orbit gives you access to all the biomes on the celestial body, for taking orbital data. It also gives you 100% continuous solar power for a quarter of a year at a time. And I disagree -- I leave MPLs sitting in orbit for months and don't interact with them at all. The scientists just crunch their data and radio it home. I think if you carefully recalculate, you will find that this isn't correct. Kerbin gives you more than 470 unique scientific experimental results. No other celestial body comes close to that number. They aren't worth as much, individually, but they add up. OK, here's my silly gantry. And here it is performing its function. Bob is at the top, preparing to board the MPL.

Heh. That one is indeed cute. And since I send my MPLs into polar orbits, they are not fun to dock with later. So a design where the data goes into the MPL before launch is best, truly.

I see. I had forgotten about those kinds of designs. Hmmmmm. -- Can that command pod really maintain a prograde attitude during reentry so that the heat shield actually accomplishes something?? No, not even close. Kerbin contains over 1600 points of science data on the ground, as I recall. You can only get a small fraction of that in low and high orbit. It's best to do both, if it's at all convenient.

Thinking about this .... yeah, I suppose if you build your rocket out flat, with rings of detachable boosters and liquid engines around the MPL in the center ... hmmmm ... it seems a bit horrifying, but in a different way than my gantry thingie.

The science data won't transfer with the crew. It'll stay in the pod where the crew boarded.

I have a question for all the players who have put a Mobile Processing Lab in LKO to grind out science points from Kerbin data. Anyone who has actually done this probably knows that there is a trick involved. You have to get the science experiments from the ground into the MPL. Method 1 involves either launching the MPL with an SSTO, or launching the experimental data up to an MPL (in orbit) with an SSTO. Either of these makes it easy. But if you have the tech for an SSTO, then what the heck are you doing just launching your first MPL? So I think we can rule Method 1 out. Method 2 always involves somehow getting all the experimental data from the ground to the tippy top of a rocket sitting on the launchpad. My first thought on how to do it was a damned ladder going all the way up. (Groan.) My second thought was a flying bedstead .... You fly it up near the top of the rocket, turn on SAS, the scientist takes the data, then jumps over to .... Nah. So yeah, the first time I did it, I made the damned ladder all the way up the side of the rocket, boosters and all. This time through, I made a horrifying monstrosity that is a sort of mobile gantry. The rocket is on the pad, and I drive up to it with the gantry. Then climb up the gantry tower and into the MPL with all the data. Then recover the gantry. Then launch the rocket. Maybe I'll post a picture if anyone wants a good belly laugh. But this just seems so pathetic. What else have you all tried? Does anyone have something that seems like a good answer to the trick?

Heh. I think we all do that at the beginning. But after a gentle parachute descent, you can still smash your plane to bits if you land on a moderate slope (especially if you land in any other orientation than facing uphill). For me, horizontal landings seem to be actually a bit more reliable, on terrain that is only somewhat wavy. On steep terrain, you're probably dead either way, and on flats it's easy either way.

Mostly yes, but a little no. A Kerbonaut can store an unlimited number of duplicate experimental results, just like an MPL can (with the exception of EVA reports and surface samples). The command seat does not store any science data at all. It leaves it all in the lap of the Kerbonaut.

Yes, Laythe has an O2 atmosphere. But your plan sounds workable and fun. I don't really advise the military approach to kraken -- they are far too powerful.

(OK, another one of those "Is anyone else doing this?" threads.) The geniuses at Mission Control suddenly made a realization. The "one unique sample" restriction with command pods is very confining -- but there is a way around it. (Perhaps we can have a discussion later in this thread comparing and contrasting Exploits vs. Cheating vs. "Utiilizing the Laws of the Game Universe to Your Advantage".) The External Command Seat has no sample restrictions. So, Mission Control decided to test this theory, and (as you may have realized) this is where you come in. Bob and Jeb were sent off to that wonderful spot in the nearby desert, where there are six biomes within a few km of each other to gather an enormous number of samples. After a long afternoon of doing experiments, Bob sat in the seat -- carrying far more samples than could fit in a couple pods. Jeb, being a good pal, hurried Bob back to the comforts of KSC at Mach 1. (And most of us know how Bob feels about flying ....) This worked out so well that our intrepid Kerbonauts were sent to that great spot near the North pole where there are eight biomes within a few km of each other. After a very hard day of collecting far more samples than would fit in two command pods, Jeb was the soul of kindness and brought Bob back at Mach 2 this time. And the external command seat has no seatbelt -- that must have been exciting! We had to buy Bob a new pair of pants after this trip. The ones he was wearing were not considered "cleanable" anymore. Anyway, the gang in R&D was so happy with that pile of data that we had to finish things out. Bob didn't want to go with Jeb, so we sent Bob and Val to that spot in the Badlands where the remaining four biomes all meet at a point. And Val was just as sweet as Jeb, and brought Bob back at Mach 2 again. Bob is now catatonic for some crazy reason. The psychologist says, "His fear of flying is now deeply etched into every fiber of his being." Oh well. All the biome data at Kerbin is collected, so there is no more flying to do. When he snaps out of it, we'll stick him in an MPL and lob him into space to analyze all his data.

I suppose that if you want to go finless, and are having flipping problems, another thing thing that might work is to put a ring of thrusters around the top of your rocket, and turn on RCS during launch. And that's very sad that you don't want to change your rocket, and you want Squad to change how they drain fuel tanks instead. But too bad so sad, it's not going to happen. The drain pattern is the only reason asparagus staging works, and many/most players use that for huge rockets. So you'd better start figuring out a workaround to make your rockets function in the KSP world, instead of the real world.

That is, if you can maintain your attitude when you are flying belly first. But a belly doesn't usually give you much to work with for attitude control -- and a spaceplane usually must have extra drag toward the rear for stability, which makes the attitude control even more of a challenge.

I like to design my rockets with two stages. The bottom SRB stage is recoverable near KSC for almost full value. The upper stage is a pure nuke rocket with just enough control surfaces and aerodynamic lift to get you back down from orbit to a landing on the KSC runway (the last thousand meters or so by parachute). Solid fuel gives you 2/3rds the Isp, and costs about 2/3rds of equivalent liquid fuel. Put all these things together, and you get the fact that this rocket design is "fully recoverable" except for the fuel -- so it gives you pretty much all the benefits (except for looking really cool) of an SSTO, and the upper stage that goes wandering around space isn't dragging around a lot of useless airbreathing engine mass. Also, as said above, by the time I have the tech to make an SSTO, I'm not doing anything anywhere near Kerbin anymore anyway. I only need to ferry a few kerbonauts up and down from orbit on rare occasions.

I'll take choice #2 -- you're kinda nuts. A rocket that flips on ascent needs more control to stay balanced. Either more reaction wheels (which usually doesn't work for me), or some aerodynamic control surfaces. I put tailfins (or some other kind of canards) at the top of my rockets, to act as positive control canards. Adding drag at the back end is just silly. Extra control surfaces on the upper stage/RV make life easy on descent/re-entry. Anything added to the bottom stage is just wasted during staging.

1. Manual Input for manned ships -- The kerbal in the command pod. With advice from Mission Control, because they have access to the orbital info from the Tracking Station. ("Mission Control to blobby1, burn prograde to make your Ap around 100.5km. Perfect. In 13 seconds, a smidge anti-radial. A tiny bit more than that. All right. Now you are set for a 4.1km close approach to the victim's craft in one orbit, to execute your docking maneuver. Mission Control out.") 2. SAS -- Whichever is more competent, a pilot in a command pod, or the onboard guidance computer. Yes, it's sad, but if Mission Control tells a pilot to control attitude, then they don't get to gawk at the scenery. The rocket's control surfaces themselves have internal feedback that causes the "speed wobble" effect -- that part doesn't come from the pilot or computer. 3. Probes -- "Me" in Mission Control. Oh, and negative gravioli particles travel at c squared (not merely c), so there is no discernable time lag even on very long range control transmissions.

Heh. OK, fine -- so where are the sleek fuselages for high-tech rockets, then? The game has both rockets and planes, but only planes get upgraded parts? And I want to add one more request to my original list. When you go from being orbital to sub-orbital, or vice versa, the game changes the orientation of your craft. If your craft is an EVA suit, this makes you tumble like crazy. But don't change my orientation while I'm thrusting, dammit!