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HalcyonSon

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Everything posted by HalcyonSon

  1. Well... that's certainly something I would never have thought to try. My small "deep-space" ion probes are loaded with eight 1x6 solar panels and about 1,000 EC. Those eight panels will run a single ion engine at full throttle indefinitely out to Duna, and that's enough EC to transmit the most demanding science results home or power a decent length burn in the dark. I currently have probes en-route to Duna, Eve, and one that will eventually reach Dres that was a test mission outside of any transfer window.
  2. Those missions aren't that difficult... depending on the orbit. I have a contract right now to rescue Joremone Kerman and his craft from a Kerbol (sun) orbit. Not terribly difficult... just very, very dull. Mostly though, they're Low Kerbin Orbit or stable Mun/Minmus orbits. The occasional Mun surface rescue takes a bit more trial and error.
  3. My latest Mun Mining mission returned a Twin Boar and four Mainsails back to the water 50 km east of KSC. The mining station is landed on Mun and halfway unstacked, waiting for more fuel to be mined to complete assembly. Yet another close landing. This Klaw retrieved a stranded Kerbal from orbit and landed within 2 km of KSC. Returned value? 17,000 for the Cupola and Klaw, 14,000 for the booster.
  4. I'll have to post a picture when I get home of my latest Mun Base launcher. A Twin Boar with a couple 3.75m tanks and four Mainsails with accompanying 2.5m tanks. I simply pile parachutes into a 2.5m fairing on top of each stack. The payload is in a 3.75m monster fairing with no adapters, and docking ports instead of disconnects because they were already part of the design for on-Mun connections. Saves on aero drag and on throw-away parts. I had roughly 150 m/s of dV in the tanks after letting go of the payload in orbit. I didn't even bother with landing legs or a powered landing because the whole booster landed about 50 km away from KSC in the ocean at about 4.5 m/s. Unfortunately, I don't think I grabbed a screenshot of the recovery value, but I can reverse engineer that. I've found that it's often easier to place booster stacks radially to large/heavy payloads in fairings, rather than below the payload. Each stack can then land separately. If I have something that big (several hundred ton payload) to put in orbit, the additional cost and weight of a few parachutes and probe cores is minuscule compared to the benefit of returning three or four Twin Boar stacks. The gravity turn remains the same as a start-of-game probe as long as the TWR is in the usual range (1.25 - 1.5 on the pad) because all of the large engines have gimbal.
  5. I think this is the answer. I had duplicated a MUCH larger Mun Base that included this particular probe, then deleted everything but the probe and built a new booster under it. I went back to the Mun Base file and deleted the Probe so that the Probe could go ahead of the Base and scope out a landing site. Oddly enough though, the Mun Base launched just fine. I am currently trying to land this large unwieldy thing without vectoring engines and it SUCKS! I'm only running KER, Bon Voyage, Kerbal Alarm Clock, and the Navball Docking Point Alignment Indicator. Nothing major. I don't have the original craft file anymore - I deleted it as soon as I was done rebuilding. The probe wasn't all that complex really - just a couple science experiments, scanners, solar panels, fuel tanks, antenna and motor. Basic stock components with some VAB tool shuffling to make them look pretty.
  6. Agreed. I land 90% of my vertical launch single-stage-to-orbit rockets within 90 km of KSC for a 90% return. That makes it well worth burning slightly more fuel to carry the probe core and parachutes. The reentry procedure is identical to any manned pod - place the end of the projected orbit (blue line) in the water east of KSC and reenter engine-first.
  7. "The satellite successfully reached orbit, however, on deploying the solar array, pieces of the satellite suddenly and without warning exited the star system above the speed of light."
  8. I'm curious if anyone has seen a rocket repeatedly explode at 2,500 m as if it had hit a brick wall. The camera kept tracking as if the rocket were flying properly, but I ccould switch between a hundred different parts moving a hundred different directions. I tried adjusting the usual trouble spots: throttle position, angle of attack, control placement, fairings, overlapping parts, staging, and engine exhaust path. Tried advancing time and launching other rockets. Other rockets had zero problems, but this one specific probe was destroyed at roughly 2,500 m every time I launched it, regardless of the specific flight path and speed. I rebuilt the thing using the exact same parts and techniques but a different name, and had no issues with the launch.
  9. Saw that, got confused by patch notes on GitHub. Don't feel like reading 21 pages. Figured it out anyway. Found what might be an issue: during testing around KSC, even a 0.1 m/s drift when activating BV is enough to prevent leaving the current rover. Haven't found a way to cancel BV after activating it.
  10. For those of us still stuck in 1.2.2: How does this work?? I dropped everything for 0.12 into the GameData folder. The toolbar icon works, and clicking it displays a list of exactly zero capable rovers. I don't see a control module in the SPH or VAB. Found the part in R&D and unlocked it. Got the part in VAB, and a rover with the part has access, but I thought 0.12 notes on GitHub said it was partless. Still trying to figure out exactly how it works on the rover.
  11. Will have to check if I got a shot of it, but I had a great moment this morning. Jeb is flying a giant rover/base from the Cupola during liftoff, Val and Bill in the HitchHiker below him. Jeb is doing his thing, showing a bit of strain from being in command of this 300+ part slideshow behemoth that's riding atop two Mammoth stacks and four Kickbacks. Bill is grinning like an idiot, singing, and doing a little dance in pure Enginerd glee. Val... well, Val is glaring at Bill and wishing a hole would open in their module and suck him out around 40 km up without a helmet. I can only imagine what all the newbies in the backseats were doing... probably praying to the Kraken and wondering how big a splat they would be if they tried to get up and grab some snacks at that moment. I have a feeling Bob was scooting just a little further away in his seat from the new girl scientist and mumbling death threats at Jeb.
  12. Found that the difference between a massive pancake and a massive soda can on top of a rocket is about 600 m/s of dV on reaching orbit. This from flying the same rocket on the same ascent profile, with no other changes than flipping the payload on end to allow a narrower fairing. Not sure if this is primarily due to the steeper ends of the fairing or the smaller width. The visual difference in width is small, but the difference in drag is enormous.
  13. Got up early to play KSP before worked. Added boosters and struts to my largest single launch yet. Finally got over a major case of the wiggles and put the thing in orbit with 115 m/s left in the tank. Next up is orbital assembly. Pics to come tonight.
  14. That seriously limits the usefulness of this mod. My ships tend to be bare-bones, with a minimum of structural parts. Reducing 8 tanks to 1 isn't nearly as helpful as reducing 28 engines to 4. Would it work for a science drop probe? Even if you're limited to one engine, one thermometer, one solar panel, etc. that could still help,
  15. Can someone save me reading through 42 pages, and tell me if this mod allows engines, parachutes, and decouplers to work correctly? My larger rockets use large numbers of parachutes, a probe core, antenna, and a battery attached to a decoupler. Dropping that sub-assembly from 20 parts to 1 would be a huge help. Same for ion engines - I'll place 7 engines on a large xenon tank using a structural element. It would be very helpful to drop that part count, especially when even a mid-size ship uses 28+ ion engines.
  16. Ugh... the forum software is real flakey with quotes, isn't it? Anyway, I do have pics of MIRV, but I didn't have time to throw them up on Photobucket yet. It's not that impressive compared to a lot of stuff I've seen, but it's the biggest I've managed yet. I'll try to get them up tonight. In the meantime, I'm debating how best to deliver more Xenon to MIRV. Use chemical rockets because the payload will be smaller, and the required dV less? Or Nukes for novelty? Or maybe build a monster ion powered tug with a huge number of batteries for one big pulse?
  17. di di di dddii ticka ticka ticka.... !!NEWS FLASH!! This just in! Days of simulation and weeks of tweaks have culminated in the successful launch of Kerbal-kind's greatest achievement. The Moho Inspection Research Vessel not only made orbit last night, but has completed its burn to leave our little gravity well forever. Wish it well folks, for better or worse, MIRV won't be coming back. Our boys in labcoats are looking far into the future with this mother... ship. They've loaded her out with twelve research drop pods to collect all the science known to Kerb. She's also got three relay satellites to ensure that sweet science makes it home. And in the case of an eventual Kerbed landing, she's also going to measure ore concentrations to make sure our brave explorers can make it home. It's been a sleepless night for the fellas in Mission Control too, as the ion engines on this mother require extremely long burns. Burns so long that Gene himself may have slipped a bit on his slide-rule. The 28 Dawn ion engines provide over 10,000 m/s of delta V, but at only 0.38 TWR in Kerbin's SOI. The 2,000 m/s ejection burn took 28 minutes, and couldn't be completed from a standard parking orbit at 70 km, or even 75 km. No! Kerbs and girls, this mother had to be boosted out to 610 x 350 km orbit (Oh Gene, what have you done! Any junior Kerb-cadet could tell you that you didn't need to boost that high opposite the ejection point!) Well at any rate, that same cadet would have had quite the show, with MIRV burning straight down the barrel of his telescope. That loooong burn meant MIRV nearly scraped Kerbin's atmosphere again on the way out. Next up is a plane change burn in about 50 days, with an eventual Moho meetup in about 115 days. Let me tell you folks, that capture burn is going to be a doozy. Your faithful reporter is told that MIRV may not have enough juice in the tanks for the roughly 7,000 m/s to hit a 1,000 km orbit. Deliberations continue on whether refueling is necessary, and the best way to get more go-juice out to MIRV. No one wants to think of how long that capture burn will take... Good thing Jeb was already on his way out to capture (and land!) an asteroid. This was your Kerbal Network News !!NEWS FLASH!! di di di dddii ticka ticka ticka....
  18. Seems to me I could easily get several hundred stock pico-sats to orbit in one launch... if my computer could handle multi-thousand part ships. Waiting patiently to see someone launch and pop a giant ear of corn... That's how I picture mine working anyway, just a fairing with tiers on tiers of a probe core with one solar panel and a separator. The built-in antenna is probably enough to maintain control with upgraded buildings.
  19. I'm working on an ion powered unmanned Moho Mothership now. The working name is "MIRV" for Moho Inspection Research Vessel. A preliminary version is in mission simulations and has reached orbit with approximately 13 km/s dV. It has 28 Dawn ion thrusters and 8 Gigantor solar panels and roughly 14,000 EC (shared between the Mothership and her payload of Micro Science Probes and Relay Commsats). The first stage Booster carries the mothership all the way to orbit, is 100 % recoverable, and consists of 1 Mainsail and 4 Skippers, plus 5 Orange Tanks. I still have some fine tuning to do, because my solar panel placement renders about a quarter of them useless at some angles to the sun. 28 Dawns burn through 14,000 EC MUCH faster than they can complete a 15 minute burn. I'm trying to determine what effect removing around 6 of the Dawns will have, as it looks like proper placement of the 8 Gigantors will run 22 Dawns non-stop. I think I'll come out ahead removing the thrusters because I'll be pushing less dead weight at steady state, even if my peak thrust drops somewhat. Dropping a few thrusters and their Cubic Struts will also help part count. The beast is around 430 at launch.
  20. Are those control surfaces or mods behind the Dawns?
  21. I'm working on an ion powered unmanned Moho Mothership now. The working name is "MIRV" for Moho Inspection Research Vessel. A preliminary version is in mission simulations and has reached orbit with approximately 13 km/s dV. It has 28 Dawn ion thrusters and 8 Gigantor solar panels and roughly 14,000 EC (shared between the Mothership and her payload of Micro Science Probes and Relay Commsats). The first stage Booster carries the mothership all the way to orbit, is 100 % recoverable, and consists of 1 Mainsail and 4 Skippers, plus 5 Orange Tanks. I still have some fine tuning to do, because my solar panel placement renders about a quarter of them useless at some angles to the sun. 28 Dawns burn through 14,000 EC MUCH faster than they can complete a 15 minute burn. I'm trying to determine what effect removing around 6 of the Dawns will have, as it looks like proper placement of the 8 Gigantors will run 22 Dawns non-stop. I think I'll come out ahead removing the thrusters because I'll be pushing less dead weight at steady state, even if my peak thrust drops somewhat. Dropping a few thrusters and their Cubic Struts will also help part count. The beast is around 430 at launch.
  22. The Speeder looks great all the same. I may try to recreate that for fun around the KSC and for my Minmus tourists to have something to do up there. I was going to comment on your "minimized" science drone... until I realized there's a command chair in each of the side pods. That is very minimal for an atmosphere world.
  23. What feature? Is that Kerbal... tilted? Is that a Kerbal Speeder Bike?! Right-click to undock one, and it undocks all of the ports between two ships. No action group necessary.
  24. Very cool looking ship and launcher. Is it a Skipper or Mainsail under the center stack? Have you thought about replacing all those Kickbacks with two more of the center stack? I've found it's far more economical to go SSTO and recover Skippers and Orange Tanks than it is to throw away Kickbacks. That goes double for Mainsails. I just launched a 69,000 fund Mun rescue, and recovered the first stage (three Skippers and three Orange Tanks) for 33,000 funds.
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