Atkara
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Posts posted by Atkara
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I have ejected asteroids out of the solar system for money. Kerbals however? That would've been... counter-productive
By the looks of it, your pilot is going where no Kerbal has gone before -for Science
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Can't recommend it enough.
Even on the backup machine I have to use for the time being (Core2Duo [email protected], 4GB RAM, GeForce 8800GTX), it's the x64 executable what keeps KSP from crashing on me, with all the activity going on in my save, which has me bouncing back and forth between planets & vessels, every 5-10 minutes.
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12 minutes ago, McFarnsworth said:
Should work, right?
I take it you plan to use the heat shield as an umbrella and the parachutes are there for decor
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53 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:
So plan B it is: going by Duna. That at least ought to be doable.
Wise decision. I would've considered Plan A only as an exercise. In practice, even if Tylo ejected you the way you wanted, too many things could've gone wrong.
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My best guess is an ISRU left active and eating the ore up. Otherwise no, I don't remember ever seeing this in the mining contracts I've done.
Unless... you didn't transfer the ore to another vessel, did you? If so, it's possible the ore didn't count as "fresh", which is a key requirement for mining contracts.
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Two landers circularized around Eve, with Gilly being their final destination: One is for commercial use and the other comes with a full science pack -which seemed kind of odd at first, because I already had a lander, docked at Gilly's orbital lab. And then I remembered: it's meant to replace the on-site science lander. The old one, will be fueled up and sent back to Kerbin.
Turns out that the monster I was working on this last week, can get 4 x large fuel tanks to orbit. That's 230 tons -IF I follow an ascent profile that doesn't involve overheating these two aircraft wings (around which the entire lift assembly is built) to the point of exploding. Easier said than done, with the framerates I'm getting, whenever this thing is airborne.
Val and her team are fueled up and ready for their return from Dres, recovery vessels are inbound from Eve & Moho and a favorable Eeloo transfer is nearing. With relays already orbiting the planet, it's time for a KSA-style expedition (KSA standing for Kerbal Space Agency). This means a main exploration vessel, accompanied by a miner, surface outpost and a car: launched, fueled up in orbit and sent on their way.
With the Mk2 line of SSTOs fueling up this lot, it will require 5 flights. With the recently acquired experience at hand, this got me thinking and... yeah, back to the drawing board
I'm a traditionalist (mostly) so, nothing really spectacular here. Gets two large Mk3 Lf/LOx tanks in LKO. Yep, now I can cut down the flights in half. If there's any spare fuel remaining, I can send it over to the station, my fuel drones use as parking lot.
A somewhat more interesting configuration, with 12k units of ore as payload. The refinery I have in LKO will appreciate it.
Now, my existing fuel drones can carry a single Mk3 large tank worth of fuel. I have considered launching new ones,
along the lines of this early conceptscratch that -drone design has been finalized:
Haven't decided yet.
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Finalized optimizations on that... thing.
Pitch authority has improved a lot, which allowed me to assign a 2nd set of large ailerons to roll. Wing area & tail section were also improved and extra Verniers were added in the pitch/roll set.
Fuel tank priorities were also set, to make sure it behaves orderly (due to it being tail-heavy, when unladen) and has a predictable re-entry. That's not to say you can't touch the throttle when landing. But don't expect to undershoot at let's say, the mountain range before KSC, use up the reserved fuel to reach the runway on powered flight and land in one piece, with Jeb's piloting skills. It just won't happen.
The irony is that up to this point, I don't have a real use for the capabilities of this thing. But it was a learning experience, which counts anyway
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Do you remember the reaction of Kerbal Motion's chairman, when his R&D team showed him the RoveMax XL3?
Why... seriously, WHY?
40 Rapiers, 170+ tons of payload to LKO, handles like a pig... There must be an easier way to get things up there -oh wait, I know! Rockets!
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53 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:
There's a common misconception going around here that spaceplanes don't scale to wide cargo volumes. I believe a source of that misconception is (1) never even thinking outside the box (i.e., cargo bay), and (2) overengineering for aerodynamic efficiency. This pushes you into narrow, streamlined payloads even if you are outside the cargo bay, and significantly limits the usefulness of planes as lifters.
I wouldn't call it a misconception but a preconception instead. And while it has to do with the cargo bay, and people's tendency to hear about SSTO and immediately think STS/Buran, there's a very practical IRL reason behind it: the necessity of a support structure around the payload. Without it, it most likely fall on the tarmac, before the plane even has a chance to takeoff -or even worse, the risk of breaking the plane in half, if the payload is too heavy.
Now, as far as KSP goes, you can simply autostrut and get this over with. And don't get me wrong, I'm not against it at all. But I would be a lot happier, if (besides building the plane around the payload, which can be done anyway) I had a way of cutting the fairing where it touches the parts of the plane I plan to use as support structure and from there, drag struts to the payload.
The alternative, would be to pretend I just did that and live a happy Kerbaleer ever after -which I may do eventually.
As for aerodynamic efficiency (and if I have understood what you mean by that), what I've seen so far has shown me that SSTO doesn't always mean climbing like a bat right out of hell, from the moment you leave the runway. Under-using Whiplashes or Rapiers, in exchange for a high climb rate won't give you what it otherwise could. Let them breathe, let them reach their peak thrust, before it starts falling off. As far as Rapiers go, unless I see a peak thrust of >340kN, I'm not happy.
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Not much so far today, except from a minor rework on the wings of my Mk2 line of SSTOs. There were changes in their flight characteristics, so I had to iron things out and do a re-entry test for the heaviest use of this airframe: carrying fuel into orbit.
Passed with flying colors -heck, it even handles better than before.
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19 hours ago, Brikoleur said:
...on a test flight, I actually forgot to switch on Atmosphere Autopilot and didn't even notice
Didn't know such a thing exists out there. Cruise control... I could use that.
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I remember a friend mentioning it, knowing my background in flight/space sims, among others. It was back in 2014 IIRC and I initially dismissed it, after taking a brief look at it. Then I watched the 1.0 trailer, when the game was released and I was like "hmm...".
Dansgaming was streaming it these days. He was landing... something to the surface of the Mun and the backseater inside me was like "you've got to be kidding me... is this the best he could come up with? And who's this Scott Manley he's talking about?"
So I got the game and checked out sandbox at first. I got flooded with parts I didn't really know much (if anything) about. So I switched to Career, to give myself time to become familiar with which part does what, when and how. I could've picked Science mode, but launching something that comes with a pricetag, yet costs nothing, didn't feel right.
Anyway, once this was settled, I started playing. It must've taken a year for the effects of atmospheric drag to finally click in my head, along with a rudimentary understanding of gravity turns, navball usage and navigation.
I'm still learning.
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15 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:
The dv value I posted was for the main vessel after its Moho transfer burn. I managed to get it into orbit between the time of this post and my last one, but barely any fuel was left. I could only get Hermes II in a heavily eccentric, polar orbit.
Moho is so close to the sun, that a direct transfer from Kerbin is an expensive dv affair, as you know anyway. And due to it's proximity, it's orbital velocity is so high, that any deviation, any deviation from the optimal transfer window will either have you chase the encounter with radial in/out (which throws any pre-calculated capture burn, straight to the trash bin) or wait for the next window.
I sent 3 vessels to Moho: A miner, a surface outpost and a car. Because of the above-mentioned deviation, the outpost's transfer vehicle barely got a capture and the miner had to use the fuel of the other one, carrying the car. And to think that they didn't come straight from Kerbin -they got refueled around Eve and transferred from there instead. If it wasn't for that miner, I would have equipment and Kerbals orbiting Moho, with no way to land...
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4 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:
My giant Hermes II craft has 3,634 m/s of Delta-v in the main to-and-from Moho stage. Is that enough for a Moho orbital insertion and a return to Kerbin?
Your orbital insertion dv requirement, depends on the parameters of your transfer burn -specifically, how much radial in/out did you have to add, in order to get the intercept. It should be enough -I hope...
But a Kerbin return on top? My not-so-professional opinion, is no. Do you remember how much dv did your transfer burn cost in total?
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Well, the day started with installing Precise Maneuver (for the gizmo mostly) and TextureReplacer, with SpaceKraken's Skybox in it. Then, I loaded up the sandbox save I use for running simulations, to see how can Kerbals find themselves stranded in retrograde solar orbits.
~1950dv to get me a Jool encounter, then a ~10dv correction burn at the right point, in order to get a Laythe flyby in such a way, that exiting Jool's SOI, would get me a solar Pe, as close to the sun as possible. The maneuver in the picture is set to be executed from Laythe's Pe, and it includes orbit reversal, with the target solar Pe, being Kerbin's orbital alt. That's ~4000dv so far.
I still have much to learn.
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Drogue chutes didn't have any effect on the wing/side-boosters separation of my spaceplane for Eve. I guess I'll have to live with it. While at it, I did some further tweaking on it's RCS ports arrangement. A major change on the upper stage got rid of the drag (and torque), caused by the passenger module.
Spoiler
If we happen to be carrying tourists, we'll pretend the fairing their lounge is in, comes with windows -or they take turns to admire the view from the cockpit
Speaking of that, I had the opportunity to monitor it's temps during atmospheric interface, in today's tests: 1925-1935K. This cockpit comes one step from blowing up, before things start to cool down. But it survives -every single time.
The last surface to orbit test began from Eve's Lowlands. It reached orbit with fuel to spare. I think I'm ready to put this craft into service.
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1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:
I've been going in slow and high, Pe set to around 70k and drifting down from there. When I hit the lower atmosphere it gets very rough even so.
Before the addition of the extra wing area, I tried a periapsis of 500m, 40km, 50km & 65km. At one point I just plunged it, to demonstrate the worst case scenario to myself. Anything below 65km, ranged from not pretty, to catastrophic, which may happen to your craft too.
My problem was how fast I could aerobrake in the upper atmosphere, in order to find myself in a controllable thermal situation, the lower I went. This is what I prioritized above all else.
I'm not sure I like the idea of detachable wings. They do separate nicely alright, but as you said, they can't take much... a pair of struts holding the wing, on the other end of where the decoupler grabs it, might have helped, besides autostrutting... I don't know.
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4 hours ago, Brikoleur said:
Interesting, the general layout is rather similar to mine. Looks like Eve has a way of forcing certain solutions... What kind of re-entry profile do you use? That Mk1 cockpit looks really vulnerable to thermal load despite the shielded docking port in front of it. Or does the shielded docking port create a shockwave that's sufficient to shield it?
Well, you want to keep the center of mass as close to the landing gear as possible -so, you expand to the sides. And you don't want something that's too long, or you're risking having parts of it, breaking off at any point between atmospheric entry and touchdown. While these are general guidelines, on Eve they can quickly become a "do it this way, or lose the craft" situation -at least for me. Also because you're separating parts of it, while still in thick atmosphere, you'd better keep things simple.
During the early tests, I was using just the Big-S Deltas, to save on DV. This proved catastrophic, as the craft couldn't aerobrake fast enough, resulting in obviously unacceptable heat buildup almost everywhere and for, pretty much every atmospheric entry profile I could think of. Oddly,
the Mk1 Cockpit overheated to the point of exploding in only one test.let me rephrase here: the Mk1 Cockpit was the first thing to overheat to the point of exploding in only one test.The addition of extra wing area fixed this, even for an entry profile of 110km Ap/500m Pe, similar to what I use for my SSTOs, operating on Kerbin. It still overheats here and there, don't get me wrong. Just not to the point of no return.
This additional aerobraking efficiency, comes with an extra benefit: the installed DTS-M1 can send and receive through the entirety of the plasma phase, while still retracted.
PS: There's still one thing that bugs me: The not-so-clean wing/side-booster separation. It doesn't damage the core of the craft, but I don't like it. I'm thinking of drogue chutes on the wing tips. We'll see how that goes.
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After completing simulations on atmospheric interface, glide and touchdown on Eve for this craft,
and accepting the fact that I'll never have a reusable Eve spaceplane, the way I want it to, I came up with this:
It's not pretty, but it gets the job done. It does heat up pretty good during atmospheric interface, but not to the point of losing parts -that is, not anymore. Once out of the plasma phase, it has to nose down to 10-15 degrees below the horizon, otherwise there's a high risk to enter a flat-spin. Below 10000m, it's almost textbook gliding.
Once on the ground, it doesn't carry any means to fuel itself up. This will be handled by a mobile miner I'll also send down there.
The first lucky souls to ride it, will be the 3 Kerbals currently on Eve's surface. They just finished getting as much science as they could, from the planet's biomes. Both them and the craft's final stage, will be picked up by a recovery vessel. Once in LKO, they'll be loaded up in a cargo SSTO and down they come.
Beyond that? There are those "Land on Eve" tourist contracts I used to laugh at. And I've seen mining contracts popping up in older careers so, it's not that the mobile miner will be an one-use piece of hardware either way.
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1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:
I will say this: an Eve plane is a whole different ball game. You need ridiculous power, ridiculous thermal resistance, ridiculous aerodynamics, plus it has to come apart on command (but not without asking!) because most of it is staying behind. These designs are becoming less and less like the LKO toys I've been making; this is serious business.
Figured out as much, while testing an extraction vehicle for my on-site crew, back in 1.05. And I felt stupid, using a rocket to get to orbit, because everything, EVERYTHING points at wings. The way I look at it, even if you start with a surface TWR of 1.0, wings will not let you nose down.
But I also want it reusable, which I'll propably never have in the stock game. I've designed such hardware for anywhere and everywhere else, except this accursed planet -and it drives me crazy every time I think about it.
35 minutes ago, Geonovast said:Looks like I'm down to two shuttles for now.
Ouch...
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1 hour ago, Brikoleur said:
This time the problem was with aerodynamics. I'm not sure exactly what's the deal at the hypersonic speeds we're dealing with here -- centre of pressure probably? -- but it turns out the craft is aerodynamically unstable at the energies we're dealing with here. It wants to flip backwards.
Been fighting with this in my early spaceplane designs -but then again, who wasn't? Not so much nowadays.
I'm too thinking about an Eve spaceplane. Made something that looks good to me, but I doubt it will be enough. On the bright side, tests on Kerbin showed that the particular craft, has a surface to orbit DV requirement of ~3300ms, +/-50, propably the lowest I've achieved so far. If only I could manage the shock heating of Eve's atmosphere and repeat a similar feat there...
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I've seen this happening and the only explanation I could come up with, is that when you start the burn, you're burning between prograde and radial in. This means you're lowering and moving your periapsis as you go, effectively throwing off any previous calculation.
This also happens to relatively fast burns, but the effect becomes much more 'dramatic' during long ones.
Or I could just be wrong.
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9 minutes ago, Leafbaron said:
You are absolutely right, but when i'm playing KSP it feels sometimes like I'm watching through a camera especially looking at screenshots like above. To me even though the naked eye can see stars in space, more realistic not to see them.
Because it looks closer to what we're used to see. Wouldn't even think to "argue" with that
7 minutes ago, drhay53 said:ah, my bad, I misunderstood what you were saying entirely.
No worries, has happened to me, more often than I will admit
7 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:Not quite, you can’t see the stars in space for the same reason on Earth: because the sun is really, really, really bright.
But you can see them if you’re in orbit on the night side, or a really deep shadow like on the moon (But sunlight reflected off the surface still tends to wash them out).
Thanks for clarifying
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1 minute ago, drhay53 said:
I'm pretty sure DoE dims that skybox when you're close to anything really bright (i.e. a planet)
I know, I use it myself -occasionally I turn the skybox entirely off, if I get tired of it. My comment was about the realism part.
What did you do in KSP1 today?
in KSP1 Discussion
Posted · Edited by Atkara
Had my fun with 2 small sstos, aptly named "Fun for two" & "Fun for Jeb", respectively. When the latter re-entered with -obviously- Jeb onboard, I was like "If he manages to land it, I'll let him keep it". He did. Well, let him have his fun -after all, it's going to be quite boring where he's going in a year or so: Eeloo. On the other hand, we'll get to see how small the sun looks from all the way out there.
Two landers circularized around Gilly. I was still in the map screen, when I pressed "warp to next maneuver". After switching back to normal view, it didn't take long for that rock to fill the screen so fast, that got me genuinely scared for a moment.
One of the two inbound recovery vessels, got into stable orbit around Kerbin, after it's transfer from Eve. Fixed it's inclination, and launched a cargo SSTO to meet up with it. Had forgotten how fast they can go, relative to the product of my recent "designing adventure". Still thinking in 730tons, I got the thing pretty heated up, accelerating in the middle atmosphere. Still, they got into orbit alright -no damage to the plane.
I'll complete the op tomorrow, along with that of the other recovery vessel, inbound from Moho in 30days. And there's a load of other tasks in queue. Kerbal Space Traffic Control, anyone?