Crown

Hi, as far as my knowledge goes, delta-v is not calculated with drag. Only without drag. The reason for this might because drag is highly depended on the flight profile (pressure, speed, rocket shape, ...). For Kerbin, there is a delta-v map (search for "Kerbin delta-v map" if you want it) which shows the delta-v needed for inter-planetary travel, incl. landing and ascent. The delta-v needed for LKO, for example, includes drag. For my rockets, I take a few hundred more because I know that my ascent path is far from ideal. If you want to know what your rocket's delta-v is, there are several ways. One would be to download a plug-in for KSP to just display it. Kerbal Engineer Redux, as mentioned above, is one option. I use VOID ("Vessel Orbital Information Display") which uses KER as well but also shows several other information about the rocket. ou can calculate the rocket's delta-v by hand, too, if you want. The which is the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation is all you need. Everything needed is written in the article, so I want to redirect you there. If your question isn't answered yet, don't hesitate to write some more lines to clarify ;-)

Hello, is there a simulation environment for Scilab / CelestLab that can simulate rockets? My goal is to simulate a rocket’s ascent path and then execute the ascent path in-game with kOS. Same with a descent path – but first I have to get the rocket into Kerbin’s orbit. I have CelestLab installed with CelestLab on top but I can’t quite figure out how I can simulate a delta-v change. I haven’t found a function that gives me the orbital parameters after a delta-v change at any point on orbit. If I can't find a way, I will try to assemble my own simulation environment. Thanks Greetings

Yes, I have one station currently orbiting the sun. In a few years, a maneuver node has to be executed to bring the station back into Kerbin SOI. Because I kinda forgot that there is some personnel on it. I still don't know how to brake the station but this is a problem for the future. The station's design is way outdated and is way to clumsy for operational use. Another two stations are orbiting Kerbin but without any Kerbals on them. I don't know what to do with them but I don't want to de-orbit them. The only useful station I have is a equatorial station that serves as a hub for travel to Minmus or the Mun.

It is possible to switch to any object that is in range, regardless of what type it is. I am not sure if it is possible to set the maximum debris count to 0. When you describe us what you are trying to do (e.g. the situation), maybe we can help.

I think, on a space station around Mun or Kerbin. Not sure. Maybe on the ground, drinking rocket fuel. It's hard to keep track of all of them

Hello. Can someone direct me to older versions? I need it to work with KSP 1.0.4. Neither TextureReplacer 2.4.13 nor v2.4.14 seem to work. I have placed new textures in the folder \GameData\TextureReplacer\Default\ and named them GalaxyTex_PositiveX, GalaxyTex_PositiveY, etc. Didn't work. Then I downloaded textures from someone else to test it and even placed just half of them. I took a few files and made them completely black but after the game load, there are no 'holes' in the sky. No changes were made to the .cfg files. I restarted the game every time I changed the files in the folder. I use Windows and no other texture mods.

I tried to rebuild a Vega rocket and used this concept in career once. But it never had too much relevance to be used on a regular basis. Maybe when the satellite contracts come up more frequently but up until now it's mostly a little toys. And now, costs are not so much a factor now.

I have two space stations orbiting Kerbin at an inclination of about 51° that are unmanned. Mostly because there's no science to be gained when at this inclination but it's harder to reach them. But it was fun to try to put them up there. I am still unsure whether I should de-orbit them or leave them for future use. A third space station with 0° inclination serves a real purpose as a pit stop between the surface and Mun. Several satellites are orbiting Kerbin, unsused. I once set up a GPS constellation of satellites, a space telescope, and some pseudo-communication satellites. I don't use any mods that involve telecommunication, so they are useless junk. At one point I classified them all as "debris" so they might be still out there or been deleted by the game. Apart from parts scattered around on moons and planets, I mostly now try to avoid space debris or at least put them in an orbit that reaches into the atmosphere. I once landed on Minmus and detached a stage during final descent. No all of it exploded on impact and decoupler fulfilled the contract "Land on Minmus" while I was still 900m above the surface. High in Mun orbit there are some ships that have no use any more - but could still be used if needed somewhere (that's why they are not "debris"). A graveyard orbit if you will. Most of them are landers for Mun that were replaced by a better version and some buses that are too large now because I don't need to send a huge number of personnel. A bit lower there are some refuelling ships waiting to be send down to the Mun station but in the process of setting up mining for contracts I probably don't need this anymore. On the way to an eternal waiting orbit are right now two ships that can take one Kerbal and land him back on Kerbin. These are leftovers from test for a ship needed to bring the engineer on a Minmus mining outpost back home. Thinking about it, I could have changed the inclination of these and sent them to Minmus. Oh,well Some contracts involved putting something into Sun orbit. So I have put them into Sun orbit and their apoapsis high enough that they will return in about 5 Kerbin years and at least burn up in to atmosphere. A test ship, containing some Kerbals, that as originally as mission for Duna, bringing a HUGE space station there, is also on such a trajectory. I still need a way to get these guy out of the ship but I don't know if it has enough dv for an orbit insertion. With the changes to the physics, I fear a little to get control of this ship. I had some explosions on pre-0.90 when I switched to them in v1.1.2. There's one ship that will never come back. It was several versions ago, a rocket ready to go to LKO was standing on the launch pad. After a glitch it was on its way out of Kerbin orbit at 8'000m/s, together with seven proud Kerbals. I wonder if the ship someday will touch a solar system border. And of course there are a tons of flags, rovers, and parts on Mun from a bunch of missions to the poles, archs, Apollo recreations. Maybe I will put them all in the "debris" folder once, but for now they are just sitting there in the dark and cold.

Maybe. As an option to be selected in the difficulty menu.

A similar observation involves not RCS but electricity. When I tell the craft to orient to prograde it will use more power to stay at prograde than telling it to go to prograde and then enabling attitude control (tapping "F" once). I think in the same way it uses RCS. This might be due to the inaccuracies of the simulation. If I need to look at power I usually switch to "attitude control" after orientation is done. With some minor corrections just before the main event.

As far as I know, neither the direction nor the length of a strut influences the aerodynamic drag of a rocket or the force it can hold. This mean you could use only one single strut in a any way possible without making influence on aerodynamics.

I like the stock fairings

De-activating batteries and activating them again when the spacecraft is dead no longer works in 1.1.2. It was my preferred method to have a backup in case of electric starvation. Orientating the craft Normal or Anti-Normal (point the nose north or south) and putting 3 solar panels in radial symmetry on the craft makes sure that a little bit of solar panel is always pointing to the sun. That's what I always use. I haven't tested is entirely but I think that spacecrafts that are on rails don't use any electric energy in 1.1.2. If not, most of my probes are dead by now because they don't have enough battery to stay alive while they are in their parent body's shadow.

That's what I mostly do. When I know that I have enough TWR I exceed this rule and come in hotter than usual. In addition to overlapping the speed marker and the target marker. So it's overlapping the speed marker and the target marker, and having 10% of the distance as speed (at 3'000m with 300m/s, adjusted for the situation accordingly).

Up until now I never used the Thud engine, any radial engines, actually. The cases where I needed some kinda of radial engine, I used the LV45 Swivel and some structure parts. The Flea I only used during the first stages of the career. But since the Ant is little bit better (in 0.24 was it, I think) it sometimes ends up on satellites.

Yes, that's what I did. This makes it easy to save and transfer the custom stuff. I have a separate folder in GameData for my flags, GameData\Crown\Flags. Some of the subfolders aren't recognised, though. I think, I will test it with another subfolder Flags. Some of my flags have 256x160, others have 768x513, and even weirder sizes. Some are in PNG format, others in JPG format. And even some in BMP. I think, the most common picture formats work and as long as the side ratio is 1.6 it will appear in-game as a flag.

Yes . I didn't need any in a very long time so I kinda forgot that website existed. And then I wondered why the site takes so long to load

I just discovered that KerbalStuff is closed. Thanks for continuing their work.

Please enlight us with your knowledge

Thank you much. I'm happy this helped. Maths is very fun and useful when one knows how. Too sad it's spoiled by maths in school. That stuff is boring and has no connection to real life. Since KSP I love maths. And I am happy I was able to help you.

Yes, still using 1.0.5. Didn't notice that 1.1.x came out. Haven't played for months, I think I'm gonna update some time soon.

Answer 1 (Logarithms): I would describe the logarithm as the inverse operation of the power. Like subtracting is the inverse operation of adding, and dividing is the inverse operation of multiplying. I will start at the very low so it's hopefully a good guide to any level The power (mathematically) is a short way of writing how many times one wants to multiply a number with itself. So if we have 2 * 2 * 2 we can also write it as 23 This saves time and paper (because maths people are lazy too ). When the line would go even longer, we save even more time. No-one wants to write or read or count a very long formula like below 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 * 3 It's shorter, easier, and more pleasing to write and read 315 A shout-out to the copy&paste function here. Using powers is very useful in this case. The "3" is called the base, the "15" is called the power (please correct me if I'm wrong). Now let's to the reverse: We have 8 as the answer and want to know the power. What has to be the "high" number to get eight? 2x = 8 This is where the logarithm comes into play. Like inverting an addition my subtracting. The logarithm gives us the power (literally) and it's written like this: log2(8) = x So here we have the "logarithm to the base two of eight". I think that's how it's pronounced, I very rarely "speak" math . But the cool thing with this is that it can be done with any number. Almost. More below. Most of the time when we talk about logarithms, it's the logarithm to the base of 10. I don't know why but that's what we do. Most calculators don't even give the option to enter a base for the logarithm. So the log button on the calculator is a log10 but with some maths magic it's possible to use a log10 to calculate the log for any base. Onwards to the natural logarithm. Or in short ln. Minor L, minor N. This one's is very special in many ways. It's the inverse operation to ex. That's the "natural" part in the "natural" logarithm. e is is about 2.72 and is used to describe - or more-so describes - e.g. the natural decay of something. I fell like that's one of the very few occasions where maths meets the real world, waving through a thick window. So the natural logarithm is just the inverse operation of ex And because we need it quite often, it has his own name. ln(16) = 2.773 The connection to KSP is almost anywhere where physics come in. In the rocket equation and in the atmosphere thickness. And even more but these are the ones I use quite often. Here are some of the definition / rules about powers and logarithms: n0 = 1 n1 = n logn(0) = undefined logn(b) is only defined for b greater 0. I'll come back after breakfast. Back from breakfast. Onwards to the Specific Impulse, Isp Like @OhioBob already said, Specific Impulse is the engine efficiency and the exhaust velocity. Both. Together. Kinda. By mathematical magic. I believe that the Isp is used in seconds because (besides of being shorter) it's unit - the second - is the only thing that American and German rocket engineers had in common. But I don't know if that's really true. But using seconds makes Russian and American rocket engines very easily comparable. For myself, it was quite a challenge to wrap my head around the Isp but once it's in the head, it won't get out anymore. On Wikipedia one can come across this neat (some would call it ugly) formula: with as the burn time, as the fuel mass, mean thrust, thrust the the time , as the standard earth gravity. You can ignore most of it. A specific impulse of 1'000 m/s = 1'000 Ns/kg ≙ 102 s means that 1 kg of fuel can change the impulse by 1'000 Ns. This means an engine that has a thrust of 1'000N and burns for 1 second uses 1 kg of fuel. Or a smaller engine with 10N of thrust that burns 10s and uses 0.1 kg of fuel. 1'000m/s is the change in speed the mass (1 kg) would experience if it would fall for 102s in nominal earth gravity. Maybe it's easier to demonstrate the formula on an example. Let's take the beloved LV-T45 "Swivel" liquid fuel engine: It has a vacuum thrust of 200kN of 200'000N and an vacuum Isp of 320 seconds. When we put this in our neat formula, we get With the units in bracket, it's not that confusing. But still, the newton is annoying, so ... because Now the bad memories from 8th grade come back. But be can now kill almost any unit. the two s2 are eliminated, the meter m and the kg from the the newton and the mass. All what is left is the lonely second. That's how we get the unit for the specific impulse. By killing units and leaving nothing more that the second alive. But wait, there's more: To get the exhaust velocity of the fuel multiply the Isp with the standard earth gravity. Use either Imperial or Metric: Sometimes I want to know if I have enough fuel to perform a maneuver node burn. That's why I want to know the fuel consumption of the engine. Let's take the formula and change it to our needs like Play-Do. becomes with the units or With a burn time of 1 second, aka. fuel consumption per second gives us 63.71 kg fuel per second. Divided by 5kg/unit we have 12.74 units fuel per second. The fuel is mixed in a ratio (I hope it still is) of 11 Ox to 9 RP1, or 1.22. At this point I divide by 20 and multiply by 9 to get the RP1 consumption. That gives me 5.733 units RP1 per second. A FL-T400 with 180 units (liters?) of RP1 will last 31.39 seconds in vacuum with a LV45. I use RP1 and Ox to have a linguistic difference between a tank's content ("fuel") and the resource ("fuel"). We could test our calculation by inserting the mass of 2'000kg and burn time of 31.30 seconds into the equation above. If we get an Isp of 320s, we are correct. For my burn time calculations I usually ignore a few things. But I keep them in mind and in case something is odd I know where to look at. These things are the tb in the calculation above because it's 1 anyways. When it comes to the burn time for a delta-v, I ignore the whole basic rocket equation (e.g how long does it take to do a 850m/s burn and does my tank last this long?). This makes the burn a few seconds shorter and is good for my estimations. I hope that was helpful in both mathematical and engineering ways. In case you have more questions, just ask ;-) Lunch time!

1. Launch 2. Keep Rocket straight up 3. ??? 4. ??!?!?? 5. Orbit

I will try to attach wings to a fairing as soon as I get out of this building here. But is there rule of thumb one can go by like "The re-entry body including the payload has a COMreal.An equally shaped but uniformly dense re-entry body has a COMuniform. If COMreal is in front of COMuniform, then the re-entry body will stay stable "front first", otherwise it will want to turn around. Where in front of describes a displacement towards the heat shield."?

When I build re-entry vehicles that are supposed decelerate by air, I sometimes have problems keeping them with the heat shield towards the airflow. Is there a way - kinda basic building rules - to determine whether they are stable or not? I know that the Mk1 pod doesn't need input to stay retrograde to aerobrake. The try of making the shake look like a Mk1 pod or like the Curiosity EDL vehicle doesn't always work. Often, SAS helps me with pointing the retrograde but on some missions, battery life is tightly calculated. Disposable SAS modules are sometimes no option - geometrically and financially. I tried to find something via internet search but the material I've found doesn't too much into detail. Haven't had a chance to hit the university library with this topic yet.