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ZL647

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    Sat contracts and LAN of moons

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    14 minutes ago, Kevin Kyle said:

    Still, Im sure there is some formula for working this out. Much more reading required I think. Maybe someone here knows where that info is.

    It's a series of calculations. Maybe someone else knows a simplified way to calculate it, or you can derive a simpler way by working through the formulas and canceling as much as you can and setting some of its parts to be constant for just kerbin and the target body.

    Here's a good place to start though, hope it helps.

    http://www.braeunig.us/space/orbmech.htm

     

    Any Tips for Spaceplanes?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by ZL647

    To echo the common mantra, less is more. 

    I disagree with the mk2 hate since aesthetics are very very important to me and you can still get them to work fine. I've got a mk2 ssto that can take off to orbit, get to minmus, land, take back off back to kerbin, and land there. 

    Dont expect to do much with a spaceplane ssto though when it comes to cargo, or making it past Kerbins SOI. To do that you'll usually need to do some orbital refueling. 

    You can make one that can carry cargo, but it wont make it much beyond orbit. You can make one that goes farther, but you wont carry much useful cargo. Still fun though.

    I built a docking ring like the star wars jedi fighters for interplanetary travel.

    Main things to consider are drag, lift, and weight. The more lift you have, the weaker jet stage you can get away with. The lower your drag and weight, the weaker both stages can be and still push the craft to orbit.

    Also, you're likely to lose the first many planes you build. Aerodynamics in ksp are a bit wonky and if you though rocket wobble was a challenge, well plane flipping is even more common when you first start. Planes are also much more prone to reentry burn up or g-force rapid unplanned disassembly  if you dont follow a correct flight path. 

    Staging stack fuel level overlays cause slowdown

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ZL647

    @Phreakish

    Awesome. I'll look at it when I get home.

    I'm thinking it's some kind of CPU bottle neck. Would fit with your physics engine theory.

    When you lower graphics settings without enforcing a lower frame rate, your GPU will ask the CPU for more so it can crank out more frames since the GPU isn't working as hard. That would slow the CPU down even more if it's already bottlenecked by the physics calcs.

    Your part count is really shooting up when you use your cluster method vs the stock cluster method. Each part has it's own physics so that does quickly scale up calculation cost.

    Just out of curiosity try your clustering with engines that DONT have gimbal and see if that reduces the issue. 

    Staging stack fuel level overlays cause slowdown

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    21 minutes ago, Phreakish said:

    I should mention up-front: 1.5.1, no mods (none, zero, zilch, nada). Launching from steam, or killing steam and launching stand-alone makes no difference. 

    TL;DR: if multiple clusters of engines are attached using radially mounted tanks to create nodes to make my own clusters, my performance is a disaster. But if I use stock clustering options, performance does not take as big of a hit, but will still start to 'stutter'. It's not garbage collection, and it definitely has to do with engines being active (inactive, or unstaged engines do not have an effect).

    I did some more playing around and am even more confused now. 

    I installed memgraph last night too, and my 'stutters' don't line up with garbage collection. So it's not that. 

    I've played with every graphic setting, Nvidia setting, etc with little to no change (lowest graphics settings were actually the worst performance too). I've cold-booted, rebooted, applied updates and rebooted. I've also tried my desktop (i7-3770 3.4ghz, 16g ram, P4000 8gb video card on Win10) and my laptop (2.8ghz, 32g ram, M5000 video on Win7). Both exhibit the same behavior - my desktop seems to deal slightly better and will deal with ~24 engines before it acts up. 

    I've tried different engines (Vector, nukes, wolfhound, swivel) and that doesn't seem to matter either. Even if it's a combination. Any more than ~18 engines, and things begin to 'stutter'. I have noticed though that if I radially attach tanks to a parent tank (or engine plate) and then cluster engines on THAT - the performance hit is the worst. 

    An example is: if I use the kerbodyne engine cluster tank, I can put 5 wolfhounds on it. I then radially attached 4 jumbo-64 tanks and attached 4x cluster tanks to those. This gives me an engine cluster with 25 wolfhounds. I then alt-copied the root cluster tank and attached this same 25 engine cluster using symmetry to either side of my craft. This gives me 75 engines. This setup has moderate performance once in-orbit. It stutters slightly, but only just. It's playable though.

    I replicated the above example by radially attaching 4x FLT-TX220 tanks to an S4-64 tank. This also allows me 5x wolfhounds. I put them in the same array as the kerbodyne engine cluster tank yielding 75 engines on the craft. Same auto-strut arrangement. On-orbit, my FPS in the performance window is similar, but the screen updates every 3-5 seconds (Real time). The MET clock will show green, then flash yellow, then flash green again before the clock advances by 1 second. Totally unplayable. 

    Even if my FPS is higher (performance graph showing high of 40, low of 25-30) it will visibly 'stutter' along. I think what's happening is that active engines run through the physics differently from inactive ones. I reached this conclusion because if I use F2 and hide the interface, the stutter remains but if I bind engine activation to an action group, I can shutdown engines and the performance improves noticeably. When I reactivate, it slows back down. I think the engines within the physics calcs are causing me to tip into the physics time-delta and time is slowing down and then catching back up. The MET clock flashes yellow/green in cadence with the stutter. I've changed the max delta, and tried .03, .05, .10 and all have behaved roughly the same. Increasing it to .10 seemed to help 'smooth' things over, but didn't eliminate it enough to be considered playable. 

    I'm thinking there's got to be a bug somewhere causing a massive slowdown in the physics calcs when engines are attached to radially mounted tanks. The same # of engines on stock clustering attachments doesn't cause as big of a slowdown. I have to imagine that there's still something else going on with regard to engines as well, because I can't think of a reason a deactivated engine should behave differently with regard to physics vs one at 0% throttle.

    Attach a craft file? I'll see if the same happens on my machine. That would help at least rule out a few hardware related things.

    First Mun Landing:

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    On 10/28/2018 at 5:25 AM, Xemina said:

    It has to be a manned vessel

    That's discrimination. At this current point I don't have any live Kerbals to pilot vessels. They all died early in the program so that we might learn what not to do in later missions.

    Just went the fastest I've ever gone @ Sea Level

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    I built a plane in an attempt to get to orbit. Failed to make orbit but had fuel left after the attempt to decided to absolutely full throttle it back to KSC Runway. I hit just slightly over 1000 m/s at around 150 meters above sea level. The instant I tried to make a slight adjustment in flight path, the plane ripped itself apart and I laughed in delight at the nice fireworks.

    I'm sure others have gone faster that low, but hitting mach 3 at sea level for me is pretty serious. I laughed.

    Something that rhymes with Schmelta-V

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    58 minutes ago, Snark said:

    It is only by burning.

    I hate to nitpick, especially since you correctly address this later in your post, but your delta v can change any time your mass changes, not only when your mass changes by burning fuel. Things like ejecting a payload or fairing also alter the remaining dv of your craft. 

    What is the craziest mission you have EVER done?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ZL647

    My craziest mission all started quite mundane. A normal trip to Minmus was all it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, something happened along the way down. My descent staging wasn't done right, I had forgotten a decoupler, so the lander was unable to produce any thrust due the part below blocking it. I tried burning the part off but the small lander engine just couldn't generate enough heat. My choices were to crash, or abandon ship, so naturally I did both. Right as the lander was about to impact, I Eva'd. The resulting explosion tossed the Kerbal out away from Minmus  and with the eva propulsion I was able to get an escape from Minmus.

    Unfortunately, this was also a Kerbin Rendevouz trajectory. In order to save this poor Kerbal, KSC command only had one shot. So out rolled the only tested ship, with seating for multiple kerbals, in inventory, a spaceplane just capable of reaching orbit to deliver kerbals to a space station. With no time to waste it roared off the runway at full burn, climbing toward orbit with everything Valentina could get from the engines. Once in orbit she made rendevouz with one of orbiting fuel depots to fuel up, then off again she gunned it full throttle in a race against time to intercept the falling Kerbonaut before he intercepted Kerbin. 

    She caught up to our falling friend at a distance about half that from the Mun to Kerbin, and managed to stabilize a flight path to match him. Slowly she inched the craft toward him until he was able to grab hold and climb in the passenger bay. Then they simply rode the path back to Kerbin where they landed safe, and mostly sound of mind(spending so long floating in the void of space in just your space suit takes a toll afterall) on the KSC runway. 

    That rescue mission was really my first big test of getting a rendevouz on the first pass. Most of my rendevouz had been done in multiple pass getting closer each orbit but there simply wasn't time for it on this one. I was pumped that I managed to save the Kerbal.

     

    What did you do in KSP1 today?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by ZL647
    Typos

    This weekend I rebuilt a rocket multiple times without trying to use it because the node system told me I didnt have enough delta v to do my transfer. Finally I just went for the transfer anyway and it was fine. I had 15% fuel remaining after it even though the indicator said I didnt have enough. So, I wasted about 200k credits on a mission that only rewarded me 100k :(

    Also, Bob, Jeb and Valentina met their ends before ever getting to the Mun. Bob and Jeb died on the launch pad. Valentina died on reentry when the capsule flipped over and lawn darted into the ground before parachutes could deploy. I need to build a shrine to them.

     

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