king of nowhere
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Posts posted by king of nowhere
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16 hours ago, camacju said:
this already took nine months
that's why i see your new records only every once in a while.
it took me nine months for the rss/kerbalism grand tour, and it involved 360 years, with regular inspections of the nuclear reactors every three years, with a very laggy ship, with 47 recorded bugs getting in the way. nine months for a simple stock system grand tour is mind blowing.
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On 11/8/2023 at 3:03 AM, JacobJHC said:
Really good point regarding the vessel recovery science, although there is science for recovering vessels that have landed on planets or moons, which would be Jool related. Honestly I think that since it probably has been included in every mission previously that we just keep accepting it, although I do see you point. For deployed science the science counts but do keep track of how much is making its way back to Kerbin.
in my mission where i still hold the current record i didn't get that vessel recovery science. i sent the mothership back to kerbin orbit and sent up a shuttle to land the crew, specifically to avoid faking the result in this way.
no, just kidding. i sent the mothership back to kerbin orbit and sent up a shuttle because in all my planning I completely forgot to think on how the crew would land. still, the unintended result was there.
I think, anyway, removing that small science contribution should be trivial, if it was ever needed.
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after too many afternoons spent doing gravity assists to lower my orbit, I managed to reach the inner gememma system, in the whirligig world planetary pack. the sights were worth the wait.
First the planet gannovar. somewhat bigger than duna and with a dense atmosphere. I came in at 5 km/s of intercept speed, and I had to use repeated flybys to turn my trajectory around and convert those 5 km/s coming from outside the system to 5 km/s going inward. the planet is just big enough that I could eventually do it, but just small enough that it must have taken a couple dozen flybys.
But after a long time using gannovar, I finally lowered my trajectory enough to reach lowel. And wow, look at it! lowel is also slightly bigger than duna, with enough atmosphere to fly.
lowel has a moon called ollym, or maybe it would be better to call it a binary system. ollym is slightly smaller than duna, but still bigger than vall. it has a very thin atmosphere. it appears to be dominated by volcanoes. I was hoping to be able to aerobrake on ollym, but I had 3 km/s of intercept speed, which coupled with the 1.2 km/s of escape speed of ollym means I still come in way too fast. Boundless, my mothership, can at most take 3.5 km/s on an atmospheric pass. so, more gravity assists followed.
all those planets orbit the red dwarf star gememma, here seen up close through a cupola. The dot is the dwarf planet ammenon, which I will also have to reach eventually. As it takes 30 km/s for the two-way trip and I plan to do it without ions and without staging, I expect it will involve even more gravity assists than I just had. it will take me at least another couple of months to get there.
the red glow of gememma reflecting on the oceans of lowel during an ollymrise. it's transfixing.
more of the transfixing red glow over water. Ollym has those straight canals, I'm looking forward to land my spaceplane there and run some science.
and here we have a lowelrise while aerobraking on ollym. I finally lost enough speed that I was able to get captured.
now that I put the mothership in a stable orbit, I will start refueling, then send the landers around.
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On 9/5/2023 at 6:12 PM, MAFman said:
I've noticed that the "Kodiak" engines (the Soyuz lookalikes) are far too powerful to get a reasonable TWR when I make a kind-of-realistic-looking Sputnik, Molniya, or Soyuz vehicle. Is this intended?
if you try to make realistic looking stuff, everything in ksp is overpowered.
actually it's not that the parts are overpowered - they significantly underperform compared to their real life counterparts. but the reduced size means that to orbit earth you need 10 km/s, to orbit kerbin you need a third of that
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3 hours ago, Kerbal2023 said:
At sea level the game predicts 3200 Δv, but if I check the liquid stages in vacuum it's a lot more.
yes, of course it is. the terrier quadruple its deltaV in vacuum - though i don't understand how you can have 2 stages both based on terrier engines with similar twr there, unless it's some mod to rescale (i checked, only the terrier has that atmosphere Isp).
anyway, this leaves you with 2300 + 2300 + 1200 = 5800 m/s. you should actually go to orbit and have half fuel left in the second stage. if you don't, then there are two possibilities. maybe the rocket is a lot more draggy than you think - just because it looks aerodinamic, it doesn't mean it is. aerodinamic is glitchy. or maybe you are not doing your gravity turn correctly
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16 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:
Title says it all. I'm planning to send a spacecraft to a comet and take a sample for a contract, but when I was climbing up the tech tree towards the rtg... I felt regret inside of me. Researching spec. electrics was already quite expensive, but, spending double the science for a part as expensive as a mun rocket that I'll probably only use once... Felt like a crazy idea.
However, since I already had fuel cells, I thought, "well, those things also work in the dark, and are much cheaper" but before spending in a rocket and then regretting it, I wanted to reach out to you (who have more exp than me) and take your advice.
The plan is to have a scientist sitting on top of a tank (which tank is also up to you, as long as it's stock, low mass and has a decent amount of Lf/Ox) with a couple cells and batteries attached, powering a single ion engine.
yes, I read somewhere that the equivalent Isp is roughly 1300 s, so an ion probe with fuel cells and lf/ox tanks will still have more deltaV than a nuclear rocket, albeit at a lower thrust.
as for the right lf/xenon ratio, you will have to run some calculations yourself.
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I will add that going for immediate rendez-vous like that is cool, but actually more expensive unless you have computer assistance to time everything perfectly. as a human, your timing won't be perfect, you will have to make some correction, and it will cost a bit more. if you go into a lower orbit first, it will be cheaper somewhat.
also, the timing is different on different planets. on kerbin, you generally want to launch your rocket when the target is passing from the western desert to the ocean. on gilly, you just wait until your target is above you and go straight up
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On 11/24/2023 at 10:56 AM, Kerbal2023 said:
I noticed wild fluctuations in how much Δv i need to get to orbit. Sometimes 2900 will do it and sometimes 3800 won't. The rockets are all similarly aerodynamic and I fly pretty well now. The difference seems to be engine Isp at different heights. So I guess what I'm asking how to predict this. Should I take the atmospheic Δv summary from the base game. It seems to assume all engine work at sea lebel, and hence underpredict higher liquid fuel stages. So then should I sum up the values of lower stages at atmosphere and higher stages at vacuum to get an estimate? Tjese values are very high (4000+) and I still run out of fuel when circularizing.
atmospheric and vacuum deltaV can be very different. using a vacuum engine for the first stage, or an atmospheric engine for the second stage, can make a huge difference.
if you use a reasonably aerodinamic rocket with a good atmospheric engine for the first stage and a vacuum engine for the second stage, then 3400 m/s (vacuum) is a reasonable amount to orbit kerbin. if it takes 4000+ m/s, you are doing something very wrong.
if you want a more detailed answer, post some pictures of your rockets and your ascent profile.
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1 hour ago, MythicalHeFF said:
That is actually insane that Gregrox managed to modify the temperature of the Lava biome on Yalthe/Yokane to melt your rovers, I had no idea that this was even a thing when I was doing my grand tour last year. When I went to Yalthe myself, I thought it was the most boring place in the whole Reander system.. guess I should have inspected it more closely!
Also, I don't remember seeing any of those "fault lines" on Yokane when I was there... that's certainly an interesting terrain feature... same with Dakkon and Totooa! I might have to go back and do a more comprehensive mission to Reander and its moons some day; ever since my grand tour attempt failed due to endless game crashes, I've sort of stopped playing this mod.
never had crashes myself, so far. though I did have conflict with other mods, but alone it worked perfectly
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8 hours ago, Thatguywholikesionengines said:
psst, how do i turn the radiation detox unit off? my crew aren't getting that much radiation, and the power draw is really big on my tiny craft. https://imgur.com/a/KxEACXl
right click on the hitchhicker container with the detox unit, there is the option. just like you can turn it on from there, you can also turn it off from there.
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13 hours ago, Andrew1233 said:
Yeah thats good, but It was still a bit too big for my mothership, plus I cant really land a plane on water. My LAV will do the job to decent and accent.
too big?
Not Albatross is 30 tons, so I can understand the concern; but Sole, the first plane, is only 7 tons total, including jet fuel - and a bunch of food, water, and radiation shielding introduced by a mod that you won't have in the stock game. you can't make a laythe lander for much less, not if you want it to move on the surface.
as for landing on water, it's actually fairly easy. much easier than landing on land. just keep your vertical speed low, and you're good. And in general, Sole is very easy to fly. if you are willing to drive it on the surface, you may also be willing to not use your mod for the descent and ascent phases.
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17 hours ago, Andrew1233 said:
Hi guys! I just get done building the laythe Ascent Vehicle that is capable to land on both land and water for Laythe then ascent back into orbit to dock with mothership, tests here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxzV8ewk91I and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fmvgKFyGF8&t=7s. But I want it to splash down on water so it won't slide down any hills of the islands. but kerbals swim extremely slow so I need a boat. I tried a lot of times but my boat just flies up and dive down then destroyed itself. I need help! Btw It needs to be mk1 or mk2 size to be able for undock from mothership and reentry(it will stay on laythe forever bc i cant get it up to the mothership once its landed).
if you want to move on the surface and go back on orbit, you are better off with a plane. getting a plane to take off from water is hard, though, it needs a lot of thrust. I made a few such models
this is the easiest case. it uses the panther engine, it's got the afterburner mode that gives it extra thrust at the cost of extra fuel consumption. I managed to squeeze some 500 km of range from it, plus two water landings and an ascent to orbit.
to orbit, that spacepane would eject the wings and the atmospheric engine (you can see them on the upper left corner) and ascend with a terrier engine. it could reach 20 km of altitude on that panther engine, but i was running out of jet fuel.
this instead is Not Albatross space seaplane, it works with propellers and nuclear power generation so it has unlimited range, it can take off from water as many times as it wants and it goes to orbit even on kerbin - though it is hard.
to make it take off from water, it needed several adaptations: powerful propellers for its relatively low mass, high wing surface to increase lift at low speed, and most of the mass concentrated on the tail, so that it could lift the nose more easily. flight performance is not as good, but it can fly straight and move around. you can also use it as a boat, it glides on water at 50 m/s.
building it is difficult to achieve, but if you want something that can land on water and move around, a plane is your best bet.
if you just want to go to the nearest land and plant a flag before taking off, then just any plane will do, you can glide on water until you reach land and take off from there.
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it's not about the center of mass, i have a similar rover that is not finely balanced, and it still manages to fly using gimbaling to compensate. in fact, you should not need rcs. maybe that's part of the problem? is gimbaling active? if gimbaling is active, you should balance no problem.
wait, maybe too much gimbaling. the vector is the engine with the greatest gimbaling, and it often overcompensates, pushing so hard that it unbalances the ship more. so tuning down gimbaling to 20% or so may work.
too much thrust? seems like that rover has a huge twr - unless it's a lot heavier than it looks - and I see sometimes ships have more instability problems at higher thrust. where is that rover supposed to land, tylo?
another idea, maybe the rover is flexible? the rockets push at the edges, the rover bends, and the rockets are suddenly off-center. which is related to fuel draining and thrust, the fuel is on the edges of the rover, draining the fuel increases the acceleration of the edges compared to the inertia of the center. seems the most likely issue. and in that case, moving those rockets closer to the center of mass would help.
P.S. I can tell you are experienced because the first half dozen solutions I thought, i read a line later "and i checked this thing".
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3 hours ago, space_otter said:
I am wondering what happens to unloaded vessels during CME events. I heard that the vessel orientation can influence the radiation dose, but how do I ensure that all my vessels are in the right orientation?
yes, vessel orientation does influence radiation dose. cme events damage the crew of parts exposed to the sun, but if there is something else blocking the sun the crew will be safe. the easiest way is to put a large fuel tank on a narrow crew cabin.
to ensure that your ship is properly oriented, you can turn it around during a cme, while checking the irradiation
see in the image, the lower part of the info window, where it says environment, it has radiation and habitat radiation. radiation is external radiation, you can't influence that, but habitat radiation should be down to a few mrad/h, or nominal. in the case of the picture it's not possible because it's the effect of a radiation belt, but with cme you will see the value change as you shift the ship.
afterwards, if you orient the ship correctly and then change ship, the game will consider it oriented correctly as long as it stays out of physical range. but save often, because sometimes the mechanism glitches.
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Part 9: A tale of giants and dwarfs
Boundless enters the Gememma system and explores the moons of binary gas giants Mandrake and Rutherford and the dwarf planet Pragnik.
Left, the positions of Mandrake and Pragnik around Gememma; Gannovar highlighted to showcase how tiny is the inner Gememma system in comparison
Right, the moons of Mandrake. Rutherford is a gas giant roughly the size of Sarnus, all the moons are bigger than Minmus but smaller than Mun
9.1) Welcome to Gememma!
SpoilerI closed the last chapter with a status also showing a planned route to Gememma. I ended up using that. It's not a clean Hohmann transfer, because I needed to stay within the 50 years life support limit. But between the distance from the sun and Oberth effect from Reander, I'm not spending much more. Gememma has a huge sphere of influence, the only difficulty was lining up the encounter with Mandrake.
The planned route to Gememma
Goodbye Totooa
And the planned insertion on Mandrake
Boundless will not arrive on Mandrake at the ideal time for a capture. The problem is, Mandrake takes a couple years to orbit, and the timing of my arrival was such that it was in the wrong part of the orbit... no, ok, if I had wanted to tweak the Gememma arrival to get to Mandrake half a year later, I could have done it - though the maneuver involved a complex tridimensional burn and would have required some fiddling.
The reason I didn't worry about coming to Mandrake on a high energy trajectory is that Mandrake has a twin gas giant, Rutherford, that can be used for a gravity capture. Indeed, it's what I'm doing here. Not clear from the picture, but Boundless is coming in from a high inclination (could not be avoided, the orbit of Gememma is inclined and Boundless did not pass through the planar node during the trip from Reander); it will make a pass over the north pole of Rutherford to mostly clear that inclination, and get captured with a high apoapsis.
While Rutherford seem extremely convenient for gravity assists, it actually is not. It's very close to Mandrake, meaning that while you can capture there, your resulting orbit will have a low periapsis, and Mandrake is also bigger than Jool (really, must every gas giant in this mod be bigger than Jool?). This will make capture on a moon much more expensive. Indeed, for a low energy transfer it's cheaper to skip the gravity assist entirely and go for a direct capture on a moon, despite those moons being too tiny to help much with Oberth effect.
My chosen trajectory reflects that issue. If the main problem is raising periapsis, I get Boundless captured by Mandrake with a high apoapsis, so that it will be cheaper to raise periapsis. Also, on such a high orbit it will also be cheaper to refine the inclination, I could not get exactly zero with the gravity assist. So, after the gravity capture a 440 m/s burn at apoapsis raises periapsis to the level of Tatian, the outer moon, making this a Hohmann transfer to the moon. Capture deltaV will be low, the 160 m/s figure includes circularization. 30 m/s is the final plane change, I could not get a perfect zero inclination from the Rutherford flyby alone.
I picked Tatian because, being the outer and slightly bigger moon, it's Oberth effect would help both with capture and departure from it. But in practice I could have chosen any of the other moons, they are all close and similar.
A final note, I initially was hoping I could send Arrowhead in atmospheric flight on Rutherford, because I saw its gravity was lower than 1 g. But as soon as I gave a more accurate look, it clearly was impossible, it takes too much deltaV. Rutherford is much smaller than the other gas giants in this mod, but it's still Sarnus-sized; the original Arrowhead could fly in Urlum and Neidon, but those ice giants are a lot smaller than that. Seeing that, before leaving Totooa I dumped most of the remaining oxidizer, which was being saved for that purpose.
In Gememma sphere of influence
Besides the science reports, I have to comment on solar panels. I was expecting Gememma to not produce electricity, much like Limnel, but the devs clearly tried to model its light - and got it bugged. As you can see in that image, the solar panels are producing a lot of electricity, as if Boundless was at this distance from Kaywell. Indeed, the solar panels are pointed at Kaywell, not at Gememma, despite Kaywell being too weak to produce significant electricity at this distance (I commented on electricity shortages around Reander, and Gememma is two to three times more distant). On the other hand, when Kaywell is covered by a planet, the light of Gememma does produce some electricity - probably the one intended by the modders, because it's a lot weaker than Kaywell, as a red dwarf should be.
Finally, with all 7 main antennas deployed - the four main RA100 relay ones on Boundless, and the non-relay communotrons on Traveler and the two Redentor probes - Boundless manages to catch a signal from Mesbin, at least when planetary alignments are right. It depends on how close Gememma is to periapsis and where exactly are Mesbin and Mandrake. Not that it matters, but it's nice that my massive overengineering is good for something. I suppose people are expected to build up a relay network to communicate with Gememma normally.
First sightings of Mandrake (deep blue) and Rutherford (light blue). In the red circle is also a moon, barely visible, probably Tatian
9.2) Boundless in the sky with gas giants and moons
SpoilerWith the trajectory already set, all I have to do is enjoy the spectacle in the sky and try not to take too many screenshots.
Approaching Rutherford, with science reports
Periapsis near the north pole. Wow!
And a close up of the pole. I would like to fly a plane there. Then again, my experiences flying planes in gas giants were kinda underwhelming
Periapsis on Mandrake
A close view of Mandrake. If you look closely to the right, you can also see Tatian as a handful of pixels
You won't be able to see a double passage of moons anywhere else. Tatian is passing in front of Rutherford, while Jancy is passing in front of Mandrake
A close-up of Jancy, and underneath is Beagrid. Beagrid is not much smaller than Jancy, but it's a lot further
Getting closer to Tatian
An interesting little world. And here I was thinking just because this place is remote it won't have anything of value
By coincidence, the capture burn on Tatian includes the gas giants in the rear view. The big bright spot is Kaywell; I thought the small one was a moon, but it's really a sky artifact - Beagrid is close, but not visible without zooming
9.3) Rally racing on Tatian
Spoiler
Dropping Cigar on Tatian
Tatian has a varied and complex geology
As shown by its biome map
As I've been moving farther from Mesbin, most moons keep getting simpler, with less biomes. Not in this case. Since the place is interesting, I decide to take a long trip over it to get multiple biomes. You can see in the picture the landing spot on the yellow crater biome, and I want to reach the purple spot.
The landing area
Climbing out of the crater, with some reports. Surface sample reports vary with biomes, nice!
Out of the crater, the land becomes more red. Likely it is covered by tholins, while the impact dug out the underlaying ice. Must have been a very young crater on a geological timescale
Tatian is middle sized between Mun and Minmus. The rover takes frequent jumps, but the reaction wheels keep it upright. The terrain is smooth enough to not present special problems. All in all, an easy drive.
A pretty good science report, written by someone with good understanding of planetary science
In natural light. This far from both stars it's just too dark for comfort
One of the many rifts. They look much better from orbit
Finally, the purple spot was a mountain. Not an impressive one, though
I did drive some 150 km on Tatian
9.4) Lozon and Jancy, not quite interesting enough
SpoilerThe remaining three moons are small, a single fuel load on Cigar will be enough to land everywhere. DeltaV for transfers are also small, since they are all orbiting close together. On the downside, since they orbit at similar speeds it takes forever for a transfer window; but I'm not in any particular hurry, I still have over 30 years worth of life support.
Tatian to Jancy with 200 m/s. I only loaded Traveler to a fourth of its fuel capacity, and it still feels overkill
Jancy. It also looks interesting, but I would not write poetry to it
Landed in a crater
And driving upwards
On top of that hill, and down the canyon to the right
This way, I got four different biomes while driving less than 10 km
Jancy looks pretty, but not enough to stay longer. Next I move to Lozon, for the only reason that it was the transfer window that came up first. I could spend more fuel to go faster, but again, I'm not in any hurry.
Jancy to Lozon, also with 200 m/s
Approaching Lozon, to the right of the picture
That... looks very different from anything I've ever seen, except perhaps OPM Priax
This terrain really does not look like anything I've seen, not even Priax
Looks more chaotic than even the rifts on Dakkon
I am curious to drive on it
Lozon is the smallest of the moons of Mandrake, and the gravity starts to be felt, making driving uncomfortable. The terrain is smooth in places, up close the real chaos is only limited to a few spots. But those spots... they are crazy.
Here passing over one, but thanks to the low gravity I'm just jumping over
But this time I'm falling through
"Landed". Navigating this terrain could be a nice challenge for a rover. Except in the low gravity it's not really difficult, just slow
Gilmundo fell while trying to plant a flag. He fell on the rover, too
I was about to wait a transfer window for Beagrid, when I just noticed something that made me reconsider all the "no hurry" policy: a transfer window to Pragnik.
The position of Pragnik relative to Mandrake
Pragnik is in a very inclined orbit. I could go there with Boundless, fine enough, but it would be expensive, I don't want to have one more refueling sequence just for a dwarf planet. I could go there with Traveler, it's got enough deltaV, the problem is the flight time, I decided one year and unlike the Etrograd mission this time I won't handwave it. The only way to make the trip in a short time is to launch when Mandrake and Pragnik are passing close to each other, so I was lazily looking for such a transfer window eventually... it's just that I wasn't expecting for that transfer window to come right now! This is an emergency!
Now I regret taking my time on the moons. I could have explored all three and returned comfortably on Tatian in time for just a few more tons of fuel. But I don't want to reload, not after driving around so much. But the clock is ticking and Lozon is perhaps in the worst possible position to reach Tatian quickly. On the other hand, the eight tons of fuel I loaded in Traveler translate to a couple km/s, let's see the fastest trajectory I can get with that...
High energy return to Tatian, spending most of the remaining deltaV
I wasted a few tons of fuel, but that's still pocket change for Boundless, it won't make a difference.
https://i.imgur.com/ifGONTe.png
I'm not sure why I did transfer the crew with a spacewalk, but I realize I never took a picture from this perspective
9.5) Remote Pragnik
SpoilerTo explain why I have to rush for this opportunity, let me show the orbital positions of Pragnik and Mandrake.
Orbits of Pragnik and Mandrake. In red the planned outbound trajectory, in green the return to Mandrake
Pragnik has a very inclined orbit slightly outwards that of Mandrake. It is possible to take a slightly outward trajectory from Mandrake and intercept Pragnik as it's crossing Mandrake's orbital plane. The inclination is paid with the intercept deltaV. On a short stay, I could also leave Pragnik the same way, paying the inclination while I eject, and return to Mandrake in an approximation of a Hohmann orbit. The costs should be well within Traveler's fuel budget. Time limit is also factored in; Mandrake's orbit lasts two years, the planned trajectory takes somewhat less than half an orbit of Mandrake.
The problem is that I need Pragnik to pass in the planar node just as Mandrake is arriving, so that I can launch Traveler with that timing. And this is why having this opportunity was worth dropping all I was doing and taking some uncomfortable measures.
The actual trajectory
Unfortunately, since I need to leave Mandrake while I'm too close for a proper Hohmann trajectory I have to take an expensive trajectory moving outward from Mandrake instead of prograde. Also, I have to add some inclination, since the passage on the node is not perfectly timed. I'm spending 3.7 km/s for this, which is, fittingly, half my deltaV. A bit more, but capture on Mandrake will be less expensive. Also note how Cigar is only carrying a smidgen of oxidizer, but still all its liquid fuel, to provide some extra for Traveler.
Leaving Tatian
I do believe somebody got inspiration from Pluto for those science reports
Well, by the biome map this is another interesting world. What is that striped region?
Wow! Looks like some giant scratched the planet
I'm definitely going to land there
And we have a winner for the planet/not planet argument!
Driving around a bit
Pragnik has a slightly lower gravity than Minmus, making it uncomfortable to drive on it - though it is significantly bigger, giving it a higher escape velocity of 303 m/s, just barely higher than the 300 m/s I arbitrarily set as the limit to categorize a world in grey or green in the map on the first chapter. This is now the first place in my list of potential circumnavigation, but I may want a better rover for it. And right now, every other interesting place on this planet is far away from my position, so I'm not staying.
Another interesting spot, a plain made of convective cells. Yup, definitely taken from Pluto
Goodbye Pragnik, I want to return some day
Return trajectory. I am leaving Pragnik going practically north
The same trajectory, seen from a different perspective to better understand the positions of the planets
It takes a bit over 2 km/s to pay the plane change, and I'm doing it in two rounds; first when leaving Pragnik I lower inclination, and then I cancel it completely when passing on the node. Arrival on Mandrake is on a near perfect Hohmann, only 80 m/s for capture. It's also fast, arriving in day 170; I left on day 277 of the previous year, it will leave me 107 days to return to Tatian.
Incidentally, I want to take this chance to visit Mandrake's low space and its upper atmosphere.
Mandrake's upper atmosphere. The planet can rival Neidon for beauty from afar, but from up close it's kinda underwhelming. No interesting science reports either
Return to Tatian is not possible within the current time and fuel budget. Here the best attempt would use all the fuel, but would take 50 days too long
Unfortunately, I mentioned the worst problem when capturing in low orbit of a gas giant is the intercept deltaV on the moons. Traveler only has 700 m/s left, which are barely enough. I already established in this case the cheapest trajectory is to get captured with a high apoapsis, and raise periapsis from there, as it's cheaper to raise periapsis from a high apoapsis. But high apoapsis means a long orbit. The image shows the best I could do, using up all the fuel - planned burns for 630 m/s out of a budget of 710 - and it would return on Tatain 154 days after arrival at Mandrake. Which is 47 days more than one year. But using a lower apoapsis to make a shorter orbit is too expensive.
So I had to reload and give up on the atmospheric dip. In this case I found out it was cheaper to go for direct capture on Tatian; whatever I lose on Oberth effect is more than made up by not having to pay to raise periapsis.
The final return trajectory. Well within the fuel budget
Once more, I become aware of how convenient the gravity assist on Jool is. In all the mods I've seen, I've never seen any other planet where gravity capture worked so smoothly. It's almost like somebody designed it to be a good training ground for gravity assists....
Just a random picture of Cigar docking unconventionally
Ice Cream Cone blocks the direct path to dock. To avoid it, Cigar can maneuver with the RCS system. Or, if one does not want to wait, it's possible to just use time warp; in time warp the game does not check for collisions, so Cigar will just pass through Ice Cream Cone. Carefulness is necessary to stop time warp after Cigar exited Ice Cream Cone, but before it enters Boundless.
9.6) Beagrid, the waxy ocean
SpoilerThe last moon to visit is Beagrid, then I can move to the inner Gememma system.
Normal transfer to Beagrid. Traveler has only loaded 10% of its fuel
Beagrid passing in front of Mandrake, showing its one feature over what would otherwise be a formless surface
Those transfers are so cheap, Cigar alone has more than enough fuel to reach Beagrid, land, return. The problem is time. Cigar has life support for one month, the trip to Beagrid can be accomplished in 12 days, but then Beagrid and Tatian will be in a horrible position for the return trip, that cannot be accomplished in 18 days. Not without spending much more deltaV than Cigar has. But before realizing this, I did try to send Cigar alone, and in the process I took the only good picture of Beagrid in its entirety. Which is why the next pic will not show Traveler.
Beagrid is entirely covered by the "cellular plain" that was also present on part of Pragnik, and that's basically a form of cryovolcanism
Besides the large mountain that could be appreciated in the transit over Mandrake, Beagrid also has smaller hills. Likely icebergs of water ice floating over the denser nitrogen ice underneath
Beagrid is very smooth, from orbit. But the surface is actually pretty irregular, even if there are no big changes in elevation
Those icebergs are kinda small when seen up close
Wow, that's crazy. Wait, on second thought that exactly how our world works too, with continents floating over the denser lava below. So nothing out of the ordinary
I'm liking Beagrid, and I am curious about its geology. So I decide to go visit the mountain; it's to the north, one to two hours by rover.
The no ground contact bug strikes again; the wheels sink in the ground and have no traction
The trip was largely uneventful, save for the no ground contact bug. It's been occasionally present on many small bodies, but on Beagrid it struck extra hard. At some point I just gave up on using the wheels, cheated infinite fuel and for propulsion from the rocket, because the bug was everywhere and made driving impossible. I did remember to deactivate the cheat before returning to orbit.
The rift between two convective cells. I need to find some synonim of underwhelming, because I've been using that word way too often to describe such features
After a couple hours, the mountain reveal itself in the distance. It's basically recognizable as such
Adding insult to injury, when I got over it I discovered it's the same biome as the icebergs - they are supposed to be different, they get different colors, but it's another glitch that sometimes happens in this mod. So I didn't even get any additional science report. That was the cherry on top of the cake of no ground contact bug; I was considering a circumnavigation, but now I left Beagrid as soon as possible.
Docking back to Traveler. The mountain is called Bickorabne mons
And just a cool docking pic
And this concludes the outer Gememma system. Normally I would also include the trip to the nearest refueling station and the refueling in the report, but I discovered that for Lowel/Ollym, my next targets, intercept speed is 5 km/s (ejection is cheap with a Rutherford gravity assist instead). Boundless also has 2 km/s, I will have to take some gravity assists, and I'd rather break the chapter here.
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16 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:
Anyways, for some context here is the comet contract (and the comet's orbit), along with my other contracts and Progression
actually, thinking of it a bit more, the comet does not have that high of an apoapsis, intercept speed on the previously suggested trajectory may well be over 3 km/s.
the one below is probably better, though harder to get an intercept this way
also realized another issue you may have, though
On 11/5/2023 at 10:15 PM, Jeb x Valentina said:Not to mention I've lately been accepting loads of contacts that take a while to complete (i.e Eve missions and stations)
I know this all may seem out of context, but the point is my reputation is plumetting
it seems you already have plenty of missions that will pay off in a year, and your issue is that you want reputation right now. but a comet contract is slow. this trajectory won't give you a comet rendez-vous before 4 years, and you may have to wait another apoapsis before returning to kerbin if the alignments are not right - we're talking 10 more years, easily.
the previously suggested trajectory will get you to the comet in 3 years, with excellent chances to get back to kerbin in 3 more years, even then it's 6 years in total. if you're worried about your reputation and you want a quick fix for that, to the point that you are not willing to wait a few missions to arrive to eve, a mission that will pay off in 6 or 15 years is not a solution. If you want fast fixes for reputation, I am afraid ferrying tourists around the moons of kerbin is the only way to go. once you take interplanetary missions, it's going to take years in any case.
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10 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:
Anyways, for some context here is the comet contract (and the comet's orbit), along with my other contracts and Progression
Ok, I am confident I could meet the comet at apoapsis starting from LKO with no more than 5 km/s, probably a fair bit less. Could be as little as 3 km/s, depending on the inclination.
however, it's very difficult to describe how, especially to someone who probably does not know the technical details.
which brings us to the crux of the issue. I do not mean to be rude, but - as by your own admission you have occasional troubles even with regular mun missions - this is probably above your skill level. still, I'll try to describe the technique. You should leave Kerbin on the red ellipse.
From LKO make a big prograde burn to raise solar apoapsis. You need to go very high, higher than the comet apoapsis - but fortunately, the farthest you go from the sun, the cheaper it is to raise orbit. It takes 2 km/s to raise orbit from kerbin to jool, I estimate roughly 3 km/s to get the high apoapsis needed for this maneuver (note that I did eyeball it here, the actual apoapsis may be higher or lower than that). You want to intercept the comet at apoapsis, so you will need to raise your apoapsis enough that you will pass right on the comet apoapsis when the comet is passing there. it will be a high speed intercept, but again, far from the sun costs are much lower. I estimate 1 to 2 km/s for it. You will also need a plane change somewhere, if it's far from the sun it will be cheaper.
Once you are on the comet, you can make a slight tweak on your orbit to get a kerbin intercept, and from there you aerobrake.
Yes, it is difficult, but it is the only way to intercept that comet in a reasonable time at a reasonable cost. To make an easier rendez-vous you need over 10 km/s, which requires ion.
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1 hour ago, Jeb x Valentina said:
Don't have any of the 2
well, the best way to get money, science and reputation all together is to get a tourist contract to land on mun or minmus, put science instruments on it, land on a new biome. you get money and reputation from the contract, enough to pay the spaceship and more, and you also get science from the new biome.
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16 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:
Hello kerbonauts. Recently, my space program has been doing... bad. I unecessarily upgraded mission control max level, and then instantly regretted it and accepted a bail-out grant strategy... twice. Not to mention I've lately been accepting loads of contacts that take a while to complete (i.e Eve missions and stations) and then, I launched a mun station that had to be fully built on launch... and I EVA attatched a Mag. boom, resulting in the contract being spoiled, and the crew requiring rescue. Not to mention the station was in an orbit too high to get any new situations w the boom...
I know this all may seem out of context, but the point is my reputation is plumetting, and I accepted a comet sample contract, despite only having done 1 kerbol rendezvous, which ended in disaster... And it was just an ASTEROID and an unmanned probe, and now I'm meant to send a kerbal to a comet? I wish I could just cancel the contract, but I don't want to just throw the advance to the garbage bin and lose reputation. So, if anyone has any tips, please give them to me.
intercept the comet near apoapsis, it will be slower and easier to catch.
pack a lot of deltaV - if you want to go safe because you're unpracticed, put in an ion engine and 10 km/s of deltaV. of course, to use that far from the sun, you will also need an rtg... which you may not have. and patience, a lot of patience.
I would tell you to not try a rendez-vous like you would do in a normal circular orbit, but instead just to point straight at the comet when it's at rendez-vous - that is, go in an elliptic orbit similar to the comet, then make some corrections. but i am afraid your skill may be insufficient for that. still, one has to start somewhere.
by the way, i understand you want to play a no reload career, but when a station explodes because you did some eva construction on it, that's an obvious bug, you can allow yourself to reload
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31 minutes ago, damerell said:
I've started the backlog by reviewing @king of nowhere's Tal circumnavigation, which already raises a rules question.
I think this would not have been permitted in Elcano 4th, where the no-propulsion rule was very rigid - eg no using RCS for rotation because you might accidentally do some translation. However, I have no problem with it, I think this is perfectly fine within the spirit of the rules as I see them. The rules now read:
"When you are in the air, you may use thrust devices to slow down, avoid a crash, or to apply downforce - but to not speed up or apply lift (beyond a brief application to avoid a crash, eg hitting a collision-enabled terrain scatter)."
even in elcano 4th, I got permission for those kind of brief, reasonable uses. at least, I was always very open about them in my reports, and the previous challenge keeper @18Watt never complained. either he never read the actual reports, or he was also willing to apply some leeway.
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On 10/22/2023 at 9:41 PM, damerell said:
"Brief jumps" has been in there since Elcano 1. How brief is "brief"? (It's pretty hard to make a brief jump on Gilly...)
I would say, as long as your propulsion is entirely based on wheels, every jump is ok.
Quote"Thrust devices (rockets, jets, props, RCS) are acceptable, as long as they are only used while in contact with the surface". This is 18Watt's new rule, although in practice 18Watt allowed upward-firing engines to control trajectory. We could:
- retain 18Watt's rule
- allow RCS (etc) rotation, but not intentional translation (of course, this is on the honour system, but what isn't about Elcano?)
- allow thrust to slow down or provide downforce when not touching the ground, but not to speed up or provide lift. (I would prefer this option).
- additionally, stipulate that on atmospheric worlds, the rover must not have significant aerodynamic lift - no gliders.
Here it comes to the challenge-holder discretion. Too many individual cases to cover all with hard rules.
I would sum it up with "rockets are allowed to help wheel propulsion, but their use must be limited in scope". That is, want to have backwards-pointing rockets to help climb steep slopes? acceptable. downward-pointing rockets to cushion the fall when you fall down a crater? fine. downward-pointing rockets to keep you glued to the ground in low gravity world? ok. Because in all those cases your method of locomotion are the wheels, and the rockets are only providing some minor extra utility. I think we can all understand the difference between that, and taking a suborbital jump. but there will always be edge cases, that will have to be evaluated individually.
this is more or less consistent with your preferred option, except your preferred option would disqualify using of rockets to go uphill.
would doing this be so bad? (notice the inclination of the slope on the navball, and compare the speed with the orbital speed for vall)
regarding propellers, a second rule could be "on atmospheric worlds, propellers can be used to provide the main thrust, provided the vehicle stays on the ground". atmispheric worlds have too much gravity for that to create issues with suborbital jumps anyway.
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14 hours ago, rino2727 said:
could it be the docking port can only transfer so much fuel at once?
i don't know what's the issue there, but i can at least confirm it is not a problem with transfer. the game does not model it.
however, I have to ask, is having one convert-o-tron at 65% such a big deal? refueling a ship with a big convert-o-tron takes a few weeks, a few months even for a very big one. in the time scale of transfer windows, that's short. if one of four chemical plants is working at two/thirds capacity, you'll take a few extra days to refuel, nothing more. this game is full of those little glitches that you just have to live with
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4 hours ago, seaces said:
I am facing this issue where if I time warp above x1000 long running experiments like seismic observation that take 14 days will show NaN value and will stop running. Also noticed that the craft running this experiment losses connection to the network as far is the Kerbalism mod concerned but when I go to map or check the status in top left corner I can clearly see that the craft has connection to the network.
To fix this I have to change the scene by swithcing to other craft or space center or switching between buildings. Then Kerbalism will refresh the status of the crafts and connections and NaN will disapear only to come back when I timewarp.
Also it seems so far to only affect crafts on the ground I do not think I have seen same bug on crafts in orbit but I am kinda early in the game so I do not have much of experiments that will take ages in orbit.Any suggestions how to fix this or why I am getting this?
I have also noticed that at time warp greater than x1000 some of the authomated things don't work correctly anymore. the first time I had this issue, I simply had to limit time warp to x1000. the most annoying things was solar storms, I had to stop and wait with x1000 warp for them to end, because otherwise the shielding would not work properly. imagine a 3 years transfer to jool during a solar high with storms lasting a day or two at a time and happening every few hours.
The other times I did play kerbalism I structured things so that I could ignore those malfunctions. I crafted resourse production so that I would have an excess of everything, it's slightly less efficient but it works regardless of time warp. as for radiations, after establishing that the shielding worked I used to deactivate them during interplanetary travel.
I never paid much attention to science, though, because my goal had always been grand tours, and while I like to also collect science I don't really care how much i'm actually getting. so I can't comment specifically on your case
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1 hour ago, Markus08 said:
I'm having some issues getting a fuel plant on Duna to work. The Atmospheric intake thing shows "None" for Carbon Dioxide even though the analysis thing shows 96%? When I run the Carbon Dioxide Filter to fill the tanks, it says "Abundance Below Threshold". Why would this be happening?
I'm also running KSP Interstellar Extended, but removing it doesn't change anything.
I can attest that I made a mission where I was able to harvest carbon dioxide successfully from duna, so it's a bug of some kind. Maybe a mod conflict, that "atmospheric composition" window seems like it could come from a mod that messes up the atmospheric settings.
Are fuel cells viable for ion engine use?
in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials
Posted
it's possible. you can get 10 km/s even with a nuclear engine, and the right ratio of fuel cells + on should give almost twice the Isp.
furthermore, you can get nearly as much deltaV as you want with drop tanks. simply put your tanks on decouplers and discard them when they are empty.