king of nowhere

November 3, 2020

this is very useful... or at least, it would be very useful if i figured out how to get good information out of it.

unfortunately, i could not find ways to get a good drag report. or something to help me optimize drag. that's because most of my drag comes from the wings, and that's good drag, and i can't separate good drag from bad drag. as for the drag of the main body, i only see some reddish parts for those most draggy. as those are generally the wings, there is no big surprise there.

also, trying to use the tool on anything more complicated than basic shapes causes the thing to malfunction, sometimes ksp crashes abruptly.

It also does not seem to work for anything with propellers.

any tip for dealing with those issues?

November 1, 2020

7 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

@bewing's suggestion is spot on. Also, did your remember to disable the steering on the rear wheels?

didn't knew i was supposed to

October 31, 2020

14 minutes ago, bewing said:

Are you sure it's to the right? They almost always pull to the left.

In any case, the problem of 'veering' is so common with planes that it's on the FAQ in this forum. There are many possible causes that all have the same symptom, but as far as I'm concerned, the most common issue and fix is something I call "ground drag". To achieve passive directional stability, you want low drag at the front of your vehicle, and high drag at the back -- no matter whether we are talking about rockets in the atmosphere, or cars on the ground. The most likely problem is that your front landing gear has too much friction with the ground. The fix is to change the friction on your front gear to "manual" and then reduce the value to .5 or less.

it worked, thanks

October 31, 2020

i tried to use silly contracts of testing stuff on the launchpad or in low flights.

all was going well. i had reached 20k funds.

then a bug struck. i took on a contract, and it was declared failed immediately. i'm not sure what happened exactly that caused me to lose it, anyway i lost all my money.

I'm sure this would be a case where reloading is justified. but i wasn't expecting it, so i have no save to produce

October 31, 2020

i doubt 50 is possible. you still need to spend money on fuel. what you ask would require sending one ton to orbit with 200 kg of fuel

ok, it would be technically possible if you start with empty tanks, fill them with isru on the launchpad, and then you launch the rocket. but it kinda defies the purpose of it

October 31, 2020

I already have a decent experience running spaceplanes, so i was completely baffled when my latest attempt, which is a fairly simple design, failed.

It pulls to the right, and as it accelerates it tend to go in circles, eventually capsizing. and i can't figure out why that is. the plane is symmetric, i even tried to remove the rover arm (the only part i see that may be causing the problem) but no difference. i assumed something was wrong with the propellers, but i tried to shut them down and close the cargo bay, and put a rapier engine at the back to give a uniform push, but still it pulls to the right, so it's not the propellers. I'm baffled

October 30, 2020

2 hours ago, ManEatingApe said:

I'd highly recommend trying this challenge at a slightly easier (but still difficult compared to regular KSP) level to figuratively warm up. As @JAFO and @IncongruousGoat have mentioned the constraints encourage creativity and the skills you learn in economy of design will transfer well to other KSP areas. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, it's a lot of fun!

the constraints encourage creativity and economy of design.

being unable to reload doesn't, have anything to do with it. in fact, being unable to reload actively discourages creativity, because i must stick to proven, tried-and-true designs and mission profiles, for i cannot risk a failure.

14 hours ago, JAFO said:

Ok.. I think I see the problem.

Tell you what. Don't give up entirely. But do take a break from KSP. Instead, go and play The Long Dark for a while.

Ok. I think I see the problem.

We have very different concepts of fun.

I don't like survival, and I don't like grinding. Striving to do something hard is fun. Something that I can get right 90% of times is too easy. Striving to practice that easy thing so that I can do it right 100% of times instead of just 90% is not fun for me. It is a chore. Doing something easy, many times, but you have to get it right every time, is a good description for most jobs.

And 90% success is still way too low for a career.

Furthermore, assume i have this challenge running for weeks, dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay.... and near the end i misclick something and lose it all. how is that fun? how could i relax and enjoy the game when i'm under this constant pressure that the slightest mistake would ruin weeks of careful work?

It's just not my cup of tea. I need things to be hard enough that I have a real chance of failing, and this only works if I can afford to fail.

17 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

Here's the start of my caveman career. I'm gonna just do the Normal career difficulty. I do have MH and BG installed, but I'm not going to use any of the features.

There's a lot of stuff in the spoiler.

that roller is a brilliant idea. I was wondering how to collect science from the ksc without having rover wheels available, and this is a brilliant solution. I'm going to copy it

October 29, 2020

14 hours ago, JAFO said:

Indeed it would. And I feel your pain over killing your pilots already.

But then, you did intentionally start out choosing the "Nintendo hard" option. Nobody will think less of you if you choose to take on a lower difficulty setting option just to get a feel for things, before going all out.

my problem is, i can't take not reloading. this is a game and i will always seek to push limits. safety requires triple-checking everything, never doing anything risky. it's boring. it's good for real life, where you most definitely can't reload, you have a single game that can last up to a century, and you don't want to cut it short. but i can't game this way. and so i have the occasional accident. if i wasn't allowed to reload, i wouldn't pass even at the easiest level.

on the other hand, i am reasonably confident that, if i could reload, i could succeed at the hardest level. trying at an easier level when i am allowed to reload would be too easy for everything else.

maybe i will try to check if it is feasible to just get science from policies. otherwise, i may just give up on the challenge.

October 27, 2020

1 hour ago, Fraktal said:

I do trim my ablator down for single-use crafts, but this orbiter is designed to be 100% reusable, with the heatshield attached via a docking port so that it can be jettisoned and replaced at Kerbin once it's used up. That and I have no idea how much ablator it's going to take to aerocapture around Kerbin during the return trip; if it's going to be similar to what it took to aerobrake around Duna, I should be able to squeeze out one more round trip before it needs replacement.

i was always able to do a full aerocapture on duna without any kind of ablator, without ever coming even close to taking damage. including an intercept from dres with a relatively high speed. duna is surprisingly forgiving in that regard.

kerbin, not so much. you'll definitely need the heat shield for return aerocapture.

October 27, 2020

1 hour ago, SmarmyNarwhal said:

(Yes this is wildly unstable and shakes like crazy when I launch, but it does reach solar orbit. This is the first version that didn't collapse under its own weight. If you have advice for how to more firmly attach the probes, I wouldn't be opposed.)

don't strut boosters to each other, it creates problems. strut boosters to the main body of the ship. and it appears you are using 3 rockets strapped together in the middle, strut them tightly. it would be better to have one single rocket with a bigger payload fairing containing all three satellites, clipping must be terrible; but maybe you don't have the technology unlocked

1 hour ago, SmarmyNarwhal said:

The problem I am having is that when I start separating the satellites, they aren't treated as separate craft. One of them is treated as the root craft and I can fly it, but the others are just treated as space debris. I went to the tracking station and had to mark junk to even find it. I've been trying stuff like this on and off for about a week and I just can't figure out how to have multiple separately controllable craft in one build.

do you have multiple probe cores in your satellites? because i can't see one. if there is indeed a probe core on each one of the three, then i have no idea. stuff is generally marked as junk if you can't control it.

October 27, 2020

easy enough. you open the file, there you have a list of parts. parts that can store stuff that can be consumed (fuel, ore, electricity) have a "resource" tab. there you can set your value as you will. under the spoiler you will find such a part, with the relevant resource parts highlighted.

what's actually difficult is figuring out on which tank you are actually removing resources. it may be more convenient to empty all of them and refill manually those you want filled

Spoiler

PART
{
   part = adapterMk3-Size2_4294367610
   partName = Part
   persistentId = 4389373
   pos = -1.36545908,9.23618221,0.32553196
   attPos = 0,0,0
   attPos0 = 7.10543278E-14,-1.87500072,5.96039627E-08
   rot = 0.707106829,0,0,0.707106829
   attRot = 0,0,0,1
   attRot0 = 1.5529411E-22,-3.55271326E-15,7.1054299E-15,1
   mir = 1,1,1
   symMethod = Mirror
   autostrutMode = Off
   rigidAttachment = False
   istg = -1
   resPri = 0
   dstg = 0
   sidx = -1
   sqor = -1
   sepI = -1
   attm = 0
   sameVesselCollision = False
   modCost = 0
   modMass = 0
   modSize = 0,0,0
   link = asasmodule1-2_4294591422
   link = dockingPort2_4289180362
   attN = top,asasmodule1-2_4294591422_0|1.875|0_0|1|0_0|1.875|0_0|1|0
   attN = bottom,mk3FuselageLF.50_4294470278_0|-1.875|0_0|-1|0_0|-1.875|0_0|-1|0
   EVENTS
   {
   }
   ACTIONS
   {
       ToggleSameVesselInteraction
       {
           actionGroup = None
           wasActiveBeforePartWasAdjusted = False
       }
       SetSameVesselInteraction
       {
           actionGroup = None
           wasActiveBeforePartWasAdjusted = False
       }
       RemoveSameVesselInteraction
       {
           actionGroup = None
           wasActiveBeforePartWasAdjusted = False
       }
   }
   PARTDATA
   {
   }
   RESOURCE
   {
       name = LiquidFuel
       amount = 1125
       maxAmount = 1125
       flowState = True
       isTweakable = True
       hideFlow = False
       isVisible = True
       flowMode = Both
   }
   RESOURCE
   {
       name = Oxidizer
       amount = 0
       maxAmount = 1375
       flowState = True
       isTweakable = True
       hideFlow = False
       isVisible = True
       flowMode = Both
   }
}

October 26, 2020

1 hour ago, radonek said:

…with a high CoM and hard to fit inside aeroshell. I mean, yes, I've done this too but I would not call such hack a "rover"

well, depends on how elaborate the rover is. yes, i've done some landers with wheels that were barely capable of reaching the closer surface feature to get some extra science before leaving again. cheap stuff, generally.

But I've also done this

it's one of my finest creations. its CoM is low and it is quite stable to drive; I can cruise around Mun at around 30 m/s without crashing too often. while the landing struts make an armor that keeps me alive when i crash at that speed. and it can visit most planets on its own, with ISRU capacity.

then again, it's also not exactly a rover, multipurpose vehicle would be a better term.

but the point is, you can fit rockets on a rover and do a good job with it. it's not easy to make something that performs well both as rover and as spaceship, but making a sky crane is also not trivial.

Quote

any more than a plane with landing gear out can be called a car.

I see and raise. I've landed a propeller-assisted spaceplane on water and called it a boat :cool: :blush: hey, it worked!

October 26, 2020

so, i thought the major problem would be low science, but it isn't even that.

it's not being able to reload. within a few hours, i already accidentally killed both my pilots.

now, i could circumvent the ban on reloading games. the game still lets you save, it just doesn't let you reload. but all you have to do is delete the "persistent" save and rename your quicksave as "persistent".

But i feel that would disqualify me from the achievement, wouldn't it?

October 26, 2020

there is an easy recipe for a rover.

take your lander, put wheels in place of landing struts, and you have a rover.

once i realized that, i stopped worrying about landing systems. all my rovers have rockets on them and can land on their own. exception for the biggest worlds where you'd need a very big rocket, but those worlds tend to have atmospheres for aerobraking

October 26, 2020

14 hours ago, steve_v said:

Repairability is right at the top of my checklist before I buy something these days.

i wasn't aware of big differences between companies, but now it will be my top priority too.

working to produce useless stuff that's rigged to break so that we can continue producing it is not the utopian future i signed for. i don't have much decisional power to affect the world, but i can at least choose what to buy

October 25, 2020

57 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

I see the source of confusion now. 'PC' = power connector/cable. And I think you mean soldering instead of welding, which makes a lot more sense. The glue ... well, in this particular context just not a good idea. The mechanical wear and tear on that particular connector require different material.

It's not a solution for your current situation, but it's something I recommend everyone thinking of buying a new laptop: (1) get yourself a second power supply/adapter, right from the start. (2) Unrelated but for much the same reason: get yourself a second battery too; and put them both away until the inevitable moment the primary ones of those start failing.

If you treat your laptop with any kind of care, those two are the parts that by far and wide will be the first to go bad, and by the time they do, it's generally hard to find replacements anymore because 'obsolete' and 'replaced by next model'. Sadly this usually leaves people with a piece of equipment not being of much use anymore, when it could well have given another few years of service. Lenovo isn't an exception - it's a general problem with the industry that they design/build/stock with a much too limited lifetime in mind. Laptops in particular, being both expensive and inherently un-modular, are a major offender in this. /endgripe

The laptop isn't much good if you can't power it anymore, so I understand the tinkering as a workaround, but be mindful of the possibility of damaging your laptop: the discolouring you mention to me sounds like the result of sparking - I've never once seen oxidized power connectors before. Sparking, or even simply an unreliable connection, of the main power supply = bad news for any kind of electronics. As inconvenient as it may be I strongly suggest waiting for the replacement to arrive, rather than risking the laptop itself.

yes, i don't know the technical words there because it's not my field of expertise, but i guess soldering is correct, and sparking is also the diagnosis that my brother gave. he suggested i have to unplug the transformer first, wait a few seconds, and only then unplug the transformer from the pc. which i will do, once i have the new piece. good thing, at least the connector on the pc side is in good shape, it didn't get ruined by it. if it does get damaged, it can be fixed. my brother already did it on a previous laptop i had, and it worked very well afterwards. he also recognizes that glue is not the best choice, but it was all he had. the first time we tried with tape and metallic wire (again, forget my ignorance of proper therminology here) and it broke in a few days. at least this glue solution allows me to use the pc for most things. i need it for working too, i can't just shut it down.

and while you are correct that lenovo isn't an exception for problems with the power cable, at least with any other laptop i ever owed i could find a replacement quickly and cheaply when the problem arose. that's what i don't like, that they have their own transformers that you need to get from them, and they are very expensive, and not easy to find. also, the battery cannot be changed without opening everything - though i'm told that more and more companies are doing that.

October 25, 2020

you may also try to use RCS to counter the bouncing.

October 25, 2020

sign me up on "your trajectories were pretty bad" train.

the deltaV maps are accurate, but they show the very minimum amount you need if you optimize everything well. most often, you will need a bit more. nominally, it takes 580 m/s to land on mun, but i use about 650-700 in a normal situation. once in a challenge i had to optimize things really hard, and by using a very dangerous trajectory that came extremely close to crashing on the surface, i managed even to save 10 m/s on what's nominally required. For orbiting tylo, instead, i never could do it without spending at least 50 m/s more than the map says. and you could get to jool with 1930 in theory, but 2000 is a more likely scenario.

On the other hand, you can save fuel on interplanetary transfers with gravity assists.

on the other hand, 2800 for a jool intercept or 4500 for a kerbin orbit are NOT normal. the kerbin orbit value makes me think you burned straight upwards until you were out of the atmosphere, and then circularized; back when i was new to the game i was doing it, and i had similar expences. you may also have horrible aerodinamics increasing your costs. not sure what you could be doing wrong for jool intercept, but there are many possibilities.

anyway, you can show us some screeenshots of your manuevers and we can ty to give advice on how to improve efficiency.

October 25, 2020

10 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

First of all <deep breath>: *which* cable? Also, how would a broken cable need/benefit from "welding" and/or "glue"?? And... what kind of glue (that could have any kind of useful function for a broken electronics cable) ... *melts* when heated???

I... I have questions. o.O

It's a long story and i didn't want to make it tedious, but since i am asked....

it's not exactly the power cable that broke, but the connector of the power cable. the connector got oxidized to the point that the metal were all black and weren't making contact anymore. the connector is part of the whole power transformer piece, and since lenovo uses their own specific pieces, i cannot find a replacement cheaper than 80 euros. on the other hand, a new connector only costed 6 euros, but it had to be attached to the cable.

so what was done was ordering a new connector, removing the old, broken connector from the power cable, and welding the new connector in place. but the thing was frail and it broke within a few days. hence a new attempt to keep it stable with glue. meanwhile i ordered a new piece, because i can see where all this is going. but i still have no news on shipping for the new power transformer, so for now i have to rely on my malfunctioning cable.

since i am here, i can also take the chance to express my deep dissatisfaction with my lenovo laptop. Now, i'll be the first to admit that i don't treat my electronics with all the care they deserve; I figure i'd rather spend some money to get it fixed every once in a while than be careful all the time. but i had this pc for one year, and this is already the second time the connector broke. my previous laptop lasted 6 years and i had to change the power cable piece once, and I spent 30 euros for it. and i was being even less careful with it than i am with this one.

October 24, 2020

I did nothing on ksp today. or yesterday. or the day before that.

my pc cable broke. I ordered a new one, but it's a long time coming. meanwhile my brother, who is good at this stuff, tried to fix my cable by welding.

it worked, but it was very frail, and it broke shortly after. he welded it again, and to reinforce it, he stuck it with glue.

unfortunately, he does not have a specialized glue, and my laptop gets very hot when using modern videogames. using ksp caused the glue to melt and run all over the plug. and then it stopped working until it was cool again.

as a result, i cannot use ksp, or any other modern videogame that would tax the system too much. i can use internet, work with the office package, that kind of thing, but no ksp.

i'm reading random stuff in the forum to try and get my daily fix. also fishing for some sympathy :blush:

October 24, 2020

1 hour ago, IncongruousGoat said:

There's no shame in learning from and improving on previous attempts, successful and unsuccessful, and this thread is a gold mine of lateral thinking and creative solutions.

there's a fine line to walk there. learning from previous attempts is all good and well, but if i take too much out of them, i'm no longer trying the challenge, i'm merely following instructions. and if i know a working design made by someone else, i can't bring myself to not use it. so i prefer to stay mostly in the blind, at least as long as i can go forward on my own.

anyway, a pc problem is preventing me from using ksp for at least a few more days. i'll see later how well i handle myself in this.

bby the way, i just remembered that there's a policy that converts part of your money to science. with that, and just "test part on the launchpad" contract, it should be possible to "win" the challenge without much difficulty. not much fun to it, though

October 24, 2020

11 hours ago, Mr. Peabody said:

Indeed, for most difficulty levels the main challenge is to design vessels capable of gathering the science necessary to unlock the tech tree nodes within the design constraints of the level 1 VAB/SPH, viz. an 18 ton weight limit and 30x part count limit.

I am starting to realize. A mun mission with all buildins level 1 is doable, but i may have to manage it without even a terrier engine. i was thinking it would be easy to do by assembling ships in orbit, but docking ports are still far away in the tech tree. and i can't even get spacewalk reports, or surface samples, nor can i refresh the mystery goo.

i will probably fail at the hardest level i set

October 23, 2020

4 hours ago, Xyphos said:

and I know your pain; 6 tons is a lot of payload for an Eve SSTO, I assume it's mining equipment?

it's a 3-ton rover/helicopter to explore the surface, and a 3-ton cargo bay to store it. I'm also trying to include mining equipment if possible, because i don't like the idea of being unable to refuel on the ground if something goes wrong.

So far, I can go suborbital missing 1 km/s to reach orbit, leading me to believe it can be done. i haven't worked on it in a while, though, for a mix of real life constraints, pc issues, and other challenges taking up my time

I have also seen a craft that can ssto on earth, reach venus, land, take off again in rss, with stock parts and without refueling, though that uses thermal shields as wings using a glitch that they generate a ridiculous amount of lift when properly oriented. I wouldn't do that, though, because it's basically a kraken drive. a kraken wing?

October 23, 2020

this is a sane design for an Eve ssto. using propellers to get past the worst of the atmosphere and finishing with rockets is doable.

i am trying to build something similar and i am close, i would manage if i wasn't also trying to have 6 tons of payload

October 23, 2020

and they didn't even need an astronaut on board to collect a sample!

Profiles

Forums

Developer Articles

KSP2 Release Notes

Bug Reports

Posts posted by king of nowhere