Rune

Out with the old, in with the new! Two flights, a plain-as-it-comes Base-In-A-Box pack, plus the new SSTO doing some trial runs with expansion modules. The base in the background is an old one, of course. I think the rocketship can do the roundtrip to Mun and back for zero net fuel, provided the ongoing refuel on the surface and a depot on LKO to get things started. Much cheap, very fun. And just you wait until I show you guys the KAS crane action tomorrow! Rune. So much easier to assemble...

Imagine if you had been on the same save since before 1.0... Sometimes even I don't know what's going on in there. But we persevere, because it's fun. And speaking of fun, this ring building mania might be a lot of it, but it is also a kraken magnet. I guess I am doing way more dockings than the game is meant to handle. Still, with Dock Rotate, the only issue is quicksaving enough and minding the autostrutting, not docking with the precision of a neurosurgeon. Thank Kod for that. Because they do look very pretty. Rune. Still, I am not 100% convinced on the inflatable airlocks. What do you guys think?

So, after many, many moons playing this thing, I am becoming lazy. So I build the most convenient, cheap way to orbit. Up like a rocket, down like a plane. Ditch nothing, of course. And yes, I know the Sirius is kinda new. But I was getting a lot of OCD on account of not nailing the runway all the time, and not getting that sweet 100% recovery message. Rune. Not that I don't have 30 million in the bank on my save...

It's taken me a while, but I've finally realized that the new inflatable airlocks could totally make better connecting tubes than the connecting tubes I used in my surface bases. Duh. Also, they would make assembly much easier, produce no litter on deployment, and make the package about 25% shorter. Yeah, sorry, not sorry, there will be a new base pack using MH parts: Rune. The really bad part is now I have 10+ bases, from Moho to Eeloo, with obsolete docking standards. Time to launch some more, I guess.

If I'm connecting the dots right, that is for Rocketdyne's new and shiny 3D printed RL-10s, which are supposed to be much cheaper than legacy ones. So, subsidies to make the Vulcan cheaper, basically. Rune. And in a happy accident, Orbital-ATK-Northrop Grumman's new rocket, too.

This looks very, very awesome. Will DL and investigate! Rune. The power of the kraken propels you!

So, the MH parts. Awesome. I like me some big bells: Not the most game-breaking ship in the history of ever (that would've happened if I used Vectors), but pretty versatile and simple. 10mT to orbit + crew, in a relatively spacious cargo bay. Come to think of it, this can handle any one of my base modules, and it could drop them on Tylo, with some surface refueling, in a reusable way. Rune. That should be useful.

The eclipse is cool and all, but you can hardly see anything in those pics! Since you can't always take good pictures on the illuminated side, I recommend you increase the brightness a bit to take pics. It can be done in settings now, a slider called Ambient Light Boost. And put it a bit higher than you think is necessary, as the game takes the screenshots a bit darker than what it shows on screen. Rune. Glad to see (more) Spanish people around here. Bienvenido al foro, compatriota!

You're welcome! Make sure to also reinstall clickthrough blocker, it might be that dependency that is screwing with you. Rune. I myself can't build without that mod, so I feel you.

Yes, the SSME is a pretty good engine in RL. Low-ish TWR (compared to other first stage engines), but awesome Isp (compared to other first stage engines). But compare it to upper-stage optimized engines (the RL-10 gets up to 465s, and it uses a less efficient expander cycle instead of staged combustion), and it suffers like it has to suffer, even if only a bit because the nozzle is slightly overexpanded for SL. That also means that its KSP analogue is horrible as an analogue, BTW, since it needs no boosting from SRBs to make an awesome first stage engine, on account of having the highest TWR in the game. I just posted a Shuttle replica that uses Skiffs as SSMEs, and it's much closer to the real thing in function than if I had used Vectors, even with the crappy gimbal on the Skiff. In any case, my point about it having a flat-ish Isp curve still stands: atmosphere-compensating nozzles always have good performance at sea level. The KSP RAPIER engine, OTOH, is not the best engine in the game, because if it was the game wouldn't be balanced at all. It is, tough, the best engine for a SSTO, hands down, and it has the vacuum Isp of many other engines, an Isp that a few game versions ago would have been considered pretty decent. The thing is, KSP has suffered a bit from the "Dragonball effect", in that the expansions (ARM and Making History) come with engines that are just hands down better than the ones in the stock game. Just like the Vector and derivatives were OP in their time (still are), the Wolfhound and its ridiculous Isp (compared to all other engines) breaks the game balance. But that doesn't mean that the engines that get left behind are bad. It just means you can only compare them to engines from the same development period and yes, KSP could use a thorough balance pass (I think we all agree on that at this point, even if we disagree on the particulars). And among those 'stock' engines, accounting for the fact that KSP doesn't model different liquid fuel options, its vacuum Isp is not that horrible. If it was, the SSTOs that win the payload fraction challenge wouldn't almost all be pure RAPIER designs, with the occasional auxiliary nuke on truly huge designs. Rune. I confess it's been like a year since I checked the payload fraction challenge. I doubt the situation has changed regarding RAPIERs.

You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy, as always. Also, a few of you have already found out the Shuttle is already on KerbalX, but for the rest of you forumnites, here you go, the thing: https://kerbalx.com/Rune/Kerbal-Transportation-System It's got some minor tweaks, and a craft description that you should totally read. The flight manual, in particular, is pretty precise... it is supposed to be flown to orbit without touching WASD, after all. And while we are at it, I can show you the WiP 'inflatable' ring station. I'm not totally happy with it, too many sections and it still doesn't look as round as I'd like. Meaning I might completely redesign, but the basic idea is sound, I think. I mean, the whole ring fits in two flights of the SSTO that carries it, and then it can fit one of them inside. So compact! Rune. Putting a ring to it since... I dunno. But we are at the MkXV, at least.

I'm using version 3.3.19.3, which you can get from spacedock. It's good for any 1.4.x. Rune. You must be having one of those 'human factor' issues. Happens to the best of us.

You, sir, know your stuff about SSTOs, based on that comment alone. +1 Actually... the 'real-world' analogue uses the same nozzles for its atmospheric and closed cycle settings. Yes, that means it doesn't look like an airbreather, at all. And yes, that also means that the nozzles have to be optimized for something close to sea-level expansion. Meaning, it has a relatively low Isp for a H2/LOX rocket engine, like the SSME. Rune. I'm pretty confident that is not the reason of its curve in KSP, but there you go.

But they do. I have retired all mk2 designs, because they underperformed in every metric compared to Mk3, by a large margin, and aesthetics alone wasn't enough to offset a 10-20% payload penalty, and a longer climb to orbit. Now, it's not something that is easy to find out (insert comment about bugged aerodynamic indicators showing arrow proportional to node size, not drag amount), but when you start getting down to the nitty-gritty details, keeping track of ratios among your SSTO fleet, it quickly stands out: Mk2 designs underperform in a consistent matter, due to excessive drag. Mk3 vs rocket parts, yeah, the rocket parts win hands down, but it's less obvious, and you could mention the improved thermal tolerance. But Mk2 vs Mk3? Makes no sense, game-balance wise. Rune. They are even quite up there in the tech tree!

Well, re-download and re-install, and if the problem persists, it must be a mod conflict, because I can confirm editor extensions redux has a 1.4.3 version that works without issues. Rune. Hope you solve the issue!

Check the drag of the short Mk2-Mk1 adapters with the cheat menu. Check the numbers against things like Mk3 fuselages, 1.25 and 2.5m rocket parts, and the shuttle backside (with nodes covered). Then come back and tell me if you don't think that has to be a bug. Its drag is several times what an equivalent rocket fuel tank has! And its the one supposed to be used in planes. Instead, it makes planes based on them need a much higher TWR than planes made out of rocket fuel tanks, and the spaceplane parts, in the end, the worst parts to make spaceplanes. The long adapters are the same, but less glaringly so, and Mk2 straight fuselages are a tiny bit better, but that only makes them the worst kind of tank in the game, with no aerodynamic savings at all to offset their higher dry mass. Again, in things that are supposed to be used in planes. Rune. And the cost thing? That's just ridiculous.

Long time no post! There are many reasons, but I will sum them up as 'life stuff'. All good tough, so no worries, it was just a matter of time for me to get back at KSP. And to celebrate, let's show off yesterday's efforts: Shuttle replica! Always a challenge, and this time the result is very much to my liking, all thanks to the new DLC parts. Because of course you can't see it in that pretty picture, but I've found the perfect SSME equivalent: the Skiff, the supposed J-2 replica. I can already hear how you guys are thinking that I must be crazy, since there is already a SSME replica, and it has way more gimbal than the Skiff. Could very well be true. But hear me out! The Vector has just too much thrust. It doesn't need any SRBs to get up there, so you don't really use the 1.5 staging the shuttle did, in the way the shuttle did. The gimbal, on the other hand, is something that I learned to live without a long time ago (because the Vector is relatively new), and proper designing of the whole thing can make the inevitable torques of such a weird parallel stack, well... manageable. And the challenge! This is the first time in a long time that I have to tweak a design through so much trial and error. I had a blast doing it. But enough writing, let's show you the juicy details: Look at that part count. And that is with a 30 part, 10mT station module on the bay, so the whole thing is a mere 80 parts empty. And yes, it's only because of SRB power that the thing can take off with TWR a shade above one at full power. It's only by the time the SRBs have burned out that the three 'SSMEs' can give you something approaching TWR 1. And yes, there are only two monoprop engines to complete the orbital insertion (at a realistically gentle TWR of 0,1), and I guarantee you will need to use them, because the margins are tight... That external tank ain't making it to orbit unless the payload bay is empty. And for a final, necessary touch of design, the burns of the SRB bundles is tweaked so they actually have something resembling a thrust curve, with the thrust tapering off and changing it's CoT towards the end of the burn (i:e one pair burns out before the other two so you don't spin out of control when the ET and the SRBs are almost empty). What can I say, the biggest stock SRB is way too weak to build a decent shuttle with, and this way I can simulate a thrust profile that makes the whole thing capable of holding something very close to a stable flight. I also added probe cores with action groups 5 and 20 degrees offset, so you can actually know where your thrust vector is pointing at any given time, and use autopilots and maneuver nodes and such. As a result of all this tinkering, the whole ascent is pretty much a sequence of single key presses, which is really cool: the torques from offset thrust are balanced so they almost do the whole grav-turn by themselves, you just have to help by switching autopilots and control points when appropriate. Oh, and the most hilarious thing is, all that trying to make it work with subpar engines, 'realistic' SRBs, and tight fuel margins actually pays off: launch cost is about 40,000√ (assuming runway landing of the orbiter), and payload is 10,000kgs... price is about 4√/kg, which if you ask me is the most surprising thing about a KSP Shuttle replica. The thing is economical. No KerbalX link yet, tough. I want to give it a couple more spins, maybe develop different SRB thrust profiles for different payloads in the bay. I have a feeling if it launches empty right now, the ascent is going to be quite different, since it walks a very narrow razor edge of stability. Also, I might work out somethign so you don't have to un-forbid fuel tanks to reserve fuel for the fuell cells (you didn't think I would add any other power generation part on a Shuttle replica, did you? ) Instead, have more pretty pictures, starting with proof of orbit, and ending with proof of full mission roundtrip without reload: Rune. Of course I was going to use the space race parts to build something completely unrelated to the space race era... I also have a semi-inflatable, Von Braun-style ring in the works.

This is the bestest explanation. I mean, the 'how long you can run a 1N engine with 1kg of fuel' thing is technically right, but really Isp is exhaust speed divided by 9,8 'cause americans can't learn proper units. Then you think about conservation of momentum ( Mass times velocity equals mass times velocity), realize the two masses are your rocket, and the fuel it carries, and you should see why having twice the exhaust speed will get you going twice as fast, pretty much instantly. Rune. Rockets are momentum exchange machines.

Yup, many thanks to the devs as always for their work,we enjoy it. And speaking for myself, I'd also be interested in an in-depth explanation of that particular bit of bug-slaying. I (and I imagine, others) am very interested in the guts of KSP. It has implications for KrakenDrives and other kinds of science!! Rune. The worst part is I'll be AFK all weekend.

Or, like you yourself have said, you could shift everything to the right, have SLS twiddle his methaporical thumbs for half a decade, while Congress funnels even more money to the usual places, in order to get the payloads designed and built. And on the other side of it, you can say you 'built the rocket so fast, its payloads weren't ready'. Rune. Marks those words, I'd bet something they will be heard at some future Congress panel.

Considering how long it is taking to build the rocket, and the fact that only the PPM is anything more than a concept at this stage, I think you can guess which of those three options will end up happening. Rune. Has any of the LOP-G components even gotten its own budget line? There's your answer.

That is the root of all the problems with NASA right now. There is no payload. But there is no payload, because there is no mission. LOP-G is just what happens in the vaccum of 'we have no idea what to do now'. Go to the Moon? Maybe at some point, but we won't appropiate money just now. Mars? Yeah, try next administration. But 'it's the notional goal'. repurposed bovine waste. If it was, a plan to get there would be drafted, and the payloads neccesary to do so would be contracted out, and then launchers would be selected, or planned if none were suitable. Until NASA starts designing payloads to go somewhere with humans, it won't get anywhere with humans, no matter what its budget is. And those payloads aren't souped-up versions of Apollo with a 18 billion dollar pricetag, they are in-space stages, long duration habitats, landers, and perhaps fuel depots. None of those things are funded, or plan to be funded in the near future. That is how I know NASA won't do anything of significance in human spaceflight this decade. And yes, the only flight of SLS that makes the slightest bit of sense is Clipper. Because it is the only one that started as a payload, with a destination. Rune. Funny how it doesn't really need the SLS, BTW.

Hum. Yeah, eyeballing it, it seems reasonable. TWR and aerodynamics are the main thing in a SSTO (TWR around 0,5, no open nodes because they are draggy), the rest follows once you nail those (you should en up somewhere between 25 and 50% payload mass in LKO), but of course flying it right is crucial... and easy. Just make sure you accelerate past supersonic speeds (>400m/s) low in the atmosphere (under 2,000m), then just let the plane continue in a straight line: kerbin will curve under you, and the RAPIERs will keep accelerating, until you get to around 20kms and 1,200m/s, and from there a short rocket burn will get you suborbital. Rune. But experimentation is the best way to learn!

Yup. I know I haven't posted much, but that's because I have just moved cities, I don't have internet sorted out, and little time in general... and still I have managed to create a bunch of new stuff, update some of the things that needed updating, and in general hurt my sleep because I am having so much fun and new ideas. Rune. Just you wait to when I get around to firing the mission builder!

Don't even need to, just disable the decoupling on the baseplate, add another decoupler if you need to see both lower and upper stage infos at the same time. Apparently, the baseplates don't interfere with the fuel flow calculation, KER only thinks the engines are dropped when you stage the plate. Rune. Almost a non-bug, so an update can certainly wait.