Does ANYONE remember the old way to play KSP?

[W. Kerman]

On June 17, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Alshain said:

Yes, I remember the old "moar boosters" method of KSP.  It was a lot less fun.

Wait, I run 1.1.3 and still use "moar boosters" method, granted, the technology has advanced.

[Alshain]

28 minutes ago, W. Kerman said:

Wait, I run 1.1.3 and still use "moar boosters" method, granted, the technology has advanced.

You can still do it.  It used to be you had no choice, large pancake rockets, and dozens of boosters, and asparagus staging were all pretty much required to get out of the soup-o-sphere.  You can do it now, but it isn't necessary nor cost efficient.

These days we can build rockets that look like rockets and the game rewards you for doing so.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Alshain

[foamyesque]

1 hour ago, Alshain said:

You can still do it.  It used to be you had no choice, large pancake rockets, and dozens of boosters, and asparagus staging were all pretty much required to get out of the soup-o-sphere.  You can do it now, but it isn't necessary nor cost efficient.

These days we can build rockets that look like rockets and the game rewards you for doing so.

None of that was ever needed, even in the original bricksophere that ended at 34.5km. You could SSTO and land with five parts, including the capsule; once planet rotation was added you could do it in four. Even Mun missions didn't require much more.

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, foamyesque said:

None of that was ever needed, even in the original bricksophere that ended at 34.5km. You could SSTO and land with five parts, including the capsule; once planet rotation was added you could do it in four. Even Mun missions didn't require much more.

Yes, back before 1.0 you could use an 48-7S probe and fuel and you had an SSTO satellite. power and science was massless. As it was no reentry heat you could also land it. 
Current aerodynamic penalties small rockets as it does in real life

On the other hand before the SLS parts and improved structural stability it was much harder to launch heavy payloads, you had to use asparagus and pancake / pyramide setups to avoid structural fails. Main problem with oversize payloads in current KSP is aerodynamic. An SLS stack with plenty of SRB and an second stage can take far over 100 ton to orbit. 

 

[foamyesque]

17 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

On the other hand before the SLS parts and improved structural stability it was much harder to launch heavy payloads, you had to use asparagus and pancake / pyramide setups to avoid structural fails. Main problem with oversize payloads in current KSP is aerodynamic. An SLS stack with plenty of SRB and an second stage can take far over 100 ton to orbit. 

 

The larger diameter parts help, but they weren't necessary. I suppose you could call a dozen 2.5m stacks a "pancake" rocket, but honestly, I wouldn't, not when they're still longer than they are wide.

 

EDIT:

 

Also, I was talking about a time before probes, or the 48-7S, or massless parts; I'm talking about a time when you had the RT-10, the LV-T30, a liquid fuel tank, a single three man capsule with no hatch, a parachute, a stack decoupler, a radial decoupler, a fixed winglet, a variable winglet, some weird psuedo-reaction wheel, and a tricoupler.

 

And that was it. No struts, no time warp, no map, no TVC, no RCS, no Mun... :v

Edited August 15, 2016 by foamyesque

[magnemoe]

Just now, foamyesque said:

The larger diameter parts help, but they weren't necessary. I suppose you could call a dozen 2.5m stacks a "pancake" rocket, but honestly, I wouldn't, not when they're still longer than they are wide.

Back in 0.18 two orange tanks on top of each other required tend to require bracing, asparagus helped a lot as the struts created an more stable structure. 
You still ran the risk of telescoping at the end of circulation burn unless you throttled down as your TWR and g force increased, typically the top tank in core collapsed the rest of core rammed the payload and disintegrated it. 
This is hard to do in 1.x, did some testing using nuclear pulse engines, the MK3 parts and large docking ports can handle 15 g, 

[foamyesque]

13 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Back in 0.18 two orange tanks on top of each other required tend to require bracing, asparagus helped a lot as the struts created an more stable structure. 
You still ran the risk of telescoping at the end of circulation burn unless you throttled down as your TWR and g force increased, typically the top tank in core collapsed the rest of core rammed the payload and disintegrated it. 
This is hard to do in 1.x, did some testing using nuclear pulse engines, the MK3 parts and large docking ports can handle 15 g, 

 

Bracing the tanks didn't require asparagus, and frankly I've always found asparagus staging more wobbly than simply strutting a hexagonal cluster together.

[elpollodiablo]

"Back in the day" there were a lot less mods, and experience, all around. I didn't even find this board for quite a while..

I discovered MechJeb trough a friend for instance. He had a "trampoline" (42 or so T800 Tanks + Engines all on one stage) to boost basically whatever into Orbit and needed smth to see how far his ridicoulous nuclear tug can take his kerbals (turned out more or less everywhere). I even refused to use it for a while bc of "cheating". But from the moment on i finally did use it, the days of clutter smth together and after 13 test launches and 3 redesigns it might actually work, were forever over.

We still pride ourselves in overengineering (alltough RSS had a few words to say here) and don't care too much about efficiency, but we and the game are also "grown up" now: Instead of a 50T Minmus-Miner-Space-Station launched in one piece (and tons of struts), its a 150T Deimos Space Station launched in 5 pieces and the miner as 6th. And that's the great thing about this game, there is not real way to play it, some people do not even launch rockets/planes, it's all about what you make out of it.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, foamyesque said:

Also, I was talking about a time before probes, or the 48-7S, or massless parts; I'm talking about a time when you had the RT-10, the LV-T30, a liquid fuel tank, a single three man capsule with no hatch, a parachute, a stack decoupler, a radial decoupler, a fixed winglet, a variable winglet, some weird psuedo-reaction wheel, and a tricoupler.

And that was it. No struts, no time warp, no map, no TVC, no RCS, no Mun... :v

This is way before my time, came in with 0.18 just in time to get hit by the forum crash. 

[Red Iron Crown]

On 6/14/2016 at 10:19 PM, SorryDave said:

I don't remember people insulting the way other people play back in the old days. But maybe I remember only the best of that community.

It's the latter. The very first time I got moderated was for making a somewhat crude analogy when one (now "famous") modder called another modder's mod "cheating". "Cheating" threads have been around for as long as the forum has, and they're not really any less civil now in comparison to then.

Eternal props to @foamyesque for figuring out how to "cheat" in KSP before plugin mods were a thing.  

[foamyesque]

4 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

It's the latter. The very first time I got moderated was for making a somewhat crude analogy when one (now "famous") modder called another modder's mod "cheating". "Cheating" threads have been around for as long as the forum has, and they're not really any less civil now in comparison to then.

Eternal props to @foamyesque for figuring out how to "cheat" in KSP before plugin mods were a thing.  

 

Heh, the very-tall-launch stabilizers. Those were funny.

[Corona688]

9 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes, back before 1.0 you could use an 48-7S probe and fuel and you had an SSTO satellite.

I'm still a little mad they nerfed it, they didn't have to make the 48-7s THAT useless.  They could have reduced its ISP in atmo and that'd have been good enough.

Spiders still do pretty well in atmo at least, though it's difficult to imagine a use for an engine that weak at sea-level.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Corona688

[foamyesque]

Eh, the Spark's still a decent engine. I'd love to see something that was a 1.25m engine about half the size and thrust as a Reliant, but a similar Isp curve, though. There's a hole there that could do with filling, and it'd make more sense than the Reliant as an early-node engine, too.

[OhioBob]

2 hours ago, foamyesque said:

Eh, the Spark's still a decent engine. I'd love to see something that was a 1.25m engine about half the size and thrust as a Reliant, but a similar Isp curve, though. There's a hole there that could do with filling, and it'd make more sense than the Reliant as an early-node engine, too.

I agree.  Many of the early game goals and payloads don't require anything nearly as powerful as the Reliant or Swivel.  I ended up creating my own engine to fill the need, the LV-T20 -- 120 kN max. thrust, 270/300 s ISP.

[kmMango]

I thought this was dead. 

Seriously though, the issue is a matter of opinion. Stop debating it. Some people like precision engineering, some people like fire. As this appears to have become a "Remember the good old days" thread, I will say that I started off firmly in the "moar boosters" school of thought (as most noobs did), but I have since come to appreciate more simple, minimalist designs. I also love designs that just look really cool, even if they are waaaay over complicated.

I still like fire though.

[Rath]

On 3/25/2016 at 6:48 PM, 5thHorseman said:

I'm moderately sure you can get your spaceplanes into orbits with less than 0.5 eccentricity.

That said, "Noob" is among the words that must die a firey death and I give the OP no quarter for using it.

Noob is somebody who asks for help getting to orbit, and when I say dude, you need fins on the bottom, he/she says, STOP FLAMING!!!1111!!!!ONE11!!! in all caps.

a newb is a new player who actually wants to learn.

 

Although the OP did use it incorrectly noob is for someone who deserves a derogatory term.