RP-0 (Realism Overhaul Career) Tutorial Campaign

[NathanKell]

For the past month or two I've been streaming and uploading a tutorial campaign in Realistic Progression Zero (RP-0), the campaign mod for the Realism Overhaul suite of realism mods. RP-0 (and RO generally) can be intimidating, so I figured a tutorial series would be helpful. It does seem to be helping people, so...I figured I'd mention it here as well.

 

You can start watching the archived videos on YouTube here.

 

EDIT: If you want to watch live, you can catch me most every night at 1am EDT (5am UTC) on Twitch. Note that because these are tutorial videos I often can't respond by voice if poked, but I try to type answers.

[przybysz86]

Great set of videos - I am not a total newcomer to RP-0 + RSS but your video showed me how inefficient my designs were. I am still hard pressed to equal your constructions but if I say fall 50m/s short for your Thor-Ablestar version then I think something might just changed in KSP since video was recorded.

Nevertheless - even as somehow experienced player I find them useful - keep up the good work mate

Edited August 12, 2016 by przybysz86

[NathanKell]

40 minutes ago, przybysz86 said:

Great set of videos - I am not a total newcomer to RP-0 + RSS but your video showed me how inefficient my designs were. I am still hard pressed to equal your constructions but if I say fall 50m/s short for your Thor-Ablestar version then I think something might just changed in KSP since video was recorded.

Nevertheless - even as somehow experienced player I find them useful - keep up the good work mate

Thanks!

It's possible that's the case, although if anything you should be getting more delta V due to the fairing side/base lightening. Check your tank utilization values, they might be different?

[przybysz86]

Just now, NathanKell said:

Thanks!

It's possible that's the case, although if anything you should be getting more delta V due to the fairing side/base lightening. Check your tank utilization values, they might be different?

I use more mods than you in your tutorial setup so that might also be the reason (hard to compare 2 different game setups) but I will most likely tweak it little more - just for fun.

[FullMetalMachinist]

Thanks so much for doing these videos/streams!  I took a pretty long break from KSP and wanted to get back into it, and wanted to try RO more seriously. These are perfect to help get started in RP-0.

Having said that, I seem to be having the same problem as @przybysz86 where I kept getting slightly lower dV numbers for almost all the rockets. Now, admittedly, I wasn't exactly copying you, but I was following fairly closely. It started bugging me enough that I tried to track it down, and I think I found the culprit. (I should preface this by saying that I'm a little late to the party, and playing on 1.1.3; I understand that in the videos you're in 1.1.2.)

On 8/12/2016 at 6:18 PM, NathanKell said:

It's possible that's the case, although if anything you should be getting more delta V due to the fairing side/base lightening. Check your tank utilization values, they might be different?

So, in part 14A where you design the first geostationary satellite, I followed along and copied your satellite part-for-part, size-for-size, utilization-for-utilization. Everything exactly the same, and both the mass and hand-calculated dV numbers for the hydrazine RCS work out the same.  That is, it's all the same right until you put the procedural fairing base on. 

When you first attach yours and right click it (before changing the size), it shows yours masses 0.373t (31:00 mark on part 14A: Geostationary!). But when I put mine down it shows as 0.533t. After you bring yours down to size it shows 7.55kg, while mine is at .016t.  So it seems that I have the opposite of a lightening on the fairing sides/bases. (Since you don't attach fairing sides to that base I thought it would be a useful comparison.) Right after that, when you attach the Altair motor (31:12), MechJeb reports your mass as 0.402t and dV of 1827m/s.  Mine is 0.407t and 1795m/s dV.  

Just to try and do some troubleshooting on my own, I tried getting a fresh .zip of Procedural Fairings, once from CKAN, once from GitHub, with the same result for both.  I also tried mucking about with the .cfg files for the bases, but anything that I changed that seemed remotely related to it's mass didn't actually change anything in the game. 

I know you're busy, so I'm trying to not come off as "fix nao, plz", and more trying to just let you know that something might be up. Whether that's just a problem with my install or something else, I can't say. 

Anyway, this went on way longer than I planned. Thanks again for all the work you do, both on the core game and with the mods; and for the vids, they're great!

[przybysz86]

The assumption about fairings and fairing bases might be correct. I was able to match the dV by decreasing the diameter of my stages a little and stretching them to compensate. This decreased fairing weight proportionally but kept everything else more or less constant - I lost some utilisation due to worse ratio between 100% utilised domes and rest of the tanks volume.

[NathanKell]

Aha! I guess when we redid the masses they went up slightly at the small end, albeit down a lot at the large end. Sorry!

[FullMetalMachinist]

@przybysz86, if you're still interested, I (finally) had time to look into things a bit deeper.  Here's what I came up with.  It is possible to force the 1.1.3 versions of RO/RP-0 to have the same masses and dV numbers as these tutorial videos. It's a bit neanderthal-ish, and feels like killing a fly with a sledgehammer, but it's the best I can do.

First, make a backup of your game, because we're going to mess with some .cfg's for RO, and I can't guarantee that it won't break something.
Go to the RealismOverhaul folder in GameData, and go to this folder:  GameData\RealismOverhaul\RO_RecommendedMods\Procedurals
Once there, delete RO_pFairings_Remass.cfg.  Then go to the GitHub for Realism Overhaul and download the .zip for version 11.1.0 (the one for KSP version 1.1.2). Go to the same Procedurals folder, and copy/paste the RO_pFairings.cfg into the same spot in your 1.1.3 game, overwriting the current file.

That should just change the masses of the procedural fairings parts back to what NathanKell has in his videos.  I've only opened the game real quick to go into the VAB and verify that the masses are correct, but haven't done any other testing yet. YMMV.

@NathanKell I hope that I'm not offending you by advising people to delete your hard work with adjusting the fairing masses.  It was just bugging me soooo much that while I was following along that I couldn't get the same mass/dV numbers as your ships without sacrificing something else (aesthetics, TWR, cost, etc.). I understand that this will probably have unwanted consequences down the road when it comes to building larger rockets, but oh well, it works for now .

[przybysz86]

@FullMetalMachinist that's nice work you did there and I think it confirms that fairings changes cause the difference. That said - I have no problem with that as long as I know what causes it.
I see Nathan's tutorial more as of inspiration than step-by-step guide and I usually build my own versions of similar rockets that better suit my play style.

I was only puzzled because when I first saw the tutorial few weeks ago I saw how inefficient my designs were - for example  was never able to create lunar impactor under 40t to use the lvl1 pad.

I used tutorial designs as benchmark and that's why I was wondering what I do wrong that I cannot match dV.

Long story short - I will stick to current masses and I will just adjust

[NathanKell]

I'm happy to change the low-end mass calcs to match better the old values if the old values are more accurate for small fairing bases/interstages.

 

I also need to redo the start of the campaign at some point to comport with the upcoming RP-0 changes to the tree.

[Conventia]

I noticed the same issue with the dV discrepancy. I wouldn't suggest changing the mass of the fairings back to their original, unless that makes them more realistic/accurate. Most of the time I'm still able to execute the same flights just because there's enough excess dV so that it doesn't make a difference. It's also the case that I don't mind as much because I'm advancing in cash faster than the tutorial, due to completing lots (over 30-40) of satellite contracts.

As an example, I'm not using a kick engine for the Mercury launch because I completed the tech for the H-1/NK-9V launcher before that time window, so I'm just going to use that instead. It's more expensive, but I don't like solids, so using a completely liquid launcher makes things nicer for me.

 

Anyways, thanks again for the series, I can't wait to get to the moon landings, though I can imagine it might take me a little while since I'm trying to use my VAB efficiently, etc.

[przybysz86]

7 minutes ago, Conventia said:

I wouldn't suggest changing the mass of the fairings back to their original, unless that makes them more realistic/accurate. .

I agree with above. We should stick to realism not recreating tutorial that use old part versions. If anything - add a written note on a video that this part was using older version and some minor dV discrepancies may appear.

[Conventia]

There is the occasional mention of range restrictions/requirements for various launch sites. Is there a mod that shows what these are or penalizes you for exceeding them?

Or is there a website that has a list of which launch sites have which limits, so you don't end up exploding over some heavily populated area with toxic propellants?

[przybysz86]

@NathanKell what RSS visual enhancement (clouds, city lights, etc) you use with 1.1.3? All I can find for RSS are some obsolete modes and I do not want to experiment blindly.

[NathanKell]

@Conventia I would suggest just googling launch azimuth limits.

@przybysz86 RSS Visual Enhancements (RVE).

[przybysz86]

8 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

RSS Visual Enhancements (RVE).

is the 1.0.5 RVE working on 1.1.3? I can see SVE in ckan for 1.1.3 but nothing (neither ckan nor google) for RVE

all I can find:

Maybe google in my country do not show it - trust me I've tried

Edited September 25, 2016 by przybysz86

[NathanKell]

Please read the end of the thread, don't mind the title.