The KSP Caveman Challenge 1.3.x - 1.10.x [re-booted]

[Popestar]

So I'm continuing my push for the Caveman challenge.  If I shouldn't be posting updates to what I'm doing in this thread, someone please tell me.

Anyhow, as of this morning, I have finally finished launching in 3 directions (east to water, north to grass, west to mountains), as well as straight up into space.  I will not be launching south, primarily because I'll land in the water again, and I won't get any science points for taking the same readings in that water that I took in the ocean to the east.  And when I eventually start launching far north enough to hit the poles, I won't have to go south because, again, same readings in the same type of biome.

I finished Level 3 this morning, and I have earned enough science points to pick up Advanced Rocketry and Basic Science.  Thanks to Basic Science, I get to do most of my flights a second time.  Why?  Science Junior.  For more science points.  It may be tedious, but you have to eke out every point you can get to finish this challenge.  And with no building upgrades, I don't want to have to try guessing at orbital maneuvers until I absolutely have to.

I will say that this challenge is making me think ahead on how to get things accomplished.  For example, no EVA off Kerbin's surface.  Which means no surface samples from the Kerbals.  Which then means I may have to rely upon self-driving rovers to collect said samples...which then leads me to thinking about how to get them to the Mun (as an example) when I'm limited to 18 tons and 30 parts.  So I go down this road of "Well, I can build this in pieces and use docking ports to get it all together...but to do that I'll need to build a space station...which will have to be built in pieces with docking ports...".  You get the idea.  And I love that this challenge is making me think ahead and in a different way than I was before.

I'll be back later today with another update on what's going on with all the flights getting science points using the Science Junior!

[JAFO]

3 hours ago, Popestar said:

If I shouldn't be posting updates to what I'm doing in this thread, someone please tell me.

Regular progress reports are fine. Out of curiosity, what difficulty level are you playing on?

Also, screenshots are very welcome!

Edited November 18, 2020 by JAFO

[Popestar]

2 hours ago, JAFO said:

Regular progress reports are fine. Out of curiosity, what difficulty level are you playing on?

Also, screenshots are very welcome!

Playing on Normal.  Once I get something worthy of a screen shot, I will post it!

[RoninFrog]

On 11/3/2020 at 2:43 PM, Mr. Peabody said:

@RoninFrog, congratulations are in order! The cave wall has been updated.

I just now realized that the entry was tagged as MH/BG.  Although they were installed, I didn't use any of the parts or science thingies from them.  Does it still count as pure stock?  I can upload crafts and science archives for proof if you would like.

Edited November 19, 2020 by RoninFrog

[Popestar]

And I may have to give up on this.  Simply put:  I cannot get into orbit.  At all.  Oh, I can get sub-orbital.  But as soon as I try to go orbital, I run out of fuel before I can achieve orbit.  No matter what design I use - multi-stage, SSTO, space plane...nothing works.  I've come up with every design I can think of, and I've copied multiple designs in this very thread.  I cannot get into orbit.  If I cannot get into orbit, I cannot complete the challenge.

I am asking for some serious help here.  I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong, even when copying other designs out here.  In fact, the last one I tried was in the second post of this thread, and while the person who did that posted screen shots, I cannot get into orbit with that same vessel.

I would hate to quit, but if I can't get into orbit, I may have no other choice.

[Superfluous J]

24 minutes ago, Popestar said:

And I may have to give up on this.  Simply put:  I cannot get into orbit.  At all.  Oh, I can get sub-orbital.  But as soon as I try to go orbital, I run out of fuel before I can achieve orbit.  No matter what design I use - multi-stage, SSTO, space plane...nothing works.  I've come up with every design I can think of, and I've copied multiple designs in this very thread.  I cannot get into orbit.  If I cannot get into orbit, I cannot complete the challenge.

I am asking for some serious help here.  I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong, even when copying other designs out here.  In fact, the last one I tried was in the second post of this thread, and while the person who did that posted screen shots, I cannot get into orbit with that same vessel.

I would hate to quit, but if I can't get into orbit, I may have no other choice.

They're very old (1.0.4!) but I put my entire Caveman Normal run on YouTube, including the launches. I'd be a little surprised if everything worked exactly the same but I'd also be surprised if I couldn't get those ships into orbit today.

In particular, in the first video I make a super simple orbiter. Here's the full playlist:

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Superfluous J

[fourfa]

IIRC the Mk1 pod, 16 FL-T100 fuel tanks, and a Swivel engine will SSTO with safety margin, deorbit and parachute to a safe landing (well, safe for the pod and pilot at least!)

[Popestar]

1 hour ago, fourfa said:

IIRC the Mk1 pod, 16 FL-T100 fuel tanks, and a Swivel engine will SSTO with safety margin, deorbit and parachute to a safe landing (well, safe for the pod and pilot at least!)

Nope.  That's the last one I tried before posting, and I run out of fuel before getting into a stable orbit.

[fourfa]

OK, that's actually helpful info @Popestar - it tells us it's a trajectory issue.  

I just built that exact craft (Mk1 pod, 16x FL-T100, Swivel, chute, no decoupler, no fins).  I'll try to be detailed here but not obsessive... Following a simple gravity turn (straight up until 75m/s, halfway to 45 ° at 4km altitude, 45° at 10km altitude, go horizontal around 45km when the flames stop, never let the navball direction indicator get outside the safe zone of the yellow prograde indicator circle, and watch the throttle to keep thrust-to-weight ratio [TWR] below 2)

Watch the apoapsis readout carefully!  Click the purple square in the lower left for a real-time readout of apoapsis - without doing this it's all to easy to end up wasting fuel on setting a very high apo too quickly.  Throttle is critical here - keep the TWR under 2 remember, which you can see on the G indicator on the right side of the navball, or click the orange bars in the staging list on the left side of the screen during flight.  The simplest single thing to ensure an efficient gravity turn is slowly reducing that throttle by keeping TWR under 2.  And actually closer to 1.0 above 30km, as you're nearly flying horizontally.

If done right, you'll float up slowly to your apo and only need a few puffs of thrust to circularize (maybe 50m/s or less).  I made a 80km x 80km orbit with 450m/s to spare.  I didn't use advanced SAS modes, just steering by hand.  

It's all too easy to inefficiently blast full power  at the beginning of the flight until the apo is in space, coast all the way up, then blast sideways.  Throttle down to decrease the rate of climb and give yourself time to nurse the trajectory.  Regular KSP modes have the luxury of upgrading the pad very early, letting you use all kinds of high-delta-V designs.  In Caveman you *really* gotta make the most of what you got.  That's what makes it such a great level-up learning challenge.

OK I was able to deorbit the whole rocket holding retrograde through reentry, with the engine exploding on landing.  But often enough the engine explodes from heat and the remainder will lawn-dart into the ground/water without slowing down enough.  So do suborbital test flights first until you can get the decoupler.

Hope that helps and happy to continue working the issues!  Other things you can try if the margins are still just too small - go up to 18 FL-T100 tanks with the Swivel, or use the Reliant (the mainstay of most Caveman careers) but you'll need to use a lot more steering input with the Reliant since it doesn't gimbal - you'll be relying on the weaker reaction wheels of the pod.

Edited November 20, 2020 by fourfa

[JAFO]

5 hours ago, fourfa said:

Following a simple gravity turn

It's funny how many KSP players have no idea what an efficient gravity turn actually looks like, until they try a Caveman Challenge..

9 hours ago, Popestar said:

I would hate to quit, but if I can't get into orbit, I may have no other choice.

Hang in there, Popestar... it's more than do-able, and before long you'll be wondering why you found it so hard!

[Popestar]

Before I begin, I must give special props here to @fourfa and @Superfluous J; I would not have accomplished getting into orbit without either of you.

With that said, yes, I was able to achieve orbit in the Caveman challenge.  And it was actually a lot easier than I was trying to make it.  See, after reading fourfa's explanation multiple times, it finally sank in that the G-Force indicator on the right side had a green section in it that I should be using to follow how to burn fuel efficiently.  That is not covered in any of the tutorials about flight that I went through before even starting a basic career, let alone the Caveman Challenge.  Even the base tutorial in the game tells you to punch the throttle and hit the space bar to fly; it makes no mention of TWR or how to see if you have too much thrust or anything like that.  So once I read the explanation above, I did all of that...and I was in orbit.

To be fair, I have been doing gravity turns the entire time I've been playing; the in-game tutorial has you do one on your first flight, so I've been just continuing to do that.  I have generally been turning to 70ish degrees at 150 m/s, and then to 45 degrees at about 250 m/s, but I haven't really been following the TWR thing.  So while I've been doing gravity turns, I haven't been doing them all that efficiently.  This makes me want to go back to my other career game and see how far out I can stretch my legs with one of the ships I've built using the efficiency thing here.  I mean, I can get to Minmus and back...but this opens up a whole new realm of possible interplanetary goodness.

Before I forget, the craft I put together, from top to bottom:

• Mk16 Parachute
• Mk1 Command Pod
• 2Hot Thermometer
• PresMat Barometer
• Mystery Goo Container
• Heat Shield 1.25 m
• TD-12 Decoupler
• FL-T100 Fuel Tank (17)
• Reliant Liquid Fuel Engine

I reached an Ap of 81,171 m, with a Pe of 70,646 m.  Yes, bare minimums, and I'll have to get far better with fuel efficiency for getting to the Mun.  Although, on that topic, I'm going to start thinking about building and getting a space station in orbit that I can send fuel tanks and other goodies to that I can dock with and take off from there).  I should also state that when I jettisoned the fuel tanks using the decoupler, I had a rousing 34 m/s of fuel left.  This is, of course, after burning retrograde to get back to the surface; I couldn't leave Val up there indefinitely.  And I think the total weight of the vehicle was around 12.1 tons, so there's lots of room left in there to add fuel for flights out of Kerbin's SOI.

Val leveled up after this flight, so now I have access to the Prograde and Retrograde nodes.  The Science I collected on this trip, along with the "Orbit Kerbin" contract being completed, got me enough Science Points to purchase General Construction...which now completes Tier 4 of the Tech Tree.  I only have Tier 5 to unlock now, thanks primarily to going through the tediousness of multiple surface flights to collect Science.  Without being able to EVA away from Kerbin, or take surface samples even on Kerbin, gotta squeeze out as much science as possible.

Again, thanks for all of the help.  I was so excited about getting into orbit that I failed to take a screen shot today!  I will definitely have to get one the next time I'm in flight, which will probably be tomorrow evening.

[Mr. Peabody]

Hi guys, sorry that I've been somewhat negligent of late. I'm tremendously busy at present.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to review recent thread activity over the weekend.

[JAFO]

4 hours ago, Popestar said:

So while I've been doing gravity turns, I haven't been doing them all that efficiently.  This makes me want to go back to my other career game and see how far out I can stretch my legs with one of the ships I've built using the efficiency thing here.

And now you understand why we say that doing Caveman Challenges will make you a better KSP player in general. Kudos for being so eager to see what you can do with your new-found skills and knowledge!

4 hours ago, Popestar said:

I'm going to start thinking about building and getting a space station in orbit that I can send fuel tanks and other goodies to that I can dock with and take off from there

Now this, might be something new in Caveman land. We've nearly all had to do some amount of in-orbit craft assembly before, but to the best of my knowledge, no caveman has specifically gone the route of putting up a dedicated orbital space station before.. everyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this!

[Popestar]

35 minutes ago, JAFO said:

And now you understand why we say that doing Caveman Challenges will make you a better KSP player in general. Kudos for being so eager to see what you can do with your new-found skills and knowledge!

Now this, might be something new in Caveman land. We've nearly all had to do some amount of in-orbit craft assembly before, but to the best of my knowledge, no caveman has specifically gone the route of putting up a dedicated orbital space station before.. everyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this!

Well, it's gonna take some time.  I mean, I have to get 90 science points and pick up Miniaturization first so I have docking ports.  And then it will be numerous flights to get pieces up in orbit to build the space station.  And then numerous flights to get rocket pieces up there to connect to.  It won't be quick, and it won't be easy.  But it will be worth it.

Considering the amount of science points needed, I'm going to learn to fly planes properly...and hopefully get the Circumnavigation challenge taken care of too.  Those science points at the poles won't collect themselves, you know.

Edited November 21, 2020 by Popestar

[JAFO]

5 hours ago, Popestar said:

Well, it's gonna take some time.  I mean, I have to get 90 science points and pick up Miniaturization first so I have docking ports.  And then it will be numerous flights to get pieces up in orbit to build the space station.  And then numerous flights to get rocket pieces up there to connect to.  It won't be quick, and it won't be easy.  But it will be worth it.

Oh, I know it'll "take some time". More than you suspect. Just wait until you've tried orbital rendezvous and docking without patched conics, manoeuvre nodes and all the rest. You thought getting to orbit was hard?

But don't let that discourage you.. it can be done. And once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad. But your first few attempts may have you tearing your hair out and grinding your teeth. And then there's the per-flight payload limits.

Edited November 21, 2020 by JAFO

[IncongruousGoat]

17 hours ago, Popestar said:

Although, on that topic, I'm going to start thinking about building and getting a space station in orbit that I can send fuel tanks and other goodies to that I can dock with and take off from there). 

It's worth noting here that manual fuel transfer isn't available to cavemen (it requires an R&D upgrade to unlock), so a conventional refueling station won't work like it would in a normal career. Refueling can still be done in some sense by swapping entire fuel tanks out, but it'll be interesting to see if this is a viable approach given the relatively hard 2.5 tons per launch payload limit.

[Popestar]

2 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

It's worth noting here that manual fuel transfer isn't available to cavemen (it requires an R&D upgrade to unlock), so a conventional refueling station won't work like it would in a normal career. Refueling can still be done in some sense by swapping entire fuel tanks out, but it'll be interesting to see if this is a viable approach given the relatively hard 2.5 tons per launch payload limit.

Yeah, I'm going to be using a space station as a hub (basically) where I've got several pods docked to start with, and then I'll send up full fuel tanks to dock with them.

[fourfa]

A station/fuel depot at 80km orbit would be a great way to practice launching to direct orbital rendezvous. Makes it easier to have fixed landmarks for when to launch...  

Maybe this is what I need to get my crewed Mun landing program underway.   Doing fine with single-launch return probes, but I want those sweet sweet crew reports

[Muetdhiver]

I do not think that LKO stations make a whole lot of sense in a caveman run.

That being said, I have been using a refuel station in low polar mun orbit in a JNSQ caveman advanced run to great effect.

Simply put : re-using the lander several time before returning to kerbin saves a lot of fuel down the line.

I just have a mk1 based lander with a Jr-port and dock a fuel tank on the nose. Do a landing, RDV and then swap for a new one. The heat shield is replaced by a service bay with a science box to stack the science. 

Note that "station" is kind of a lie. It was more a train of tanks docked in a string.

@fourfa your minmus optimized lander looks oddly familiar '^^ I see that you too have opted for the front mounted drop tank on the upper stage

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Muetdhiver

[JAFO]

3 hours ago, Muetdhiver said:

@fourfa your minmus optimized lander looks oddly familiar

It certainly ought to look familiar... it's basically a refinement of the Mk1 version of my "Flying Sparkplug" Minmus Lander, which itself is based on @Superfluous J's "Kill-Me-Not" Minmus Lander.

[Popestar]

6 hours ago, Muetdhiver said:

I do not think that LKO stations make a whole lot of sense in a caveman run.

That being said, I have been using a refuel station in low polar mun orbit in a JNSQ caveman advanced run to great effect.

Simply put : re-using the lander several time before returning to kerbin saves a lot of fuel down the line.

I just have a mk1 based lander with a Jr-port and dock a fuel tank on the nose. Do a landing, RDV and then swap for a new one. The heat shield is replaced by a service bay with a science box to stack the science. 

Note that "station" is kind of a lie. It was more a train of tanks docked in a string.

@fourfa your minmus optimized lander looks oddly familiar '^^ I see that you too have opted for the front mounted drop tank on the upper stage

 

The thing for me is that I'll need to get an LKO station up, which I can then use to go build a Minmus orbit station.  With the low tonnage cap, I will have to get creative to get beyond Kerbin's orbit, and this is how my mind is working.

With that said, this week will be dedicated first and foremost to family; lot of Zoom calls and Skype to be had eith those on the other side of the country.  Beyond that, I am going to do some sandbox testing of concepts...as well as practicing flying.

[Flying dutchman]

I am reading in later comments that there is a 2.5 tonne weight limit but i cant find it in the original posts rules.

[fourfa]

I think what was meant is that there's a natural limit of single-launch inert payload mass, given the restricted parts, part count, and pad capacity in Caveman.  It's not anything specific to the rules, just the implied limitations.  Though by the time you max out the Cave tech tree, that limit is somewhat higher than 2.5 tonnes.

[Popestar]

So I grabbed some easy science on the runway today.  Not much (20), but I'll take what I can get.  I'd like to get one of my Kerbals into every KSC biome for EVA reports, but man it takes forever to walk to even one of them.  Is there any way to run faster?

I also got a plane off the ground...but crashed upon attempting to land.  I was around 80 m/s, which I'm guessing is too fast.  And my descent was probably too steep.  Anybody have tips on flying?  Turning, landing, etc.?  Again, I can get off the ground...but it does me no good if I can't land.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Popestar

[Superfluous J]

35 minutes ago, Popestar said:

Is there any way to run faster?

4x time warp is about it. Or get wheels and make a car.