The KSP Caveman Challenge 1.11.x - 1.12.x

[cod101]

1 hour ago, Blaarkies said:

Did you get the extra "flying low" EVA reports from each biome? It's tricky, but you have to jump the kerbal, and click report right before hitting the ground again. It's not all that much extra science, but it helps.

It's really not that hard. I did it in the first mission. (here) There's also the trick of getting flying low over all of the KSC biomes, but I didn't do that.

[Rakaydos]

5 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

 

There's a tool for that 
https://ksp-commnet-planner.blaarkies.com

Hmm. My prior calculations (done many updates ago) seem to be off by a solid order of magnatude.

If this is correct, I need 30,000 HG5s near kerbin, to link to 20,000 HG5s near duna. 

I know I can (could?) reasonably put ~10 antennas up in a launch, but there's a big difference between a hundred launch campaign and a thousand launch campaign.

Can storage parts bypass the launchpad limit? is there even storage in caveman tech levels? 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Rakaydos

[cod101]

4 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Can storage parts bypass the launchpad limit? is there even storage in caveman tech levels?

I'm pretty sure they can bypass the limit, and there is storage in the caveman levels (in Space Exploration). The parts in the storage items don't count to the part limit, but the containers themselves do count (only as one part). With it you can get to a maybe 80-90 part rocket with an engineer. (You can only build on EVA, so it's easiest on Kerbin but with a ladder ride you can use it in space.)

Edited June 29, 2021 by cod101

[Rakaydos]

Yea, looking it over, hitchhiker containers look like my best bet, 18 parts per part.

 

But starting my actual caveman run....

Day 1

Spoiler

 

Initial "rover" missions to unlock science.

This was a parachute accident, but was good for an extra biome.

First space-rated design

Went up...

Came down (with a spin)

Survived entry and descent

and landing

Orbit shot

orbit achielved!

 

 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Rakaydos

[fourfa]

I found it was *very* marginal to get a Hitchhiker to orbit in actual practice.  Like, juuuuust barely but you're definitely not taking it anywhere.  You'd need docking to make it useful, but you'd be better off just skipping the Hitchhiker and launching and docking the useful things directly.  

Maybe it could be the core of a space station but without EVA that means leaving Bob floating near it and having to re-rendezvous him each time.  I can't see it being worth the effort.  Or - maybe you were thinking as a KSC-based rover parts transport?  yeah, that could work

Edited June 29, 2021 by fourfa

[Jacke]

5 hours ago, cod101 said:

It's really not that hard. I did it in the first mission. (here) There's also the trick of getting flying low over all of the KSC biomes, but I didn't do that.

Long ago when I tried starting a NCD run, I found the best way to get the Flying Low situations for the KSC biomes was to have someone outside of a 2xMk1 Roller and push it, with PAWs up for both the experiment(s) on the Roller and for EVA Report.  As the Kerbal is pushing the Roller, click the button in the PAW.  Don't get Flying Low, reset and try again.  Eventually will get the Flying Low situation due to the bouncy movement of both the Kerbal and the Roller.  For the Kerbin biomes, the Kerbal can just jump and click to try to get Flying Low, while for the other experiments just try pushing the Roller to catch the Flying Low on a bounce.  Or actually use a flying craft.

Note, that it is impossible to get Flying Low situation for the KSC micro biomes, as you have to be touching the particular building to be in the micro biome.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Jacke

[cod101]

2 minutes ago, Jacke said:

For the Kerbin biomes, the Kerbal can just jump and click to try to get Flying Low

It's really easy. Right click the kerbal, hover your mouse over EVA Report, press space and immediately click.

[Rakaydos]

9 hours ago, fourfa said:

I found it was *very* marginal to get a Hitchhiker to orbit in actual practice.  Like, juuuuust barely but you're definitely not taking it anywhere.  You'd need docking to make it useful, but you'd be better off just skipping the Hitchhiker and launching and docking the useful things directly.  

Maybe it could be the core of a space station but without EVA that means leaving Bob floating near it and having to re-rendezvous him each time.  I can't see it being worth the effort.  Or - maybe you were thinking as a KSC-based rover parts transport?  yeah, that could work

You may or my not have been able to make out my "KSC  biome rover" design. I'm thinking 16 hitchhikers and a pair of pods for reaction wheels rolling off the runway, getting 3km clearance for lag reasons, and mounting docking ports where they can link up with previous hitchiker rolls. That means I only need about 100, 120 launches, plus a buttload of engineer time to mount the antennas.

[paul_c]

Doesn't weight come into it at some stage? You're launching 100+ aerials at 70kg each, that's 7000kg you're sending to a far-away planet.

Compare with a piloted spaceship to the far away place, at about 900kg for the CM and astronaut. No aerials whatsoever needed.

Even if you take into consideration you HAVE to do a return trip to get the science points back home, 1) returned points are greater than transmitted ones 2) if you can get there (with the Caveman transfer), you can get back 3) the weight saving can be used towards the extra fuel for the return trip 4) piloted trips mean you can gather crew report science too. I would have thought some maths shows that (1) alone, means a piloted return trip gets you over the line with less trip(s) than a remote trip.

Obviously for Mun and Minmus, remote probes make sense. Its fairly easy to set up a relay constellation and/or put enough comms power onto a craft to do it. But you'll need to send a pilot for the full points from crew reports.

[Rakaydos]

4 minutes ago, paul_c said:

Doesn't weight come into it at some stage? You're launching 100+ aerials at 70kg each, that's 7000kg you're sending to a far-away planet.

Compare with a piloted spaceship to the far away place, at about 900kg for the CM and astronaut. No aerials whatsoever needed.

Even if you take into consideration you HAVE to do a return trip to get the science points back home, 1) returned points are greater than transmitted ones 2) if you can get there (with the Caveman transfer), you can get back 3) the weight saving can be used towards the extra fuel for the return trip 4) piloted trips mean you can gather crew report science too. I would have thought some maths shows that (1) alone, means a piloted return trip gets you over the line with less trip(s) than a remote trip.

Obviously for Mun and Minmus, remote probes make sense. Its fairly easy to set up a relay constellation and/or put enough comms power onto a craft to do it. But you'll need to send a pilot for the full points from crew reports.

I think you missed the context. This is planning for post-game, caveman-tech monolith hunting. That requires kerbnet access, which crew cannot provide.

[paul_c]

If its post-game then just upgrade stuff and use a better aerial?

[Rakaydos]

That's what the monoliths are for....

[cod101]

Part 3 of my Talc run

 

Missions 11 and 12

Reaching space and low orbit.

Spoiler

Here's the Atmo Escaper. It's your pretty standard science vessel, but with a recoverable booster. It doesn't have much delta-v, but you don't need much to only get to 21km (the boundary to the upper atmosphere situation).

On the pad

At 21km

There's the booster over there, om the left!

The PERFECT landing site.

All the science

Propulsion Systems unlocked

Here's Spacefarer I. The service bay will be closed during ascent to keep the fragile science from overheating (the science jr. has around the same heat tolerance, but it's inline). The Thud engines have higher atmo ISP but somewhat lower vacuum compared to the other engines, so it's somewhat balanced.

This is somehow stable

Starting the gravity turn

Stage 1 falling behind

AP in space

And in orbit

Heading back down

Opening the bay for the extra drag (thanks to MinimalMinmus for the service bay idea)

Getting a bit hot in here

Jeb, I think it's supposed to be retrograde, NOT prograde!!

This is why I put the drogues on during the building phase.

Chutes out

Splashdown

SCIENCE

Advanced Flight Control, Advanced Construction, and Space Exploration (this one has... CARGO PARTS! Now I can try out some lawn assembly with EVA construction!)

 

[Rakaydos]

Day 2

Spoiler

 

A tandem launcher, to get expenience for my engineer, and any potential tourist contract

made it to orbit

and landed

a more scientific variant of the tandem. I really should have put bob in here, but I forgot.

 

probe time

Standard probe

Easy orbit

oops. but I know how to fix this. kinda my specialty.

 

Alignment lock disrupted via kinetic adjustment. Operation "Bump it into a spin to get solar power" successful.

the one that did the rendevous goes for some high over kerbin science

The other goes for minmus flyby

This wasnt planned...

some emergency course corrections to avoid a kerbin dive

no good.

the other one has fuel to circularize before entry.

So the minmus window is lost now. doing something easier first.

low, but not low enough for low science.

This also required course corrections to avoid flying off into space,

end of day 2

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Rakaydos

[Rakaydos]

last night and this morning before work (day 3)

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[MinimalMinmus]

Glad to see someone adopt my methods, and yes material bay are lethal joke items in caveman runs. They are literally heat shields/science protectors/aerodynamics conservers/airbrakes.

[Rakaydos]

4th and final day of main caveman:

Spoiler

 

A nifty minmus lander with separate ascent stage.

Getting it into orbit might be a bit difficult, though, given it's mass and part count.  1 solar panel, 1 parachute.

this really shouldnt work. But I dont have the part budget for a second one.

took a few tries, but Jeb was able to follow prograde softly enough to avoid plume impingment and off-axis roll.

orbit

fuel pods are much simpler, and give me the part budget for a third booster engine. I didnt bother duplicating the solar panel, though

launch one

rendevour 1 (with launches 2 and 3 visible)

who needs RCS?

Who needs a second solar panel? this guy... fast foward to the 3rd rendevous...

lets check back in with the last fuel pod...

...good enough to get control back.

not good enough to avoid making the same mistake again.

Operation rocket boot 2 is a go.

rocketboot 2 successful in setting the remaining fuel pod into a spin, restoring power and control, before the rendevous window is over.

 

so, not quite as well balanced as planned.

But nothing a bit of spin-stabilization cant help with...

rendevous boosters depleted

counterweight had a little fuel left in it as well, but from here I needed to activate the main tanks.

found my shadow!

What is that? it cant be! (It isnt)

detuned my engine a bit for more control on langing. Got plenty of fuel, might as well check out that object

Just a rock. (first time playing since they were added)

Lets get some highland science.

forgot about the detuned engine. Landing was a bit rough,

Still have plenty of fuel

Now the main tank fuel is getting low. 

 Activating departure tanks and engine

 

why not?

And one more for the road.

That's all I'm going to need.

 

Proof of completion

Spoiler

 

 

Not my first caveman run, but the first time I've bothered to document it. a nice warmup to get back into kerbal after a long hiatus.

[GoSlash27]

All,

 I happened to poke my nose in the door this morning and saw that I'd been summoned

I have to admit that I'm not familiar enough with the new changes to have a strong opinion either way. I've always applied a 2- prong test to these questions: 1) Does it break the challenge and 2) is it stock.

I'm unclear as to how "sticky Kerbals" ascending to space and returning EVA negatively impacts the challenge, nor the transfer window planner. You're still ultimately limited by your part count and pad mass, as well as the inability to rendezvous in orbit other than using the Mk.1 eyeball.

 Could someone explain to me their concerns about these latest changes?

Thanks,

-Slashy

[Blaarkies]

I got one!

I left this for after i unlocked all 45sci nodes, so that I get a 90sci node for free with this. At first I was going to get the one on Kerbin with the plane parts unlocked, but after a polar flight to Woomerang I just found non-green monoliths. A satellite found an anomaly south of KSC, but when i got there it was just another launch site 
(these launch sites seem to be available -after discovered- under the launch options in the VAB, even though my difficulty settings has additional launch sites turned off)

Finding these between all the other easter-eggs is quite difficult since each probe core has a small probability to actually detect them.

Spoiler

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Blaarkies

[Blaarkies]

I just tried ground docking port construction again, and ran into a surprise:
 

Spoiler

So normally to fix the skew boosters, you just have to setup auto-strut between the boosters and the core, and then timewarp for just a few seconds. Coming out of time warp, physics will reset the boosters to align vertically as if in the VAB. Auto-strut would then hold them like that, and problem solved.

But in v1.12 there is a bug the stops auto-strut from working across docking ports: 

I guess it's time for Bill to go manual-strut each booster before disconnecting the forklifts 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Blaarkies

[GoSlash27]

I suppose "Once more unto the breach, dear friends" 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by GoSlash27

[GoSlash27]

Recovery of my first orbital flight in this run. It would've been a lot less sketchy had I realized that I had already unlocked the decoupler.

My science after 34 minutes into the run. I'm rusty, but I still remember I'm pushing hard for the basic flight stuff.

Best,

-Slashy

[dvader]

I just logged in  hoping to find a good reason to play KSP again and noticed this ladder discussion.

On 6/17/2021 at 7:12 AM, JAFO said:

Or, like so many other adjustments Squad have made to KSP over the last few versions, that have made Caveman life easier, do we simply bow to the inevitable?

In short, yes. Whatever is easier for new players should be the default. In my general Settings, "Kerbals stop at end of ladder" was on by default so I think it should be allowed.  Also, it doesn't seem to make any practical difference.

As a ladder riding aficionado I so far like the changes even if the Kerbals hand strength seem very overpowered.

I tested if the "Kerbals stop at ladder" switch made any difference and it really doesn't (in atmosphere). I tried sending two rockets straight up with a Kerbal on a ladder and the switch on/off. They both reached about the same speed before falling off (about 113 m/s, no physical stop below the ladder). The left image is without "stop at ladder" switch, the right is with.

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/I7V7gO8

https://imgur.com/I7V7gO8https://imgur.com/I7V7gO8

 

I also tried a horizontal ladder since I found it superior in the community caveman Laythe space plane mission thing. Again, there was no difference with the switch on or off so the "holding power" of the Kerbal is unchanged. It still is way superior to a vertical ladder though. The Kerbal can endure almost 324 m/s before falling off! I don't know if this is any different from previous versions but it seems like a lot.

Spoiler

Then I tried a vertical ladder with a physical stop (solar panel) beneath the Kerbals feet. It was kind of silly. As long as the rocket could keep straight (the drag from the Kerbal pulls the rocket to the side), the Kerbal held on up to about 1210 m/s when she disintegrated from the heat... This must be different from previous versions...

Spoiler

 

I also tried the caveman Laythe space plane again and it was a much smoother ride than I remembered. The Kerbal wasn't sliding right-left as quickly as I remembered so it was a lot easier to control. There was still some sliding but it was very slow and therefore a lot easier to control by tilting left or right.

Spoiler

Ladder riding has always been at the mercy of the behaviour of the current implementation and managing wierd effects has been a big but not necessarily fun part. If there are fewer ghost forces and weird behaviour to combat, that's a good thing. Sure, the superkerbal hand strength isn't very realistic but riding a ladder to or in space never was...

I see no reason not to embrace the changes.

[dvader]

On 6/17/2021 at 12:49 AM, fourfa said:

Now, the kerbal can get back to the craft, grab on a ladder, put their jetpack inside the craft, retrieve it magically full of fuel, and go on their merry way.  This part of ladder riding is now MUCH easier to manage on long (even interplanetary) missions

Refueling the jetpack that way should probably not be allowed in my humble opinion. It would allow for infinite fuel exploits by just pushing your space craft with the jet pack. It could also be used/abused for visiting all biomes at no cost of any planet/moon where you can land and take off on less than 600 m/s. Landing on a moon by jetpack alone is of course awesome and encouraged but it should not be for free.

[Rakaydos]

4 minutes ago, dvader said:

Refueling the jetpack that way should probably not be allowed in my humble opinion. It would allow for infinite fuel exploits by just pushing your space craft with the jet pack. It could also be used/abused for visiting all biomes at no cost of any planet/moon where you can land and take off on less than 600 m/s. Landing on a moon by jetpack alone is of course awesome and encouraged but it should not be for free.

What about conops that track "depleted" jetpacks, even though the game does not, and sends replacements up to manage a particular mission?