Any tips/guides for Early Career Mode Probes?

[Slyguy3129]

I'm having a bi-beast of a time getting my early probes to be anything other than tiny atoms scattered all over the ground.

I'm playing Career Mode, have unlocked the OKTO and slapped an inline reaction wheel on it. Problem is even with SAS the thing is insanely unstable. Once it gets around 230m/s~ it is completely uncontrollable. 

Things I've tried:

1: Slowing my gravity turn till I am in thinner atmosphere. Works great till I get past the first stage, during the staging, it becomes uncontrollable.

2: Reducing thrust once I get near 100m/s~. Seems to work pretty well, but feels like it has extremely diminishing returns. If I reduce it too much, there isn't enough thrust to help the 3 degrees of gimble the engine has, and becomes uncontrollable.

3: Add wings. Problem is, I don't have enough parts limit to put four on every stage to keep them all level.

4: Slap a Command Module on it, and send a pilot with it. Seems to work best, but defeats the entire point of an unmanned probe.

The problem seems to be that because the probe is so light, the engine wants to be at the front. I'm guessing my best bet is shooting to unlock the fairings and hope that weight helps?

I should also point out that I have difficulty ramped up as high as it gets, if I lose Comms, I lose all control. So I know I have to keep the orbit very high to reach the other comms points on Kerbin.

Is there anything else I haven't thought of? I've searched Youtube, and all I can find is 6 year old videos of people building super probes in sandbox mode. Not exactly helpful.

[Daedalus3000]

I would try to only put fins on the bottom (4x symmetry) with a swivel engine (for the gimbal) and have the first stage have enough dv to get out of the atmosphere (so you only need to put fins on the bottom, fins on the entire ship will complicate things). This is what has worked for me anyways, but the fairings really do help with the aerodynamics as bare probe cores cause a ton of drag and thus flipping. Also for piloting try to lock or keep as close to prograde as possible or your rocket will flip usually when you stray more than 10 degrees away from prograde. Finally, slapping a nose cone to the top of the probe can work as a makeshift fairing and you can decouple it once in space.

 

Some more veteran players here can probably give you more specific/better info but this is just what i have found that worked for me.

[cubinator]

Make sure you have a big enough antenna. A lot of those weakling early antennas aren't strong enough to do any good on other planets. If you want to go any farther than Mun or Minmus with a probe, you should invest in heftier comms equipment.

Otherwise, it sounds like the issues you're having are mostly to do with the design of the launch vehicle rather than the probe itself. Having just a few, longer stages with fins at the bottom might help. Smaller stages can be unstable.

Edited June 30, 2021 by cubinator

[Slyguy3129]

36 minutes ago, Daedalus3000 said:

I would try to only put fins on the bottom (4x symmetry) with a swivel engine (for the gimbal) and have the first stage have enough dv to get out of the atmosphere (so you only need to put fins on the bottom, fins on the entire ship will complicate things). This is what has worked for me anyways, but the fairings really do help with the aerodynamics as bare probe cores cause a ton of drag and thus flipping. Also for piloting try to lock or keep as close to prograde as possible or your rocket will flip usually when you stray more than 10 degrees away from prograde. Finally, slapping a nose cone to the top of the probe can work as a makeshift fairing and you can decouple it once in space.

 

Some more veteran players here can probably give you more specific/better info but this is just what i have found that worked for me.

I just tried the nose cone thing, it sort of  worked, still very unstable and then when I got out of the atmosphere it was stuck to me and causing things to wobble. So I tried again, got out of atmosphere, turned retrograde and tried again, still stuck and causing wobble. Yes, I have the point of the arrow pointing towards the probe, so it should leave. No idea why it isn't, I might have too many thing crammed on top.

Yea I keep as close to prograde as I can which is why lowering thrust just seems to kill it. 

I'm thinking I'll wait till the fairings are unlocked, I remember that almost completely solving the issue.

 

 

33 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Make sure you have a big enough antenna. A lot of those weakling early antennas aren't strong enough to do any good on other planets. If you want to go any farther than Mun or Minmus with a probe, you should invest in heftier comms equipment.

Otherwise, it sounds like the issues you're having are mostly to do with the design of the launch vehicle rather than the probe itself. Having just a few, longer stages with fins at the bottom might help. Smaller stages can be unstable.

Yea, I have the flat rabbit ears on, the point antenna doesn't want to ever deploy while I'm moving, I have parts break at G limit thing on.

Agreed, I'm having trouble finding a stable launch vehicle for it. AH! I have a pretty standard 3 stage design I pretty much always use, just trying to get into orbit and test how much dV I need to get to the Mun, and then another launch will test Orbit dV. They do tend to be rather short stages, but again parts and weight limit is holding me back. I figured out building cost for whatever reason is tied to Funds Penalty? So now I won't have to grind for literal months just so I can unlock them. Previous games had that slider maxed. I still have nightmares.

I'll try an extremely long first stage and see if I don't get any better stability there. Would make sense, since it seems the light weight at the front is part of the issue coupled with drag.

 

Thanks for the tips fellas, I'm currently trekking around the KSC in the ugliest rover ever built to farm those science points from there. Got the R2Rover wheel through a contract and I'm going to use it best I can. Tempted to test it at the other launch sites, but I haven't used those yet either. Left that option on because of the new super secret launch sites you can find. Seemed dumb to stay stuck in one location like that. I wish the options was "Use KSC until other launch sites are discovered through exploration" I don't like it just gives me a good handful but again, I've avoided abusing that. Currently enroute to that little black tower near the KSC, it's bugged me since I first noticed it, and I want to know what it is.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Slyguy3129
Spelling

[Vanamonde]

Where are you trying to send these probes? I generally research SAS modules, heat shields, and parachutes, which I then use to drop probes on Kerbin's various biomes. Fly bys of the moons and science high over the sun are also fairly easy to accomplish, but for more elaborate things like landings on the moons, you'll need access to higher level parts. Maybe do some direct ascents while the moons are in the right position? Then you can perform flybys without having to try to steer the ship through a gravity turn. 

[Slyguy3129]

12 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Where are you trying to send these probes? I generally research SAS modules, heat shields, and parachutes, which I then use to drop probes on Kerbin's various biomes. Fly bys of the moons and science high over the sun are also fairly easy to accomplish, but for more elaborate things like landings on the moons, you'll need access to higher level parts. Maybe do some direct ascents while the moons are in the right position? Then you can perform flybys without having to try to steer the ship through a gravity turn. 

Right now I'd be happy just getting them into orbit. But their main purpose will be measuring the dV I need for a Munshoot.

I have these techs unlocked thus far:

3 Stability

4 Advanced Rocketry

4 General Construction (Need it to get the Adv Con for fairings)

4 Flight Control

4 Basic Science

5 Electrics

And the precursor techs from 2.

I only need 1.1 science now to unlock Adv Con so hopefully with these suggestions, plus that, will help the stability of my design.

[Vanamonde]

If you're having trouble steering, orbit may actually be harder than just having the things go straight up but timing it so they do moon fly bys as they do, or having one proceed clear out of Kerbin's SOI to collect solar science. There's no rule that says your probe must orbit before landing somewhere to collect science or heading somewhere farther away. 

[Daedalus3000]

16 minutes ago, Slyguy3129 said:

I just tried the nose cone thing, it sort of  worked, still very unstable and then when I got out of the atmosphere it was stuck to me and causing things to wobble. So I tried again, got out of atmosphere, turned retrograde and tried again, still stuck and causing wobble. Yes, I have the point of the arrow pointing towards the probe, so it should leave. No idea why it isn't, I might have too many thing crammed on top.

For the nose cone just wait till 70km, point retrograde (use reaction wheels and batteries for control) and make sure that 

1. your nose cone is on the very top of your ship with the pointy end up

2 the decoupler directly underneath it (also rotate it the other way so the arrow is facing the probe so the decoupler will stick to the nose cone and not your ship) and have the force set as high as possible

what should happen is the nose cone and decoupler will fly off at the speed of light in the opposite direction of your path of travel.

 

Also if you are wobbling in a vacuum turn on advanced part tweakables  in settings and open the PAW of wobbly parts and auto strut them to root part.

 

For mun fly by I wrote down some info in the spoiler (in case you want to figure it out alone)

Spoiler

-Try and get a free return trajectory if you want to get the most science instead of transmitting (requires heatshield and maybe a YouTube video)

-the spark engine and Oscar tanks will give you the dv you need easily if you don’t pack too much on the probe

-burn when the moon is on the orbital horizon to get there (put Ap on its orbit line)… it works don’t question it (I in fact always get an impact trajectory so burn radially once in the soi to avoid it 

actual dv requirements in next spoiler

Spoiler

900ms should get you there

 

 

29 minutes ago, Slyguy3129 said:

Agreed, I'm having trouble finding a stable launch vehicle for it. AH! I have a pretty standard 3 stage design I pretty much always use, just trying to get into orbit and test how much dV I need to get to the Mun, and then another launch will test Orbit dV. They do tend to be rather short stages, but again parts and weight limit is holding me back. I figured out building cost for whatever reason is tied to Funds Penalty? So now I won't have to grind for literal months just so I can unlock them. Previous games had that slider maxed. I still have nightmares

Oh just saw this… I find early game the thumper to be your best friend fighting part count, used as a booster I find 2 stage rockets to be quite feasible to get to orbit (reliant and t-400 bottom burning with thumpers to increase twr above 1.2 at booster separation , terrier at the top) thumper, nose cone and decoupler are three parts that give a lot of dv.

[Slyguy3129]

52 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

If you're having trouble steering, orbit may actually be harder than just having the things go straight up but timing it so they do moon fly bys as they do, or having one proceed clear out of Kerbin's SOI to collect solar science. There's no rule that says your probe must orbit before landing somewhere to collect science or heading somewhere farther away. 

Fair point.

51 minutes ago, Daedalus3000 said:

For the nose cone just wait till 70km, point retrograde (use reaction wheels and batteries for control) and make sure that 

1. your nose cone is on the very top of your ship with the pointy end up

2 the decoupler directly underneath it (also rotate it the other way so the arrow is facing the probe so the decoupler will stick to the nose cone and not your ship) and have the force set as high as possible

what should happen is the nose cone and decoupler will fly off at the speed of light in the opposite direction of your path of travel.

 

Also if you are wobbling in a vacuum turn on advanced part tweakables  in settings and open the PAW of wobbly parts and auto strut them to root part.

 

For mun fly by I wrote down some info in the spoiler (in case you want to figure it out alone)

  Reveal hidden contents

-Try and get a free return trajectory if you want to get the most science instead of transmitting (requires heatshield and maybe a YouTube video)

-the spark engine and Oscar tanks will give you the dv you need easily if you don’t pack too much on the probe

-burn when the moon is on the orbital horizon to get there (put Ap on its orbit line)… it works don’t question it (I in fact always get an impact trajectory so burn radially once in the soi to avoid it 

actual dv requirements in next spoiler

  Reveal hidden contents

900ms should get you there

 

 

Oh just saw this… I find early game the thumper to be your best friend fighting part count, used as a booster I find 2 stage rockets to be quite feasible to get to orbit (reliant and t-400 bottom burning with thumpers to increase twr above 1.2 at booster separation , terrier at the top) thumper, nose cone and decoupler are three parts that give a lot of dv.

I might have to try that.

 

Thanks again for the tips fellas, I'm currently working on a new design that hopefully will get the job done.

________________________________________________________________

It did! And I got enough science to unlock fairings and immediately did another launch. The rocket behaved as it was intended too! Thanks a tons fellas!

Edited July 1, 2021 by Slyguy3129
Yay!

[Slyguy3129]

Possible stupid question: Do my Relay probes need to be out of hibernation to work as intended? They don't seem to be functioning as Relays for my probes.

I have them both 1.6million meters out.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Slyguy3129

[James M]

19 minutes ago, Slyguy3129 said:

Possible stupid question: Do my Relay probes need to be out of hibernation to work as intended? They don't seem to be functioning as Relays for my probes.

I have them both 1.6million meters out.

yup.

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

17 minutes ago, Slyguy3129 said:

Possible stupid question: Do my Relay probes need to be out of hibernation to work as intended? They don't seem to be functioning as Relays for my probes.

I have them both 1.6million meters out.

No, but they do need to have a relay antenna to relay a signal, a direct only antenna won’t cut it. The relay dishes in KSP are: HG-5 (really weak), HG-20 (Making History part), RA-2, RA-15 and RA-100 which all include their ranges (in Gm) in their names.

See this diagram for the effective ranges of each antenna versus the DSN; remember that communicating from a small probe to a relay the signal will be weaker.

 

[Slyguy3129]

I have the very first little relay antenna on both of them. They are both off hibernate, still not talking to my probe sometimes. Do I need a relay antenna on the probe itself too? I just have the flat rabbit ears antenna on it.

______________________

Something is wrong, they aren't talking to each other. Just lost a 20k probe before reentry. To be detailed, before my probe began reentry it lost contact, which means I couldn't line it up just right, and it burnt up. Relay 1 was directly over it. The line only wants to go to KSC.

I have plasma taking out comms, but it lost contact at 80km. Long before it got into the atmosphere.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Slyguy3129

[Slyguy3129]

Any ideas? I've double checked my Relay Sats, both not in hibernation, both pointed towards the Sun for power, both has the relay antenna in extended status. The antenna is the HG-5. Both of these are in orbit 1.6million meters around Kerbin. On almost perfect opposite sides from each other. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what they do? I thought if I had them in that position, that any probe that gets too low in orbit that might lose signal, would piggyback off these relays that are literally directly above it, allowing me to still guide them until the plasma from reentry blocks the signal.

But again, my Munprobe only wanted direct links. My probe has the Communotron 16-S antenna on it.

I don't dare launch another 20k mission till I figure this out. Which is putting my game at a stand still.

Forgot to mention my tracking station is at level 2.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Slyguy3129

[GoSlash27]

Slyguy,

 The communication ranges of antennas are given with the assumption that both antennas are the same type, but here your link is between 2 different types. Your HG-5 is good for 5 Mm, but only when communicating with another HG-5. Here you're talking with a Communitron, whoch is only good for 500 km. When talking to each other, their combined range is only 1.58 Mm (sqrt(Ra*Rb)). Thus they're out of range of each other.

As for your launch instability issues, could you post a pic? We might be able to spot your problem.

Best,

-Slashy

 

 

[Slyguy3129]

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

Slyguy,

 The communication ranges of antennas are given with the assumption that both antennas are the same type, but here your link is between 2 different types. Your HG-5 is good for 5 Mm, but only when communicating with another HG-5. Here you're talking with a Communitron, whoch is only good for 500 km. When talking to each other, their combined range is only 1.58 Mm (sqrt(Ra*Rb)). Thus they're out of range of each other.

As for your launch instability issues, could you post a pic? We might be able to spot your problem.

Best,

-Slashy

 

 

Oh! So I do need to put a relay antenna on my probe! I'll give that a shot this evening and see if that gets it to work!

I solved my launch issue with fairings thankfully. Before that my first stage wasn't long enough so the atmosphere was causing more drag than I could counter with gimble. I made a larger first stage and slowed my gravity turn and was able to get into orbit without too much trouble.

Can't post pics it would seem.

Thanks for the info! I miss having a thick printed out manual where I can read all this in! Ill definitely give that a shot!

[Slyguy3129]

Yahoo! That was it. Slapped a HG-5 on a rather cheap but Orbit capable vehicle, set it just above 70km, and as soon as KSC rotated away from it, Relay1 picked the signal up! Not a very strong signal, but 43% is 43% better than 0%! I should now be able to control the probe up until the plasma blackout occurs! Speaking of that is now going to be my very next test!

Thanks a million @GoSlash27!

[GoSlash27]

Slyguy,

 Glad I could be of service

Best,

-Slashy

Edited July 4, 2021 by GoSlash27

[Daedalus3000]

Also you can put MOAR antennas on your probes to increase the range (its not linear though, don’t know the equation but after like 6 antennas the range boost becomes quite small and worthless)