godefroi

I'm not personally aware of any software which used the technique to use more than 4GB of memory, but the technique is commonly used for other purposes. Bank-switched memory access techniques in general were very common, though they are much less so today, with our larger address spaces. One other point. Recompiling for 64-bit will not (necessarily) make it any faster. I don't know about Mono, but for .NET, the 64-bit JIT isn't as good as the 32-bit JIT. Also, you (necessarily) use more memory, because pointers (at least) get bigger. You have access to more registers, yes, and you don't have the WoW64 (on Windows) layer to deal with, but you still have the same amount of CPU cache, and you're using it less efficiently. There's a lot of things that go into this, and unless the developers are participating in this discussion, none of us likely has enough information to make blanket statements.

Uh, important thing to note here. 32-bit processes could ALWAYS use more than 4GB of memory. It was NEVER about memory. It was ALWAYS about address space: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2009/07/06/9818299.aspx Staggering amount of misinformation in this thread. If you're unfamiliar or only passingly familiar with the subjects under discussion here, just keep that in mind.

Well, I decided I should run a challenge, and since I'd already built a fast plane (and lots of fast crashes), I figured, hey, I can hit 2056, I think. 2306m/s, or 2308m/s, depending on who you believe. Either way, I'll take it.

You've inspired me to create a one (or maybe 2!) big orange tanker to make refueling runs to my fuel depot. Excellent information here!

Alex Moon's calculator gets me encounters at AN/DN, but like you said, it's the injection burn that kills you. Take more dV than you think you need, then double that.

But, the question is, is it more efficient to do it in the orbit I'm in (~30km Ap), or more efficient to raise my Ap to something really high, do the inclination change at the new, high Ap, then circularize again at a low altitude?

Both vehicles are in orbit around Moho. The lander/ascender is in a ~60 degree inclination (easily solved by landing at the equator and launching to equatorial orbit) and the return transfer vehicle is in the ~150 degree orbit. I got to Moho using Alex Moon's transfer window calculator tool. The problem was mainly that I was sending two ships, and after doing one of the burns (using a low TWR transfer stage) it was past time to do the burn for the second ship, and I ended up a little off. Also... it's not the ejection burn for Moho that kills you, it's the insertion burn. Also, you don't have much time to do it. A giant ship with a single LV-N might not be able to make the insertion burn successfully. That's my experience, anyway. Maccollo's method might be much better, if you're not in a hurry. Unfortunately, I'm in a hurry. Bill only has so many snacks...

The Ulysses probe, obviously a KSP-NASA joint project. For Science!

So, for my second manned mission to another planet, I picked Moho. Mostly because the transfer window was the next available. I sent two rockets, one with a lander/ascender, and one with a return transfer vehicle. Due to some piloting errors on my part, or maybe just the luck of the IEEE floating point math, the return vehicle ended up in an orbit with an inclination somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 degrees. I didn't look that close, but I believe that it's something like a BACKWARDS equatorial orbit? Anyway, two more ships have been dispatched, and are on their way, but because, you know, Moho, you can never really have enough dV, so I'd like to salvage what is essentially a mostly-full big orange tank. The inclination change is extreme, though, so I'm wondering what the most efficient way to do it is. I can do it the "normal" way, burning normal/antinormal at the AN or DN, or I could raise my orbit, and then do it at the Ap. Which would be more efficient? Does it matter?

I found this picture of an artist's conception of a KSP-NASA collaboration. Notice the Rockomax Brand Adapter 02, the PB-NUK Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, and the Rockomax X200-16 Fuel Tank. Also, is that an early prototype of the Communotron 88-88?

Huh. Air-hogging makes a BIG difference. I put 10 intakes on a little single-turbojet plane, and flew it straight to ~45km and ~1.5km/sec before flameout. The navball had switched to "orbit" mode before flameout, and my Ap was at ~63km. I would've hardly needed rockets at all to hit a 75km orbit. Nice!

Also, wings are an issue... the base parts pack seems very anemic on wings of any size, and the procedural wings, while great and all, have never, not once, produced a flyable spaceplane for me.

Excellent advice, thank you very much. Any tips for getting more ram intakes? I have a really hard time getting more than one per engine, especially when there's only one engine, because the cockpit is immediately forward of the engine... I read somewhere that one should avoid anything but the ram intakes, but I don't know if that's accurate.

I've now gotten two different space planes to orbit, and my experience shows that only very small spaceplanes are successful. I have a feeling that Whackjob will disagree with me on this point, but I'm unable to prove any differently. My first spaceplane had three RAPIER engines, and three of the long 1.25m tanks. A couple delta wings, canards, a couple AV-R8 tail fins, and that's it. It barely gets into a 75x75 orbit. My second is a design I copied from KSP-TV, which has one turbojet and a couple 24-77 engines. A pair of swept wings, canards, AV-R8 tail fins, and that's it. One long 1.25m tank, and a mk2-mk1 adapter for jet fuel. I've never been successful when attempting to build larger spaceplanes. What am I missing? What are the general tips for large cargo-capable spaceplanes?

If you're ever going to want more RAM, buy it now. When new, faster RAM comes out, the older stuff gets SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive. Personally, I wouldn't build a machine nowadays with less than 16GB.

Eagerly awaiting!

Try starting your gravity turn at ~7500m, and from there, gradually bring the nose down to the horizon. Once your apoapsis (Ap) hits whatever you want it to hit (I usually shoot for at least 75km to give me a margin of error), turn off your engines and coast until you get close to your Ap. Once you get close, point your nose directly at the horizon and turn your engines on full until your periapsis (Pe) is outside the atmosphere. Congratulations! You made orbit! Don't feel bad if your first few (many) orbits are highly eccentric (oval instead of round). You'll get there. For bonus points, while you're coasting, set up a maneuver node for your circularization burn (straight prograde until the Pe is where you want it. That way, you have a target to follow.

Finally, my Dres transfer burn actually got me an encounter, not just a closest approach. Of course, the SOI transition killed it, but I'm only a m/s or two from getting it back. Thank you very much!

And, just a few days later, a near-perfect intercept at Eeloo's AN. Color me very impressed.

You, sir, are a god among men. I used your porkchop plot (well, I used the fantastic information to the SIDE of the beautiful plot...) and achieved a 15,000km closest approach (without a course correction, yet). Took a little more dV that your tool said, but hey, it's better than being 1/4 of an orbit away. Once I get out into the Kerbol's SOI, MJ plots me a 6.9m/s burn to get me into Moho's SOI. Fantastic. Now, to install a mod that gives me ejection angles for my maneuver nodes, and I'll be all set. Thank you for the very helpful information. I guess where I went wrong was in doing a few transfers to Duna, figuring I had it down, and installing MJ. I let it take me to Duna a few times, and Eve once, and then it completely broke down when I tried to have it get me somewhere more interesting. That'll teach me to take the easy way out.

Here's an example of an attempt I made to set up a transfer to Dres. I'm using VOID here to give me angles. I'm still a ways out from my ejection angle, but my phase angle is just about there, and I've guesstimated the ejection angle and set up a node of roughly the right dV (the only value I found which gives me "closest approach" indicators: And, here's the closest approach. As you can see, "closest" is a relative term. My closest approach is something like 1/4 orbit away, which isn't really "close", even if you're counting horseshoes and hand grenades. MechJeb wanted to wait another few weeks for the maneuver, and the node it set up not only didn't have "closest approach" indicators, it didn't really come anywhere very close to Dres' orbit. I played with it for a while, and I got the closest approach there down to something like 600k km, but I was approaching 3k m/s dV by that point, and it wasn't an encounter, just a "closest approach". Assuming I've gotten this far, what is it I'm doing wrong? I've played with my ejection angle, but nothing I tried got my closest approach any closer. I fear I'm missing something somewhat fundamental here.

That's exactly what I did. MJ wanted to make another burn nearly as big as the original ejection burn.

Something must be wrong either with my game or with MechJeb, at least. I had it plot a node for a Moho transfer (it agreed with KAC that a window was near), and it burned ~1650m/s as expected, then, once I'd gotten into the sun's SOI, I had it plot a course correction, and it wanted to burn another ~1400m/s. That can't possibly be right.

Protractor doesn't give you a node, and the help says only, "burn prograde". I guess what I need to do is actually set up a node when using protractor.

Right. When I saw the URI I assumed it was the OTHER transfer calculator tool: http://ksp.olex.biz/ Yeah, yeah, me, umption, all that. Sorry for not paying more attention.