Rodyle
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Everything posted by Rodyle
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Hello there, I've been ....ing around with SSTOs again, and I've got a design I'm sort of happy with and gets to a 100 km orbit with roughly 2.8km/s left on my last try. However, I am pretty sure that I managed to get the same aircraft into space on at least one occasion with a bit over 3 km/s in the tanks. I was wondering what kind of methods you guys use to optimise the ascent path and fuel ratios of your SSTOs.
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Mun & Minmus: Impossible Stationary Orbits
Rodyle replied to MitBalkens's topic in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials
I think real life gives the solution. It's also impossible to put satellites in a stationary orbit around high-latitude regions. What if we do something somewhat like highly elliptical orbits and place two or three satellites in a semi-synchronous orbit? If done right, these would be nigh-stationary above the surface for a decent amount of time in their orbit. -
What I usually do: quicksave when I enter the SOI, take a few tries until I get it right. It just depends too much on the particular craft, the exact entry trajectory and a few other factors. I think though, that it's often around 13 to 17 km around Duna, but I could be misremembering.
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Space Shuttle building issues
Rodyle replied to Rodyle's topic in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials
Thanks for the help. I'll just go ahead and keep on trying, since I've done enough with space planes already and I kind of like the challenge. Keep ragequiting when KSP stops working, though... ' I don't know what I do, but I seem to be causing either memory leaks or faulty pointer references quite often. -
Hi there guys, I've been watching some videos and became interested in building a functional space shuttle. However, I have been having some issues with it. 1: properly lining up CoM/CoT. This has so far been a huge issue for me. Because I'm trying to build in a cargo bay, I'm trying to keep the CoM around the middle of that, so I don't get screwed over when using different cargos. However, getting the centre of thrust properly lined up is hard. Furthermore: It's even harder to get a good line through the CoM and CoT so that the external fuel tank's CoM lines up with these two. I think this is an issue of getting the CoM far enough backwards. Maybe I should not have any liquid fuel on the shuttle? 2: Having decent aerodynamic properties on the shuttle. My tests so far have shown these to be horrible. Even after dumping all liquid fuel, it has huge difficulties getting the nose up. Could this be an issue of having the CoM too far ahead of the CoL? Thanks in advance!
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To the mun without any debris left in space.
Rodyle replied to Bearsh's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
Just did a test run of my Object 23 which is aplicable here: I really donkeyed my flying of this thing there. I got it into space with at least 3 km/s left, but somehow I managed to get it to the Mün and back with only a very small amount of fuel left. But despite that, it worked like a charm. -
Typically a symptom of the weight balance being off. Check if the centre of mass is in behind the centre of lift when the craft is emptied of all fuel.
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How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
Nah. None of the probes helped in any way, and neither did the scooter (I should've let that horrible thing burn up in the Dunar atmosphere...). I indeed did not land on Duna. It would've been nice, but the delta-v budget would've been awfully tight, and even more importantly: the thing weighed around 40 to 35 tonnes while in Dunar orbit, if it wasn't closer to 50. No way a single nuclear engine would have gotten if back into space. As for the SSTO Ion thingy: still in development. I've pretty much given up on anything resembling a spaceplane, since it'd both look like arse and be impossible to fly anyhow. I'm currently still doing a lot of tryouts on how to get enough ion engines to get at least half a m/s^2 acceleration, while still having enough RTGs and batteries to give it at least 500 m/s bursts of thrust. And, if at all possible, I'd also like it to have 500 parts or less. Let's just say that it's complicated. XD -
Today, the third and last craft needed for the mission was sent to space at the moment we had a direct launch window for Minmus. It was a probe containing a highly sensitive camera, capable of seeing far into both the UV and IR spectrum using newfound technology. Since Henburry was not involved in the planning of this mission, it went off without a hitch, and the CamSat 1 was soon in orbit around Minmus, allowing the boffins to do some calibrations and finetuning on the extensive SAS, which will keep the camera on-target during long exposure pictures. After the CamSat completed its burn for Minmus, it was time for the Trident to do the same. There was some slight engine wobble, but not enough for our heroes Ludous and Orwig to abort the mission. There were no further problems, apart from a design decision which caused the return vehicle's tanks to be drained. However, if the two remembered to transfer fuel back in before setting off, there shouldn't be a problem. After reaching a stable orbit and some general checks were completed, mission control sent the request they'd release the probes and spread them around on the equator of Minmus. The first two probes went exellently. However, the third appeared to have a slightly defective radar altimeter, causing it to hit the surface at a speed of 40 metres per second. however, the probe survived miraculously due to a sturdy design, the landing legs absorbing the brunt of the blow and due to the particular landing site of this probe. If it had hit the rock-hard surface of the lowlands, it would certainly have shattered on impact, but instead it came down on one of the gravely mountains, which further cushioned the impact. A quick diagnostics assured that that while the probe lost all of its landing legs, the instruments on board were still mostly functioning. After the fourth probe had been set down, the probes tightly secured themselves to the surface and drilled into it with the two seismic probes equiped on each. After making sure everything was in place, Mission Control gave Ludous and Orwig permission to pop the caps on the thee boxes attached to the engine segments. They were told that they were not allowed to know what those boxes contained up untill now, because the boffins thought they'd become too enthousiastic and would start playing with them way too soon. Ludous and Orwig looked out of the windows of their satelite and were disapointed when they saw they contained very basic probes. "So, mission control... What's so special about that?" Orwig asked. His eyes started to sparkle when he head the response: "We want them to fly you into the surface of Minmus as fast as possible". They weren't listening anymore during the explanation, but it went along these lines. They could learn a lot about the chemical components of the surface this way. The probes were weighed about 150 kilos when emptied of their fuel, and should be travelling at roughly 2 kilometres per second minimally on impact. This means that these probes are hitting the surface with the energy of roughly 150 tonnes of TNT, with all of the energy focussed on quite a small surface area. This immense force is enough to evaporate small chunk of the surface, and by taking a looking at the spectral data of this cloud of evaporating material, they could learn the chemical components. Furthermore: by looking at the data from the seismographs on the four probes, they could learn about the inner structure of Minmus as well. Orwig and Ludous were laughing as they'd never done before, sending the three probes down to the surface of Minmus at speeds with which they usually orbit Kerbin. The probes impacted on three locations chosen by the boffins, but the kerbonauts did not care at all. After all three probes were launched, Ludous and Orwig pumped fuel back into their return vehicle and burned for kerbin, where they landed safely and went to UKSC headquarters to tell their immensely jealous colleagues how much fun they'd had. As for the trident? It'll stay in its orbit over Minmus. Who knows, perhaps we'll need a satelite there in the future.
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How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
I think we're talking past each other. You can make a decent SSTO capable of going past, hell, even orbiting them should be doable, all possible targets in the game and then return to Kerbin using ion engines. Sure, that's still possible with nukes (ish, I don't know. Maximum possible with the nuke is 17 km/s, which might be too little, even if you perfectly plan the route and do every manoeuvre perfectly), but it's a lot easier with ion engines. -
How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
If you want to land: no. However, nowhere in this challenge does it say you need to land at every target. It'd perfectly allowed to zip out of the Kerbin Atmosphere and do a flyby of each moon and planet. Still an SSTO, still perfectly within challenge parameters, perfectly good use of ion engines. To use your words: QED. -
How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
Meh. I'd say you could carry a small lander easily. It's not really single-stage any more, but you're still able to zip all over the solar system. -
How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
It was just the most extreme example. I'm at the moment doing some calculations of optimal(ish) amounts of batteries, generators and engines which would allow you to fire the engines in 500 seconds bursts at at least 0.5 m/s^2. Still not sure if it's possible though: you'd need eight engines for each 10 tonnes your craft weighs to get that half a meter per second squared acceleration. 8 engines draw roughly 120 E/s, so, given that batteries store 20E/kg, you'd need 5.8 kg of batteries for each second those engines are active (assuming you have no generators, which probably is not optimal). So to make them work for those 500 seconds, you'd need 2.9 tonnes of your 10 ton space craft to be battery. That's not to mention the part count, by the by. Don't even get me started on that... -
How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
Sorry, but how do ion engines not help? I mean, you could replace nearly all liquid fuel and oxidizer meant for getting into orbit (may want to leave a little bit to actually get there) and replace all of it with a single ion engine, a single xenon tank and 20 generators. I can't believe that wouldn't increase your delta-v. -
Designed a snappy and functional looking off-kerbin base (which I do hope to show off in a while). Did some work on a research facility/rover unit to go with it, but the laptop at my parental house HATES KSP with a passion. Thought about how to make an ion-powered SSTO in a way which keeps me under 400 ish parts, while still giving me at least 10 km/s when reaching space.
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How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
If I find the time to do something, I will. It will probably be a multi-day mission however, since my acceptance threshold of horribly slow burns is somewhat low. If I do something like that, mind if I post the intermediate steps here to keep myself motivated? In the mean time, let's post some pictures. As I mentioned: full mission briefing can be found in my signature, but I thought the thread was rather empty at the moment. -
How far can you single stage?
Rodyle replied to mr_yogurt's topic in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
Basically everywhere, I would say. Ion drives can get you anywhere, and with a small amount of oxidizer you can use a nuclear engine to land on most places as well. Anyhoo: for non-ion driven vehicles: see the link in my signature. To Duna and back. As I mentioned: if you remove the payload and replace it with a large normal radius fuel tank, it should be able to get to Jool and back at least. -
Saving a Kerbal on a ballistic trajectory
Rodyle replied to lajoswinkler's topic in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials
Does the rocket have parachutes and stuff? If so, you wouldn't need for the periapis to completely leave the atmosphere, since you could spread out the deceleration over a longer time frame. -
Last time, the pilots sent a few ion probes into a Kerbin orbit, to be sent to the neighbouring planets. However, on their way there, two of them got some more data on their way there. Robert was sent on a trajectory which intersected with the Mun, which allowed for the on-board sensors to be aimed at that grey ball of dust. Carl did a flyby past Minmus. However, the boffins made a slight miscalculation, which resulted in a much higher Minmus periapsis than expected. This same miscalculation also resulted in instead of the Minmus flyby giving a slight speed boost, helping Carl out of the Kerbin system, it slowed the probe down, resulting not only in a bit more delta-v spent due to extra burns, but also a couple of days delay in leaving the Kerbin sphere of influence. Eventually, however, each craft was on its way to meet one of the neighbours. The first probe to make its transfer burn was the Robert, who is planned to meet Eve. It was a quite an aggressive burn, since the best window for getting to Eve had been a few months ago. However, the boffins decided that the probe had enough delta-v to still get there and make it back, despite this. The other probes would have to wait a month or more for their transfer burns, with Carl being planned for Dres, Bill heading to Eve and the Jebediah going to Jool. In the mean time, however, a mission to Minmus was planned. On kerbin, the boffins were having serious discussions about the makeup of the planet. Surface samples never made it back to Kerbin before. Two missions had been sent to the surface, but two times the Kerbonauts could not resist that tasty-looking surface sample. Although relative non-toxicity could be concluded from this culinary test, it was still a major cause of arguments among the boffins, to the point where one of them was put in the naughty box for an hour, after hitting another one in the head with a clipboard after a particularly nasty discussion. To make sure that this time the mission could not be sabotaged by a peckish Kerbonaut, the boffins came up with a new mission plan. It would require a couple of launches and in total would probably cost almost four times as much as another manned lander. However, this mission had much less direct involvement of the kerbonauts flying the spacecraft, making the mission well worth it. The first launch was supposed to send the Kerbals in their small satellite into orbit. However a heavy miscalculation by the same boffin that calculated the Carl probe trajectory, Henburry, meant that two Kerbals were almost lost that day. It was only due to some quick thinking by Ludous Kerman and almost half the fuel that the very expensive rocket was saved.They put the Minmar satelite, nicknamed Trident due to its three-engine propulsion system, in a 125 kilometer parking orbit, where they were told to test all flight systems and celebrate life, while the second launch was on their way towards them. This launch carried four lander probes, as well as enough fuel to refuel. Since the miscalculating boffin had been put on janitorial duty, this launch went completely as planned, and soon after launch the probes were attached and the fuel was transferred. Jeb and Bill, who wanted to celebrate the two brave Kerbonauts on their skills personally gave their regards before deorbiting the refueler while Ludous and Orwig got ready to burn for Minmus. Post-mission briefing: Okay, that was the boring bit. I should've probably not done this as the first mission. It takes up a lot of time, while not resulting in much to say, making for a bad start of such a series. However, what's done is done. I never want to do so many probes one after another again. I don't really mind doing one between a few missions, but all of them required multiple burns to leave the SoI of Kerbin, with each burn taking roughly 8 minutes. It was a whole lot of time warping, burning with physical time warp and generally waiting for stuff. I wouldn't have been able to do this without Kerbal Alarm clock. What I also found out is that there's not really a good reason for probes with such low thrust to try to get a gravity assist from either the Mun or Minmus. The differences in fuel were small enough that it was in no way really worth the extra time it took. However, it made for pretty pictures, and it was fun to at least try uit. Some of you may say that I wasted a lot of fuel by burning for interplanetary space first to begin with, and that is completely true. However, I do not want to deal with trying to get a good launch window from Kerbin orbit and than finding out I have to do my burns in Kerbin's shade. This way may cost a lot of extra fuel, but it saves me those headaches. Furthermore, these probes have about 6.6km/s, so they should be just fine even with these wasteful burns. The Trident's near-reentry was a really stupid miscalculation on my part. I like to do at least some calculations of whether a ship is going to make it to orbit, just so that I have to do slightly less extensive testing of machines. However, in the case of the Trident, I forgot to subtract the Trident's own supply of fuel from the fuel budget for getting into space. It was a really stupid mistake, and I hope I do not make it again any time soon. The second launch went much better, with me getting a quite good intercept right from the start. I'm not really all that concerned about anything going wrong on this mission from now on. The only problem is that I forgot to strut the engines to the main satellite. This may cause some annoying forces while time-warp burning, but we'll see.
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Since xenon is 10 liters to the kilo, assuming a craft weighing 100 tonnes: expect around 11 km/s out of it. It's not as bad as you think. You need per engine (roughly) 127 kilos of solar panels (1x6 ones) to run them at full throttle. That gives you a maximum sustainable thrust to mass ratio of 1,3. It's possible to get quite close to this and still have around 6 to 7 km/s. On the other hand, at this point, you might as well use nuclear engines. They give the same amount of thrust (or more), the same amount of delta v and have the advantage of not being dependent on where the sun is.
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I am kind of warming up towards ion engines. As long as you make INCREDIBLY light crafts, the acceleration is not much lower than what you'd get out of a large nuclear-powered ship (read: in the neighbourhood of 1m/s^2). The other day I sent 4 probes into interplanetary space, waiting for their nodes to get an intercept with other objects. Yes, it's not the most interesting job, but the burn shouldn't take more than 30 minutes in-game time, so 7.5 minutes for me with time acceleration. I played some other games in the mean time and watched a few videos on youtube.
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I have on my main rig not enough load time to do anything too complicated, really. I think a more interesting question would be: what do you do while your craft is performing a burn?
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Introducing the Eagleray carrier. This time, it carried useless, horrible piece of equipment (seriously: **** the space scooter. I need to make something better than that), but it still is a craft. Anyhoo: for a more complete explanation: link is in my signature. I'd say that I get 50 points for stock ascent, 60 for reaching duna, and while it carries three crafts with it, I only redocked one of them. Hrm... I really should be a dedicated carrier version of this. EDIT: Hrm.. Just noticed that this is a necroed thread...