harlikwin

So I absolutely can't seem to move the camera around in ship view. Works fine in map view though. Is there some button or other setting I need to press? Seems like the issue is when I alt-tab out this messes up the camera. And hitting "tab" for mouselook doesn't seem to do anything.

Its interesting, and yeah I can just keep adding tank=DV to the NTR and at the same mass as the liquid fuel rocket I see more gains, but it gets stupid large, and in KSP TWRs that low mean absurd burn times. I consider the .5TWR about the bare minimum for anything "playable" and even then its often marginal. Interestingly, I also started to play around with near future propulsion and while I think parts of it are broken (VASMIR doesn't seem to work) the MPD thruster are surprisingly good (maybe too good or bugged). I can build a relatively decent performing spacecraft with a TWR of ~.5 with 10-15k DV that is reasonably small. The only issue is the large power requirements.

Well, I tried to do it as you said. I designed 3 vehicles at ~78 tons. The conventional design using 9 RL-10 enines, 1 design using a single NERVA 2, and another design using 6 bi-modal NTR's. All pretty much have the same Delta V ~9k. I just used a command module and swapped out tanks (all cryo-balloon tanks) and engines to get a TWR ~.5 or better 6xBimodal NTRs = (13.65 ton of engine mass) 9815 Dv 9X RL10 engines (2.25 tons of engine mass) is 8180 Dv (If I reduce the fuel load by 10 tons to account for the heavier NTRs, DV is 7764 Dv) 1x Nerva2 = 13T engine mass which is 9206 DV So I really don't get it, the ISP of the RL10 is 422, while the NTR's are 900+. So to my possibly incorrect way of thinking I should be getting way more DV out of the NTR's for the same overall "mass" of rocket which is mainly fuel. I mean 2x ISP = 20% gain in DV seems off to me.

So, I'm trying to build some nuclear rockets, and I'm getting some weirdness. Basically, no matter what I design the delta-V seems really low for a given sized fuel container. I.e. If I use the most advanced dual mode NERVA rocket ~2Tons and I use pretty much any hydrolox engine (~2Tons), for the same volume of fuel (same sized tank), the actual delta-V comes out in favor of the Hydrolox engine, often by a significant margin. So I'm wondering if this might be a bug or if I'm missing something? The ISP on the NERVA's is listed at ~900 ISP, so for a similar volume of fuel I'm guessing the the DV should be double, usually it seems to be the opposite, with the hydrolox being about double the ISP of the NERVA. I realize the NERVA engines are heavier, so I tried an example with everything as near equal as I could and it came out with the opposite result.

Just restarted a campaign, I'm in sandbox mode and noticed that test flight no longer works?

I think, given the preponderance of remote cameras on probes in the 60's and 70's that should probably get added to the stock rp-0 tech tree. Along with a 2 man capsule. Just my .02...

Random questions for the Rocketeers. I'm reasonably along on a RP-0 career. I'm playing as Kermany launching out of the Algerian desert, and I have the starting level VAB, but I can't seem to buy any upgrade points for a second build slot (which would be useful about now). I can upgrade the first intial build rate though. Do i need a second level VAB? Also, with regards to "film" missions, Is there at some point a way to just radio the information back, its not terribly practical to do film return missions from Venus? I know the K7 reflectron claims it was used to send live video back from the moon (per the description), but it it seems the data rate is way too slow to use with the original film pod. Is there a later camera or better antenna I need to use?

So I started playing this again after upgrading my machine. I assume 1.1.3 is the latest version RP-0 works with? Any idea if/when it will be upgraded to 1.2? Also, I used to play with FASA which is not listed in ckan as 1.1.3 compatible. I can't get an answer on their thread if it works or not, anyone know?

Hi all, So I'm running RP-0, and I noticed that this mod is no longer available on Ckan. I'm running RP-0 on 1.1.3, will this work with if I install it manually? -Thanks

Soo, I was playing this a long while back (1.05 era), since then it looks like alot has changed. So what is the current status of this mod? Is Ckan still the best way to install stuff? Hopefully the changes to Unity mean that it works better on my rather limited system.

How are you getting the gravity losses and atmospheric delta V losses. I'm having some trouble with some of my rockets, and I think I just might be flying them wrong. I.e. plenty of on paper DeltaV but basically too low of TWR to use it all in time on the upper stages, i.e. I end up going past the apoapsis and eventually crash em.

I must have missed it, but how are you generating the various post flight analysis (i.e. maxG maxQ etc?) some sort of mod?

So... What exactly does this do? My version is running, but its painfully slow, I've tried to minimize the mods I use, same for textures and graphics but load times are like 10 minutes, and moving in/out of the VAB is slow, and some medium sized rockets get a bit slideshowey on launch (usually get better at higher alt and after staging). Will running open GL be faster? I'm got a crappy core i5 machine, 8 gigs ram and intel 4000 gfx. Its enough to run the base game fine even on moderate gfx but the mods are killing me.

Hi Chris, No idea if its hard coded, but it does follow the normal KSP progression as of now. Personally I'm using Mechjeb/KER anyway for most things which I think I simulates having a few hundred people with slide rules over in mission control doing the work for each mission pretty well. You can use Mechjeb Smart A.S.S to cover the various kerbal piloting functions (point whatevergrade). Also, to NathanKell or anyone else that wants to chime in. Quick question on engines. I'm trying to build a Titan II and later rockets and I see the LR79's have several options, but no LR79-5 which is the hypergolic propellant version, does this get unlocked at some point? Also I'm not seeing a upper stage LR91 either. I do have the hypergolic russian engines RD210? IIRC and have sort-of substitued those.

Yeah thats kind of my take on it. Post Apollo, space shuttles and stations are realistic. But there were plenty of other ways to go, especially manned stuff. I.e. Bases/ISRU were planned for the moon by the US and Soviets. As were trips to Mars using either NTR's or Ion engines. and I think the tech tree needs to have some reasonable paths toward those goals. Same with usable SSTO's. v

Looks like I have some more research to do... Thats actually one of my next projects to clone along with the proton once I get the next tech nodes. On a totally unrelated note, are there any actual cost breakdowns of what a given rocket costs, i.e. engine costs X, fuel tanks cost Y, fuel costs Z. I assume its mainly engine costs, but don't want to make too many assumptions.

Yeah, it was the balloon tanks. Learned something new today, thats an amazing/crazy engineering feat actually. I am now in orbit with the merc pod.

Interesting, mine looks very much like that visually but your TWR is way higher. I am not using baloon tanks, is that a procedural option? Also are you just decoupling the engines at 130s or the side tanks as well? I don't have a LES in RP-0 yet, 23m is just the tank length. What are you using for flight control the 3M core or something else? I haven't thought about lightening up the capsule in any way yet but I'll try the ablator trick. Also what sort of flight profile are you using? I start the gravity turn at 100m/s then follow the ship over to about 45 degrees until my apoapsis is what I want ~150-200 and then pitch toward horizontal. I have a R7 style rocket that has been my goto launcher and works very well but I wanted to try this route as well.

Just looked that up, and its an interesting, plausible, but also quite conservative alternate history. Realistically I think if the soviets had managed to get circumlunar flights with Zond up before say NASA, and the N1 project didn't fail spectacularly, you could have a future with a "continuing" space race. The reality is that most of the issues with manned space flight to date have been more political than technical. The entire reason the space program was defunded after the moon landing is that the US won. IF there had been less of a victory i.e. a soviet lunar landing on the moon shortly after Apollo, and some soviet successes before that (circumlunar Zond) IMO the space "race" would have still been on. And if it was on, then I think NASA plans for heavy lift with saturn5, and the NERVA stage might have gone forward to put up space stations much more advanced than skylab in the 70's/80's. And probably moved onto lunar bases, as well as manned missions to mars using nuclear engined space craft. I mean its sort of fun to shoot probes at planets, but I'd say a more "advanced" tech tree should be a post-apollo focus just to give people the option of playing historically, as well as ahistorically.

Random question. I'm trying to build an Atlas-D like booster using the RP-0 parts (I know FASA has one). Thing is no matter what I'm doing it lacks about 1K DV in terms of velocity. I'm using an LR105 as the sustain-er, 2xLR89 as boosters that are decoupled (just the engines) after 2-3 minutes of flight. Total height is about 23m with a 3m core with the Mercury capsule sitting on top of that. Total TWR on the ground is like 1.09 so I can't really add any more fuel. I was using a 3m Flight computer at .85T, but then switched it out for a 1m+2m+Mercury flight computer setup which is just barely enough to control it all and saves me a tiny bit of weight. But I still come up way short when trying to get to orbit ~1k DV. Any thoughts on building/flying it?

As the other poster said, its good to about Apollo era. Realistically I think there needs to be a serious "what if" focus past that. There is no human exploration of the "real" solar system beyond the moon with chemically propelled rockets. Realistically NERVA was flight ready and the basis for mars exploration for NASA in the 70's and 80's so that is IMO the logical way to go. IIRC the NERVA stage for the Saturn 5 is in RP-0. But more advanced nuclear engines need to modeled, there were some studies in the 80's updating NERVA to about 1000-1100ish ISP, and the Soviets had some stuff rated for 2000ISP on paper at least (gas core/liquid core/nuclear lightbulb). Past that you are looking at nuclear powered ion thrusters or VASMIR type engines which can get you serious ISP (with little thrust), and which will require some sort of large power source for large craft (like a nuclear reactor). There is an atomic engines mod but CKAN tells me its not compatible. There is also near future propulsion, but I'm not sure how compatible that is. And then you realistically need space stations, bases, and better life support. I've run FASA, which sort-of works but isn't formally supported (again apollo era stuff mostly IIRC), and I'm currently running tantares for a more Sovietsky feel, which is even less supported as far as I can tell at least for the capsules (yay no IVA, which means no EVA). But it does have the almaz/mir space stations (haven't made it that far, but wouldn't it suck if I couldn't EVA).

I don't see any R7 specific parts in the stock RP-0, I'm not running with most of the mods. I did figure out how to do it with procedural tanks, use 2 tanks one as a cylinder on the bottom and then a pointy cone at the top, and then rotate the top cylinder until its tilted right, and then move the whole assembly over until it is touching the center tank. It works surprisingly well as a booster, though its a bit finicky to fly right, I get some weird rotation and stability issues when the boosters are running that I'm trying to solve.

That is why I suggested there should be a second or third rate, like they do with the build times for spacecraft at the VAB.

You are correct it was sci/year. And it does tick up to Sci/day once you get over 36 or so. So now i'm on .1sci per day or so. I actually sort of did that tech wise by building a manned A4 suborbital rocket using the X1 cockpit. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't survive a full reentry however. I could actually see a progression of engines/electrial etc just in a linear fashion, or perhaps block fashion to do exactly as you would like. but it would mean re-doing the tech tree. Yeah That would be great, kind of like the whole VAB with differential build rates is done now. It would make sense that your engine engineers aren't the same team developing your comms/sensor systems for example.