bighara

Oye kerbalowda!

I tried launching an unmanned rocket with a Probododyne capsule, but the darned thing kept flipping over.

I need to work on conserving DV when getting to orbit, but that's mostly poor flying on my part. I end up almost out of fuel before I even get pointing to Minmus. Planes are still a problem for me (rockets are easier!). What's weird re: lunar landings is the ladders are not part of any of the packets I've unlocked. (weird)

l've been away from the game a while, but recently started playing in Science Mode (no mods). I keep getting stuck. It seems I can't get to where I can earn enough science for the next tier of research. What order do people recommend for unlocking the packets, and then what missions will get you the most science at each stage. I've gotten as far as stable orbit and Science Jr experiments.

OP here: I haven't checked this thread for about a week. Wow! You people are amazing! Talk about information overload! I need to sift through all this for all the goodies.

Thanks for the help! I made it there and back finally. Unfortunately, my later Mun mission wasted too much fuel getting upright after tipping over on landing. I collected the science and got off the Munar surface, but Jebidiah is trapped in a Kerbin orbit now. He transmitted what he could (Yay for photovoltaic panels!), but I'm going to try an unmanned rocket to save him.

The online calculator show 11480 m/s (round up to 12K) for a round trip to Minmus. I can't get anywhere near that in my career game builds. I've unlock a fair bit of tech, but I'm running out of gas trying to get back with my guy and my science.

Yes, I know. From a gameplay perspective, I'm shooting for the idea that travel from one world to the next won't take months or years, but also isn't like just flying from NY to LA (a few hours). Also, it allows to semi-realistically hand-wave a few of the Zero-G issues travelers would experience on long trips, while still letting them be inserted into an adventure under the right circumstances. e.g. your engine efficiency is badly damaged. Your one shot at getting back to civilization is a low energy Hohmann transfer, but you'll have to set the ship tumbling just right to simulate any g's. This make the layout of the ship screwy and adds challenges of its own, and so on.

The idea would be ≈0.25 - 0.3g linear acceleration is attainable with interplanetary flight.

Traveler is a fun time. We played it a fair bit back in the 80s. I seem to recall hours plotting out vectors in a "dogfight" with sandcasters and missiles. I'm hoping for a slightly less complex system for the game I'm designing. As I mentioned, the actual warfare part would be more plot device and source for challenges rather than part of the gameplay. If the PCs got involved in Clausewitzian politics, it would probably fall under the normal combat rules.

I have a few ideas for ship to ship combat ("Fighting off space-pirates") that would keep the combat somewhat abstract (avoid excessive book-keeping). I am also assuming when ship's are relatively close to one another that things like hacking computer systems will come into play. I am really liking some of the concepts and ideas being mentioned and presented here. I appreciate everyone's input.

I use Mars and the Belt as examples, but I see your points @Velocity. Because it's for a game, and the point is to make things more interesting, let's assume it's not total war. Mars is a collection of pressurized semi-underground habitations. Terraforming in the early 22nd century is quite crude. There are some efforts to raise the ambient temperature and O2 contents of some atmospheres, but for the most part the only place you can walk outside without at least supplemental oxygen (if not a full vacc suit) is Earth. If it helps, my guideline thus far has been to look at current technologies and envision advances or refinements, but forgo the idea of any technological breakthroughs. Sorry, no Mr.Fusion to power your ship!

These are good points. Me like! Of course, I should probably clarify I'm not interested so much in the players being "soldiers" in a war (a la Firefly) as the tension that such a conflict creates in the setting. I had thought about the hide and seek idea, too. Also things like sabotage/terrorism might play a role as well. Covert units infiltrating strategically important locations and destroying them from within. The issue with remote control is the distance. If something is several light-minutes away, but the time the controller can react, it may be too late.

Pardon the dramatic title, but it is germane. I am working on a "hard" sci-fi tabletop RPG (pen & paper). The project is actually one of the things that drew me to KSP! The setting is early 22nd century Earth and solar system. There are no lightsabres, little green men, or warp drives. Mankind has moved out to other planets and moons, as well as the asteroid belt. One of the things I was considering including in the setting is some good old-fashioned war between factions. The question becomes this: in a realistic fictional setting, what are the challenges to something like this? Is it even possible? Mankind has always been his most creative when it came to killing other men, can he rise (or sink) to this challenge? Imagine that –for whatever reasons– people on Mars were fighting with people in the asteroid belt. How would they go about it? The distances and travel times –while faster than current-day technology– are still daunting. What other issues might bloodthirsty off-worlders face? How would you overcome it while still obeying the laws of physics, etc.?

I guess I could try re-storing it and see. But I didn't think I'd done anything to remove it yet.

On a similar note, I have a Minmus mission that ran out of electricity so Jeb is stuck on the surface. I was going to gather the stored science out of the capsule, but I don't see the option to remove it, only to store. He's EVA, but not in flight. Would that make a difference?

Argh! OK, thanks. I'll have to decide if it's worth it.

I did remove the data from the experiments while on the surface. So if I go back to the abandoned capsule, I can right-click it and gather the science?

I'm playing career mode and Jeb made it safely onto to the Mun and did some science. (Yay!) But he wasted too much fuel landing, so he couldn't get back. (Boo!) I got him into a stable Munar orbit and sent an unmanned rescue rocket for him. A dicey 500m spacewalk later, he was on board Rescue I and (barely) got back home.(Yay!) But the science he did, except for some "personal" reports (EVA) didn't recover. (Boo!) I assume they are still on the original capsule. Is there any way to remove stored science from the command pod and take it home? Or should I just forget it and try a new Mun mission with better Delta V planning?