MerlinsMaster

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know...ksp.olex.biz. But here's the problem. Olex tells me one thing. MechJeb tells me another. Kerbal Alarm Clock tells me something else. Alex Moon tells me...I think you all know where I'm going with this. Does anyone know if one is better than another, or is it just a matter of preference? Also, a question for all of you that use Kerbal Alarm Clock. Let's say I've just set an alarm for a Kerbin to Jool launch window. Now I want to set an alarm for a return launch window. At the risk of stating the obvious, the departure date for the return needs to be AFTER I get to Jool. The problem is, the alarms tell you how much time UNTIL the alarm goes off, as opposed to the actual time. This makes it very difficult to figure out when I will arrive at Jool, because I'm forced to add the time left on the alarm to the current time to get this figure, which involves finding out how many days in a Kerbin year there are and that is a huge pain in the asteroid. Is there ANY way to change this so that it tells you the ACTUAL TIME?

Hey guys, Is there a way to display alarms in the "actual time" as opposed to "how much time from the present"? I'm trying to get a transfer window back from Jool to Kerbin, and I don't want to have to add years and days to the current date to figure out what day I am arriving at Jool.

I just watched Episode 1. Looks pretty good, but I just have two critiques: One, you may need a small amount of dialogue or subtitles to clarify your narrative. For the first several minutes, I did not have a clear idea of what was happening. Two, many of the shots are way too dark. There is a mod available that adds a small amount of ambient light to the game. You should check it out. One additional suggestion: if you're not already using it, KerbCam is an excellent tool for creating professional looking cinematics. Looking forward to your next episode.

Yeah, it's a great map, the best one I've found so far. It's also nice because it shows you all the places where you can use aerobraking, which is pretty handy.

Okay, I just clicked off Atmospheric Stats and now the delta v appears to be what it is when I launch the ship. Thanks, that's exactly what I needed.

Here is the delta v map I use most often. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/41652-A-more-accurate-delta-v-map Now reading this, I originally thought I'd need about 10km/s for the round trip and have a little bit of breathing room. But Metaphor and a few others told me that it won't take as much delta to return. Here's a link to that thread if you're interested: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88381-How-to-make-a-round-trip-HEAVY-reusable-interplanetary-rocket/page2

That was my thought, but there's no button for vacuum, and I'm pretty sure the buttons for different airless bodies have different values. Yeah, I build my interplanetary ships in orbit, so it's 7000 from LKO.

So I'm designing a spaceship to get to Eeloo, and I'm trying to create a design that has the required delta v (I'm figuring about 7000 to get there and back), but on this screen in Kerbal Engineer... ...there are different buttons for each planetary body, each having a different delta v estimate. Can anyone tell me what this means? If the estimate is one value when you press the Kerbin button, and is a different value when you press the Eeloo button, which one is the correct one?

Does anyone know if the asteroids have any extractable resources on them? And if not, is there any way to edit the asteroids so that they do?

Yeah. But right now I have crash fatigue and I'm trying to go a lightly modded as possible, and MK and Kethane are two pretty big ones.

Is there a way of scanning for water? Like with the ScanSat mod maybe?

Is there a way to turn life support off when it's not in use? I have this mod called Cryocabin that provides a crew can that allows the Kerbals to go into cryosleep. This will allow me to just need life support for the month that the ship is at the planet, as opposed to needing it for the entire trip.

You know, it was one of your other threads regarding this subject that made me want to do a reusable interplanetary rocket to begin with. I tried to reverse engineer one of them by examining the pictures, but didn't have a lot of luck. Now that I know that you've posted craft files, I will look at them and see how I can incorporate some of their aspects into my design.

That's a pretty cool idea. I'm definitely going to try to implement that somewhere.

Hey everybody, I know it's been a few days, but I just wanted to let you know how it's going. Basically, what I did is I used Sudslv's approach as a starting point and modified it. It's true that connecting the tanks together radially with docking ports is not a good way to go, because if they're docked off angle by even a degree, the engines will be pointing in different directions. So instead, I docked all the engines to a docking assembly that makes up the front of the drive section. It turned out that I could also get ample delta with just five engines instead of nine. While it didn't take me very long to build the entire thing in the VAB, I've spent all week launching the individual components and docking them together in orbit. Here is a pic just to give you a general idea, and I'll be posting an imgur album later on when I'm finished. Right now there's a fuel tank where the command section is going to be. I'm in the middle of filling up all of those massive tanks. Once I do that, I will timewarp to the next available launch window for Eeloo, and fly the command section up with the crew. Once it's docked, they will set off for Eeloo.

Wow! That's impressive! I'm amazed you got the delta v that high with so little fuel. I can't wait to try this out. Thanks!

I'll definitely check those out. Even on the off chance I don't end up needing them for this, they will really come in handy when I try to do a grand tour mission. Those landers and rovers are going to be left there, but they're not a huge portion of the payload. As for the command section, that would be basically breaking the ship apart. I might as well have stages if I do that. Oh, trust me, I don't go anywhere without KER and Mechjeb. I don't know what I'd do without them. As for olex.biz, I've had it bookmarked for a while now, but haven't had a chance to really get into it yet. Thanks! The pointers and advice that everyone here has given me has got me pretty energized. I can't wait to start implementing them and posting the results afterwards.

That's not a bad idea. I'll keep that in mind.

Well, total reuseability is my primary goal with this particular mission. I chose Eeloo because it's one of the harder places to get to. And if it's true that I can do it with 6000 delta v, then I think I can do it. But I'm not ruling out any types of engines. Which ones were you thinking of? Actually, and I see how this will seem ridiculous, but I'm already sending stuff (larger rovers and hab modules) like that ahead of the manned ship. The landers and rovers on the ship are primarily in case that other stuff didn't make it. It's a big mission, but I 'm finding it to be a fun challenge. If it turns out I can't do it, that's fine. But I'm going to give it the old college try first. This is going to sound like a dumb question, but what are drop tanks?

I did not know that. Live and learn. I know it well. But so far I've been more likely to just check out one of the delta v maps instead, because I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around porkchop plots. But I'll keep at it anyway. Well, that should make it a bit easier.

Yeah, I plan on aerobraking wherever possible, but I don't want to have to depend on that. I'd rather have more than I need, that way I'm not screwed if the aerobraking goes badly. Hmm...I never thought of using one of those in space, figured it be way too heavy. But if I just need one, that could work.

Interesting. On the other hand, I've spent some time on the Atomic Rockets website reading about how a nuclear spaceship has to be designed in a shape that tapers inward toward the engine so it doesn't fall outside of the engine radiation shield's shadow. As I understood it, it was basically talking about nuclear thermal rockets in general, not specifically the NERVA, although the NERVA does fall under that catagory. I wonder how effective those scrubbers would be. I don't know if I'd trust that they were.

Any chance you could post those? I'm trying to build a large interplanetary ship and it would be really educational to see what you did to get that improvement.

For story purposes, I'm restricting myself from using nukes in LKO, as they are extremely radioactive (although there are no ingame effects), and always planned on having couple conventional engines to get me out of that area before engaging the LV-Ns. As far as running on a single engine, I would prefer not to have to do numerous phased burns, as that would be needlessly complicated and there are only so many hours in the day. I really want to just make a burn at the beginning, a mid course correction half way there, and then a burn at the end.

Are you saying that I need 4000 to get out there, but only 1500 to get back? If so, how does that work?