herbal space program

So after stating over several times, I managed to a Munar flyby on my 4th mission last night. Mission 1 was just the MK1 with a goo canister on top, with Bob inside. I inspected the goo, did an EVA report, and did a crew report, with the science from Kerbin and first mission contracts active. That got me like 12 science, enough to unlock the 1st tech tier. For Mission 2, I added the Escape Atmosphere contract and launched a 2-stage rocket with Reliant engines, 2 goo canisters, and a Science Jr. right behind the Mk1 and on top of a decoupler. There were like 6 t100 tanks on the top stage and 8 on the bottom. I launched this on a 45 degree trajectory, starting a slow turn to that angle at about 3000m. With this config I was able to get to a 105km apoapsis with a fair bit of fuel left in the upper stage. I took goo readings just below 70km and then again above it, and then did the science Jr. and crew report near apoapsis. The trick to recovering the science Jr. was to use all my extra fuel to do a powered descent, alleviating re-entry heating. I basically waited until I was at about 30km then fired my engines full-throttle, slowing to <600 m/s by around 18km. That kept the Science Jr. from exploding and netted me like 40 science after splashdown. With all the records that set and the escape atmosphere contract, I had enough science and money to upgrade both the pad and the astronaut complex and unlock the swivel engine and radial decoupler. For Mission 3, I dropped the Science Jr., added a couple of Hammers to the base of my rocket, and switched to T200 tanks (with the same amount of total fuel) and the Swivel engine for the upper stage. This stack made orbit and back pretty easily, during which I did an EVA report and did a lucrative "test radial decoupler in orbit" contract. I somehow couldn't get the "return from orbit safely" contract at this point. At any rate, after landing I was able to unlock the remaining 2nd tier tech, survivability. With that, I was ready for the Munar flyby. I swapped the Hammers for BACCs, added one T200 each to my upper and lower stages, replaced the MK1 chute with a goo canister, added 2 radial chutes, and put a Science Jr. protected by a heat shield behind the command pod. From LKO I boosted prograde with the Mun maybe 1.5 Munar diameters above the horizon, to an apopapsis just a bit inside Munar orbit. This put me inside the Mun's SOI a fair ways in front of and inside of it, which put me on a retrograde trajectory that cleared the Munar surface by about 7000m and put me back in a Kerbin orbit with a periapsis of about 1000km. I had just enough fuel left at this point to drop this periapsis down to around 45km, which after a fairly tedious number of aerobraking passes got me back on the ground safely. The biggest difficulty here was that the heat shield has an alarming tendency to flip the command pod nose-first, something I sure hope the devs will fix. Fortunately, it happened fairly late in my re-entry and I was able to flip it back pretty quickly, or else kaboom. Anyway, after all that I had enough science to unlock the LV909 and *almost* enough to get some batteries, as well as about 200k in the bank. I've got well-paying contracts for Munar landings now, as well as orbital rescues and rendezvous missions, so I don't think I'll need to do too much inane testing grind. I guess my next move will be to do an orbital rescue/rendezvous thing while spamming Kerbin biomes with EVA reports. Aftet that I guess I'll get the batteries and attempt a Munar landing. I'm pretty comfortable doing this without patched conics of the maneuver node, but I'm not sure about doing it without RCS. We'll see....

Yeah, I guess that 18 ton limit really is more oppressive than not getting to do space EVAs. So many problems go away if you can launch a bigger ship.

Thanks for posting that. From reading the craft file, it looks like what you had is very similar to what I had, except that you're using the 90/110 fuel tanks instead of the 45/55 ones and you also have tail fins. I read on another thread that the larger tanks somehow have less drag when stacked up than the smaller ones, so that may have made a significant difference. You also put less fuel in your upper stage and more in your lower than I did, which probably helped as well. Moreover, the tail fins probably helped you to maintain a better profile -- if you think that ship was hard to control you should have seen mine! The thing I didn't mention in my OP was that I was trying to do this as my second mission of the game, so I only had the first two nodes of the tech tree unlocked. No tail fins or bigger tanks for me. Anyway, you have shown that it is doable without upgrading any facilities! Oh, and as to the Launchpad upgrade being first, I was thinking more that the astronaut facility would be the best one to do first, because then you can do space EVAs over all the different Kerbin biomes to get more science. Either way, the Launchpad would definitely be the next one for me. There's no getting to the Mun with only 18 tons! I guess it's really a matter of what you're trying to do. My goal has basically been to get as far as possible with as few flights as possible.

So has anybody managed to get the Science Jr. into orbit with only first-tier facilities? I tried and tried last night and couldn't do it. Every configuration I used was just shy of making it. ...Also, I'd love to know what people's impressions are as to how the optimal profile for orbital ascent has changed. With the earliest engine, it seems like I have to start my gravity turn a fair bit earlier and pitch down much more slowly to avoid flipping out, but I'm wondering how much deltaV I'm robbing myself of doing it that way. OTOH, it seems like drag drops off quite a bit more precipitously at higher altitudes now, suggesting that the time to go into an all-out burn for 70km is earlier than in 0.90.

That worked for me. I'm going to have to re-start this hard career game with better exploitation of the contracts system!

I didn't have any Mun-related contracts either in a similar situation, but I think it's also because I didn't have the required techs. After making my orbital mission and before getting any building upgrades, I basically only had the first three tiers of the tech tree done. That leaves you with no lander engine and only the micro lander legs, which may not be enough for the contract system to give you a Munar mission.

Totally agree that this is too cruel. The cost of the initial building upgrades is just brutal, and you find yourself stuck with no way to do any of the more lucrative missions (how are you going to go to the Mun with only 18 tons and 30 parts?) or to get all the science you can get from EVA reports over different biomes. I found that I couldn't even orbit and recover a Science Jr. with the parts and restrictions you get using the starting buildings. I think I will start over myself and dial that parameter back a bit.

I must say that when I played hard career in 0.90, there was more to it than just grinding. Managing an orbital rendezvous to recover a stranded Kerbal without any of the maneuver node stuff, the target indicator outside of a couple of km, or even RCS was a real piloting challenge!

I played in hard mode except I allowed quicksaving, and I had a similar experience last night. It took me like 2-3 hours to get a ship that could make orbit and land again, and I wasn't able to do it with both goo and Science Jr. at the same time. I only had to do one test contract to get there though, and I had about 300k roots in the bank, so money did not seem like a big bottleneck for me. Science OTOH felt pretty hard to come by. After orbiting successfully all I got was grindy test contracts, which I can't say seemed like a lot of fun to work though. ...I should add that I guess allowing quicksave largely defeats the purpose of hard mode, but even without any mulligans I think I still would have had at least half as much money in the bank as I had allowing them. None of my failures would have actually killed my Kerbals, I just would have had about 8 10k-root suborbital flights for no particular reward before making orbit.

I must say that getting to orbit and back with the parts provided only in the first three nodes of the tech tree and with all facilities at level 1 was pretty challenging! I have not been able to do it yet with 2 goo canisters and a Science Jr. - - - Updated - - - So has any smart person determined how the altitude-terminal velocity relationship has changed in the new game? My fairly tall 1.25 meter Mk1-topped stack seems to want to go faster than before, but it also seems to want to flip out a lot more if I go faster than the old TV values.

I didn't have that many mods, but all I had to do was go to the Game Data folder and drag every folder except for the one labeled "Squad" into a different location. The game then loaded just fine with only stock parts.

It's a treadeoff of thrust vs. engine efficiency.The most efficient thing in terms of deltaV is as R.I.C. said, to lower periapsis to just above the surface and then burn very hard at periapsis to stop yourself. From that high apoapsis, this will require a very high TWR or you will drill a hole. If you circularize at a low altitude first, you will need less thrust to pull off the landing, but will have to burn more fuel overall. In terms of total fuel consumption, I'm not quite sure. Engines that can deliver the kind of thrust required for the suicide burn landing tend to be heavy and inefficient. It may actually be better to use more deltaV to land from a lower orbit, because you can do that with a weaker and more efficient engine. Thoughts?

Well, I haven't gone to Eeloo nor Dres, I haven't captured an asteroid, and I haven't returned from Eve. Other than that I've done everything except the mods part. As to reverts, I think the only landings and returns I've never done without one are Tylo, which is super hard, and Laythe, where I always seem to end up in the drink on the first try. Anyway, I think it's too early in game development to stand on not reverting, because let's face it: half the time or more I do it because the game bugged out, not because I messed up. Anyway, if all those revertless return missions only count for .25 points collectively, I got 110 total, for a score of 6.5, if each revertless return counts for .25, it would be 115. Pretty paltry considering the 1300-odd hours I've spent playing. Given that, it's pretty hard to believe so many people scored 8-10, which essentially implies all of the above. I assume most of them forgot to divide by 20. As to your point values for feats, I'd say that Moho is not worth enough, given the massive deltaV it takes to get there, nor is Tylo, which is a real bear to land on. Eeloo is worth too much, because it's not really so hard, it just takes forever. Going forward, I think there are all sorts of things you didn't touch upon that speak strongly to a player's skill. Of course I have done all these, so I may be biased . I list them with suggested point values: Forgive me if most of these have already been mentioned, but here goes: 1) Ever made a plane that flies? (10 points) 2) Ever made orbit with a space plane? (15 points) 3) Ever landed a plane on the runway? (10 points) ... from orbit? (15 points) 4) Ever done an orbital rendezvous or docking without the benefit of the navball indicators? (15 points) ... Without RCS either? (20 points) 5) Ever gotten a single stage to Mun and back? (20 points) ... to Laythe? (25 points) 6) Ever built a station with a closed-loop truss structure of some kind? (25 points) 7) Ever landed a plane on Laythe and returned it? (20 points) 8) Ever done an orbital rendezvous-based Munar or planetary return mission? (10 points) 9) Ever successfully aerobraked from a planetary escape trajectory to orbit (10 points)...or directly to a moon encounter? (15 points) 10) Ever visited more than one planet other than Kerbin in a single mission? (15 points per extra planet visited in one mission) Cheers!

This very much. There's nothing quite like launching a probe with deployable panels and then forgetting to extend them before running out of juice. D'ooooh!

Apologies if this has been pointed out many times before, but in my latest 0.90 career game (Windows 7, no mods) , I've found that how I am approaching various distant bodies according to the maneuver node interface changes quite a lot between being outside and inside of that body's SOI. For example, on a recent mission I fine-tuned my approach to Duna from around 10 days out so that the maneuver node interface said I'd hit a periapsis of 40km on an equatorial prograde orbit. When I then fast-forwarded to the inner edge of the SOI, I found that I was headed for a periapsis of 10000 km instead. As far as I can tell, the attitude of the orbit was the same, so it seems like an error in translating speed rather than direction at the SOI boundary. Anyway, this has happened to me multiple times in 0.90, and I don't especially remember having this problem in earlier versions.

Oh well. He was pretty focused on his career there for a while, but now...

I just terminate it. The thought of spending all the time required to de-orbit it gives me indigestion, and I can't stand having it all cluttering up my orbital view. ...Of course since I started my last game with hard settings, I have actually recovered some stages for money reasons, but I can't say I've found that very fun. So far, the most fun thing about hard mode has been trying to rescue a kerbal from LEO without RCS or the maneuver node.

Ahem, I may be abusing massless parts, but that level of infiniglide abuse is a whole other level of cheating!

It sure wasn't designed to win any beauty contests , but if anybody's got a SSTO capable of landing on and returning from more bodies than that one, I'd like to see it!

Thanks! I see the problem now. if you cut and paste the link from the address bar at Imgur, it pastes it with implicit URL tags rather than as just text. BTW, in my defense I must admit that I never actually flew that ship to Laythe , although based on deltaV and its performance in other scenarios, there's no reason it shouldn't make it. I was going to use it as a Laythe lander for the Jool 5 mission I just completed, but the part count turned out to be too high together with everything else.

What I remember is that all you need to do is put IMGUR ... /IMGUR in brackets around just the last part of the image URL, but that doesn't seem to work for me now. Would you mind posting an example of the correct syntax for Imgur images? The forum FAQ is clear as mud about this. Thanks!

I think it works now.

It's so easy to get caught up in that mentality, but this tiny little craft can make it to Laythe and back easily: It uses 4 ion engines instead of a nuke, and with some small modifications you can put an actual cockpit on it. As I said above, the key trick to getting to orbit with something like this is to have enough climb rate at flameout so that even the puny ion engines can circularize it.

I agree with those who say you've probably got too much wing area, but if you're getting above 2000m/s surface speed at 35km, you should be able to make orbit anyway even with just that little nuke. Rather than trying to fly right out of the atmosphere at a steady rate of climb, I think what you need to do is get to your max speed at a somewhat lower altitude, like 27-28km, then pitch up more for your the end of your jet burn, trading forward speed for rate of climb. With that little LV-N engine, if you don't have a high enough rate of ballistic climb at jet flameout, even at 35km you'll dissipate too much of your kinetic energy with drag for it to overcome. If you can get to where you're climbing at or over 100m/s when you cross 35km, even if you're going significantly slower than 2000m/s you'll be out of the soup long enough for the LV-N to put you in orbit. Another solution might be to replace one pair of turbojets with RAPIER engines. I know you want to avoid burning fuel at such a low ISP, but if you're just trying to get that last little push into space you'll only need to burn them as rockets for a few seconds. If you have any destinations other than Laythe in mind, they'll also give you the power you'll need to make efficient landings on airless bodies.

So I've been playing career mode in 0.90 with "hard" settings (actually I retained f5 capability for use only in case of bugs), and the loss of the ability to revert has highlighted some silly features of the VAB editor for me. One particularly glaring instance of this is the fact that when you add a chute to a vehicle, instead of going in its own stage at the top, which is pretty much always where you'd want it, it always goes together with what ever engine activation stage is on top. Nobody ever wants to pop a parachute at the exact same moment they activate an engine! The chute should always default to its own stage at the end of the sequence, and this does not seem too hard to implement. In a similar vein, launch stabilizers seem to get strewn about the staging sequence randomly when you place them, which is extra dumb because of course you always want them at the bottom. In general, whatever algorithm the game uses to decide where in the staging sequence to put parts when you place them makes no sense to me at all. It should definitely be made more logical.