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Gaarst

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Posts posted by Gaarst

  1. On 1/14/2019 at 7:53 PM, panzerknoef said:

    Test Pilot Review: @Gaarst's- Kerbalespace: X-1500B "Rømer"

    things

    Hey I completely forgot about this thing! Happy to see it's considered a good design.

    I was originally planning on waiting for feedback before making an upscaled version that would meet the 40 passengers requirement... and then I forgot I even built this plane.

    I might get back to the drawing board for that bigger plane now...

  2. 1 hour ago, Alienwall said:

    Wow, very nice design. Can you provide a screenshot showing that you've completed the challenge (the cut 'pizza' with your pizza cutter)? Also, since you haven't given any scoring I'll assume that you aren't trying to go for points. In any case, once again, great design.

    That's the thing, as cool as a design it may be, it doesn't work:

    3 hours ago, Gaarst said:

    In unrelated news, I learnt that no matter how fast something rotates, it won't do damage to another part it touches... :(

     

    Edit: I have edited my post so that the part where it was a total failure is more obvious.

  3. Because I know that using what is essentially an oxygen torch to cut a pizza is stupid and unreasonable, I have gone with something much more sensible in the form of a regular rolling pizza cutter... jet-powered that is.

    Basically the blade is a bearing, free to rotate about its position, pushed by two jet engines strapped to the arms of the thing making it rotate at extremely high, yet completely safe, speeds. I strapped it to a buggy that was lying around and set to work...

    9v5P0bt.png

    (it's hard to see because screenshots don't move but it actually rotates)

     

    ...with more or less success:

    yf6EzdQ.png

     

    In unrelated news, I learnt that no matter how fast something rotates, it won't do damage to another part it touches; so the pizza is whole and my stomach empty... :( At least I made a good bearing for once.

  4. This is an interesting challenge! Drawing from my non-existent experience in building ion planes, I've decided to go against what seems to be the trend and towards minimalism.

    I don't have a properly working plane just yet but I am working on the iKarus6000: twin-engined and weighing just over 3.2t, it can takeoff on its own on a slope at 6,000 m (I'm using a lower mountain that has nice slopes to launch from), is somewhat controllable and generates enough electricity if you launch it at noon, but cannot sustain level flight just yet: best I have done is maintaining airspeed with a -0.6 m/s vertical velocity. I've made a three-engine version that can get in a small climb but then the solar panels are not enough and I would have to add more, maybe it's the way to go?

    For specific entries I might end up using a launch cart to get rid of landing gears or make it unmanned, to reduce both mass and drag.

    3aPz1UT.png

  5. Thanks to all the people that notify me of the new updates on the spreadsheet!

    Now that 1.5 (and 1.5.1) has been out for sufficiently long, I'll try to go through all the mods in the list to mark those that are updated (it's absolutely not because I forgot to do that earlier), probably this weekend.

    To address something a few people have mentioned, I will not add all the original authors or contributors to a mod by default (mostly because I cannot be bothered digging up hundreds of dead threads), however if someone wishes that I do so for a specific mod (or mods) I'll gladly do it, as I have already for a few entries.
    For sorting reasons, the additional authors credited are placed into the "Notes" column and not the author column: that way, a mod created by Diazo and updated by linuxgurugamer will still show up along linuxgurugamer's other mods. If someone knows a way to fill a column so that it appears when filtering only "Diazo" or only "linuxgurugamer" (as opposed to "linuxgurugamer, Diazo" as it would currently) I'm all ears.

  6. 18 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

    Does it even exist anymore? I thought the roof collapsed on it...

    Buran, the only completed shuttle which did its orbital flight 30 years ago today, was destroyed in a roof collapse in 2002. The one in the picture is probably Ptichka, meant to be the second shuttle and nearly completed by 1993, stored in another hangar at Baikonur.

  7. Telescopes today are limited by three things: quantity of light they can collect, atmospheric effects deforming incoming rays, and diffraction.

    The quantity of light collected is the easiest to solve: just observe for a longer time; if you can't, get a bigger telescope.

    Atmospheric effects are harder. Because the atmosphere is made of "cells" of different temperatures moving about, you get changes in the refractive index of the air; different refractive indices means refraction: light gets deviated and you end up with a blurred signal. There are two big ways to get around this, first adaptive optics which means that your mirror can detect when an incoming ray of light is deviated and deforms itself slightly to correct the deviation, a lot of telescopes already use this, but there's still room for improvement. The other way is to get rid of the atmosphere between you and your target, you do this by sticking your telescope into space.
    In some cases (to observe IR and beyond-UV parts of the spectrum) you have to go to space because the atmosphere absorbs these wavelengths entirely.

    The final limit is the one imposed by physics: diffraction. Light is a wave (and a particle, but it doesn't matter here), stick it through a thin aperture and you will observe some diffraction. Stick it through a big aperture and there will still be diffraction, you'll just won't be able to see it with the naked eye. Diffraction creates a hard limit on maximal resolution your telescope can get. The Rayleigh criterion gives a definition of the diffraction limit: you want the first maximum of one diffraction pattern to be further than the first minimum of the other diffraction pattern, then you can resolve the two and all is well.
    In maths this looks like: θ  = 1.22*λ/D, θ is the maximal angular resolution, λ the wavelength of the incoming light and D the diameter (aperture) of your telescope. For Proxima Centauri b, sitting 4.2 ly away from us and having a radius about equal to that of the Earth, you'd need a 2 km wide telescope to resolve it: that is for it to be larger than one pixel on your screen. PCb is a relatively bright object in the sky (m=11 according to Wikipedia) so collecting a good signal shouldn't be too much of a problem, this means an array of a few smaller telescopes which will have a diameter of over 2 km would do the trick. You'll need to put these into space though, since telescopes on Earth still aren't close to the diffraction limit because of atmospheric effects.

     

    Back to the main question: none of the telescopes you mentioned, and AFAIK no planned telescope project, would be able to produce any picture of PCb. Fortunately you don't need high-res pictures to get some information about the atmosphere or composition of a celestial body (we have been doing this for stars for quite a while, and exoplanets for a few years).

    Starshot is such a long way from being a real thing that I wouldn't rely on it for pics; on the other hand there is basically zero interest in creating a several kilometres wide telescope array in space, so in the end who knows which will come first?

  8. 36 minutes ago, Laie said:

     

    On the off chance that it might help someone, here's my tightest packages. Made using the rotation & offset tools, stored as subassemblies. Seven tanks in a Mk2 bay only works if absolutely nothing else is there. Beware of intruding wing pieces!

    The Mk2 ones can still be secured with autostruts, but the Mk3 assembly definitely requires real struts.

     

    I got 4 in a Mk2 cargo bay in a "X" arrangement similar to the bottom cargo bay on your pic. However because I have some 1.25m fuel tanks clipping into the bay, there is no way I can fit the two outer tanks in. Even if I could i'd have to start adding more engines and extending the wings anyway.

    I'm curious how are they attached to the cargo bay in that last one? I've got the 4 on 4 radial decouplers oriented to the centre: they basically form a central pylon (through which the bombs go because the attachement points left after decoupling have no collider).

    oRfNOQl.png

  9. I've got a new version of my B-22 bomber (probably will be called Pl-22 "Bitter"), called B-22B (imaginative I know) which because I figured a way to cramp more bombs into its bay now carries 32x 900 kg bombs (twice as much as before) for a total internal payload mass of 28.8 t.

    Adding 30% takeoff mass means performance has taken a bit of a hit; even though I had some margin on the thrust limited Panthers I will need to recalculate its score in some areas.

  10. In stock, other than using symmetry or visually align the gigantic CoM and CoT markers there aren't really ways to exactly balance a spacecraft.

    If you are OK with mods, Kerbal Engineer Redux and RCS Build Aid both give you a thrust torque reading to help balance a craft.

  11. Here is my entry: the B-22 bomber, no proper name yet. (Download link here)

    Q4mCe5p.png

    More pics here:

    Spoiler

    NeWeV0O.png

    5nj37rP.png

    qYF6gTk.png

    It's a supersonic capable bomber with a loaded ferry range of 2200 km, so probably a combat radius of about 1000 km. Default loadout is 16x 900 kg bombs (full small ore tank + decoupler) for a payload mass of 14.4 t, all internal; it can probably carry more on external hardpoints but I've never tried. It has a crew of two, a takeoff mass of 48.8 t, 102 parts and can cruise at 210 m/s @ 5000 m or Mach 2.05 @ 15000 m, top speed is probably over Mach 2.5 I've never tested it.

    Flight instructions: 1 to toggle afterburners, 2 to toggle bay doors, pull up at 75 m/s, try not to crash.

    Loosely based on the Tu-22M3 "Backfire" Russian bomber.

     

    As for the scoring, here are the objectives it qualifies in:

    On 10/16/2018 at 6:29 PM, Kernel Kraken said:

    Bonus Objectives

    Math Is Not Fun: +100pts for not making me do the math.

    More BOOM: +14pts per every ton of payload stored internally, +6pts per ton stored externally.

    Swift payback: +2 pts per m/s top speed at an altitude of 3 km (for instance, if aforementioned KB-68 Vanquisher top speed at 3 km is 200 m/s, total points for this: 400 pts). The speed test is to be performed with the full payload and fuel, so perform it as soon after takeoff as possible.

    Engine maintenance: -1pts per Juno, -2pts per Wheasley, -3pts per Panther/Goliath, -4pts per Whiplash, -10pts per RAPIER engine. Rockets carry no penalty but, remember, they may not be used for takeoff and certainly are a bad idea.

    Part maintenance: -0.02pts per part (bombs included) (calculate at end of construction for simplicity, example bomber has 400 parts which thus equals -8pts).

    Airshow maneuverability: +10pts if the Bomber can execute a horizontal turn, with or without payload, with a peak force of 10Gs or more at an altitude between 100-300m.

    Gentle giant: +20pts if the Bomber with full payload, at cruising speed and an altitude of 3 km, can maintain a prograde velocity vector within 5° of its level indicator.

    You feeling lucky, VAB?/Dynamic Demonstration of Force: +10pts if the Bomber can successfully destroy the VAB, using a part or the entirety of its payload (but not by crashing into it). For this subchallenge only, the bomber may use another loadout than Small Holding Tanks.

    Service ceiling: +15pts if the Bomber can sustain level flight at an altitude of 12 km.

    Inspired shape: +2pts if the Bomber has a swept wing layout, similar to that of the B-52.

    • Math is not Fun: + 100 pts (math is fun)
    • More BOOM: + 201.6 pts for 14.4 t of payload stored internally
    • Swift payback: + 750 pts for 375 m/s top speed at 3000 m
    • Engine maintenance: - 12 pts for 4 Panthers
    • Part maintenance: - 2.04 pts for 102 parts
    • Airshow manoeuvrability: + 10 pts (it can pull north of 18 gs when empty)
    • Gentle giant: + 20 pts
    • Feeling lucky, VAB?: + 10 pts
    • Service ceiling: + 15 pts
    • Inspired shape: + 2 pts ? Not sure about that one, it has swept wings and was inspired by something, but not the B-52

    Total: 1092.56 points (1094.56 if inspired counts)

    Album with the screenshots as proofs of the objectives: https://imgur.com/a/kZhsK56

  12. Really a fantastic mod! And works perfectly in 1.5.1 as far as I can tell.

    My only complaint is the inability to change the axes of the flight envelope: it's currently great for a fighter but I'd like the altitude to go a bit higher for some shuttles, or the speed range to be reduced for slower planes; similarly for AoA: the gradient is linear from 0 to 35° but in flight the 0-5° range is what you are looking at for better cruise performance and it's all pretty much the same shade of blue.
    I've seen that mentioned earlier in the thread and apparently you are already on it.

  13. 23 minutes ago, MR L A said:

    No, KSP doesn't account for this afaik, and, again afaik, neither does FAR.

    It actually does. Open up the AeroGUI in the cheats menu and you will see air temperature and density vary as the day progresses. I don't know how significant it would be in this experiment but it is definitely a thing (if you want to find out launch a spacecraft at noon and one at midnight and report your results).

  14. Think of a PID controller as controlling a deviation in the craft's trajectory. P is proportional, so a PID will apply more correction the further you deviate from your original point; I is integral, in this case integrated over time, so the PID also applies a correction proportional to how long you have been away from your stable point; D is derivative, so speed, so the PID will also act stronger the faster you are deviating from the stable point.
    You can also think of it as accounting for present, past and future deviations respectively: P for how far you currently are from the original path, I for how far you have been until now, and D for how far you will be in the near future.

    The parameters affect how much the PID responds to each individual type of deviation. It's a bit vague but basically you want them tuned properly to quickly correct a deviation without overshooting; depending on the behaviour of the controller you can guess which ones to increase or decrease to tune your PID. There are a few methods to tune a PID quicker and more accurately than manual guessing and tweaking.

    The Wikipedia article on PID controllers is fairly complete but you need bases in control theory to properly understand all of it. Still, there are a few graphs that can help you understand how the parameters affect the response of the PID.

  15. 1 minute ago, micha said:

    Yeah no worries; don't want to add to your burden, you're doing a great job :) It's not such a big deal so I'll leave it up to you; the original authors are credited in the threads etc anyway.

    It's a burden to do for all 1100 or so mods listed, but if you or someone else ask that I cite the original authors of a few mods, then it just takes 2 minutes to edit it.

  16. 5 hours ago, micha said:

    Hey @Gaarst,

    Awesome keeping this list up-to-date!  But could I please ask you to add the original authors to the mods I'm currently maintaining though? I don't want to take credit where it's not due.

    CorvusCF - Micha, OrionKermin

    KDex Continued - Micha, masTerTorch

    Nehemiah Engineering Orbital Science - Micha, Nehemiah

    Alternatively if "Authors" should only include currently active developers/maintainers, could you please add the original author in the Description or Miscellaneous Notes section?

    Thanks :)

    I have not really made up any rules for the Authors column, only listing the active maintainer of the thread is just the most convenient for me, and it happens to be that the owner of the thread is the main maintainer of the mod in most cases. I thought about listing all active/past contributors to the mod at one point, but then I realised that for some the list of authors could get quite long (cf the RO suite for example) and I thought that only listing the owner of the thread by default was better than possibly forgetting one author.

    However if you wish that I list past authors for your mods, then it's no problem. I'm just adding the people you cited right now.

    Edit: I'll add past authors in the Notes, that way it is still possible to properly sort the Authors column.

     

    ___________________

     

    About 1.5, I know it's there and I'll start marking mods for 1.5, eventually.

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