mikegarrison
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Posts posted by mikegarrison
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Or, maybe, and, here me out, even if I sound a bit rude, but, just maybe, the majority of players shouldn't have to edit their game's files or access a "Cheats Menu" to experience features Squad spent a significant amount of time implementing. At the moment reentry heating has lost a lot of its functionality.
Re-entry heating had ZERO functionality for years. Now they finally implement it, then they tweak it, and people complain about it. Some complain that it's too deadly, some complain that it's not deadly enough. Whatever.
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Many people worried about this. Not the aero, per se, but the expectations that would result from the game being called "1.0". If they had called this 0.95, I think there would be just as much controversy, but not as much outrage.
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"Rockets flip over, no stability, etc. in 1.0.2"
"Way over 4000 dV to orbit in 1.0.2"
May I present the Ozymandias II, my long range interplanetary exploration vehicle. It weighs 242 tons and sits on top of the second stage of this launcher vehicle. It took me about 3900 dV to get it into a 70/70 orbit.
Regarding flight profile: Just stay "above" the prograde vector, keep your TWR at around 1.5 (you would need KER for that, otherwise just throttle down after every significant turn) until you stage and then crank it up full throttle for orbit. I had to correct a little, yes, but it was okay. Not any harder than in 0.90 or in 1.0 - just a little different.
What I did NOT like however was that my LV-N cluster blew up after about 3 minutes at full throttle. That's not nice.
For some reason, when I look upon that I start to despair.
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In my VAB, I have 14.783 for sea level thrust and 60 for vacuum thrust. Must be some mod you installed that is doing this to you. It can't be a coincidence that your vacuum thrust is EXACTLY the same as what is supposed to be the sea level thrust.
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The whole point of KSP is you make your own campaign. Even in career mode, it's still a sandbox game.
There is a game called Tropico, Tropico 4 to be precise. I bought it thinking it was going to be a SimCity-like builder game but instead it had a campaign like you suggest. I found it was too restrictive, despite being a fine game and a lot of fun, I still desired a SimCity style game. You see where I am going with this? KSP is all about making your own story, and making your own campaign, just like SimCity 4 was. A campaign would seriously bug me in this sandbox style game.
I'm talking about adding a game mode, not taking away anything that we already have.
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OK, so I'm enjoying 1.0.x. I've been playing it totally stock so far, and I haven't even tried out the new stuff like science labs and resources.
But having played through many career mode games (both stock and modified) ever since they invented career mode, I think what's really missing now is a campaign mode. Here's how I envision it.
Some cutscene cinematics maybe featuring kerbals in balloons or bi-planes or what have you. Then someone (John F. Kerman?) starts the Kerbal Space Program. Yay! Cheering kerbals.
Scenario 1: You have a fixed amount of cash and the level 0 tech. Goal of the scenario is to escape the atmosphere, but you need some launches and recoveries to get a little more tech. (So far, this is basically the same as career mode.)
Scenario 2: You are given a few more parts to work with, some more money, and now you must get a kerbal into orbit and back again.
Scenario 3: Unmanned probe to the Mun. Again, you are given some cash and a limited set of tech. Goal is a crash.
Scenario 4: Unmanned Mun flyby and return.
Scenario 5: Manned Mun flyby and return.
Etc. Rather than grinding cash and science using contracts and experiments, each scenario would give you the tech and cash you need.
You could have scenarios like Apollo 13, where something goes wrong and now your job is to get your kerbals back home. You could have a mission later on where there is already a base on the Mun, and you have to deliver supplies and/or scientists. Etc.
Of course you could still just play with the existing game modes, but these campaign scenarios would be fun if they were plotted out imaginatively.
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I have occasionally (in older versions) hit a strange bug where my engines don't recognize they are in vacuum, so they get stuck on the sea level stats. Maybe you are seeing something like that?
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Yes, a crash course at ESA, NASA, or any aeronautics school would help.
KSP 1.0 implements credible aerodynamics now. That means, when moving in dense atmosphere, the aerodynamic forces are fierce enough to make a craft spin until its Center of Pressure is downstream in respect to the Center of Mass. The trick is to build crafts that already have the Center of Mass forward of the Center of Pressure (or, use the Center of Lift in the editor, as KSP does not show the Center of Pressure). That makes crafts stable in flight.
It has been an odd week.
On Saturday, I was launching rockets using MechJeb, going straight up to around 6000m, then going hard over and flying automated SAS all the way to orbit. No fins. No shakiness. 4400 m/s to get to orbit. Any stupid shape I wanted.
On Monday and Tuesday I was learning to build smaller rockets, kick them over slightly right off the launchpad, just play with the thrust and let them turn themselves, no SAS. About 3000 m/s to get to orbit. Fins were necessary. No aero forces after about 25000 m. Re-entry could be avoided just by staging chutes in space. I decided to try playing totally stock, just to see how it would work.
After the patches, now that gravity turn isn't working for me anymore. The rockets just wobble around randomly. But SAS causes them to go all wonky, so that's not an option either. I've been having to steer them by hand and not let them just fly themselves. I've had to go much more straight up. Aero forces still pretty strong into the 40000 m heights. Good thing that I tried to learn the new re-entry before, because now reports are the chutes burn up if you pop them while you are going too fast.
Anyway, it seems like every time I log in, the game physics work differently.
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Nope, those ladders are really glitched. There's ladders all the way from the helipad down to a stairway to the ground on the launchpad side. Takes about 10 minutes to climb them all.
It used to be just the helipad ladders were glitched, but they're all pretty much broken now.
Personally, I click indestructible buildings now.
I think I'll start doing that too. It's more fun landing on the buildings than it is watching them blow up.
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There really should be a way to "unstage" parachutes if you have accidentally staged them in space.
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Version 1.0.2
Leave it to me to find an odd quirk with a ladder... on the roof of the VAB no less.
So I landed on the roof of the VAB and did some science. I decided to head up top, and I found a ladder to take me there - or so I thought. When I approached the ladder, I got that familiar friendly 'Grab' message, so I did. That allowed me to climb the ladder. But, once I got to the top, the 'Climb Out' message appeared and I wasn't allowed to climb up any farther... so I opted for 'Climb Out', thinking it would take me to the roof. Mistake.
I was left in a position as seen in the picture below. There was no 'Let Go' (although it did appear now and then), no more 'Climb Out' (repeated selection did nothing), and an occasional switch between 'Climb Out' and 'Grab' as I struggled to get free. I even tried activating the Jet Pack, but all that did was burn fuel and take me nowhere. I tried to select and switch back to the capsule - no go... a message told me I couldn't switch while in atmosphere (at least it was correct lol). I tried Esc too - no go... the menu would come up, but all that was allowed was to Resume or Revert. After a few more futile attemps at escaping, I reverted the flight back to Launch (half expecting the game to crash, but it didn't).
No damage done, just odd, really odd.
Almost entirely tangential to your post: I used to land on the VAB a lot before they made it destructable. But after that, it seemed like the slightest touch from a spacecraft and the whole building would completely explode. What are the conditions required to land on it without the building doing a 9/11?
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So let me understand, you are upset because it's hard to see in the dark?
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As an engineer myself, I think this is perfectly reasonable!
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Anyone else finding the default deployment height of 500m actually results in slamming into the ground now?
I didn't have any problem.
Maybe you just didn't have enough chute canopy to handle your weight?
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You really stuck the landing. I give it a 9.8
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I am trying to play a career game right now in totally stock mode, and the lack of d-v information is extremely frustrating. Of all the things I use mechjeb for, that's absolutely the most critical.
Re. the ability to know d-v implemented as a skill of the engineer: that's an interesting idea. But you have LOTS of engineers back at KSP. So you should be able to know your d-v in the hanger right from the start. It would be an interesting twist, however, if it took an engineer on board in order to track it after launch.
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Minmus is so much easier to land on. If I'm just grinding science (especially with low-tech landers), I go there. But Mun is much more interesting. So if I want to try exploring, I go there.
I've noticed that in 1.0, Mun seems to generate a lot more contracts than poor little Minmus.
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Note that if you have an object with a concave profile (think like an X rather than an O), and you put a fairing around it, it may very well end up having MORE drag as the fairing will fill in the void parts (the bits between the legs of the X). So, while the overall coefficient of drag will go down (smoother shape), the cross-sectional area will get worse (bigger shape).
I say 'may' because it depends on how bad the uncovered craft is, how much void space is being turned into fairing, etc..
Are you saying that's how it works in KSP, or that's how it works in real life? (Because in real life it all depends on the actual shape of the draggy bits sticking out into the flow. Fairings often can be so much better in Cd that they help a lot.)
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So 233K is equivalent to about -40 in F or C. It seems the unit conversion is close enough.
Does this mean we need to use the Apollo style barbeque roll on our missions? The Apollo space craft used a 1 rev/hr to avoid getting hot spots on the craft from the sun. Will that work in KSP? If heat is automatically distributed to a whole part then probably not, but if parts can get hot spots then it's a viable heat management strategy.
I assume the model is 1D heat transfer, and heat in each part is treated as a single scalar value. In other words, I think that if they are modeling the radiation from the sun, all you can do is move the whole part to be in the shadow of another part.
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I don't know how it's coded.
But as I understand it heat transfer is a big part of the new heat system.
Transfer by contact (or radiation) means that any part of a construction with higher levels of thermal energy will try to dissipate this excess to it's surroundings .
So a hot engine will try to transfer it's excess energy (heat) to a cooler tank, and continue to do so until there's a balance of available energy.
If we take a standard capsule returning from space one would assume that the heat shield is sizzling hot while the capsule and other attached paraphernalia is cooler.
And while the heat shield can dump some (and most likely the majority) excess energy into the water, some energy will transfer to the capsule (and attached dodads).
So the entire craft will cool down, while at the same time some part (the initially cooler ones) will actually heat up.
It's not exactly rocket science, it's thermodynamics
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The effects of heat transfer was shown in vivid detail by some glorious streamer during the launch weekend (I don't remember who, I blame myself for being drunk and watching streams for too many hours).
A Mk.1 capsule, with a heat shield and a Mk16 parachute, hitting re-entry by the book.
Heat shield doing it's job, glowing red and shedding mass to dissipate heat and suddenly boom goes the parachute.
...? Why did the gadget way out of the air stream and generated heat go boom?
The answer is heat transfer and heat tolerance.
The heat shield transferred a bit of it's excess heat to the capsule, and the capsule transferred a bit of that energy to the parachute.
And while the parachute had to deal with a fraction of the total heat, it has a much lower tolerance to heat than the heat shield or the capsule.
So boom goes the parachute, annoying, but actually quite realistic.
"Thermal soakback". Real world engineering issue.
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So what has happaned here? Apparently, launching a rocket through the atmosphere produces a *lot* of heat on the parts that face the airstream. In this case, this was the Mk1 command pod.
Since the Pod is connected to the Probe core, the pod heats the core via conductive heat transfer (touching hot things makes you hot as well).
However, the Pod has a much higher heat tolerance than the core, and the core explodes from all the heat it gets from the Pod.
This is a real engineering phenomenon: thermal soakback. I'll give an example.
In a jet engine, the combustor is where all the burning happens. Combustors are made of super high temp alloys (usually nickel-based). But the fire inside is still hotter than the combustor wall can survive. So the wall is cooled by airflow. Also, heat gets into the fuel injectors and fuel manifold (because they are physically attached). And that heat is carried away by the fuel.
So what happens when the engine is shut off? Well, the airflow stops. And the fuel flow stops. That's what was carrying away all your heat. Fortunately the flame stops too. So the combustor wall has no more heat coming in, which means it slowly cools down. But it cools down by radiating and conducting and convecting the heat away. Well, that means the heat goes from the combustor and into the fuel injectors and fuel manifold. Since no more fuel is flowing, they get hotter after the engine is shut down. A lot hotter. So much hotter, that you have to worry about them coking up the fuel that is still sitting in the manifold.
And insulating them only makes the problem worse, because the heat soaks in but can't get back out. That's what space is doing to your rocket. Vacuum is a great insulator, and the heat is conducting from the hot parts to the formerly cool parts. With vacuum being such a good insulator, it just builds up there. Real world problem that is showing up now in KSP.
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I guess the only point to doing this is that you want to play an economic game without bothering with the science? Because, of course, if you just want to play sandbox, that's already there.
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Thanks for all of the advice, I did manage a return eventually. It works, it's just a LOT more finicky than I thought it would be.
I still mostly end up flying straight up and then completely circularizing once I'm out of the atmosphere, because starting any proper turns in atmo have a 50/50 chance of ending in death spirals. It's embarrassing, I have nearly 400 hours logged in the game and I feel like a noob again, lol.
The more you learned how the old physics worked, the more you have to forget in order to play the new physics.
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some people SCUBA dive without the wet suit
Where the water is warm, yes. Not where I live. In fact, the water is so cold near Seattle that most divers go for a dry suit rather than a wet suit.
Why it matters that Squad picks an aero model and sticks with it
in KSP1 Discussion
Posted
First, let me say that I have tried out using the 1.0 aero parameters in 1.02, and I think it's better (for rockets, anyway). But ...
Here's the issue. Many of the other parts need to be balanced with the aero. dV to orbit, thrust, landing, fairings, heat, etc. etc. So if we all just pick our own personal favorite atmosphere, it's going to be hard to do that. And then we have the mod community. Just like the stock parts, many of the mods need to be balanced and designed to fit the game physics.
As an example, I put the 1.0 aero into 1.02 and flew some test missions with a Mk1-2 capsule. It was more steady and controllable on launch. It was rock steady on re-entry, too. I started out by coming in from low orbit at a shallow angle, then progressively stress tested it until I was coming in with Kerbin-escape trajectories and a 15km periapsis. That last one burned off more than half the heat shield, but I was still able to wait until I was sub-sonic before popping drogues, followed by mains. HOWEVER, the 1.02 main chutes are too small now for 1.0 aero. I needed one of the big blue ones on top and four blue radial chutes (plus four radial drogues) to get the capsule landing speed under 9 m/s (survivable for the heat shield). That's a lot of chutes for just a capsule! Which means that if I want to keep playing with 1.0 aero, I probably need to rebalance the chutes again.
So I think Squad needs to just make a decision and call it good. Personally, having tried it both ways, I wish they would settle on the 1.0 aero. They made some good fixes for 1.01, but I think they over-reacted to the complaints when they changed the aero. (But my guess is that the 1.02 aero is going to go forward, because they are probably sick of people arguing about it and just don't want to touch it again.)