Warzouz

Here is my mission report

I did a Mun Elcano challenge, my first one. I used a derivative of my rover science probe. I removed all science equipment and add 2 seats. I set the reaction wheel at the back, that wasn’t a good idea, braking was much less efficient. I also add 2 RTG to set the vehicle 4WD instead of 2WD for the science probe. As for the trip, I landed ate a nearly random equatorial location and went westward. I stopped twice to let the sun follow, thus having a nicer scenery sight. I stopped at the 3 arches, at the Armstrong memorial and at one of the monolith (which wasn’t there…). I also meet with one of my rover probe near a crater assembly I was playing around. I used MJ auto pilot, only stopping to quick save. I reloaded few times because of misplaced waypoints. The rover has difficulties crossing crater border at 22m/s in x4 physical time warp. Rocket design, take-off and mun orbiting Undock and Mun landing (the skycrane is overfueled by design) and starting point To the first Crater The the first Arch Meeting with science rover probe The long road to the second Arch The last arch The Armstrong memorial (in harsh terrain...) The Big crater monolith (where it is ?) End of the road Well, that was fun! BTW, here is the doggy science rover probe from which the rover I used is derived.

On the road again ! Colleagues asked for the last chapter of my presentation ! I'll add a KSP demo : landing on the Mun with Kerbal-X. OK, that's easy but it'll show quite a lot of concepts I've explained last cession. Maybe some new KSP player

There are data about Jool subsystem, there could be same graphs about Minmus. Basically, you only need to know how much dV you need to go from escape Minmus SOI to escape Kerbin SOI. Then the graph should be the same.

@mrmcp1, even you don't use gravity assists (which I don't do either, except on rare occasions), you still don't circularize at low Jool orbit if you want do go to Tylo. You do a minimal capture burn (elliptic orbit) and get an encounter with the moon. Capture figures is not abour gravity assists. If you do gravity assist you can even save more fuel.

First, did you left Kerbin LKO at the correct window (as described here : http://ksp.olex.biz/) ? Set Duna as "target" to ease encounter Then you need to be gentle on your transfer orbit to Mars orbit (don't cross orbits). You should alway encounter your target on the other side of the Sun (or other central body). If your Duna orbit is not good enough, no problem, do a small course correction burn (preferably at AN/DN if you can). I would recommend using some user-friendly node tweaking tool mod (such as "Precise Node", or MechJeb "Node Editor" feature)

Your dV map is very simplified; I would recommend not displaying moons because, those figures aren't exact. It's very visible for Jool sub-system. You don't need to circularize in low Duna orbit to go to Ike. You should display intercepts/capture and low orbit.

If you need SAS not to have your rocket flipping, then your rocket is badly designed or your ascent profile poorly execute. You shouldn't need SAS until 30 or 40km high. Also, following prograde is not enough to save you from badly designed rockets. I also agree that your tutorial is oversimplified and not really useful to a new player who need tips to go to LKO. Also, a very useful and detailed tutorial already exists

Not at all. Heat isn't an issue even without heatshield, thin atmosphere may be. I aerobraked a rover without heat shield nor chutes and ended with only 140m/s to suicid burn for landing (a bargain). The issue is about drag. if your vehicle isn't draggy enough, you won't loose enough speed, even to open chutes and you'll crash. Going to Duna with just regular chutes is dangerous. Use drogue chutes and/or fuel. For example : don't enter Duna atmosphere on a retrograde attitude, don't hesitate to face radial or normal to increase drag as much as possible. Favour flat landers... For example : I tested landing with Kerbal-X. I used the engines to slow down so chutes could open safely. They were successfully partially open but even though, I was still increasing speed and chutes were destroy after. The new part which will be introduced in 1.1 (10m inflatable shield) will be a big bonus for Duna landings (even not reusable)

Well not a submission (because of Eve, and technically i used the engine in upper atmosphere), but that was fun and I didn't expect surviving (1.0.4).

OK, I may test a Mun at x4 in "stock craft" then. I'll tweak my rover this evening to host kerbals (it's the prerequisite I miss).

Thrust doesn't affect dV directly, but a too low thrust will makes gravity loss more important or a too high thrust may create more drag loss. In the end, you'll use more dV to go to LKO. Thrust doesn't affect dV your ship has, but it may affect the dV it needs to go to orbit.

Just a quick question, as I'm starting designing rovers and the first one performs quite well : do this challenge allow MJ rover autopilot ?

Something like this

@Plusck, you're right, there is no real one-way efficient launch since 1.0. That's nice. Flying a rocket vastly depends on how it's designed. Before 1.0, it was always the boring "go straight and turn 45° at 10k" : you couldn't really miss a launch.

Ah, Moho refueling... My space station design with Ore Miner was designed to retrieve ore and refine it in orbit. I had to tweak a lot to be able to refuel nearly half an orange tank. from a 60T (loaded with ore) Miner. With that refuel, I would be able to land the science lander (7T, 3000m/s) 4 times. The efficiency of a Moho refuelling is 46% 3200 unit of liquid fuel to power the miner (for the next mining cycle) 2752 unit of additional fuel/Oxidizer in the tank.

I need a bit of help on scripting. I'm preparing myself for 1.1 and I would like to set all science at 100% value and tranmit 100% on most of them (except surface sample, goo and lab) Which nodes do I have to tweak ? Thx for the help.

Some more test with the published version. Mun 100km, 20m/s, x4 : success Duna 120km, 24m/s, x4 : success I noticed that Duna don't even need the medium leash

Duna space station refueled from Ike : tested and appoved.

@Claw, there has been a recent topic on camera. There were some good suggestions

Adding TWR of various stages makes no sense. TWR is also lower on the pad because of thrust being reduced. With an average engine (with a Mainsail, a 1.5 TWR vac rocket will end at 1.4 TWR asl. Thrust rises very fase with pressure/altitude. As a reminder Saturn V had a TWR around (Stage 1=) 1.17 asl, (Stage 2 and 3 =) 0.6 vac

Sorry @wumpus but I failed to connect your post to mine . What have you meant ? I know you can "dive" from Minmus orbit to LKO to do a periaps kick, but even though, Minmus is so slow, you may not have a nice ejection angle. My point was, even though, having a base on Minmus for refuel or a LKO fuel depot cost time and funds in KSP. It's so easy to launch heavy payload to LKO, that I don't even consider LKO assembly. I go directly to 100, 200 or even 400 tons without shame. Sure that in real life, building bigger rocket is not as easy as in KSP. You don't simply "double" engine number and fuel tanks to double the payload to LKO.

Yes we need a way to reduce torque. Probes which includes torque have a low value one, so they aren't an issue. Burt Okto2 which as none has to be fitted with the smallest reaction wheel which as a torque of 5. It's way too powerful and SAS code handles it very bad. The SAS code should auto-dim the torque when approaching centre value.

I must say I never found any usage for outposts, except for roleplay. I use a lot of space stations which refuel from the planetary body which is orbiting (or nearby) using a landing miner. But I never found any usage of a permanent outpost event on a high ore% spot. As for Minmus, stopping there to refuel takes quite a long time and use quite a bit a fuel on the way. Only LKO fuel reserves could make sense, but again, the ship would have to dock, that may need a lot of RCS parts and mass. As I've noticed than price per tons reduces as weight increases, even LKO refuelling doesn't make real sense. You loose time and funds. Again: except if roleplay is the driving goal.

I did a test on Mun around a crater assembly, where I was playing/jumping around. I enabled MJ and plan a 30km loop around. It did well, except crossing those high cliffs (I had to slowdown manually). On regular terrain, I can still sustain 20m/s at x3 (it was also the prototype), but SAS control must be activated. It's not as smooth as Eve. I also tested a Duna trip of 180km, again with the low clearance prototype. I had some issue because Duna terrain can be very hard. I remember finding a 35° slope which ended with a nearly 90° angle at the bottom. Needless to say that was hard at any speed. Finally forward brake torque is set at 100. This maybe too high for lighter bodies than Duna. It seems MJ does a very nice job driving around. The only issue is on low gravity worlds, it should use SAS to steer and not wheels : it's less risky and more efficient. Finally, when you loose control on a too sharp turn and your rover starts spinning, it's always possible to recover, BUT the actions you have to do must be very quick and you may not have time to figure what to do to recover the rover. MJ does it quite nicely.