LN400

THe bit I bolded there is a major pain in the neck. I have a contract for a Mun surface base for 12 kerbals, 7000 units of LF, 5000 units of ore and the whole bleedin monstrosity has to be on wheels, as per contract. There is no way I will get that in one piece from Kerbin to Mun even with empty fuel/ore tanks.

As for auto struts the answer is no. In fact that was the reason I went for the KF wheels as they don't have forced auto struts. As for not understanding the behaviour, that makes 2 of us. It is weirder than weird Al and it baffles me a great deal not to mention troubles me as a failed design of a mining installation will be quite damaging to my career mode bank account.

First, I could post this in the KF mod thread but I figured some replies here might be outside that thread's scope so here goes: Now, for some issues I have that might have a workaround or a solution (this is where I hope you guys will chime in with your experiences): I use the mod KerbalFoundries for the wheels and tracks. They work... kind of BUT tests on Kerbin had the Kraken rear its ugly head: If a kerbal so much as came near the KF wheels, it would rocket left and right up and down like crazy, stretching out like mad spaghetti before exploding in a puff of dust. Weird thing is, the KF tracks work like a dream on Mun where the Kerbals can climb the tracks and all is fine and dandy, Kraken sound asleep. I plan on a Minmus mining operation, big scale and the decision has been made to make it module based using winches to hook all the modules together. This to allow for expansions for more drills or power or battery banks, fuel tanks, cooling etc etc etc. The drill unit will be a quad drill with large ore tanks on the same unit. This unit I really would like on tracks since it might need to move around. One design has some mamoth sized tracks and the whole thing has a dry mass of around 40 tons. The fuel tank unit that will hook up to this is also around 40 tons. Refinery, PSU, coolers and battery banks will all be separate modules but again, tests on Kerbin had all the light weight modules go bananas as soon as they hooked up to the heavies, jumping around until they tore themselves apart and exploded. I have no idea but I suspect the CoM calculation is not coping well with the winch but at the same time,, I do keep in mind how the KF tracks changed behaviour as described above as soon as they landed on Mun. So, any inputs/ideas on how I should go about it? Any of you ever had similar issues? For a wheeled/tracked, module based operation, how would you go about it? Any tips or suggestions on mobile mining/refinery operations on other bodies than Kerbin?

I never bother with geosynchronous orbits for my commsat hub or any other comm sat. I just don't see the point. As you point out, as long as their periods are the same, it still works just fine. My standard setup is 800-900 km for all comm satellites around Kerbin, 4 hub sats at 840 km, Mun and Minus get 2 at say 835 km, Moho/Eve 2 at 830 etc etc untl I replace all with 4 sats with full comm capabilities for all planets + 1 direct link to the active ship + 3 for a link to a Sun hub late in the game for link to planets in the Suns comm shadow from Kerbin. None of these sats ever go geosynchronous. (Reason for these altitude bands is I don't have to think about where I can place other ships and sats with no risk of collisions. I use the same idea for pretty much the entire altitude band down to 70km, each 1000m or so meter is assigned a non-debatable purpose. Tourists/parts tests/one orbit trips etc get 71km, rescues are typically between 75 and 95km). Departure is 100km, return to LKO 101km etc etc).

If two or more really, REALLY important events are to happen, they WILL, invariably, happen at the exact same time. No way around that one.

Keep in mind that burn time is a function of not only delta v but also acceleration. Delta v requirements will be the same for any engine but the acceleration will not. To find the starting acceleration, take the thrust that the engine produces, and divide by mass*9.81 (close to Kerbin's surface, other values entirely on and around other bodies). Now take the delta v you need and divide by the acceleration you just calculated to get burn time in seconds (actual burn time will be lower as the spent fuel means less mass and higher acceleration but for ballpark figures it'll work). So: Know or calculate how much dv the first of the two stages will give you and for how long the engine will burn before the fuel is spent. Calculate the burn time for the 2nd of the two stages to give you the remaining m/s. Total burn time will be the sum of these 2 burn times. Add then the time you need for a clean separation.

Bewing is right. If you use a mod that gives you detailed flight info, like KER, and some auto throttle capable mod like RT then it is quite possible to have the orbital period match to tenths of a millisecond.

Hah! I suppose that explains why I thought the mod had had a name change. I was missing the circularize feature and lo and behold, it was there in the other mod all along, huh? I guess I will have to try that then.

My bad, I guess I'm tired. Yeah I meant Precice Node. The memory thing has always been a bit of a blighter on this computer and with SCANSat I don't have many spare bits of RAM left.

Using my equations, for the T45 engine, TWR = 1.5 and dv first stage = 1700 m/s ASL value, I do get a wet to fuel ratio of pretty close to 2, like really close down to the 4th decimal. For the 2nd stage using a 909, TWR = 1.79, dv = 1700 m/s vacuum value, I get a wet to fuel ratio of 2.53-ish to maintain the wet mass, TWR and dv for the first stage. To punch in the figures: I want a starting TWR of 1.5 and a first stage dv of 1700 m/s ASL. At sea level, the T45 has the following specs: Thrust: 167.969 kN, Isp 250s. That gives a starting wet mass of the whole tabernacle of 11.4187 t. To get a dv of 1700, I need a wet to dry ratio of 2 + a tiiiny bit which gives a dry mass of 5.7079 t which in turn gives me the fuel mass of 5,7108 meaning 514,0 units of LF and 628.2 units of LO. Decoupler, engine, 4 fins, fuel and the tank has a combined mass of 8.009 t which means it can carry 3.4097 t. That will be the wet mass for the 2nd stage. The 909 has the vacuum specs of 60 kN, 345s. To get 1700 m/s, I need 1.3467 t of fuel. Decoupler, engine, fuel and tank has a combined mass of 2.058t which gives the payload mass of 1.3517t or about 11.8% of the full mass of the entire thing.

This is one reason I use procedural tanks and not the standard sized ones. It does mean the rocket won't be the cheapest possible but here the entire project is to break up the monotony, and have some fun with maths while I'm at it. I have the door open for SRB for those extra kilonewtons and m/s but since I need to learn a lot here, I think I'll keep it simple until I get the hang of these single engine rockets. This is quite an interesting bit of info there. I'll have to play around with that and see how that goes.

Been going through my 1.3.0 mod soup and realized it is a royal nightmare to go through finding out if all of them have been updated to 1.3.1.

The most essential: Kerbal Alarm Clock for without it I shall not go to space or anywhere else today. Now for other must haves: KER KIS/KAS SCANSat RemoteTech MRS SpaceY KW Rocketry Procedural Fairings Procedural Tanks Infernal Robotics Precice Maneuver but alas, I can not run it as it gobbles up whatever memory SCANSat has left over and throws me out to desktop.

Nice! Never heard of it, looked it up and it does appear at first look to be something I have fantasized over the last couple of weeks! Thanks tons for the headsup!

After countless repetitions of the way I always built rockets (Payload then custom built rockets for each payload) I decided to try it somewhat differently for the challenge: Build the rocket to maximize the capabilities of each engine in the game (+ parts mods like KW, Space Y and MRS), then when I do have the payload, pick the pre-built launch vehicle that will get the job done with as little fuel left as possible when it was done doing its thing. For testing, I choose a 2 stage rocket that will put the payload short of orbit so the 2nd stage will fall back to under 20km to burn up. Before building I decided to try to vary these parameters for each stage: Starting TWR and dv. Once the TWR has been decided and the engine is picked, I an work out the starting (wet) mass of the whole circus: mw = thrustASL / (TWRstart * 9.80665) (eq.1) To figure out the fuel for the desired dv for that stage, I find the ratio wet/dry mass using the ASL value of Isp r = edv/(Isp * 9,80665) (eq.2) The dry mass for the whole rocket is then md = mw / r (eq. 3) and the fuel mass is then mf = mw - md (eq. 4) 9/20th of the fuel mass is liquid fuel and since a unit of fuel has the mass of 0.005 t, I find the number of units liquid fuel (l) by l = 9/(20 * 0.005) mf = 90 mf (eq. 5) Using procedural tanks, I custom build a tank to hold as close to l as possible, rounded up. The first stage is: 1 decoupler, 1 tank, 1 engine, 4 fins. After building the stage, I use KER to quickly find the mass of the stage (ms). By subtracting ms from mw I find what the stage can lift (mp) to get the desired TWR and dv. mp = mw - ms (eq.6) mp is in turn the new wet mass for the 2nd stage its payload. The process is repeated to build the 2nd stage to find the payload mass that will give both stages the designed TWR and dv except now I use the vac values for thrust and Isp. After repeating the calculations, the 2nd mp will be the actual payload's mass. One thing that complicates things is that each payload has a different drag profile unless under fairings but then again, even the fairings have different drag profiles (modders, how about a mod for fairings of fixed sizes and shapes in addition to the already existing proc. fairings?), so for the time being, the payload will be a capsule + parachute + weights to reach the target wet mass, trying to keep the drag profile the same for all. For my first 1.25m rocket using a T45 for the lifter and a 909 for the 2nd stage, 1700 m/s ASL to around 25km altitude and 1700 m/s vac did not quite make it to space but I am still working on the ascent technique and a good TWR. Now, how about you? Are you like me in that you always have built the rocket around the payload, or are you building rockets for the stable and pick the right one for the job? If so, how do you go about it?

A question first: Can you get to a consistent orbit around Kerbin? By that I mean, every time you launch, you are able to have the same apoapsis, periapsis and inclination within a small or smallish tolerance. Next: Can you get to Mun and Minmus just fine again with consistent encounters in terms of periapsis over the moons as well as travel time? If not on the 2nd question, practice that and make a good note of where Mun/Minmus are relative to where you make the transit burn and equally important, where they are going to be when you encounter them. For Mun, it should be in the neighbourhood of 100-135 degrees ahead of where you make the burn and it will travel about 45-90 degrees give or take by the time you encounter it. Play around with these angles and see how it affects travel time and delta v requirements. For Minmus it should be in the same neighbourhood but here you also have the 6 degrees inclination to consider. One thing you will notice is, you will encounter the planet roughly at the opposite side of the planet/the sun from where you made the burn. This will be true for all planets, and moons. Getting to another planet is really nothing different other than you will be orbiting the sun and not Kerbin when you make the transit burn. The mechanics are exactly the same for getting to the outer planets but the angle will be different for each case within some margin. For the inner planets, the target needs to be lagging behind your burn node. (Yeah you could perhaps do a single burn directly from Kerbin orbit but that takes a great deal of practice. Getting out of Kerbin's sphere of influence and into an orbit around the sun before making the transit burn makes life easier imo). As for the node, there are 6 terms you should familiarize yourself with: Prograde: The direction of travel at any given moment and place in your trajectory/orbit. Add velocity prograde will increase your orbital speed and raise the orbital altitude at the opposite side of the body you are orbiting. Retrograde: The exact opposite direction of prograde. Add speed retrograde will slow down your orbital speed and lower the orbital altitude at the opposite side of the body you are orbiting. Prograde and retrograde have yellow markers on the maneuver node. Radially In/Out. The direction perpendicular to the point in orbit you are at that moment, outwards or inwards. Use these to raise and lower the orbit any other place than the opposite side of the body you are orbiting. Radials have blue markers on the maneuver node. Normal/Anti normal: These are perpendicular to your orbit but parallell to the surface of the body you are orbiting. If your orbit is equatorial, then they should point towards the north and south pole of the body you are orbiting. If your orbit is polar, then they will point east/west. These, in combination with prograde and retrograde, are used to change your inclination. Normal/Antinormal have purple markers on the maneuver node. In a stable orbit around Kerbin, play around with all 6 of these without making the actual burn, just to familiarize yourself with how adding or subtracting speed for all 6 will affect your orbit's apoapsis, periapsis and inclination. If you are familiar with vector addition then it should become clear why adding or subtracton speedfor one might require some change of one of the others. This is particularly important for inclination changes where you don't want to change the apoapsis and or periapsis. Now, you might know or you might not know but after you have set a maneuver node, you can right click on it and it will change. Instead of 6 arrows, you get a big fat X for deleting the node as well as 2 blue icons for delaying the burn in terms of full orbits to complete before the burn. Do play with these blue icons when setting up for an encounter with Mun/Minmus and understand why that changes the time of the burn and therefor your arrival time and place. Once you have this down well, set up for a journey outside Kerbin's sphere of influence. Target either Duna or Eve (because they are relatively speaking close and with little inclination, as well as massive enough for an easier encounter than say, Dres). Set up a node not too far ahead and again, play with the 6 arrows on the node and make notes of how that affects the projected trajectory. If you can not get an encounter when matching the apoapsis for Duna or Periapsis for Eve, move the node around your orbit, minding that it will most likely change your projected apoapsis and periapsis so make any correction for that. If you can not find an encounter after trying the entire orbit, click the blue round ball that says + to add 1 orbit and try again. Keep doing this and you should find an encounter at some point.

Having sent 2 satellites, KSOI and Kerbol 1 out of Kerbin's SOI have already answered a few questions I had about heat. Oddly enough, it turns out the most efficient orientation of the medium radiators is to have the end pointing directly at the sun. I was expecting that having a cooler in the shadow of the space craft would offer better cooling but the tests show otherwise. Kerbol 1 is heading for a periapsis around the sun at about 1.6 million km. The sat is stuffed with panels and radiators size small and medium and will tell me a lot about heat that close to the sun, as well as how to use and not to use radiators and panels. KSOI's mission is to give me a hint on dv requirements and time enroute for a quick pop out and return to Kerbin for a manned flight. Should also prove useful for asteroid hunting later on.

Today: Watching the Great Kerbin Sciene Expedition reaching the 55th parallell after a 144km drive. To the creator of Remote Tech: I thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving me from madness. That rover control is genius. Rough but genious.

Yesterday, mission on Mun a success, where new science equipment was installed on a rover waiting at a contract zone for temp measurements. Here the lander is docking with the orbital depot where the mission command module was arriving a few hours later. Crew transfered over and all 3 homebound. Oh and Klumsy the Klown managed to break one of the solar panels on the rover while attaching the equipment. Got plenty to spare but it was a bit of a bugger. Also praise the Kerbal Alarm Clock for without its assistance, the 3 different critical burns in less than 15 seconds would not have happened on time.

Hauling asparagus up the slopes of Mun's polar crater. Directional control is a bit like bambi on ice blindfolded but aslong as I keep the turns small, it's alright. Quite the climber too. Got me up 43 degrees slopes like a beast.

Unfortunately for the rocket geeks, a KSP 2 is less likely than a full KSP franchise with KSP platform jumping, KSP adventures, KSP car race, KSP logical puzzles, cards, board game, strategy, managerial, etc etc etc. Businesswise it would make more sense. More but still not a lot to SQUAD, I am imagining. For the die hard KSP fan. it would lead to seizures and cardiac arrests.

Launched 2x fuel depots to Mun... They better be reusable or I will charge someone for the costs... damn that Mun base contract is going to be a massive financial loss.

Gems They never get old.

Cursing and swearing as the magnet on the robotic arm did not performm to expectations, leaving the retrieve mission around Mun to be a thriller. Add to that I botched up the burn to Mun leaving me with 19m/s dv as I left Mun again, AFTER successfully retrieving the cabin floating around there. All medals and honours to the engineer onboard who attached the docking port before the cabin drifted away. The low dv budget also meant I had to use RSC instead of the main a lot, just to shave off mass to raise the main's dv. Homebound now but another thriller is coming up as the 8 ton ship is set for a periapsis over Kerbin at 30km. This will be hot. Also sent off the globe trotting science expedition to Kerbin's biomes. The final design has a lower top speed than originally wanted but with the ability to climb 40 degrees + slopes I can live with that.

Progress. As part of the dev program, I have created a quad walker that doesn't fall over and that does move forward. It took a bit of planning the leg movements. The movement is an 8 part cycle for something that could pass as a limp animal with its leg in cast. Directional control is not there and it turns to the left by quite a lot for no reason I can figure out right away other that it can be traced to the fact that each leg has 2 servos only. One for moving the leg back and forth, another to lift it as it moves in front position. Due to the circular motion of the back/forth movement, there is a bit of skidding but I can't tell why there is a strict left turn tendency and not left and right alternating. Main lesson I suppose is to think of leg movement in terms of frames, like making an animation (which it really is).