Falkenherz

I am at war with math, I do not understand the language the formula´s are written in, too detailed and thus too complex. Something I understand: - TWR is a comparision of the ship total weight and the engine trust divided by 10. An equilibrum is an TWR of 1, which makes your ship hover in a given planet´s gravity. - To lift off Kerbin ground, you need at least > 1 TWR, while floating in space in theory anything above 0 TWR pushes you ahead, but in practice you get only a good acceleration within reasonable time if you are around 0.5 TWR. Something I just remotely understand: - deltaV tells me how far a rocket can accelerate away, measured against a given planet´s gravity pull. - deltaV gets higher the more fuel the craft has, but lower the more mass it has; there is a sweet spot where adding more fuel won´t increase deltaV anymore. - The trust-to-weight ratio and something called "specific impulse of the engine" mess this figure up, too; higher specific impulse allows for farther flight, but if TWR is too low, a high specific impulse won´t help because gravity pull (and the rocket´s own inertia?) is stronger than what the impulse can overcome. For me it is weird that we cannot describe things properly in normal language and need math for the ultimate precision. Maybe we should learn how to communicate only in math!

Sorry to chime in a bit late, but something is unclear to me: KER gives me a reduced dV output, which does not match to the deltaV formula, as soon as TWR (in relation to Kerbin) goes below 0.5. This is not expressed in the deltaV forumula, and I wonder what variable I need to add? It seems to make sense to me that a lower TWR leads to longer flight times and KER is definitely correct, as far as I can tell from my tests. EDIT: Disregard. I might have gotten confused when I added mass, will test again tonight. My goal is a high dV with TWR > 0.5 and that´s where LV-Ns definitely do not shine and Poodles might be a better choice.

My work-around: I am thinking about a dual-pod lander, which thus is able to store every data set twice if you take a scientist along to reset the experiments. One set I transfer into the lab via an EVA, one remains in its pod and is sent to Kerbin. Another, a bit more cheaty, option is just to land that MPL back on Kerbin and just send a new one out and just re-collect the "easy to get" orbital data. Once you have explored a number of Biomes on Mün and Minmus, MPL´s are likely getting insignificant, anyways. I have seen players here claim that you will have maxxed out your tech tree after having visited Duna, anyways.

Well, to just turn down the steam a bit, my second-frequently used spaceplane still runs fine. It seems that all we have to do is add more trust, to compensate for the new early, low-altitude weakness. OFC some designs might find it difficult to have more engines added, mine thankfully still have some space on the wings for another nacelle. Ah, yes, the Mk1 fuel tank needs to be removed and re-added in order to update to the new fuel amount. I would nevertheless be grateful if Squad could drop a hint whether they are now fine with the atmospheric model or still tinkering about. My career save is very much behind with its projects because I like to fly planes and spent a lot of time on designing and trying them instead of just pushing that timewarp button for your next upcoming transfer window or SOI change.

First bug: I have a cargo spaceplane ("cargo shuttle")with two small satelites in a cargo bay mk2. They are docked inside with the jr. docking port. When launching, I first have to click something called "disconnect node" before I get the "undock" button. Now, when I switch to it, the fuel is still in the satelite, because I have locked the fuel tank before launch. I just unlock fuel and activate the engine, but do not throttle up. Instead, I switch immediately back to the cargo shuttle and throttle it up; then I switch back to the satelite, it is suddenly magically out of fuel. Second bug: I then launched the second satelite, unlocking fuel, activate engine and throttle it up before switching to the cargo shuttle. After the maneuver, the satelite which I launched first and is faulty, has vanished. This might be due to a naming collision?

Glad you even arrived there. When I did the part 1, the transfer vessel`s fuel tanks just exploded from overheating after only two minutes of LV-N burning.

Well, it seems I have to adapt my spaceplanes. I had the following observations with my favourite design: - climb speed down from 260m/s to 160m/s, even when only at 20 degrees instead of 35-40 degrees; have to go now on a much more horizontal ascend profile, which takes much longer and thus uses much more fuel - top speed up from 950m/s to 1050m/s, but only initially achievable when going nearly horizontal for some time at 9km+ - no overheating (no heat gauges show up) at 1050m/s, no critical overheating during the whole ascend anymore - ascend angle at 17km at 1050m/s must be 15 degrees or less, or my plane will flip. Before, I was able to do 20 degrees. This is probably due to changed/lesser drag of the aft part of my plane - same picture on re-entry: easy to flip now, have to pump fuel first to front to remain stable at high speed without airbrakes extended, at low altidute and low speed I have to pump fuel back to the aft to be able to get back from -15 degrees to horizontal level flight - reentry: heat gauges show very quickly at 50km, airbrakes not as effective as before, so the plane remains very long at 2000+ m/s - thank god, the plane can now deal with the higher re-entry speed because it seems to heat less (i.e. heat gauges mostly stay in the green area), probably due to less drag associated to the speed - heat distribution works very well now, heat gauges are now showing up all over all parts and they are nivellating each other Conclusion: The plane´s design is no longer optimal and needs to be adapted to the new conditions. More engines, more fuel needed, and flights will take even longer now. So from a perspective of gameplay, I find the changes to be "meh". Also annoying is, while I like designing planes, I hate having to let go designs which used to work well, took a lot of work and fine tuning and which I thus came to like a lot!

I agree, playing without grinding for science adds to the experience. I am still stuck with Mk2 parts and focus on completing missions as efficiently as possible; much slower pacing, lots of more challenge. At some point I might want to add that big colonization mod, life support mod, scansat, remotetech, in order to make the experience more challenging by simulating even more realism.

Wiki says that a bi-eliptical transfer could get dV requirements down to ~4,000m/s. Kerbol suborbit starts at 1,000km? Does a fly-by below 1,000km count as a sub-orbital flight? Tough nut to crack; my science is still hanging around the 160-point nodes, with a few 300´s unlocked. Scratch off my dinghy; will need a new launch with a highly specialized craft in order to pull this off.

Thanks, guys! This helped me a lot to dare the step out of the Kerbin door! Just to clarify, this is a mega voyage with 10 tourists and 9 Kerbonauts; the tourists finance the flight, the Kerbonauts are indeed just along for the experience (and some science)... Details about my ventures are in my blog. This is the deltaV data I was able to achieve: Just be be on the safe side, I had a fuel ship close by and rerouted it to my mothership. Launch from Minmus to 16kmx16km orbit in for a rendez-vous: from 719m/s down to 509m/s. After a refuel of 1080 fuel (three 360 tanks), I had 1234m/s ready. Being able to leave Kerbin SOI after 8d3h downed my dV from 1234m/s to 1109m/s. I also remembered that I had a satelite still in solar orbit; testing the sun suborbital said I needed a dV of 7596m/s! And there I thought 3500m/s would be perfectly enough... no idea how to give that one remaining tourist his suicidal experience! Launching anew from Kerbal, this means I would need a dV of about 16.000m/s (including the required return)! How is that even achievable??? I don´t have LV-N´s yet, can they achieve this?

Here is my problem. Looking at various deltaV-maps I cannot find the answer myself, so maybe some pro out there can help me: 1. My mothership is currently landed on Minmus surface and has 700m/s deltaV left. I want to launch, get into solar orbit and then get back to Kerbin. Do I have enough deltaV for doing this? If not, how much would I need? 2. I have a small dinghy attached with a separate deltaV of 3500m/s. Once in solar orbit, I want to undock it and go on a quick solar suborbit with it and then re-dock. (Yes, it is one of those tourist contracts). How do I do this most efficiently; do I have to enter solar orbit by burning retrograde (to Kerbin´s solar orbit) out of Minmus orbit instead of a prograde burn before I undock the dinghy? What about an ejection from polar orbit?

So, this is a good point to mention Oculus Rift, then. Squad is right now re-doing the UI. They really should keep VR-Goggles in mind when doing so!

I tried the Oculus while playing Elite: Dangerous and had no problems; apparently, motion sickness happens more easily when being in first-person view. Or, doing a lot of loops... On E3, there was also a report about Minecraft being ported to Microsoft´s Hololense. You know, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this game would absolutely rock with an Oculus Rift!

Guys, I am a big Oculus Rift fan and I feel pairing this fantastic VR device with the freedom of steering through space and landing on planets must be one of the best VR experiences ever. Kerbal Space Programme might be very well suited: Improved IVA, an ego-perspective for EVA, and we should have another killer-app for VR. What do you think?

Approach very low so you do not need a lot of course corrections on the last meters. This way, you basically just glide on the runway with about -10m/s.

Thanks, this is what I suspected. In the meanwhile, I am getting used to having another incentive to actually bring my Kerbonauts back to the surface once in a while (before they get mad from being indefinitely locked into a can out there...).

A landing you can walk away from is a landing... uhm, about the return trip... how are we going to tell her? She is so happy right now!

Installed field experience and had my "Mun-flagged" kerbals at 5 stars, the "Mun-orbited" ones had 3 stars. This would be too high, right? Yes, I am jumping to my ships very often via Kerbal Alarm Clock.

Happened to me, too. The ship was uncontrollable after the fairing got stuck and did not show a conic anymore. Only reload and a newly constructed fairing solved the issue.

I will test this by bringing the "failed" tourists to their locations and then back to Kerbin and will report here.

No, the contracts are still listed as active when I look them up in the mission office, but they seem to have triggered a wrong flag when I set down on Mun instead of Kerbin and they show red "failed" markes in my UI. Should I reload or do I have to try out what happens because nobody has yet encountered this kind of bug?

I have a tourist contract "failed" message after I landed on the mun. It was three tourist contracts, one tourist needed a Mun landing, the others needed to go to various other places. Is this a bug, has the contract really failed or can I still complete them?

As you can see on this picture, my engine nacelles are pretty much heated to the limit. This also true to the front part of the wing. Each nacelles is built with RAM intake, engine nacelle, LFtank, engine nacelle, turbojet. I cannot believe that the precooler will yield just the same result as the lower-tech engine nacelle and hope that those forum reports are true which says that the pre-cooler will swallow and radiate heat away much more faster, i.e. into the other wing parts and thus relieve the engines a little bit more of the current heat stress, so that in the end I can stay in thicker air longer and get even some more speed.

May I re-introduce my "Fuel Dragon", a mainly Mk-2 plane for all those career modes which are still left dreaming of finally getting the Rapier unlocked. This baby is about 100 tons mass and brings 1440 units of fuel into LKO (i.e. half an "orange tank"). I hope to improve its efficiency later on by adding precoolers and am very curious of what is going to happen once and if I replace the 2 or 4 of the Whiplash with Rapier and/or Shock Cones for RAM intakes.

Very impressive design!