Falkenherz

I did not understand that booster thing. I had 2x2 hammers, but from then on it seemed to become inefficient?

I found this a very interesting thread so far and looked a bit more into the basics of supersonic speed: - increased drag (relative) between Mach 0.9 - 1.2 - decreased drag (relative) from Mach 1.2 onwards, however, also decreased lift-to-weight ratio - RL launch vehicles avoid supersonic speed before reaching 30km because of inefficiency due to drag (would be ~20km on Kerbal) The Oberth effect means that accelerating at higher speed is a more energy efficient use of fuel, i.e. leads to more deltaV. The question is now at which heights *and* speed the drag is worse than the beneficial effect of both supersonic and Oberth effect, i.e. the real question seems to be not so much the angle of ascend, but at which height to attain which speed. However, for the former I still remember basic geometry of a triangle, each vertige being the shortest way between its points. So, my learner´s theory is: - for angle of ascent, make sure apoapsis is reached via a smooth altitude velocity (i.e. no aprupt changes); however, the apoapsis when in orbit should be the end point you want to aim your heading for. - for speed, make sure to reach supersonic not at a too low altitude, but soon enough to still profit from lesser drag and Oberth effect. - The former would then be dependend of the latter. I wonder if 20km is the right hallmark to aim for supersonic? My early tests with single "Hammer" boosters were probably deceiving: Accelerating with a TWR of from the start > 2.2 caused the highest apoapsis, higher TWR did not increase it further. I do not remember when the test vessel reached which speeds, what I probably should have looked out for.

I am still not able to do reliable efficient orbitals. That may be due to the fact that every rocket I launch is a different construction, with according different drag and gravity turn rates. So, what I end up doing is: - at launch, turn by 5-10 degree; I have to do this before my boosters pick up speed and prevent effective steering; - at 10km, turn to 45 degree; after that, I gradually turn more so that I approach an apoapsis of 73km. Once I have reached this, I turn horizontal and even below, just in order to keep the apoapsis stable. Currently I experiment with finding the kind of "suicide burn" so that I shut down enginges until as close at apopapsis as possible to still be able to do a ~horizontal burn for circularisation. If I turn back on too late, I pass apoapsis and have to waste more energy by turning back upright around a 45 degree angle. Unfortunately, my results are very mixed, sometimes not even achieving orbit despite my vessel according to KER having a dV of 3500m/s. Edit: My difficulties may have to do with what impyre just explained above (ninja´d). Did not know about the "Oberth effect". This game truly is a learning experience!

Ah, one more question: "Never carry fuel down to the surface when you can leave it floating in orbit instead." Wouldn´t that depend? If I landed the mobile lab plus a 720-fuel tank on Mun and let a "hopper" do suborbital jumps to, say, 8 different biomes, it should be cheaper to just "hop back" and refill on the ground than having to establish orbit every time again just to refill? When I did this "refill in orbit" exercise in 0.9 with a small lander with 90 units of fuel and that small spark engine, I felt I lost a lot of fuel just by having to go to orbit and rendez-vous again.

That´s just awesome. And amazing how you managed to make the most unscared Kerbalnauts actually scared... :>

Thanks, things start to look much clearer now! I am just wondering how to manage once I touched down on Mun. How does science pretty much look after itself then? It seems I have to bring along a lander-hopper which can touchdown in all those different biomes before I can get any more science from down there? Right now, I had my first station contract and used it to bring a mobile lab into orbit, feeding it with all available EVA and experimental data. Data input is about 90 points: science yield is about 0.0x per day, with a maximum of five times those 90 points, i.e. 450 points. Ouf, I for sure still need a lot more science points! I plan to move it now to Mun polar orbit and fill it further up with data, hoping to accelerate the science process. Then I want to move it onwards to Minmus and launch a second mobile lab to land on Mun. I hope these two are enough to open most of the 160point-part of the tech tree? How long will it take according to your experience? I have had my share of crashes on Mun in 0.9 beta. But I cheated my way through by reloading the flight... or I quickly would have been broke and got back to satelite launching (pretty pboring IMO). I keep forgeting that the game will probably get boring once I have all the tech, but nevertheless, I really would like to have more options to build my vessels from than I have now.

Uh, I am pretty sure I saw a video from DFWanderingKid where he tried that exploit and failed in 0.9. I guess the difference is, as long as you build the satelite *after* you accepted the contracs, the game lets you get away with re-using the same satelite? Anyways, launching satelites is dirt cheap compared to the profit, so I do not see much difference whether you launch a new one or just re-steer the same one again.

And there I thought I had learned enough about orbital mechanics... Back to watching videos, I guess! I love this game!

Ah, I should have used a google-forum search, this for sure was not a new question... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/115673-Ending-hohmann-transfer-in-prograde-vs-retrograde-orbits/page2

r4ptor: The engines seem to double as perfect heat shields. My vessel exploded when I had a direct re-entry at 3600m/s, but maybe this was because I could not maintain retrograde position.

I recently accepted three rescue missions, two of them around Mun, one in a Kerbin orbit. Nice synergy, I thought, for a good pile of cash! But nothing in Kerbal ever just works out fine, does it? The Kerbal orbit turned out to be halfway out to Minmus. One wreck around Mun was orbiting prograde, the other retrograde. Sigh. I have 1800 dV left after achieving LKO. So I burned prograde to Mun, rendez-vous´d the wreck in prograde orbit, burned prograde outwards towards the wreck in HKO. Easy. But, I did not manage to burn back into a retrograde orbit around Mun without expending heaps of deltaV for normal/antinormal burns. Is there a specific trick on how to achieve this? I will have to launch another ship and will try to do this starting again from LKO. I read somewhere that the Apollo missions did a "8" pattern and entered retrograde orbit. How do I burn for this kind of "8" pattern?

I am a bit confused what you can store and how much you can store in a vessel? Crew report: 1 Experiments (goo, jr lab, thermo, etc): up to 5 ? EVA: unlimited? Surface samples: ? Trying to plan another maximum efficiency Mun run; I missed all those biome over there on my first run because I did not have enough dV left for a close polar orbit. IIRC there was a video from Scott Manley who demonstrated some run like this?

Thanks. IMO, figuring out how and where to get science points from is one of the harder, or should I say, more tedious tasks in early career mode. Trying to work out a systematic order, starting from most efficient: means: - crew report; can be sent via antenna without loss - goo - jr. lab - EVA - thermometer - (seismic; only for ground) - (barometer; only for altitude i.e. not biomes specific) - mobile lab (there´s a specific thread somewhere for how to work with it) where: - driving around the KSP (cheaty, absurd, but I take what I can get); did not check if low flight yields something, too - low flight over close-by coastal line, water, grassland, highlands, mountain, desert (tundra, if you manage to time well over the old airport on the island) - landing on said biomes - high atmosphere - sub orbit - orbit - high orbit - Mun high orbit, orbit, sub orbit (burn retrograde to make periapsis dissapear for a moment then burn back prograde) - Minmus high orbit, orbit, sub orbit - Mun polar low orbit (in order to catch all different biomes while the planetoid turns under you) - Minmus polar low orbit This is just theory; any additional tips are welcome. Best thing would be to do a checklist, because I find it a bit difficult to get an overview from the archive.

Thanks! It seems that enginges double for a good heat shield, at least when you do a flat re-entry vector from LKO. I also noted that the parachute trick does not work anymore; Squad fixed a proper damage calculation for equipment under stress. It already tore off my landing gear during an extended plane flight near Mach 1.

Well, I used the tips I got from here and collected about 90 more science points from orbital EVAs and another Kerbal biome at the ground. This finally enabled me to unlock the tier two fitting fuel tanks in addition to the hitchhiker passenger module. However, the only missing thing was a proper engine, and my EVA science source had run dry. By sheer luck, I picked up a test contract for the tier 2 Poodle engine. Bingo! Like this, I completed a Mun orbit with three tourists and a scientist as passengers and a lot of scientific equipment. This netted me about 320 science points. Things finally get going! It was a very exciting and challenging mission nevertheless, and my best experience with the game so far. Untested re-entry with all those passengers and science on board was an extremely tense affair. First, I missed the point where I could still flip the ship retrograde during re-entry. Boom. Only the cockpit was left. I still could have saved the passenger module because it had also parachutes attached, but the game would not let me switch over to control from there. So I reloaded. For the second re-entry, I could maintain retrograde position long enough for the worst heat to dissipate before I lost control. Thankfully, the ship´s uncontrolled tumble also caused it to aerobrake enough to not break down again. It is a thin line to struggle with limited tech as a challenge or as a nuisance. Now - with this little requisition from a test contract - I actually have the basic means to fulfil most contracts, the game starts to be a lot of fun. This just confirms again for me that Squad should probably just need to tweak a bit the concept of the first few tech nodes in connection with the science collection and contract system as I discussed here before. I still could not unlock solar panels, can you imagine!

Yeah, thanks. I don´t have solar panels yet, though, one of the things why I am stuck science wise, but I am optimistic that the EVA missions will give me now my sorely needed science points. I still maintain that it should be a bit more intuitive for new players of how and where to get science points. Mission contracts about exactly this, poppoing up at the right moment, would be really helpful.

Thanks for all the hints. So I should have upgraded for EVAs already. Right now, the missions seem to be too tough for the science I have accumulated so far, so I will now concentrate on EVAs. I have about 700k cash, and just recently upgraded my science outsourcing strategy from 5% to 25%. I wish I had done this earlier. My early cash cow was those suborbital tourist hopping, with a "SSTSo" it netted me about >30k for two tourists each launch. Now, after having achieved orbit, they all want to go orbit, which is considerably more expensive and thus brings less profit than before...

@DocMoriarty: Thanks for the tip to skip contracts, but this seems to also be an absurd game mechanic, using the contract selection like a roulette until a "fitting" contract pops up. It would make much more sense if you could choose and specialize on certain activities like testing, exploring, scientific or tourist missions. Right now I find I have to take the "cheapest option", but I would rather like to take the for me "most interesting" option. I knew I was doing a mistake by fulfilling the "get into orbit" achievement. At that moment, the offered contracts became suddenly much more demanding, and less well payed than before, requiring equipment that I cannot hope to unlock and thus require most of the time some weird workarounds. @wanderfound: how much science did you have after those 5 flights? I am stuck with having opened every 45 point node and one 90 point node, but did not do your flights 4+5. How much science did those last two get you? Besides, space EVA needs two upgrades to buildings first, so some kind of grind for money had to preceed that option?

Too hard? I would rather say too much of a nuisance. I find I have to build rather absurd contraptions and invest a lot of time into absurd tasks in order to advance at all. Examples, right from the beginning of a "moderate" career run: - "Triple command pod" rocket in order to bring two tourists into suborbit - Small fuel tanks stacked to a dozen in order to have a rocked achieve orbit - EVA mission on the other side of Kerbal, at a polar, westward heading: No way a rocket is going to make it that precisely without endless reloads. Warping a plane @10km altitude destroys the tier1 landing gear and requires me to correct the heading every 7 seconds or so. Plus, the game crashed two times after about 20 minutes of boring flight time each - Having access to the hitchhiker module but not to the same sized fuel tanks and engines: weirdest rocket design ever, highly unstable, to bring this just into LKO - Science from crew reports or thermometers is halved when transmitted, so in order to be efficient you have to land back every time you took a measure/report - Science generated at different buildings at the KSP; how absurd can it get yet? - Testing a part in flight or landed generates 3 science. For just opening up one 45 point science node, this means 15 tests. Really? Bottomline, career mode is certainly doable, but it feels like cheating or abusing weird game mechanics and submitting my precious little game time to grind. Based on this experience (from about ten hours of game time) I have two suggestions: - Science generation should be more transparent and less arbitrary (e.g. clear indication what generates science and more logic, i.e. remove KSP science readings). - Contracts should be doable with the proper parts unlocked, e.g. no tourists-contract until you actually have proper passenger modules available, no Kerbal escape trajectory until you have engines and tanks to actually bring those tourists back safely

I think there is consensus that the logic of each tech node should be about things actually fitting and working together. One "exotic" piece thrown in the mix does not harm, i.e. a piece which will become useful in context with other and/or later tech nodes (makes you review your options which is a nice thing now and then). Possible groupings: - engines with the range of fitting standard fuel tanks (minitiature or jumbo versions should come later - command pods with landing equipment like ladders, struts - remote stuff (already reasonably well grouped) - groups for the fiddler type of gamer (e.g. struts, structures, etc.) - electricity (already reasonably well grouped) - airplanes (already reasonably well grouped) - utility for spacecrafts, e.g. cargo bays, docking ports, lights - science stuff and habitation modules

Thanks! Now I just need to know how to change the OP to "answered".

I wonder if lift is applied for pieces which are mounted vertically, e.g. yaw rudder or vertically mounted plane hull parts? What happens if you launch a plane vertically like a rocket? Is lift then pulling it back to lateral positions? IMO vertical structures should not apply their lift rating, except for when you change the angle of attack accordingly? What about the lift from fully or partially clipped parts?

Oh, don´t worry, I will be spamming them. Money is not the problem so far, playing only on moderate difficulty w reloads (I couldn´t afford the huge "learning by doing" costs I need right now, anyways...). The problem is more to get the science unlock both the lab as well as appropriate engines/tanks; they are pretty much spaced apart in the tech tree. Slightly worried that the lab comes a bit too late to really profit from it much, once the cash and outsourcing marketing strategy really kick in. BTW, I did some stories about my first Kerbal exploits on my blog ( http://falkenherz.blogspot.de/ ). I have had a blast as a newb in 0.9!

So... the first thing to do would be to put one of those labs on wheels and park at the KSP, do temperature, gravity, goo, jr. lab experiments and let the lab munch on tha data until it is finished, then move it to an adjacent biome and repeat the process? Then, same procedure in Kerbal orbit, Mun surface, etc.? How much science can I expect like this? I am a rather new player and have started a new career game and am starved of science, but I figure getting that lab asap would alleviate my issues.

My initial tests in career mode come to the very blunt result that a high TWR is always better, if your rocket parts can sustain the stress. I first experimented with just one "Hammer" solid fuel booster and different TWR settings. The maximum height I could achieve was 42km and only with a TWR of 3 onwards. Everything lower topped out at about 30km. Later, I did countless "tourist in suborbit" missions, with hammer solid fuel boosters S1+S2 plus triple Mk1 command pods and modified the trust. Thus playing with TWRs of 1.6 to 3 and just going up at 10 degrees off vertical, I found that I could reach a maximum height of 72km from a TWR from 2.2 onwards only. What I read here in the forum and my theory about it is that on lower atmosphere, drag is reduced by breaking the sonic barrier, which in turn allows the rocket to go farther. A high TWR helps breaking the sonic barrier asap. Again, just my current theory.