Sirad

Hello Alltogether. This is my Attempt in Playing Caveman (on Normal difficulty) to Fly Jeb To duna and bring him back Savely to Kerbin. To Achieve this a lot of work has flown into it, including mastering the Art of Docking without Monoprop, Building explicitely useful crafts (lift more than 2tons to Orbit 200km of Kerbit) and planning and assembling a Ship in Orbit that is capable to savely Fly jeb to and Back to Duna. It took me 5 Days for Planning and 2 Days for the mission itself. Including a Lithobrake at the and at Kerbin... I learned alot while this and call myself now a better Pilot, of course Note that the Science Screenshots were taken prior deorbiting the Duna Ship to prove i have managed The Caveman until start to duna. I ended up at least with 370+ science in total afterwards... Well the Difficulty is normal. Well, since im already Caveman i will not mess around to much with screenshots achieving the science until i have everything together for Building the Ship that flies to duna. Just a few heres and theres to sideway my preparings for this attempt. My First Flyby of the Mun. I was not very advanced there and still building up Science for the Trip. These are my Typical Flyby/Orbit Crafts that gather the major part of the Science for me. Flying by in Low Orbit. And then returning the Science back to Kerbin. This is just the usual Stuff i have to do until i get the needed Science to Build my Duna Craft. Well, i started a new Game and played it thru. One of my Landing Crafts. Since i managed to Orbit in Space i just passing by the hassle to try to Land on Mun or Minmus in one Craft. Im assembling everything in Space. Whenever i will try to land Jeb on Tylo on Hard Setting this training will be useful.... :-) Ive got a line of standard Crafts now that lifts everything into Orbit. Okay, enough of the Preparation. Now the Art starts. I had long thought about the optimal design for an interplanetary Ship on Caveman level. I came out with that. Thats the Part where the Tug gets assembled. Everything needs to be onboard. Batterys, Solar Power etc. The Navball shows how to dock. First come to a stop, throttle the engine to 5% and then advance toward the target in navball and overturn the ship ito any fitting differences and advance until target and prograde fits again. Slowly advance to the target It fits. Actually im so trained, its like drinking a glass of milk. The maneuvering Tug has enough fuel even to deorbit, to prevent cluttering space. This was the hardest thing getting to Orbit, the engines for the Tug. I faled several Times, but the rocket is cheap, so no issue at all. and here comes the Fuel. I had to do this very often. i just added some snippets of this. Just some views to calm down and/or enlargen the tension ? This ship was assembled with the old Fuel tank rocket. Not a full FL-T400. Getting that thing to Orbit for docking. I just got all the time roughly 5km below the orbit of the Interplanetary transporter, circled until i was near and then attempted docking. I typically advance to the target and while closing in using anti target/retrograde to break into perfect position. As you see, retrograde and anti target doesnt mach so i burn into overrsteered retrograde to align both markers. corrected now This has to be done 12 Times until the Ship is ready for departure. getting near Scenic view of it Sideview of it. Docked. and so on. Targeting each other craft so it will be aligned linear. And doing the same stuff over and over again. Watch the Ship growing. Now this is easy for me--- Even a bit misalignment is no issue. it docks. 2nd Fuel tank attached And the Transporter has enough DV to deorbit. Wide view of starting pad. I like that view. The rockets are quite stable once you manage to put shrouds on. Up into Space and Dock. 3rd Fuel Tank. 4th Fuel Tank. Approaching. and Docking This is how close i fly to the Orbit of the Main Ship. roughly between 5-10 Km difference. The rest is using prograde/target and eyeballing. it works. No Monoprop needed Nearing the Target Starting to bake down. and docking the 5th Tank. Hell, i catches a Mun eclipse here. :-) Docking the 6th Fuel Tank Dont need to comment every docking nor ? Who is already bored of this, spool ahead some pics :-) 7th Tank Aproaching and locked 8th tank and we have a lock. 9th Tank and so on. This was quite a lot of work and tedious, but i want to get to Duna so, its neccessary. 10th Tank It looks nearly finished now. soone the hassle comes to an end. already fed of those pics ? I suffered, i let you all suffer too :-) closing in. Free view of construction process Now lets gonna Start. I used a common website to get a planned Solution for the interplanetary transfer. On my calculations i had 1000 excess dv to correct any misses on the way to Duna. The hardest thing is to get a catch from Duna. The way back is not so hard because Kerbin has a bigger soi and you can aerobrake... but later to this... So the craft is a Tower. Pushing that much docking ports is useless and you will not suceed in burning towards dune (learned the hard way, before) Its quite Simple. From the Top to the Bottom you have following parts. - Science collector and deorbiter on Kerbin once we are back - Main Towing engine - Main Body - Fuel Tanks that gets enabled, used and decoupled manually as needed. - Duna Lander with Jeb Aboard. I just threw away the Plan to bring the deorbit modul for Kerbin landing of Jeb all the way to Duna. To much Fuel needed and a waste of efficiency. So the 2 Towing engines worked well. i only needed one Burn to get to escape velocity. burning. and Burning and off from Kerbins soi. now im at the Hands of Fate. Oh, that looks quite good. Lets see how i enter Donas soi. Just a lottery. Som course correction needed here. Just right before entering Soi Hit it. But got a very bad Entry here. I have to burn lots of Fuel to get a Plane and stable orbit. View with Duna by. Only 6 Fuel tanks left over now. I had to invest about 600DV to get a catch, no deorbit included yet. More Fuel wasted to get good Inclination Now heading for the Aerobrake at Duna Atmosphere Just not to deep, thats fiddly Sideeffect, another science Report. Bit by Bit Circling Down to Duna. Only 4 Tanks left. I will need them for the way back.... Circling down more. and more. The orbit gets lower. and lower each Turn. Scenic view here. Time for Circling and undock the Lander. Jeb is on his way down to Duna. 2 Chutes suite well. Only need some small breaking ignition to land. Hanging in the Chutes. Now Jeb can laugh again. Landed on Duna. No EVA, no Flag, Then heading back into space. Circularizing the Orbit Main Fuel has been Burned, now the 2nd tank gets activated And docking to the Main Ship Science for it! Using the same tool, i planned Jeb's Planetary Transfer back to Kerbin. Thats more easy because the BIIIIIIG Soi. Entering Kerbol Soi Nearing Kerbin Soi Looks good. For acceletaring from Duna next 2 Fuel tanks used up. I had to do many maneouvering to get a good inclination at Kerbin. i will need a good inclination because i need to send up a Deorbiter to get him back to Ground. Maneouvering and course corrections This was how i ended up 45 degrees against inclination. could have been worse. So maneouvering the course and correcting the inclination, setting an aerobrake PE i have set this amount. Just barely more i would have been burned, you will see later on. all Main Fuel tanks are used up but it looks good and if everything runs fine Jeb is save. Aerobraking Aerobraking What the (....) im gonna nearly burn the ship. Jeb no longer laughs. But if you survive the first round, you survive them all. Decellerating Next Round. As you see i set the nav point to Radial in, to get the best breaking efficiency. Cooling Down, Cooling down. Next Round. Nearing a circular orbit. Each round slows down 80DV. so some time to go. Now its time to manually circularice, burning up the last Fuel inside the core structure of the ship. Stable Orbit achieved, time to pick up Jeb from Space. Just the rescue ship that picks him up. Burn Bady Burn.. Aproaching for Docking. Nearing the Main Ship Closing in closing in and docked. So Time to change Jebs seat to the rescue ship and deorbit. Hes Home soon. Oh, yes we did. Reentry and braking down. landing Jeb made it to Duna and Back. Science tree Science report Mission summary Jeb got 18 XP for it. But then a Problem arrives. I had several Science collected around Duna but wasnt able to undock the science Deorbit module. Dunno what happened. So i have to deorbit the complete mothership, throw some small chutes out and try to lithobrake in hope that the Science container survives Watch the Show. This picture can not show the wobbling but i was giggling while watching. What the Kraken. Down to 1879ms and this thing is just stable. Donno what happened. Those Docking Ports seem to be glued together. Is this a Bug ? Now it all hangs in the chutes and falling with 41ms. Too much. What luck. Science container survived the impact. Si i can recover all the Science from Duna Here the tree again No facilities upgraded Main Science Archive 1 Main Science archive 2 Main Science archive 3 Main Science Archive 4 Duna Science Part Kerbin Science Part Kerbin Science Part 2 Kerbin Science part 3 Mun Science Minmus Science. I hope this Qualifies, but if not, it was great fun anyway!

The Real Trip to Duna was without Mechjeb, of course. Just checking if its possible as i've got planned. Well im having difficulty creating an account on imgur, they wont accept my phone number. Im creating another Thread in missions and link it here. Possibly that will do. 'Yes, that's permitted. After all, it's what @paul_c used to calculate the transfer window for his successful Nano-diamond attempt.' Great to hear. So everything is fine. It will Take some time to comment all Pics...

Yes, of course... I was just asking if anyone built a rocket (excluding the assembly on launchpad) that lifted up larger fuel Tanks. Just my guess was this is near the Limit but as it always is, surely someone has done better i think :-)

Eyeballing planetary transfers.

Hello Alltogether I've got a Question. Since some Time i discovered the Fun in Playing with no Facilities upgraded (Like Caveman Mode) because one is limited... So Ive got a Question. After Building and Testing more than 100 Different Crafts i was able to create a Rocket that is able to lift a FL-T400 to Orbit 200KM and plenty of DV (~250) To Dock RCS-Less to my Station. But anyhow i try, i fail in lifting somewhat more to Orbit. Here a Picture of the Craft Here with no Shroud Here is The Station im actually Building. So The actual Payload consists of 2,290 Tons actually. Tha Craft File Any try to lift more to Orbit, like adding a new fuel small Tank fails. For me it seems to be the Limit. Maybe i have just overseen something and 'Moar' is possible...

Did it :-) Im just dunno where to post the mess of 180+ screenshots to document it...

Is there a special Bagde if you land Jeb on Duna and return him savely to Kerbin in Caveman Mode ? And as an additional question. Is it allowed to use this: https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ and, if so, the journey consists of more than 180 screenshots to document it... I think, i shall rather not post them here....

Hm. i dont know why that happens. They are on my webspace/domain. What browser you use ? Anyone else that dont have pics displayed ? Im just refreshing my SSL certificate. maybe that helps.

Thanks for all the answers.

Hello DVQuill I get exact Data from that Tool (angles of Planets and angle of descent) But i wont draw some Lines on My Monitor to measure it out :-) So is there something else i may have not noticed, except the navball at all ?

Well. Im Planning a Caveman Journey to Duna & back. So there is one Problem that is still unsolved. I tried several Times to eyeball a Transfer Window to Duna. Dunno how many trys i made. There are several tools out there where you can enter Parameters and so on that put out the angle Duna has to be and the start angle for your ship. How to eyeball Dunas angle of (lets say) 43.3° with no patched conics, mechjeb etc. Any hints ? Or is this just an endless row of trial and error (and noone should tell me he hits it on the spot the first time...) Is it best to first leave Kerbin Soi to have that conic projected on Sun SOI or better relay on the tools and try to hit the numbers (starting from Kerbin Soi) ? Maybe someone know best way ?

Hello Alltogether. I was just fiddling around with 'advancing in my caveman mode' Since i used MJ because i was initially trying to fly to Duna, land a kerbal and return him savely, but failed a long time in properly eyeballing my transfer window (wild swearing here) i just postponed that goal and took the Ship to land a Kerbal on the moon and returned him by playing with no facilities upgraded. Any good tips for eyeballing a transfer to Duna ? Due to i did use MJ just for Orbit info and DeltaV (jor more its anyway not of use bacause no facilities upgraded) i made a Photo book of my Journey. Besides that, while building the ship, i mastered the art of docking even without RCS jut by eyeballing target. Just quite something i learned by the way. That led me to the capability of constructing big ships in Orbit, so nothing is immpossible now, even with no facilitys upgraded. I Built that ship out of Modules, the Fuel usage while accelerating to Mun and flying back was just made by disabling any fuel tank except the one i wanted to use... I had 4 kind of Rockets that were needed to lift the modules upwards. The Lander capsules were a bit fiddly because it has to start optimal to reach proper orbit with enough dv left for Docking. That Type of Mothership i Built need only 8 more fuel tanks to have enough DV for Duna and baclk. Its possible even for a caveman. But i think thats no big deal, many have done this before but for me, it was a big deal. First module in Orbit, the reentry to Kerbin Module. Made all the way to Mun and Back and worked as intended. All Rockets had their Corona mask on so better performance in Air up to 25.000 Starting to Build up the Ship. Docking the first Fuel tanks. later on with a bit redesingn i managed to lift and Dock bigger Fuel tanks. Quite a Time saver, Undocking for reentry of the Lifting module. Quite a lot of starts and Fails went along while finding the optimal ascent path. Eyeballing everything is quite hard, but one gets used to it somehow... I just made my orbit just 3-5 kilometers belom the station i wanted to dock at and then circulated and waited until i catch up with the station. Just like that With the Fuel tanks on, the Fuel-Hauler Tug has somewhat around 550DV left over. enough for docking and manually eyeballing intercept to station. Catching up with the station. At This Point i manually tuned the main engine down to 4% throttle to be able to finetune the intercept and docking position with the Navball. The RCS Thruster are obsolet now because i can dock without them now... Getting near to the station with 0.3-0.4 m/s Using Target and Pro/Retrograde in the navball, that works. Its growing. Now the lander. Its capable to land at Duna and ascend. It has 2 docked modules for that. Navball docking with no rcs. Just see the Navbal. that how it should be aligned to fit. It Grows. More Fuel tanks to be added to the station. And more And more more And so on. I left the last tugs on to squeeze the last bit of fuel out for me ascent to Mun Used up, undock and swith next tanks active Had to accelerate 3 times because Main engine is to small. On my way to mun. Just a scenic view :-) And so on. I took this aproach to come out with reverse orbit. Catching Mun passby. decelerating until orbit and circling down. Until 30km Orbit. Checking all systems and transfering Jeb to Lander. Just a caveman around the mun. Undocking for Landing Just try to not waste fuel and had my adrenalin on 'to much' to make a good last burn-to landing. Looks good Final descent. Landed. And no Flag Planted because: Cavemans can only walk on Kerbin.... Quite fast i need to accelerate to not getthe mothership to far ahead. Reverse Orbit Start Catching up with Mothership Catching up for docking. While aproaching i noticed that the mothership could not control himself, but i managed to dock, lucky one... Aproaching Docked Leaving SOI of Mun for Flight home. Burning. Trying to get the optimal point Leaving Soi soon. First Aerobrake around Kerbin Empty fueltanks that get undocked pop off. I was scared to burn off because i came in very fast. Now circularized and still 1000DV left over. Reentering Kerbin with everything because there are things to make better for the Big trip to Duna. Fireworks Decoupling from Mothership Enabling Chutes Andddd Coming down. Touchdown. Made it to Mun and back with Jeb and no facilities upgraded.

Well i was suggesting something like that. I have given up on docking at ground level. Maybe next update this is fixed.

Well. Since i discovered that my SSTO turns on ground slowly clockwise (never ehard of that the ground is so slippery) eve if i dont control it, there is no way of connecting my tanker to the plane because each time i line them up for docking ths plane is skying clockwise. It takes about half an hour to completely rotate the plane wether i have brakes on or not. Possibly Kerbal tires are made of something else except rubber.

Oh i so seldom rarely use the aerobrakes i nearly forgot about them, good hint! Currently my design gets the cargo connected horizontally to the aft of the ssto via the large connector. Its not perfect now and does not fly self stable like a cessna. If i master my self set goal i provide some pics

Yap. Refueling is one of the Things i solved Via your suggestion already and Via using the Claw. There is a way for that. But Maybe someone else found out better ways ? Thats an option. But that wouldnt be pure Vanilla. I Found a Video somewhere Long time ago in the net where someone has used the Docking Ports as 'chains'. Maybe if im mentally strong enough i try that one. Hanging the load onto that Chain and then shove the ship below it until the Load tummmmmbles into the Bay. (Or Krakens off) I feel my Hair is growing white just by the thought of it....

Well, i think i was not specific enough in my request. I have to add a disclaimer: If anyone feels the need to answer with 'why not recovering that thing' he should carefully read my Question. I just DONT want to recover the Ship. I want to reuse it. (and as a sidequestion, did anyone ever mastered all aspects of the Game without ever using recover ?) [and if i think long enough about it, that could be a good Challenge]

Well I like to Build SSTO's that can manage to enter Orbit with some Payload and Land them afterwards (with more or less Success) I'm missing some useful possibility to Fuel and Reload a previously landed SSTO. Open Cargo Bay and put new stuff in and start Again. Whats the Pojnt in being able to Build fine SSTO's if i can only reload or refuel with Mods ? As i like to play plain Vanilla often i have not come over any easy way to do it. Only things that involve the risk of the Kraken showing up. If someone has done stuff like that, im open to any suggestion.

Guess what happened (you have 3 guesses free....) I forgot module manager. Thanks a lot for the Help, those are the Moments i start to love that community here.

Its a Plain install with mechjeb. Yes i'm running 1.9.1. Well that does not ruin my games in general but if someone wants to Build some Spacelab-style etc... So when did turning solarpanels entered human spaceflight ? I could workaround to fit a bunch of slamm solar panels on a stick but this is not launchable in any way to space. And even if, this would kill immersion. If someone has any hints how to stop the damn thing from turning towards the sun, he is welcome....

Thats the actual "solar.cfg" @PART[largeSolarPanel] { @MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel] { sunTracking = false @sunTracking = false @isTracking = false isTracking = false } } It still turns toward the sun. So there must be something else that is changed in recent version. Or its hardcoded. (that would be bad)

Well. i tried that one. Named it 'solar.cfg' and put it into gamedata... restarted the game.... - didnt worked. Solar Array is still turning to the sun. Any other hints would be welcome. I Know that worked long time ago. (1.7 ?) but now this no longer works.

Again. this was once solved but the Additional cfg i have file does not work any longer. So, HOW do i prevent the gigantor solar Panel from rotating to the sun ? Is there any new fix for it ?

Well. i Tested. Making a clean install of 1.9 fails. making an install of 1.8.1 and then patching it to 1.9 works. Buddys, tha bug is not on my side ...

Well looked at the Topic, wrong thread. have to open a new one or, eh nevermind... While every version of ksp ran quite well on my rig, this one dont. No logs, because no logs getting created. (besides: where to look at ?) I wait for a new version, maybe next iteration solves it.