Jump to content

Edax

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    269

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Edax

    Could a Quadruplane Be Effective on Duna?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    For controlled flight you need to control all three axes (pitch, yaw, roll). Roll is typically controlled on the wing. Pitch and yaw are typically controlled at the tail and/or nose.

    Ohh, I thought the tailplane and reaction wheels would control roll. I suppose that explains why when I don't have control surfaces on the wings that the plane loses stability.

    Could a Quadruplane Be Effective on Duna?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    Then why ask for advice?

    You asked for advice, I gave you some. And I've probably done more aviating on Duna than 99.9% of the forum members. You won't get better advice than that. If you choose to disregard it, then it's your funeral. Don't say I didn't warn you.

    Jet engines don't work on Duna because there's no free-range oxygen. So if you have an SSTO that works on Kerbin, it will assuredly NOT work on Duna. The jets, intakes, and extra LF are just dead weight, and if it can get to LKO, it has way too little wing to fly on Duna.

    For the same plane, at most terrain altitudes the stall speed on Duna is about 1.5x as high as on Kerbin because of the thinner air. IOW, if you stall at 70m/s on Kerbin, you'll stall at 100m/s on Duna.

    And even landing at 35m/s on Duna needs retro thrust to avoid mishap with any degree of certainty. Airbrakes don't work, wheel brakes don't work, so without retro thrust you bounce along for miles. Sometimes you get lucky and survive this but most times you'll either cartwheel off a bump in the ground or hit a wall.

    Oh well, have fun crashing.

    Even if I learn by trial and error, it's handy to ask for advice for. I can at least make an approximate guess by asking some more experienced people. The reason I disregard some of your advice is that your playing a different game then me, using parts I don't have, and using a play-style I wont adopt. It's nothing personal.

    Could a Quadruplane Be Effective on Duna?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    If all you are doing is going in for a glided landing, I would recommend you try to use just a large set of fixed wings and minimize your other weight. Keep your fuel and engines minimal, and try to use fixed wings with built-in control surfaces. Just make it as minimal as you can reasonably get away with otherwise.

    Bit of advice though, I recommend you set the wings high on the body of the glider. No airstrips on Duna means a landing in potentially rough and unpredictable terrain. Low wings are likely to clip on something in such a circumstance.

    This might be a dumb question, but I'm not fully understanding the purpose of control surfaces on the wings. I put control surfaces at both ends of the space plane so that it can pitch up and down, so what is the function control surfaces on the wings given that their so close to the center of mass? Often times in-game they seen uncooperative, such as 2 sets of controls surfaces on a big-s wing will cause 1 set to increase lift, and the other set to decrease lift (again, on the same wing) when I'm trying to pitch the plane. This doesn't seem to make any sense logically.

    Could a Quadruplane Be Effective on Duna?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    Well, with stock the main issue is power. Ions powered by fuel cells are your only viable option, but they lack the macho to get you off the ground, so you'll need some small rockets to assist in takeoff (and some more on the front to stop you during landing rollout). See Brotoro's "Developing Duna" thread in Mission Reports for how it did it (all stock).

    As to HyperEdit, if you don't use that, then how does your space program do simulations? Not at all? How realistic is that? There's no shame in having HyperEdit in a separate sandbox game to quickly move ships to other planets so you can test their perrformance where you intend to use them. Not doing this is just asking for the thing not to work in your real game, meaning money and time down the drain, dead Kerbals and loss of rep, etc. Sure, you CAN use HyperEdit to cheat (restocking your fuel, moving your ship), but that's your business. It's highest and best use is as a simulator.

    And this is ESPECIALLY important when it comes to Duna airplanes. The Duna environment is so different from Kerbin that you can't tell anything at all about how a plane will fly on Duna by testing it on Kerbin. And in a stock game, an ion-powered plane won't even leave the ground on Kerbin these days, so you can't even get the wrong impression of it ;). So if you don't do some testing first, you're going in totally blind and the plane will probably crash so fast that you won't even be able to identify its problems so you can fix the next one.

    I learn by trial and error. Since I am designing SSTOs, they'll be plenty of delta-v to get back into orbit. I'm only really looking to design an SSTO with enough lift that it merely can land safely on Duna without the use of retroburns. I only need the stall speed around 70 m/s. My last SSTO stalled around 120 m/s, but it wasn't designed to fly on Duna to begin with. This really seems like a simple problem of just adding lift, and I'm trying to do that without big wings so that I can more easily land on rough terrain. I don't plan to fly around the planet cause the game tends to crash after 15 minutes of low altitude flight, so I suspect having to refuel in orbit. Duna to me is still magical cause I've only been on it once, and it was a learning experience, and I don't want to tarnish that with easy mode.

    Could a Quadruplane Be Effective on Duna?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    So, if you're going to fly on Duna, do yourself a big favor and use HyperEdit to test (aka "simulate" in a separate game) the thing actually on Duna. You will gain no idea at all of how it flies on Duna by flying it on Kerbin.

    This is why I thought to ask the forum, since I use stock, and don't want to use hyperedit since I view that as cheating.

    Could a Quadruplane Be Effective on Duna?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    I've been experimenting with making SSTO biplanes and found them generally an excellent way of generating more lift for a safer landing while maintaining a compact shape. I have in the past landed a monoplane SSTO on Duna, but the insufficient lift forced me to use a retro-burn parachute landing which was crazy-dangerous. This has lead me to wonder, would a quadruplane'a extra lift (from say, 4 sets of swept wings) be able land on Duna safely without parachutes, rockets or thrusters?

    wight_quadruplane_1.jpg

    Piggyback Design Tips (Like the Shuttle)

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    Keep the piggyback ship as close as you can to the hull to reduce drag (so you maybe have to attach the radial mount/docking port on a slight slope. You'll also want the ship placed near the front and have it loaded with fuel to act as ballast so that your center of mass is ahead of your center of lift (but keep at least one tank inactive so that you don't accidentally jettison it without fuel). You'll also want the piggyback ship held down with struts, even if they cause drag, cause you DO NOT WANT the piggyback ship bouncing as it'll make flying horribly difficult and dangerous. It also helps if the piggyback ship can produce it's own thrust to help the mothership SSTO out to compensate for the extra drag.

    fBaJzBUd.jpg

    Is mining ore worth it?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    I think one of the best reasons to mine/refine is that it allows your creations re-usability. The same spaceship you used to explore encounter Duna can be the same one used to explore Jool with mining. Since you can get the gas on the go with your own spaceship, you don't have to watch your precious design get chopped up by staging until all that's left is a capsule and a parachute eroding in Kerbin ocean. It allows the potential of spacecraft to last months in real time until they get thrown out of whack by the next patch.

    Devnote Tuesday: New Office

    in KSP1 The Daily Kerbal

    Posted

    It's cute maybe the first 1,000 times, but after that it's just annoying to see all your kerbals either screaming their heads off or having the biggest smile on their face all the time, and no in-between. I hope it gets revamped one day a mod replaces the stupid kerbal behavior with one that modifies their expression based on more factors (ex: running out of fuel, hurtling towards the ground, etc.) and making them bolder as they get more experienced.

    Would definitely love to see engineers interact with some panels with buttons and gauges and scientist do SCIENCE experiment-animations while in the lab in the spirit of the science vessel guy from Starcraft.

    "Eve: Order Zero" -- a KSP Graphic Novel (POSTLUDE COMPLETE...bet you didn't see THAT coming.)

    in KSP1 Mission Reports

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    Not coincidental, and we all remember what happened to Gold Leader after he spoke that line... was tempted to also use "he just impacted on the surface!" but decided that was too cruel even for me :)

    Naw, Gold Leader was the one who said "Loosen up!" (and "It's no good, I can't maneuver!"). Red Leader was the one who said "Almost there...", and "EAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-bwosh" *sad John Williams music*

    Is mining ore worth it?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    You can't depend on even getting these contracts at all, let alone having them all available at once. So assume you have zero contracts for this. Now you have to build the system out of your own pocket, then take the time to put it to use. Repeatedly, until it pays for itself. That's playing time you could be using actually doing stuff out in the boonies.

    It depends on how you value things. One key ingredient in the game economy, as mentioned to Edax above, is your own personal time as a player. Assuming you have a life, your opportunities to play the game and the amount of time per session are limited. If you want to get the most exploration and colonization you can do in your limited amount of playing time, then you don't want to spend a significant amount of it mucking about in Kerbin's SOI.

    Using your system, you're condemned to frequent trips between Kerbin and your refueling base with landings, take-offs, rendezvous, and dockings in between. Plus you are even landing recoverable boosters. To me, this is all endless, repetitive, grindy toil and trouble, consuming vast amounts of player time. And while doing all this, you make zero forward progress with the actual mission you created this system to support. And if the actual mission involves a multi-ship interplanetary flotilla, you have to go through all this repeatedly for each ship, and the flotilla will likely never leave Kerbin. IOW, instead of the game being about the mission, it's now about a mere support function.

    So yes, you're right if you only consider KSP money. But if you value your time at all, a refueling system within Kerbin's SOI has an astronomical pricetag. Especially once you have multiple interplanetary flotillas both en route and at their destinations already, and are having to keep all those plates spinning at once via KAC. There simply isn't time left to do any of this refueling drudgery at Kerbin. Besides, by that point in the game, you should already be extremely wealthy so aren't concerned at all that a launch might cost $200,000 more than if you refueled it in LKO. You only care about getting up and away to the stars.

    Now, in the old games of the X Universe, you could automate all the ships and stations you owned by hiring NPC crews to do all the mundane, repetitive tasks. This let you personally go do all the fun stuff like hunting pirates and advancing the plot while enjoying the benefits of a whole support system. If KSP ever gets such automation, then I'd be the 1st to set up just what you have going here. But as long as I have to do it all hands-on, no friggin' way :).

    Space Station/ Surface Base contracts for Kerbin's moons are very common. The line-of-logic "can't depend on even getting these contracts" is a little flimsy, cause by that logic, just entering space is an expensive proposition with the potential of no returns. When it comes to the resource of playtime, mining also shortens time. Before mining, I had to launch 5 rocket tankers to fuel up my Duna mission, which took me a while to do (cause I had to land the damn things as close to KSC as possible since I need to squeeze every last coin for the Duna mission). Cause of my fleet of miners/refineries/refueling stations loaded with fuel around Kerbin, my SSTO fleet is now capable of interplanetary missions on the cheap. The spacestation miners themselves all paid for themselves by contracts, which only need to complete 2 out of a possible 4 (and the ectracting ore and shipping ore contacts are repeatable, easy money) and since mining can be done while doing something else, it's a big timesaver, and makes going to planets quicker and cheaper. (Though I confess that shipping fuel from Minmus to Kerbin orbit can be a little time consuming)

    Is mining ore worth it?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    As with Kethane and Karbonite before it, there is no justification whatsoever in setting up a complex Ore refueling system within Kerbin's SOI. You spend more money setting it up than you'll ever recoup from using it, and using it entails needless delays and complications in doing whatever you want to the fuel for (which is why you'll never use it enough to pay it off). Within Kerbin's SOI, it's far, far, far easier, cheaper, and less time-consuming just to launch with whatever fuel you need, or send fuel out to Mun or Minmus from Kerbin.

    Where Ore (and Kethane and Karbonite) comes to the fore is at other planets. And then only if you're into building large, permanent colonies there, and plan to spend most of your playing time messing with stuff in those colonies. If you're just going to another planet for flags and footprints, then don't bother setting anything up there. Your 1 there-and-back ship might be able to make its own fuel, but the mass of the equipment largely negates any savings on fuel mass for a 1-time thing. But if you have a continuing and fairly high level of local fuel consumption (such as going forth and back among the moons of Jool and flying a lot of planes on Laythe), then being to make your own fuel out there is pretty much essential and at lot less of a worry than having to continuously send tankers out there.

    I actually found mining on Minmus and Mun to be VERY profitable. Since my miner, refinery, refueling station are all just a single ship, I get paid for orbiting, (space station contract), landing (base contract), mining (extracting ore contract), and lastly getting paid bring the ore to Kerbin orbit (which I already do cause ore tanks are more efficient then fuel tanks). Easy money. And it only costs 400,000 funds to lug the thing up into orbit to begin with.

    Are cluster engines effective in 1.0.4?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    Hi all. So, im trying to get enough fuel together for a trip to Moho and after watching a video about cluster engines it appeared that this was the way to go. In a test that was conducted 1 engine (I forget the name but its stock and has 1500 thrust) was strapped to a single orange tank and launched straight up and the apoapsis height was recorded, lets say 2 million meters as an example.

    The same test was done but this time with 3 LV engines in a cluster formation and the apoapsis was way over 4 million meters. Great I thought, but when I replicated the test .I found the single engine reached a far higher apoapsis than the cluster by over 2 million meters? Why is this? Is it because the test in the video was on an older version of KSP and not 1.0.4?

    Also, should I just use cluster engines in space as apposed to using them on launch?

    Im just having a hard time getting the required dv to Moho so trying different things.

    Any help would be much appreciated :)

    It sounds like you aren't conducting these tests with the intent to orbit Kerbin. More thrust allows you to more effectively use delta V to attain orbit, but every engine you add reduces delta v. A single reliant engine powering a 400t ship will produce a lot of delta v (if your in space), but it certainly wont lift that spacecraft off the ground. The only reason to cluster engines is that you haven't unlocked the bigger engine yet, or your using a LF- only spaceship powered by LV-N's that require more thrust then the 60 units of thrust that it provides (such as for landing or escaping sub-orbital trajectory). *fingers crossed that squad makes a jumbo LV-N*.

    Is mining ore worth it?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    I haven't played in quite a while and the whole mining system is new to me. It seems like way more effort than it's worth though.

    Do you bother with mining? What does your mining setup look like?

    When your around Duna, it's far easier to get gas in bulk at Ike then hauling a tanker in from Kerbin. Same goes with any other planet, it's easier to fill large tanks of gas close to the source. It'd take way more effect to launch multiple tankers from Kerbin's surface.

    Is Laythe a nod to Lethe in Greek Mythology?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Edax

    I always thought that the Battle of Ecnomus in the 1st Punic War was the largest (at least in terms of people involved); on paper nearly 300,000 men fought that battle.

    Wikipedia says the Battle of Leyte-Gulf maybe the biggest, on rival with Battle of Red Cliffs and the Battle of Salamis. I don't think "largest" is strict about manpower, but also including tonnage, armaments, how many resources were involved in the battle (battleships being more costly then triremes).

×
×
  • Create New...