MrOsterman
-
Posts
100 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Developer Articles
KSP2 Release Notes
Posts posted by MrOsterman
-
-
I just had a successful probe shot to Duna that is now in the orbit of Ike. Here's what I had:
The entire build is on 1.25m scale.
Top Stage/ Probe
- Probe Core
- Small reaction wheel
-
three batteries
- Attached are 4 retractable solar panels
- Thermomator
- Barometer
- Tank of Xenon Gas
- Electric Engine
Next stage:
- Small sized Tank FL-T200
- Smallest 1.25 Engine - Terrier
Next Stage:
- Max Tank FL-T800
- Smallest 1.25 Engine - Terrier
Next Stage/ Launch Stage:
-
In the the Center FL-T800
- Swivel Engine under it
-
Around that 4 FL-T800's, all linked to center tank by Fuel Lines
- Swivel Engine under them
-
Also, another 4 FL-T800's, all linked to previous tanks by Fuel Lines.
- Reliant engines under them
(This is all from memory so I might have skipped a tank there).
The trick for me was in the fuel lines. As the outer most tanks run out of gas you drop them off. But during ascent ALL the engines are firing and burning the fuel for those outermost tanks. So if A is in the middle, and B is next out and C is the furthest, you get the power of A, B and C all at the same time, until C is out of gas. Drop C and now A and B are not only still burning but burning with "Full tanks". It also lets you ramp down your acceleration as you push through the thicker air at ground level and work your way up towards orbit.
Once I was in orbit of Kerbal, I did did a burn to push myself into a general solar orbit. The cheapest such burn threw me out "ahead" of Kerbal in on the orbital path. I'm totally lazy and I'd rather use Time Warp to skip ahead while I'm in space rather than while I wait for a transfer window. I also have REALLY long contracts so I don't mind using a year or two of game time on a given flight.
From there I set Duna as my target and set up a manuever node that would push my probe's orbit to cross Duna's. There was a LOT of trial and error with various burns, radial and normal as well as Pro and retrograde to finally get the "Intercept" to match up somewhere and it was on the far side of the sun. Do the burn, and a few adjustments later on to get into the SOI. From there I did a retro burn and was into Duna orbit.
Here's the thing about what I did: It was stupid wasteful. I got going WAY too fast and had to SERIOUSLY brake when I got to Duna. But it got me there, and somehow I JUST barely started using fuel in my last stage, the FL-T200. I still haven't even touched the electric engine to see what does or how it even WORKS in space. My point is that it can be done even with not too advanced parts.
From my point of view there are some "needs" in this equation:
Fuel Lines (For the staging)
Patched Conics - which require an upgraded Tracking Center.
-
6 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:
So... does anyone know what the exact requirements are for counting as a "new" vessel (obviously *some* part must be built after accepting the contract; do we have more detail?), and how these requirements interplay with docking mechanics?
Seems to be something along the lines where when you dock two vessels the vessel you are controlling is the "new" one?
All I know is that I did indeed launch a ship with a refueler attached. When I got up to a stable orbit with my abandoned station, I detached the refueler, flew over to the station, gassed up and flew back. This "Broke" the "new" portion of the contract. Now it MIGHT have worked if I'd docked the entire new station into the old one, refueled and separated again. I'm not totally sure because at that point in my efforts I just said "F it," and decided it was high time to finally figure out this Asparagus staging.
Which is ultimately what I needed to learn to complete this mission. Final price tag for the mission was around 260k but I also had some extra stuff I didn't need (like the ISRU convertor and Ore tanks) but my plan was to put it up, get the solar orbit and then move it into an orbit of Minmus to act as a staging point for leaving the Kerbal system.
-
I'm still sorting out why I got a contract offer to expand an abandoned station. (I know why but it's funny to me that I got a request to literally "Expand abandoned KS-2")
-
I'm actually NOT using Mechjab because the cost of the auto flight parts in Career Mode are more than I want to invest and because I do like the struggles to get it all to work (finding the proper ascent curve, docking, etc).
My 8 year old, however, has peeked on his ability to progress his science mode game because the fine points of getting to orbit are currently out of his wheel house. I think he could learn ~if he wanted to~. He just doesn't. I'll probably be adding MechJab to our Media PC (where he plays) so he can use those options in his game(s).
-
2 minutes ago, Snarfster said:
Happens to all of us...
What really really burned my bacon is that I did the entire mission of getting into a LKO, sending a shuttle over to an abandonned station to get extra fuel, and then got ready to burn out of the Kerbal SOI and noticed "hey..... that one contract item isn't checked any more." My only conclusion was that the changing to the shuttle and flying around canceled my "new ship" requirement.
I'm glad I was able to sort it out later but man that pissed me off. It was a fun hour running the mission but still.....
-
Scene 1
The Administration Offices KSP
Gene: Rockomax wants us to put a station in solar orbit again. They're offering an even 400k to put it there. Can we do that?
Bob: Totally. The Howard Mun Orbiter started off as a solar station, that we relocated to a Munar orbit so we don't have to wait 3 years between chances to resupply it. We can send another one up there.
Gene: What did the Howard cost to get up there?
Marcy: 150k.
Gene: I like that budget. Okay, folks, let's repeat some history.
Scene 2:
Engineering Department, Conference Room 4B
Marcy: What do you mean your design is going to cost 300k? We've done this for half that!
Bob: Yeah, but last time we didn't have to randomly lift 4,000 units of liquid fuel into solar orbit.
Marcy: Why are we lifting 4,000 units of liquid fuel into solar orbit?
Bob: It's in the contract. They won't pay out unless we park 4,000 units of liquid fuel in solar orbit.
Marcy: Why do they want 4,000 units of liquid fuel in solar orbit?
Bob: How the Kuck should I know?!?
Marcy: Did Gene know? I didn't know. I gave a cost estimate based on what I didn't know. I can't do that, you know? How do you know they want 4,000 units of liquid fuel in solar orbit?
Bob holds up a copy of the contract.
Marcy: I don't see anything about 4,000 units of liquid fuel in solar orbit.
Bob holds up magnifying glass.
Marcy: Oh......
Bob and Marcy Together: 4,000 units of liquid fuel. In solar orbit.
Marcy: Oh, Kuck.
Scene 3
Administration Offices KSP
Gene: It won't work.
Bob: But it works!
Marcy: And it's only 100% over budget!
Gene: It won't work.
Bob: You want me to lift 4,000 units of liquid fuel
Bob and Marcy Together: Into solar orbit.
Bob: And this flight plan will put 4,000 units of liquid fuel.
Bob and Marcy Together: Into solar orbit.
Gene: Won't work.
Bob: Look. We lift off here, we rendezvous with the abandoned station KS-2 and we top the tanks of the orbiter. We take the additional fuel and we push the oribitor and all 4,000 units of liquid fuel into solar orbit.
Gene: It won't work. The contract calls for a ~new~ space station. If you fly a shuttle over to get the fuel and bring it to the station, the station won't be a new construction any more and it won't satisfy the contract.
Marcy: Are you kucking kidding me?
Gene: It's in the fine print.
Marcy: Where?
Gene puts contract under microscope and projects it on the screen.
Bob and Marcy: Oh. There.
Scene 4
Outer Space in a Solar Orbit
Sila: Okay, Mission Control, the Solar 5 orbiter is now in a stable solar orbit. The view's good from here.
Bob (over comm from Mission Control): Copy that Solar 5. Good flight.
Sila: So what did this end up costing?
Bob: 450k.
Sila: Wow. That's like three times the budget isn't it?
Bob: Something like that.
Sila: That's rough, man. And you get paid for being under budget.
Bob: yep
Sila: So this project took 6 months and you're going to....
Bob: Not get paid.
Sila: That sucks. Not only am I getting paid, but leaving the Kerbol SOI gets me a hazard bonus.
Bob: That's nice.
Sila: Plus the book deal for having been in outer space.
Bob: Can't wait.
Sila: And the appearance on the Today Show with Katie Kerman.
Bob: It'll be one to watch.
Sila: So, now that I'm out here, how do we get back?
Bob: I don't know. You're the one with 4,000 units of liquid fuel in solar orbit. You figure it out.
-
Thanks for the responses guys. I thought I was on to something with the "all in one" build (land, make your own take off fuel and then fill your ore tank) only I've got a different problem with my heat management so I was fishing for a solution there too. My lander had 4 retractable small panels, one small ore processor and one large drill. When left with both the processor and the drill running, it seemed everyone was happy. But when the station passed into the dark side of the Mun, I'd come back later to see my radiators about to explode with fire damage. Had the same problem after any long time warp.
Is this a bug or did I do something wrong? Seems odd that the radiators need sunlight or something to function. I was also trying to run fuel cells to keep everything running but do the radiators need power? I mean if I run out of electricity, shouldn't everything shut down until the sun is back in view and the batteries recharge?
-
Hmm... I haven't mastered the rover yet and I don't really do all that well is precision landings. I guess that's my next skill set to master.
I know I won't be sending down a science lab again, at least not with the intent of flying it back. That or I need to redesign it. Totally unwieldly and totally too big. Took me way too much fuel to get it up back up into orbit.
Maybe I'll point my efforts (once I do a few contracts) towards setting up a gas station over Minimus and get some time trying to figure out rovers and how to mix and match purposes. I've flirted with the idea of a base that uses a rover to either explore or to collect ore and bring it back to a launcher.
I do like the idea of landing a rover to mine and convert to fuel and then using a tanker rocket to ferry the fuel up to the station and then come down to get more again. It does feel like I'll waste a lot of fuel in the landing and take off, but I should end up with a net gain. In theory.....
Of course my last effort led to me getting my base back up in orbit, having to send out a capsule from the orbiting station, to the lander base, refuel it, and then fly the whole assemblage back to the orbiting station. Which, rapidly, is becoming an unmanagable mix of parts,
I also need to watch a tutorial, I think, on how to have two docking ports docked in the VAB rather than manually docking later.
-
Well part of it is that I already had stuff at the mun to manage this and I've been doing mun trips as a routine for a while now so I feel comfortable sending and retrieving kerbals from it. I also had a station in in HKO that originally been in a brief Solar orbit that I pushed into a Munar orbit since it wasn't that far off already. That set me up to start working at the Mun first.
That said, I really should have grabbed that "put a station around Minimus" contract when I had a chance since that is the logical "next step".
-
So I'm trying to build a space based operations center using the mun as my source of ore to create fuel. The end goal is having a gas station in space that I can send things to, top the tanks, and then send on to other worlds. I also want to get the hang of using mining operations and ore to fuel conversions to work, eventually, towards a functional (and hopefully fiscally responsible) mothership build. My thought there is that as I get contracts to get data from this planet or explore that planet, it will be cheaper to just send part of my "fleet" to rendevous with that planet rather than launch a whole new Kerbal based mission there. That is a long term goal, though... step one? Figure out mining.
I landed a science base on the mun, outfitted it with 900 units of ore storage, a full sized drill, 4 small radiator panels and a small ore to fuel converter. I thought I was doing okay:
Here's my question: Should I mine, convert to fuel and then lift the fuel to the station? Or do you mine, lift to the station, and then convert there?
Seems that the advantage of converting first is that you can use the ore you lift to fuel the trip up. It also seems like by the unit, there is less fuel than there is raw ore, implying that the better route is to do the mine than convert. But that also means rigging a lander with a converter and required radiator panels to run both a drill and a converter at the same time (or having to manually go in and tell the little guys to change gears every time the ore bays cap).
I also ran into the problem that my little base was about to blow up when I left the drill, and the converter, running at the same time. I'm assuming that's because I only had 4 small radiator panels on it, but it's got me a little leery of trying to run that kind of operation as well.
-
On 12/4/2015, 11:10:36, Snark said:
And are you familiar with "suicide burn" techniques for efficient Mun landings?
I think so....
I just did a Mun landing by pointing myself DIRECTLY at my landing point and then burning full Retro (relative to the surface) once I was close enough to come to a nice slow descent. Totally skipped the whole "get an orbit going" portion of my approach. I'm not sure I'm a TOTAL fan of the method yet but I plan to use it later to recover that lost Kerbal for the contract.
-
On 12/3/2015, 3:31:08, Streetwind said:
throttling down during ascent does not save fuel, contrary to what most new players think. Rocket engines do not work like cars do
Like at all? Or is this a case of "you can throttle back, but it'll just take you just as long to push out of the atmosphere and thus use just as much fuel?" I've thought that pulling back to half throttle does reduce my fuel use and I'm still pretty loosey goosey with my design that I find that I've got a lot more push than I can use at the lift stage. I hit 300 m/s pretty fast while still in the thicker air so I don't want to burn too much gas trying to up that speed while fighting terminal velocity on the way up.
-
Good News! It was the altitude. For some reason I didn't catch that my Ap was at 105k rather than less than 100 so a short retro burn and BANG I was able to scan the moon.
Next phase is to actually rescue some one off of it. My last effort ended up with a stranded return vessel (burned a LOT of fuel trying to get to the right landing site) which I reverted, only to try again, miss the landing site, and then strand my rescue team in a HKO trying to get home.
So to recap, I've scanned the mun but I've got a stranded Kerbalnaut hanging out on the surface waiting a ride home, and two more in a HKO waiting someone to bring them more fuel.
Greeeeaaaattttt.....
-
Okay, I'll screen grab when I get home and check that error at the same time. I'm 95% sure that I have the Orbital Scanner on the satellite because it was a requirement of a contract to do the usual "have a satellite that can communicate and has a way generate power". Oddly the requested orbit wasn't a polar one.
I'll look too at the Engineer Mod and see if that doesn't give me too much information beyond vanilla.
Thanks so far guys (girls).
-
I've got a satellite dish on the top of it, an extendable solar panel going off one side and the scanner on the other. It's possible I don't have enough charge to run the scanner but I've got this massive battery on there too.
Hmm... maybe I'll just eat the 50k and try sending up a new probe.
-
I'll have to look when I get home tonight; I'm at work.
I've been trying to avoid mods that add too much functionality because I don't want my game play to be reliant on the mods working to keep me playing and I don't want to be unable to play if my mods break.
-
First I'm not running mods and I'd like to not run mods. Just sayin'.
Here's my problem. I've got a satellite in munar orbit. It's got an orbital survey scanner attached (it was actually part of a contract) and I've tried to push it into a north/south orbit around the mun. I'm 90% sure I've got it as up/down as I can get it, but when I attempt to do a munar scan I keep getting the message of "you must be blah blah blah". I'm also orbiting at an average altitude of 86k above the mun's surface in a near circle.
What am I missing? Is there a way in the stock game to verify what my angle of orientation is for this orbit?
-
Well I did just really look at the money payout on that Solar Base contract and it's left me wondering if I should put some time into making the one I just put up a functional one. Right now it's parked just outside of the Kerbol SOI and I'm debating on pulling it BACK into orbit so I can use it for something a little more productive and a little less risky (I've got a tourist, scientist and pilot aboard it now).
I'm also at a small pinch point with feeling like I need to do something to get more cash in hand given that I'm growing my science pretty stupid fast but I don't have the funds to upgrade RnD yet to use it.
My plan for the solar base is to make it either a Munar or Minus orbiter and put it to work there so I know I can get my people on and off of it safely.
-
23 minutes ago, Venusgate said:
Also to be fair, Space program funding in America is no guaranteed ticket, and is often a soft target for budget cuts and the whims of congressmen. Some of which might not like the idea of leads at nasa tooling around with a 25$ videogame, instead of the 40 mil$ simulators that's on the budget
Well... and I'd like to think those $40 mil simulators have a ~little~ more meat to them too. I'd hate to see someone in a NASA briefing say "Well we're almost ready to start talking budgets on the Mars mission, but our simulations are still being disrupted by some odd forces we simply call "The Kracken".
-
I've been thinking that too lately, especially the "plant a flag" thing. I fly 3 Kerbals to the mun and all of them need to get out, plant a flag and get back in the pod. I also had some recruit level Kerbals end up on the moon, so I sent them a station to do science in while I worked out a rescue plan only to get them off the mun, debrief them, and then send them BACk to the mun to get them (and their new level up) back into the lab to generate science faster. Seems a little odd.
I'm also hitting some points in my game where I'm just at a grind. I've got 1500 science sitting in the bank, but I don't have enough cash yet to upgrade my RnD center so I'm now looking at contracts to get me over that hump.
I may break down and hack my files just to feel like I'm getting a little more progress out of this, that or I need to really focus on getting out of the Kerbol SOI and get my guys to try flying around the other planets. I just feel like that's a really big investment and risk still just to get to that 3rd star....
-
I like the "build a station in orbit just out of Kerbol's SOI" but I'd be worried about the fuel cost to and from it over time. I'm horrible about planning fuel costs in general and just had the fun of burning my mono thrusters for 10 minutes to get my Peri down enough for an aerocapture after retrieving a random space part in Kerbol orbit. And to add to that I had an engineer on the mission who I had, literally, just rescued the day before from his own "lost in space" pod....
-
What I found was that because of scale, you can have an intercept coming very close to Duna but not SEE that it's going to to intercept in a meaningful way. The best thing I found was to get into an orbit that is generally close to Duna's and then drop more manuever nodes to try to get something closer and closer to an intercept as you close in on it. You'll have to do multiple burns to get a good course set up and then zoom in on the map so you can better see how you're coming into the system and where you're going pass relative to the various bodies.
-
Wow! Thanks! Forget new names, need to get the Portrait Stats. :)
-
So here's my thing: I do a lot of crew transfers and I can never remember which Kerbal is which "class". So I'll dock at my station with the intention of transfering over a scientist only to find I sent the pilot. And it seems I have to go all the way back to the Kerbalnaut center to figure out if I did it all right when I'm putting my scientists to work vs making a pilot play with test tubes.
I got the idea that I'd go into the Persistant file and change the names of all my Kerbals to reflect their roles. Pilots were "Cpt Donnie Kerman", Scientists were "Dr Leachal Kerman" etc.
Only when I loaded my game it seemed that all of my Kerbalnaut center was broken. I couldn't look at currently assigned Kerbals, and I couldn't hire any new ones.
I miss something?
How to get anywhere beyond Kerbin's moons?!
in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials
Posted
But the decouplers... wait.. does it flow laterally through them? I was about to say it only works down through the stack decouplers but if it works sideways through them, that would change some of my design specs. Though for that probe build I would still run the fuel lines from the "outer" most tanks/ engines to the next phase in so I can attach the tanks to the main body but send the fuel into the "next" stage.
Would it work to practice doing a planet to planet trip by doing a Minmus to Mun and back again? It's the same orbital theory as going to Duna but on a fraction of the scale.