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bewing

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Posts posted by bewing

    Orbit 101 engine start

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by bewing

    Well, you don't usually really want to wait until the node passes -- you want to burn a few seconds before the node happens.

    In the tutorial, the engines are already staged for you. All you need to do is hit "z" -- and have the navball active, and have SAS active, with "prograde mode" selected on the SAS. That may be where your problem is.

    SAS has up to 10 modes (depending on the sophistication of the kerbal or robot pilot). The default one is "stability mode". It keeps your ship pointed in the direction it is already pointing.

    Mostly vertically below that one is the button for "prograde mode". It points your ship in the direction the ship is already moving. That is the mode you need to use in the Orbiting 101 tutorial. The symbol on the prograde mode button looks like an airplane viewed from the back end.

    And no, I tried it both ways and you do not have to stay on map mode.

     

    Rover Wheel Steering Problem

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by bewing

    Hi LeChuck! It has long been surmised that (since there were so many changes to wheels) the upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 would "break" the rover wheels. And it did. The rover that I created in 1.0.5 has exactly the same issue as yours. The "driving around the landscape" function of my rover happens to not be its primary function (it's an ISRU) -- so I can make do with the broken one if I just push it from here to there with another rover. If I hit S or W, it kinda sorta turns. Otherwise, it goes straight, and I can push it sideways with the other rover to make it turn in a predictable direction. There may be something that you can do about editing the craft file and the savegame to make the wheels steer properly, but I don't know it.

    Oh -- one other thing: my broken rover had those balloon wheels, the same as yours. The motors on those wheels used to be decent enough to move a rover the size of yours and mine. It turns out the balloon wheel motors are pathetic now. So even if you can get the steering fixed, I hope you don't have to drive that thing up any slopes -- even on Minmus, I think it would be a challenge with those wheels.

    Aerobraking/ReentryHeatManagement - impossible in 1.1.2?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted · Edited by bewing

    0) As said above, the inflatable heatshield will aerocapture you just about anywhere, probably including Jool.

    1) Yes, but it's complicated. Heating depends on the square root of the drag, but slowing is linear with drag. And the faster you slow, the less heat you generate overall -- if you don't explode first.

    2) One small radiator on the top of your ship, attached to the 3rd part of your ship is very helpful. Radiators cool the part they are attached to, and anything attached to that. As said above, you don't want to cool the heatshield. But (if you can) having the radiator cool the part right behind the heatshield can save your ship.

    3) As said above, for your tail to be heating, your tail must be exposed to the air -- or it's a bug. But anything getting hot is adding to the drag, and you need the drag to slow down. So as long as it can take it, it's a good thing.

    4) There are many schools of thought on this. Some people say to come in steeply. I disagree. I am with the group that say to come in shallowly. Aim the nose of your spaceplane straight up as long as you possibly can. If you need a stronger reaction wheel, add it. The most dangerous bits of speed are the first 400 m/s -- and you can easily shed them in the upper atmosphere (above 35km) if you try. Once you get rid of them, the rest is cake.

    -- Also, there is currently a bug with spaceplanes. They are not generating any "body lift". Which means that they are falling out of space faster than they should. The bug is already fixed for the next release. So with the next release, things will get a little easier.

    What's up with this?

    in KSP1 Technical Support (PC, unmodded installs)

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Brian444444 said:

    I don't have a bugtracker account. Can you tell me a quick how to and I'll see what I can do?

    You go here: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/account/register

    You hopefully get a verification email (but this part seems to only work half the time?) and click on it.

    Then you log into it, and go to the tab that says "New Issue" and start filling it out. You will need to upload a savegame that's borked, a KSP.log file, an output_log.txt file -- and say what steps will probably lead to replicating the bug (xmit science from a lab, Hit Esc, & save the game).

     

    What is wrong with my plane?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    Part of your problem may also be that you are trying to lift a bazillion tons of fuel. The junos are pretty efficient -- you only need one of the big tanks of fuel, at most (half full, even).

    Trying to lift that much weight exacerbates all the other issues. But yeah, the way you have those Delta Deluxe winglets mounted is also very bad.

    I'll say that it's usually easiest to start with a design that works and then modify it one step at a time to be what you want. Here's a simple juno-based plane that works: (you can replace the girders with a couple SciJrs, or an empty fuel tank for your first modification)

    basic_jet.png

    Rover Problems

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    1 hour ago, The Space Dino said:

    Bewing, which direction is north/south/east/west on the wheels?

    When you "launch" the rover onto the runway, having the wheels point the long way down the runway is east (good) -- if they point crossways to the runway, that's north/south (bad).

    If they are pointing the bad way, then we may need a screenshot of your rover. You may need to rotate it before you can attach the wheels the right way 'round.

    drills in 1.1.2

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    As I understood it in 1.0.5, drills were updated in 6 hour "batches". So what you wanted to do was leave the drill strictly alone for 6 hours and do other things -- and then come back to the drill after 6 hours and it would have done lots of work while you were gone. If you came back to it too early, then the drill would revert to where it was when you left, and you would lose all that time. (Maybe the batching was done at 0:00 hours every day -- I never examined it to that amount of detail.)

    But it seems different now. In fact, it seems to be about the opposite. If I leave the drill alone for 6 hours, then it stops, retroactively. If I visit it regularly, then it keeps going.

    Has anybody checked this in more detail? Has anyone verified the pattern of how it works now?

     

    Have Parachutes Changed?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    In stock, each parachute is good for about 4 tons on Kerbin. Using that number should bring you in at (just) under 10 m/s. I agree with Slashy -- if you need five chutes, you are either bringing in something very heavy, or your mods have drastically changed your aero properties.

    Heat Shield Observation and Question

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    "Friction" is not a fundamental physical process. It is a convenient name for a statistical effect seen when dealing with large quantities of tiny particles. Friction is not one of Newton's 3 laws, and it is not one of the conservation laws.

    Adiabatic compression is also not one of Newton's 3 laws. It is also a statistical effect.

    If you go and mentally treat them as fundamental processes, then you start to get wacky answers. When you decompress a gas, the little molecules lose energy when they bump into each other -- instead of gaining. So yes, it is "anti-friction". This is another way of Nature telling you that you are not dealing with a fundamental physical process.

    Heat Shield Observation and Question

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    Friction, at is basis: is "molecules running into each other and bouncing off." Adiabatic compression is "gas molecules getting squished closer to each other and bouncing off." Friction is half the basis of adiabatic compression. Very far from "very little to do with it."

    Heat Shield Observation and Question

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted · Edited by bewing

    3 hours ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

    Sorry, but no. The vast majority of reentry heat comes from compressing the air in front of the craft. The ship is moving so fast that the air can't move out of the way, so it gets squished so much that it heats up to the point of being plasma (the "flames"). 

    Well, actually, it's basically yes. The heat that you get from air compression is thermodynamically based on friction. At its very most basic, heating = friction.

    But yes, as these guys said -- the kinetic energy of the incoming craft is higher for a more massive object, and a fair fraction of that extra energy is going to get converted into heat energy in your vehicle. Since your vehicle is more massive, it has the ability to harmlessly absorb more heat energy -- but if you calculate it all out, it can't reradiate the heat as fast. So, in the end it will heat up more, and it will stay hot longer.

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