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EpicSpaceTroll139

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Everything posted by EpicSpaceTroll139

  1. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I often recover large, expensive Mammoth boosters that make orbit by a combination of parachutes and engine power, splashing them down in the ocean off the coast of the KSC. It doesn't take many parachutes or much fuel. Sometimes I'll add parachutes to strap-on boosters if they will be jettisoned at low enough altitude to land before I get out of physics range. That's about it for reusability in career mode for me, unless you count crew capsules and a rocket plane that has expendable boosters.
  2. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Sure I'll do that. As for the true anomaly thing, I should probably clarify what I was doing. I know I can query my current true anomaly directly. What I need to find is at how many degrees in true anomaly ahead of me in orbit will I reach a given altitude (converted to radius first for reduction of work done by the algorithm).
  3. EpicSpaceTroll139
    @JadeOfMaar I can hardly imagine the final closing/opening of a SRB fuel container being done with welding torches. That sounds like a recipe for... Wait that's actually pretty Kerbal! In all seriousness though, considering some fuels are sensitive enough to be set off by stray static electricity (I honestly don't know how that gets out of the lab), I imagine that the few SRBs that are ever or were ever reused (ex: those of the space shuttle) are/were held shut by use of bolts and/or latches made of materials that do not readily spark.
  4. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Ok, this is actually from a couple days ago, but I've been working on a script that performs a RTLS recovery of the first stage of my "Failcan 1" rocket. Currently it can return the first stage to the KSC peninsula from an equatorial launch with a certain payload mass, but I want to make it able to land on the launchpad (or more likely right next to it, since the launch structure is still on the launchpad) from an arbitrary inclination and with any launchable payload mass. Let me tell you something: Spherical trigonometry + inverse orbital mechanics* = nuts. I haven't even gotten to the control loops yet. It probably doesn't help that I'm avoiding making use of the Atmospheric Trajectories add-on in order to make it possible to run on more than one core at once. *I'm having to run a few equations backwards from normal (such as finding true anomaly as a function of radius), in manners such that there is no way to solve them for the variable I'm trying to find. Thus, I have to use warmer-cooler algorithms to find an approximate solution.
  5. EpicSpaceTroll139
    It's been a while, but I recall it being fairly easy (assuming you've mastered basic electric props first) to make solar powered stock props by placing the solar panels on drum that spins around the outside of the bearing and reaction wheel housing. Will find some pictures when I get the chance.
  6. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I know the method, and I suspect that as far as a single fairing goes, we could only get a bit more than twice that length due to 32 bit integer limit. Though if the game uses 64 bit integers for this kind of thing (I don't know why it would) we could get much, much larger.
  7. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I did have the editor extensions mod to allow me to remove the distance limit on the offset tool, but other than that craft design is stock. But yah if this gets in just put it anything goes. This should not compete with regular stock player creations xD. By the way it is 3,601,415.5m tall/long. So @qzgy is beating me by a lot right now.
  8. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Sure I'll do some test and maybe make a short video when I get the chance
  9. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I don't suppose my "space elevator" would count? Anyways, might make a legit attempt at this if I can find the time. Edit: It would appear it may qualify for Anything Goes though.
  10. EpicSpaceTroll139
    FYI at 100km/s and max timewarp it would still take about 28 real hours to get that far. I would recommend bringing a very, very fast ship.
  11. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Here's a close-up. For each leg there are two "cages" composed of thermometers which are attached to the core, inside which are contained 2 linear RCS port. Each one effectively acts as a ball-in-socket joint, so the two together keep the leg on the proper axis. Note that the cages could probably be built using fewer thermometers than shown in the picture, I just haven't tested that. Anyways, visually, the legs appear to be made from wings, but it is the small, retractable (but disabled in this regard), autostruts do wheel gear at the tip that give them their strength and impact tolerance. Thus this leg design does not require heavy I-beams.
  12. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Nice work! The leg system looks rather robust. I look forward to seeing more of this kind of thing! I like that the legs deploy without assistance. I wasn't able to get all legs to lock reliably doing that with my "Failcan 1." Thus I used regular landing legs as actuators. Perhaps if I changed my descent profile...
  13. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Been testing my own Falcon 9ish recoverable first stage with stock wide-base landing legs. Was inspired by a neat craft I saw on KerbalX. Currently it is named very kerbally as "Failcan 1"
  14. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I did dock two planes for in-flight-refueling a few times in this manner. Not sure if I have the screenshots anymore though Anyways, back on topic: A larger stock switch range would be nice. It's not hard to fix either. Literally a few numbers in the physics cfg file I think.
  15. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Probably the bloodhound SSC, which is a jet/rocket car that is supposed to go 1000mph... on the ground. For something that has already happened, I'd go with the Thrust SSC. (first, and currently only car to have officially broken the sound barrier) Or maybe the abandoned SpaceX Red Dragon plan to land people on Mars with no way to get back. Edit: Since somebody quoted me on this, I realized I was actually thinking of Mars One, not SpaceX's Red Dragon.
  16. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I don't know for sure, since I've played KSP for quite a long time, but I'll offer this. Or this thing? Or whatever it is that did this?
  17. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I believe in-atmosphere you have to be within 200m of the other vessel... Unless that changed since I last did stock in-flight-refueling. It's a bit sketchy though.
  18. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Eh... Personally I like the music as it is. I mean, what exactly is wrong with Kevin MacLeod's music? It's a bit, idk, cartooney, but the whole game is cartooney. To me it seems perfectly fit for the kerbals, who find their rocket parts in Jeb's junkyard. That said, I wouldn't mind adding more tracks to the game, as listening to the same things over and over again, whether they are paid for or royaltee free, does get to be a bit old hat.
  19. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Did some more work on the AI settings for my fighter. Still does great at dodging missiles, but not much else. The airframe is decently resilient against gunfire when hit by that, but it doesn't mean much when it doesn't try to hit the enemy.
  20. EpicSpaceTroll139
    My guess would be that most of these SSTOs do not have a twr of 0.5 on the engines that they use for interplanetary travel. I imagine many use NERVAS or ions and have rather low acceleration during burns, at least towards the beginning. There are some completely chemical types, but they definitely wouldn't burn for an hour. In general you will either have long burn time and low acceleration, or high acceleration and low burn time. Typically the first option will get you the best ∆v.
  21. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Looks like you can get about a km/s if you're into extreme engineering. You could possibly create something akin to what @Stratzenblitz75 used in his Duna-and-back-with-electricity-and-Xenon video, albeit with the ion engines on the beam replaced with reaction wheel. Trick will be making sure the wheel/beam doesn't explode from shift in balance when the rocket/projectile/whatever decouples. Also getting it into space might be hard if you don't want it to disappear by the time you get back to it. That too.
  22. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Since there's the angular velocity limit in the game you can put an maximum bound of 50*r, with r being the radius of your wheel. The next limit would be the tensile strength of the wheel (or beam, a beam might be more structurally efficient) and rocket, which would probably come into effect well below 50radians/second.
  23. EpicSpaceTroll139
    I resolve to do the grand tour that I keep making ships for but never get around to doing.
  24. EpicSpaceTroll139
    Just thought I'd share a bit of spirit with everyone! How's your year been? Did you celebrate much? Or did you stay at home and watch other people have fun on TV like me?
  25. EpicSpaceTroll139
    It does indeed have ammo. I have fired the gun and launched missiles manually on numerous occasions before. I might let you take a look (if you want) in a bit. Right now I need to keep working on New Year's KSP video because I have no life am an introvert and I do silly stuff like this instead of celebrating with other people.
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