MitchS

Does anybody have any follow-up on @capi3101's question about when that ideal transfer window that @maccollo described occurs? (Can't quote the post on my work computer--it's up there in the middle of this page, on 12 December 2013.) I'm sure someone has a quick way to gather that information, but I certainly don't. Sorry for the necromancy, but I think that's a major punchline of this thread that somehow didn't get delivered.

@Kuzzter, I belly-laugh every time you post on these forums. How's that published e-book coming along? Last I heard, you're considering about to talk to Squad about getting the rights to publish KSP material, right? I've got my paypal account all set up, just waiting for the word.

My SSTOs sucked until I started adding more wing area than I thought I needed, and rotated all the wings one fine notch in the SPH to add a few degrees of incidence. My rule of thumb for achieving adequate wing area it now is that stall speed over the runway should be about 55m/s. This way, since SSTOs let wings do the work that engines do for rockets, you get the wings to do a lot of the work, and it saves fuel for interplanetary sightseeing or payload capacity. Works for me, might for you.

Never built a seaplane on KSP, but I have an aviation background. Hope it's relevant to Kerbal engineering. Post pictures of your plane if possible, please! The most unique issue with getting a seaplane to take off is essentially drag. Water has a huge resistive force on a seaplane, and that force has to be overcome with the thrust from the engine(s). The faster you go in water, the deeper you sit in it, the more surface area you have in contact with it, and the angle of your body relative to the direction of travel through it all dramatically increase this already large force preventing you from accelerating. So, for design, I would say: 1) Reduce drag. Decrease the parts sitting in the water--a wide fuselage and two very small outriggers under the wings if necessary. Mount them higher than the main fuselage, so that when the boat is sitting stationary in the water, they sit very gently on the surface. Once you start accelerating, the lift generated well below takeoff speed should be enough to lift them both out of the water, reducing drag. 2) Reduce density (float more!). Your plane should want to float, not sink heavily in the water, barely buoyant. To do this, I would empty fuel from the tanks that comprise your fuselage where it meets the water. Store the fuel high instead. This will also help manage your center of mass a little for point 4. It's okay to not have every tank full to the brim--for effective atmospheric aircraft, I rarely take off with more than a half tank overall. 3) Increase lift generation in water. Do this by gently angling up the front of your fuselage and under-wing outriggers relative to the water's surface, if your design allows. This way, as you start moving through the water, the water will be pushing your aircraft up and back instead of just back. (Look at the Grumman Albatross for reference... see the upward-angled belly and outriggers. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L6Pj0tK9Seo/TgDJUGolY6I/AAAAAAAAARE/m_f--qchV8Q/s1600/GrummanAlbatross10oClock.jpg) Sure, this will cause greater drag once you're airborne, but it's necessary for water takeoffs so you're going to have to accept that. 4) Increase thrust. I know you said you added more jet engines, but the placement is important. Consider a plane with engines on the wingtips. If you shut one engine down, the airplane intuitively spins out of control in the direction of the shut-down engine, right? Well that happens because the assymetric thrust creates a yawing moment on the aircraft around its center of mass. If you have two engines pointing through the center of mass and shut one down, however, the plane doesn't spin. This doesn't just apply for placing engines on the sides of the plane--it applies everywhere, including above and below. Thrust vectors above and below the center of mass cause unwanted pitching motions. To counteract this, you want to place the engine(s) in a place where their thrust vector--the line pointing straight forward through their center--runs as closely through the center of mass as possible, or at equal distances on either side of it. Maybe this means angling them up or down a few degrees, or moving them back or forward a meter or two from your initial design. Note: Real-life propeller engines are much more practical for this mass balance than KSP jet engines, which require you to mount the heavy parts rather far back. Turn on CoM and CoT markers in the VAB and move things around until you get something that lines up.) I assume you're placing your engines high, to keep them out of the water. This is wise, but the thrust vector still needs to be balanced in relation to the center of mass. 5) Increase lift. Make your wings bigger! More wing area means taking off at a lower speed, which means less time going fast in the water before getting out of it on takeoff and slower speeds for landing, which means a better seaplane. Yes, you'll have a much lower top speed, but that's what comes with making a plane that can do unique things. Tradeoffs. Which brings me to my last and most important point... You need to understand that, again, engineering is about trade-offs. Especially in aerospace. If you want a boat plane, don't expect it to perform perfectly as a boat or as a plane (HU-16). If you want a plane that handles well at low speeds, don't expect it to reach high speeds (Piper Cub). If you want a plane that reaches high speeds, don't expect it to handle well at low speeds (F-104). Everything comes with its opposite in another category. My favorite simplified explanation of this is in the example characteristics of Range, Payload, and Maneuverability for military aircraft. You can only pick two, or spend both points on one at the expense of the others. In reality, there are dozens of parameters to balance. Well, I've got to get back to work. Post a picture of your plane, and let us know if you still have problems after taking this stuff into consideration in your design. Good luck!

It's in transit to the Mun... I can't get a crew out there in time.

I ended up sucking it up and sending a little container probe with one electric screwdriver to land next to a very sheepish engineer. He has completed his mission, returned to Kerbin, and been reclassed into the VAB janitorial staff, where he will never have the chance to cost the KSC another 30,000 funds no matter HOW stupid a mistake he makes again.

Hi everyone. I have a small Mk.1 pod-based ship that I sent to the Mun in the cargo bay of a low-tech SSTO. It was a tight fit, so I clipped some pieces into each other to reduce the length of the cargo, and deployed it in transit to the Mun. Unfortunately, I clipped the engine a little too deeply, and its exhaust gases are heating a toroidal tank that I mounted it to (quickly causing an explosion at even 1% thrust), so the ship is useless. I opened up the craft file in KML, and found that the toroidal fuel tank actually thinks it's supposed to be mounted to the nozzle of the engine--on the bottom of it, not on the top between it and the main tank. (I jimmied the screenshot in paint for readability.) I want to switch their places so I can use the ship without having to remove a whole toroidal fuel tank from the craft file. (Which I don't know how to do in the first place, to be fair.) Is this possible via KML? What do you guys think would be a suitable solution? Let me know if you need more details. Thank you!

Hi everyone. I just sent a refueling ship to a ship without a docking port landed on the Mun. I brought an engineer with an inventory full of components to build a docking adapter and have landed within range of my contraption-to-be, but I just found out I don't have a screwdriver in the engineer's inventory so I can't assemble anything. I usually have the screwdriver defaulted into Seat 0's inventory on my saved ships, but I guess I overlooked it this time. I don't normally cheat through problems in-game unless the problems come from an issue introduced by the game, and I think this incident counts... I'd like to know how I can hack a screwdriver into this Kerbal's inventory. I have KML to safely edit my persistence file, but since KIS isn't stock, it isn't intuitive to access the inventory the way I normally navigate the interface to fix broken solar panels, etc. What do I do? Thanks!

Just as brilliant as DOB. I loved the court sequences! You are positively shameless in your pop culture references. I can't imagine how much time and effort goes into framing and editing those screenshots... but I'm so glad you stuck it out. You have enhanced my KSP experience tenfold by adding depth, charm, and unforgettable sentimentality to the characters of this game. I'll forever consider their interactions and inputs (in your characters' voices) as I continue my journeys deeper and deeper into the Kerbol system... for all Kerbalkind! For science! For funds! Speaking of funds, how can I get that hardcover anthology of all of your Kerbfleet work that I mentioned being willing to pay $50 for on your DOB thread? I was serious about that. Hahaha!

Bueller? For some reason I was never notified of these replies! Thank you, everyone!

@Kuzzter Great, thanks! I want you to know that I would pay $50 for a hardcover book containing these stories in print. I mean it.

Any chance we can get a pdf of this? Waiting for my work computer to load each new panel on each new forum page is really damping the effect of my eyes brimming with tears at every third panel. I love, love, LOVE what you've done!

@Spacetraindriver "I noticed my craft in orbit of Kerbin connects..." Can I have the craft file of the launch vehicle you used to put a train into orbit?

Here I thought I was going to open this thread to find that you've taken careful surface and atmospheric temperature readings of various biomes at marked sites, repeating the readings at the same time and same day throughout the years, and then assembled the data into a coherent model that demonstrates rising temperatures on Kerbin. "How neat!" I thought. Instead, I got a confusing picture of a KSC underwater. Which... isn't that disappointing, but still. I was about to worship your dedication to the scientific method.

I once saw an example about Hill Spheres (SOIs, to the KSPer) in an astro textbook that said something like, "If you brought a basketball-sized sphere of heavy metal with you into space, you could easily toss grains of rice into orbit around it. I've been fascinated with that idea ever since. You can orbit around anything as long as its hill sphere is larger than the space it occupies. I really, REALLY want to put a little science probe into a 0.1m/s orbit around an asteroid on KSP.

I am totally ambivalent towards the Kerbals for my own gameplay experience. In fact, I'm sure there are certain elements of the game that I appreciate more because of them. But I definitely get what you mean about feeling the need to apologize for them, because I do too. There's something a little bit cheesy about them to the uninitiated, and it's the only thing that someone looking over your shoulder really notices about the game. As someone who is expected to be an example of military professionalism, I can't help but notice that my "intellectually challenging astrodynamics and engineering simulator" is just "sending goofy little green minion things through a fictional solar system" to everyone else. Sooo, I generally don't talk about KSP except with good friends. (And when I do, I admit that I try to keep the Kerbals out of my description of the game.) However, I don't think I would ever ask someone to change them, because the Kerbals seem to be the bridge that lets this game span across enormous demographic gaps. There are 10 year olds who are fluent in basic orbital mechanics and mission design nowadays. Are you kidding me? What other game has that kind of educational impact? These kids come for the "moar boosters, kill the Kerbals, lol look at this fail" (shudder) but stay because "well, there's still that other moon that I still want to figure out how to get to..." and one thing leads to another and pretty soon they're solving the rocket equation and reading NASA's articles on reentry dynamics. Awesome. Kids fall in love with STEM when they put their hands into it, and getting them to reach in is the challenge--maybe for many, it starts with goofy little green guys on a space game. I think that's a beautiful thing, and I'm willing to pay a little of my social dignity for it.

Hi, everyone. I just bought a HOTAS joystick/throttle set up, and I'm really enjoying it while I'm learning SSTOs and spaceplanes. However, I'm stuck still using the keyboard for anything but spaceplanes--while planes use pitch and roll as their primary axes in flight and the joystick maps these to left/right and fore/aft stick, rockets use pitch and yaw as their primary axes in flight, and using fore/aft and twisting-of the stick doesn't make for a very ergonomic experience. On orbit, the intuitive "stick left to swing left" movement just initiates a spin around the long axis. Twisting the stick would be perfectly intuitive, however, for rolling a spacecraft. I guess I probably could get used to it, but considering how much of my flight time is spent on orbit vs. in atmosphere, I'd really like to have a way to toggle "swap yaw/roll inputs." Does the "plane mode" mod work for joystick users? ...Side note, does anyone know how the control inputs were mapped for the Space Shuttle on orbit? I've never thought of it until now. Thanks!

I used to be a little bit snotty about "all stock" but the fun-ness of the game with that philosophy followed a pretty parabolic curve for me over time. Got really fun fast, then got really boring after a brief peak. Graphing calculators and hand-written mission longs was a really fun way to learn orbital mechanics, but lost its luster shortly after (okay, during) the first Duna trip. Then, I started using mods that let me get the most out of my "all stock" game. It started with MechJeb for Delta-V readouts and executing the tedious maneuvers that I've done a hundred times. Then, realizing how much more I could enjoy my stock game by letting mods do some calculations for me real-time, I started adding a few more. KER for those nice HUD data displays for good situational awareness, RCS Build Aid for making really well-balanced and finely engineered stock ships... ...then I saw the mods that addressed my actual gameplay complaints. KAC to let me run multiple missions at a time, SCANsat for adding dimension and intimacy to the planets and making them worth interacting with more than once, X Science for making the most of my science excursions that I love so much, All Y'all because clicking so many times is such a bummer, KIS/KAS and Surface Science to make EVAs interesting and fulfilling again, and most recently, EVE because I realized that literally the only thing left missing from my game for me was the aesthetic joy that it had when I first started playing. I may not just have "data readout" mods anymore, but I honestly don't feel like I've gotten away from stock at all in the sense that I used to be concerned. I don't have overpowered parts that make the engineering challenges any less challenging. I don't edit files to put things into orbit or fill empty fuel tanks. I don't even revert saves after accidents unless the accident was the game's fault. All of those things take away from KSP for me, and they define "not stock" in my book. My "stock" KSP, gently modded, is now perfect for what I want in this game. Clean, refined, and without superfluous parts or interfaces, it has every bit of the spirit of playing vanilla with a few conveniences that enhance that experience a thousand times over. This is what's right for me, and I hope everyone--whether they're stock-only elitists or that kid who just builds BD Armory ships to shoot each other down (and who I completely don't relate with but that's okay)--finds that same satisfaction out of this magnificently modular game.

Hi everyone. I've noticed a few times in the forums that people will post line drawings of their KSP ships. I've been keeping my eye open for examples, but I haven't been able to turn one up--I'm hoping you guys already know what I'm talking about. It's like a color blueprint, sometimes viewed from one side, sometimes in a three-view configuration like many orthographic drawings in engineering. Are people making these on their own? They seem too consistent for that--I'm thinking people are getting them from a common source. Sorry for a lack of examples. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Aw, man... I like having RCS capability for rescue missions... It takes a lot of the tedium out of setting up precise intercepts on the first shot--I'd rather puff around with a little bit of translational RCS to get a 0.0km intercept than rotate, rotate, fire engines gently, rotate, rotate, rotate, fire engines a little too hard, ad nauseum. I never thought they induced drag... I guess I wouldn't pay much of a drag penalty for that convenience though. I'll take 'em off. The Big S control surfaces are, again, vestigial organs from a previous design. Whoops. I used to have the wings much further back. I'll remove them and opt for a conventional tailplane. I've flown a few ships with and without a yaw control surface, and I'm pretty convinced by those of you who were saying they aren't needed. The only reason I find myself wanting to use them is because "it's the right thing to do," but I don't really think that's very compelling anymore. Especially with the torque wheels I've been using on my spaceplanes. KSP doesn't need rudders, and rudders cause drag. No rudders. I'm off to go have dinner with the fiancee and her family, so maybe later tonight I'll ditch the RCS, install the tailplane, and check the cargo bay connections, then do a test flight to see if my drag penalty is reduced. In the meantime, if you guys could share some insight on how you've best implemented RAPIERs into your light SSTO designs, I would appreciate the reading material!

Okay, everyone! Busy couple of days, but I'm back to the game. I've had some success with my first design, and can deploy two small 2t probes to an equatorial LKO with a couple hundred delta-v left over to get home. I also built a version that replaces the cargo bay with a crew cabin and some additional fuel. I can do equatorial LKO rescues with it no problem, except that the powered flight still takes so long. I've started a new design to broaden my skillset--an unmanned SSTO built around a crew cabin, to be able to do rescues in various orbits of Kerbin. I swapped the whiplash out for a RAPIER, but have had no luck whatsoever. I figured that by streamlining the design and making it smaller than my first one, I could get away with one engine, but I'm thinking this one is just too underpowered. I capped out below 10km and around 310m/s. Power dives ineffective. Is a one-RAPIER configuration possible? What do I need to be doing differently?

Thank you all for the next wave of advice! ...Is it normal that it just took me 23 minutes to reach orbit?

Fascinating. So can one of you (or both!) boil down your last few posts into a couple of takeaways? What are your bottom lines, where do you agree with one another, and where do you disagree? Am I to understand that canards are a less stable design than one without them?

@Slashy (I mean @goslash27), your "test pilot" approach to concept demonstration is very much appreciated!

Do you have to POPULATE those 28 spaces? Or could one theoretically send one Kerbal of each type on a ship with 24 empty seats and still satisfy the contract?