HalcyonSon
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Posts posted by HalcyonSon
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9 hours ago, michaelvf said:
So I got a contract where I have to take pressure readings in 4 different locations at the surface.
My tech is quite low but I can just about build a simple airplane (my first airplane which works btw) which can take me to the locations... My problem is that it is quite impossible to land in the rugged hilly terrain and I cannot get to ground level.... So what to do?
One solution is to build a bigger airplane and attach a rover to it... (if that is at all possible at my current tech level) and then drop it near the targets...
Another is to add parachutes to the plane and hope I can land it like that, and then maybe drive it around.. Probably not going to work since the wheels break off rather easily...
How far from KSC is the waypoint? On the same continent, or opposite side of Kerbin? Personally, I combined your ideas. Landed a long-distance carrier aircraft on a flat area nearby, then detached a micro-drone with four parachutes and used that to collect the science. The drone was simple: Okto Probe Core, Radial Decoupler, Juno, Mk0 fueslage, and Small Circular Intake with one of the smallest wing segments offset through the fuselage and a pair of control surfaces mounted at 90 degrees and offset through the fuselage. The carrier was difficult to land with starter wheels, but manageable. The drone settled perfectly onto its wheels, grabbed the science, cut the parachute, flew to the next spot and repeated the process. My Kerbal and carrier then returned home after collecting the science from the drone. The drone was left behind.
3 hours ago, michaelvf said:I was thinking of just mounting the bombs on the top of the plane and spin upside down when I drop them
At least I will keep the COM moving back and forth in the center of the plane which should be doable..
Bingo. Keep it Simple
Just use the stock CoM and CoL indicators to place the drone right over the carrier's CoM and verify that the drone's wings don't move the CoL too much. Bombs should be even easier because they're smaller, lighter, and have no wings.
I wish I had thought of a way to make the science bomb work before creating my micro-drone. I was very much concerned that I would fly all the way around Kerbin and drop the bomb, only to have it disappear before I got back to KSC. Turns out, all I had to do was fly the bomber in circles until the bomb landed. Landed vessels persist after you leave the area.
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On 1/5/2017 at 1:19 AM, Martin0 said:
Should i launch it?
Tell me that's packed with explosives!! I want to see a minefield around Kerbin!
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On 1/4/2017 at 3:45 PM, fourfa said:
^^^ good info
I didn't see anyone mention flaps yet? One way to generate more low-speed lift, without excessive high-speed drag, is flaps.
Take an ordinary control surface (the bigger the better, for water takeoff). For purposes of testing, let's say that you deselect all the control axes in the right-click context menu (so uncheck pitch, roll, and yaw), so now it doesn't respond at all to control input. Now use the "deploy" function in its right-click menu. For example if you have a relatively standard central main wing with trailing-edge control surfaces, the deploy check-box should cause the surface to move downward, and will now generate tons of lift at low speeds. If for whatever reason it moves up, click the "reverse direction" box. Presto, you should have a much easier time clearing the fuselage from the water. Once you're flying though, that lift vector also adds a ton of undesirable drag. So un-deploy, and it's just a standard wing segment again.
The deploy/undeploy can also be bound to keys in the action groups, if you've unlocked those. If you haven't, just pin the context menu in the flight screen and click away as needed.
Good info from both of you! I couldn't figure out how to get flaps to work correctly. Trying to trim them with [ALT] [ S ] was awfully slow and fouled the elevators. I didn't even realize that "deploy" worked outside of the SPH. Water landings have never been a problem, but then I'm stuck moving at less than 20 m/s - about 10 m/s below dead minimum takeoff speed.
This should reduce my need for high-banking S-turns on tight landings. Just last night, I had to set down in a valley in the mountains. I hit more than 8g several times. Had to get my speed down from 150+ m/s to 30 m/s so I wouldn't bounce off a roller or slam into the wall. My designs typically stall around 15 m/s, but it's difficult to scrub speed. I think flaps will make a big difference.
edit: Apparently [ S ] is strikethrough.. But how do you remove it? Got it!
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1 hour ago, bewing said:
One trick that seems to work well for me is to have an extra set of canards below the waterline. This really helps to get your nose up out of the water so you can accelerate.
I like that. I tried several different pontoon designs: empty Mk0 LF Tanks, Mk1 Structural Fuselages, 1.25m fairings... no luck with any. I could land and float, but they were all too draggy on take-off, or resulted in a flip on landing. Don't know why I never thought to make a hydrofoil.
Hmm... now I wonder if anyone has built a trans-oceanic high-speed hydrofoil ship... I bet I could design a stock carrier for reusable micro-science drones to satisfy a bunch of Kerbin research contracts.
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1 minute ago, regex said:
I find it comforting and I have never been surprised hours later if I took it off for some reason (usually only to do the dishes since I wear nitrile gloves when working on engines and such). To each their own, obviously, but thanks for pointing that out. Tungsten rings do, in fact, feel heavy.
Haha true enough. I've had a few panic attacks from forgetting to put my ring back on after washing up with pumice soap.
I wonder... does Tungsten feel cold for a long time after you put it on? My old Stainless ring never seemed to warm up, but the Titanium almost immediately matches skin temperature, or even feels slightly warm.
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1 hour ago, regex said:
I have a simple tungsten band. It's comfortable, stays relatively shiny, and is fairly hefty. Sort of a darkish grey, a bit over four years old at this point.
That's the big daily difference between Tungsten (Carbide) and Titanium. People tend to get them confused, but Tungsten feels HEAVY.
I can't stand heavy rings. Rings that spin wrong-way-round and beat up the pretty face (like a school ring) also drive me nuts.
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1 hour ago, fourfa said:
Good points, many ways to skin this cat.
As to the rest of the hand-wringing in the thread, man it hardly matters. We have cargo bays, service bays, and fairings when we need to shield drag. For launching what looks like a space station module that will experience atmo exactly once, the drag of exterior parts is pretty irrelevant to the big picture. So you reach orbit with 100m/s left over in your second stage instead of 110m/s, who cares? Optimizing beyond that level probably belongs in the Challenges section, not Gameplay. Gripes about how the game should be rather than how it is, there's a Suggestions forum for that.
Me personally... I routinely clip into the "empty" space of adaptors, for cosmetic reasons - particularly for pure spacecraft that don't experience drag (and I zoom in and rotate the camera to access the parts). I usually try to make real-looking rockets - space station parts get fully enclosed in a fairing, despite the mass of the fairing probably costing more dV than the drag of the bare payload. Spaceplanes get lots of cargo bay space, and all draggy odds and ends go in the bay.
I have done the same with with 'chutes, batteries, probe cores, etc, in stack separators for recoverable first stages. I understand the reasoning if a part is radially attached and then clipped in, but I am disappointed to hear that parts stacked on top of the separator and then clipped into the hollow middle catch drag. This deserves further testing. I seem to build a lot of edge case rockets with only the Skipper unlocked, so that small margin can make or break a launch. Plus, it helps the bottom line a lot to use two Kickbacks rather than four.
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I went for black titanium with grooves down to the gray. Love it. Lightweight, tough, interesting. Really easy to wear, but impossible to resize. An ex gave me a stainless ring and I never got used to it. Too heavy, too sharp, and too cold... her too actually lol. You can also get different inlays, which look amazing. As I understand it, the black color on high quality titanium is a chemical change (anodizing or something similar) and only deeper scratches will remove it. I've worn mine for five years now and it has taken some damage from working with my hands, but it's definitely tougher than gold (about on par with stainless watch bodies in my experience).
http://www.edwardmirell.com/titanium-jewelry/ring-titanium-black-7mm-2-gray-grove-476/
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5 hours ago, Benji13 said:3 hours ago, TheSaint said:
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54 minutes ago, fourfa said:
Back to the OP - you can save the drag on the RCS tanks by replacing the adaptor with a 2.5m fairing. You'll need a central 'pillar' to mount the docking port on, and you will be able to close the fairing on the pillar or the port itself. My advice - make the pillar a stack of 1.25m RCS tanks (which have better tankage per mass and lower part count anyway) and hide other bits and bobs inside the fairing. If you like, you can hide the RCS thrusters from drag in there, and pop the fairing once you get to space.
Ehhh... yes and no. That works, of course, but with 1.2 fairings you won't need a central "pillar." You could just use a 2.5 m RCS tank and mount the basic docking port inside the fairing rather than the shielded. The port would be covered for launch, providing smoother airflow in the same height with no extra part count, and you get even better RCS volume to mass. Pop the fairing after leaving atmo, and that removes extra mass and height.
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On 12/29/2016 at 3:18 PM, Firemetal said:
Ah no. At that point, I didn't understand torque very well. I put those on to be able to control it. It surprised me to see all the tricks I could do with it but the main design of the base stayed the same. Good idea for a later Minimus colony though!.
Fire
That's what I did to retrieve a Kerbal and his Capsule on the Mun. Three 1.25m Reaction Wheels will easily lift one of my Klaw vessels and a Mk1 Capsule in Mun gravity. dV was lacking though... Somersaulting across Mun surface is a legitimate propulsion method, isn't it?
On 12/30/2016 at 0:57 PM, cubinator said:This is what I did today:
On 12/30/2016 at 1:36 PM, eloquentJane said:I know how big they are. I didn't realize how long the runway is. In any case, it's very impressive.
Also, wasn't there a Kopernicus mod a while ago that added the Death Star...
I just placed flags at either end of my runway to improve navigation from "it's somewhere around this continent" to "Yes, there it is!" The flags end up about 2.5 km apart to avoid being cleared on vessel load.
On 12/31/2016 at 8:54 AM, KerrMü said:
Very cool! Looks like a Rutan VariEZ.
On 12/31/2016 at 4:06 PM, Fearless Son said:Bring transit vessel into a circular orbit. Detach one satellite and get it clear of the transit vessel. Set that satellite as a rendezvous target. Set a maneuver node, and reduce the apoapsis. Set a second maneuver node to re-circularize the orbit on the phase of the first maneuver node. Look for the "Target at closest approach" line. Adjust the first maneuver node until the closest approach line is about one-third of the way around the planet. Use that first maneuver node as a guide to reduce the apoapsis. Detach the second satellite on the next apoapsis pass after the burn. Re-circularize and repeat for the last satellite.
Let the game take care of the math for you.
I just set up a comm network around Mun... my first time trying it. Thought I had it figured out, and dropped my three satellites at 20 km. One per orbit over the space of three orbits. Not even close to linking with each other, or being at 120 degree intervals... I had fouled up the carrier orbital timing and ended up with 180 intervals. Got that sorted with a couple small reboosts (luckily each commsat had 2,000 m/s dV). Still didn't link up. Turns out the proper altitude is closer to 200 km. Reboosted all three commsats to 250 km and circularized, and somehow that interval dropped to 40 degrees. Dropped the first commsat to a lower periapsis to speed it up and the third to a higher apoapsis to slow it down. Exactly one orbit later, I circularized at 120 degree intervals. Limited the engines to 1% thrust, and pinned the orbital period (thanks KER) to within 0.001 second.
Next time I do it will be with a 3:2 resonance orbit around Minmus. I'll place the carrier in an elliptical orbit with periapsis at the correct altitude, drop the commsat at periapsis and circularize at 2/3 the period of the carrier, and drop the next two commsats at each of the next two periapses. (For example, commsat period would be 40 minutes and the carrier period 60 minutes).
Since I had a stack of contracts to complete around Mun, my commsat carrier also included a (initially unmanned) rescue lander and four micro unmanned rovers. Each rover and commsat was built around identical cores, so each had about 2,000 m/s dV - perfect for small contract work at varying polar orbits. One of the rovers was expended collecting temperature and pressure information at various altitudes and inclinations without even reaching the surface. I used the rescue lander to pick up Romy Kerman from the surface, collect some Midlands science, and immediately put Romy to work collecting polar orbit crew reports... which meant that he had to push the lander into a return trajectory... which will require the launch of a Klaw to pull it into Kerbin's atmosphere. Trying to drop a 2.6 Mm Periapsis to aerobraking altitude is no job for a Kerbal EVA.
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6 hours ago, Firemetal said:
What is this Worker Ant you ask?
Back in the days of 1.0.5, I decided to build a colony on Minimus. Fun fact: This was before I joined the forums. So I looked at other people's designs and came up with a rover that carried parts on its back to the base. The base was very crude and I stopped work on it when 1.1 was released. However the designs were great in my eyes and now, I built a new one. This one however uses landing legs to raise itself onto the docking port. Because of this, it needs two worker ants to carry one part around to keep it balanced. It also uses a claw for when there are no docking ports to attach to.
So I will build it on Kerbin first, then send it all to Duna and build it there. But that's it for now.
Fire
Are those four reaction wheels on the Ant? With that much torque, you can probably stand the Ant on end to mate to station parts. Is that how the original worked?
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1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:
Also, I never terminate debris in a stable orbit.
I will terminate debris in a stable orbit... BUT only after I've proven that I can successfully recover it to Kerbin with a Klaw Return Vessel from that specific body. So far, that means Kerbin and Mun and anything in between. Anything headed to Minmus or outside the Kerbin system has to stay there until I successfully bring something back.
Since I try to make first stages nearly 100% recoverable, and the Klaw brings back the debris in one piece, the cost and time investment are negligible. This helps my game to run more smoothly, as hiding debris in map view doesn't actually remove it from the save.
I won't hack gravity except for testing.
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3 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:
Yes, it is "Witch Craft". A "Kraken Drive". I didn't invent the tech. This is the engine:
Both parts of it are floating next to the ship. I forgot it's forbidden and used "Warp to next manoeuvre" the engine phased out of the fairing. The engine is actually "Debris" and has it's own trajectory.
Here is the craft since you seem interested:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wauxldo5uwfcq3/Kraken Cracked v2_1.craft?dl=0
Place the ship on the Pad or Runway. Press "space", Engage SAS on
Radial out, press "G" (Gear).
You will float like a toy balloon. Over 600m or 1000m if the drive hasn’t gone crazy on it's own. Disengage the gear for a moment the re-engage. Sometime it will engage if you jiggle the ship a bit with the SAS. As you get really fast select
Prograde. Do not use "Warp". Ever.
I am getting tired of the technology. I made a simpler engine but very unstable. Can't quite "Pin" the how and why. It doesn't seem to be ultimately usable. I will probably play a bit more with it. But unless I happen on a breakthrough...
ME
I see a fuel tank and a separator? I'm baffled. Will try to remember to download the craft and play with it this weekend. Got a date playing old-school games at an actual arcade tonight.
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Theobles' Third is now orbiting Mun at the correct inclination. In about half an orbit, it should have a rendezvous and he should have sufficient dV to make a Kerbin injection burn. The idea now is to capture Theobles' Capsule, and Theobles' Second and stop spending money!! Some back at KSC have begun to question the value of one random Kerbal's life.
Another two Klaw Return Vehicles have been launched. The first to recover a spent Hammer SRB in Munar orbit, and the second to recover some as yet unknown bit of scrap from Kerbin orbit. I do wish these wildcat space programs would liquid off or get it together...
Val made a safe return from Kerbin Prime Station. Turns out her Mk1 and Mk1-2 Capsule combination is very slippery. She landed far, far beyond her intended splashdown point. Her spirits are high, despite the long trip home and the Station's fairing destroying all of the HG-5 relay antennas. Luckily, all of the C-16s and C-16-Ss survived. Kerbin Prime Station is ready for its first crew! (and a new communications module) Future expansions are planned, which will include additional living and storage space, a solar array, reboost engines, fuel storage, and eventually a proper habitation and observation ring.
On 12/13/2016 at 3:44 PM, Martian Emigrant said:The Dark Arts are interesting. But I think I will stick to "Normal" rocketry.
ME
What is this witchcraft? I see no engines!?
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Nothing "impossible" yet, but I have several Mun landing Tourism contracts that I won't accept. They can just forget it - the contract is not lucrative enough to justify all the difficulty. So far, only three Kerbals have set foot on the Mun, and one hasn't returned yet!
Theobles is still in orbit... and Jeb's landing may or may not have been an alternate timeline / parallel universe. Val is the only one that's been there and back in one piece / timeline.
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Interesting... so that would be Large Boats Parts and SM Marine?
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I'd like to see a mod that allows splashed wrecks to hit the seafloor, rather than just floating forever. Then it could provide contracts to locate and recover wrecks. Why stop there? Make "in flight above" type contracts that are "underwater below." They could use all the stock science experiments. I'd be curious to see what goo does at 100 atmospheres, or in a thermal vent.
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13 hours ago, Krog34 said:
YES! Nice weapon! This is exactly what I want to see!
Very cool design! The impactor reminds me of TinTin's rocket. Seems a bit Rube Goldberg though... I was expecting it to hit the VAB at near-orbital speed. Instead, we get 700 m/s? Hardly a Rod from God. It would be the ultimate shock troop delivery weapon.
I'll give this a try tonight. I'm thinking a bunch of 0.625m fuel tanks and heat-shields offset into each other should be suitably dense to maintain the needed speed. Maybe make it a MIRV on top of a 2.5m core. I bet I can carpet bomb the entire KSC from orbit.
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Finally made the last correction burn on a 180 inclined satellite's orbit for a contract. The launch was several days ago. Was paid handsomely for what is now a permanent relay satellite.
Designed, built, and launched Kerbin Prime Station to fulfill a contract. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a Skipper (plus two Kickbacks and two Thumpers) was enough to get three Hitchhikers, a Cupola, a full 2.5m Service Bay, Mk1-2 and Mk1 Capsule into orbit on an Orange Tank of fuel. The SRBs were staged off as intended, and the Skipper core was designed for recovery after circularization, but did not survive reentry heating because no probe core was provided to face the engine retrograde. Next, Val will detach and land the Capsules, lowering the Station's max occupancy from 17 (contract required 15) to 13. Since the Station is equipped with two Docking Port Standard and two Junior, it can easily be expanded. The Station will then sit vacant for a few orbits, acting as a very large comm relay, until a larger crew transport is built to bring up some of the rescued Kerbals who got a bit too comfortable in zero G and are getting antsy around KSC.
At approximately 20,000 funds worth of equipment, loss of the Station's Skipper core was a pricey miscalculation. Small potatoes in the overall scheme though - the above 180 Satellite contract completion paid 100,000 funds and the Station completion paid nearly 80,000. The Station plus Core and Boosters cost about 75,000. Ah well, at least the signing bonus was pure profit. And again, the 180 Satellite's total cost (Core, Booster and Payload) was peanuts - less than 30,000 funds. I believe the Core there was recovered, returning approximately 7,000 funds. Adding the completion, signing bonus, and parts recovered, that one contract cleared well over 100,000 credits. No quite as much as some of the Tourism contracts, but a lot less mess and customer service (ugh!!) involved.
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25 minutes ago, fourfa said:
Keeping
However with five launches needed for the rest of the main assembly, we opted for the heavy lift, recoverable-core lifter instead to do it all in one go. Needed four of the biggest stock SRBs to get moving.
A few hours assembly work later, we've got core, spokes, ring, comm module, and drive/utility modules in place. A bunch of drive modules like this will push crew and cargo pods back and forth to the moons. Next phase will be giant fuel modules from the Minmus mining operation that will dwarf the station.
(full album http://imgur.com/a/5FgTZ)
Love the launch rig! Took me a bit to realize that it wasn't intended as one module on the finished station.
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2 minutes ago, Triop said:
It's just stock, sandbox.
Are you in career mode?
That's right... In the early stages of Mun landings, so I haven't gone Science farming yet.
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49 minutes ago, Triop said:
Trying new stuff.
What wheels are those? All I have right now is the POS lightweight airplane wheels and the first rover wheels.
At least I will keep the COM moving back and forth in the center of the plane which should be doable..
Just use the stock CoM and CoL indicators to place the drone right over the carrier's CoM and verify that the drone's wings don't move the CoL too much. Bombs should be even easier because they're smaller, lighter, and have no wings.
Radial out, press "G" (Gear).
Prograde. Do not use "Warp". Ever.
Wing Spirals On Aircraft
in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion
Posted
No they're not. Contrails are water vapor condensing from engine exhaust.
The OP is asking about Wingtip Vortices specifically. Wake Turbulence is the general case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices
Follow too close, and it will ruin your day. This is why it's a huge deal when passenger aircraft follow each other too closely at busy airports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/planes-close-houston-airport-faa-article-1.1856013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mexico_City_plane_crash