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NewtSoup

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  1. NewtSoup
    Now that sounds like my kind of hack!
  2. NewtSoup
    Jeb lives here now! I thought about that mod and I will probably install it as well but while it remembers crew complements for specific ships I don't think it would make Valentina the default pilot for new ships, they'd still be Jeb. So Jeb is the official Senior rooftop sanitisation specialist - those helipads must be scrubbed hourly!. After all a helicopter may actually land there one day and we can't have it getting it's skids dirty from solid fuel exhaust residue.
  3. NewtSoup
    That's freaky, just as you were writing that I was building a "quad rocket" for jeb that I'm going to try and land on top of the Vab so I can leave him there in perpetuity. I'll just "promote" one of my rescued kerbal pilots to veteran and enable her badS tag as a Jeb replacement.
  4. NewtSoup
    Doing my first Mun MIssion in a new game, I designed my Rocket put Valentina in the pilots seat and went to bed. Reloaded the game this morning and launched and half way to space I notice that Jeb has replaced Valentina. I prefer to use Valentina for everything over Jeb. No real reason other than I like her better. How can I promote Valentina over Jeb permanently, so that she's the default Kerbal crew member. I realise I can simply turn off Kerbal respawning and fire Jeb into the sun but I'd rather not do that. Game file modding is fine by me.
  5. NewtSoup
    Introducing my new Station Habitat Module! The root part is a PD-10 Hitchiker Module. Top and bottom are two 2.5 to 1.25m adapters. These house reaction wheels, RCS tanks, Power Storage and a probe module. Each module provides it's own power generation through an array of solar panels and also communications though an array of communotrons which will combine with the power of other modules on the station for extended range. Station inter-connectivity is achieved via port, starboard and dorsal docking ports. In the event of disaster each module can serve as a standalone escape module. It features a ventral heat shield, RCS thrusters and enough fuel for considerable orbital maneuvers. The parachute system on the upper adaptor provides the gentlest of landings on to any terrain. The brochure image below shows the view of the module internals with the adaptors in maintenance mode. In use these are closed down over the internals to protect them. Price starts at 19,948 funds. In order to get back into KSP I started a new Career Mode. I will pick my original one back up later. For this career mode however, I am limiting myself to the Level 1 R&D Facility. So I cannot research any tech that costs over 90 science! I'm confident I can find ways to go everywhere all the same. Just not going to be cheap The first station module is now in orbit. Requires an aggressive launch profile. 10 degrees over at launch, SAS on ( off results in CRUD ) Heave over to 80 degrees at 22km until AP hits 90km then raise PE / Circularise once out of the atmosphere.
  6. NewtSoup
    I've not yet needed to use a thermal control system except for on a mining rig. What do we use the small fixed panels and radiators for? My only guess is that they may be necessary when visiting the inner planets to stop the crew from cooking in their capsule. Can they also be used to mitigate re-entry heat?
  7. NewtSoup
    Even better - Added two modular girder segment XL in the middle and changed the reliants for a pair of Vectors. 580m/s off the end of the runway and got 3.3km away from the launchpad in 20 seconds :D. And Jeb and Bill survived hitting the sea.
  8. NewtSoup
    I just made a quick test. Mk 2 Cockpit M2 2 Short Rocket Fuselage Mk 2 Bi Adapter thingy A pair of reliant rocket engines 4 ruggedized wheels Jeb and Bill SAS on, Max Thrust, hit space and the thing took off down the runway like a spanked weasel. Did about 20 runs down the runway. The drag indicators show drag on the right side only. However the craft veers to the left every time. This usually happens around 350m/s and I'm really not surprised it becomes unstable at that speed. Up to that speed it went true down the middle of the runway. Once the craft went pear shaped and airborn force lines were visible on all four wheels. I don't think there's anything wrong with the game, maybe a glitch in the display of aerodynamic forces. Testing this made me laugh a lot. Thanks for that Addendum - Adding Fins kept the craft stable all the way down the runway! Kerbals launched into the sea at more than the speed of sound! HAHA
  9. NewtSoup
    Just felt the need to exercise my smug gland Parachuting back to the KSC is difficult. But it's possible. I can usually drop something in the ball park though not often on home base I'll give you that. Why? Because I get a kick out of it when it happens I've never built a rocket SSTO. My first plane spaceplane was today. IIRC there is a mod out there that will recoup the salvage money from jettisoned stages if they have parachutes on. The main reason disposables are disposable is because of the physics range deleting stuff that's too far away when in atmospheric flight. Otherwise I'd salvage every last little bit I could. Here it is:
  10. NewtSoup
    Mission Ends. Aero Breaking Maneuvers in the Upper Atmosphere as I had only 88 m/s left of dV ( I'm such an inefficient pilot ) Got the AP down to around 2500 km this way before using 40 of the remaining dV to dip the PE into the atmosphere proper. I completely missed the KSC by a continent but I'm just happy I made a safe landing. I had no flat spins the craft behaved very well for me all the way down. I did burn off the air-brakes, but it turned out they weren't really necessary anyway. I touched down in the desert and only knocked of a single rapier. I could reload the save and do it without the damage I'm positive but I think I call call this first mission an unqualified Success! AeroBraking Landed
  11. NewtSoup
    And we're on our way home. This looks like a fun return plan. A cheeky gravity assist off the Mun with a close 10km flyby on the light side! Bonus. I'll correct inclination in a high kerbin orbit and then circularise and de-orbit. Actually that flyby may be on the dark side. No matter though. It's all good fun! Here's the Mun Flyby Not Light, Not Dark, But a Grey Kerbal!
  12. NewtSoup
    Made it to Minmus. Landed Backwards of course with just enough translation so that when the NERV clipped the Minman suface it rotated the ship onto it's landing gear. This was done VERY carefully at <2m/s surface speed.
  13. NewtSoup
    Always learning in this game I came up with an idea, I'm sure I'm not the first. Rather than change inclination in LKO and then do a second burn for Minmus injection what I did was create a node for the inclination, then create a second node to find out where to burn to get an encounter with Minmus. Once this node was set and I knew the dV needed I then deleted the node that would alter the inclination and JUST did the main burn. Once that was done I did not have a Minmus encounter. But I figured that was no problem as I'd done the main burn at the right place and all that was off was inclination. So I then created a midpoint node for a correction burn on inclination and got a really nice Minmus encounter for just 24m/s of dV rather than the 350ish it would have taken to correct the inclination in LKO.
  14. NewtSoup
    I will see what happens at the time. My only real issue right now is that I can't get a Minmus encounter as the Mun prevents it. The closest enounter I can get right now is a 1000km retrograde polar orbit. I think I'll warp forward a day or two
  15. NewtSoup
    I've done it with an Ore Barge carrying 3050 units of ore from Minmus that had to LAND on Kerbin but that used parachutes. I'm going to use most of my excess fuel / aero braking to circularise in LKO before attempting to de-orbit. Here's a gratuitous screenshot of my ore barge in orbit with it's huge number of parachutes.
  16. NewtSoup
    Hah yes I don't think will go to Jool though. Not today at any rate. Today is for Minmus and then back to Kerbin alive. Landing anywhere near the KSC will be icing
  17. NewtSoup
    ORBIT ACHIEVED - it was messy and I used more fuel than I should have but I still have over 2400 m/s of dV left and I'm in a 108 km orbit above Kerbin!. I ended up dipping back into the atmosphere with Periapsis at 65km before getting a circular orbit. I know I have plenty of DV to hit Minmus so I think I'm going to go for broke!
  18. NewtSoup
    Well, Matt does admit he kind of threw this together from "feeling" and experience rather than taking time and care of it. Yes, I noticed the roll was super sensitive too, which Is why I've now turned it down to just 10% on the outer winglets.
  19. NewtSoup
    That sounds fair. The bulk of the SSTO / Spaceplane videos on youtube ARE quite specialised then I think and I thought Matt's example here was fairly "normal". I suppose it is normal in a way. However, I am further encouraged as I now feel that if I can fly this to Minmus and home again and by that I mean simply land on Kerbin without exploding, I think I will have really achieved something as a space plane newbie.
  20. NewtSoup
    Very Cool, thanks guys. Yes, I wanted to make sure it was just me that was struggling and not the plane itself. Now I know it will still fly I shall keep trying until I can say "I can do Space Plane Science"
  21. NewtSoup
    Hey guys, Bit of advice needed. I've been following Matt Lowne's video on making a basic SSTO So I made the craft he builds ( pretty accurately, same fuel tanks engines and a good COM / COL position ) but I'm having real trouble getting it into orbit. Now I'm very aware this video was made in 1.05 and I'm playing 1.3.1 - Are there big differences between the two versions that render the craft non viable or do I just need a lot more practice? Matt doesn't seem overly precise in his wander into LKO and onwards. I've yet to hit LKO. Here's my craft file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=18JGd3Mkp-Qc8Q8UCJ2lWNccSpZ_BLX2C On the runway I set the winglets on the end of the wings to have authority of 10% or it gets a little roll happy.
  22. NewtSoup
    And with some final vanity pictres we bid farwell to brave Valentina, courageous Valentina: Who as, she moves into an IkeClipse, can't help feeling that something is also watching her!
  23. NewtSoup
    I think this is as far as I will take this. As interesting as the Anywhere Seat is to me. It's time for Sandbox Valentina to be supplanted by Empress Valentina. SB will remain in vigilant repose around the planet known as Duna.
  24. NewtSoup
    I like Ike And Duna Orbit, Highly eliptical, almost reaching Ike at AP, I've not circularised as I'm still not sure what I want to do next. Orbit Ike for a bit or get closer to Duna.
  25. NewtSoup
    Ahh of course because the patched conic shows a dotted ellipse around Duna so that can't happen first. Has to be the Ike Flyby first. I shall make that burn. Shortly
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