NewtSoup
-
Posts
533 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Developer Articles
KSP2 Release Notes
Everything posted by NewtSoup
-
So here we are, at the final installation of my Going to the Mun, the question is long answered and I've posted a lot on my progress. I've learned a lot along the way. Rather than build a base I cobbled together a mobile mining unit that can again travel with the K if necessary. Getting it to orbit was squirly to say the least but it finally made it. It has a 125 ore processor and 4 junior drills. Though you can't see it it also has a mk 1 lander can, a probe core and a ton of batteries. The core of the machine is a Rockomax fuel tank and it's powered by four Terriers. It has a docking port fore and aft so that it can be stuck on to the K inline for interplanetary travel if it become necessary. And there we go. With the Mobile Miner docked at the K the additional fuel in the tank has completed the contract to put a station around The Mun and I leave the story here. I may continue it in a different thread out of the Gameplay Questions section. Addendum : I had also put a survey satellite in orbit around The Mun - this too can be docked, though it has to go on the side or a docking port Jr. It's fairly light but I'm pretty sure the engines and reaction wheels will be able to cope with a small amount of off centre mass.
-
To the Mun! Commander Sinclair ramps up the poodle pack gently to full power and begins the Kerbin Mun Transfer. Looking Back Kerbin seems to be a much smaller place than expected. Still, the crew are in good spirits. Finally, we have completed the contract. At least 7500 units of electric charge, space for at least 13 kerbals ( 27 actually ) a stable orbit and at least 6000 units of liquid.. DAMNIT! Kerbin, We need you to build us a Mun base for refuelling.
-
So, I've been absent a while ( work and whatnot ) But I have made progress, slow progress but progress. I actually found a Kerbal named Sinclair Kerman ( I didn't use the create a Kerbal cheat, honest ) and Ferried her to the K. I also added a Lab because, well, I realised that I forgot to give the station any ears. So I thought "why not?" and put an inline lab in with 2 of the biggest antenna I had available. Then of course I realised that if it had a lab then the lab would need data to process and scientists. Thankfully a few rescue missions supplied enough scientist and a couple of engineers and so I was able to give the K a Science Gathering Lander with 2.2k dV and enough TWR to land on most of planets and moons ( not Duna, Laythe, Tylo or Eve though ) This was put "in line" again just for mass balance when travelling and so the final version of Babylon K looks like this, along with it's all female crew complement. So, it's finally To the Mun. Oh and I got distracted briefly too when a contract came up for a Minmus station that included a lab and so I did this: Yes that's a fuel tank stuck out the side. It was used to give the lander enough dV to take itself and the Lab to Minmus station. Why did I take the Lab there separately? Because I forgot it was to be included in the contract. Doh!
-
Thanks.. I was taking the materials bay home with me. The engine on the bottom is a terrier which had plenty of ISP to get off the Munar surface. I made sure I had enough dV to get back into LKO rather than entering the the atmosphere at 3km/s on a low PE transfer orbit. Or rather I diidn't, I just over engineered to to the point by happy chance I was able to get it into LKE.. I've since taken out the staging for future missions and keeping the dV.. I like my cushions. I tried Kubuntu, but it promptly fell over and refused to work with the software centre ( it was always blank ) so I installed Ubuntu and it just worked so I stuck with it. Looking forward to the next release though as they'll be going back to Gnome and dropping the Unity thing which I find a bit of a pain ( I installed a classic gnome menu in the mean time ) I do prefer KDE though. Unity is a bit too "Macish" for my taste.
-
Yeah, the dV cost of carrying the 12 radials needed to recover the vehicle is only ~75m/s which is nothing compared to making sure a full Rockomax X200-32 fuel tank gets to the station. It costs F73,300 to launch and I get about F54,000 back on recovery if I manage to drop it into the water near the Space Centre. I'm considering it worth it Thanks for the links. I enjoy reading tips like that. I may take up a mod that allows me to recover parts jettisoned in the atmosphere, I feel that's justifiable for me. So far I'm just using Kerbal Engineer Redux, Maneuver Node Evolved, and [X] Science! I love this game. I've not got this big a kick out of a game since Elite BBC-B ( and no, Elite Dangerous just didn't cut the biscuit ) Something has just occurred to me - The Skipper engine modules. I was planning to recover them when I replace them with Poodle modules. However, I wonder it it just might be more prudent to leave them in orbit around Kerbin. they are in fact drones in their own right with a docking port on the nose, all they need is a fuel tank and some sciencey stuff to be put to further use.
-
So I built a refueler after a few research and testing missions. It looks like this: The entire body is recoverable with a plethora of parachutes. The info for the kickbacks says they are supposed to be recoverable but they really aren't as they have to be jettisoned in the atmosphere. Annoying really as they are not cheap. But it flies well and is easy to get into orbit. On Approach to Babylon K A successful docking 461m/s dv left plus the entirety of the forward tank. In this picture I've previously decoupled the Solar Panel Arrays and moved them to the rear ports by the engine cluster. A couple more trips and then I can set about replacing the skippers with poodles more suitable for vacuum travel. And I just had a neat idea about using 2 docking ports at a time to add radial gantries to proved extra expandability.
-
A question for the future on drilling and ore and whatnot - Is it possible to refuel everything from the outer planets and moons? Liquid fuel, Oxidiser and Monopropelant?
-
Just successfully detached and re-attached one of the skipper engines so I know it's possible now - Lots of testing to be done in LKO now.
-
Ok so I re-jiged and refit the K and decided to swap the single poodle for 3 skippers and see if I could get it into orbit directly with no expensive lifter added 6 big boosters in pseudo asparagus - that is 3 had full power and the other two had 50% for a longer burn. I've seen more Kerbal things go up so if others can do it. So can I! And the result! - Just look at that orbit! and just 80m/s dV remaining. Now to refuel and maybe even change those modular mainsails for a triplet of poodles. Recovering the skippers of course. It's soooo beautiful I could cry. It was a surprisingly un-twitchy ride up. The "steering" has a lot of play in it due to the engines being held in place by docking ports but I kept the velocity below 250m/s @ 70 degrees until 10km and out of the thickest part of the atmosphere so I didn't fight it too much.. Then pushed down to 90 degrees until 20km and then held at about 10 degrees until Apoapsis hit 75km. Finally held prograde and did short low power burns to conserve fuel until the periapsis matched apoapsis. There will be more to come!.
-
Yep, it all fell apart on the launch pad. Tricksy little tri-couplers. But that's what first desgings are for. I am not deterred I shall modify the design and make it work. It's going to be big!.. Huge!
-
Thanks bewing for getting me fixated on the idea of a station that can do interplanetary transfers. Oh the design has no antena yet. Unsure what to use.
-
I don't have the tech to drill yet. But that's probably not an issue. I still have almost 10 years to complete the contract and by then I will most likely have all the tech. In theory then I could just send up empty tanks to be filled at a later date. Anyhoo this is my basic design for Babylon K - The idea is that this station will have modular parts, each with their own guidance so that they can be swapped for superior parts later if need be and so that the station can undergo some basic re-configuration. For instance the cupola module will only live on the nose when in transit to keep the centre of mass inline with the centre of thrust from the poodle engine in the engine module. The cupola and engine modules each have large reaction wheels. To get it into space I will most likely empty the liquid fuel and just launch the main body and either the engine module or the cupola module. All other modules will have seperate launchers and will dock in orbit to build the station. I wish I had a Rockomax Tri-coupler but there doesn't appear to be such a beast so, sorry for the part clipping.
-
I shall call it Babylon K. I just need a Kerbal named Sinclair Kerman to command it.
-
Yes, I just realised that I can simply enable cross freed on most if not all of the de-couplers which would have the same effect. A while ago I accepted a contract to make a station to hold at least 13 kerbals and hten put it in orbit of the mun. Station also needs 6000 liquid fuel and 7200 battery storage and a docking port. At the time I only had a docking port junior so I put this to one side. I'm guessing I'm going to have to make the whole thing modular and build it in space. The contract specifies "lastly, put your station in orbit of The Mun". Trying to decide if it's practical to build the station in LKO and then move the whole thing into a transfer orbit and then Munar Orbit. It's going to be quite a large station... Well bigger than anything I have made so far ( I did make a 7 kerbal station with just a docking port junior). Ahh have to stop playing now. Time for work
-
With my new scientific riches I took - Miniaturisation, Fuel Systems ( yay asparagus staging ), Heavy Rocketry, Precision Engineering, Specialised construction ( for space station building ) and Actuators. I am starting to build a collection of expensive debris in LKO. I think I may send up actuator drones with loads of parachutes to try and recover the parts, just for fun, I realise I will probably spend as much if not more recovering debris as simply destroying it from tracking.
-
Also I discovered that landing is so so so much easier when you have a pilot that can "hold retrograde"
-
This is what finally got me there and back and 745 science off one trip which is the really important thing! I DID SCIENCE. I know it's gross overkill on the DV and I had 2000dV still at takeoff on the Mun but I don't care. I just went back into LMO transferred to Kerbin. Went in to LKO just to use up the fuel and because I could Jettisoning the lander stage was interesting though. because the tanks come up alongside the materials bay we didn't actually part company. The solution was to turn spin rapidly until centripetal force ensured the LFO tripus released its suckery grip on me. I suspect it will scamper off into the depths of space and grow into a full blown kraken.
-
Unfortunately I just quick saved instead of quick loaded after a cockup on docking. Mission has been reverted to a save before lauch and I'll go back to it later with perhaps a better design. Here's the whole thing. It does have enough dv to get off the moon and dock with the return vehicle again but you have to be a better/luckier pilot than I.
-
I will post picture of the whole launcher later. In the mean time here's a mission update. Yeah I landed on a bit of a slope but I managed a gentle touch down of 3.8 m/s and I most certainly didn't explode four times before managing it. Those flashes you saw from The Mun? Marsh gas and weather balloons!
-
@Snark, It's pretty much the second.. I knew it was making life difficult for myself and I could have followed any number of designs on youtube. I fancied doing the 2 Kerbal mission just to see if I could. I switched from 2 capsules and 1 lander can.. 1 kerbal would move to the lander can and then undock, land, do science, re-dock etc. The other kerbal would remain in space and control the return stage if need be. However that was 4.5 tons and I couldn't get it to lift from the pad no matter how many engines I added.. though I suppose a LOTMOAR boosters might have done it. Now I've switched to 2 berth passenger cabin and an OKTO instead of the second capsule. The means it's only the OKTO controling the return stage while it's in orbit and the second kerbal is now redundant ( except for getting experience. ). But hey it's in orbit. I have a total of 2600dv left and I'm hoping that will be enough to get in to LKO do my stuff and return. You're suggestions have not been ignored though and I will do those too. This is what's going to the moon though
-
Yes.. it's not helping though.. I have enough dV and I have enough TWR but the whole caboodle is mighty unstable in flight.. tried moar fins too.. doesn't help - Adding a fairing has helped I'm now in orbit on pretty much just the lifter
-
I'm discovering this now.. I have no external fuel lines and my most powerful engine at the moment is a LT-30 Reliant. The payload I want to get into orbit is 4.5 tons and it's proving "interesting " getting a TWR to even get off the launch pad
-
I am designing my first Mun Lander. I am using Kerbal Engineer Redux and I've had a look at the dV chart. I've decided on a 3 stage 2 Kerbal mission. 1) The lifter - Carries the two other stages to LKO ~ 3500dv 2) The transfer / return stage - Carries 2 Kerbals Lander will be docked with this. ~1500 dv 3) The Lander - Carries 1 Kerbal - has a materials bay, goo, temp, barometer, and seismograph. 1400dV (600 dv land 600dv up and 200 spare for orbit maneuver and docking ) If I'm understanding this correctly then I need about 600dV to reach land on the Mun from LMO and presumably the same to get back up plus a safety margin for docking? And I use KER set to Mun to calculate my total dV?
-
Big thanks for all the tips. Making the fine adjustments seems to improve the efficiency of the overall mission. This is my best Munar Orbit so far for the tourists and I have plenty of dV to return. In fact I'll have about 200m/s left over which I'll use to slow down in the upper atmosphere. I'm still using the 6 Kerbal Tourist ship design that WanderingKid gave me :). Thanks loads, I've learned a lot from it about dV to orbit, to mun, to mun orbit and back. -
Thank you kindly. I'm doing pretty much everything correctly then. I'd discovered the ability to view my path close to Mun by double clicking on Mun came in handy when a company wanted a satellite on a retrograde orbit around Mun. Captured into Mun by choosing to encounter on other side to normal and let Mun do most of the dV work for me.
