Aeroboi

It's a niche thing. And yes you can see the difference. However, after playing for a while you start to forget. It will depend on whom your asking which forms the debate imo. I have a 120 hz monitor on which I play games up to 120 Fps and it's mostly noticeable when I switch from a 120 fps game to a 60 fps game. Then its like "whoa" I can spot the difference. You can actually experience that difference. 120hz is really like it's made within actual reality, as if every frame is glued onto the next one while 60hz still feels its fabricated. Playing on 120hz for some time will get you to notice when you play a 60fps game. My experience is that your eyes acclimatize to the fluidity of what is perceived. In normal gameplay it hardly doesn't matter. When you actually start playing you are immersed into the game and the perception of fluidity is ignored. When I played on the older consoles starting with 15-30 fps I thought that was all we should expect and I wasn't bothered. To imagine 60 or even 120fps was a ludicrous unnecessary thing not to ever be expected. For me personally it's that slight advantage in games where it can be beneficial like competitive shooters. In shooters it's sometimes milliseconds per each confrontation to having a high kill streak at the end of a match or a low one. In racing games and in flightsims it's just beautiful immersion. I like to be on edge in such kind of games so the combination of my own skill, the monitor refresh rate, game, keyboard, mouse settings and of course the people I play with all contribute to having that edge. If there aren't clear niche, competitive or luxury reasons imo then having 120 hz refresh rate ability is a waste of money. The discussion about how many fps the human eye can see also seems dependable. While there may be a actual limit biologically some people make their basis based on actively comparing video clips with one another to see where this limit lies. These grou of people try to look harder and tend to find and thus "see" more difference. Other people make their basis upon the perception of this during immersed gameplay. These groups of people are expectedly the ones making their assumption based on immersed gameplay and are more likely to not ever recognize the visual evidence between the lower and higher framerates. Both groups debate to one another in endless discussion on the internet and scientifically nobody is the wiser. I think it's hard to draw a actual number because there's individual difference and the way to measure it has to many dynamics to have a universal answer. Then there is assumably genetic difference or trained optical differences. Remember, some people are more nocturnal then others while some have a much better far sight. Ultimately the human eyes weren't made to see fast paced slideshows of different framerates which video is, rather to visualize actual reality which isn't made out of frames but perceived as continuous visual fluidity. Although this topic is interesting otherwise I wouldn't comment the way I do I think the best thing people should do is go to a tech mall, compare the different games and monitors or behind any of your friends rigs and personally decide if you want the same eye candy. As with everything, the more you scale things up the lower the end sum is, like with rockets for instance Less is more! I would definitely have overhead like Shadowmage pointed out. Having 70-75 fps at least on a 59 hz monitor should really be your goal when tweaking any game settings.

Absolutely agree on that one. There are many aircraft that have steerable main gear. Main gear is often the bigger gear so it makes no sense why there isn't a steering option on the heavy landing gears in this game. Since it's a modular game one would expect such a option should be available. For now I have to use structural elements to raise the medium landing gear to use it for steering larger aircraft. It can be done but I shouldn't have to workaround to do so. That's a very good idea. It should be on by default at I,J,K,L or < - >. Many people including myself have rudder pedals used in flight sims so such functionality can really complement the game. IIRC most of the people posting crafts are plane and spaceplane builders so who wouldn't want this?

I'm not sure what you are trying to do here. 1st of all this is a post from 2013. Do you even realize? This means a very old version of KSP was used. In that version you required to strut every part together to form rigidity and fly through a pseudo atmosphere that acted like a brick wall while using restricted editor functionality and part availability. Some reactions to posts that date years back can be bumped up if the topic of that thread matches a actual element of the game in todays version. What you do here makes no sense. 2nd of all there are many ssto's that rival yours or are scaled far beyond. Yours is a nice spaceplane, but it's equal among many and that's that. There are rocket SSTO's that weigh over a hundred kilotons these days. The OP's SSTO was a rocket SSTO, yours is a airbreathing one so what's there to compare exactly? I advice you to read the newer threads on this forum and watch the up to date videos about KSP to see what kind of craft there are. Anyway, welcome on this forum

@shifty303 I don't use those mods. I'm sure there are better ways then besides what I'm going to suggest. But what you could do is use a rover on heavy landing gear with a large open mid section that has a belly with several claws. It could kneel to the ground when lowering the landing gear then grapple on to anything you need to carry. Fun thing is, you can carry a lot more then ~15 Ton this way. If the cargo isn't steady in the middle you can autostrut it while driving. Then drive around

I've read the posts above me so I'm not alone. But why have people given up on this? IIRC I still see some blender posted crafts on the internet. I can only assume some of those pics are modern and people have this one working. I tried this with Blender v 2.79 and v 2.73 as that seems to be the version used with the plugin according to the readme. In my case blender doesn't show any craft files in the KSP directory as if the craft file plugin isn't working even though it is activated. I'm on Windows 10 64bit. Yes I followed every step in the readme!!

A spring, decoupler, strut and a fuel line. I made a newer version of the mechanism. It's 3-4 parts per mechanism in each booster or 7-8 if you want it aerodynamically faired. Unfaired it weighs only 0.1 Ton, faired it weighs 0.5 Ton or thereabout (depends on fairing shape) Currently I made one for 1.875m parts. I'm still doing some tests and then open a thread about it soon. While the Saturn V is a good example a better one is the spaceshuttle SSME. It's thrust was angled to compensate for the CoM that was inside the external tank. In KSP that would mean a shallower gravity turn while staying on prograde. So that is one thing that this does. The other thing for which I made it is asymmetrical asparagus staging to gain Dv and a better TWR spread to be benefited from on worlds such as Eve. That means dropping one booster on one side and then the next instead of a whole pair at once. The angled thrust can then be used radially to push the vessel upwards so the thrust angling doesn't count towards cosine losses.

Ability to put oxidizer into the LV-N for increased thrust and reduced ISP.

@bewing I don't know what triggers the bug myself yet, so I don't know what to instruct. The craft in the OP wasn't build with the "proper" aerodynamic housing and still causes drag. I feel no hesitation to share the craft file with you or anyone else for that matter as that version is unfinished, I do have one that is. Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/germ8dgdsdshy61/The Oreman XLII.craft?dl=0 Build the fairing above the engines on the boosters. Then add a fuel duct or strut and then click anywhere on the vessel to connect it and watch to see the bug happen. Do the same thing again but then by holding Left Alt. Now it works!

That are exactly my thoughts copied out of my brain. IIRC I made the same argument in another thread. Think about SpaceX hardware, linear aerospikes, robotics parts like hinges, telescopes and bearings and, you name it. Another idea is to feed oxidiser into the LV-N for extra TWR at the cost of ISP. Future things will be larger parts like BFR-BFS, argon thrusters, vasimr engines and station parts. Preferably station parts that mix well with which you can create a replica ISS but that is still modular in a way that exotic unorthodox things can be made. As with every new part from now on, it should include the texture skins introduced by MH.

I made a asymmetrical/lateral asparagus staged rocket using a self invented stage activated mechanical pivoting system for thrust re-alignment to gain Dv for a eve ascent rocket. More importantly, I found out how to do this while keeping all the contents of the mechanism faired. The system itself only weighs 250kg so is especially ideal for airless world where the fairing isn't required like Tylo for instance. In testing each booster stage can reach well over 2000m/s above sea level under its own thrust and is as aerodynamic as a typical one stack with nosecone and engine at the rear. It's simple but complicated and 100% stock. This is how it looks like and I'm still quite some distance away from incorporating it in a finalized vessel. But I'm getting there. 1: Ready for lift off \\ 2: Vehicle lifts off with the engines in their default position. 3: A explosive bolt trigger via the staging system frees the mechanism and angles the engines. 4: Of course in a actual design I will stage pivot one by one opposite of the dropped fuel tank rather then activating them all at once, otherwise the cosine losses make up for nothing I'd gained in Dv. The angled thrust will actually help me in the proper roll position during a actual ascent as it can contribute to radial Delta-V while staying on prograde. The next picture is just for show 5: The reason the engines are angled is because they are on a decoupler spring which has fuel feed on so it can still drain fuel from the tanks. Because the mechanism is decoupled the engine thrust angled them at a certain angle. The angle is tweaked by adding to the spring or moving the springs position. 6: Getting the parts insid the fairing properly aligned is the greatest challenge. If they clip to far in the top fairing nasty things can happen. Luckily I figured out how the bugs are caused and Kraken type things seen on the picture below are completely avoidable. It took me a week of continuous testing with many failures to make it work "properly" But the result is here

Well, it's no time to prove it yet But you can make vessels very aerodynamic to the point where they can maintain 300-400m/s at a altitude of 7000-8000m on Eve. Think about using optimized fairing shape, vector engines (which aren't very draggy) and wing incidence. On eve I think vaccuum optimized engines would work out better on a TSTO since they already work somewhat better at 8000m and with 400m/s speed you wont be penalized with the ISP reduction to long as you will be above 12.5km pretty quickly and there above where ISP starts to climb above Kerbin sea level. You are definitely right about the chutes that would be ripped off. I was just summarizing options. One of the options was retro thrusters. I imagine some well forward placed vector engines can quickly arrest a vessels forward motion. If you tweak the amount of fuel it is feeded with you should be able to calculate how much is required to propulsively brake the 1st stage in time so that it's near the top. If required open the chutes after the propulsive braking and then quickly switch back to the 2nd stage. If you do it right chutes wont be needed at all as the landing gear should be able to absorb the impact if you use enough of them. And your talking about Stratzenblitz design which is awesome. I would want to go further or see someone else try to find a way to lift something meaningful of off Eve but it's a challenge I and everyone still have to win. But I don't want to derail the topic because the challenge is clearly SSTO and not TSTO. I just wanted to share what sort of recoverable lifter design I would want to see arise from these Eve SSTO or general eve lifter suggestions/challenges.

The following is not a SSTO from Eve surface. I'm not sure why one would even want one as the margins are to tight. I've seen youtube videos of people that already made Eve ssto's. Although I'm not sure if they cheated. Anyway, I always thought of a TSTO system for Eve that would start at the lowest part of eve's highest peak on the equator (you know where) Then accelerate with a second stage it carries up to 7km near the top of the mountain with decent speed (300-400m/s, MOAR) and then decoupler the second stage. But as you do that you use a action group that opens many chutes and airbrakes and retro thrusters to quikcly deccelerate before the 1st stage reaches the peak while the second stage flies onwards. The same action group also lowers a array of landing gear with which the 1st stage is covered with with max friction and brake settings. With the correct timing the 1st stage should auto land near or at the top of the mountain before the 2nd stage gets out of physics range. Then you switch back to the 2nd stage and get to orbit. With a efficient 2nd stage you should even be able to carry actual cargo from Eve this way. After orbit you land the 2nd stage near the peak and fly the first stage from the mountain top back to sea level. Of course you need a system to put the 1st stage upright if it landed on its side or worse, upside down. It or another vessel near the bottom of the peak would have a ISRU, and the 1st stage would have a Sr docking port mechanism to dock with the 2nd stage again so both stages can refuel and repeat the process for a fully reusable Eve cargo hauler. If there is a flaw in this KSP dream then don't hesitate to take me out of it. I only thought of it recently and maybe I'll try this for myself soon.

This is exactly as it appears to be. As I experience it happens when building multiple fairings in symmetry at the same time, which is the case. Holding Alt does indeed circumvent the bug. I recall I have build fairings in multiple way symmetry before and haven't had the bug occur to me then so maybe it's still something else, I'm not sure. I'm trimming my mechanism for the best pivot angle to minimize cosine losses still so I will rebuild the fairing quite a few more times and hope to find out how the bug is exactly triggered. Workaround or not I think this shouldn't happen in the first place. @Rocket In My Pocket @Foxster I got it worked out and I probably gonna use this system from now on, always. No ducts = Less parts and less drag and weight and should be a mandatory designer rule for a efficient Eve ascent rocket. Thanks for all your input

I'm no rocket scientist either, but... In KSP there is a foundation of sensible scientific realism. That means nothing in this game is added that doesn't have a clear scientific origination. The way it's brought forth isn't always top notch in terms of realism, but the aspects of each game element has to be. If this trend is broken more people will come on here to complain about it within a day then all the people that are ever going to read your thread. That sounds harsh but it is the truth. Rocket engines are heavy metallurgic pieces of hardware that requires a large multi krew to dis/assemble and takes weeks, months including testing before it gets mounted on a rocket. To put this simply, Bill Kerman our famous engineer can't do that on the ground with any magic pieces of equipment he may have tugged inside his suit. Unless magic itself is added to the game that is. If he does then where is the sensible scientific realism if he requires a multi krew and a large VAB like structure just to get inside of a engine powerplant and plumbing system let alone changing it to boost it's stats? There are departments in the addon community with mods that are less realistic. I believe there is a mod with which you can upgrade certain engines and parts like ISP, TWR and weight. I don't know the name of this mod, maybe knowing it exists interests you. FAIW it still doesn't work by changing a engines stats on the ground. It is unlocked by spending science points I believe and changing a engine just on the surface of the Mun is spacecraft wizardry and is contradictory to a realistic aspect which is the prime factor for which suggestions are allowed in stock KSP. At best you may intrigue a sci-fi man in the addon suggestions forums to create a mod to do this, but even there I would hold my breath on this one. @It'snorocketscience I hope my honesty on the matter was puth forth correctly and I hope you see the point in this.

@Foxster Thanks I'm going to put in some effort to get the staging working properly with the priority system as you instructed it. One thing that really baffles me is that some tanks automatically start with a certain number that to me is nonsensical. I have a center tank for instance which defaults to 40 but some of the outer tanks are -10. Is there some logic why tanks start with these random numbers? I think having them all set at 0 by default is less confusing to a player like myself or anyone I'd assume.

I thought about this but I never understood the fuel priority system although I got it to work occasionally. The numbers are completely arbitrary to me. How do they make sense? Is there a text or video walkthrough that properly explains the fuel priority system? What struck me is that one tank has a fuel priority of lets say 40 (0) and another tank -10 (0) Why is one -10 and the other 40 and what makes priority change when making it + or - from (0)? Also, I always thought you required a fuel line or a fuel feed system besides the fuel priority settings to make asparagus staging work in the first place? Is this wrong? Another thing to know is that this rocket is going to be complicated in its staging sequence to begin with, more so as I will use my new found method to stage laterally. So I want to use Mechjeb for autostaging and next to that I want to pilot the roll of the vessel to use the lateral thrust during ascent (like the spaceshuttle does) for extra efficiency. The problem is, Mechjeb doesn't properly calculate Dv when using the fuel priority flow system in complex asparagus staging. And that is when I can get the fuel priority system to work which I'm not always able to. I already use autostruts everywhere besides that mechanism. The mechanism must be fixed against the closest parts but that isn't the grandparent part for it to be fixed from any motion and heaviest and root part are to far away from the position of the mechanism to achieve that. So I require the strut part for this. A part I must say I rarely use but for this mechanism I found it's required. Unfortunately that is the case here, but I stress to say... "AFAIK"

I've been working on several Eve ascent vehicle designs for a Eve challenge. I did a lot of testing how I can do it with very few funds and already made something worthy but I found several tricks to make it even better and I'm going to make my newest version if I can get past a very annoying bug. I have made a decoupler/staging system with which I can stage pivot a engine at a static angle that is normally not able to pivot at that angle through it's default gimballing. Issue im having. The problem is that the fairing that shields the system from drag has a big problem. When I build the fairing the vessel becomes bugged in that I cannot connect any fuel lines (fuel ducts) anymore on my vessel. The same goes for struts I found out. The exact anomaly is that I can start to connect the strut to the parent part (1st part I click on) but then disappears when connecting to the client part with the clicky clicky sound as if it were connected regardless without actually connecting. It isn't game breaking because I can save the top stage as a sub assembly and build the fairing during subsequent tests and when I finally build the vessel. Still this is very annoying and I hope this bug is being reported before and that there is a workaround, hopefully... If there isn't I will file it personally. I hope that a certain feature of this system is what triggers the bug and that people can tell what that might be. Below I have a description on how it works. I'm gonna do some testing first and then post a craft file, hopefully people with good editor skills may be able to detect what part or combination of parts are causing this bug. Furthermore: Rebuilding the pivoting system doesn't solve it. I already thought of this. Whenever I rebuild it and re-save the subassembly, re-reconnect it to my craft and build the fairing anew the fuel duct bug comes back around. Below is a picture of the craft with the system I made and there under a album of the staging sequence while being able to climb at 90 degrees without SAS so you guys have a idea what I made. Album: https://imgur.com/a/S4yoEPM How it works: It's remarkably simple to be honest but took me quite a lot of time to figure out while being able to shield it and keep it low weight. The Skiff engine is attached to the radial decouplers. The radial decoupler works like a spring. Any part that is attached to it while being moved away from the parts center will spring up and down. The farther the distance, or the more decoupler you stack the more loose the spring becomes and the more distance a attached part can pivot. To the decoupler I attached a jr docking port. I then rotated it 90 degrees and moved it to the left base of the engine plate with the port facing up. I then autostrutted it to grandparent part (the decoupler) so it moves stiff with it when it and the engine pivots up and down. The default state of the system is that the engines are locked in place in a default snap on position. To do this I put a mini probe core on top of the docking port jr. I strutted the probe core to the tank and to the engine. Because the docking port is attached to the decoupler and the probe core to the docking port which is now strutted the mechanism can't move. When I set the docking port to the staging sequence whenever I drop a lateral stage the probe core and the struts disconnect and the mechanism becomes free. Because the engine is under thrust the engine bell will pivot at a desired angle. When I stage the engine pivoting system opposite of the dropped lateral tank the thrust realigns and my rocket keeps going straight. To create the desired angle is by adding or retracting decouplers and by moving the engine inwards or outwards relative to the position of the decoupler. Finally I tweak it and re-move the system and engine radially to recenter the engine. The system is then faired within a fairing. Using the local coordinate space Move tool function I can very precisely recenter all the parts so a fairing below the thrust plate can shield the engines from drag also. They aren't because they aren't actually attached to the thrust plate. The thrust plate is there because it's light and to function as a attachment for the fairing to close at. Which is what creates the bug when i try to build the fairing, unfortunately.

@Tricky14 Does only solar permit the use of batteries? Remember that real life solar cars got them. They require batteries when it's cloudy during solar race challenges so it should be part of a solar car. If you stack a bunch you can get quite a few km extra. Top speed is mostly determined by drag and remember that you also go down quicker when you weigh more. With batteries you can begin your journey when its still very, very dawn (still night) to get some distance on battery power and then do the rest on solar. I'm not sure if it pays off in the end as the battery weight slows you down a tiny bit and a bit more uphill. You may allow yourself to stage them after dawn and do the rest on solar power from there on. edit: I tested a quik rover with only batteries. It used 1/20th the amount of stored EC and did 52m/s average (200kph) but that is without solar panels and cockpit. It traveled 12.5km so could do 250km. Expect 150-200km for a fully equipped solar rover.

@farmerben Never tried using a aerospike like that. The funny thing is, it makes sense (apart from the exhaust not melting the toroidal tanks) A aerospike exhaust is expelled in a line like a funnel, call it a spike while bell shaped engines expel the exhaust conically out the back. So the aerospike exhaust fits through the opening of the toroidal tanks. This can't be coincidental, this is a Squad joke and a good one. This will probably bring up some very creative designs, albeit unrealistic ones

I have a alternative solution to what Foxster has said. It may be less easy but if you understand it you should be able to emulate it. You can use normal wing pieces instead of airbrakes at the trailing edge. I often do this because wing pieces have more lift rating so you will need less of them to create the desired balance. Often this creates undesirable drag during launch from kerbin so what I do is put the wings in a fairing or mk 2 or mk3 cargo bay at the back. Putting them inside fairings or cargo bays will hide them from drag. Then jettison the fairing during aerobraking or open the cargo bay. Opening a cargo bay itself creates drag to begin with. As for the method of putting wings inside it. What you do is pack as many as you can inside to the point where you find it aint clipping and use move editor tool to have them near the doors. Then set them to deploy with authority limiter to 150. Then rotate them in the editor so that they're aligned with the cargo bay doors outer mesh but while still being stowed when you close the doors. If you deactivate deploy or change deploy direction the elevons should extend outside the doors. If they extend inside you need to rotate them upside down. What you do then upon Eve arrival is open the cargo bay doors, pin all the elevons context menus and then click "Deploy direction" on all the elevons. The result is that they will stick out with a very sharp angle to create incredible drag. The best part is that you can use the largest elevons (BIG_S Elevon-2) It has 4 times more lift rating then the A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S. and has a heat tolerance of 2400 degrees so doesn't do poof as quickly as the airbrakes. It's a very Kerbal solution but it helps.

@Klapaucius When I see the Navball it seems your pointing to 180 degrees (south) But your plane is pointed east (90 degrees) on the runway. So it seems your commanding the ship from a command pod or probe core that is situated to the south. My bet is that it is one of the cupolas as the navball also points up while the cupola module does also. In that case Roll command Elevons will not know what to do as they will assume your nose is at the south but they're rotated 90 degrees from that direction. Of course the solution is to "command from here" on a part that faces east like the Mk2 cockpit.

I would also like slanted 1.25m > 1.875m and/or slanted 1.875m > 2.5m fuel adapters. This way I can install short aerodynamic looking 1.875m booster tanks. Only the FL-C1000 R7 booster is a 1.875m slanted tank but it is to tall for some of my design purposes. Basically I would want a FL-A151L adapter slanted version. I wish when @SQUAD made new parts in expansion packs that they would add all the part variety of all the other part sizes also. So if there is a 1.25m to 2.5m adapter every size should have a conversion adapter. And if there is one slanted adapter type from one to another size conversion, then every size conversion adapter should have that adapter type. This seems logical to me. But that is me of course and who's logic is there to question?

XD. Jolly good luck with it

You can make a 1-3 crew eve ascent vehicle plus launcher and airbrakes/heatshielding (the whole shebang) for 100-150 parts I guess. Some people do even less. The I guess part means I don't know how good you are at keeping part count low but you can. To me that's in the realm of at least 10-15fps on pretty much all semi modern computers. I hereby assume no computer is ancient but I'm sorry if yours is. Remember if part count is really a issue you can just go for the larger parts like mammoth engines or even overpowered vector engines and the larger Kerbodyne tanks. It may not be the most efficient way but through this route you won't end up with a complex asparagus design and consequently a high part count. The ISRU bit really helps keeping part count low. If you fuel feed all the tanks fuel to the first stage you can rocket SSTO from Kerbin. Then based on the amount of Delta-v in orbit you can go directly to Gilly or Minmus to refuel. Or alternatively you do not have this fuel and you will only need a small LV-N liquid fuel stage to get you there. Then refuel and go to Eve. This means you wont need a separate launcher off of Kerbin. If you had enough Dv you could even do a rocket powered descent to Eve. That way you wont even need heatshields.

Not sure what made you say that. Is it something I said? I don't think it's possible to do what you want and 5thhorsemen explained why. Electric rovers can't get the speed required so I gave advice in reconsidering the challenge rules. But for some reason I'm new here Newish at best but I think that includes yourself also.