Nao

Noticed recently that >randomly< on game launch or moving the mk3 cargo bay doors, they loose it's drag value, if that happens usually the parts connected by stack in front and at the rear of the bay gain a bunch of drag. But after just opening and closing the bay it's possible for all 3 parts to loose drag altogether or worse one of the pars starts getting massive drag while others sit at zero. examples: the large holding tank is inside the bay to note that parts inside are shielded other cases fromthe same design - two small mods were installed but i did test later on completely stock install (used in the above picture and the more indepth description mentioned later) and it worked the same way: - drag completely gone from bay, it's contents and two adjacent mk3 parts - some time later same flight after opening and closing the doors - one of the parts get 250 points of drag. Here is the craft link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vjr0jf6rfo3j3jz/cargo%20bay%20bug.craft?dl=0 What happens usually: On first load everything is fine - then moving cargo bay can disable drag on stack connected adjacent parts - after that if we revert flight to runway the cargo bay loose drag value from the start, and moving doors start to do more random glitching (adjacent parts can gain or loose drag). Notable things that can be causing this: the cargo bay have two docking ports inside (stack connection), removing one of them changes the glitch behavior, removing both fixes it for first launch - if the revert is used, it's possible to get the bug without any parts inside. edit: after a suggestion from other forum member, i tried renaming physics.cfg file, the new file is different (i was on a stock install earlier... so idk why), but the bug in question prevails.

Sigh... >BUG WARNING< guys, when using cargo bays, make sure drag values are correct for it and nearby parts. Im trying to get a craft based on mk3 parts to orbit (quite similar to "Mk3 Cargo 1.04 by slugy"), and >sometimes< whatever is connected to the front and back of the cargo bay receives extra drag while cargo bay drag drops to zero. The net value of the three parts is close to correct usually but i had it start to grow (like a memory leak, only with drag )... this gives erratic ascents, sometimes it's peace of cake, sometimes it just can't ascent at all (worst case i had was up to 250 drag points at 8000m alt and only 300m/s speed on the cargo bay (other Mk3 parts further away had 20-40 times less drag) After moving the cargo bay door several times i managed to get the bug to go the other way and canceled all drag of cargo bay, it's contents and whatever other parts that were connected to the front and rear (image) and then i opened and closed the cargo bay note: large holding tank is the cargo (not visible), only the adapter at the rear (not connected directly to cargo bay) had correct value. The only two mods im running are engineer and hyperedit... it could be fault of either of them - im going to check that. But for now it's just a heads up that something like that can happen. EDIT: threw out both mods, still happening i'll try reporting this if it's not already. EDIT2: it happens often on revert flights, and is influenced by presence of stack connected docking ports inside, made a thread here if anybody want to chip in on the experiences: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126792-1-0-4-Cargo-bays-drag-is-glitching-(especially-after-reverting-flight). @Red Iron Crown Since it's high chance that the glitch is happening on reverts that often happen during challenge flights, if anybody else can confirm it, maybe it would be good idea to hold up any new submissions of cargo spaceplanes. The glitch can be both frustrating - limiting the craft or exploitative - potentially wiping drag on all mk3 sized parts for big advantage.

Yeah i was kind of surprised nothing really overheated... and i do miss the temperature challenge too (although i think the biggest wings still can overheat in 1.04).There is thermal difficulty slider already called "reentry heat" (when you start a new game) but it's set to 100% even on hard. There is also alt+F12 where we can adjust anything physics related but thats modding... Welp one thing i find interesting in this patch is the new Aerospike for sea level Eve ascents... maybe Eve rocketplanes could be viable again, that was fun to build

@Red Iron Crown. It was nothing special, kind of like with real planes: accelerate in level flight, ascent, parabolic flight to the edge of space, then accelerate in level again (~18km) and ascent again into space on rockets. I happen to record that flight for whatever reason... didn't cut it but it's speed up 4x. https://youtu.be/WSpq6iMHLus (ps: o god, i was thinking takeoff engine sounds at 4x were funny... but after that the high speed screach is bad haha, better switch off sound completely).

Weee above 50% in almost SSTO (gear is left on ground, rest is on one stage) ... 9.187/18.263*100 = 50.3% There is little bit more performance left in the design, probably up to 51% ... Although it's kind of boring with Rapiers being so good that staging anything except for used fuel tanks does not really bring improvements.

Not a big improvement above my direct competitor cybersol but i wanted to post something on the board . Rocket only three stage launcher, with 26,29% fraction. (100t / 380,37t) (last seconds of the video shows both values) 3057m/s dV vac with ~13m/s left in 70.5x70.5 orbit Don't like the idea about decouplers and docking ports to stay on launcher, its very easy to just use the 0.5m decoupler and strut it up like i did in the vid, the effect on mass is minimal (like when decoupler/Dport was part of payload) but it looks silly. Also not sure if the combined "payload + last stage" fairing actually helped here or was just a dead weight hehe , at least this kind of design thou helps stability quite nicely (for normal rockets) so maybe it will catch on. In terms of TWR it looks like the KR-1x2 is the best engine available but i wonder if the increased ISP (+15) of KS-25x4 could make enough of a difference to overcome weight penalty. Welp, at least LV-N is probably out of the picture, as it barely can lift itself up in this patch, so no long high angle burns to get the last inch of performance out of it in the last stage.

Thank you for the concern, aside from the disc i did have additional shielding and used it mostly for the camera this time anyways, (I messed around with pinhole projectors).But I do remember using the same (or very similar) discs for longer periods of time when i was a kid, when we had an eclipse somewhere in the 90's. Didn't have much information back then (no internet, and bad media coverage etc) so i guess i was lucky to not suffer problems afterwards~ (at least nothing showed up for now ). Still it was dumb of me to write that it was "good to watch" of course, i was thinking more about watching it without having to strain eyes to see details as it had good amount of dimming no artifacts. (ill strike that it in the original post) Sorry for making you concerned, and thanks.

It was perfectly sunny day in here in Wroclaw (Poland), managed to snatch a few pictures with an old digi-cam (it had 6x lens zoom, but old matrix so result is pretty so-so) and before i managed to get decent enough settings it was all over Used my trusty old "black CD's" (red black plastic with full black printing on it). It was giving a really good quality picture, and ability to watch it with both eyes without problems for long time(don't use this for any longer periods of time actually). Also tried welding goggles too but it was a mess. The ghosts were from an overprint on the CD leaking light... it looks cool at least pic taken at 10:51 (maximum sun cover) Best quality shot. And a small gif compilation (8frames) - now i kick myself for not setting stuff up a day earlier and actually trying to make a one picture per minute photo. Grrr

@K^2, @cpast Yeah that was a pretty smelly brainfart, thought of energy conservation like it was momentum conservation... not the first and probably not the last time that happened. Sigh me and the stupid basics blurring out after some time. Idk how i actually manage to get more advanced math/physics right sometimes. At least it was refreshing to plow through old equations to find where was the error~~. Thanks for the help! And please carry on

But here is the thing, if we consider a conservation of momentum would the wing not loose as much energy as the air has gained? Not even counting any resistances, just reactions between wing and air, it would mean that to keep any plane afloat the wings would be slowed by deflected air by at least 9,81 m/s. Which does not happen for any plane, maybe except for space shuttle. To put it in different units, Concordia glider, 533kg of plane mass, needs ~2kW of power to fly level, how can you imagine air mass moved by 5.228kN of force by less than 2kW of energy (not even counting drag). It just doesn't add up if we just consider lift comes from air that is moving downwards after plane has passed. Not saying there is no air movement, but just that reasoning the lift force with air movement does not make much sense. Because the air that went downward will partially return upward as the difference pressures caused by plane start equalizing again. The pressure would be the cause of the momentary downward movement of air (although idk if it would even manage to add up to 100% of the plane weight in a momentary flow), while end result would have only a small amount of downward moving air. edit: (im slow) @cpast i mentioned in my previous post that jet engines (at least the turbofans) use AIR as reaction mass... im calling it a "rocket" because this is KSP forum edit2: (ill actually take time and respond in a moment to your post properly @cpast)

And that's whats doesn't add up for me, if the requirement is >moving< the mass (that is changing it's velocity) it means it works like a rocket (actually a jet engine as the reactionary mass (air) comes from outside)... and we know how efficient that is to hover. Not trying to reinvent the wheel here as we all know wings aren't rockets, but the idea of lift coming 100% from moving the air mass downward to suspend plane on constant altitude kind of is saying just that. Wings are jetpacks! I agree,that Bernoulli effect is not good explanation of lifting force, but i think most of it actually comes from pressures and not air movement (kinetic energy). In the end both air pressure and its downward movement are means to transfer the energy and it can be said that the force supporting the plane in air has it's reaction on the ground itself through interaction with air. So i wonder if we should not consider what happens in a whole column of air the plane is suspended in with the foot print of wing area, and not just frontal area times chord, or a cylindrical shape around the wing.

Sorry guys, im kind of lost here, does the means we need to deflect the (100%) of the plane mass in air mass downward to stay afloat? If so wouldn't that mean that a plane without propulsion would deaccelerate at (at least) 9.81m/s in level flight? That is assuming the kinetic energy of air deflected downward is coming from the plane, regardless of how it actually happens (drag, pressure, deflection, etc) the outcome sounds just wrong. High performance gliders can have level flight deacceleration as low as 0.15m/s, and that includes drag losses too.

This thread is a weirdest kind of Deja vu... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90918-Spaceplane-Carrier-Landings

Not quite i think. I have a one ship design (basically a small tweak to my previous SST-LaytheAndBack plane) that could in theory go below 70funds/kerbal at like 8-12 intakes per engine. I just need enough time to fly this... so it's "coming soon tm" T_T

Nah I kind off burned out on KSP long time ago haha, so no way i'm spending even more time on redoing more complicated mission now unless we get some competition going:) (I think going below 80 per kerbal would be possible, maybe even below 60 with an extreme design). I'm ok with the 15 kerbals and a pilot for 109,7 bucks, thanks!

So i've been crunching some numbers and came to the conclusion that one of the most cost efficient options to do the challenge is actually direct SSTO... I've made a plane and on second test run i kind of completed the challenge. It's "kind off", as it lacks many of the early screen-shots (only started to make them seriously around Laythe) and then i did it in Sandbox, but honestly i don't see any reasons to fulfill the "This has to be done in Career mode, for obvious reasons." haha. (It's not like i even have a career save, so i would have to cheat everything in anyways.) The craft was designed with a self restriction of no "cubic struts", minimal usage of struts and minimal clipping. The end results is a plane that can work with only one strut (final design has 6 total, for general rigidity) and basically no clipping "phantom" forces. It has 7.5 (mainly) circular intakes per jet engine, so it's not a total airhog. Total of 14 control surfaces with quite balanced aero (for 35+ton craft), so it doesn't exploit infiniglide too much. Also the 15 small pods are used more for visual features, it would be well possible to get similar results with the big 4 kerbal cans. Since the craft returns to the launch point, only the costs of consumables are counted: So the total mount of fuel used to fly to Laythe and back: 1725 liquid fuel and 1477 oxidizer = 1646 funds. Considering the flight was with 15 customers and one pilot, tickets were 109.7 fund per kerbal. Now i did a really inefficient work on the flight... for example what can be done better: -100m/s Jool transfer in a better launch window, -50m/s Mun assist (maybe much more), better Kerbin escape plane aligment -50m/s, no back and forth orbit changes around Laythe -100m/s, better Kerbin transfer window -100m/s better Jool exit angle -50m/s, Tylo assist (idk might be above -150m/s), no back and forth Kerbin capture (damn Mun!) -50m/s... So its like 650m/s of delta V could be saved in fuel and oxidizer (could be more than 250 funds in savings). Then there were like 10 funds spent on searching for proper landing spot in the darkness... All that polished would make the final landing not so terribly close too lol (landed with zero liquid fuel and 8,7 oxidizer (0.6% of total capacity). Design wise the plane cockpit could be exchanged to probe core and two capsules, totaling 17 customers (no pilot) for the exact same mass/performance, making it 96.8 funds per ticket, below 100!! But it would look worse, so naaah~~ Thinking about expanding the design, more in spirit with the challenge... Extending the mission to multi-ship one looks good on paper. For example: launch without Nerva engine and dock with one in LKO, also dump two jet engines in LKO, exchange them upon return. Adding 3 more pods to this setup gives the same mass as already done flight, so same performance. BUT there are a lot of additional costs with these systems, 50units of RCS cost more than half of a ticket (60funds) docking infrastructure is ~0.6t (one pod in weight) additional ~300m/s needed for orbital maneuvers could take more than 100funds. All in all the multi-ship would be just barely more cost efficient, with a lot more work needed. So ill wait for others to beat the 96.8 that the current craft is capable of before any more changes/flights. Cheers!

Actually, thinking more seriously, why part welder is excluded from the mod list? I've never used one so i'm not sure about implications, but it sounds strange enough to be a hint for the OP's puzzle. Is it just to stop us from easily copy parts? And so the idea would be to exaggerate some small effect with big part numbers, like using 1000 small decouplers etc... edit: also since Op didn't specify what kind of "ship" to use... what about shooting a kerbal with a part explosion

@goduranus haha, nice one... going further with this: Accelerating an object with a force that is always perpendicular to direction of movement will never actually change the velocity of the object itself, only it's direction of motion. (Just like how circular orbits work, with gravity as constant acceleration). So i would just burn straight up from LKO keeping attitude on 90deg angle to velocity vector... any changes in actual velocity can be blamed on orbital mechanics (like the one that occurs when going around elliptic orbits). It could be said that accelerating an object this way would never change it's velocity by itself, no change in velocity no "delta v"... problem solved... where i can contact NASA, these guys are doing it all wrong!

Most certainly is I'm just being nostalgic, really liked the raw feel back then (up to ~0.17 update)... Basically yeah. The vertical velocity dial was running from -20 to 20 m/s (linear) so it was a little faster/easier to judge the small altitude changes You have velocity vector on the nav ball, so you "eyeball" it Keeping track of the rate of changes (alt, speed and attitude angle), as you get closer to circular orbit things will change more slowly, then if you are past it the changes reverse too so you know where to stop. A little patience and experience is all you need really.

For your information, earliest KSP versions had no map (worse UI instruments and no wiki to tell you orbital velocities etc.), and people were still reaching orbit, even making them circular... Also as nine_iron mentions docking. We were successfully "docking" crafts (and even landing them together on Kerbin) before docking ports and RCS were implemented You guys are playing easy mode now :P

Welp only Titan would be bigger than 1 pixel (148% Moon's diameter), rest of the moons have diameter below Plutos (0.66 pixel) and would be invisible. So it's a partial "miss" by the creator

This is something that a "pistol shrimp" can do! . Maybe that's the secret? Maybe Chinese, have already weaponized their shrimps and are just looking for a fast delivery sub since the shrimp's destructive range is too small?Also a wiki link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonoluminescence on the fusion in bobbles and shrimps.

A bumpty-bump . Even thou the space interviews are of the "seen one, seen all" kind, it was still a good watch. Thanks for sharing! The comment about possibilities of living in space for very long periods of time was encouraging... lucky guy

If i had to go "Kerbal" on the concept... I would set up an aerial refueling of the OMS during the 2minute window of descent with a specially fitted KC-135 to supply hypergolic fuel (lol ). And having a shallower and more controlled descent with the use of rocket engines. (actually the refueling could be set up in a way so that the shuttle would be towed during it to have more time for fuel transfer) Another thing that comes to mind is the operation Credible Sport, where a C-130 was fitted with short burn rockets to rapidly slow down. It's a proven concept (within kerbal safety marigins) even thou the mission itself was scrapped, and empty SS is only like twice the weight of C-130 so it's not that much different (lol2). So in short, MOAR BOOSTERS could do the trick!

Just finished watching. Very good documentary! Thanks TeeGee. And >bump< for others that might have missed it