antiquark

Feedback/critiques (not to be taken the wrong way!) All IMHO of course! - The TD-5001 tank could have more fuel. As it is, it contains slightly more than the FL-T3000. But if you stack a T3000 on a 5001 tank, they're virtually the same height, but there's still a big volume difference. Geometrically, if you calculate the volume difference from the FL-R1000 tank, the ratio would be (5/3)^3 or 4.26. So a scaled up R1000 should have 4.23 * 6255 or 26458 units of fuel. Similarly, if you scaled up the mass and dry mass, they would be 147 and 15 respectively. (Same comments apply to the long 5m tank). - What personally I did to distinguish the 5m from the 3m tanks was to use the orange color scheme for the large tanks. It looks pretty good that way! - According to Wikipedia, the real-world Nerva engine had a sealevel isp of 380 and a vacuum isp of 850. But it weighed 75,000 lbs! (Yeah, that big core of uranium ain't the lightest material). In comparison, the J2-X engine gives four times the thrust, but weight 1/13th the weight. So the big price of the NTR isp is the mass of the engine itself. Those quibbles aside, great package!

BTW, if anyone's having a hard time finding it, here's a screenshot showing the latitude, longitude, and location on the Mun... It's near the south pole.

Good luck!!!

This is a three-part challenge. First: find The Matterhorn. Second: land on The Matterhorn. Third: do an EVA on The Matterhorn. Bonus points: take lots of scenic pictures, then go home safe and sound. Here's my semi-successful attempt: This landing made possible by MechJeb (almost)... Oops, seem to have misjudged my center of gravity... I'll take a look around, Jebediah said he'd be waiting for me... "HELLOOOO... ((echo echo echo))" Hmmm, what now... Well, I'll just sit here and wait, someone will rescue me eventually!

I tried it, it's pretty good! But it seems to have a fuel flow bug, if I make a small rocket with four Odin fuel tanks, it can go to the moon and back in a single stage.

Regarding the idea of "too many engines", I think that the new ISP parameter actually permits more engines without redundancy. You can choose between low-ISP, high thrust engines (think the F-1) vs high-ISP lesser-thrust engines (think the J2-X). The KW rocketry pack makes good use of this idea, by providing engines that are efficient for different purposes. Maybe you could have a little survey to ask which engines people use. The engines I rarely use are the GG-M4, the Large Bertha and Medium Bertha. Everything else, I used a lot!

Give something like this a try. It could land on the Mun, but didn't have enough fuel to return to Kerbin. So it needs some tweaking, but it gives the general idea.

Can you post a craft file? (via for example). Or even an image would be good (via imgur.com). There are some tricks to getting this mod to work. Two main ones: use the stronger struts to keep things together, and don't overpower your rocket.

Struts struts struts!

MechJeb is your friend! But if you want to avoid mechjeb, here's a method that worked well for me: go straight up for 10,000 meters, then rotate to a 45 degree angle until 50,000 meters, then go horizontal after that. Keep pressing the M key to see the map, then you'll be able to see if you've reached orbit.

42 tons to minmus orbit. Almost all stock, except for MechJeb and the CrewTank. Not really a huge amount, but I'd be interested to see what other people can get up there, especially with stock parts. I've included the .craft file. It's covered with struts, so the lag is pretty horrible for the first and second stages. On the pad: Orbiting Minmus: Craft file download: http://www./?c59j9477w8ll8cr

Cool feature. Is there a way (or will there be a way) to actually control RCS thrusters, SAS modules, etc, from the autom8 program? Then we could develop our own control algorithms for attitude control and things like that.

It would for sure. The current ASAS modules rely on PID equations for control. However PIDs are generic and have to be fine-tuned for every situation. The NASA equations above, are optimized for RCS thrusting, so you wouldn\'t have the problem of the ship oscillating like a pendulum.

Did it with only two stages! I cheated by using mechjeb, but at least it proves the concept... http://imgur.com/a/igGQc#0

Does the challenge permit multiple stages, or should it be a SSTO - single stage to orbit?

Even 7 meters is workable... if you cover the thing in struts.

I scaled up some 3-m parts to 5-m, including dimensionally scaled mass increases, etc. Seemed to work ok (see pics). Couple of problems though: it wouldn\'t sit still on the pad, it wanted to dance and squirm around. I fixed that with landing legs. Also, the default node attachments could barely keep the engine in place. Sometimes the engine would get de-centered, then the rocket would start flailing. I fixed that by attaching lots of struts to the engine.

One thing that would be nice is a 5 meter shroud, it would cover up those bulky landers. Also a 5 meter tank would be useful. And 5 meter engines too!

Actually I think the sizing is pretty good, it allows a more detailed, 'fine grained' approach to design. Maybe just keep the existing things as-is, and add a few more extra-large pieces.

How did you aim???

Has anyone considered using NASA algorithms for attitude control, in particular, in the vacuum of space? I was reading the book 'The Apollo Guidance Computer' and the authors talked a bit about attitude control. There were two interesting points: (1) in space, the control is simpler because there\'s no air drag. And (2), the control algorithm requires a 'deadband' or 'deadzone' within which the RCS thrusters are turned off. Without the deadband, you have the thrusters continually firing back-and-forth, using up fuel. I\'ve attached two diagrams from the book. One is generic, the other one shows how the attitude control is separated into 'decision areas.' The vertical axis is the rate error (degrees per second) and the horizontal axis is the angular error (degrees). In the Apollo crafts, you could choose two accuracy modes. Fine grained gave a deadband of 0.5 degrees, and coarse grained had a deadband of 5 degrees. The latter number seems quite large, but hey, if it worked for Apollo, it should be OK for KSP!

This is a challenge to post something you did in KSP, which in hindsight, was really quite pointless! Here\'s my entry: I got a 133 ton rocket plane airborne. (See image).

That sounds like an interesting challenge. However I wouldn\'t look forward to the hours sitting there waiting for my orbits to align. Are there any budding rocket scientists here who can convert those numbers to velocities? Then I could simulate the fuel usage, without actually getting too far from Kerbin. For example, the instructions would be something like: - you enter orbit - to accelerate to 5000 m/s - then decelerate and land on Kerbin - then take off again, accelerate to 5000 m/s, then land again. Or something like that. Would save a lot of time!

Does anyone know how to make the ascent autopilot more stable for massive rockets? It works fine for large rockets, but once you get into 'extra large,' there\'s a point where the nose of the rocket starts spiralling slightly, then the whole rocket is eventually spinning out of control.

11718 m/s!