bsalis

My 2c... - Test all the components before embarking on yo mission. - It doesn't take many crafts brought together to make your Big Big Plans having Big Big Lag... so economise on parts as best as you can

Oh my. This has been suggested before. Always ends badly. This is also on the What Not To Suggest list. The time has come...

1. Not alone here, but I figured out a transfer that works really well for reaching targets in an inclined orbit, especially since you can meet it at the Ascending or Descending node. I call it a "timed transfer" since you set a location first, then adjust your arrival time to coincide with the target. Basically you set your Ap (or Pe if going down), to intersect with the target. Then adjust the Pe height to set your arrival back at Ap to rendezvous. May need to loop around a few.. it's effective but takes longer (in game time). 2. Worked out a way to always get an intercept directly with Laythe rather than messing about aerobraking around Jool first. Only costs tens of dV to do as well. I don't understand why so few people do this, or even know it is possible.

It is actually easy to find online from many sources, and free. I believe the copyright has expired or somesuch. One source: http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf It is a fascinating and entertaining read, even if your knowledge of chemistry is basic. The book was originally brought to my attention from this blog article I posted about. I finally got around to reading it recently, only days before this thread was mega-bumped. One of those that's-just-weird moments.

I lost interest a bit past half season. I did like it though.

Like others have posted, I can't give an exact answer. My understanding is that Geo orbits, unlike LKO, are basically permanent. Considering they are almost stationary, any traces of atmosphere up there are probably moving at much the same velocity.

I suspect that you could possibly simulate a sway bar/anti-roll bar in the game. However with the wheel physics as they are, it may not translate into anything useful. I think more simple tactics may help, like... - long wheelbase, and wide spacing - low CoM - less grippy wheels (... you're using the nice looking ones aren't you, the ones that grip like mad) - driving at low speed and using physics warp to go "faster"

You could argue either way that the LV-909 should have an alternator or not. Personally I think it made sense that it did not have one when it was the smallest engine in the game, and electricity didn't matter so much. Now with an even smaller (and quite OP) engine available, and electricity so critical, an alternator should probably be added. Or mebe the tech tree will allow you to upgrade it sometime. Not sure why you posted an LV-909 discussion thread in this section of the forum, but anyhow.

Might not be a big reveal, but some news on next steps of Career mode... There was also a comment by HarvesteR that the Career-mode-as-Tutorial is NOT a temporary thing. No answers at all to anything related to Resources too. This is telling, and personally not an issue for me, but will be to many.

Hmm, I'm sure I am not alone in thinking of asking about what vision they have for the completed game. I am reasonably certain that since the release of the initial Career mode, they have a firm plan in mind now.

Welcome the to somewhat nerdy mad house.

Thanks. It's all blurry from the video compression. I wanted to make sure the video was not too large in size. If anyone is interested you can have a look at the script here. It's not pretty, but it works fine and can be adapted to other SSTO Spaceplanes. In summary, the sequences are as follows... Launch and initial Ascent: Launch was just a simple timed sequence. Jet ascent was another simple sequence of small pitch changes based on altitude. Jet Acceleration: Now things get interesting. From 12Km to the operational ceiling of 24Km, I scaled the pitch to a SIN curve, with an additional 12 degrees. Such that at 24Km, the peak of the curve, I would have 12 degree pitch to hold altitude. Rocket Ascent and Circularization: This is triggered by fuel quantity. Then some more pitch changes by fuel quantity. Thrust cut when Ap hits 100Km. Circularization burn is triggered by ETA to Ap. Ends when Pe above 99.9Km. Once in orbit I start printing out the distance to KSC each second. Re-entry: This is triggered upon a certain distance to KSC, but a longitude trigger would have worked just as well. Re-entry burn ends at a specific Pe. I just used a fixed pitch for re-entry, with a small change at 20Km. Glide Descent: This was the hardest part for me. Beginning at 18Km, i used trigonometry to figure out a glide slope to the KSC runway threshold. Imagine a Right Triangle with the Hypotenuse a direct line from craft to runway. By running this algorithm over and over again, I could work out my deviation above or below the glide slope. I then used a linear scale of the deviation to set pitch (with some other tweaks), so as to hold the craft close to the slope. As for (yaw) steering to make sure I was lined up with the runway. I just used a linear scale of latitude deviation to set yaw, with a max of 10 degrees and min of 0.1 degrees. Landing: This sequence starts at 300m, with just holding current pitch, cancelling yaw, and lowering landing gear. At 100m another fixed pitch is used to start slowing vertical descent. Switching to radar altitude, at 20m i used a fixed pitch up to flare for a second. Then used a linear scale to set pitch based upon altitude between 20m and 3.5m. At 3.5m steering was unlocked and brakes turned on.

Liking this mod. Thought I would post here my K-prize qualifying run, done completely under kOS control. It's on SkyDrive - clicky pic below to play.

... and how did you go?

Well this is something I have a lot of experience at! Enough vertical lifting engines to give you a >1 TWR. Vertical lift engines must must have net thrust vector be directly under the CoM, even as fuel drains. You also cannot place them too much above or below the horizontal thrust vector, otherwise you will get a pitching moment. Best to pick your CoM placement first, then work around that. Dry mass must balance dry mass and wet mass must balance wet mass. Generally this means symmetry, with CoM in the middle of the craft.Anyhows, some examples of mine... Lets start with a simple 2 jet VTOL aircraft - the Wasp. One vertical and one horizontal jet. Here in the SPH, I have pulled away some wings to show the underside. The vertical lift jet is attached to a big plate (which is obscured by the top wings). This puts the engine along the centerline, and bang on the CoM. Dry mass at front (fore) balances dry mass at the back (aft), and note that the neck is fuselage, not a tank. There's four jet tanks there, symmetric around the engine. A small plate separates the stacks, and I have routed all the fuel by pipes to have them drain together. This is the Butterfly, a VTOL SSTO (see K-prize here) Here is the SPH view of the underside, with some wings removed. Reaction wheels chosen to be where the CoM should be. Note the symmetry of all the tanks, and that the vertical lift jets are each side of the CoM. They are also under the wings, so do not shift the CoM up or down. Again dry mass fore balances aft, with four small rockomax rockets attached top and bottom help the balance... top-tip here: slide surface mount dry mass fore-aft to fine tune the CoM. (keen viewers may notice that the centerline rocket tanks will not drain symmetrically, but they are only used in ascent to orbit and are empty when you get back, do do not unbalance the craft). This is the Valkyrie, a three seater VTOL SSTO (see K-prize here) Here is the SPH view of the underside, with some wings removed. Big jet tank chosen to be where the CoM should be. Once again, tank layout is symmetric. This has three vertical lift jets, one fore, two aft. This is a more difficult setup and not recommended, but can work if you are persistent enough. Hope this helps!

I was going to suggest the same thing. A moveable off-centre mass. Would work for pitch and yaw, but not roll.

LMAO I cannot believe people are defending the legs in this version as working-as-intended. They were made squishy so novices could slam down at 5m/s and survive in one piece, instead of the more realistic sub 1m/s as would be more realistic and expected. It reminds me of people saying SAS should not lock on a heading because it makes it more challenging, even after Squad developers explicitly said it should be locking. Anyone who thinks that the change was to make craft lean over as an additional challenge to elite players is clearly not on the same page as Squad. You may want to skip forward a chapter or two. The fact that pro players using structural parts and aircraft landing gear as a *better* alternative to legs should be a sign.

Yeah. Christmas every 8.5 hours. Oh the horror.

Your argument seems to be that Nuclear Power would be totally safe and incident free if the world was free of corruption, insincerity, politics, stupid decisions, and morons. If anything, the major misconception about Nuclear Safety is that it is a technology issue. It's not, it is a people issue.

Pretty certain that Courage and Stupidity only effects facial expressions. There is also a "BadS" switch. Which my understanding is that if it is set to True, the Kerbal with grin/laugh when his co-pilots are scared.

Yes - a Bi-elliptic transfer... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-elliptic_transfer You might want to play around with some maneuver nodes and see what you get delta-V wise.

I think I am limited by my imagination and assumptions of what is not possible. If I think something is possible or I have seen others do it, then I have been able to do it myself with enough persistence. It's one of the really amazing aspects of the game. Dare mighty things people!

That is pretty awesome. But... Will it blend?

Oh meh gerd, what have you done. My tip to try - skip a rigid structure. Try reaction wheels evenly spaced up the stack. Turn gimbals off.

Landed another spaceplane on Duna. This was easier before the last art pass.