Znath

I replaced the engine from my standard launcher with the new nuclear thermal rocket engine. The result was that out of my initial 4 tanks of fuel I had when I left orbit. I landed on Mun, lifted off, and returned with 2 fuel tanks left! Usually I'm down to one half a tank or less! The landing didn't go well because I had too much fuel that the engines couldn't burn it off in time. I'm hoping that the extra fuel will mean I can use this design to get to the other planets. Hey at least the nuclear engine didn't break, so we saved some cash this time.

I did a report on these a long time ago. The idea is that you have a gas superheated in what is essentially an open ended nuclear reactor. The gas expands based on the heat exchange from the nuclear reaction and then you thrust based on that expansion. The benefit being you're not simply burning a fuel to make it heat and expand, you're both heating a gas as well as generating power from the nuclear reactor.... Naturally, the secondary benefit isn't really needed in KSP, but... they are more efficient overall. On idea was to launch a nuclear powered "space bus" in a high Earth orbit and leave it in orbit any time we would need to reach the moon. Then a shuttle can dock to it, fly to the moon, park the bus in orbit... land... re-dock, and return. **I may also add that unlike the Kerbal version, there's no radioactive exhaust in the real version... Though there was a cold-war nuclear powered jet engine that did.

Something that might be interesting either officially or via mods. Lighter-than-air craft. Which on Eve might be easier. If it's a non-air atmosphere like some super dense gas instead. You might be able to set up a station hovering in the sky suspended by balloons. With atmosphere that thick, it can be easily pushed along with propellers. Whether the game can even do that or not, I don't know. It's just a thought. At the least, I bet you could throw some wings on a lander and have it gently drift to the surface. The gravity is higher, but not that much higher really. The air density will be the greatest issue on landing and takeoff from Eve. 5x air density is enough I'm not sure I'd even attempt a Kerbal landing on the surface.

I finally got a rocket to land on the moons easily now. So what I've been doing is modifying it to make it more and more reliable. Then I've also modified my rocket to be able to launch satellites that orbit around the moons too. You could also attempt to make something like Voyager and gravity whip it off the moon to get to interplanetary space. There's more than just landing on the surfaces. Make up missions! Launch satellites, make rovers, etc etc/

If Eve has 5x earth's air viscosity, I wonder if you can land even without parachutes? It at the least, with very few parachutes. I'm sure when it's finally out we'll know whether or not air breathing engines work on it.' If they do, it'll actually be possible to lift back off from it. If they don't, it will be tremendously difficult. I remember on Orbiter, the pressure was so great on Venus that rockets couldn't even function. On the other hand, as long as the atmosphere isn't corrosive, you could take off with propellers.. now there's a funny idea.

This is my "most reliable lander" I use it for my general purpose shuttle/lander. I've found I can easily modify it for payloads into orbit, or I can use it to land on the moons. This particular one I fitted that pod in the background onto the nose, lowered it to the surface (inverted) and set it down and re-landed. I can also add or remove side tanks like in the picture. This particular model has 10 RCS thrusters for added thrust to be able to invert itself over the Minimus surface. Another model I have, drops the side fuel tanks off as beacons on Mun. Still, my favorite thing to do is drop off special beacons on Minimus I wouldn't necessarily say mine is "the best" or even the most stable. The height makes it easy to modify, but then again, it also makes it easy to tip. So I have to find fairly flat surfaces in order to land anywhere.

Eve sounds interesting... but... I don't think it's possible to land and leave on. The gravity + 5x density air I don't know how it'll work. With air that thick, you could practically get into orbit with a balloon or swim through the atmosphere like a submarine. You could probably land with a few parachutes alone on the plus side. If air breathing engines would work, maybe that'd be the best way too. I'm probably going to try for the desert planet first. It's smaller, thinner atmosphere, and further out, so returning will be easier too. I don't know if I'll be able to get further out though, it's just about the limit of my lander to reach minimus/mun. At best I can only hope a Mun gravity whip could get me that far out.

And with very little modification, I was able to do a follow-up to my pre-fuel-fix Minimus landing The landing also includes a drop off of a special payload, what I'm calling a "radio telescope" It has to land, invert upside-down, land the telescope down, lift off backwards, then land again. Initial landing to stabilize everything and save some RCS fuel Inversion and touchdown using RCS Liftoff to realign the ship for a normal landing Landed Bill setting up the array on the "Radio Telescope" The inverted landing almost botched because those two big full fueltanks on the sides add to the moment of inertia a lot. Either way it seems it went fine in the end. The inversion uses 10 RCS thrusters which is adequate for Minimus, I don't think it'd work well for Mun though, you would need quite a lot more for a lander my size. I was rather pleased that I didn't have to do massive modifications to the lander to get this done. I stripped the extra antennae and landing feet from the tanks but that's about it.. even that was probably unnecessary. On the way back I managed to get a perfect polar orbit on Mun, but decided not to land, which was a good idea since I barely had enough to get back when I finally landed in the sea... (though I'd rather have landed on land...) I think Bill was happy to make it back what ever the case. My space junk isn't that regular,.. one problem with these mid stages is they're 9 fueltanks a 3waycoupler, and engines, They're also in a steep orbit because they provide a lot of the force to get to final orbit. Luckily, yes, space is huge. The odds of hitting one are pretty rare. One time I did have the game stop to 1x speed because a chunk came within 100m of me, I didn't even have that much out there!

First off, the launcher which I believe is the most crucial part! Lands with almost three full tanks on Mun. I thought about landing on Minimus after that, but I figured that'd be best for another day. Insurance will probably cover that. I had a lot of balance issues trying to get it to stop spinning from various boosters and so on. Eventually I just had the other 3 boosters drop off and kept tanks instead, that way I had the 3 main engines (center of the 2nd stage) into orbit. Though the problem being now I have that whole center section stuck in orbit each time I launch one of these.. that's a lot of space junk.. but at least it's big chunks instead of a lot of little bullets. My next test will be to see if I can strip it down a little and bring a new radio telescope to minimus using the same inversion landing I used last time.

The game's fairly new to me, I know even the devs use mods, but I don't know which ones are "officially endorsed" that's what it would take for me to use em. I wouldn't want to use one that isn't balanced, besides I don't mind the limitations of the stock game right now, I'm trying to get rockets that hold together long enough for the moon, let alone launching specialty projects. *I did get the fuel fix though, I've gotten landers to finally make it TO the moon, but they don't have much fuel afterward..

Quantum fluctuations probably. When the game starts initially, the ship kind of wobbles around. Usually you can see this too. So when you set up your SAS, the angle it sets as its "home" position can vary by a degree or two just due to how things wobble and flex. I'd also bet that it doesn't always wobble the same way.

Where is this fix for the fuel thing? I guess it does make things a lot simpler for it to just always be 1:1 on a linear progression. I was mostly just curious about how real engines work in this regard. I'd still rather engines were more efficient than they are now. I have a feeling my current setup isn't 1.7 capable since full thrust usually screws my fuel load. My biggest limitation is really the speed of my computer so I'm constrained by the size of my original launcher.

On Orbiter, the pressure of the atmosphere is so great that rockets don't even work for the most part. Will that be the same on KSP? On top of that,... is it an atmosphere air breathing engines would work in? I guess those are things still to come. It would be interesting if some sort of engine would thrive on Eve because of some ultra high oxygen concentration. Though it's quite possible, even likely, that it'll be some toxic non-combustible useless gas since that's how Venus is. Either way, wonder how long it is til the "Eve Prize" is claimed, of a landing and return to Kerbin is claimed.

I'm assuming everyone's already aware of the current fuel efficiency issue. But something I thought I'd bring up is regarding efficiency at various throttle levels. Should efficiency drop at full burn? If so, how much? I would just think that like most engines like cars, jets, etc... full throttle really burns a lot more fuel. The question being though also if it should burn the same amount of fuel per the same amount of force. ie 10 units of force burns 10 units of fuel/min 5 units of force burns 5 units of fuel/min Or should it be 10 units of force burns 12 units of fuel/min 5 units of force burns 5 units of fuel/min Where in the 2nd case, full burn does give more thrust, but wastes 2 units of fuel. That extra is basically wasted because the engines are just going berserk turning a fraction of the thrust simply into heat rather than force of thrust. I believe currently it's basically like that. In my opinion, it seems more like engines burn way more fuel when at full. Some people say that currently low thrust is really "more efficient" by a bug. The thing is, when the "fuel bug" is fixed. I'd rather full thrust was made more efficient rather than having partial thrust made less efficient. That is, if it is true that the original intent of the game designer is 10 thrust = 10 fuel used and 1 thrust = 1 fuel exactly. My guess right now, is yes, it's supposed to be a uniform 1:1 thrust to fuel ratio. I'd just rather they were fixed on the side of efficiency, It'd sure make my life easier..

Is it me or is the "full burn" consumption for rocket engines extremely high? I know there's the "fuel bug" but still, it seems if I go full burn, I can't get anywhere now...

Well firstly, a moon is a moon; Mun is Kerbin's moon only. It's the proper name for Kerbin's moon. This is similar to the name for Earth's moon actually being Luna. Thus, Lunar surface. I imagine there's some method for naming the descriptive version of a proper name, eg Venusian, Martian, Murcurian, Lunar, etc.. I'm no English major though. So I couldn't really say what the proper method for deriving it for like "Eve" or "Bop" would be though.

I have a standing theory that the arch(es) really are some kind of gate. My recent attempts in 1.6 have shown that there really is some kind of 'barrier' when you go under them. Rather, I hopped there on foot with my Kerbal and upon going through, POOF "dead" I wasn't even going especially fast, honestly. That leads me to believe this is intentional. I think some day the devs might make it into some kind of portal. To where? who knows? But otherwise, unless it's a massive bug, it makes no sense to kill things traveling through. It's also large enough to fit any spacecraft that can be built as far as I can tell. This thing is enormous.

I'm an Engineer and I like KSP too.. well I'm not a rocket engineer, just mechanical. I've got Orbiter, but it's more of a hyper-realistic space simulator. That's great and all, but it's not so much creative as just hardcore simulating things. The thing I like about KSP is the creativity and slightly simplified nature of the game. The interface is a lot easier, things you need are right there, and this isn't even complete yet and it has all this. I do also like the ability to create and customize my ships. It's interesting to look at each person's ships they produce and see the different priorities and outcomes from similar goals.

I really kind of like the idea of a "broken planet" Though it's not really relevant to this version, it would be neat if there was one. There used to be this theory in the old days that there was a 2nd Earth but it orbited precisely in sync with the Earth and was always obscured by the sun. So I think it would be interesting if the "broken planet" was like this, exactly opposite orbiting on the opposite side of the sun. Then that planet could have scattered ruins (advanced) A later reward could be like... obtaining new special parts depending on what bases you explore. I'm pretty interested in the planets coming in this thing too though. Not sure how well I'll be able to get to em with my small craft I'm limited to. Maybe if the stock game included probes you could launch that could be lighter than Kerbals? If we I'd feel bad about shooting them off to their doom on one way missions. I guess my first interplanetary attempt will be to desert planet. For some reason, my people are 99% certain that the baren planet with no signs of life MUST have life. The existence of erosion sites vaguely resemble rivers. Therefor, it must be rivers. There is no other explanation.

Well the thing I find annoying is people show landers all the time! But they don't show the launch vehicle! Which is just about the most important part. My current situation means I have to keep my craft small. My current plan is to try to force my craft to be 1.7 compliant. In some ways it makes sense that full thrust is less efficient at full than partial thrust, but I don't think it's meant to be to this degree. And perhaps it was never intended to be more efficient after all just because it's lower thrust.. Either way I need to try and get efficient landings without low thrust often.

What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell so sweet. Right? They could name it 0.0.1.0.6 and it'd be the same thing. I've also experimented with rovers, but I dunno mine never seem to work great. The stock landing gear tend to dig into the ground and screw up. That might be related to the amount of weight I don't know. I'm hoping my design isn't too dependent on the "fuel bug" but I think it can still work without it. I almost got a 3 man pod to land on the moon and return on this setup but it didn't quite work. If I was a hair more efficient it would have worked, but again, I think that fuel bug was a major player either way.

Ok well I can't really do large missions due to the power of my old computer. Nonetheless, here are my current successful designs. Some I did post on my intro topic but I figure they're better here too. First: My standard launcher, the basis for most of my missions. I can modify it with RCS modules, satellite payloads, or modify the side tanks as landers and beacons to drop on surfaces. This model carries a "satellite" since I'm using straight up vanilla right now, it's very crude. My lander at the arch on Mun. My Kerbal isn't present because... he investigated The Arch! Apparently yes there's an invisible death wall. My theory which the unmanned station is now monitoring, is that this Arch will later on be some kind of wormhole teleporter. It's big enough to fit a large craft through it and instantly kills anything that touches it currently even at low speeds. No mission is currently planned to rescue him from wherever he went. The pod left on the surface will remain as an escape pod for crashed missions. My most complex mission so far! The mission goes all the way to minimus, lands on the far side... then it lifts off, inverts and hovers to gently set down the space telescope, reverses upwards, then lands normally again (so the crewman can finish the setup) Ready for Minimus orbital burn Over the landing site selected. When it lands (double parachutes) it has a half tank remaining, this is my safety fuel basically. That much leeway really helps keep me from running out or running into a big mission-ending problem. Some of it might be due to the "Fuel Bug" but hopefully most of it isn't. My standard lander often has enough fuel to get to Minimus, Mun, and then back with much to spare. Payload missions generally have enough to land and leave too. Hopefully my current design won't need too much modification to reach the planets when they come along.

That might explain why some of the time I have a lot of extra fuel... I think my lander currently will work even when this is fixed. But some of my more minimal landers will probably have to be updated in 1.7 that kinda sucks. My current setup worked in 1.3 and is just slightly modified for 1.6. So I think it'll work mostly once this bug is fixed. I'm going to just enjoy the current bug while I can

What I usually do, is I try to intersect my orbit's apex where Minimus' orbit intersects the same plane that Kerbin and Mun are on. Then I do one orbital correction to angle up with Minimus, and sometime I'll retro thrust to shorten my orbit (that way I can adjust how many times I orbit over and over to intersect Minimus I can usually hit it in a few orbits, one thing I've found works is: once you're in the right plane of orbit, have your orbit peak out beyond Minimus' orbit by a little bit, this way you 'hang' higher than Minimus for a short time and let it catch up with you. This is my most recent, most ambitious project to Minimus. I landed and then hovered upside down with the RCS to drop this thing off and then landed again (lander in the background) to raise the signal array (ladders) for my "radio telescope" I've found, actually, that it is easier/cheaper to land and take off from Minimus than Mun because of its size. Once you get the handle on orbital corrections, it's not that hard.

Ok well I can't really do large missions due to the power of my old computer. Nonetheless, here are my current successful designs. Some I did post on my intro topic but I figure they're better here too. First: My standard launcher, the basis for most of my missions. I can modify it with RCS modules, satellite payloads, or modify the side tanks as landers and beacons to drop on surfaces. This model carries a "satellite" since I'm using straight up vanilla right now, it's very crude. My lander at the arch on Mun. My Kerbal isn't present because... he investigated The Arch! Apparently yes there's an invisible death wall. My theory which the unmanned station is now monitoring, is that this Arch will later on be some kind of wormhole teleporter. It's big enough to fit a large craft through it and instantly kills anything that touches it currently even at low speeds. No mission is currently planned to rescue him from wherever he went. The pod left on the surface will remain as an escape pod for crashed missions. My most complex mission so far! The mission goes all the way to minimus, lands on the far side... then it lifts off, inverts and hovers to gently set down the space telescope, reverses upwards, then lands normally again (so the crewman can finish the setup) Ready for Minimus orbital burn Over the landing site selected. When it lands (double parachutes) it has a half tank remaining, this is my safety fuel basically. That much leeway really helps keep me from running out or running into a big mission-ending problem. My standard lander often has enough fuel to get to Minimus, Mun, and then back with much to spare. Payload missions generally have enough to land and leave too. Hopefully my current design won't need too much modification to reach the planets when they come along.