maackey
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Posts posted by maackey
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MechJeb has really good information readouts (that are customizeable as well) so you can see your orbital period and match it up with other satellites/spots on the ground. For example, if you want a geostationary satellite over KSC, but are on the exact opposite side of the world in a geostationary orbit, you could burn retrograde until your orbital period is 5 hours (instead of 6) and wait for three orbits before burning prograde to geostationary orbit again (alternatively burn 3x as long so your period is 3 hours and after a single orbit you should be pretty close)
But as SnappingTurtle said, orbits will have rounding errors and drift over time, so unless you edit the save file (and never revisit those satellites again) they will drift. Scott Manley has a pretty good video on editing saves.
Here are the values I used in mine. The satellites are in an equitorial 1000km orbit spaced out 90 degrees apart. Alternatively I'm pretty sure Hyperedit can do the same things, but within the game.
-- CommSat Alpha --
ORBIT
{
SMA = 1600000
ECC = 0
INC = 0
LPE = 0
LAN = 0
MNA = 0
EPH = 1234567
REF = 1
OBJ = 1
}
-- CommSat Beta --
ORBIT
{
SMA = 1600000
ECC = 0
INC = 0
LPE = 0
LAN = 0
MNA = 3.14159265359
EPH = 1234567
REF = 1
OBJ = 1
}
-- CommSat Theta --
ORBIT
{
SMA = 1600000
ECC = 0
INC = 0
LPE = 0
LAN = 0
MNA = 4.71238898038
EPH = 1234567
REF = 1
OBJ = 1
}
-- CommSat Gamma --
ORBIT
{
SMA = 1600000
ECC = 0
INC = 0
LPE = 0
LAN = 0
MNA = 1.57079632679
EPH = 1234567
REF = 1
OBJ = 1
} -
Are you going up to 10km and turning 45 deg to apoapsis? If you try to turn too quickly the drag on the front of the rocket (from going upwards so fast) can cause the rocket to flip out. This is better simulated in FAR but I've had it happen with stock aerodynamics as well. The solution is to try turning sooner and slower -- gradually turning till you are at about 45 degrees at ~12km.
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I'm just not too keen on having to figure out how to perform orbital maneuvers or land them with hand-written programs.
To each their own. Pre-programming a probe to launch/fly/land on the Mun sounds really exciting to me.
Anyway it sounds like you aren't using RemoteTech right, you can already use MechJeb to plan maneuvers and use RemoteTech to execute them. It just goes finicky when you try to let MechJeb fly everything on autopilot at long distances.
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The descriptions are plagued with terrible grammar and punctuation, and it really detracts from the whole experience. But it seems like your original post doesn't have the same level of mistakes (well, double periods show up again..), surely this isn't intentional? Do you proof-read the descriptions at all?
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I slapped together some parts and managed to do it pretty easily with the gimbals off.
Mods used: FAR, Mechjeb (for info only, it doesn't fly it that well), NovaPunch, KW, and B9. I really just slapped together the first parts I could find that looked similar to what I wanted. I could easily recreate this stock :s
Anyway, its 8.4 tons at the moment and still has 1km/s dV left.
edit: forgot a picture of it whole!
2nd edit:
now stock!
All stock parts, although I'm still using FAR, but I've still got over 1000m/s dV left, so I'm pretty sure it can make it to orbit in stock as well.
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To answer your question: yes, it's 100% useless at the moment. I'm assuming they didn't want to just delete the models, they took time to make and it would be wasteful to throw them away. Now that the old SAS unit has ASAS built in as well (check the part description, it really surprised me) it makes the ASAS part completely useless, as it's identical to the SAS, just heavier.
They've just finished a huge overhaul of the SAS system, and it will probably take another update or two to clean out or repurpose all of the now redundant parts.
They took the time to make the old VAB, SPH, Launch tower, etc. I disagree that getting rid of old assets is wasteful when it either has no purpose or has been superceded by a better model.
I hope they get rid of the ASAS at some point, as I've never liked the model. Perhaps if they switch to modular/scalable tanks. That would be awesome.
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edit: @rhoark: Just curious are those values stock or FAR? In stock I wouldn't need the airbrakes (although I've never actually tried re-entry with stock aerodynamics yet...), as the pod would have a terminal velocity of ~100m/s on final approach, but in FAR its nearly 400m/s without airbrakes -- that is if the pod could survive re-entry conditions in the lower atmosphere, which it cannot.
I agree they are quite good, but I haven't compared them with other mods' airbrakes to really deem them "overpowered". What are they more powerful than? Parachutes? They provide an entirely different role... apples and oranges. I dislike when people use the term "overpowered" for "good" or "effective". Its a relatively minor peeve, but I see it a lot on these forums.
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There are ways to reduce the sudden impact of a parachute snapping open, but those are mainly for personal parachutes/people. Typically large metal cans don't care so much about the g-forces IRL.
I personally have designed my landing pods to be able to not use parachutes at all (they still carry one for backups though), which is quite difficult with both Re-entry heat and FAR, but doable, and incredibly fun
. I got the idea from the SpaceX video with their reusable stuff. I clip in a fuel tank to the command pod, attach a couple radial engines, and the B9 air brakes (essential -- otherwise you'd need way too much fuel/rocket for it to really be considered a "pod") and start to burn when the ground is a couple hundred meters up and terminal velocity is under 200m/s. Also, Decoherent: there is no visible display, but there are sounds that are played when parts start to overheat, and when parts are suffering structural strain damage due to rapid deceleration (or acceleration for your srb-only powered rockets
) When I hear large creaking groans, and the g-meter is over 6g's I decrease the flaps on my airbrakes a bit during re-entry to reduce my drag until I get low enough to open them fully again for a softer landing. -
I haven't tried NovaPunch for a long while (because of excess parts I'd never use), this is looking really good.
It seems that all the decouplers are incredibly heavy compared to the stock ones. KW has this problem too. Any plans on making them a bit lighter?
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Quick request: can you make the KSC spot start have deposits so we can easily test our designs to make sure they are working before sending them out to space? Or what configuration files would I have to edit to make that happen?
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So I downloaded this just now, and have been playing around with the different fuel types. I made a test rocket (similar to the one in Manley's video) and switching only the fuel types MechJeb gave me these values:
LF/OX - 3401 dv - 1.14 twr - 4.5 tons
LF/LOX - 3246 dv - 1.28 twr - 4.4 tons
H2/LOX - 1764 dv - 1.5 twr - 2.7 tons
I haven't done very extensive testing, but first impressions -- I'm not sure why I would want to use anything but LF/OX combo. H2 gives better TWR (cause its light) but the dV is cut in half. It seems to me if I wanted a similar weight or twr I'd just take half the (LF/OX) fuel. What kind of fuel/engine/payload fractions do I need to make efficient use of the new fuel types, if that is even possible?
I'm going to have to drastically change my designs for nuclear rockets as well
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Protip: just ignore people who mention mechjeb. Its healthier for everybody, for or against.
Anyway, back to the topic: I found it interesting that I pretty much adopted a lot of these rules from the get-go shortly after I got into orbit and landed on the Mun.
I do make extensive use of mods, however, as they solve some "realistic" issues with KSP. FAR and Re-entry heat make it so I have to limit the size of my standard payloads and aerobrake gently/protected by heatshield, and Remote-tech also helps realism, as well as something else to do besides land/orbit. Kethane and ISA are good for extra activities as well -- which are infinitely helpful if you are getting bored with the standard game.
Limited use of time warp is probably my toughest challenge, and I'll probably bend it a bit once I get an interplanetary mothership I'm happy with. Basically I don't use more than 10,000x timewarp, so I can easily go to the Mun and minmus, but scheduling interplanetary missions is a bit more critical. I've used it to get to the planets I've been to already, but I feel uncomfortable leaving all my synchronized satellites and Kerbals back home unattended for extreme periods of time. Its allowed me to extensively develop some pretty cool stuff, like a command pod which returns to Kerbin with no parachutes
and a SSTO spaceplane shuttle which can be used for communication satellites and crew rotation. I have a series of rockets which pretty much put up everything my shuttle doesn't. They all have retro-sepratrons to de-orbit the main stage, and a command pod on the orbital stage which can de-orbit itself. I've occasionally had problems with fairings remaining in orbit, but they typically have periapses under 70km (I wish the game would delete the ones under 70 instead of whatever ridiculously low ceiling its at now, or change the path to a slowly devolving spiral, or incrementally reduce the apoapsis every time the debris passes through a periapsis less than 70).
The biggest detriments of the game for me personally are the lack of missions/progression (aka stuff to do) and (lack of) performance. I burned through the mission controller mod's default mission in a single day (only used 2 lifter rocket variations and a handful of satellite/command pod configurations), and the other pack I downloaded was just a jumble of random missions which lacked direction IMO, (also bug ridden as hell). Some people really adore graphics, but for me not much is more satisfying than a buttery smooth framerate. Fortunately both of these issues will hopefully be addressed in the future, and until then I have my other go-to games to keep me company.
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I like the fuel ship and the lander :-) Do you use the KAS for fuel lines or something else? -BJ Quest
Thanks
Yeah I've got two KAS winches on the bottom of the mining drills with attachable adapters so other, non KAS ships can still re-fuel. -
Mun Gas Station -- just west of the Armstrong Memorial.
Just realized now that I didn't have the fuel lines hooked up to my little lander. Pretty much the only thing not turned on and active in the shot
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Whats the point of this?
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Propulsion totally ruins my cubesat designs...but I'll give it a try, thanks guys.
You can place the little oscar-b tank and an ant engine *inside* the probe body using a cubic strut (or noclipping in the cheats menu -- alt f12) to keep your probe aesthetically pleasing and small. I really only did this with the sputnik probe to make it look more legitimate, but it could work with the others as well.
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You really should just consider putting a single ion drive, ant engine or RCS on your satellites to make your final adjustments. Your satellites will never have a perfectly similar orbital period and will drift out of position over time.
Also what do you mean by this?
Launch northwards (or southwards) and adjust your orbit from there. A polar orbit is no different than a horizontal orbit (other than its inclination).doesn't give me control of the separation between various polar orbits.Anyway, since even mechjeb controlled ion driven satellites get out of sync eventually, I recently just went into the save file and manually set the orbits to all have the same period. So as long as I never focus on them again, they will continue to provide full coverage to the Kerbin system.
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Wow, I hadn't used Kethane for a while and I come back to sexy, futuristic planetary overlays and awesome mining effects and parts.
Although I am seemingly getting the same lag issues as Black-Talon: When mousing over the planet with the grid enabled, the game suffers a significant fps drop. The drop seems to come from the tooltip, not so much the grid rendering itself.
My only other issue for now is the kethane show/hide overlay window doesn't remember where I put it, or what it was set to, and always pops up in the same exact spot covering my other info boxes.
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This is my favorite lander by far:
Unmanned rover with docking port on top (there is also a version of the rover with a skycrane -- top mounted attachment nodes come in really handy)
The rovers are attached sideways on to the (now detached) strut, because they really can only be attached from the bottom. They pop off, and the kerbals then flip them right side up manually. This may be trickier for heavier rovers, but attaching them at a slight angle helps deployment.
I was always curious how the lunar rover was attached to the LEM, and so I looked it up and found this: http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000731.html
Edit: You don't need to flip the whole thing over when launching if you strut it. I have just 4 quantum struts at the bottom of my MuL which help reinforce the attachment to the lower stages of the lifting rocket, or bigger payloads (eg. hitchiker's pod for rescue missions)
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Just posted this to the b9 thread, but its a pretty good SSTO (500km orbit with 3.2 ton payload and back), I figure there's no harm posting it twice
Gallery is here (includes some older iterations as well)
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Cool, didn't see this thread before. Compared to some simply awesome designs already in the thread, mine isn't too spectacular, but it suits my needs. Its a SSTO that can lift 3+ ton communication satellites into a 500km orbit and return and land safely on Kerbin. Or ferry up/down kerbals to/from a space station for crew rotation.
Gallery is here (includes some older iterations as well)
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Physics might not apply when "on rails" but objects in space do get affected by changing SOI's. I just had a craft break apart when trying to separate from the main (empty) lifting stage carrying my ship to the Mun. Some parts got blasted far enough away to stay in Kerbin Orbit, some parts hit the mun (and were subsequently destroyed), and others flew off into interplanetary space. I dunno whether it was because I was relatively close to the debris, but I was definitely outside 5km.
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KerbMav: TWR cannot be less than zero, it is a ratio of two positive values. When it is below 1, you fall down, when it is above 1, you go up. When you get high enough, you can circularize with an engine with TWR < 1 because an orbit is just falling towards the planet and missing. You just have to get enough horizontal speed to "miss the planet" with your skipper (or whatever low TWR engines you're using).
m1xte: engine clustering and fuel crossfeed (asparagus or onion) are *extremely* useful *especially* for getting higher mass payloads into orbit. Engine clustering adds more parts, and fuel crossfeed adds more design complexity, but if you can afford either, they are much more efficient.
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I plan everything ahead, and never overbuild, so I don't have any moments like this.
If you never overbuild, wouldnt *every* moment be on the knife's edge between failure and success? One small misstep and BAM not enough fuel! you orbit forever or crash into something.
. I got the idea from the SpaceX video with their reusable stuff. I clip in a fuel tank to the command pod, attach a couple radial engines, and the B9 air brakes (essential -- otherwise you'd need way too much fuel/rocket for it to really be considered a "pod") and start to burn when the ground is a couple hundred meters up and terminal velocity is under 200m/s. 
) When I hear large creaking groans, and the g-meter is over 6g's I decrease the flaps on my airbrakes a bit during re-entry to reduce my drag until I get low enough to open them fully again for a softer landing.
Yeah I've got two KAS winches on the bottom of the mining drills with attachable adapters so other, non KAS ships can still re-fuel.
What happened to the forums?
in KSP1 Discussion
Posted · Edited by maackey
The hack was through the forum software I believe (vBulletin). It happened to Xenonauts as well (guess which forum software they use!) It was religious propaganda, spreading information about Muslim religion and the like. Really counterproductive if you ask me...