rosenkranz

I don't suppose you'd need this when using a normally staged rocket because you'd not have enough thrust to drive the engine up through the ship at apoapsis. However, on SSTO rockets you still have all your lift engines and considerably less fuel. So unless you have agtion groups to turn off some engines, a full thrust of 5g or more at apoapsis could well destroy your ship. However, in many cases, turning off some engines can through off balance and fuel consumption. This is where being able to limit the throttle to certain gee loads is good. Thus if you know 5g will kill your ship (which seems common) set the throttle to 40m/s2 (which happens to be default) and you don't have to worry about MJ killing your ship. Since it's setable, if you want to set it lower for a more fragile ship, so be it.

yeah, it didn't do a true hybrid. It just had a separate intake that generated oxidizer rather than intakeair. I think the only real problem with that mod was that the vacuum isp was set to that of an NTR when it really shouldn't be any higher than a high efficiency rocket (380-410 isp).

My bad for using wiki as a source. But that was some of what I read looking that stuff up weeks ago.

The velocity curve defines the performance of the engine at various speeds. velocityCurve { key = 0 0.7 0 0 // 70% thrust at a standstill key = 1000 1 0 0 // 100% thrust at 1000m/s (mach 3?) key = 2000 0.6 0 0 // 60% thrust at 2000m/s (near orbital speed) key = 3400 0 0 0 // no thrust at 3400m/a (doesn't matter, you're going to space no matter what at this speed) } You're upper limit is set at 3400 which is 1000m/s faster than orbital speed. What is the practical speed limit on that type of engine?

actually, it would be nice if a short in-game cinimatic showed a vechicle coming to pick them up (if on land) or a boat (if in water)

Propellant use is per unit of thrust/sec or something close to this. Actually I could really use a good explanation of this myself but, overall, if you increase the thrust cap on a motor it's going to burn through the fuel faster. So modding of this sort will give you better TWR but your dV should remain the same.

Given how the folder structure is going to be shuffled and how parts are going to be handled, I think modders are going to have to do some reshuffling as well before any of them will work right with .20 One might hope that Squad published the new data structure in the dev or mod forums somewhere so modders can see what they need to change.

Really, it depends on what stage of the game you prefer to play at. The game will likely start with just the bare necessities and be frought with issues as most things will have to be done manually. As the game progresses and new tech is developed and new skills are trained, I'm sure some features of mechjeb will creep in along with more advanced parts. Some may not even be done by parts on the ship but by the kerbal pilots on board. I'm sure late game (end game?) features will include most if not all of mechjeb functionality plus a slew of more advanced parts and what not. Edit: forgot to include my preference. I like the mid game.

I'm having difficulty understanding why that is relevant? I'm not sure it matters how thick the sponge is, the leakage will be the same regardless. The only difference is how long it take the sponge to saturate. Again, though, in any case, why is this relevant? LH2 especially has an issue (called 'boil off'). It's just something it does. In KSP, you're rocket isn't on the launch pad long enough for it to make a difference. However, IRL, a rocket can end up sitting on the pad for days or weeks prior to launch waiting for it's launch window. They do this because as a fudge factor to account for issues that may delay the launch. Anyways, without additional refrigeration, the tanks will leak out (or boil off) about 5% per month if i recall correctly. They budget extra fuel specifically for this. Generally enough that the rocket could sit there for 6 months and still meet mission requirements. With addition refrigeration, boil off can be minimized and/or eliminated. But that involves extra weight and complexity. Just my 2c.

this is why the other SABER mod had the intake as a separate part.

I typical start at 5km but i don't just dump it over to 45 deg. I inch it over so that i'm at 45 deg at about 15km up so as to minimize steering losses and balance drag losses.

how does this differ from the stock generator module? I believe you can have inputs and outputs.

This. Off the pad, you're not likely going to be accelerating at more than 20m/s2. However, by the time you reach apoapsis, you may well have a TWR of 4 or more. I've had a few ships destroyed when mechjeb started the circularization burn at apoapsis. Under throttle control there is an option for 'smooth throttle'. This will dampen mechjebs tendance for 'instant full thrust'. But beware, leave this on during a powered landing and you'll likely crash.

one supposes that if you really wanted to see the difference, make a clean copy of ksp and then mod the cfg files for the tanks and reduce their dry weight by a factor of 10 and reduce all engine masses by a factor of 4. then do some testing of your own. really, about the only thing you couldn't simulate is mechanical failures. But, otherwise, the results might be interesting.

'rocket science' may not be for everybody but, perhaps you're trying to hard. ease up. you'll learn a lot watching some of the youtube stuff (there is a lot of it). I'd recomend Scot Manleys stuff

My personal best has been about 120t but, i've heard of folks putting several hundred tons into orbit in one launch. Given the number of parts to get 120 into orbit I estimate that 'hundreds' would bake cpu. A lot comes down to the rig you're running it on. The number of tanks and engines required increases at a near exponential rate.

I've gone both ways with this. I've got a tri-column setup that will take 60t to orbit and return to KSC. I just cant get it any higher with out boosters. Lately i'm using 100% recoverable stages (w/parachutes and all) to get 100t or better out.

goto your parts folder and find the 'launchclamp1' edit the config and add RESOURCE { name = LiquidFuel amount = 0 maxAmount = 999999999 } RESOURCE { name = Oxidizer amount = 0 maxAmount = 999999999 } to the bottom. This will allow you to transfer unwanted fuel from an upper stage tank or whereever to the launch clamp. This is great if for effiency reasons you want to partially or completely drain a tank prior to launch.

The SSTO's i've made were all VAB launched. I aim for a TWR of >1.8 and a dV of about 5200. This is enough to get something to a 150k orbit easily. Of course the bigger the payload the bigger the launch stage will need to be. I have a variation on this design The SSTO version has the three columns mounded to a central spine. At the bottom of the spine is a lander can while the top of the spine has the decoupler to release the payload. It all goes to orbit, lets the payload go and returns to KSC in one orbit, so about 30min pad-to-pad. (btw, that payload is about 60t)

So far my ships have been in the 60 ton range. I use 3 of the big deep space nervas (10t, 300kN) which are equivalent to 15 of the stock LV-N's. This get me a TWR of >.4 which keeps the burn times down.

I get around this by launching strings of probes with a manned carrier. Once in the proper orbit it breaks off a sat, fires it up and moves on. When the last sat is placed it returns to KSC

ummm, do you have asas and sas installed? also what kind of pod are you using? I've noticed the unmanned pods just don't have enough omph to get the job done once you start the gravity turn (even with asas and sas), so i use an empty manned pod (typicall mk1 or lander can) on larger unmanned rockets.

If you have a mod that will tell you your TWR or max acceleration, I'd say you want a TWR (relative to Kerbin) of at least .4 or better. That translates to about 4m/s2 acceleration. My most recent experience with a ship with a TWR of .1 or about 1m/s2 and that was not happy Ended up scrapping that mission . Jool will have to wait for next time. For the next attempt I got the TWR upto .5 and refueling at minmus and they burned out just like they knew what they were doing Got a NAV SAT Carrier, a rover, and a base segment headed out to Duna

I think he meant by fractionate, that the burn is split into two periapsis kicks. The first half raises your apoapsis and the second time around reaches escape.

Actually, I've got a SSTO lifter that will put just over 100 tons in orbit and then make a powered landing (stock + kspx). The % to orbit is kinda low at 1600 tons on the pad, but hey, it's only fuel.