capi3101

^^^ Which set do you typically leave active? Let's say I've got two control surfaces along the wing - inner set or outer set?

Installed the Texture Reduction mod. Trying to figure out if all the mods are happy together now or not; doesn't look like it. Flew an Auk I and an Auk IVa to orbit. Auk I was unmanned, Auk IV had a three kerbal crew. Need to land them now.

Hadn't seen that one yet.

Come to think of it, I believe Scott Manley did a video where he went to Minmus a while back... Found it:

For the most part I treat Minmus like the Mün; put it at about the 2:30 position and add a maneuver node at six o'clock. Minmus does require an inclination burn; you may need to wait to do that until you're at either the ascending or descending node (burn south at the ascending node, north at the descending node, until it gets to 0.0 or NaN degrees either way). Should require a comparable amount of delta-V; if you get there and you're experienced with Mün landings, landing on Minmus oughta be a snap. You might be able to combine the transfer and inclination change burns into one. I'm not experienced in doing this though.

Hmm...let's take a look at your piloting during launch. Assuming you're using SRV Ron's design, you've definitely got a craft that can do the job. Here's how I typically do one stock: straight up to 10,000 meters, turn 090 at 45 degrees elevation, stay there until you're 35 seconds from Apoapsis, then turn and follow the prograde marker. Return to 45 degrees if you fall below 30 seconds to apoapsis. If you go over a minute to Apoapsis, turn and fly along the horizon. After the turn at 10k, keep your gee meter right at the top of the green zone and throttle back if necessary. Stop your burn when the Apoapsis reaches 100,000 and your altitude is at 60k, 110,000 at 50k at 130,000 at 40k or 200,000 at 30k. Set up a maneuver node at the Apoapsis once you're in space (above 70k), and perform your circularization burn such that half of it happens before the node and the other half happens afterwards. Is that close to what you're doing? EDIT: Nothing wrong with unmanned flight - the only thing I'd suggest is if you decide you want to use the same design for a manned flight later on, you should add some ballast to offset the difference in mass. For example, a Mk1 Command Pod has a mass of 0.8 tonnes, a Stayputnuk 0.05. So you need to add 0.75 tonnes of extra weight to ensure it has the same flight characteristics. Five Goo Containers weigh that much.

Try http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/dock-align-indicator/ . You still have to do the work yourself but it does help matters quite a bit. And if that's not good enough for you, apparently Mechjeb can do the job; I haven't tried this myself and others have reported it being a wasteful piece of crap when it comes to docking, but it may be worth a shot.

Tried to use my newfound knowledge to build a new heavy spaceplane. It has all the elements it needs - besides sufficient strutting, apparently...

1a: Using the larger tanks lowers the overall part count and reduces the number of connection points, which is where the game has a tendency to break things. Fuel wise, there's not much difference; you're right in that all the liquid fuel tanks except for the Round-8 and Oscar-B have a 9:1 full-to-dry mass ratio. 1b: Ideal mass for your spacecraft, huh? Well, for that you use the Rocket Equation: delta-V = Isp * Go * ln(M/Mo), where Isp is the specific impulse of your engine/stage, Go is standard gravity (9.81 m/s^2; ALWAYS), LN is the natural logarithm function, M is the total mass of your rocket and Mo is its dry mass (how much it weighs after the fuel's gone). To make orbit, you want ~4,550 m/s worth of delta-V. This is a very general answer to your question; "ideal mass" is a concept you should probably forget about. The better question to ask is 1) what do you want to do and 2) what's the smallest craft I can build that will do that job. What you can measure is how much your payload weighs, and then figure out how much fuel and how much thrust it's going to need to get it where you're planning to send it. Learn the rocket equation: that's the best thing you can do. Learn how to run it backwards (i.e. start with how much delta-V you want) to figure out how much fuel you need for the job. 2: Yes it's possible. Just don't let go of the ladder (i.e. don't hit the space bar) once you're outside until you learn how to go jetpacking; there's a tutorial for that. 3: You'll want to get to as many of the science instruments as you can as quickly as you can. The direct route is Starting Tech -> Basic Rocketry -> Survivability -> Science Tech -> Electrics / Space Exploration -> Advanced Electrics / Advanced Exploration -> Electronics -> Advanced Science Tech, but realistically you'll want some of the other technologies (Fuel Systems and General Contruction come to mind) to make your life easier. Here's what I'd do to start. Build a rocket consisting of a small parachute and Mk1 Command Pod, 10-12 FL-T200 fuel tanks and an LV-T30. Launch that with SAS on (T-key) and put it into a polar orbit (steer north or south instead of east after 10,000 m). Once you're in orbit, start doing EVA reports over the various biomes. Do a crew report while you're at it. Bring that back down and don't fret when parts of your ship start exploding when it gets back to the ground; you'll be fine once you're down to five tanks left. Recover and profit. Now, to fly that thing, it's straight up to 10k, then north at 45 degrees. Re-aim at the prograde marker once you're at or above 35 seconds to Apoapsis. Burn along the horizon once the time to Apoapsis exceeds one minute and keep burning until the apoapsis is up to about 125,000. Stop your burn but be ready to burn a little more if the Apoapsis falls below 70,000. While you're burning and after you've turned at 10k, keep your gee meter right there at the top; don't let it get too far above the top of the meter and throttle back as necessary. Circularize at the Apoapsis. You should have enough fuel with the setup I suggested to do all of that and have a little left over to de-orbit at the end of the flight.

We really need to know what techs you've unlocked before we can offer you any kind of sound advice. Starting from scratch, you can in theory make the Mün with just Starting Tech, Basic Rocketry and Survivability. It's tricky but doable, and definitely easier with all three of the Tier 2 techs (Stability and General Rocketry). A basic "Phallus 7" design will get you from the Mün's orbit, down and back up and back to Kerbin fairly easily. That's a small chute, a Mk1 Command Pod, an FL-T400 and an LV-909 with three or four lander legs. I'd put the legs out on Modular Girder Segments to widen their base and make landing a touch easier. That's about 4.5 tonnes. A Münar transfer stage from there could consist of an LV-T30 with an FL-T400 and FL-T100 attached by decoupler; that'll get you from Kerbin orbit to the Mün. So you just have to figure out how to get that roughly 8.5 tonnes of rocket into orbit. Without struts. No problem, right? EDIT: That's actually doable single-stage with seven stacks of FL-T400s and LV-T30s on the bottom. The flight would be wobbly on account of the lack of struts and steering would be tricky if you haven't unlocked the LV-T45 with General Rocketry first. EDITEDIT: If I were to expand on Kashua's earlier suggestion, make a rocket with a small chute, a Command Pod, 10-12 FL-T200s and an LV-T30 (all Starting Tech). Launch it going northward and get into a polar orbit. Once you're in polar orbit, begin making EVA reports over Kerbin's various biomes (and do a crew report for good measure too). Re-enter when you've got as much as you want. The chute will open but won't slow you down to a safe final velocity at first; as the bottom bits of the ship explode, the rest of it will finally slow to a safe speed and you'll land, at which point recover the craft and profit. There should be enough science there to unlock most (if not all) of the early techs up to Tier 2.

Never occurred to me to try it that way; will have to outboard tanks a go with the forthcoming Auk V...

I went back and checked out derpnerd's Advanced SSTO video tutorial last night (still bugs me when folks use "SSTO" and "spaceplane" synonymously - I still use single stage rockets all the time), and he suggested 10 to 15 intakes per engine; I missed that the first time I watched the video. Given a single engine for approximately 15 tonnes, that does work out to about 1 intake per tonne. So...the take away from all this. The way I'm reading it, 2.6 tonnes of equipment will lift up to 15 tonnes, for 12.4 tonnes net payload. I get that 2.6 figure from this set of equipment - 1 Mk2 Fuselage (1 tonne) 16 Ram Intakes (0.16 tonnes) 16 Cubic Octagonal Struts (no mass) 1 Turbojet Engine (1.2 tonnes) 4 Swept Wings (0.2) 4 Small Control Surfaces (.04) Took the time this morning to analyze the ratios of lift to mass for the various aerodynamic parts - here's what I came up with: AV-R8 = .4/.02 = 20 - supports 1 tonne Standard Canard, Adv Canard, Std. Control Surface = .7/.04 = 17.5 - supports 1 tonne Small Control Surface = 0.5/.01 = 50 - supports 1 tonne Delta-Deluxe = 0.7/.02 = 35 - supports 1 tonne AV-T1 = .3/.05 = 6 - supports 0.5 tonne Tail Fin = .3/.02 = 15 - supports 0.5 tonne Delta Wing = 1.9/.07 = 27.14 - supports 3 tonnes Swept Wing = 1.6 / .05 = 32 - supports 3 tonnes Structural Wing/Wing Connector = 1/.05 = 20 - supports 1 tonne It looks like the Small Control Surface offers the most bang for your buck...so I've got to ask, has anybody ever tried using just a bunch of Small Control Surfaces for their main wings? That'd be an interesting thing to see. While I'm posting, let me ask y'all about vertical stabilizers and landing gear - I know you're supposed to double up on the fantail and keep it vertical. My question is - which part is best for that purpose? I've been using AV-R8s for the most part but the Auk III utilized Standard Canards; does it really matter which part you use? And gear - my question is: how much mass will a landing gear support before it starts to buckle? I suppose a better question is how many gear bays would you recommend per tonne of craft? The gear and the tailfins would cut into your payload, that's why I ask. The rest of the payload then becomes the fuselage and any interplanetary/interlunar equipment you want to haul around, considerations you'd make just like a rocket. EDIT: Claw, thanks for the procedure. I'll give it a shot and let you know how it works out.

Tweaked the Auk IV. Made orbit. Pretty happy about it.

I'd like to know how to build that Intake stick. Do you have a step-by-step procedure? Numerobis rules of thumb work! Tweaked the Auk IV an extra pair of wings, ditched its large control surfaces in favor of two small control surfaces, and added a combination of Ram Intakes and Radials (I know radials are a bad idea, but it was the only way I knew at the time to get 26 of the stupid things on there). Got it up to orbital velocity by 38k, didn't have to kick in the nukes until a full minute later (just after 40k). Had the Ap where I wanted it at 48k. Thanks for y'all's help once again.

Go maccollo!!! - A post from a couple of months ago, with instructions on how to get to Moho for just 4,000 m/s of delta-V. No cheats involved, just a matter of rethinking how you do that particular transfer.

I suppose that intakes don't weigh a great deal; Ram Intakes only weigh ten kilograms, so it'd take a hundred of them before you added a full extra tonne of mass. Setting them up to toggle in the action groups might get hairy. Anyways, I have something to try out this evening - I'll let y'all know how things go.

Very well; I'll give that a try then.

So what exactly is the advantage in going from 3 ram intakes per turbojet to one intake per tonne? I'm assuming it ensures that you have enough air intake to keep the engine running at full throttle all the way up, is that right? Some of my designs would look like a solid wall of intakes if I put that many on them... I ask because I have a successful spaceplane design (the Auk Ia); it's 11.815 tonnes raw and utilizes 2 Circular Intakes and 4 Radials. I was shocked to discover the Circulars when I went through the part list this morning - I'll be swapping those out for Rams for sure. Granted, that's more than three intakes, but still less than 1 intake per tonne. Based on the data, it looks kinda like there aren't many situations where you'd want to utilize the radial intakes at all - they're heavier (0.1 versus 0.01 of the other two) and apparently they suck in less air, despite what it says on the wiki. I too have utilized Keptin's pictorial tutorial. It's a good early design guide. I even came across yours the other day, Claw. I have encountered asymmetric thrust at this point with the Auk IV; it was managable by throttling back. Neither of the engines flamed out but I didn't make orbit with it either. Bottom line: it needs moar lift. Running theme with most of the Auk series.

Are you SURE about one intake per tonne? I've heard that three intakes per Turbojet provide sufficient air, and so far that's been my experience (by "intakes" in this case I'm referring to the Ram Air Intake). So far it looks like my big problem by far is insufficient lift; I analyzed the parts on the Auk IV this morning. 25.735 tonnes raw. 2 Turbojets, check. 2 Mk2 Fuselage tanks, check. 6 Ram Air Intakes - see above. Lifting surfaces are 2 standard canards, 2 standard control surfaces, 2 wing connectors and four swept wings. She's also go two AV-R8s but those are the vertical stabilizers so I'm assuming they produce no lift, so I've got enough lift for an eighteen tonne craft - and the Auk IV is heavier. So I'll try swapping out the standard control surface for two small control surfaces and adding another pair of swept wings to it - that should only add .06 tonnes of mass to the craft overall and give me the remaining lift I need, right? I should give my other designs a more thorough analysis too - the Auk IV's the one I really want to start using though. Can I also get some pointers on ascent profile? I've been using the video tutorial off the Drawing Board as my guide but I've seen some criticism of it.

"I'm still here, El Guapo..." Flew the Auk Ia to orbit just for the hell of it. Jet ran out of gas at 40,000 (still had enough air to keep running). Still investigating what's wrong with my other spaceplane designs. I suspect insufficient thrust at this point.

Okay. So a couple of questions for you, numerobis: which "intakes" do you generally use, and when you're referring to wings, do you mean pairs of wings/control surfaces or individual wing/control surface parts? For example, lessay I've got a ten tonne spaceplane - are you saying I have sufficient lift with a pair of swept wings, two small control surfaces and a twin vertical stabilizer, or do I need to double up on parts there? Do vertical stabilizers count towards generating lift, or should I count them as part of the "dead mass" in this case? Also, canards - yes or no? (Talking about wings ahead of the main wings, not necessarily the specific parts labelled as "canards"). Your guidelines have already shown me some of the existing fundamental flaws with my spaceplane designs to date, so I do very much appreciate the help so far.

The Modular Girder Adapter (a Starting Tech part) can fit under the big tank in the manner thereaverofdarkness mentioned; it's useful if you plop one down in the center and then four radially as far out as you can manage; stick an LV-T40 under the central beam and then LV-T30s on the outboard beams -1060 kN of thrust with good steering authority. Go with six outboard and you've almost got the same thrust as a Mainsail (1490) with higher Isp - downside is greater weight (occurs to me there's an experiment there). Don't be afraid to turn on clipping (ALT-F12) to utilize this trick. You definitely want to be using the Science Jr if you have access - pick up Science Tech of Tier 3 for 45 science; it's one of the crucial early techs, IMHO (for no other reason than the batts and the sci jr.) If you haven't been doing EVA reports, here's something you can do with Starting Tech - a chute and a pod, 10-12 FL-T200 tanks and an LV-T30. Make your gravity turn headed north or south instead of east. You should have enough fuel to attain orbit and deorbit later. When you're in orbit, take EVA reports; in a polar orbit, you should be able to cover most of the entire planet of Kerbin while it rotates underneath you. The EVA reports are good early science earners. Of course, if you've unlocked Basic Rocketry, you should by all means stick a Stack Decoupler between the pod and the tanks, but you can return safely without it (just expect to lose the engine and about five or six of the fuel tanks when you land).

I do have pics of the NAM site with the coordinates. Unfortunately, I have this tendency to get there and land at night...

Morning, y'all. So, this is bugging me this morning - I know for rockets that there are guidelines you should shoot for for launch (4550 delta V, TWR 1.6 optimal but good as low as 1.2 if necessary). I'm curious if there are similar guidelines I need to be looking out for for spaceplanes. So I'll ask the question outright: about how much lift and how much thrust do you need per tonne of spaceplane? I ask because my first spaceplane, the Auk I, is still the only successful design I've ever built; my attempts at building anything more useful have been unsuccessful so far. So how about it?

Built the Auk IV spaceplane. Launched it. Failed to make orbit. WTF.