capi3101

Here we go; the design in action. I haven't gone to Moho with it, obviously, but the idea is to show you how it's constructed and go through the SSTO launch sequence. Tanks drain pretty fast in the early going, but once you start throttling back it slows down. And you do have to throttle back; all that thrust you had at launch you don't need as you get further up - and if you keep it, you'll pancake. Hadn't actually intended to build this ship and I couldn't come up with a better name from my usual convention (i.e. a name involving fire, pain, death or some combination thereof).

Well, the chute's supposed to go on top of the lander cans; that's the bit you're bringing back to land on Kerbin. As for the rest, it's a centerline stack with four outboard stacks. Put the Decoupler in the center, then add two jumbos, a -32, a -16 and an -8, then attach a Mainsail to the bottom of the eight. Stitch the jumbos together for extra rigidity. Then alt-click on the topmost jumbo stack (which should make a copy of the whole tank/stack assembly), turn on 4-times symmetry, and attach the new assemblies radially to the centerline. You will want to run struts between the outboard stacks as well as between them and the centerline; 60-72 struts total should do the trick. I'll go ahead and try to build what I suggested; it may or may not work. If it does I'll put up a screenshot.

I think a screenshot here might help us better diagnose the problem... I think that most of us launch one ship on one launcher; I know I've never tried two at once. I know that staging information is usually given relative to the root command part, so my gut diagnosis is that you're stuck with either having to re-stage or re-design your ship. Sorry that I can't be of more help. Like I said, a screenshot would be helpful here.

A design, huh? 1 Mk16-XL Chute 3 Mk-1 Lander Cans 4 OX-STAT Photovoltaic Panels 1 Z-1k Rechargable Battery Bank 1 TR-8A Stack Decoupler 1 FL-T200 Fuel Tank (or two radially mounted FL-T100 tanks with Fuel lines running to the X200-32) 1 LV-N Atomic Rocket Engine 1 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank 1 Rockomax Brand Decoupler 5 Rockomax "Mainsail" Liquid Fuel Engines 10 Jumbo 64 Fuel Tanks 5 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tanks 5 Rockomax X200-16 Fuel Tanks 5 Rockomax X200-8 Fuel Tanks Struts and Cubic Octagonal Struts as necessary. Yes, this is an SSTO rocket; your launch TWR should be in the neighborhood of 1.3. Watch you gee-meter as you ascend; when it gets out of the green, throttle back a bit. Make sure to assemble the tanks in order from largest to smallest if you don't want to watch the Mainsails explode... The interplanetary stage oughta have over 12,000 m/s of delta-V in it unless I've got something miscalculated; definitely enough there for a manned Moho flyby and return. I make no guarantees about there being sufficient thrust with the single nuke. That part of the ship is just over 23.5 tonnes fully loaded, so I think you'll be fine. The three lander cans saves you 0.7 tonnes over the mass of a Mk1-2 Command Pod. I haven't actually tried the configuration of three cans and a chute before, so you might want to launch just that (with Jeb in the upper can and the other two empty) up to about 3000 meters then cut it off and land; if all three cans come down safe with the chute, great, if not, try struts. The Parachute Calculator says you should come down at 5.7 m/s with the single chute. If you choose to add a Clamp-o-tron and use radial chutes (to dock with a lander in Moho orbit, maybe), you'll need two radial chutes and I can't guarantee that booster will get you into orbit. Now, if you want to do a landing, we can talk more. But there's a design.

Do a radial burn as close to immediately after you enter Duna's SOI as possible, with the aim of getting the Duna periapsis to 12.5-13 kilometers. I did that with the Storax Anacostia mission; it took about 700 m/s for the burn and the aerobrake did the rest. Don't go too low or you'll head for lithobrake - Duna's aerobrake altitude window is very narrow (11k and you're going in, 15k is not enough).

No, you wouldn't. You can still get into orbit launching westward, you just don't get any additional benefit from the planet's rotation (in fact you lose a small amount by going that way, just not enough to make all that big of a difference). Doesn't really require that big of a rocket either - my dinky little 0.18-demo-built Fireball 7 can launch to a westward orbit and still make a round-trip Mun landing mission.

I'd forgotten about DF...I might have to look into it again. When I was playing, the fish could still drag a dwarf to his death and swallow him whole, sending the whole fortress into riots in the middle of a goblin siege. God, I hated that game. At least with KSP it's more often your fault than the computer's when defecant impacts a rotary oscillator... Hand-designed my three craft for the Doing it Gemini Style challenge - it had been a while but I remembered the basics and some of the stuff I've learned since I picked up KER actually made the whole process easier (such as how to calculate how much fuel a stage needs to do its job). Launched the Munar rescue craft tonight; got it into orbit after a UVD due to insufficient strutting between the first and second stages, and pulled most of a Munar transfer burn before my computer spontaneously shut off again (I think it's high time I took care of that, before something critical in my box gets damaged).

My attempt is underway; hope to have a report in a few days. So far the rescue capsule has achieved Kerbin orbit; that's about it.

Nothing in game itself. Pretty much decided to go ahead and design my Gemini craft by hand; it's been a while and I don't want to get too rusty...

The assumption you're making is that thrust and delta-V are co-dependently related upon one another; they are not. blizzy78's already covered this well; he's right in saying that "it does not make any sense at all to say, 'an ion engine has high delta-v.'" Engines can high or low Isp values, which in turn affects the delta-V they can produce given x amount of fuel. The only other kind of part that will affect delta-V is fuel tanks - the more fuel you have, the more a rocket's potential delta-V in general (because that part of the equation is logarithmic, there does come a point where adding more fuel - or more specifically more mass - actually starts to decrease delta-V). EDIT: I actually hit that point (more fuel = less delta-V) with a rocket once; I might have to dig up the calculations on that one...I know I have them somewhere.

Some mods also add up the mass of your rocket - KER in particular is good for that. You can also just put a rocket under construction on the pad, call up the map view and look in the info window; mass information is there. And then there's the ol' pencil-and-paper method; time consuming but satisfying if you're into math. As blizzy said, delta-V is change in velocity, and it's important when considering a rocket's delta-V budget (look that up on Wikipedia) - the amount of delta-V that a particular piece of a rocket can contribute to the rocket as a whole. High delta-V means the rocket can make more changes in its velocity (both magnitude - i. e. speed - and direction) under its own power, which in turn usually means that it can reach particular destinations.

It's a good design and I've put it through some serious hell. First time I tried to launch one the launch failed and I wound up dropping one from something like 2000 meters up; hit the ground at 70 m/s and survived (some popped tires; that was it). Was still drive-able afterwards. Put a couple of BACC SRBs on it once just to see if I could get it to fly (for a challenge, of course). Nearly ripped it in half, but it was still drive-able afterwards. Malaise and Lack of Prospects - the two I landed on Duna - leapfrogged each other for over 100 kilometers from their landing site to get to the SSTO anomaly; my longest ever rove. Did something similar on Minmus just before that mission. I always bring it up when folks ask about rovers because it's everybody's suggestions in action - wide axle track, low center of mass, includes a reaction wheel, sandwiched critical bits, etc. Hauls two Kerbals and includes a couple of science instruments. As a bonus, it's pretty easy to modify; the original didn't come with deployable science probes.

Started farting around with designs for an entry in the Doing it Gemini Style challenge. Still haven't picked out what set of nuclear weapons tests I'm going to name the various craft after; probably going to go after the Ivy tests though. Also still haven't finalized the mission profile. KER decided to take a break from helping me design ships with sufficient delta-V, which was a bite; I'm hoping this is temporary. KSP has been acting up a lot on my box lately and I'm hoping a re-install is not in the cards for the near future.

One more bit of information you could use: the Cheat Sheet. It's not actually a cheat, just an accumulation of really useful information. The delta-V map is probably the most useful thing on the page; it gives optimal delta-V values for planning specific parts of missions around the Kerbol system. It does assume the optimal case, so you should add a fudge factor to the numbers (on the assumption that something somewhere will be screwed up); the amount you add really depends on your level of skill.

For any mission plan, the best method of attack is to work backwards. You have your payload; great. What is its mass? What engine combination do you want to try to launch it with? What is the combined mass of the engines? How much thrust do they output, and what is the resultant stage Isp? You can then work the Tsiokolvsky rocket equation backwards to figure out how much fuel you need for a particular part of yoyr mission. Go with the standard assumption that the full mass of a fuel tank is nine times that of the dry mass (a valid assumption for every fuel tank in KSP except the Round-8 and the Oscar-, and then solve for the dry mass. You change the equation to look like this: target delta-v = ln((Full Mass + Deadweight)/(Dry Mass + Deadweight))*9.81*Stage Isp where deadweight is the combined mass of the payload, engines and any other equipment. When you've figured up your Full Mass, add it to the payload, multiply the resultant amount by 9.81, and divide your thrust by that result. If the final result is less than one and you're dealing with a launch from Kerbin, you're going nowhere; try again. If it's greater than one, you're going to space. 1.6-1.7 is optimal, but anywhere from 1.2-2.2 will do the trick. Greater than 2.2 and you've got too much thrust for your stack; you run the risk of telescoping your stack, especially if you're running with a heavy payload. I did a set of calculations last night...here. It's what I just posted in action; I turned around and built the craft I suggested in this thread (though I ultimately went with four LV-T30s due to the extra mass of the chutes) and it got into orbit; an SSTO rocket.

Question on the "That's no bull" - does that apply to any of the rockets? I guess my question is that if I used a Centaur kicker for all three launches if I'd score +6 points, or just +2 points. Also - how does the Gemini spacecraft need to be attached to it? Does it have to be docked to a port on the craft's nose, or can it be attached aft? Asking because I'm considering a docking maneuver in lunar orbit to go for landing. Still a bit confused on the specifics of this one - there are many ways of doing it.

WASD - try to move him. If that doesn't work, hit the spacebar to make him jump. If that doesn't work, get completely out of KSP, get back in and try WASD/spacebar again. If that doesn't work...well, then it's time to try SCE to AUX......

Ctrl-Z to undo, Alt-click to copy a part; those are the only two VAB functions I'm aware of. Setting down = clicking anywhere in open space. I'm not sure if the undo function still works with a part selected or not.

Pretty much been covered - design the rover with a wide axle track and a low center of mass, include a reaction wheel, drive around in docking mode or remap the keys for translation instead of rotation, and don't go much past twenty m/s. Only thing I'll add is to encase your critical hardware in parts with high impact tolerance - structural panels and modular girders in particular. If it's a probe-rover, you want to sandwich the probe core, battery packs and/or RTGs between a pair of structural panels. That way if it does flip over, nothing blows up and all you have to worry about is righting the rover again. If you need downforce (i.e. if you have a high center of gravity and narrow axle track), I've heard of folks using ion engines for great effect. They won't run out of juice as quickly as an RCS-based system will, though keeping them running will add mass. Obligatory screenshots of the Hellhound 7:

Short list, there's the Historical Missions on the wiki. A longer list is here (also on the wiki); I'm guessing this is the one you're talking about, since each step in that list consists of multiple missions.

I recommend keeping in Staging Mode - using WASD for rotation and IJKLHN for translation. Make sure you pack RCS on any part you want to dock, and that you take no fewer than twelve blocks - four at each end of the craft as far away from the center of mass as possible (for rotation torque) and four on the center of mass (for translation). Alignment's generally the trickiest bit of docking; if you're not aligned on the target port, you're not going to dock. So what you do is move towards the target, zero out your speed when you get to the next checkpoint distance, realign (navball centered on the pink doughnut), switch to the other craft, align the port with your craft, switch back, rinse and repeat. Do that at 100, 50, 20 and 10 meters. Go slow; no faster than .5 meters per second when you're on final approach. Hopefully you don't have to do a realignment at five meters; that's too close for safe maneuvering of either craft in my experience. If necessary, back off and try again. Alternatively (if you're into mods), install NavyFish's Docking Alignment mod; it's a snazzy tool and I HIGHLY recommend it (this from a guy who doesn't use that many mods in general).

Alright - as promised: 2120 m, I guess - not 2119. Not that a meter makes a difference in this case; the "upwards" rover is at 3135 meters, so that's 1015 meters difference in elevation and enough to claim the fifteen points. That rounds out my entry.

I built what I suggested in my previous post - I went with four LT-30s so I could add a senior docking port, an RCS tank, blocks and some winglets. Started with twelve radial chutes. Got up to a 100k orbit with fuel to spare - enough to deorbit, even. The landing didn't go well, though - the Hitchhiker and Can survived intact, but the rest of the vehicle broke off. Second attempt, went with twenty chutes, just wanted to do a load test so I fired up to 8000 then fell back towards terra firma. Rocket broke again, though I don't know if that would've been a test under actual working conditions or not - she still had a lot of fuel and was therefore a good deal heavier than normal. I'd be leery of using Mainsails for SSTOs - again, great thrust at launch, but way, way, way too much once you're up out of the atmo, and awful damn heavy in their own right. Skippers are a better alternative, actually - finer control over the throttle. EDIT: According to the KSP Parachute Calculator, 20 radials should do the trick. I might consider adding a couple of drogues for the hell of it. Some lander legs would probably also be useful.

Tried out an SSTO rocket design. Went well except for the landing bit...the Kerbals would've survived but I don't think it counts as an SSTO if the vehicle breaks when the chutes deploy. Time to whip out the drag calculator.

Well, I have experience building SSTO rockets - pure rockets (hell, the Storax Anacostia 7 started off as an SSTO; I had to chunk that one up to three stages to fulfill the conditions of the challenge). Let's start with what you have...do you have a screenshot? Meantime, here's how I'd do it: go with a -45 in the center and three -30s outboard. Forget the jets. If you're ferrying five Kerbals in a Hitchhiker and a Can, that gives you 8.35 tonnes deadweight and payload, 320 Isp. You want 4500 m/s of delta-V to launch to orbit. Work Tsiokolvsky backwards...you need about 50 tonnes of fuel. Two FL-T800s, an FL-T400, an FL-T200 and an FL-T100 per engine should do the trick, and give you 1.43 TWR on launch. Lemme do the math just to prove I know what I'm talking about: delta-V = ln (M/Md) * 9.81 * Isp, M = 9Md 4500 = ln(9Md + 8.35/Md + 8.35)*9.81*320 ln(9Md + 8.35/Md + 8.35) = 1.43486 (9Md + 8.35/Md + 8.35) = e^1.43486 = 4.19329 9Md + 8.35 = 4.19329(Md + 8.35) = 4.19329Md + 35.01397 4.80671Md = 26.6639715 Md=5.547239 M = 9Md = 9 * 5.547239 = 49.92515 49.92515 / 4 = 12.48129 (Tank Fuel Suggested: 4.5+4.5+2.25+1.125+0.5625 = 12.9375, * 4 = 51.75 t, + 8.35 tonnes payload/deadweight = 60.1 tonnes) Thrust = 200 + 215 + 215 + 215 = 845 845 / (60.1 * 9.81) = 1.43 TWR As far as the flight profile goes then, it's a standard rocket launch. Straight up to 10k then follow the navball. You'll need to throttle back as you burn fuel and get lighter - you won't need all your thrust the whole way up. Throttle back if your gee meter gets out of the green. The 45 gives you steering, the 30s give you power, and you've got enough fuel to make it and then turn around for deorbit. Probably could even include a docking port and a chute or two. And no staging equipment. You saw how I did the math on this one - it applies to any SSTO, not just rockets.