capi3101

Still in 0.25 pending mod updates (been hunting for mods that have been updated or confirmed working in 0.90; still have few I haven't checked yet). Continued my shenanigans with the Kerbal Kadvent calendar, mainly getting a crew of six from Munar orbit to orbit of Minmus to rendezvous with their lander there. I was also sending a small rock-catcher probe to rendezvous with its target while it was still outside Kerbin's SOI; I'm not confident of my chances of success on that one.

Yeah, you have to build your probes to fulfill the basic conditions of the contract - in this case, it must be powered (either solars/batts or RTGs; I'm not sure that you can't get away with just sticking a battery on it as long as it remains powered long enough for you to reach the designated coordinates) and it must have an antenna. Not building your probe to spec can be a royal pain...like in 0.25 (using FinePrint before it was stock), when I launched a probe into an orbit just inside the orbit of Mun, and then had to send up a KAS repair mission with Bob to fix the damn thing...all because I'd forgot to stick the damn antenna on it in the first place......

I was going to say..."switch over" usually indicates RAPIERs. General design principles: - Maximum takeoff weight of 13 tonnes per RAPIER. For two RAPIERs, your plane's mass should be no more than 26 tonnes. - No less than .03 intake area per engine. Six RAMs will cover you; with more, you should be able to achieve a higher altitude before switchover. These should be amidships or aft if possible - not forward (high drag when they're open, see). - A lift coefficient to mass ratio of roughly 1:1. If your plane weighs 26 tonnes, the sum of the lift coefficients of all your lift-bearing parts should equal 26. A delta wing/wing connector A or B has a lift coefficient of 2, ergo a 26 tonne plane would need 13 delta wings (6.5 pairs, which you'd round up to seven pairs) - If you're going to use SAS at all, you want a level of control equal to 1.5 times the plane's mass. For a 26 tonne plane, you want 39 kN of SAS - this corresponds to two Reaction Stabilizers and two Reaction Wheels, or a Large ASAS and a single Reaction Wheel (thereabouts). You still want sufficient control surfaces to fly your craft without SAS, but some SAS can help your plane hold its attitude. - About 40 units of liquid fuel and 25 units of oxidizer per tonne of takeoff weight. For 26 tonnes, you want 1040 units of LF total and 650 tonnes of oxidizer. - The usual: CoL behind and slightly above the CoM, preferably balanced so the CoM does not shift in flight; CoT aligned with the CoM; sufficient control surfaces to give you good control; wheels set perpendicular and not supporting too much weight. If you're not adverse to mods, I'd highly recommend RCS Build Aid. Among its features is a "dry center of mass" indicator, which shows how much the CoM will shift in flight for current designs. The usefulness of this information when designing spaceplanes should be obvious. I don't know if it's been updated for 0.90 yet or not, though. Ascent profile: Generally, you want your rate of ascent to be no greater than 100 m/s. I go with this one - - Put your nose to 45-60 degrees on takeoff and ascend to 10,000 meters. - At 10,000, drop the nose to 40 degrees. - At 15,000, drop the nose to 30 degrees. - At 20,000, drop the nose to 20 degrees. - At 25,000, drop the nose to 15 degrees. With RAPIER equipped planes, this is usually where I have to start watching the air supply. - At 27,500, drop the nose to 10 degrees and watch your rate of ascent; this high up you will be struggling to avoid switchover. Your design should include an action group to handle a manual switchover (one that toggles the intakes and RAPIERs to closed-cycle). Should you switch over before reaching 30k/1750 m/s, immediately switch back over and throttle back a bit. If you're stuggling to get to 1700 before switchover, increase the amount of oxidizer to 30 units per takeoff weight (for 26 tonnes, use 780 units of oxidizer). Best of luck.

Still in 0.25, launched the Small Fries Mk-II on its mission of spud catching. Got the plane into orbit but started low (around 28k) and wound up needing 400 m/s to circularize the orbit, more than the plane had for its own use, so I wound up having to cannibalize oxidizer from the payload. End result was that the spud probe it was carrying had only about half its fuel. Needless to say, I'm not confident about the success of that mission. Fortunately the spud in question is still well outside Kerbin's SOI, so I should have time to try again if need be.

What engine are you using, the LV-T30 or the LV-T45? The T45 has thrust vectoring (i.e. ability to steer); the T30 doesn't. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head. EDIT: Didn't bother to check SAS. Might look to see if that's on and stays on too.

I saw this procedure earlier today; you might try it out and see if you have any success. I know I'll be giving it a go once I get 0.90 installed. 1) Find the folder "GameData\Squad\Parts\Wheel\SmallGearBay\" in your KSP directory. 2) Copy \SmallGearBay\ and its contents into "GameData\mycustomparts\" or some other directory of your choosing (under Gamedata). 3) Open "smallGearBay.cfg" with any text editor (Notepad is fine). 5) Change the line that says "name = SmallGearBay" to any other name that isn't used by the game, ie "name = BigStockGearBay" 4) Underneath the line that says "scale = 1" add a line that says "rescaleFactor = 2.5" 5) Change the line "title = ..." to some other name. This is the name that will appear in the VAB, so it is useful to be able to identify your new part (it will have the same icon as the old one). Though this isn't technically necessary. You may also tweak the "cost = ..." field, if you care about that. You could change the "mass = ..." and other parameters too, but since this specific part is physics-less it won't matter. 6) Save your changes and load up the game. I don't know where this person got the notion that gear are physics-less...I'm pretty sure they added physical significance to gear with 0.25. Anyways, it's an idea that might be worth trying out.

Most of the stock stuff sucks on purpose; you should feel free to redesign as you wish. The KSP gods demand as much...

Saw 0.90 came out and didn't give a rat's fart. Maybe in a few days when the mods have been updated... Meantime I figured out what I needed to do to make a Mun-to-Minmus transfer, then cursed as I realized I hadn't updated Precise Node for two versions. It's still on the old Kerbal timekeeping system... Also flew a number of rehearsal runs with the Small Fries Mk-II; I can get the payload consistently into orbit now. Flying the correct course, now there's an issue still.

Alright, y'all: here's my activities from over the weekend: That should catch me up on everything but the December 10, 14 and 16 missions. The Constipation XVI (capsule) crew is still in orbit of Mun and I've got Constipation XXI (lander) headed to Minmus; my intent is to transfer the XVI crew directly to Minmus from Mun, rendezvous with the lander and go from there. I want to use the same crew to go to Duna, so I need to get crackin' on that.

I myself have been working on a plane that would deliver a '>Geschosskopf science bomb lander to orbit. Haven't quite gotten into orbit yet, though that's largely due to other things distracting me. I have gotten an asteroid-catching probe into orbit before using a spaceplane - which is significant in as much as the economics of rock catching missions in general are concerned (i.e. usually no return on the investment). I'll recommend DocMoriarty's KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation Guide to you as an example of some of the things you can pull using spaceplanes as launch vehicles for various types of payloads; he uses his to put up space-station parts, and not tiny ones either. It focuses on use of the RAPIER engine and it's ever so slightly out of date at this point (by slightly I mean it was designed for 0.24.2 and he hasn't yet updated it for the changes in 0.25). So far the only differences I've seen is that the new Wing Connectors are functionally equivalent to Delta Wings, Shock Cone Intakes are equivalent to 1.2 Ram Intakes and 4 of the new Structural Intakes are roughly equivalent to a single Shock Cone Intake.

Here's a link to my general advice for spaceplane noobs - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100334-SSTO-Why-u-no-fly?p=1546536&viewfull=1#post1546536 Keptin's Basic Aircraft Design - Explained Simply, With Pictures is something I'd consider an absolute must read for anybody wanting to get started with planes. Mod-wise, you might want to consider RCS Build Aid; it has a nice feature that shows just how much your CoM will shift in flight - which is one of many problems that usually squash the dreams of aspiring spaceplane enthusiasts. Not essential, but certainly handy if you're not adverse to mods; think of it as the KER of spaceplanes.

I had a question about this challenge. The Level 1 stuff - is the final rocket restricted to the parts unlocked by the specific technologies listed, or can you use the parts included in the prerequisite techs as well? Mainly I'm interested in whether or not the use of struts (a part from General Construction, which is NOT on the level 1 list but is a prerequisite for three of the techs on the list) would make the design Level 1 or Level 2. Also by "fewest number of boosters", do you mean individual engines, or do you mean decoupler/fuel stack/engine combos?

Got mostly caught up with the challenges over the weekend; will post the imgur album when I get the chance. Still need to finish December 10 and 14. Meantime, here's my December 15th craft: I suppose the rule does say a new craft...so I could just tack an antenna or two to this one. I might've mentioned the lander and KDS design was originally intended for Duna at some point or another. Whatever; I'm going to need to spend my ~1-1.5 hours tonight catching up and if I can get away with recycling a design - even if it's the same one I've already used once for this challenge - I need to do that.

Over the weekend I flew to KSC 2 for the first time. Glad I decided to do that during the day; thing was hard enough to spot as it was. Landed and farted around there for a bit. Also sent six Kerbals to the Mun and had Jeb drive around a Hellrider 7 rover five clicks away from the landing site. Rendezvoused the ascent stage of the lander with the command module. Next up is to send the command module on to Minmus, where another lander is awaiting my current intrepid crew. All for the Kadvent Kalendar, of course.

There's a good article on the topic on the wiki. Basically it's a mathematical expression of the efficiency of an engine.

Alrighty then, I'll build a rocket!! Totally!!! Starting with the fourth slide!!!!!! STILL haven't caught up with December 7-10. Maybe tonight if I'm lucky...I know I've got a plane that can handle the December 12 mission; all I need to do there is get the coordinates of KSC2 and calculate a heading.

Hmm...so you want to do a spaceplane to Duna, eh? I've seen a couple of thems just today. The big trick with a plane to Duna is going to be designing it with sufficient delta-V to get there and back. By which I mean that once you shut off your jets, you've basically got a rocket with wings. It'll need 1090 to get to Duna and 1920 to get back, say 3000 m/s of delta-V plus a reserve in case of screw-up. That's assuming you want to try to do a round trip effort. As far the Kerbin launch goes, you can handle it just like a regular spaceplane launch. Standard guidelines: - 10 tonnes maximum takeoff mass per Basic Jet, 13 per RAPIER or 15 per Turbojet. - No less than .03 intake area per engine - A 1:1 total lift coefficient-to-take off mass ratio - 40 units of liquid fuel and about 25 units of oxider per maximum take off mass (this assumes the use of RAPIERs, so take it with a grain of salt). This should be separate and distinct from the fuel you'll use to carry out the interplanetary portion of the mission. I'll recommend nuclear engines as your spacefaring engines of choice for a Duna mission unless you can manage a really small design. Though they're heavy, their high Isp will let you get away with carrying less fuel than you'd otherwise need. I say that; others might give you different advice.

Did an SRB powered plane launch. Flew it, actually managed to land it (unpowered). The landing bit was unintentional but not wholly unpleasant. Launched another Mun lander. Had the capsule it was supposed to rendezvous with on the wrong side of Kerbin, so now I get to play ring-around-the-rosie wake-surfing the atmosphere until the stupid thing catches up. Still haven't caught up on the Kadvent Kalendar challenge yet...

I'ma gonna point you to an oldie but goodie, Temstar's '>Asparagus design philosophy. Yes, that was under 0.20 (0.19?), but the general principles are still valid - and these days they're far easier to implement (no thrust limiters back then). What his philosophy boils down to is having a 1.6-1.7 TWR at launch and having a core stage that's more powerful than any of the individual booster engines (he uses a 22%:13% core-to-booster engine thrust ratio for three booster pairs or 22%:9.75% for four booster pairs). Each stage gets up to 2.2-2.3 TWR before it's discarded, dropping the TWR back down towards 1.5-1.6; the final core stage is around 1.3 when it finally has to start working on its own. I've used Temstar's philosophy for a long time now, and it's almost always brought my payloads to orbit successfully (when it doesn't, it's almost always because I've screwed up the piloting). You always need the most thrust at launch. Thrust becomes less and less critical as you ascend and you never want too much.

Point of order there - you do have three parts on your little blaster pod thingie there that generate lift - the MK1-2 adapter up front, the inlike Mk2 cockpit and the Mk2 bicoupler are all lift generating parts - about 0.9 all told (0.3 for the adapter, 0.4 for the cockpit, 0.2 for the adapter). I'm not sure of the specific workings behind lift - I just know the general rules: - 10 tonnes maximum takeoff weight per Basic Jet Engine, 13 tonnes per RAPIER or 15 tonnes per Turbojet - No less than 0.03 intake area per engine - A total lift coefficient roughly equal to the mass of the craft. I'ma guessing the pod design flew as well as it did due to the amount of thrust it had available to it. I'd have to try out the design myself to be sure.

Well, that'd be an interesting thing to do. Trouble I've got is that I play KSP on a box that, quite frankly, is obsolete and well below the recommended specs. Game has tough enough time running single player, so I'd have to vote for no. "Build a small solid fuel ship that can carry a probe core to an altitude anywhere between 12 and 70km". Hmm...I know somebody's going to try it anyway, so I'll ask: does this mean no SPH launches? Also I swear that the altitude range was smaller before I went to lunch...

45 degrees at 10k is fine in stock aerodynamics as a rule. Use NEAR or FAR and you'll nose over uncontrollably if you don't do it gradually enough (that can happens in stock too, it's just not as common).

That's generally a sign that your wheels aren't set straight up and down, perpendicular to the ground. If they're at even a slight angle in any direction, they won't operate the way they should; KSP thinks your plane is wheelbarrowing, it keels over and 'splodes. Let's be sure that's what it is. Can you post a screenie or the craft file of the plane you're having issues with?

Yeah. I agree it's a case of the docking bug and Taki's given you the instructions you need to (hopefully) fix it - which is good, because I'd forgotten where they were on the forum...

Naw, the craft will switch control to wherever it needs to switch control automatically. I've got a ship that incorporates six Mk1 Lander cans and one of the small RGUs; while the crew is off galavanting around the surface of Duna, the command module remains controllable thanks to the probe core. Something related to what it looks like you're doing, and which you might be interested in, is Geschosskopf's MISSION PLANNING AND SHIP DESIGN FOR SCIENCE! Tutorial. It's not old enough to be obsolete and an effective way of collecting oodles of science all at once.