capi3101

I set up a Kerbal-synchronous satellite constellation without constellation assistance mods. Did a descent job but I don't think I've got a perfect hexagon... Then my wife got mad at me because I spent the afternoon doing that instead of napping, on account of my working overnight shifts three nights this week (tonight's my fourth)...

Plane SSTO, eh? TWR=3.0 does seem a tad excessive in my experience unless you're trying to go for a speed record. It might be you've got less an issue of thrust and more an issue of lift. The less lift you've got, the more thrust you need to compensate for it in general. The general rule is ~2.3 tonnes per Delta Wing / Wing Connector A/B, which works out to 1.15 tonnes per unit of lift; a 1:1 ratio is easier to remember. So for your 35 tonne plane, you want a total of 35 units of lift, roughly the amount provided by 18 (i.e 9 pairs) of Delta Wings/Wing Connectors or the equivalent. Combine THAT with a TWR of 3 and you'll wind up with a plane that'll climb like a bat out of hell...in fact, it'd probably climb too fast (as in climb at 45 degrees to 10k and then flatten out to 5 degrees, and expect to still go upwards at 100+ m/s). Especially if you stick all your high drag parts (i.e. intakes) up at the front instead of amidships and aft. I had a design like that the other day; thing went into a flat spin and the engines still had sufficient thrust to operate. A few up at the front are okay, just don't over do it.

Damn. Here I thought I was done with Dec 4...and I should mention the missus got pissed off at me for playing KSP as long as I did yesterday, on account of she wanted me to nap. Human beings can operate on 4 hours sleep. Not well, admittedly... Anyways, I did get a sat network set up for Kerbin. Missed the Mun/Minmus requirement, so I'ma guessin' I'll be working on those later. For trying to set up a satellite constellation without a dedicated satellite constellation mod to tell me when to let each go, I think I did pretty damn good if I say so my own self. Now I just got to get some sats up around Mun and Minmus and I'm set. Love those little comm probes. .77 tonnes each, with monoprop fuel and a trio of O-10 engines they still get 60 kN of thrust for some hella-TWR and 2000 m/s of delta-V. Dec 5: Mun lander, eh? I generally eat thems for breakfast. Er...midnight-ish snackish. Question begged is how many Kerbals do I need to accommodate - by far I design one-Kerbal landers most often, but my record is six during the Konstellation Program Challenge: Could easily re-do that thing; she was designed for Duna. I'd be interested in redesigning the booster anyways...

I would suggest trying to do what you're doing in the SPH instead of the VAB; it tends to handle mirrored items more readily. Other than that, I have nothing to offer other that what's already been suggested.

Did more Kadvent Kalendar krap. Flew a plane that ascended too quickly and went into a genuine flat spin without assymetric thrust - still trying to figure that one out but I imagine it's because all the intakes were up front. Also redesigned a VTOL and landed it on top of the SPH. The planned transition over to the VAB did not go well; killed the engines too quickly, panicked and crashed it. Wound up killing Bill in the process.

Well, my plane last night only did 2000 before entering into an unrecoverable flat spin. That oughta teach me to put all the intakes up front...and make sure the rudders are all the way in the back. LoadOnDemand decided to go on strike last night anyways, so the craft had no textures loaded. Appropriately, it was called the "Pink Nightmare 7". I may attempt another run tonight - the plane flew fast, which I think was part of its problem; climb rates maxed out over 300 m/s... I could just put up my Machingbird Challenge entry - it did just shy of 2250 as I recall. It's not like it got counted for that challenge anyways. Right now I'm at a laptop with no mouse, so if I do that it'll be later this morning. Still trying to land on every building at KSC for Day 2. Made the Spaceplane Hangar last night but I had disastrous "Kill Bill" at the VAB... EDIT: Okay, here's my Machingbird entry. 2246 m/s. Should count for the December 3rd challenge. I certainly hope that some of the later challenges will give some consideration to us poor saps who have maybe an hour per day to play the game and have to go into work at 2 AM. A satellite network around Kerbin AND Mun AND Minmus? Geez...

And in case you're wondering, the aforementioned ratios are generally considered as follows: - 1 Basic Jet per 10 tonnes takeoff weight, 1 RAPIER per 13 tonnes takeoff weight, 1 Turbojet per 15 tonnes takeoff weight. - No less than 0.03 intake area per engine regardless of the type used. Moar is generally better. Which one is "best" is a matter of debate; as a rule, you can't go wrong with RAM Intakes or the old-style Radial intakes; two radials are roughly equivalent to a RAM. Put them towards the back of your craft if you want good dynamic stability (they tend to have high drag ratings). - About 1.15 units of lift per tonne of takeoff weight (~2.3 tonnes per Delta Wing). A craft-wide lift:mass ratio of 1:1 is easier to remember and provides more lift than you should need in most cases. Basic Jets do suck as main ascent engines; where they excel is low-speed, low-altitude flight where they have insane specific impulse values. They're particularly useful in VTOL applications and at those low altitudes the Circular Intake will provide sufficient air for their operation. You can make a reasonable guess as to how much LF and oxidizer you'll need based on the engine selection you make - 40 units times the maximum takeoff weight (in tonnes) your engine selection is capable of, and 25 units times max take off weight in oxidizer. That's assuming you're going with RAPIER engines - in truth, if you've got a decent TWR on the runway (say, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 or higher) and a high intake:engine ratio your jet engines should be capable of reaching orbital velocity on their own and you shouldn't need that much delta-V to circularize. Enough fuel for 400 m/s or so of rocket thrust for circularization is generally a safe assumption given the recommended ascent profiles, though I myself have been able to get a spaceplane up to orbit with just over 50 m/s of delta-V before (that was with a pair of turbojets that had serious intake spam going on - 0.09 intake area. The old fuel rule used to be one Mk1 fuselage per engine. Nowadays there's not much reason to not use the Mk2 tank - it provides four times as much fuel with a slightly better mass:fuel ratio as compared to 4 Mk1 fuselages and it provides a not inconsequential amount of lift. The amount of oxidizer provided in a Mk1-2 adapter is generally more than sufficient for most orbital ops. In general you want to keep your ascent profile shallow; a climb rate of no greater than 100 m/s is what you want and the lower you can get it during that period where your jets have maximum thrust, the better. As a rule, if your surface velocity is rising rapidly, you're ascending too quickly; if it's barely budging, you're not ascending fast enough. That bit just takes experience to judge effectively.

I designed this one just the other day for my sister-in-law; they were using KSP in a physics course she was taking and she asked for help on the exact same thing (namely getting a payload to Mun and back). It's an all-stock unmanned craft with a little over 8,000 m/s of delta-V (i.e. good for beginners who don't feel like killing Kerbals the first time they go to the Mun). It's a science lander that utilizes '>Temstar's asparagus principles for the booster and '>Geschosskopf's science gathering principles for the payload. To turn it into a manned craft, throw away the big chute and attach a Mk1 Lander Can, 2 radial chutes and a small chute in its place; you'll lose about 500 m/s of delta-V in the transaction, so you'll have to pilot it a little more carefully but it should still be capable of completing the mission. "1" activates the solar panels, "0" sets off the sci bomb. Name's a bit quirky but you can feel free to rename it if you wish...

Thanks for this. At the moment I'm doing overnight shifts at my workplace, so my time to play the game is currently limited to about 1.5 hours per day at the most. I guess the next corollary question is "do we have to complete the challenges in the order given?". I ask because it took me all of my time last night to design my craft, land it on the admin building, and then make several aborted/reverted attempts to land on the astronaut complex from there. I already have a fast plane design...

Spent a couple of hours trying to complete the Day 2 objectives for the Kadvent Kalendar challenge with a VTOL craft that was A) a bit too big for the job as it turned out and crappy, crappy, crappy - given that the auto-shutoff sequence I'd added didn't work owing to symmetry issues (if you take it off even on accident, you still have to go back and reset all of the action groups). Didn't help that I kept on trying to hit the wrong button. Must've made half-a-dozen attempts at least to land on the astronaut building before I ran out of time for the evening. Day 3's challenge is looking much easier.

Better go ahead and provide the persistence file too; some of us don't use Hyperedit.

3. There are a couple of mods that add functionality to satellites. ScanSat I believe is one of them, as is Kethane. FinePrint also often churns out satellite contracts; that one I'd actually recommend getting as it will become stock in the next update. 4. Aside from the aforementioned FinePrint, it depends on the experience you're looking for. Myself, I generally install mods that assist with piloting - like Kerbal Engineer Redux, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Precise Node, Docking Port Alignment Indicator and a few others. Kerbal Attachment System's also fun; it adds things like winches and pipes to the game. Someone will probably mention Mechjeb at some point; from what I understand it's like KER but with a huge array of autopilots, which makes it more than somewhat controversial.

That said, if you've got a small enough plane, a delta-deluxe makes for a pretty descent main wing body... (Not mine - this design is Cirocco's; he uses it to conduct Kerbal rescue missions for contracts.) I'm trying to understand what makes the Strake so Sierra Hotel...I'm assuming it has something to do with the ratios of either lift:drag or lift:mass. By my calculations and by the information on the wiki, the classic Swept Wing blows it out of the water on both scores (and of course the delta-deluxe winglet is king in the lift:drag department).

I've done it both ways my own self. Really, it's a matter of how much you want to bring with you. I don't have a screenie of a single mission launch, apparently...that one definitely was not single mission... As others have mentioned ad naseum at this point, a round trip Duna mission doesn't cost much more delta-V than a Mun mission, so it can be done all in one. I would caution, however, that if you're not sure of your piloting skills you should pack a bit more in terms of delta-V than what the numbers say you'll need; a 25% delta-V "reserve" should be sufficient. The numbers also assume you'll be aerobraking at Duna and again at Kerbin, and that you'll be using the optimal transfer windows.

Before I start flying with a new version of KSP I usually begin by putting four drop probes on a rover and run it out to the runway. I drop a probe just off the seaside (east) end of the runway (as close as I can get it to the raised runway area without it actually being on that area), then repeat on the landward (west) side. I drive another kilometer west and drop another probe. I drive another four kilometers (i.e. five kilometers from the west end of the runway) and drop the last probe. I drive another five kilometers (ten kilometers from the west end of the runway) and park the rover. I'll relabel each drop probe and the rover itself as a base, usually with the name "Meatball" and the distance to the end of the runway. Boom - an ILS system. Incidentally, you don't *have* to use drop probes; flags work just as well, though I find they have an annoying tendency to explode/disappear more readily. So, how to use it - first off, fly with the camera in chase mode. Just hit the "V" key a couple of times and position the camera right behind your craft (or close enough that you can still see what you're doing - sometimes the exhaust plume will restrict your visibility). I usually perform entire flights in chase mode; I find it helpful. Provided you didn't have much in terms of steering problems, the markers you set out should be on a rough straight line along the center of the runway, so what you want to do is line them up roughly mid-screen and keep them aligned as you go on final. That'll ensure that you stay lined up with the runway properly. For your glide slope, pick a marker. Add the distance of that marker from the end of the runway to your current distance to that marker, multiply that by a hundred and add one hundred - the final result is where you want your current altimeter reading. FOR EXAMPLE: Let's say you're 22.4 kilometers from the 10 kilometer marker. You want to be at ((22.4+10)*100)+100 = (34.5*100)+100 = 3450+100 = 3550 meters. From that you can tell if you're high or low. Actual altimeter elevation of the KSC runway is about 70 meters, hence the additional 100 meter correction; you could just as easily add 70 meters but I find 100 is easier to deal with. If you're not adverse to mods, you could just install NavUtilities - it'll give you an ILS with adjustable glideslope settings. It'll also allow you to select your target runway; even has a setting for the VAB helipads. When it comes to the actual landing, just keep your wings level, engage your flaps, and try not to descend too fast (5 m/s downward is generally where you want to max out). Disable the brakes on the nose gear and engage steering; you want to do that in the SPH when you design your plane. Touch down wheels first, kill the engines if you haven't already and hit the brakes. And practice, practice, practice. Landing is something you'll botch a lot before you finally get it right (just like the way it goes with most of us the first time we go to land on Mun). Hell, at this point I'm a fairly experienced spaceplane jockey and I still botch the landings occasionally...

Didn't have time to do much, but still managed to land Jeb on one of the dishes of the tracking station for the Kadvent Kalendar challenge.

Not quite the landing I hoped for... ...on the other hand, it DID land. Mostly.

Since you're in FAR, whether or not you can recover from a flat spin depends on the plane's design and wing loading. You can try general spin recovery procedures recommended by the FAA - *Set the throttle to idle (where this is in KSP is anybody's guess; I'd think maybe one or two notches above zero at most). *Neutralize the ailerons *Retract the flaps (if you have them) *Apply full rudder in the direction opposing the spin (a reason to include a rudder in your design if ever there was one) *Pitch to select zero angle of attack. Like I said, whether or not that will work is going to depend on your plane. Sometimes the only thing that will save it is divine intervention...

Ah. Excellent...I just have to make sure I've got a piece of space junk available, then.

What exactly will qualify as a missile in this case? I may have a design that can do the job...

I generally assume a maximum take-off weight of 10 tonnes per engine if I use Basic Jets, 13 if I use RAPIERs and 15 if I use Turbojets. I then multiply that assumed figure by 39 - the result is the amount of Liquid Fuel I pack (in units). For Oxidizer, I multiply the assumed figure by 24. Those figures come from DocMoriarty's KSP Space Plane Construction and Operation Guide, which assumes use of RAPIER engines that switch over going somewhere around 1,750 m/s; I've found the ratio still works well for traditional Turbojet/rocket combos.

Myself, I'm apt to build a custom booster for every payload. Nothing wrong with the notion of building a rocket family, though. For purposes of figuring out the maximum payload capacity after the rocket's done, I'd suggest NRAP - that way you can adjust the payload mass without having to actually add or subtract parts. It's a pretty handy tool for this sort of thing (and despite what KSP says, it works perfectly fine in 0.25 - though I do wish the mod creator would get around to doing something about that damn incompatibility warning). KER is also quite useful for this kind of work. Stock solution probably would be to add small fuel tanks (FL-T100 or FL-T200 tanks) until the booster doesn't make orbit any more based on how you fly it. It's your rocket family, after all... Myself, I utilize Temstar's guidelines for asparagus boosters: 1 - Determine the mass of your payload (either by shoving it out on the pad and going to map view before it collapses into a heap or by just getting the information from KER) 2 - Assume a 15% payload fraction and a launch TWR of 1.65 (divide the mass of the payload by 0.15, multiply the result by 9.8 and multiply that result by 1.65). 3 - Assume 22% of the required thrust will be in the core engine. Assume 13% of the required thrust will be in each booster if you're using 3 booster pairs or 9.75% if you're using 4 booster pairs. Find a set of engines capable of providing the required levels of thrust (and be willing to use the thrust limiters - Temstar wrote his guidelines in an age before thrust limiters were in the game, where an engine was all or nothing). 4 - From the assumed launch mass (i.e. the payload mass divided by 0.15), subtract the mass of the payload, the mass of the selected engines and an additional two tonnes (this should cover the mass of additional parts such as RCS, probe cores, decouplers and extra nick-nacks for most cases). What's left is the mass of fuel tanks. Divide that amount by 7 if you're going with three booster pairs or 9 if you're going with four. Find a set of fuel tanks that gives you roughly that amount of fuel and go on the high side. For single-stage boosters (i.e booster-payload assemblies), I generally assume a 4% payload fraction and a launch TWR of 1.2. Onion and serial assemblies I assume 9% and TWR 1.5. The whole process is generally the same, though. I suppose if you wanted to build a rocket family, what you could do is start with your engine clusters (i.e. what engines you're going to use). Leave them at full thrust, determine what that full thrust level is then determine what the maximum launch weight is for the desired TWR. From there it's just step 4 of the asparagus setup - take out the assumed payload fraction, the mass of the engines and an additional tonne, and get your fuel tank configuration from there. Start with the stack decoupler/seperator as the root part if you want to save the booster as a subassembly, using one that's the same radial size as the core engine.

Been a while since I'd played the game in earnest. Attempted to get my Emu 7 spaceplane working once again - still failed to make orbit and at this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to do a redesign. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong with turbojets; I can usually get the designs into space just fine on RAPIERs... Also flew my Small Fries 7 Mk2 plane into orbit. I'm thinking I've finally got a good ascent and mission profile on that thing down - now the big trick will see if I can actually catch a tater with the probe payload. Might've gotten it on this last ascent had I actually turned to a proper heading early into the flight.

Hmm. Pretty sure that's how you're supposed to do it. What's the specs on your capture probe?

That's good - I tend to customize mine for the payload...though I should probably mention I designed one that would do 180 tonnes not too terribly long ago. Challenge is on, eh? Well, I better get to crackin', then...