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Thorbard

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    How to safely enter the atmosphere and land my SSTO SP?

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    On 21/07/2015 at 7:41 PM, ajburges said:

    Enter with a shallow kobra manuver.

    I have yet to pass 60% crtical temperature (on radial batteries in a cargo bay) with reentry on a 100x45 orbit and a 30° over the horizon. At 36 km I reduce AoA to 15° to avoid a stall. Above 50 km you can enter perpendicular to travel. Lower Ap and higher Pe make it even safer.

    Kobra manuver is the safest way to blessed speed. It gives lift in addition to drag so you stay high longer. S-turns are the shortest distance way to bleed speed. The same drag without the lift. You also follow a longer route.

    I was struggling with reentry of Mk2 "sled" sort of like the ESA IXV or Dream Chaser and this seemed to be the way to go.

     

    I did struggle with atmospheric pitch authority though and had to rely on RCS most of the way down.

    Serious answer to the stutter issue.

    in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion

    Posted

    On 24/04/2016 at 5:47 AM, Mr Shifty said:

    I've been playing for 3 years and never noticed this before, but I started seeing it today (it was probably always there) and now I can't unsee it. I've tried to pare down mods to make it better, with limited success. I notice on the fps indicator on the debug menu, it'll show an average drop of 5-10 fps just after the glitches. Good to know it's not a mod issue; I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out the cause. It was making some of my craft nearly unflyable.

    Likewise. I notice this on a clean install of 1.1 but never before. Seems worse on the map view for me.

    MK1 Crew Cabin Hatch

    in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion

    Posted

    31 minutes ago, pandaman said:

    I'll second that, although it's not the first time it's been mentioned.   Hopefully it will get addressed in the next update.

    Another very good, and more versatile,  solution that was proposed (can't was remember who by) was to have kerbals exit from the nearest avaliable hatch.  And when boarding the 'crew transfer' dialogue opens up so they can be seated where you like. 

    That sounds like a great addition. It would pave the way for airlock parts and crew containers without external hatches, which often get in the way of good RCS placement.

    Obviously things like the 3-kerbal command pod need an external hatch, but why does the coupola or the science lab need one?

    An Actual Space Center, Maybe?

    in KSP1 Suggestions & Development Discussion

    Posted

    It was discussed recently in another thread about adding different kinds of runway and pads. 

    A second pad for polar/retrograde orbits (so you don't have to fly over the VAB at low level), different designs of runway (ski-jump for example) helipads and docks for water vessels were all mentioned.

    Perhaps the entire area around the KSC could be made into some sort of hexagonal grid, so that items could be added in different locations without problems with the interactions between adjacent buildings.

    Docking - The Last 100m Made Easy(er)

    in KSP1 Tutorials

    Posted

    [quote name='Clear Air Turbulence']This is very useful advice. I could never understand where that lateral movement came from.

    One thing: when calculating RCS placement, how do you deal with fuel related changes?

    If a liquid fuel tank is going to be part of my final stage, then the CoM is going to change as the tank empties.[/QUOTE]

    Firstly, you should have a rough idea of how much fuel you will have left when you get to the docking phase. You can use this fuel quantity to see how the CoM changes.

    Secondly, the game actually tries to balance the thrust from different RCS ports to give balanced movement. Try building a ship with them very unbalanced and see how it behaves in orbit. The game will also use the reaction wheels to counteract (or assist, depending) any turning forces imparted by the RCS. If the RCS nozzles are too imbalanced the game can't adequately compensate.

    What happened to the SPACE in KSP?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    I don't see KSP as moving away from rocket parts. 1.0, the last big update, added many things:

    Fairings (for rockets)

    Heat shields (rockets)

    Service bays (rockets)

    New xenon tanks (rockets)

    Overhauled heating system, and reentry heat (rockets)

    Ore and related parts (rockets)

    Fuel cells (rockets)

    Atmosphere remodeled (planes and rockets)

    Landing gear (planes)

    Some new wings (planes)

    New models of old parts (planes)

    AIRBRAKES (planes)

    So in a recent update, many more things were added to add to rocketry than aviation. I think Squad is just making parts it feels the game needs, and this update was more centered around aviation because it needs more parts.

    Not to mention that airbrakes, and some of the wings are also very useful for rocket stability under the new atmospheric conditions.

    How do stranded kerbals get stranded?

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    There should be a set of "contracts" (really "missions") that are not from third parties, but are suggestions from your own staff. For science! Such missions would have a budget associated with them, and could have multiple parts (like "Explore the Mun"). The funds could be dealt out in advance, but over time---X funds every Y days. You might also be given a general expenses budget per year based upon Rep, etc. Then each astronaut could cost some amount per year that is reasonable (or per day), with no up front cost for a hire.

    Regardless, the rescues make no sense at all most of the time.

    That is kind-of what the "Kerbin Record Keeping Society" missions mean to me. Not really commercial missions but more like X-Prize type goals.

    Orbit & Return in How Little?...

    in KSP1 Discussion

    Posted

    No need to look further... here is your problem. For a flyby mission this is way too big... Just use the smallest probe possible and then go with a few oscar-Bs and an ant engine for around 3000ms of delta V. And this will be super light... then the lifter can be a 1.25m rocket, very small and very cheap. The whole thing should be super light. Just don't use the mainsail for this kind of stuff ! the skipper can be good for super-heavy ships but mainsail is inefficient, heavy and overkill for the job

    It is interesting how quickly a small amount of over-engineering can turn into a large amount of over-engineering.

    My current (early career) probes are all RCS powered, still manage a significant amount of DV.

    Tests Vs Real Application

    in KSP1 Gameplay Questions and Tutorials

    Posted

    Orbital flight is at least 2200m/s while vertical reentry from a suborbital jump up will rarely exceed 1000. First, make sure you're entering at a very shallow angle, maybe 48km periapsis. Then make sure your vesel is light and NOT streamlined. e.g. attach the lab to the pointy tip of the capsule. (you may add other draggy elements, like the girders before you get airbrakes.)

    Alternatively - if you already unlocked EVA (leaving the cabin) you can "remove" the results of experiments from their respective devices while in space, bring them to the capsule, land the capsule alone and let the rest burn.

    Making sure the test conditions match the real conditions is an important part of real world testing too!

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