Anglave

Working as intended.

Here's my own brain squeezin's: --- PROCESSING --- The first time you launch you will notice that GAME START TIME is WAY FASTER THAN before. I now SEE a GLORIOUS 80 fps in ALL SCENARIOS, even with GRAPHICS LEVEL PEGGED. MEMORY use IS IMPROVED and LOADS FASTER. The new TEXTURES ARE ALL DYNAMIC and YOUR jaw WILL DROP TOTALLY OPEN. The FLAGS need MORE POLISH BUT I AM SURE YOU WILL LOVE the release.

Also, if you come in "behind" Laythe in its orbit, your velocity relative to it can be much lower, compared to your velocity relative to Jool when you've fallen all the way down its well to touch its atmosphere.

Thanks Signo, that shows a lot more about how things are attached. And thanks sal_vager, that video is awesome and immediately gives me inspiration!

Actually, what I want to know is, how did you make the giant double ring on your space station?

Don't suppose you'd share the craft file? I dig the idea of using the cargo bay as a body, but I don't see how you attached all the parts?

I also felt that the atmosphere was unexpectedly soupy. It seemed like it stayed quite dense up to an unreasonable altitude, given its overall height. I'm curious if you'd share or screenshot your craft. I've been told authoritatively that the ~2800 m/s ÃŽâ€v is correct for sea level to orbit in 1.0.4, but I can't seem to do it for anywhere near that little. I was planning to make and test several variant crafts with higher TWR or better streamlining, but having your lander as another data point would be great.

This has come up a few times recently. I highly recommend the three pages of this thread. Three more pages here. The short answer is, the relationship between drag and heating is currently broken. This is particularly noticeable during the new "turbulent flow" heating, which is engaged if your craft is moving faster than a certain velocity at a given altitude. This doesn't seem to have been balanced with interplanetary aerobraking in mind. Most such maneuvers will flip the "turbulent heating" switch, and pretty much instantly cook anything that's not effectively just a giant heat shield. The disconnect also means airbrakes are magical.

I concede it's possible that a combination of gravity losses (due to low TWR) and aerodynamic losses (due to my lander's pancake shape) have increased my effective ÃŽâ€v requirement. I'll certainly do some more testing. Testing the existing lander design on Kerbin isn't going to be very meaningful, as Laythe has only 80% the gravity of Kerbin. The lander's TWR on Kerbin would definitely be too low. I am, however, inspired to run some more tests from Laythe, with a higher TWR or more aerodynamic shape.

I've run a Laythe land and return mission in 1.0.4 Stock. I found ~3400 ÃŽâ€v (atmospheric) to be an acceptable (minimum) number for reaching orbit from the ground. Realistically you probably want a bit more. In this regard, the Wiki is incorrect, the 2800m/s number it lists will absolutely strand you. I did find that the atmosphere's density seemed to decrease slower than I would have expected as I ascended, but I didn't find any strange dead spots or places where my thrust suddenly cut out. Are you sure you're not losing fuel flow to an engine or something? Are you using any mods?

Signo, I appreciate your feedback, but I have some questions In my experience at Eve I was not diving nose first, but my attitude generally didn't matter much. Either I burned up completely or not. However, I have to ask, what reasonable interplanetary mission is bringing Mammoths? That's one massive heat shield! Maybe if you're planning an Eve ascent, I guess? And cost you a boatload of ÃŽâ€v in plane change, unless your orbit is polar already. I'm surprised. Since the problem is overheating, how do the airbrakes help? Or are you saying they generate more drag for you when you've already slowed enough to make an (otherwise frustratingly ineffectual) braking pass in the uppermost atmosphere? That may be, but what's your overall mission ÃŽâ€v cost for bringing otherwise useless airbrakes? Does it outweigh just bringing the fuel to slow down on engines? That's odd. The last thing I did land at Eve (in 1.0.4), I slowed down to orbital capture on engines, aerobraked through about 15 passes in order to slow enough to eventually dive into atmosphere for a landing, lost a lot of speed and almost died from heat coming in, but after that the atmosphere slowed me down dramatically, and my whole landing was unpowered. Losing the speed was the hard part, once you've done that, falling through the atmosphere to the ground is trivial. I popped chutes and floated down nice and gentle. Wait, if you're doing 2800m/s at 90k altitude, you are not talking about entering the atmo at interplanetary transfer speed (which you point out is ~4km/s). Which is it? Is this braking to land after several previous braking passes? If so, talking about your speed at 90km doesn't make much sense?

Holy Overkill!

Fair enough, I should have said the atmosphere won't transfer much heat, rather than saying it's not hot. :-P

Yes, that's what needs to happen. I don't think anyone is suggesting changing Kerbin's atmo. The problem with the current system is that there is no way to aerobrake at Jool from typical interplanetary transfer speeds. If your periapsis is 200,010m you get no braking whatsoever because you're outside the artificially decapitated atmosphere. If it's 199,990m you burn up instantly. Not only is this not realistic, it essentially eliminates a mainstay of Joolian missions in KSP. Much the same is true at Eve. With shields and airbrakes and a very high periapsis, you might survive, but you probably won't capture. A lower PE at interplanetary speeds is death. There is no practical option for slowing down at Eve except to pack along the extra fuel and burn your engines to make orbit. Even thereafter, aeorbraking to shrink your orbit and eventually slow to a landing requires many many passes through upper atmosphere. The "many passes" problem is relatively realistic, but it's tedious as hell to perform in the game. I'm not keen to spend hours watching my ship travel in a circle with no need for control input, and I can't time warp effectively because I keep dipping through atmo. I'm not bothered if it requires a heat shield, but for game play reasons I feel it should be practical for typical craft to aerocapture from a Hohmann transfer at bodies with dense atmospheres. Currently in stock at 100% heating, it is not. 1) The atmospheres don't continue to get thinner and thinner out into space, they terminate at an arbitrary altitude, which means you can't aim "high enough" to not burn up almost instantly. I've heard it claimed that there is actually a curve to the density as it approaches the decapitation altitude, but if that's the case the curve is ridiculously sharp. 2) The heating math doesn't seem to be scaling correctly at non-Kerbin planets. Something about the way it scales off velocity or density or altitude is broken. Example: once you've slowed down enough at Eve that you can make a braking pass through the very highest part of the atmosphere, you make as deep a pass as you dare and nearly fry everything to a crisp, only to find that your velocity is almost unchanged. If the atmosphere isn't dense enough to slow you down meaningfully, it really shouldn't be cooking your craft in seconds. Something about the "turbulent flow" heating wasn't balanced for non-Kerbin atmospheres or interplanetary transfer speeds. - - - Updated - - - I suspect that this is the new "turbulent flow" feature, which kicks in if you're going "too fast, too low". I'd bet that speeds above SoI escape speeds are "too fast" as soon as you touch the upper bound of Eve or Jool's atmosphere (meaning the highest possible atmospheric contact is "too low" and turns on the new Turbulent Flow heating feature. Because obviously my rover is fine sitting on the surface not melting or anything. So the atmo can't be THAT hot, especially not at 80km.

Did you.. um.... did you accept the contract? Because I think that one doesn't expire, so it'll stay in the queue until you accept it and complete it.