Syhrus

Wow are you launching a new moon into orbit or something? The only thing I can think of is fuel lines. I assume your little boosters are run into the large boosters for fuel efficiency? If so, double check ALL of them and see if one is not connected properly, or not facing the right way, etc. That's about the only thing I can think of.

I plan to send crew 3 once the Hinnus 1 returns to Kerbin. As it was, I could have built a Hinnus 3, but I'd run out of ideas for base parts by this point. I used Kethane, Engineer Redux and Crew manifest.

What I've always wondered is why couldn't it just have a request for time-warp system? Something to the effect of "Player X wishes to time warp x50 for 10 seconds" would come up, and then people could either vote yes if they didn't mind, or vote no if they were about to land or something. Put in a universal detection for anyone approaching an altitude limit and there shouldn't be any problems... Given the average launch takes about 10-15 minutes, rendezvous and docking takes 30-60 minutes, I'm sure a reasonable compromise could be reached between players to keep it fun for everyone.

Just so I'm clear, does this challenge require FAR, or is it optional for the stock craft section?

Oh whoops, I was trying to keep my post from being picture heavy and I must have forgotten to add them. Also on a side note I was forced to add a few SBR's to the lifter because I did my maths wrong for the lifting capacity. Fortunately it made little difference to the overall weight recovered, so I'm okay. Here are links to my base parts: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158017360 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158017306 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158017243 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158017182 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158017115 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158017031 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158016873 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=158016944

Okay, so it took me a few days, but I have drafted up my plan. I think I'm going to do a video series about this mission, seeing as I have only done the planning stage, and haven't flown anything yet. Project Fatum Project Fatum is a two stage mission to set up an outpost on Duna by the end of this year. It will involve the orbital construction of two interplanetary tugs, which shall carry across enough housing and supplies for a manned mission on the red planet that will last indefinitely provided our funding can continue The first part of this mission will be to scout the red planet for a suitable location for our outpost, as well as scanning the planet for deposits of useful resources. For this purpose, we have designed Scout Probe Alpha. This small probe will be designed to fly to Duna and use its scanners to give an accurate map of the Duna surface, and correlate that map with a scan for minerals to select a suitable base location. Once that is completed, the probe will then detach a rover, which will deorbit and then land at the selected location to confirm its usefulness. The second part of the mission will involve construction of the first interplanetary ship: Hinnus 1. This ship will be sent up in 4 parts (due to lifter restrictions discussed below), which will include a main body (with habitat for 5 kerbals for the duration of the transfer), 2 separate fuel tanks, and an engine block. This ship will run on a single NERVA engine. Once the Hinnus 1 is completed, the first mission will require a further six launches before transferring to Duna. These launches will include a Command Centre for the base, a habitat unit, a supply storage unit, a Kethane refinery, as well as two vehicles: a short-range 1 man rover, and a prototype Kethane powered Jet. The goal of the first mission will be to scout the Duna surface surrounding the base, collect Kethane for production into fuel, and to test the prototype jet. If this jet proves useful, the design will be refined into an SSTO for tranfer of crew to and from orbiting ships. Presuming all goes as planned, the first mission to Duna should arrive at the Red Planet on day 359 of this year. In the meantime, work on the second mission will begin, with the construction of a second interplanetary ship, the Hinnus 2. This ship will work in the exact same way as the Hinnus 1, and will be carrying similar parts to Duna including a lander ship, which will ferry crew and resources down to Duna, and then transfer the old crew back to Hinnus 1 once their mission time is complete. Scout Probe Alpha under construction. Hinnus 1 Core under construction. Reentry To protect craft from the heat of reentry, we have developed a heat shield (dubbed 'huskarl shield' by the workers) that will work by deflecting the heat from reentry away from the craft. This design is lightweight, and easy to implement on any craft that will require it. The shield also has attachment points that will allow it to connect together with other parts for transit. Once reentry has been performed these ports are unusable, but the shield is discarded after use anyway. All base parts will be equipped with a Huskarl shield and a small engine for deorbiting. Huskarl Shield undergoing field tests. The Lifter The 'Showboat' class lifter is a manned, reusable lifter. It is crewed by 1 or 2 Kerbals, is equipped with a Huskarl Shield and is entirely reusable save the shield. The Showboat is only able to lift a 17t payload into orbit however, which has lead to some weight-shaving in terms of base parts. 'Showboat' on launchpad 1st Stage engines recovered at KSC 2nd Stage engine before splashdown Final Stage before touchdown at KSC Supply The total time for each mission will be ~650 days including travel time. Base supplies will be 3000 units, and the Hinnus ships will carry an extra 1500. Projected requirements for supply are ~3900 for the entire mission, leaving 1100 units for emergency situations. These supplies will last a crew of 6 183 days. Each subsequent mission will carry the same amount of supply, so no mission will rely on another for its survival. Fuel supplies will be replenished thanks to the refinery on Duna. This will allow the mission to continue indefinately with resupply runs every available window to keep crew alive. Launch Schedule 010 ^ Hinnus 1 Core 036 ^ Hinnus 1 Fuel Tank 052 ^ Scout Probe Alpha 059 > SPA Transfer to Duna 078 ^ Hinnus 1 Fuel Tank 104 ^ Hinnus 1 Engine 125 ] SPA Duna Insertion and Orbit - Map then deorbit probe over 7-14 days 130 ^ Duna Base Command Centre 156 ^ Duna Base Housing/Supply 182 ^ Duna Base Supply Module 208 ^ Duna Base Kethane Refinery 234 ^ Kethane Jet prototype 260 ^ Short Range Surface Vehicle 290 > H1 Transfer to Duna 312 ^ Hinnus 2 Core 338 ^ Hinnus 2 Fuel Tank 359 ] H1 Duna Insertion and begin landing base over 3-7 days. 364 ^ Hinnus 2 Fuel Tank 390 ^ Hinnus 2 Engine 416 ^ Duna Base Supply 442 ^ Base Construction Parts 468 ^ Duna Base Housing/Supply 494 ^ Duna SSTO lander 520 > H2 Duna Transfer 596 ] H2 Duna Insertion 866 > H1 Kerban Transfer 938 ] H1 Kerban Insertion - Transfer crew to Ground. All subsequent missions require two launches (1 for supply module, 1 for refueling Hinnus craft and transferring crew) Summary Overall, we expect a crew of 6 to arrive on Duna by day 359, which leaves 141 days with 6 kerbals on Duna. By day 596 the second crew of 6 will have arrived, and until day 938 there will be 12 kerbals on Duna. Once the first crew leaves, there will be 6 kerbals until day 1000. Projected Early Mission Score: 6 Kerbals x 141 days = 846 Projected Efficiency: 846 / (17 tonne payload x 19 launches) = 2.619 Projected Sustained Mission Score: 6 kerbals x 141 days + 12 Kerbals x 342 days + 6 Kerbals x 62 days = 5322 Projected Efficiency: 5322 / 17 tonne payload x 19 launches) = 16.477 I'll post a video of the actual mission later on this week I think Excellent challenge. Thoroughly enjoying this so far.

THIS is a challenge I like. Actually planning this out before doing it sounds like some pretty good old fun. Anyway, I have a question regarding reuse of lifters: I have developed an entirely reusable lifting stage (all parts are recoverable within 1km of the KSC, including the final stage that comes complete with a heat shield). Does that get any extra relaunching advantage over the minimum 50% rule described, or have I just made a showboaty lifter? Otherwise, I'll get to work on this later this weekend! EDIT: Disregard my question. I reread the rules and 50% of original weight is probably close to what I have anyway seeing as most of the ship is fuel.

"We're making PROGRESS!"

At that height your control surfaces don't have much effect on the ship. It may have something to do with ASAS trying to use them instead of torque wheels. EDIT: I just noticed you're going full throttle in all these pictures. Sometimes when I get a spin at high thrust, I find that throttling back a notch or two helps keep the rocket under control. DOUBLE EDIT: It could also have to do with the positioning of your engines on the bottom of the tank (I thought you were using a mod, but those are just LV's right?) Look straight down the rocket in the VAB and make sure the COT is exactly in line with the COM

The problem with inclining your station's orbit is that it doesn't take into account that Mun will be spinning. So while you will be lined up correctly when in the same position as shown in your picture, you will be even further out of phase half a Mun day later when the station is on the other side of the planet. For my mining operation, I have a colony on minmus, and fly kethane up to an orbiting tanker using a lander. Then I fly the tanker back to Kerbal where it docks with a refueling station that does all the refining work. This works well even though my actual mine is on 10° latitude and I have the tanker orbiting at nearly 0. It really just depends on how you want to do it. If I were you, I'd use the same system, keep the station at 0° and just use a lander with a high amount of dV.

I like to think of orbiting as similar to throwing a ball up into the air. It will go up for a while, until its speed is overcome by gravity's acceleration and it falls back to earth. In orbit, you are doing the same thing, except that you are moving so quickly over the surface of the earth, that the ground is falling away from you faster than you can reach it ("aiming for the ground and missing") Michael from Vsauce does a better explanation here of what orbiting actually is. The reason you speeding up one side of your orbit raises the other is also due to the fact that you are constantly falling. If you speed at the lowest point of your orbit, you essentially add more speed to your 'fall' around the planetary body. Halfway between the lowest point (where you sped up) and the highest point (180° out of phase from the lowest point), your 'fall' becomes more like a 'throw' out to the other side of your orbit. At this point, your ship flies higher until gravity stops its vertical speed and begins bringing it back down to earth (incidentally speeding it up again too, so your speed is the same when you reach your lowest point again). Hope that helped!

Must be something in the air, I just had this bug too... I fixed mine be undocking where it would let me, thrusting back slightly so the ports reset, then thrust forward and simultaneously undocked the other part. Fixed my problem.

Dat ship.

This is my favourite tutorial on the subject: http://youtu.be/YsEHIn_ucIA Basically your first step is to get it close to perfect, so your docking ports are almost aligned. Next, you just decouple each one until they have all been decoupled. Then just thrust away a bit, and then go back until you hit them all perfectly where they should be. Failing that, he also talks about a quicksave edit, which is my preferred way of doing this. As much fun as trying for hours to dock everything perfectly is... I prefer to spend my time flying to other planets...

I've got a little drinky-bird toy sitting above F5...

Another reason for the problems of spinning may be that you have too many wings on the ship. They tend to make things more unstable for the amount of control they give. Try to just launch it with a pair of canards at most, or even none at all. Also, if you're having trouble when you decouple those SBRs it may have to do with the chutes pulling them into the main rockets, which could explain the loss of control. I personally wouldn't bother with the chutes, seeing as you can't reuse parts yet... To give you an idea of what sizes are possible, this craft is capable of reaching Duna: It has no control surfaces, no RCS, and uses a Nuclear engine to power itself once in space. (I hate ion drives). EDIT: I just realised it isn't even set up for asparagus staging either...

Does anyone else get a crash when docking two large ships together while using a flight computer? It's only happening on my really big ships/stations, so it's not a huge issue for me yet.. annoying though, because I have to relaunch the offending ships... EDIT: Fixed the problem by reinstalling the mod.

Is it a laptop? A lot of my friends have heaps of trouble running KSP on theirs but no trouble on desktops. not sure why...

The scanning function for Kethane is tedious and irritating. The only way you can get a decent scan is to slap it on an inclined orbit, time warp to x50 and walk away for half an hour. Today I pumped out a high-res scan of Minimus by leaving my game running while I was at work. 5 hours later, I got back and it still wasn't fully done...

This is certainly possible. I've done it before. The only problem is that it doesn't leave you with a very structurally sound ship once you've reassembled it into its final form. Docking ports (even snr.'s) are not very strong laterally. I'm actually designing a few multi-launch capital ships at the moment, and the biggest I have planned is only 5 launches to build. Some key tips I have for this kind of construction: 1. Have your ports facing ONLY forward-aft on the ship. This reduces structural wobble under thrust, and avoids nasty breakages. 2. Where possible, use mulitple ports. This helps distribute the load, and helps reduce wobble. 3. Keep in mind that all these links add to your part count, so don't expect to be able to build a ship as large as you could with a few launches with different parts.

I use KAS for this. I just attach the base together with winches set to docked mode. Best bit is that you don't even need to rebuild your current bases as there are detachable connector points. Just fly a 'substation' to your base and connect up all your different bits. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25563-0-20-KAS-v0-3-1-Kerbal-Attachment-System

Lies and slander! Hohann Transfers are probably best for Mun, so you've got that part right. For best efficiency, try to get your final Periapsis to Mun at 30km when you do your initial insertion burn. the further away you are from a point on your orbit, the less fuel it takes to change it (hence why burning at one side of your orbit directly effects the other side). Once you get to you Mun Periapsis, bur retrograde until your Apoapsis is as 30km as well. If you want your orbit to be equatorial, make sure your have your orbit aligned correctly before doing your insertion burn.

I actually find that aerospikes add too much weight to your craft. My designs use a pair of LV-T30's for the final stage into space, and then a smaller LV-909 for orbital controls once I'm clear of the atmosphere.

I just finished a video about the basics, but it seems you've got those downpacked. At 25,000 you should be pushing the limits of your jet engines to get as much horizontal speed as possible. Once you're maxing that out to drag, you should have a pair of rockets to get you through the final levels of the atmosphere. From there, just fly like a normal rocket.

Citadel Station on the dark side of Kerbal. This is the first stage of my colonization mission. Basically this will be a big ol' hub for my Kethane miners to bring back resources, but I'm also working on orbital construction techniques... and yes, those are docking ports connecting the 4 sides. And yes, I did have to dock them together manually.