Corw
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Posts posted by Corw
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1.0 is a big improvement on the game.
I didn't said it wasn't a major improvement, but I was hoping it would be a complete, stable and reliable product. If it was, we wouldn't need the (rather radically game changing) patches.
Pssst, don't feed the troll
I'm not a troll, just a disappointed fanboy.
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I thought 1.0 would be good.
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If I'm not mistaken, KSP loads everything to memory at start. So SSD would speed up your load and that is it.
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How do i find out the weight of the fuel in my main ship?
Note the mass of a ship, empty tanks in VAB, note new mass. Difference is fuel. Or get a mod.
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Some folks say MJ is a "cheat", but it's just realistic. Except in dire emergencies, real rockets don't fly on manual control, and the days of having a room full of guys with slide rules doing the calculations are ancient history. There's a reason we don't do stuff like that anymore. But even if going old-school is your thing, you still have to know what you're supposed to be doing by hand, and MJ is an excellent teaching tool for that.
Heh, the "real life"/"realistic" argument over and over again. In real life they wouldn't let you past the visitors area of the space centre and even for that you would have to pay. In real life you lack qualifications to run a space program, let alone fly something (RC model planes included). This is a game about managing, building and flying stuff sprinkled with occasional explosions. You don't feel like flying it manually? OK, fine, but don't pull those "real life" excuses.
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I didn't mean to spark such a fire!
Anyway, to put it briefly, yes, straight up there are gravity losses. But those are minimal on Mun, so if you're on the side that's retrograde with respect to Kerbin orbit, the amount you lose to gravity is less than would be needed to orbit before ejecting.
I didn't do any math, mind you, just experimented a bit. May vary with TWR, for instance.
There is additional point. If you have high TWR, means you have bigger engine then required for the mission. So your vessel is overbuilt to start with and competing vessel would be smaller and required less fuel.
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Does not really work like that, in KSP Engines are far heavier, so an Apollo style mission with separate service, decent and ascent propulsion systems will lose out to a single engined direct ascent, also in KSP re-entry protection is still unnecessary coming back from Mun, so you don't have to worry about landing and returning heavy heat shields.
In principle it mostly does, as I do not have separate descent and ascent engines. I'm not 100% sure as I can't test it right now (at work).
And the heat shield part is bit moot as it is a bug that should be fixed. And it is one of the reasons why I'm not playing since 1.0.2 has came out...
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Op, you are missing the point. You have overdesigned your crafts so you are taking wrong conclusions out of it. You left fuel behind which means you wasted all the resources you've burnt to bring it there etc. Apollo mission profile is bringing minimum mass required for each part of the mission. Less mass on top means less mass in each stage before it, which is most visible in your first lifter stage.
If you go with the lander you are not wasting fuel landing and lifting back to space return stage (Mun->Kerbin). You also need smaller return stage because you have discarded the mass you needed to land etc.
Try building two crafts, one Apollo style, other direct descent and compare them. They will be able to do same mission, but Apollo style one should always be smaller and cheaper. If you do not overbuild them, that is
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This counts as a dev note?
Not empty quoting...
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I've killed guy named Jeb. Police doesn't have a clue.
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You mean like how entire space rockets, planes and their fuel can be built out of thin air in an instant, with no other infrastructure on the planet? Or how the planets are on rails and the sun has an infinite SOI? Or that the universe's physics, planets' characteristics and how engines work changes every few months? Or that infinite ore can be wished out of the ground? Or where magic spinning boxes can right your craft? Or where the crew never eat, drink or defecate? Or where fuel can be magically created from rocks? Or where a claw can make two craft become one with fuel cross feeds?...
Its a game, not a simulation. Whatever is needed to make it interesting or fun is implemented. So, ion engines lifting a 100t rocket from sea level, why not? Who's to say what is impossible in the Kerbal-verse?
From what I've seen and read over the years KSP is a balance between fun and realistic, with accent on realistic.
It has been using simplifications to improve fun (building out of thin air, fuel mining, fuel transfer), simplifications to avoid simulation problems (on the rails planets, SOI), scaling down to improve fun (smaller system, planets), scaling up to improve fun (high TWR, high ISP, high ion engine trust to improve burn time). But all of those simplifications and scaling are actually based in possible things. Fuel transfer is possible, but hard. RAPIER is possible, but hard, SSTO is possible but hard. Mining fuel on other planets and moons is possible, but you've guessed it, it is hard. A lot of systems were added over time as the game was maturing, they were just missing at a time and were added over long period of time.
So yes, there are a lot of compromises on realism to have more fun, but realism was always strong in this one. There are no unicorns, warp drives and ion engines lifting 100t from sea level. In future Kerbals might eat, poop and have cities, because that was not high on list of important stuff, but your magic unicorns are nowhere to be found on that list. Your magic unicorn ion engines are not hard, they are impossible, so they are not included.
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3rd party hosting sites like http://imgur.com/, then embed them in post.
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In 2nd scenario your second stage has to move less mass, because you've dropped side boosters, so same amount of fuel has to do less work. That is why you get more delta v. And that extra delta v is propagating to total delta v of the upper stages. Left side of the / is delta v of the stage, which is unchanged for upper stages, but total of that stage with lover stages included is higher.
Basically, you have discovered the most crucial thing that KER can show you = less is more. Just enough engines and fuel can get you further with lower mass and parts count than bloated design, which at first had is counter-intuitive. You don't have to go "moar boosters!" to go to space, you can just reshuffle staging, add small bits here, remove small bits there and get much better results.
For me personally, KER was such a revelation and I would never go past LEO without it.
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What is stock behaviour like at the moment anyway? In FAR (just FAR, no DRE), a direct Minmus return with a 20km periapsis burns about 3/4 of the way through a heat shield (which seems about right from a gameplay POV to me).
Somebody wrote they deorbited station without anything exploding because of heat... from Minimus.
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I didn't play 1.0.2 much, but I had to try to see what the op is about. So I slapped really simple test SSTO with Rapier... and got it to 100km orbit on the first try, no fancy flying just full throttle to the orbit.
*iamges*
No, i never claimed such a thing. I claimed that for my SSTO planes an turbojet + aerospike combination works much better. However the people here in the forum showed me planes where Rapiers work better.
I guess finally it depends on many factors what will work better. However i still wish for slightly more powerful Rapiers, they are unlocked very late in the career and they have the right to be more powerful then anything else.
Actually, you did said they just that: Rapiers can't get you to space.
Idk maybe it's bugged for me but the Rapier wont get me to space. As i wrote a combination of 2 Turbo jets + 1 Aerospike make a nice SSTO for me with even some payload capabilities. As soon i try to make a SSTO with only Rapiers i won't even reach 1000 m/s @ 15000m . Speed stays under 400m/s. The datasheet says they only a bit weaker then turbojets in air mode but i think they completely useless.You didn't mention anything about payload, just that you can't make orbit with them. Try to be more clear in your statements or you come across as whiny
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Ahh yes you made a simple SSTO plane that can reach orbit and return without even a payload. Very useful. You sir will be awarded with this years "professional airplane design" award.
The name "no brainer SSTO" is fully justified i guess.
Your original claim was that Rapier can't work for a SSTO. Made a Rapier SSTO without trying. Problem?
And I guess it can move one Kerbal to orbit, so not totally useless 
I don't have any experience with cargo hauler SSTO, too time consuming for my taste.
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I didn't play 1.0.2 much, but I had to try to see what the op is about. So I slapped really simple test SSTO with Rapier... and got it to 100km orbit on the first try, no fancy flying just full throttle to the orbit.
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Once upon a time in a forum far far away there was a thread about this amazing new game. So I checked it out and game was great, even without the Mun. Later on I found out the op is Scott Manley, before he was cool.
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:facepalm: I'm out of here before I get into trouble with mods...
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If anything falls off of your ship on purpose on the way up, it's not an SSTO.
The though of unintentional falling off got me to stitches
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I'm going to reply to this thread in one year. Now, where is my calendar...
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Wow, that was rather badly written review.
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Different ways work for different people. Just don't go below 0m/s. Op said he had too many buttons to deal with hence this suggestion.
Oh and this was changed in 1.0. Game switches to normal sas when velocity is ver low.
Oh, cool, didn't know that. Thanks for the tip! And for me it is less keys because you only use throttle and RCS, you have to mash key less that way then trying to kill horizontal speed.
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Possibly try using the retrograde button (if you haven't) then all you need to do is control thrust and watch your surface speed m/s. Might help.
And he will end up going everywhere once he cuts too much velocity and starts slightly going up. Been there, done that. For me the key is the RCS. Lock heading on the dot up and control only descent speed with throttle (vertical). For the for horizontal movement corrections (left/tight/forward/backward) use RCS. Also use bursts of RCS to fine tune descent.
Orbital Information IRL
in KSP1 Discussion
Posted
Of course you would "cheat".
Because IRL is about getting things done. However, game is about enjoying the experience 