WafflesToo

SRB's got pretty thoroughly blatted into oblivion by the nerf-bat with this update I'm afraid. They are actually more expensive than LFO engines for the same amount of dV to go along with all of their other disadvantages.

I've run several cost-analysis' on payloads ranging from 1t to 10t and SRB cost between 1-1/2x and 2x as much for the same amount of dV as a LFO engine. They were dirt-cheap in 0.9 which off-set all of their disadvantages; they have no advantages in 1.0.x that I can tell.

I'm assuming this was to address the parachute issues; boost drag so the capsule isn't doing Mach 2 at 4km up.

Physicsless parts now add mass to the parent unit.

I know it! This is the first update that doesn't have me scurrying to the mod-list to get it up to 'feature complete' status for me. :heart:

What's your TWR on liftoff? If you're using the old 2:1 standard odds are you're overspeeding in the lower atmosphere. What flight-profile are you flying? The NuStock aero doesn't like violent maneuvering so if you're doing the old "straight-up to 10km, pitch-over to 45" maneuver you'll tend to pitch-pole the rocket. You need to follow the prograde marker which means starting your turn earlier and doing it more gradually. Do you have a bunch of greebles located high up on the rocket? Goo cannisters and such? That's going to push your center-of-drag in front of your center-of-mass and that could cause instability. Without more details thats all I can think of as common mistakes. Good luck with your future flights.

Fuel fraction is a factor in Delta-V. At very small fuel fractions the tinier, high TWR/low Isp engines will out-perform the lower TWR/high Isp engines. Just so you can do the math to see it for yourself: dV = LN (m0 / (m0-mf)) * 9.8 * Isp

A few things I noticed right off the bat: #1) Early in the flight you're accelerating at between 2-3 G and wind up going way too fast in the lower atmosphere putting a lot of aerodynamic loading on the vehicle. I know TWR 2:1 used to be gold standard for stockaero but for FAR you needed to be closer to 1.3:1 or less so you can probably eliminate most; if not all of those radial engines. I assume this is close to true in NuStock as well (at least it has been working for me so far). #1b) Speaking of the radial engines; those are the only things keeping the rocket from toppling over earlier because they're creating a large amount of drag behind the center of gravity (which has a stabilizing effect on the whole rocket). As soon as you stage them off you lose that stability thus the rocket wants to flip end-over-end. #1c) Somewhat related; the materials lab is very, very light for its size. I suspect it pushed the center of drag in front of the center of mass as a result which is why it worked for you the first attempt and not the second. #2) As someone said already, you need to keep the nose pointed close to the prograde marker on the navball so your turn will have to start sooner and be more gradual. This is especially true with non-gimballing engines like the LV-30T (or if you're a cheap ....... like me, SRBs). Good luck with your future flights!

I'm with you, I was hoping for some additional instrumentation options in-game for TWR, dV, and Orbital Parameters (at least Apo and Peri information) from the main screen (instead of having to switch to map screen). I really don't mind having to hand-calculate dV and TWR too much during the design stage, but it seems like it would be relatively simple to implement. Good thing Kerbal Engineer exists.

The only thing that surprises me is that there aren't more posts like this one, everyone (who wasn't already flying FAR) just got too comfortable with the broken flight model. I guess the pixie-dust powered blimps just aren't going to work anymore This does intrigue me, I'll have to go check that out later.

There never was a version for 24.2, Interstellar Light by P-Wave is the closest thing there is.

THANK YOU! I cannot count the number of times I've seen someone ask "how do I maths" and see them bombarded by links to mods, webpages, and tools, following being somewhat mistreated when they clarify that they want the maths, not the tools (doubly irksome if I'm interested in learning about the same maths). To be honest, I don't really see the opposite happen all that often (though I'm sure it happens). --- KER is an awesome tool that I use on a regular basis, but it is completely useless if I'm designing vehicles that are using RCS blocks for primary propulsion and it there are times it is WORSE than useless when docking ports get involved (very often presenting wildly incorrect results). It doesn't take long to get a back-of-a-napkin calculation to double-check the figure KER is giving me; especially since the stage mass KER returns is reliable. Shame the stock game doesn't have in-editor mass and TWR readouts.

What I wound up doing is altering the Squad Resource file so Fuel, Oxidizer, and Monoprop all have a mass of 0.001 and went through the MFT configs, multiplying the tank volumes accordingly. For the record, I did try altering them to their real world masses (0.0008, 0.001141, and 0.001012) but ran into some pretty severe game balance problems when I did so (rockets had ~25-30% more dV for the same mass). I didn't want to spend the time to figure out a way to rebalance the game and 1kg per unit works just fine. Your way sounds easier

<left field> AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! I just figured out why my water-propellant nuclear craft aren't getting the level of performance I figured they should be getting. Using the MFT mod; A fuel tank that can hold 4 tons of fuel only holds 800 kg of water. </left field>

What he said. Although I reworked the 48-7S' Isp to match the 24-77 in my save so it is far more reasonable.

Kind of curious where the RAV stacks up as well. Anyway, sorry for the ill-timed abscense but IRL matters needed delt with. I've got all seven of the FAR fliers downloaded and time set aside tonight to get to my flight tests. There's several I'm kind of eager to get behind the controls of.

I use FAR BECAUSE it allows aerodynamic failures. The graphs and simulations that help predict how it will fly are a real bonus as well.

I would never take criticism of my baby personally... (have them put on the wall and shot) -_^

The two options I've seen employed so far are 1) eliminate the Kerbal (or eliminate the Kerbal after missing n#snacks or 2) turn off command of the pod so it can't be controlled. I heartily agree that it should impact your mission and not simply shrink an arbitrary score that doesn't seem to do much beyond stroke the player's ego. You could always include an options menu somewhere to make the penalty toggleable by player preference. OH, I just had an idea; maybe have the Kerbal goes dormant after missing n# snacks and no longer counts as a crewman for controlling a pod. If all of your crew go dormant then that pod is no longer controlled.

@MeCripp: Tried it both ways, it would only accept the second edit so I left them flipped so at least Isp wouldn't be nerfed to oblivion @Renegade: Ah, I think I see what I did wrong now, thanks. I'll give that a try tonight when I get home.

I don't know about anybody else, but I was tired of feeling like I was cheating any time I used the 48-7S so I wrote this little MM script to bring it more inline with the 24-77; it costs 50% more (to account for the +50% more thrust it gets) and has the same Isp curve. Copy this script and save it as "48-7S-balancefix.cfg" in your GameData directory and MM will do the rest. @PART[liquidEngineMini] { %cost = 720 @MODULE[ModuleEngines] { @atmosphereCurve { %key = 1 250 %key = 0 300 } } } Alternatively, if you beleive it should be a carbon-copy of the 24-77 (as its item description suggests it should be) then copy and save this script instead: @PART[liquidEngineMini] { %cost = 480 %mass = 0.09 @MODULE[ModuleEngines] { %maxThrust = 20 @atmosphereCurve { %key = 1 250 %key = 0 300 } } } EDIT: I'm having trouble getting the atmosphereCurve to work; it's showing Isp(ASL) and Isp(Vac) to both be 300. If anyone can see what I did wrong I'd appreciate the advice. Thanks.

I dunno... I've gotten pretty darn good at tap-tap-tapping Going to try to get a few of these downloaded tonight and start flight testing. I want to make sure to give each of the FAR flying ones their due so I want time to become proficient at flying them before I start squirting out numbers. I'll probably follow Hodo's format, it looked pretty good.

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing... Any landing that you can re-use the spacecraft is a great landing

Not THAT much more, not really. My current science probe cost 10k /F to make and costs right around another 1k /F to put into orbit via a spaceplane. From there it can make it anywhere it wants to between Eve and Duna, maybe even Dres if it caught it just right. To get it to Jool (or beyond) requires an SRB (750 /F inc hardware) plus a second spaceplane flight to loft that into orbit for a total cost of right around 13k /F to put it around Jool vs 11k /F to put it around Minmus... or Ike... or anyplace (energetically) inbetween. Gotta admit, OP did lose me a little there. I don't really understand that one... though I did count crashed hardware in my cost pile. Didn't realize I was at transsonic speed when I tried to violently pull the nose up; = confetti. EDIT: but I just realized I DID forget the cost of some experiment containers I had to ditch during an emergancy abort two days ago. I don't have the numbers memorized but it was three containers from the Orbital Materials Science pack and a little hardware, I'll just guess it cost me 4k /F between lost hardware and wasted fuel; but at least I saved the aircraft and got it back safely.

I think you're using the wrong form of the word "worth" based on the OP. A Jool probe certainly has more VALUE than a Minmus probe; but the difference in COST may not be all that much. I took OP to mean cost, not value. My program COSTED right around 600k /F to operate, but it's VALUE is much higher than that (in both /F income and the work it has been producing).