McFarnsworth
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Posts posted by McFarnsworth
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Built this thing. And no, I don't know why either.
I went to orbit, tumbled out of the sky, recovered, and landed it in one piece.
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...you use the last part of your lifter to make the transfer burn.
... and the circularization burn, ... and part of the landing burn, ... and you only stage because this part of the rocket was never meant to land.
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I can't believe it took almost 4 pages for someone to mention this, ... but this thread is worthless without pics
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Use solid fuel boosters instead of liquid ones, they're cheaper.
Land as much of your craft back at KSC as you can, you'll recover those costs.
Try to include a few part tests in the mission to increase profitability.
Ideally you'll want to build an SSTO that lifts your payload (transfer stage/command module + lander) to orbit, then land the SSTO back at KSC.
Do the same for the rest of the craft once you've done the mission. It's entirely possible to recover 100% of the parts this way and your only cost will have been fuel.
If you can show us your rocket, we might be able to suggest some more specific improvements for you.
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- Moar boosters! For some reason most part testing contract require fairly high velocities while still deep in the atmosphere so I can use the extra kick, and they're cheap. I'm not far enough in the techtree yet to build practical recoverable launchers. Jeb is happy.
- Bigger core stage/lander. All the expensive bits go here now. So I try to land as much as possible near KSC.
- Overbuilt stages. In order to accomodate a few part tests at the right altitudes and speeds while doing a mission I need to fire some stages sooner or later than usual or use less efficient engines or whatever so some extra margin for error is welcome.
- More Kerbal than NASA. My rockets started to look like actual realistic rockets since the last update. Now they're back to being barrels and pieces of stovepipe duct taped together. Jeb is happy.
- SAS and RCS are overrated. You don't ever really need these, ... right? I'm sure it'll be fine without them, probably.
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How? Tired and drunk mostly, but I just had to quickly try playing 0.24.
Single launch, command pod + chute, 5 fuel tanks, an LV-T30 engine, and some boosters with lots of explosive decoupling going on. Forgot to do any science or pay attention to where I was going to land though.
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A Finnish developer?
So did Finland move to Mexico, or the other way around?
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You mean things like this?
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Made some SSTO lifters:
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This was the (dummy) payload I used for my 500 ton lifter. Should be able to move a fairly large asteroid quite a bit, and attach parachutes to it in case I want to land it. Or I can use it as an orbital fuel depot. Or attach landers, probes and rovers to it instead of the extra claws and use it as an interplanetary mothership or whatever.
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I built a 250 ton to LKO lifter for my (slowly progressing) Jool-5 entry. I ever so slightly overbuilt it an it turned out to be a 500 ton to LKO launcher.
Time to add some more fuel to my Jool-5 mothership.
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Currently in orbit around Kerbin. He snuck on board of my interplanetary ship that's using only LV-1® engines. I forgot which planet I was going to though, so he might be stuck there for a while.
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Built a reusable 20t to LKO jet-assisted SSTO rocket. For lighter payloads it can even do a powered landing, but for the full 20t payload it needs parachutes to land safely. Ironically, if I remove the parachutes I might save just enough weight to do a landing without them, but I don't have the balls to cut them from the design. (the parachutes, not the balls)
Should come in handy once budgets become a concern, depending on how they'll implement them.
I also went through my crafts folder, and updated and optimized some of my older ships while deleting a lot of prototypes and crappy designs. It was fun going through all of my designs from my early ksp days and seeing how I've improved. I kept a few terrible ones for nostalgia's sake.
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Built a Mass Relay out of Nasa parts!
And also the launcher to get all 220 tons of it into orbit, which in turn has given me an idea to get my 250t Jool Five ship into orbit on something that still looks like a plausible rocket instead of an asparagus staged pancake.
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I realized I had never been to Kerbol before, so me and Jeb decided to take a vacation to the sun. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to try a bi-elliptic transfer as well. So I pushed my orbit to somewhere around Jool/Eeloo, burned retrograde at Ap to lower my Pe to just above explodey height above the sun's surface to maximize Jeb's suntan. Once at Pe, I burned retrograde again to lower the Ap and lo and behold I got a (lucky) Kerbin encounter. In terms of expended dV, this was a very cheap flight. I didn't even expect to make it back to Kerbin, but my ship still had about 4000dV left upon arrival.
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37 huh? that's an oddly specific number
Give or take a few dozen
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@McFarnsworth, that's a nice looking ship. Does it have dV for Tylo?
Like I said, haven't tested anything yet. In theory it has enough dV, but the TWR is pretty low for a Tylo landing (<1 for a lot of the descent) so it might take 37 attempts to get the timing and the amount of fuel I take down with me right. The original plan was to not leave any parts behind so the entire ship can be parked back in Kerbin orbit, refuelled and used again. But I had to make use of a droptank for the Tylo part of the mission. Since the Tylo lander makes use of the ship's main engines I really need to get those back into orbit.
I'm also not sure about the dV of the mothership. I just guessed that 2 large tanks should do it, but it might not be enough or way too much. I want to do this in a single launch, so no refueling during the mission.
I also noticed I haven't included any ladders yet on the Tylo lander.
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Well, let's see if I can get this thing into orbit in a single launch.
Haven't tested anything yet, but should be fine, right?
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Managed to put a 27 year old broken landercan from the surface of Eeloo back into orbit, barely. The rescue ship has also arrived after several years of travel and has been placed into Eeloo orbit as well. I think something went wrong during timewarping though because my rescue ship has around 1500 dV more left than I had calculated. I got distracted and have put the remainder of the mission on hold while I screw around with some challenges.
Built an entry for the Go Big With Small Engines challenge. Forgot to take screenshots. Had a better idea before relaunching. Built that instead and managed to launch it into orbit. While forgetting to take screenshots, of course.
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A few days ago, while landing a capsule on the Mun my landing stage turned into a crasher stage when it ran out of fuel at around 50m from the surface during the suicide burn. Normally I'd stage and use the main capsule's engines to finish the descent, but I forgot to properly set my stages up. So before i was able to do anything I hit the surface, hard. The landing stage blew up entirely, my capsule bounced up and I set it down gently on its engines a few meters from the initial impact. Not a single part had broken off, it even looked suspiciously like I planned the whole thing. Good thing it had a Kerbal in there though. A human would have turned into a fine paste smeared onto the floor of the pod.
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That's just how the delta-v requirements go. You need more delta-v for a Mun return mission than for landing on any planet with atmosphere. Duna and Eve are actually cheaper than a return trip to Minmus.
Fair enough, bad example on my part perhaps, but the point still stands. With the current scoring system you get equal points if you do a minmus return trip or a moho return trip. And it's easier to score more points on the simpler mission since the scoring system seems to favour less complex craft.
Not trying to offend anyone here, I quite like the challenge, just saying that maybe there needs to be a bigger incentive to go interplanetary. OP's call of course.
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So I (over)built a rocket for this challenge and I stumbled upon a few oddities regarding the distinctions. Despite the mission brief, the distinctions seem designed to keep you in the Kerbin system.
For example, my rocket can either land on Laythe, Duna, Ike, Eve or Gilly and it would qualify for just 4 distinctions (kerb can, big bug, fustercluck, somebug).
Alternatively, this same rocket can also land on the Mun and return to Kerbin so it would get 5 distinctions for flying an easier mission (kerb can, big bug, fustercluck, munbug, back before dinner).
However, strangely enough a much simpler version of the same rocket with some chutes slapped on and the asparagus staging removed is able to land on Minmus and return to Kerbin while getting 7 distinctions (kerb can, big bug, fustercluck, minmug, back before dinner, veggies are for wimps, dragonfly)
So maybe consider adding a distinction for escaping the Kerbin system, and possibly a few more for targets further out into the solar system to encourage exploration. Or you could assign points to the distinctions with harder ones getting more points.
I'll upload my, admittedly unspectacular, entry later today if I can be arsed to take and upload screenshots.
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Tried to capture an E class asteroid, and failed miserably.
Launched a rescue mission to Duna. Ever since solar panels became a requirement for manned pods a few versions ago I had two kerbals stuck in a dead capsule in Duna orbit. After 15 years they started running out of snacks so I sent a small module containing some batteries and some solar panels to dock with the pod. Luckily the old craft had a docking port and plenty of fuel for the return trip. I forgot to put RCS on the solar module so docking was ... interesting. Lost a few solar panels and a landing leg in the process, but enough of the craft survived to make it back to Kerbin.
Launched a rescue mission to Eeloo. Two Kerbals have been stuck in a primitive landercan on the surface for 26 years and several KSP versions now. It has no docking port, the central (electricity generating) engine broke off during landing because the kraken ate the landing legs on the way there, and obviously it doesn't have solar panels. Amazingly it still has some power in the batteries and enough dV to make it to orbit, but unfortunately no power generating engines (lv909 only) anymore. The rescue ship is a case of a lot of fuel and not enough engine so it won't be able to land, but I fear the batteries in the rickety lander won't last long enough to establish a stable orbit. One of the Kerbals can probably jump out and jetpack his way to safety, but the other will have to valiantly sacrifice himself and crash back down on the surface.
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It was early 2012 and me and some friends were chatting online when one of us mentioned he was messing around with KSP. Another friend said he tried it a few versions before and it was pretty cool if fairly basic. I though to myself "You mean like Lego blocks, but with explosions? This I gotta see!". After fiddling about with it for a few minutes a challenge was formed between me and the other two that were playing it, get to the Mun first. The space race was on!
The first few launches were very explodey, the rockets unbalanced (you mean there's a symmetry tool?) and missing features (parachutes, SAS and wings make the rocket slower, right?), but I was hooked. I already knew a bit about staging, gravity turns and had a vague idea how a Hohmann transfer to the Mun would work thanks to an earlier interest in space ... stuff. So despite starting the race last and getting to space last, I was the first to make stable orbit. After flinging a few rockets towards the Mun and missing I figured out when to start the transfer and promptly crashed into the Mun because parachutes apparently don't work there. *cue facepalm*
Landing on the Mun was one of the most nerve wracking things I've ever done in a game, but I got there eventually. This was before landing legs so a few pieces broke off and I was unable to return, but I had achieved my objective and won the race. Time from installation of the demo to Mun"landing": about 3 hours, which wasn't too shabby I thought to myself. I bought the full game immediately after that and it's now my most played game in my Steam library.
The Eve Rocks Challenge (v0.90 only)
in KSP1 Challenges & Mission ideas
Posted
Right, let's give this thing a go, shall we.
Yes that's mk1. Apart from the ladder, I've tested nothing. So wish Jeb luck!
It even looks rocket-y!