Rusty6899

I've been thinking this would be a great idea for a while. The way I see it you have the following criteria. Mass Thrust Isp (Vac) Isp (Atm) Gimbal Fuel type Radial Size Each of these criteria could be controlled with slider bars. Scientific advances could lead to a greater range in the sliders. The cost of the engine would be determined by its stats, to avoid making any engines too OP. If this was a node at the end of the tech tree it would work fairly well, as it would provide a need for science after the end of the tech tree has been reached. It would work similarly to the "Future Tech" Technology in Civilization, although it may be better if you could specify what research you wanted to do e.g. "Ultra-High Thrust Engines", "Superlightweight Materials" etc.

They didn't open until after my engines had burnt out, I hit my apoapsis and then semi deployed on descent. They burnt up as soon as they semi deployed. It was probably to do with my trajectory but I wasn't sure if that it could have been avoided. Obviously a couple of back up parachutes would have helped.

I accepted 2 contracts, 1. Test Mk16 parachute between 17000 and 25000m @ 400 - 800 m/s 2. Test Radial Parachute between 19000 and 24000 @ 500 - 1000 m/s I thought the best thing to do was to run the two tests at once by aiming for 19km - 24km @ 500 - 800 m/s. Basically, the parachutes ended up overheating on deployment and Jeb died. I had decided to test the parachutes on the way up as I felt that that gave me a better control over speed. I also separated my engines in the same stage so I couldn't shut them down and my speed went to about 1200m/s. My question is; was the test contract doomed to failure or was it my piloting? In a way, I can understand why there would be a mechanic to allow certain parts not to stand up to the tests that they are faced with (that is probably the point of having a test). It does seem a bit unreasonable to the player though.

My ascent was probably a little bit steeper than that, I probably got to about 60 degrees by 10km and I only managed to get to about 20 degrees by the time my apoapsis reached 80km. I'm sure that it can be done a bit better, maybe a few hundred m/s could be saved.

I was wondering if anyone has a reasonable estimate of the delta-v needed to get to LKO now the new aerodynamics model is in place. It cost me around 3700m/s to get to an 80km orbit (there may be some VAB rounding errors for mass/mistakes in assumptions about variable Isp etc.) my ascent seemed fairly efficient, although I hadn't got quite as much horizontal velocity as I would have liked during my gravity turn. Is that roughly what everyone is getting or am I wasting fuel?

I played it for a few hours last night and noticed a couple of issues. I'm going to wait until I have logged a few dozen hours until I give an overall opinion. I think that valid criticism is good for the game. Obviously I love the game as I'm sure most people on the forum do, the point is whether there are features that could be better and I'm willing to guess there are.

I found SAS to be really poor in 1.0. The rocket would be wobbling about when I was burning with it on and had to turn it off to fly straight.

I think all KSP music is Kevin McCleod music. It's free to use so it is quite popular for games. - - - Updated - - - Beat me to it.

Jeb died recently in a freak climbing accident. Both of the deaths that have occurred in my career have been during survey contracts. The first was Jeb, who was trying to rush down a mountain too quickly. Next was a some other pilot, who forgot to turn on the SAS on take off in a jet and careered off the runway. I have to say I felt pretty sketchy when I immediately went back to the SPH and shoved another rookie pilot in the same aircraft design after he had surely just witnessed his colleague being blown apart by a malfunctioning aircraft.

I've made a Mk2 shutlle, but not a Mk3 one. I may look to make one soon. I think some dedicated parts would make it much easier. The fact that it is so uneconomical doesn't help. Maybe if the fuel tanks cost a lot less, it would become more feasible.

you should be able to control your pitch with your throttle level. More thrust will tip it forward, less to tip backwards. The real problem comes when you release your SRBs, as you will no longer be able to control your thrust vector with the throttle and you will lose control as your COM changes. One way to remedy this is to constantly alter your thrust limiter on the central Mainsail, but it's a bit of a hassle. I think there is a mod that has shuttle engines with better gimbal ranges etc, but I haven't used it yet, so don't know how strongly to recommend it. Also can't remember what it's called ðŸ˜Â. Personally I found making a mk2 shuttle fairly challenging but doable, but I couldn't get a mk3 one to work, so maybe trying a mk2 one first would be a good idea.

I had it explode when I forgot check my staging and the launch clamps released before my engines were burning. Actually, that's probably not the game's fault.

It's the fuel tanks that are extortionate. Empty fuel tanks are often much more expensive than the engines that they sit above.

I'd say that the multi-kerbal cans have to come down in mass. It makes no sense to have the mass/capacity increasing with capacity and if the 1 man cans get much bigger, probes will become so much more efficient than kerbals that you'd be crazy not to use them. Maybe 1.2t for 2 man 1.25m pod and 1.7t for a 3 man 1.25-2.5m pod. Considering that a 4 man mk2 crew cabin weighs 2 tonnes, and a 16 man mk3 cabin weighs 6.5t I don't think that's so unreasonably low.

You're welcome to your own opinions, although I think you line of argument was fairly fallacious.

I had actually thought that might be the best way to do it. Maybe a 3rd tier building upgrade gives Dv in VAB (not sure which building as there is no point in having separate upgrades for SPH and VAB). Require an engineer for DV in flight, or maybe a top tier probe core.

It isn't as fundamental, though. I also like the early game lack of patched conics and think it is a similar issue with delta-v. As delta-v has never been included in the game, it won't be missed before a higher tech level, and it provides incentives for levelling up engineers. Newer players won't be met with a string of numbers that they most likely won't understand as well, and will have to grasp the concepts behind space flight before being given the numbers. It would obviously be available immediately in Sandbox, so you could design a ship there and then move it to your career save if you wanted to get around it.

I do always calculate it myself, but I'm starting to come round to the idea of having a delta-v calculator in stock, albeit at a high tech level or with an engineer at a high level. I actually found that learning about delta-v and how to calculate it was much more rewarding than just being given it, but now that I understand it, it seems more of a nuisance to work it out myself. If it is available to a level 5 engineer then it requires a number of interplanetary missions to be carried out before it becomes available, so that would probably be the best option.

You missed "Monopropellant is extortionatley expensive compared to monopropellant liquid fuel." (although Vernors are significantly more expensive than monopropellant powered RCS ports). I would have thought that the "4 port RCS thingies" are better for docking as they give omnidirectional thrust. Also, having 2 different types of fuel may be beneficial in a situation where you are landing on a body while leaving a mother ship in orbit, as you will not have to worry about leaving enough RCS fuel to rendezvous and dock with the mothership on your ascent. The low thrust isn't always a bad thing either, as you generally will want a very precise control of your velocity when docking or when making minor adjustments to an orbit. The multi-port RCS are also better for making adjustments to orbits as you will always be able to thrust in the prograde/retrograde directions if you place your ports sensibly, whereas the vernors would be difficult to line up in that way, as their thrust vector would not necessarily be moving through the centre of mass of the ship. If you like the Vernors, you're probably best off using them, but the old ports do have some advantages. There are rarely set rules dictating that "Part X is better than Part Y". It's more common to find that some parts are better than others in a specific situation.

I lost concentration a bit and whacked my Minmus lander against one of its ice oceans at about 50m/s. It destroyed the engine, but the rest of the ship survived. I don't use quick saves, so I was really annoyed until I realised I had some mono propellant and a couple of RCS engines. I did a quick delta-v calc and realised I could just about get into an orbit, where I had a station to top up the mono propellant. I managed to get back to Kerbin with about 2 units of monopropellant left.

I hope no one has suggested something like this. I think it would be a good idea to have an option to set the thrust for an engine to be unaffected by the level of throttle being applied. At the moment I am designing a shuttle. My first stage works well, and the second stage is ok until a certain point, when the COM deviates too far from the thrust vector and the shuttle starts to do somersaults. One way of preventing this would be to constantly be adjusting the thrust limiter on one engine, to ensure that I had control over the direction of my thrust vector, but a much more user friendly way would be to have one engine set to constant 100% thrust whilst swithced on, and the others having adjustable thrust. This is effectively what I do with my first stage. I have a constant thrust of the SRBs and I make adjustments to the thrust of my liquid fuel engines to maintain a steady trajectory as the COM changes. Once ignited, the engine without throttle control would probably have to be shut down using action groups.

TO do this, I have to have a rough estimate of your delta-V budget and a rough estimate of a realistic time frame. To brake at Uranus to get to Pluto is problematic, because it takes decades to travel between the two, so you would be saving a couple of years between Earth and Uranus, but still travelling at a snails pace during the most time consuming part of the trip. I don't think the two bodies' respective orbits are very conducive to such a transfer either; your solar orbit during the transfer to Uranus will be too eccentric to get a useful reduction in svelocity. Uranus' orbit will be almost perpendicular to your direction of travel, whereas you want to be travelling parallel to its orbit to reduce your velocity (and to achieve that would take an insane amount of time or delta-V). Using a Earth-Venus-Jupiter-Low Solar-Pluto set of Hohmann transfers, meeting Jupiter at the Pluto-Jupiter AN/DN to use Jupiter's gravity to perform your inclination change, and meeting Pluto at Periapsis, you could get there in maybe 35-40 years and your circularisation burn around pluto would cost around 6-7 km/s (Disclaimer: That was a complete back of a napkin calculation and I accept no liability for its potential inaccuracy). I'm not prepared to give a predicted DV cost of the entire trip, but you would be able to save a lot of DV with the suggested gravity assits. It also would require a near miraculous aligning of the planets and execution of the transfers. Any minor blip in your Sun-Pluto transfer could cost you years.

I'm trying to build space shuttles in sandbox at the moment. There's no point in making them in career, as they aren't economically viable, but they are challenging and rewarding when they work. I also dont make space planes often, so I make them in sandbox to avoid a huge loss of life and funds in my career.

Thanks to everyone who has provided an answer. I have to say, it's been a fair while since I did integral calculus, and I don't think I was ever brilliant at it. I think the main thing that cost me though was failing to consider that "ln(a) - ln( = ln(a/b) I probaby would have twigged if I had thought to apply that reasoning. Thanks again

I wasn't really sure where to post this (it's not a "gameplay" question so to speak), but I wanted to have a go at deriving the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. The problem is, that I don't get the right answer. My assumption is that the delta-V is the integral of the acceleration of the craft wrt time, so; a = F/m m = m0 - m_dot*t a = F / (m0 - m_dot*t) int(a)dt = (F / m_dot) * ln(m0 - m_dot*t) F / m_dot = g0 * Isp m_dot*t = m0-m1 so, I get dV = g0*Isp*ln(m1) instead of dV = g0*Isp*ln(m0/m1) I'd appreciate if anyone has any idea where I have gone wrong.