nadreck

My 2 cents: An expert KSP'er is someone who has mastered a number of aspects of the game so that they can accomplish picking a goal (Jool 5, flying a space plane down into Joolian atmosphere and returning out of it, Eve landing and ascent, high speed Eloo return mission, building a lunar base that docks together with a landing platform and not all on wheels, etc as examples not the be all and end all list) and then having picked the goal can pick an approach (RPing consistency, in game efficiency, out of game efficiency {that is minimum of human effort}, engineering elegance, flamboyant style, etc as examples) and then accomplish it directly without trial and error and without massive over engineering (ask me in a little while how my first Eve landing/ascent goes). Just doing something because you got there by iterative trial and error isn't expertise, however, learning by trial and error and then applying what you learned to the next problem and being able to do it without trial and error, that, is expertise.

I spend a lot of time in real time and only warp a short while (so far) in my current career save (started in 0.23 and updated into 0.23.5) - the reason is not because I am trying to do it in real time, but because I want to finish off the tech tree in the minimum game time (one more set of science that has been on it's way from Minmus for more than 3 game days, I missed them at the first PE) and I am on day 13. Once that is done, my goal is minimum game time until I have returned a Kerbal, and sample, from each celestial body that you can land on (Kerbol and Jool are the ones you can't). So, I have more than twenty actual flights in progress, three armadas (bound for Eve, Moho, and a class E 'roid). I will be warping time as needed, but I build the ships and launch them as soon as a reasonable (but high energy) trajectory is available for each planetary SOI.

Actually the question is what is 6 x 9 - the answer is 42 base 13 (or a full deck and two jokers - note this last interpretation of 42 base 13 is my own, not Douglas Adams)

My first Joolian expedition. Especially getting on and off Laythe unsca(y)thed, of course I have yet to do Tylo.

To everyone who "wishes they could refuel there" or anywhere. Consider this, in previous versions I have gone to great lengths to get a lander with a docking port that aligns with my rover's so that I can refuel the rover (it can make Munar orbit or make short suborbital flights). Now, you can refuel ANYTHING by equipping your fuel truck/rover with 'the claw'.

Eraserhead

Persistent maneuver nodes!

OK, I just don't get it, this 'debate' had people on both sides of the question of the new parts. There was lively discussion about how you shouldn't have higher performance without some sort of cost, yet no one pointed out that these nice new big tanks that they have given us with these allegedly over-performing engines have a lower mass ratio (8.2 vs 9) than the standard tanks we had. I find that as significant a difference as a 15 to 20 second increase in ISP.

I started over in 0.23, and will in 0.24 probably, but wasn't finished the tree in .23 and was trying to get a baseline on a minimal elapsed game time to do it (and to return a Kerbal and sample from every body except Kerbol and Jool) so I preserved my save. We will see how that goes and what my options are when 0.24 comes out. I have 3 craft on their way to a Class E 'roid hoping to bring it into LKO on the first pass, but if the dV is too much maybe go for a maneuver to get to a 2nd orbit LKO via aerobraking.

Why not call her Bertha (of course my first ship that put one of these nearly full into orbit was called Big Bertha). Orange Tanks may still be a optimal design point since the mass ratio on the new ones is a little lower than on the older tanks (8.2 vs 9)

Ok the mass ratio on the tanks is a tad worse than on the previous tanks (8.2 instead of 9). The most efficient arrangement would be to use 3 jumbo's and an LV-N as the interplanetary stage, however it is so easy to build a 4 stage one with the new parts and have 4 LV-N's around the top tank and use the remaining fuel in the 3rd stage that did orbital injection get the full value of the Oberth effect as you boost out of Kerbin orbit. Leaving you with 70t off fuel on its way to where-ever and an energy budget of nearly 8000m/s while still delivering nearly 20t of fuel to the destination.

Can I marry a persistent maneuver node? Seriously that is the biggest plus for me! Sure the other mods to the maneuver nodes are nice, I can build bigger tankers to support my planetary exploration armadas, oh and I have a plan for the new ION on steriods. Because of the way I am playing my career save (which I happily moved into .23.5) it will be a while before my ships get to the first asteroid I have targeted, however, one of these days I will get one(or a dozen) into LKO.

#1 reason: I am a space nerd, so yes I have orbiter, and I have tried a number of more traditional style space games, but between the 'wobblyness' 'kitch' and general organization, KSP has had me since I first tried it in version .21 (ok the demo .18 for 45 minutes then off to put the 'real thing' on my computer). Since 0.22 came out I have played career mode without mods. This isn't a religious thing, I played .21 with MechJeb and tried a couple of other mods, but for career mode I just found I wanted to do it because, for me, it made sense. I have played other games that I added little personal rules into just to enhance the play/realism/style for myself. In .23 I decided I also wanted to do my career mode against the game clock (I was only on day 12 in the game when .23.5 came out and had more than 8,000 of the requisite 10,738 science points). I also wanted to make a Kerballed return trip to the surface of every celestial body except Jool and Kerbol by as early a date as possible. Since I was able to, I decided to keep my Space Race save going in .23.5 - so far I am still on Day 12 but have launched two vehicles towards the biggest asteroid that showed up using new parts and with enough fuel to, I hope affect the bodies orbit in time for it's first pass by Kerbin to do an atmospheric breaking to an eliptical orbit then, over a long series of shallow dips into the atmosphere, put it into a nearly circular LKO. If I don't have the d-V for that I will put work on acheiving that on a subsequent orbit. By then of course I might have captured a smaller one, and certainly will have sent lots of ships out. If I have maxed out science by the time .24 comes out, or if .24 doesn't support keeping the same save going, I will start over the career mode. I probably have enough science to max out my career mode now, it is flying in from Minmus, but it is a couple of days away still. I have my Eve armada to launch yet, and now, with the new parts, I want to send a new support ship with a lot of extra fuel to Moho to meet my expedition that the lead ship has been on its way since Day 5 of the Kerbal Calendar. I see a lot of discussion about what is realistic and what isn't, and as long as the physics of spaceflight is real (even if planetary and solar densities are a little on the high side) I will not really complain. Sure I would like realism, ION engines that were realistic, but could stay under thrust when not in focus, would be great, but the current compromise is fine. I would love to see icy trojan asteroids of Jool. I would love to send them to LKO and make fuel out of them. Sure adding life support needs and real re-entry physics would be nice too. But even without all of those things, the game will last a very long time for me with what it has before I get bored.

Well I had so much going on, the Armada on its way to Moho, the Eve Lander just fuelled up in LKO waiting for a 2nd orange tank Nuke Tug, since I was able to make the save work, then get my standard Earth Time clock back, I have every thing I need to continue my Space Race to finish the tree and tour the Kerbosphere in the minimum time required. When I launch my Joolian Armada, I think I will include a probe to do a Kerbol close pass then run to Kerbol escape at the highest speed possible (for fun). I might even go with a two part ship for that with a manned component that will do an ultra high eccentricity orbit to return to Joolian SOI (and eventualy Kerbin) and an unmanned probe to do the high energy escape (say a full orange tank and nuke engine around kerbol and an ion engine to see just how fast and far a probe can go). I AM ABSOLUTELY LOVING PERSISTENT MANEUVER NODES!

Thanks, that was it!

I converted my 0.23.0 career mode into ARM and I went from being on Day 12 to Day 45. My Moho mission in flight went from being on day 5 of the mission to day 22. It is now only going to arrive on Day 69! I have no idea how this impacts my planned launch dates (super transfer elipses or hyperbolics) for Jool, Duna, Eeloo. I was relying on Alex Moon's little calculator. Yikes! Does anyone know what happened and how I can adapt/convert the new timeline?

Thanks, this made my day! I will continue with my .23.0 career and add in asteroids as opportunities arise. All my missions are still on!!!!

Well, I just put my prototype EveLander into LKO (a 3 stage device that I calculated should be able to get into orbit as an SSTO without staging, but ended up having to put 4 solid boosters to make up the difference between theory and practice) I also think that this EveLander could land and take off easily from Tylo, I will certainly give it a try if I can get that far before .23.5 comes out. Right now I have to refuel my EveLander, attach a nuke booster or two send a refueling and support armada with it and give it a try. Then while that is on the way I will launch a version without the aerodynamic nose cones and parachutes and some of the 48-7S engines, assemble a much more extensive armada in orbit, including one or two of my rapier wingless airbreathing SSTO's (for Laythe), and send of a Joolian expedition. My rough test of my EveLander was to launch the 2nd/3rd stage combination and get my Mk1 lander can in to munar orbit, then take the full vehicle, launch it to 1500 meters land it on chutes with just a little engine work back as KSC then relaunch with the remaining fuel to 10,000 meters altitude at 50 m/s near the ground to 150m/s at 10,000 meters on the first stage only, the objective with reducing the thrust to simulate was to simulate having to boost for a prolonged time through the thick of Eve's atmosphere.

I have done it in 0.23 and found that if the debris is not in permanent orbit or landed, it just disappears. Debris does not land if you are not with the 2.5 km zone and hitting recover before your debris lands takes you out of the 2.5km zone.

You need to make sure your science module lands before you recover the vehicle with a Kerbin or automated control. So the order I use for my science modules is: open science module(s) chutes, decouple if it the chuted didn't decouple them automatically, land the main vehicle, wait until the science module(s) land, switch to them, recover them, switch to controlled vehicle and recover it

Hey, back when I was in high school my local library had the following 12 year old book in the discard bin and I decided to give it a good home: Even before I picked that one up in 1974 I would doodle rocket designs in class using the rocket equation quoted here and a number of other relatively simply bits of math and my variety of "seat of the pants" KSP certainly includes a lot of that sort of simple arithmetic. For something like my upcoming Eve science lander, I will use some of that math, but I will ignore the impact of atmosphere, instead I will test the vehicle on Kerbin and make sure that what I expect to make it down safely to the surface of EVE can launch and make it to 10,000 meters altitude and from there the remaining vehicle should be able to launch from the ground on Kerbin and make it to trans Munar orbit (and note that is just what is needed to make it to Low Eve Orbit - from there it docks with the return vehicle and at least the science module and Kerbal come back to Kerbin). I have yet to try navigation further than the Kerbin SOI without the node planner that comes built in to KSP and http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ but sometime I probably will. I do manage to do higher energy orbits than Hohmann transfers.

Used it once I mastered getting into orbit in 0.20 when I started with KSP. Career mode in 0.22 made me want to run stock, forced me to learn to land and dock without MechJeb. Missed it for the first 100 crashes on Mun, but by my first Joolian expedition in 0.22 I managed to land on every Joolian moon except Tylo and take off and rendezous with my mother ship. I don't miss it now, and I have no problem (and never did) with converting fuel left to delta-v etc. I am not the best lander and use more fuel than optimum, but I am comfortable with my ability levels. Still wouldn't rule out using it again if I go back to mod'ed play.

What I am good at: designing easy to land low CG landers for airless bodies mission planning to get there and back on the fuel available (put it this way I often am down to RCS on the return, but still make it) logistics for multiple biome science missions (my unpatented science module that consists of an RCS tank, a materials bay, two goo containers and 4 each of the smaller sensors, oh and of course one parachute and 2 docking ports - I send them to the Mun and Minmus - they get picked up from the automated transfer vehicle by a low CG lander in a polar orbit which also refuels from the transfer vehicle and deposits previously 'exposed' module - go down to the surface to a different biome - rinse and repeat) Oh and nukes, I love nukes! deep space tanker/supply ships with the best mass ratio's using a single or pair of nukes, supporting the nuke powered lander for the easy moons and the other specialized landers for the two "hard" moons Laythe and Tylo Oh, and I think I am getting tolerably good at both rendezvous (both orbital and surface) and docking. The surface rendezvous skill comes from the frequent need to rescue Kerbals from the surface of Mun or Minmus. Not good at but trying hard: Wingless airbreathing SSTO's (ok mixed mode engine now) I have yet to land and return a Kerbal from Eve, but am working on it in 0.23 - might make it here - if not I restart my space race (career mode trying to optimize in elapsed Kerbin time) in 0.23.5

I hate it when that happens! http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1113104232/expedition-40-soyuz-crew-dock-delayed-thruster-malfunction-032614/ How many times have I started a rendezvous maneuver only to realize I was thrusting the wrong way. Happens when I have had control in the wrong part or port. I love the view in a lander from an upside down cupola on the base, but don't leave control there!!! So often turning the other way round and thrusting, or trying to do as large a burn with thrusters is just a waste as I would be way past where I would need to be, but in a closer orbit and therefore have to wait longer than if I just recalculate from the one I am in as soon as I realize my mistake.

Redoing Career mode in 0.23 I have been using unmanned craft to bring more science modules (two docking ports, radial chute, RCS tank, a materials bay, 2 goo containers, and 4 of each of gravioli, thermometer, etc) to Mun and Minmus from Kerbal to be brought down to different biomes by landers brought up to orbit, have the landers refuel from the ship bringing fresh modules and swap modules so that the ones with "exposed experiments" can be returned to Kerbin. I have a rover lander design that has left many stranded Kerbals (though that is not a science lander, just fun one for joy riding in interesting places like the canyons). One of my landers orbiting Mun is a two man lander can based one that has a docking port on the side so a lander rover can refuel from it. It has yet to refuel one as I keep smashing them and having to pick up the pilot. I had expected to use far less science modules but a variety of accidents, mostly non fatal, left me needing to have more, I think I have sent roughly 25 to Mun and 10 to Minmus and still haven't maxed out science from there yet. So for rescue's I generally use manned craft, but for most support logistics I use unmanned ones. Bill is my only surviving "original three". Oh and I have Bob's first clone in my first Minmus Nuclear lander on his way back to Kerbin in a very precarious position, he has to land a vehicle with no parachutes because the design was flawed and the hatch doesn't open on the 1 man lander can. He will be landing a 4 engine nuclear craft with nearly empty fuel tanks (any more fuel and it would have a thrust to weight ratio < 1). NOTE my goal in career mode 0.23 has been to use the least elapsed time to unlock the whole tree AND secondary target of least amount of elapsed time to return at least one Kerbal to Kerbin from the surface of every body except Jool and Kerbol in the least elpased time. Also aiming for the lowest loss of life. So far I am at about 8100 science points out of the required 10738 to unlock the whole tree and I am at 11 days of elapsed time. I have Al on his way to Mojo on a higher than optimal energy orbit, and a nuclear powered tanker with a couple of spare science modules in a similar orbit. I will shortly launch two more tankers and two more manned vehicles, one of them being a spare lander with a 2nd seat, but a single pilot, and the other a kerbal can based orbital station. I have yet to plan out the Eve fleet, but it can launch soon on a high energy trajectory. Had I had more time to play since 0.23 came out I would have been further along.