Northstar1989

I think the title of this suggestion could use some clarification (change it by selecting "Edit Post" on the original post, and then "Go Advanced"- which will enable you to edit the title as well), but it's definitely a good idea that could use some love. A way to see the rewards that can be earned for existing active contracts while in the VAB/SPH would be great. It's nice to know how much we can stand to earn in the near future, so we know how much we need to leave in the bank in terms of funds... Regards, Northstar

Sorting through contracts is currently a pain in the rump. I agree 100% with all of these These changes would improve the UI significantly, without any real change to the balance of gameplay (#4 would change balance a bit, but you can already use engines with action groups before activating them for the contract with staging), so I see no reason they shouldn't be included in the next update... Per #4, I think the contract completion triggers should be multiple- i.e. staging OR right-clicking works. This is just to make it easier on the player. I'm surprised all of this wasn't included in 0.24 on release, considering how much time the devs said they spent tweaking and polishing 0.24 with tester feedback. Then again, maybe the addition of the Contracts window itself was an addition that wasn't originally present in the first version of 0.24... Regards, Northstar

Sorting through contracts is currently a pain in the rump. I agree 100% Combined with options to sort entries in the contracts window, I think this would make the interface much more manageable. And there's no reason for the devs NOT to implement this- it improves the UI without changing the actual gameplay at all! I'm surprised this wasn't included in 0.24 on release, considering how much time the devs said they spent tweaking and polishing 0.24 with tester feedback. Then again, maybe the addition of the Contracts window itself was an addition that wasn't originally present in the first version of 0.24... Regards, Northstar

Sorting through contracts is currently a pain in the rump. I agree 100% I'm surprised this wasn't included in 0.24 on release, considering how much time the devs said they spent tweaking and polishing 0.24 with tester feedback. Then again, maybe the addition of the Contracts window itself was an addition that wasn't originally present in the first version of 0.24... Regards, Northstar

Glad you like it. With the addition of Budgets in 0.24, off-world refueling just became a LOT more useful- as it turns out the devs opted for the realistic/accurate approach, and made fuel tanks much more expensive than the fuel they contain. Decouplers, structural parts, and even struts are also fairly expensive- so there's an exponential increase in the cost of progressively larger rockets. Being able to launch a larger number of smaller to mid-sized rockets (which can also thus rely more heavily on cheap SRB's to get off Kerbin), and use some of them as fuel tankers, is looking to be a lot cheaper than single heavier launches... Not to mention the benefits of reusable rockets and spaceplanes for filling up fuel depots around Kerbin- and reusables don't scale well to ultra-heavy payloads (like interplanetary transfer missions) due to the need for stability when landing back on the ground... Regards, Northstar

No problem. It's a pleasure to hear that you kept following this through to the end Geschosskopf! The ride's not over, exactly, though- it's just starting again *from the beginning* (something I always wanted to do after getting into this thread) with "Kerbin and Beyond: A New Beginning". I'm really enjoying playing with Budgets and FAR (though I've decided it was crazy to think I could play with FAR without at least some sort of fairings... I've played with NovaPunch a lot in the past, but I think I'm ready to try out KW Rocketry this time around- the various procedural mods are going to take a lot longer to become appropriately balanced for 0.24, I imagine...) so far (pun intended), and I'm just going nuts with all the contracts, seeing if I can find the most efficient ways to fulfill them while meeting additional goals in the same mission... (like testing a rocket destined for a Munar flyby in my latest rescue contract- shhhhhh, that's a spoiler) I am hating the heavy return of lag when viewing Kerbing from orbit, thanks to Active Texture Management not being updated for 0.24 yet when I installed the update. I hope that I can add that back in soon... Regards, Northstar

Welcome to KSP! I'm sure if you posted screenshots of one of your rocket launches on an appropriate subsection of this forum an experienced player would be more than eager to help you out. If you want a mod that make the physics of getting to orbit a little easier, try Ferram Aerospace Research. It replaces the stock/default aerodynamics model with a much more realistic one- and rockets with good aerodynamic design will perform better than with stock aerodynamics as a result. I've just switched over to it myself, and was amazed how much better my rockets now perform. Regards, Northstar

No idea- buy I feel ya there. I've had the same problem myself (when staging even works at all- for instance recently I separated a rocket into 2 pieces, with a probe core attached to the lower stage to activate the parachutes and attempt to fly it back to the ground. Unfortunately, the parachutes wouldn't activate with the assigned staging control AT ALL, and I was forced to manually activate the parachutes with right-click: which apparently DQ'd the rocket form completing a relevant parachute contract, even though the first parachute activated in the correct speed and altitude range... Also, what's up with the briefings? They look a bit like a drunk monkey (or a recovering heroin addict) wrote them. The content is there, but the syntax is just a complete catastrophe. It's impossible to get any emotional value out of them, or to draw anything decipherable from them, other than once in a while a key fact- like that a rocket in need of rescue underwent "unplanned combustion" (i.e. suffered and explosion) when you see that phrase ("unplanned combustion") in isolation in the garble... All things aside, it's a great update, and I'm glad to see it released- especially so soon after the last one. I appreciate Squad's work- I was just a bit surprised with the buginess of the new version after how much they talked about "waiting to make it perfect"... Makes me think maybe they could have waited a little bit longer... Regards, Northstar

OK, so I was going to have this up sooner, but Imgur is basically the "special child" of the internet photo website community- especially since the last update to the system. It kept telling me "no images found" when I tried to scroll down to some of the ones at the bottom of the screen, even though I WAS LOOKING RIGHT AT THE IMAGES a moment before... But like many special children, it's loved, and has its own place in the world (like as the preferred medium for a huge number of internet forums for some reason...) Regardless, I've got at least (some) of the images up at last- and there are a lot of them to make up for the dearth of screenshots before. So without further adieu... I kept getting over-ambitious, and trying to pack as many contracts into a single launch as possible to save on costs (if I was using all the components anyways, I wouldn't have to launch separate rockets just to fulfill the contracts), but eventually I decided on this relatively simple design. I wasn't too familiar with how the "test part" contracts would work anyways, and it turned out it wasn't the way I expected- like for instance I didn't get credit for using the BACC SRB even though it fired through the range of altitudes and speeds specified in the contract- because apparently it needed to be *ACTIVATED* once the rocket was already moving at those speeds at those altitudes (how's that for nonsensical- a SRB that I need to fire AFTER being lifted BY liquid rockets- as using SRB's to lift the SRB wouldn't allow me to hit the desired speed of ignition in that altitude range very accurately...) You can see that the contract is STILL listed as "Active" after I launched a rocket to orbit using the BACC... After circularizing the orbiter, and checking that the contract for the BACC was indeed still-unfulfilled, I decided to follow the lower stage down and attempt to recover it using parachutes. True, this isn't exactly the VTOVL capabilities of Space-X yet (that'll have to wait on some more technology- particularly longer landing legs), but if I could safely reduce the lower stage to a safe enough speed, my Kerbals could still at least fish the lower rocket out of the water, and after some refitting and re-testing re-use the modular components for future missions using these types of engines and fuel tanks... I was also attempting to fulfill a parachute part contract in doing so- otherwise I wouldn't have bothered (but apparently, even if you fulfill all the contract conditions, it doesn't count if you activate the 'chutes by right-click: you have to use staging controls. And for some reason, the 'chutes wouldn't activate with staging, even though I had set it up that way ahead of time...) Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well. It would have worked GREAT in wimpy stock aerodynamics, but I'm finding the aerodynamics stresses of FAR more than willing to tear apart my rockets if they undergo uncontrolled re-entry (like the case was for this lower stage- I'll have to remember to add a reaction wheel and some tail fins if I want to try this again with FAR in the future), or even if I try to hold a heading SLIGHTLY off the retrograde vector (like in my first launches, which you missed, where I attempted to use ASAS to hold a *slightly* more vertical angle than the angle of re-entry...) Struts might be helpful (not available yet), but so would longer fuel tanks (fewer joints) or higher joint strength (like with Kerbal Joint Reinforcement). Right now I'm experiencing the unsavory combination of pitifully-weak stock joints (all the latest changes to joints did was exchange strength for rigidity- I've found the new joints actually much easier to tear apart than the old, whenever even moderate shearing forces are involved...) and highly-modular stock tank design. Oh, how I miss StretchyTanks right now (and for that matter, Active Texture Management- the lag when viewing Kerbin from orbit was unbearable...) Anyways, after that was done, I moved on to the glory of !SCIENCE! My main mission besides attaining orbit was to gather scientific data from orbit- namely Crew and EVA Reports, Mystery Goo experiments, and the recovery of a vessel from orbit. That part went a little better: By the way, I love Gene Kerman's comments ("it's not as if it were rocket sci-oh")- though I'm sure I can't be the only one utterly confounded by the horrible grammar and syntax (it's obvious what the devs were TRYING to do- it just doesn't look like they got it to come out right) in the Briefings... I'm not the only one getting something that looks like it was written by a heroin addict on recovery from a week-long binge for my Briefings, am I? Regards, Northstar

No, not once you factor R&D costs in. But you don't have to replace the R&D costs if you lose the prototype, especially if you're planning around there being a high chance of failure (due to the unreliability of BDB's) even if it works perfectly. But the manufacturing costs for the microwave and heat receivers for a pressure-fed microwave thermal rocket- MUCH less than the manufacturing costs for a turbopump (or even pressure-fed) chemical rocket of similar size (I don't even mention performance, because a microwave thermal rocket engine is capable of MUCH better TWR and ISP with sufficient amounts of beamed power) I'm not talking about building a large-scale system. I'm talking about building a 20 MW microwave array (estimated cost $20-40 million US Dollars, this includes power plants and high-energy capacitors at the ground site) and throwing a couple SMALL (the diameter of a thermal rocket in this size range would be less than 1 meter- as a separate rocket, its payload capacity would be measured in fractions of a kg) thermal rockets on the side of a giant ole' Big Dumb Booster as cheap strap-on boosters using experimental technology. The TWR and ISP they get is extremely impressive (up to 1000s in vacuum, and superior thrust to a chemical rocket of the same diameter for less dry mass), so it would be worth the extra mass- and thermal receivers/rockets in this size range are EXTREMELY cheap to manufacture compared to a comparable chemical rocket engine. I'm not arguing against test stands- they're great because they're the ultimate in low-risk. But eventually you need to test the rocket out in flight, and when you do, a Big Dumb Booster is the place to go, once you want to test at higher altitudes than what you can get through drop-tests from planes. You want to start off by putting the CHEAP payloads at risk, not the expensive ones. Once you've got some testing in strapped to the side of a Big Dumb Booster (some of the heavier, Sea Dragon style ones being so powerful that if the 10 MW booster failed, it'd be like a flea on the side of an elephant- it's not going to throw off the thrust vector significantly or weigh it down by much), you graduate to independent rockets relying entirely off the the thermal rockets. There's no need to ever put a much larger smart booster carrying a large and expensive payload at risk anywhere in the process. No, it's the OPPOSITE of cars. It's more like new and untested drugs, which actually start off by testing on animals, and then on poor (either economically, or in terms of chance of survival without a novel treatment, i.e. desperate) "volunteers", sometimes even in third-world countries (with some companies, especially the less ethical ones), because there's a chance it could kill them. You NEVER go straight to the high-value customers if there's a chance the new drug could kill them (trust me on this, I'm a biologist in real life). First you do mice, then you do monkeys, then you do healthy but poor volunteers (you need to see how it affects healthy individuals first), then sick volunteers who are desperate for a new option (and whose physicians have thus determined the potential benefit outweighs the potential cost for), and then finally you move to market with the drug. The same basic strategy applies to rockets. I'm not talking about a BDB based on new tech. For the zillionth time, I'm talking about a cheaper TEST PLATFORM. Play 0.24 a bit (like I've been doing for the past several hours), and see all the contracts to test new engines (I assume they've just been developed, within the continuity of KSP) in certain conditions, and then imagine something like that but strapped to the side of a Big Dumb Booster now that we already have tried-and-true chemical rocket designs (though I must point out they WERE NOT so tried-and-true back when the Sea Dragon was proposed in the 1960's...) Regards, Northstar

Let's get one thing straight- Big Bumb Boosters are NOT more reliable than "smart" boosters. Just the opposite- they're designed and manufactured to less exacting engineering standards (still engineered and tested- but more similar in quality to what you might see used in an automobile industry, rather than a modern space program), which saves ENORMOUSLY on cost. But as a result, they're more failure prone. The principle behind a Big Dumb Booster is that, when transporting cheap payloads (like fuel and consumables), the advantage in per-launch cost greatly outweighs the increased failure rate. They aren't cheap or sloppily-made exactly- only much LESS expensive and carefully-manufactured than a typical rocket in a modern space program. Missions don't fail if they fail, either. Because they are meant to be used to launch IN ADVANCE OF NEED to much more expensive orbital depots (which need to be launched atop better rockets, due to the inherent cost of the payload- Big Dumb Boosters are not meant to replace smart boosters, only take them out of the market for the cheaper portion of payloads), the cheap component of the payload is already there, waiting in orbit before it's needed. A typical mission might look like this, using the Aquarius design: Interplanetary Probe X needs 14 tons of fuel to reach its destination. The dry mass of the probe is 1 ton. Instead of launching the probe on a typical 15-ton "smart booster", you launch the probe completely dry as a 1-ton payload on a much smaller, cheaper smart booster. The 14 tons of fuel, meanwhile, you launch on 21 separate Aquarius launches (1 ton payload per launch, up to 1/3rd of launches fail) in the months PRECEDING the launch of the probe, to an orbital fuel depot. The cost of these 21 launches is only a fraction of the cost of 14 launches of 1-ton smart boosters, or of a single 14 or 15-ton smart booster. After launching dry atop the smart booster, the probe acts as the "passive partner" for a rendezvous/docking with a reusable orbital tug (part of the Big Dumb Booster system- for instance; a tug, depot, AND the rocket itself were all part of the $700 million plan for Aquarius), which then transports it to the fuel depot (the tug would have to return to the depot anyways- it might as well bring the 1 ton of probe to the 14 tons of fuel rather than the 14 tons of fuel to the 1 ton probe), where the probe is fueled up and can then proceed with its nominal mission. Thing you DON'T have to maintain, when using an Aquarius-style Big Dumb Booster: (1) A launchpad- most BDB's are designed for aquatic launch (2) Expensive insurance policies for the entire mission payload- a 1/3rd failure rate is already calculated into the cost of the Aquarius (whereas even smart boosters occasionally fail- and you have to take out insurance to protect against this). Your insurance policy only needs to be for the dry mass- which means much lower insurance costs (1 ton-payload smart boosters are much cheaper than those that can lift 15 tons to orbit, in this example). (3) A fleet of super-heavy smart boosters, like the Space Launch System, Saturn V, or Ares V rockets (too bad we didn't figure that out earlier- though it's not too late for the Russians and Chinese who are early in the process of designing their own new super-heavy smart boosters). Any vehicle heavy enough when "wet" (full of fuel) to require a booster of that size can much more cheaply be launched "dry" atop an existing medium-lifter smart booster, and then refueled from the Big Dumb Booster fuel depot (which can be filled up over as many launches as necessary- 3 for each 2 tons of fuel with Aquarius, which yields a cost of $666,666 per metric ton of fuel, or $666 per kg- significantly cheaper than existing launch costs-per-kg. For reference, the Falcon 9 is currently the industry-leader at just over $4,000 per kg) All in all, a surprisingly intuitive and very cheap system. Why use expensive rockets to transport cheap and easily-replaced fuel? (or consumables for the ISS) Like the designers said "Bread was moved on bread trucks, not on Brinks trucks". Regards, Northstar

I wasn't talking about using swapping in high-cost internal plumbing- like you said that kind of defeats the point. I was suggesting testing out technologies like trying to land the thing after launch (like with Space-X, except if it somehow causes loss of rocket and payload it's a lot less of a big deal), throwing microwave thermal rockets on as strap-on boosters (the engines are a lot cheaper than chemical rockets, even in their experimental stages- all the cost is in the ground infrastructure- and if a thermal engine exploded and took out the whole rocket somehow, once again it wouldn't be as bad as with a "smart" booster), or swapping in an aerospike nozzle on the bottom (it's a *nozzle design*, not a plumbing design- so it shouldn't take all that much modification or additional cost) or using a smaller liquid rocket with an aerospike nozzle as a strap-on booster (so you don't have to alter the BDB at all). None of these ideas add significantly to the cost of the Big Dumb Booster. The booster can be just as cheaply-made and over-engineered as ever: having a new (and equally cheaply-made) strap-on booster with a different nozzle or even cheaper propulsion system (than chemical rocketry) isn't going to change that equation at all, and *might* even add to the payload capacity a bit... Not at all. Why would you risk an expensive "smart booster" by trying out an unproven technology with it when you could just strap the same experimental technology (once again, talking about something like an aerospike engine or a thermal rocket) in parallel to the BDB's normal propulsion systems, as in with a strap-on booster, not as a replacement) to a much cheaper rocket, and not care as much if the whole thing goes up in flames (not only is the rocket cheaper to begin with, but there's a good chance it might have gone up in flames even without the experimental technology...) What I'm working off here is that there are basically 3 main classes of failures: (1) Failures that destroy the rocket and payload- these are much less of a big deal with a Big Dumb Booster carrying a cheap payload like fuel (the BDB is cheap, the payload is cheap, and there's a chance as high as 1 in 3 with Aquarius it would have failed/exploded WITHOUT the new technology). Of course, just because a strap-on booster with risky experimental technology explodes doesn't mean the main rocket will fail- but it's likely to as it will probably cause some serious damage in the process. (2) Failures that simply fail inertly- they don't do ANYTHING. Such as an engine the simply fails to ignite, or cuts out in flight without causing catastrophic failure. The dead weight of a dead strap-on booster (which could then be decoupled anyways if this didn't cause loss of control) would be much less significant with a hugely powerful BDB than with a smaller and more efficient rocket- especially since BDB's don't normally operate with strap-on boosters to begin with (most BDB designs are two-stage-to-orbit), so it wasn't exactly relying heavily on strap-on boosters to begin with (it might just have to settle into a lower orbit, assuming the payload was increased due to the addition of the strap-on booster with experimental technology). And, if it causes mission failure in the end, once again that's less of a big deal than with a "smart" booster. (3) Failures that have some other unintended, but deleterious effect, falling somewhere in-between an inert failure and total mission loss. The possibilities are many, but as always, it's less of a big deal with a Big Dumb Booster in almost all cases. With (1) and (2), which seem to be the most common in rocketry, it's going to be much less of a big deal with a Big Dumb Booster. It's like choosing to transport nitroglycerin on a cart drawn by a cheap workhorse vs an expensive racehorse (which you probably wouldn't use to draw a cart anyways) back in the 1800's- the big dumb animal is a much better choice when risk of total annihilation is involved. The experimental tech may be expensive (because it represents investment in new prototypes), but it's also typically dangerous. This usually leads to a LONG approval process before an experimental new space technology can be launched atop or alongside a typical modern "smart" booster- driving up costs and stifling innovation. Imagine how much the process could be streamlined and shortened with a Big Dumb Booster... Regards, Northstar

For flavor, and to make up for the aerodynamic failure in my last launch, I'll be trying to focus on saving Funds wherever possible for a bit- after all, in the words of Einstein, compound interest (which you can only get if you have money to invest- like in reusable infrastructure down the line) is the most powerful force in the universe... (rather strange to hear what he said about topics OUTSIDE of physics, eh?) Of course, I expect to fall off that wagon pretty quickly when I start wanting MOAR BOOSTERS! Anyways, Survivability comes in handy for using landing legs for launch stability, as in this brief LV-T45 test light I performed (I only activated the engine on low power for a few seconds, so as to hover briefly off the ground before touching back down on the launchpad. I thought of it as a bit like what they call a "hover test" in the rocketry business...) Which, was for almost no money and basically nothing else. But it DID give me access to this MUCH more useful contract: Launch Stability Enhancers- aka. Launch Clamps! I haven't unlocked the node for these yet, but the contracts to test out equipment will give you early access to the parts if necessary. That should come MASSIVELY in handy for safely launching a rocket actually large enough to make it to orbit (and shouldn't cost anything- after all the clamps expend no resources and never leave the launchpad...) I probably only get one shot at it though (after that I'll need to unlock the node if I wish to use the clamps again), so I might as well make the best of it... Regards, Northstar

EDIT: Sorry for the missing albums- I didn't realize that selecting "Hide" for images on Imgur would actually break previously-generated albums. They really should warn you about that before it lets you hide images. The images were visible for a few hours, but are now lost forever as far as I can tell- as were ALL my album images from my previous thread of 256 posts, which makes me want to cry... I'll be more careful in the future. The story began as stories in KSP often do- with "equipment tests" (Crew Report, EVA Reports and Surface Samples) at the KSC (Imgur has lost my images for this- sorry) Simple enough- but it opens up my first major choice as a player: what tech to go for beyond just Basic Rocketry? (the first tech after "Start") Foolishly, I choose to go with General Rocketry (longer SRB's and gimbaled engines). I didn't end up using any of the parts from it in my first launch at all (I would have been better off with Survivability, for reasons you'll see in my 2nd launch) The first mission was both a shocking success and an unaccustomed failure: (Album broken- thanks again to Imgur) I wasn't very used to playing with FAR... I knew it would increase the terminal velocity for relatively aerodynamic objects with a good shape, like my small rocket- but I didn't expect it to decrease drag quite so much. My small rocket made it all the way outside the atmosphere, which was entirely unexpected- and would have never occurred with the stock pea-soup model of aerodynamics. My rocket ALSO experienced a major failure during re-entry, once again due to FAR. Quite simply, the aerodynamic loads were too high on the fragile stock fuel tanks, and they exploded during re-entry (modded tanks, such as those from NovaPunch, are more reinforced, with higher Impact Resistance, and should be able to put up with higher aerodynamic loads...) Unfortunately, this also means I lost the valuable scientific data of the two Mystery Goo containers, as well as the value of the goo canisters and the rest of the rocket... Now what did I buy with all that science, you might ask? Survivability (for the landing legs), Flight Control (for the probe core- and the MechJeb features once I throw it in the GameData folder), and Stability (for the basic winglets and because it was all I could afford). The next launch should go MUCH better... Still, I completed 3 of the 4 starting contracts with this mission, and had I known FAR would be so effective/realistic, I would have definitely packed on more fuel tanks and made it all the way to orbit and back... Here's the image from Mission Control: Regards, Northstar

This thread is now closed. I have decided to terminate the corresponding savegame due to low readership of the thread, loss of the initial pictures, and most importantly- lack of sufficient challenge for me given my ever-increasing skill level. I have decided to start a new Career game thread with RSS 6.4x, TAC Life Support, and videos/pictures from the START (link to new thread coming soon). FOLLOW MY PROGRESS IN KSP ON TWITCH: http://www.twitch.tv/northstar1989 Or check out my new series of YouTube videos hosting the same recordings (first episode below) Some of you may have seen, or even followed my previous thread, "Kerbin and Beyond: A Maturing Space Program". Now, in the same style, I will be documenting the progress of my Kerbals in their space program, from the beginning in 0.24 Mods Used: Active Texture Management (Aggressive) Ferram Aerospace Research Deadly Re-Entry MechJeb2 Chatterer KW Rocketry

I just couldn't bring myself to do it. To load back up my KSP save, and continue where I left off, that is. Some of you might have guessed what was on my mind by this point... Thing had simply became too bloated. I had too many missions going on at once, too many orbital stations I felt the need to send "crew rotations" to, too many outposts/colonies I was planning, and too many complex rendezvous that I couldn't afford to miss. In short, the game had started to feel more like a job than like !FUN! Plus, this thread has become so long that it's entirely different than how it started, anyways- and few new readers probably have the patience to read through 26 pages of text/pictures. So, I'll be closing this thread. I will be starting a new thread, chronicling my adventures with 0.24, however. I'll be re-installing KSP from scratch (to get rid of some bugs that had accumulated from simply updating with each new version for roughly 12 months at this point) and limiting myself to just stock and MechJeb, probably FAR, and possibly Chatterer or Environmental Visual Enhancements (should work great for me with 64x, a fresh install, and no parts-mods) for the time being. I'll be focusing mainly on getting used to Budgets, as well as the new stock Vernier pods, monopropellent engines, and re-balanced parts. Here's a link to my new thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86535-Kerbin-and-Beyond-A-New-Beginning Regards, Northstar

Geschosskopf, I regret that I am going to have to respectfully tender the resignation of my current in-progress entries on this challenge. The reason is that, basically, by running Career save became too outdated (it's been ported across too many updates) and too bloated with a huge number of simultaneous missions/efforts (no one of them in itself overwhelming, but in combination...) as to become no longer FUN, and feel more like a job (where I can't finish any one mission without having to swap to 8 other vessels in the middle of it so as to avoid another mission ending in failure...) I've decided to delete my current install of KSP, and re-install with nothing but MechJeb (and perhaps some no-parts mods such as FAR, Chatterer, and maybe even RemoteTech). This will also give me the chance to learn FAR (which I predict shouldn't actually be too difficult for me, as I already have a robust understanding of aerodynamics compared to most KSP players, and have even played flight simulators in the past) and to force myself to build "leaner" missions due to the new constraint of budget and the lack of available 5 meter (and larger) parts... Don't worry, eventually I'll be diving back into parts mods (once they're appropriately balanced for 0.24, which I predict will take a lot longer due to the new element of budgets, and the mod authors needing to become fully familiar with the new stock balance before attempting to modify it...) In the meantime, I'll probably continue following this thread, and might even submit an all-stock entry (a rocket-plane with long glide periods) sooner or later. Best luck with your efforts to adapt to 0.24 (whenever you switch over), and thank you for hosting this great thread! Regards, Northstar

I KNEW IT! But seriously, I'm just not a fan of antimatter reactors. I'll tend to criticize anybody I see using them on a challenge, it's just my opinion of the technology (since it's so futuristic). Keep in mind, though, that I'm not the challenge author- ultimately it's just my opinion, and Geschosskopf is the one determinnig what is and is not valid... I'll have a lot less of a problem with antimatter once KSP Interstellar updates to 0.24 (out now!) and if the cost for the part and science for the node (currently too low) are both raised DRASTICALLY. An antimatter reactor powered thermal turbojet gets a much higher ISP (due to higher reactor core temperature) than a fission or fusion-powered thermal turbojet. And it doesn't weigh more. So actually, you need LESS intake-spam on an antimatter spaceplane: you just won't be utilizing the full potential thrust of the turbojet. For a slightly more realistic (but difficult to design around) solution, try using a smaller number of the 2.5 meter SABRE intakes from B9 Aerospace. They are by far the most powerful intakes in B9, KSP Interstellar, or the stock game (due to their size), and the SABRE class of intakes are also slightly more efficient (like in real life, but should be made significantly more expensive with 0.24) than standard Ram intakes. It's the intake compressors that are overheating technically (from a realism/engineering perspective), and that heat spreads down to the engines as well, but KSP doesn't currently have a good way to create excess heat on air intakes with compression ratio, so FractalUK (the author of KSP Interstellar) limited the heat issues to just affecting the engines instead of the air intakes as well... It never hurts to build a leaner, more efficient vessel, and fly it better. If you had kept the thermal turbojets running longer, and switched over to internal fuel later, you wouldn't have needed as much weight in fuel tanks- which would have improved the TWR. This would have helped compensate for the reduced TWR from using less intake-spam (by the way, "the reactors are so powerful" isn't a good excuse- ANY air breathing engine will run out of atmosphere at a high enough altitude, the only difference is that to provide an antimatter thermal turbojet with all the atmosphere it needs for maximum TWR without intake spam would require an atmospheric pressure of something like the lower atmosphere of Jool...) The Molten Salt Reactors and Solid Bed Reactors are the two reactors that are reasonably close to mass-production to be valid. Plasma Core Fission Reactors and Antimatter-Initiated Fission are the other technologies that are not so far away as to be absurd, and I wouldn't criticize somebody who used those if they are properly cost-balanced in 0.24 and the player made up for using them with fastidious attention to realism elsewhere in their plane design. Anything beyond that (including all classes of Fusion and Antimatter Reactor) are so futuristic as that they really don't have a place in a KSP challenge in my honest opinion... Wing mass, you must remember, makes up for itself in lift. So you rarely have to worry about it, except when you're at extremes of low wing-load or TWR... The main reason NOT to use larger wings is because craft with larger wings fly slower at low altitudes/ high atmospheric pressures (even if they can fly to a higher altitude ceiling, or with a heavier payload) past a certain point, due to declining TWR (more mass to push with the engines). At high altitudes, or in thin atmosphere like Duna's, the lower Angle of Attack you get with larger wings can actually help you fly faster though- that is, until you start flying so fast as to start going ballistic (at which point wings are just a burden on your TWR). I'm uber-cautious, so I would generally consider even 20-30 m/s to be a high touchdown speed. On hilly terrain like Duna's, I would ideally aim for 15-20 m/s (which requires a VERY low wing-load). To achieve this, propeller planes and bi/triplanes have an obvious advantage though, as a thermal turbojet with a wingload that low starts running into problems with having such large wingspan as to have difficulty finding a sufficiently-large flat landing spot... Vertical stabilizers, as I used the term (a bit loosely, as any aerospace engineer will point out) are any lifting surface that is at least partially vertical, rather than being oriented purely level to the horizon. Look up images of the F-16 for an example of a jet fighter with very prominent vertical stabilizers (or the F-22 Raptor for an example of a craft with inclined stabilizers- which as I said are more mass-efficient) So that's 12 reaction wheels (6 on the engines, 2 ASAS units in the body, 3 on the nose, and the one built into all cockpits) if I'm counting correctly? Yeah, that's pretty bad/exploitative. I caution you against using the term "valid". Remember it's not me who decides what is and is not allowed for this challenge. I'm sure that Geschosskopf will accept your entry- though expect it to pop up in the KSP Interstellar subcategory instead of with all the other entries. It should be perfectly possible to fly a plane the same in KSP as in a flight simulator, assuming you're using FAR for realistic aerodynamics and the flgiht simulator's aerodynamics are also accurate. All the same components found on a real-life plane can be created in KSP, using either stock or mod parts. It's just a matter of figuring out the game's control interface- for obvious reasons every single game, flight simulator or KSP, will have its own set of controls by which the user directs the plane. What's changing is what buttons you press to do what- not what flaps/rudders/aerlions etc. you might be directing with those controls. And it's even possible to re-map the controls in KSP if you want something you're more familiar with... Regards, Northstar

Thoughts after watching the first few minutes of the video: (1) What's the power source on that spaceplane? It looks like you're using the UPGRADED KSP-Interstellar fusion or even antimatter reactors, based on the ISP and thrust of those thermal turbojets (fission reactors wouldn't be nearly capable of that kind of performance- especially the Molten Salt Reactors that form the first tier of KSP-Interstellar reactors, and are the only technology that is even reasonably close to becoming a reality in the next 20-30 years...) (2) That's some serious intake-spam. Personally, I'd call it exploitative- and I'm surprised FAR didn't cause the forward air intakes to shield the intakes further back, making them much less effective (then again, maybe it did- you never right-click on them to show their performance while the atmospheric pressures are high enough for and easy comparison (3) If you had used intake pre-coolers (either the stock or B9 ones work with KSP-Interstellar) you wouldn't have had the problems you did with engine overheating, forcing you to switch over to internal propellant quite so soon (based on the fact that you throttled down, you didn't seem to be aware that this was the source of the excess heat- as intake compression-heating is completely unaffected by engine throttle in KSP Interstellar, like in real-life...) (4) You had 3 engines, but you switched them all over to internal propellant at the same time. Generally, that's a bad idea. When you have a 1-in-2-out engine setup like that, you're better off switching the engines in sets (the inner engine vs. outer pair, respectively), starting first with just one engine to internal propellant, then two, and then all three, as you climb higher and run out of intake air for the turbojets. The hybrid turbojets (which I haven't utilized for this challenge as they are unlocked by the same tech node that upgrades the fission reactors to gas/plasma-core reactors, which are far beyond the realm of current fission technology; unlike MSR's which we have had working prototypes of such the 1960's, when the US developed a working prototype of a Thorium Molten Salt Reactor at Oak Ridge National labs, and then largely abandoned the idea as it couldn't produce large quantities of plutonium for nuclear warheads like Uranium Light Water Reactors could...) work a lot like a RAPIER, in that they are a dual-mode engine that is most efficient in air-breathing mode- and you should make use of atmospheric propellant for working/reaction mass as long as possible... Perhaps if you hadn't made use of so much intake-spam, and a few precoolers, you would have actually felt some pressure to utilize a more efficient ascent path instead of just brute-forcing your way to orbit... (5) The wing-load on that spaceplane is far too high. Put another way, the wings are far too short/thin (thicker wings generate more lift, at the cost of lift/drag ratio, both in KSP mods like B9 Aerospace and Procedural Dynamics, and in real life) for the mass of the spaceplane. A spaceplane design with lower wing-load could get by with much less thrust (say if you made use of greater realism: less intake spam and less futuristic nuclear reactors) and would have a lower (and therefore safer) liftoff/touchdown speed on Duna. (6) Where are the vertical stabilizers? I don't see them anywhere. Even *my* plane designs, which almost always make use of inclined winglets with multi-purpose control surfaces (an inclined control surface can provide control over pitch, roll, AND yaw- for less total mass/drag than three separate control surfaces of smaller size) due to my early intuition and recent large amount of background reading into real-world plane designs (I opted for the highest-performance option, despite the stability/design problems it engenders, which I've struggled against in my experimental designs) rather than dedicated aerlions, flaps, and rudders; ALWAYS make use of at least some form of lift surface and control surface with yaw-stabilization capabilities... I can only assume you have some seriously-exploitative reaction wheel spam built into that thing, otherwise you would most certainly lose control to sideslip that would develop into a flat spin when trying to turn, especially with FAR installed... In short, a not very realistic design relying heavily on of some of the most OP'd and unrealistic elements in KSP (heavily OP'd reaction wheels) and KSP-Interstellar. I can't say I approve. Regards, Northstar

The idea would to be to use an existing Big Dumb Booster (BDB) design as a low-cost test platform for some of these experimental technologies- not to make it a primary part of the BDB design. Additionally, some technologies, once refined, would actually be both cheaper and more reliable than conventional chemical rockets- thermal rocketry for instance (which has fewer moving parts and potential points of failure than a chemical rocket engine, and is actually much cheaper to manufacture..) Aside from that, some technologies would actually benefit from the size and low cost of a Big Dumb Booster, without adding any cost to the mission, for entirely different reasons... For instance, ff you choose to leave the upper stage of a Sea Dragon in orbit, instead of bringing up the fuel to de-orbit it, you not only save on rocket complexity (the guidance system doesn't need to be complex enough to perform a de-orbit burn), cost, and mass- you also put a rather huge (compared to any other rocket upper stage) hunk of metal into space that you might eventually be able to tear apart for scrap metal to build things in orbit (especially feasible since the Sea Dragon would have been built out of durable, easy-to-machine steel instead of more finicky composites...) I've discussed orbital recycling on these forums before- but the conversation eventually boils down to the fact that the majority of the mass of most modern rocket upper-stages is made out of difficult-to-recycle composites that you couldn't cheaply re-use in orbit (except as extra micrometeorite plating for a space station or something), limiting you to mostly just tearing apart spare rockets to get at spare/replacement parts from the guidance systems and turbopump and such. However the Sea Dragon is made out of steel, and steel is durable (it won't degrade nearly as much floating around in space as debris) and can much more easily be machined into whatever shape/size you need it- structural pieces for a rocket built partially in-orbit, for instance... Regards, Northstar

Combustion instability is, I believe, one of the reason for the high predicted failure rates (up to 1/3rd) of the Sea Dragon or Aquarius. But as pointed out, it's still a cheaper way of getting low intrinsic-value stuff to orbit, such as fuel (for interplanetary transfers and station-keeping), spare parts, and food/consumables for manned missions; even taking the high failure rate into account (due to the low value of the target payloads, it's easy to replace them at minimal cost after a failed launch, and launch the payloads in advance of need so there's a capability to launch backup missions in case of a launch failure...) Trying to solve problems like that also creates new room for engineers looking to advance the state of technology to do their work. Whoever said Big Dumb Boosters wouldn't leave create impetus for technological advancement couldn't have been further from the truth (in fact, with the already high base failure rate and low-cost payloads, there's a lot less penalty for throwing in unproven technologies like aerospike rocket engines, Microwave thermal rocketry, or Space-X style recovery to a Big Dumb Booster...) Regards, Northstar

I apologize for the long delay since my last update. Real life got in the way, but so did this: For those of you wondering what you're looking at- that's a rocket launch from a SimCity4 Space Port. I got drawn into a couple other games for a while (SimCity4, Dwarf Fortress, and even a little bit of the terrible game "Endless Space"), and haven't been doing much with Kerbal Space Program for a bit. I also needed some time to figure out what to do about a design/foresight failure with my getting my Erin/Pock/Skelton lander to the Sentar system... (more on that later) Anyways, SimCity 4 gave me a brilliant reminder of Kerbal Space Program when my most technologically advanced city petitioned me to build a Space Port (they also asked to build a Hydrogen Power Plant a few months later). The "liters of orange-flavored beverage" statistic on querying the Space Port, along with the distinct similarity of the pre-launch countdown audio to some of the Kerbal chatter from the KSP "Chatterer" plugin (which I used to run before memory got too tight as my mods list expanded) both subtly reminded me that it was at least time to post an update here of (and probably build upon in-game) my KSP activities- some of which I carried out only a few days after my last post, but have been sitting on the screenshots of for some time... So, long intro aside, the first vessel of my Sentar Armada successfully made its ejection burn in the direction of Sentar: the Erin Seaplane. That burn went without a hitch, so I then went to check back up on my Sentar Mission Vehicle, and wait for its reactor to cool down a bit so I could start pumping some additional juice in the direction of the Erin/Pock/Skelton Lander, which I determined should be the second vessel in the armada to make its ejection burn, due to its similar lack of relay-capable transceiver units. The radiation of enough of the built-up heat from before to use the reactor took quite some time, though- which should have been my first hint that I didn't build quite enough radiator mass into this armada... (with the Sentar Mission Vehicle that was intentional, to same on mass/part-count and allow the Sethlans 2 Solid Bed Reactor to heat up to higher temperatures than any reactor of the molten salt classification, for higher ISP when utilizing thermal rocketry. For the lander, however...) I missed this clue, however, and proceeded onwards to the Sentar System Lander's ejection burn... That didn't go so well, though, as can be seen- after burning through the lander's small supply of Hydrazine, and switching over to Hydrogen (LiquidFuel) I got maybe a minute of thrust before the lander's cooling systems overheated and forced an emergency shutdown of the Microwave Receiver... So, lesson learned- don't try and push 8 Gigawatts of power through a spacecraft with only 8 Megawatts of radiator capacity- even with what I can only assume are far-futuristic coolant fluids (no real-life coolant could absorb so much energy per kg for such a small change in temperature: KSP Interstellar coolant specific heat capacities must be INCREDIBLE), I only got about a minute and a half of total thrust before emergency shutdown... In the meantime, though, I've been obsessing over what to do with my poor lander. The easiest solution would seem to be to perform a large number of "periapsis kicks" utilizing the short burn times it IS capable of- but I simply don't have the time for that (in-game or in real-life) before the Sentar transfer window closes... Another solution would seem to be to dump the plasma thruster and associated Liquidfuel tank (fortunately there's no boil-off in KSP yet, as that tank doesn't have an independent power source to keep the Hydrogen cryogenic...), and fly the lander to the Sentar Transfer Vehicle Mk1 or vice-versa and use THAT to get the lander to Sentar. And then, there's my plan... I could tell you guys what it is- but I prefer to leave you with a bit of suspense... Regards, Northstar

Aquarius was less than 10 years ago (proposed for a 2005/2006 initial launch). And Sea Dragon, though older, should still work perfectly well with today's technology. How could the golden, beautiful rule of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) possibly ever become outdated??? Regards, Northstar

Oversimplifying, perhaps- but it cuts to the heart of the issue. The answer to that is simple supply/demand/price economics. Engineers would usually take the double engineered "good enough" approach until rising steel/resource/labor prices made the finely-engineered approach cost-competitive. At which point, an equilibrium would be reached, with engineers making use of each approach some percentage of the time (or competing firms making use of both approaches), with fluctuations in the balance commensurate with fluctuations in steel prices... True, rising steel prices would place pressure on others sectors of the economy- but there would also be economic benefits from the increased availability of engineering labor (which would otherwise be spent more carefully designing infrastructure), increased employment of manual/menial laborers (who tend to have difficulty finding jobs- cheaper infrastructure means more infrastructure will be built and more construction jobs as a result), increased infrastructure (lower prices means more would be built), increased mining/steel-making revenues, and reduced failure rates of infrastructure (counter-intuitively, double engineered infrastructure tends to fail LESS often due to its wider safety margins). But you DON'T have to spend the time to finely engineer the bridge, or the rocket- at least not most of the time. I don't know- money talks. Especially when you make the case to the Congressmen about all the tax rebates for corporations/their constituents (I think we all know which they care about more these days...) they could fund with the cost-savings to NASA (assuming reduced launch costs were coupled with budget cuts...) But our space program IS in shambles- at least compared to where it was 40 years ago. We are, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the only country to ever WILLINGLY give up the ability to go the the Moon... (the Soviets gave it up as well- but not willingly. Their economy was in shambles, and we had several high-ranking government officials on the CIA payroll, trying to destabilize the USSR from the inside- as was recently declassified...) True- but a cheap launch program that comes in over-budget is still likely going to be a lot cheaper than an expensive launch program that comes in over-budget... The International Space Station actually already does get quite a bit of traffic- most of the time there are at least two other vessels docked to it, one of them almost always a resupply ship. And the astronauts already share the responsibility of unloading cargo pretty evenly as part of their current duties- the total amount of cargo to unload wouldn't change. But the biggest problem with what you say is that this isn't actually how Aquarius would have worked- the $700 million development proposal called for the development of a LEO consumables depot (for not only fuel, but food) at which the supplies would be consolidated. From there, larger but more infrequent trips would have been made by a space tug to carry the cargo to the International Space Station in larger payload packets... The depot could have apparently been designed explicitly for the high docking frequency- and it would have been unmanned (so no crew member would be required to oversee docking operations). Somebody already thought of this. With the Aquarius' space tug, which was part of the (very reasonable) $700 million development proposal, you could have actually delivered LARGER cargo packets than 13 tons, at reduced frequency, for reduced wear and docking risks to the station. I think you might need to review the description of Aquarius again. It doesn't launch from a launchpad- it makes use of sea-based launches (and the consumables would be scheduled to launch "ahead of need" to the LEO depot- so a handful of launch failures in a row wouldn't deprive the ISS of needed consumables). The ocean is the Aquarius' launchpad, much like the Sea Dragon. Now how are you going to break THAT launchpad? All of the potential issues for an Aquarius-style Big Dumb Booster you brought up are valid- but were already addressed, and satisfactorily resolved, years before I ever created this thread. Aquatic launches and a LEO consumables depot deals with most of the issues of high launch frequency and small payload packet-size, for instance. Regards, Northstar

I'm curious what you guys think of the symbolism/metaphor in these two popular songs: I interpreted "Pompeii" as being metaphorical for the ash covering everything being symbolic for the culture covering over and absorbing our individuality, for instance... (the music video's post-apocalyptic scenes and black eyes might help you make sense of this interpretation) "Counting Stars" seemed to be similarly about individualism vs. conformity, although the metaphor/symbolism seemed much less concealed. People on this forum tend to be rather intelligent and insightful, so I'm curious what you guys think. Regards, Northstar