KerikBalm

maybe decrease its ISP to be 370, so its equal with the LV-T30/45 in a vacuum, but better in the atmosphere - give it the same TWR of the LV-T45. Then remove the alternator. That way you trade vectoring, electric charge, and stacking ability for a better atmospheric ISP. At 390 ISP, it is competing with engines meant for use in vacuums: the LV-909 and Poodle. Right now I use it to replace those - its shorter than the poodle, with nearly as much thrust, and a better TWR. I've been using it as a lander engine for Mun/moho/Duna - none of which use its good atmospheric performance. I was able to do an eve ascent with it, but I think 48-7s clusters are still more efficient, The TWR of my aspargus stages aerospikes and FL-T800s was pretty bad. Using smaller tanks results in a very high engine mass:fuel mass ratio. I'm pretty sure the 48-7s is better -at least for the lower stages, and the new extra large parts with an atmo ISP of 360 and much better TWR also look like they will make the aerospike not favorable for Eve landings. So, nerf 48-7s, buff aerospike, buff all large size engines.

Issue: Some parts are clearly better than other parts. Additional issue: Small parts being superior to large parts leads to very high part counts. Proposed solution: make the large (ie, rockomax, I'm not really talking about the new extra large parts) parts better, and nerf the 48-7s. Suggestion #1: The Skipper has a TWR inbetween the LV-T30 and LV-T45, but its ISP is far less - Give it the same ISP as those two (320-370) Suggestion #2: The 48-7s has a superior TWR to the Mainsail, and superior ISP -> swap the ISP of the mainsail and the 48-7s (this should also help the disparity between the mainsail and the new lquid fuel boosters and extra large engines) Suggestion #3: The poodle has a worse TWR than the lv-909, and a worse non-vacuum ISP -> Decrease its weight to that it has a comparable TWR. Mass 2.5-> 2.25 And slightly unrelated: The Aerospike... I'm finding it not very useful. I don't have the numbers to say some other part is just plain better, but it seems to me that its TWR is too low. The advantage is its high atmospheric ISP, implying its intended use is low in atmospheres -> ie Eve, Kerbin, or Laythe (duna's is too small to really matter that much, and you can't land on Jool...). And obviously on thoe bodies, the descent will be done with 'chutes, so that leaves using them during the liftoff ... ie as boosters, which need a high TWR, which they don't have. I did an eve ascent with them, I'm not sure I gained any dV using them given my TWR was too low. Going from 388 ISP for most of the ascent to 320 may be offset by a higher TWR resulting in less dV lost to gravity drag. Suggestion-> increase thrust to 200 kN

So apparently the total insolation is only 1/3 that of Earth?. Yea, I know, mars gets what, 25%? and it may have transient water, at least some areas get above freezing (although atmosphere-less bodies can get reasonably warm in the day, but very very cold at night) The problem is that small starts mainly have an IR output, and a thick enough atmosphere to trap it would mean that very little direct insolation will reach the ground. Not much photosynthesis potential.

Well, I did some calculations... compare the LV-T30 vs the LV-N Thrust: Mass 215:1.25 vs 60:2.25 For 1 LV-T30, you need 3.5833... LV-Ns to equal the same thrust. Those LV-Ns will weigh 8.0625 tons, while the LV-T30 weighs 1.25 tons -> 6.8125 tons lighter For every 3 LV-Ns, you can replace them with 1 LV-T30 and 5.5 tons of fuel, and have nearly 20% more thrust. Your 6 LV-Ns weigh 13.5 tons, and have a thrust of 360 kN A single pair of LV-T30s weighs 2.5 tons and gives you 430 kN, and you can throw on 11 tons of fuel - ie nearly 2.5 FL-T800 tanks -> which for sufficiently small delta-V amounts means that your dV/payload is actually higher because you carry more than enough fuel to compensate for lower ISP. So, switching for a pair of LV-T30s gets you more thrust, and you can carry more fuel. You should only need about 1000 m/s of dV when you turn on your rockets. Or you could do pairs of LV-T30s, and a pair of LV-Ns. Use the LV-T30s to raise your apopasis into a relatively steep climb, then once climb rate is established, shut them off and use LV-Ns to circularize. Ie, the LV-T30s are your boosters to fire when jet thrust is too low to continue climbing. Also, I don't run jets and rockets at the same time at reduced throttle. if I fire my rockets, I want them going full throttle, so if I have many jet engines, I may shut off most of them and go full throttle on the remaining ones, so that when my rockets do fire, they fire at full thrust to boost me up out of the atmosphere (or I don't bother to try and make use of residual intake air, and just shut engines down, close intakes, and then go full throttle). Of course, my larger designs now use the liquid fuel boosters.... the TWR ratio on those is great (assuming you subtract the equivalent mass of fuel tanks), and the ISP of 360 isn't bad either. Note that my 40 ton payload to orbit design had 4x aerospikes, and 4x rapiers, so 8 x 175 kN of thrust = 1400 kN of thrust -> 700 kN at 360 ISP, 700 kN at 390 ISP You'd need over 23 nukes (23.33) to get that much thrust, and you'd take those nukes to orbit. 23*2.25 = 51 tons of nuclear rocket engine to orbit compared to my 7 tons of engines to orbit... Getting the same mass to orbit, I'd have over 44 tons more of that mass as payload.... granted, I'd use more fuel, but I still find nukes to simply be too heavy for my SSTO lifter designs. Maybe with more intake spamming and part clipping to get a design that flies on jetsat 40km and closer to 2,000 m/s, nukes are fine, but for my non spamming designs which normally top out at under 30km and under 1,400 m/s, nukes just don't cut it

Well, using real life stats doesn't really work with KSP's bad aerodynamics model. The drag coefficients are way to high, and lift is proportional to the airspeed, rather than the square of airspeed... this makes a huge difference. And supersonic vs subsonic ... sure, you can get any relationship you want if you look only at one model. Why not a C-130 hercules against a F-101 voodoo? A harrier against a SR-71... etc. An F-4 against a cessna 150... Yes I've tried SRBs and sepratrons in some designs.... that is not the problem here. The problem is that with the small size of the landing gear, I simply cannot angle the plane up much at all without the rear contacting the terrain... the terrain needs to drop away enough for the AoA to get high enough on takeoff. Its normally not a problem, but due to the bad way vehicles handle on the ground, it can be a problem... leaving me simply annoyed thinking "what idiot put those there" Then I restart, and if I manage to keep it on the centerline, have a successful takeoff and orbital insertion. If the dropoff wasn't there to be used, then it would be irrelevant... but they've put that very useful dropoff there at the end of the runway, and then just annoying obstacles that combine with weird handling on wheels to make it simply frustrating, not some fun challenge.

Well, all my designs use struts, not just two docking ports (how do you get them both to attach? I've wondered, I've seen other people do it). But .. your payload bay, formed by wing connectors... do not the downward sloping wings simply create drag and decrease net lift? Could you not get to a higher speed without them? If you're loosing altitude after firing your rockets, your rockets don't have enough thrust, its that simple. In my designs I don't use nukes because RP reasons, and 2, low thrust to weight ratio, I just lift more fuel in the lifter. I use LvT 30s, 45s, and aerospikes (the aerospikes are simply for higher ISP with more TWR than lv 909s - at the altitude they fire, its basically vacuum ISP), because when the rockets fire, they need to take over all the thrust of the Jets, and add to it. Nukes are too low TWR for me (at least if I'm carrying a heavy payload). I'm now making designs with the liquid fuel boosters (better weight distribution, better TWR, still decent ISP) My first SSTO lifter - 40 tons or so... had problems on reentry if it didn't have enough fuel left over, and the intakes were opened too soon (too much drag up front, not enough mass) https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t31.0-8/p600x600/1957798_10102506321827793_636161842_o.jpg https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t31.0-8/p600x600/1891452_10102506322172103_1122623981_o.jpg My heavier, more re-entry stable lifter (double the payload capacity) https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t31.0-8/p600x600/1781709_10102522555220943_38363739_o.jpg https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/t31.0-8/p600x600/1277967_10102522555340703_937978531_o.jpg https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t31.0-8/p600x600/1961831_10102522555101183_621013543_o.jpg Also note, no part clipping, not really intake spamming, and stock (I modded the intakes to also produce intake atmosphere for use with mod electric fans, but those weren't used, and the intake atmosphere modules were closed)

Most runways are longer than the KSP ones too, and designed for routine flight of mainly subsonic aircraft. A space center would basically be operating nothing but prototypes and extremely limited production specialist planes. Certainly if the mission director called for it, the glide slope indicator lights could be removed. And again, for very large spaceplanes, placing the landing gear near the CoG is not sufficient to enable liftoff. A large part of the problem is the "wonky" steering and difficulty keeping it just going straight despite everything being symetric. When the hardest part of launching the SSTO is keeping it straight enough down the runway so that it doesn't hit the lights at the end of the runway, I think there is a problem - given the space focus, the challenge should be in the high atmosphere flight -> orbital injection maneuvers. Yes, details are nice - simply move themfarther out to the sides, or into little recessed holes, or on the downward slope of the run way, or remove their collision box.

I'd like to see you make an all stock-zero part clipping SSTO that gets 83 tons to orbit, that can take off before the end of the runway. Maybe if he had bigger landing gear... and maybe with reenforced joints I should rexamine the design.... but the thing was pretty fragile with a full load, and due to its size, it couldn't raise its nose much without the back of it colliding with the terrain. I need that dropoff to get the nose raised and to get it into a climb. Having obstacles on the runway for a "challenge" is just stupid.

A camera to give science in the same catagory as an EVA report A sample scoop An intermediate sized, unmanned processing lab, for reusuable experiments and a moderate (or perhaps none at all) transmission boost + a way to transfer the data to a container on a sample return vehicle. Ie, unmanned rover lands near the intersection of 3+ biomes - suppose Duna has biomes, a canyon biome, an ancient seabed biome, slopes biome, highlands biome - it would be relatively easy to land in the canyon, drive to the seafloor, then up the slopes to the highlands - your unmanned rover visits all 4 biomes, does experiments (including camera pictures and surface samples) and transmits the results, then repeats and stores the results. Then at the end of its little stint, it loads the stored data into an unmanned sample return vehicle, which goes back to kerbin, and is recovered for full science value.

I'm rather annoyed with the lights at the end of the runway. I've built quite a few very large SSTO lifters to launch my mission payloads... but it can't lift off until the ground drops off at the ned of the runway - if I can't keep the thing nearly exactly centered, it collides with the lights... So I suggest moving those lights to be out of the way. Don't put obstacles at the end of the runway

Well, he specified planet, so Laythe, being a moon is out. Moho- pretty boring by itself, just like a bigger, browner Mun much closer to the sun Eeloo - same as above, their orbits make them mildly interesting Dres - not even a really interesting orbit Duna - a contender. An atmosphere that is challenging to use for more than aerobraking, varied terrain with distinct geological features, contains easter eggs, has a moon - rather boring by itself, but it is geostationary reative to Duna which is interesting, and it can make approaches to Duna "interesting. Eve - a contender. A dense atmosphere and high gravity make escape very challenging, varied terrain with oceans of some liquid. has a moon that presents some challenge due to its low gravity and highly eliptical orbit Jool - a contender - its big, its green, its diverse moons are both interesting, and pose navigation challenges. However, its nearly featureless, and you can't really land on it - although you can reliably spawn the kraken.

Why shouldn't it? in really thin atmosphere, its like its not even there, even if you turn 90 to the left, or backwards, it keeps flying the direction it was going. Most RCs are flown with ailerons and elevators. If you fly full scale sailplanes, you don't use the rudder to turn, you use the rudder to coordinate your turn. You can also use it to execute maneuvers like a forward slip. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_%28aerodynamics%29#Forward-slip A slip in general is when a plane's nose is not pointing in the direction of flight (perpendicular to the lift vector lets say) Many RC planes have specific design parameters that allow them to be flown with just rudder and elevator. You won't find high performance full scale sailplanes ot be controllable with just elevator and rudder. Lastly, KSP has reaction wheels, which provide non-aerodynamic torque, which allows you to point your craft in orientations you couldn't with just aerodynamic forces alone. When that torque stops, you get the aerodynamic forces taking over and a "rebound" Try flying your craft in the lower atmosphere with and without reaction wheels (including the pod/cockpit reaction wheels- ie, toggle the torque - if you're flying a space plane, action group the torque, because you'll want it when you're out of the lower atmosphere)

I think it should be called the lightest Eve ascent vehicle. Most of my landers are 1 way landers (I like to drop rovers and mobile science labs), I send the ascent vehicle seperately

Except when you're using SRBs. Especaly the new really big ones. If something goes wrong while those are still running, you can be in for trouble. That said, radially mounted sepratrons have always worked fine for me (and once got me back from minmus when I failed to bring enough fuel to acheive orbit - it not only got my pod to orbit but also back to kerbin)

Nuclear (fission or preferably fusion) could easily get there. Orion drives in KSP!

My guess is they will be added. I can imagine a "canyons" biome (possibly 2 separate ones), a lowlands biome (ie old sea floor perhaps), ice caps, highlands, and crates (maybe individual craters like on the mun) Eve and Laythe have pseudo biomes, in that the science results on the surface are different for the liquid vs ground

Yea, if we talk about binary (or even trinary) start systems, it becomes feasible, but then you might call it all just one big solar system. I'm thinking something like the Centauri system, with planets (so far there have been no observatios of planets in that system, and it is the closest system, so... maybe they unusual star configuration has resulted in a planetless system, or maybe they are there afterall)

Am I th only one whom is reminded of the pro-ARM arguments on this thread? Strawman arguments of "why do you care how other people play" and "if you don't like them, don't use them"

Its actually only 5 times thinner... or rather, 1/5th as thick.... at the lowest points. Its scale height is also less, so it gets thinner faster.

I'd say learn docking first.... orbital rendevous interplanetary missions are just so much cooler and more fun (at least for me) - although it can become much more difficult if your interplanetary transfer was done poorly, and you arrive in something more like a polar orbit instead of equatorial... that makes the orbital rendevous for the return mission so much harder (the timing is harder, and the launch windows for the rendevous are much less frequent)

"You either enable time warp thrust, or you buff up the engine," I want time warp thrust. A "Physics-lite" warp - no calculating structural loads, moments of inertia, etc etc.... just the normal on rails physics + F=MA calculations (note that on rails warp already supports draining resources, such as electric charge). Buffing the engine makes it the least realistic engine in the game FWIW I used the ion engine before the buff, as a "utility" module, not main propulsion, IRL hall effect thrusters are often used for station keeping and fine tuning orbits. That is what I used Ion engines for - orbital adjustments, getting into exact kerbostationary orbits, fine tuning my interplanetary trajectories, etc . (although, I don't use mechjeb, which I hear allows you to get pretty precise burns and trajectories). It wasn't too bad as primary propulsion for a tiny probe core+ 1 ion tank. And you are still very very wrong about hohmann transfers with real life Ion Engines for most purposes. * There is no such thing as capture kicks for interplanetary trajectories - you either complete your burn, or go sailing off into heliocentric orbit. * Perapsis kicks only work until you get to escape velocity. You can't perapsis kick out to jupiter's orbit with an ion engine. You can perapsis kick to get out of Earth orbit, and then you're in a heliocentric orbit, and you can perapsis kick (from the perapsis of your heliocentric orbit) to get your apopasis out ot Jupiter orbit - but that is not a hohman transfer, not even close. * once you get your apoapsis out to jupiter orbit's, you still won't be able to do a single orbital insertion burn, and it will keep flinging you off, or you'll end up diving into its atmosphere. Even using aerobraking is probably not possible, because it won't have the thrust to circularize at the apoapsis. You don't need to do a 100% brachistichrone trajectory (indeed, as you get closer to the halfway time point, you get less and less value for additional expended propellant - but with such extremely low TWRs, the trajectory will much more resemble a brachistichrone than a hohman. LV-Ns are realistic enough. Ion engines could give us a very different but still realistic spaceflight experience, if we had on rails thrusting. That is what I want. I want that other type of trajectory available to us. I don't want a super-duper-lulz-look-at-my-dV-that-I-get-to-use-to-do-standard-hohman-transfers-like-I-did-with-the-LV-N-but-I-Sit-at-the-computer-longer engine

Those staged burns would be called "perapsis kicks", and each one would have to be done exactly at perapsis to avoid changing the perapsis (of course, they don't need to be exact to get it to work, close enough is good enough) Regarding #4, one person replied: "4) The most efficient way is a suicide burn. Just drop down and burn at the very last moment, so that you lost all your velocity when you reach the ground." What you want to avoid here, is gravity drag. Imagine hovering using your rocket - zero change in velocity, all your fuel used. Every second you spend fighting gravity, is lost dV equal to the gravity's strength. So you want to burn pointing at the planet as little as possible - ie at apoapsis to lower your perapsis to just above the surface, at perapsis to kill your horizontal velocity, and then right before touch down to kill your vertical velocity (or do this in one continuous retrograde burn). You don't even need mechjeb. What I do, is set up a perapsis just below the surface. Then I eyeball a manuever node somewhere low but before the trajectory intersects the surface, and drag the retrograde pointer until the post maneuver elispe looks more like a straight line (ie, a very very very high eccentricity, so it is like two mostly straight, parallel lines segments, joined at the end). If the estimated burn time is 1 minute, I start burning at 30 seconds from the maneuver node - (note, I make sure the estmate dburn time is more or less accurate with a brief full throttle pulse prior to the main burn). Since the maneuver is meant to kill my horizontal velocity, and it assumes a constant acceleration, a 1 minute burn, 30 seconds before the node, will stop you before the node, because by the time your burn finishes, your average velocity has been half of what it was at the start of the burn (ie, due to your deceleration it took a minute to get there, not the 30 seconds it would have taken before the burn) - but since you use up fuel, your acceleration actually increases throughout the burn, for an additional safety margin. Lastly, its the velocity relative to the surface that you want to reduce to zero, but I set up the manuever node to get the "orbit" velocity to zero, and of course, I picked a node above the surface. Combined, these mechjeb-less suicide burns give me plenty of margin for error

So year numbers also change as well? The old day 59 is now... 283? Seems about right.... I time warped to when the alignment looked mostly right, and then launched on the IP trajectory (some radial burning required...) I seem to recall it was day 200 something

Is it just me, or are the old transfer windows all wrong in the latest version. Previoulsy, following this table: http://www.eiden.fi/ksp/phaseangle-Kerbin-Duna.txt I've sent missions to duna between days 57-60, with no problems. Now after downloading .23.5 , when I start a new game, and timewarp to day 59, Duna is still way ahead of me... Has there been a change in the starting position of the planets? Maybe the clock now reads Kerbin days instead of 24 hour Earth days? Or maybe I'm screwing up in some other way.

Well, I'm ambivalent about this... On the one hand, we have small parts that were OP'd- ie the 48-7s. A cluster of those weighing as much as a mainsail was pretty OP relative to a mainsail. Bigger shouldn't be better, but it also shouldn't be worse. It shouldn't be a matter of balancing your rocket performance, agaisnt your computer performance, because it hates the 200+ engine 48-7s cluster you used.... Larger parts that make it easier to build a rocket without a high part count are good. In this aspect I like the Liquid fuel booster - same weight as a mainsail+ orange tank, half the part count, more stiffness (as the engine/tank interface could often be wobbly itself). The problem is, it is equal in weight and fuel capacity to a mainsail+ orange tank, but its trust is much higher, and on top of that, its ISP is higher too. Yes, I know, you can't stack anything below it.... as if it was ever a good idea to have a mainsail in an upper stage. If that is a problem, you can just use the larger engine, its only half a ton heavier, but produces much more thrust (you can use less of them) at much higher ISP. Mainsails are obsolete. Its taken away part of the challenge. Sure- we could just not use them - but then we are making a decision about what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable to use. Instead of just optimizing designs within "stock" - no mods, now its a matter of declaring certain stock parts forbidden, and a question of where to draw the line. No mods -> No SLS parts -> no 48-7s? no ions? no nukes? No aerospikes? no fuel lines/asparagus? No reaction wheels? By adding parts that obsolete parts... you've made the game full of obsolete parts, or you've removed the simplicity from the "all stock parts" playstyle, to various shaded of grey (as far as what parts are or are not OP'd). Some may have liked squad drawing that line, with their stock parts - but now that line drawn by squad is meaningless, when its so clear that the new parts are OPd relative to the old parts. But then again... these parts are not outside the realms of realism as far as their stats are concerned.... the problem is simply at these scales, the lack of realism of the 1/10th scale system becomes apparent