KerikBalm

Multistar systems would be fine. Consider a system like the Centauri system: You've got a binary system with stars at least 11 AU away, and then a "companion" star that they're not sure if its orbiting in a highly eliptical orbit, or passing through in a hyperbolic trajectory - Proxima centauri, 15,000 AU from the Alpha Centauri A-B system. If we lived in a system with a star only 15,000 AU away, interstellar travel would be not so unrealistic. Not like here on earth, where the next closest star is over 4 lightyears away. IIRC, the "firefly" star system was like that

Or P-B11 fusion.... the problem is.. its hard to make it be not either a) OP'd, or useless. In theory, you could get a much higher ISP with a fusion drive over a fission drive... however, at 70,000 ISP (in theory, a PB11 fusion drive could get roughtly double that), a 1 Gigawatt fusion reactor would only generate 3 kN of force..... so, given that Ion drives are OP'd, it would be like flying with ion drives, except you worry about fuel even less. Or, you could just generate electricity, and run a plasma thruster, at say... 7,000 ISP, and 30 kN of thrust... but you could also do that with a fission reactor hooked up to a VASIMR drive, and a 1 Gigawatt fission reactor would probably be lighter than a 1 gigawatt fusion reactor at those scales. Also at those scales, the extra weight of fission fuel needed is irrelevant, given most of the weight is going to be the inert gas used as reaction mass. Its also more futuristic than everything else in KSP. everything else in KSP has actually been made, and is science fact, not science fiction. I hope (soon), that we have dense plasma focus fusion reactors burning P-B11 fuel, and they become science fact, but for the moment.... :/ So, at the real high ISPs that fusion could attain, we have the problem of extremely long burn times. At lower (but still very very good ISPs), we might as well just use fission and stick to science fact rather than fiction (since no-one in KSP seems to be concerned about what happens to a nuclear reactor if the rocket blows up on the launch pad )

To get to another celestial body, you want to be orbiting the current body as low as possible (Oberth effect). Use maneuver nodes to fine tune it. *assuming a prograde orbit* Generally, to get to the mun or minmus, you'll want to start burning when kerbin is nearly between you and either moon. When going to a planet farther out, you want to burn about when the angle between you, kerbin, and the sun is nearly 90, so that your escape trajectory is rather flat when Kerbin is between you and the sun. Start from there, and then use the maneuver nodes to find the optimum - remember to set a target, that helps you figure it out To get to another planet, there are many calculators out there, but I find this list most convenient: http://www.eiden.fi/ksp/ Ie, to get to Duna from Kerbin: http://www.eiden.fi/ksp/phaseangle-Kerbin-Duna.txt Leave on days 59 or 291 for the first year (58, 292, etc also work, but the closer to those days, the better)

I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. But I also recently accomplished a first for my SSTOs - I just got my first real SSTO cargoplane working. I've got the single seater SSTO planes down pretty well... the type I might refuel in orbit and haul to laythe. And I used those to launch little nose mounted or dorsally mounted probes... but their payload capacity was lacking. I set a target of making a SSTO that could haul a 40 ton payload to orbit... ie an orange tank, a 2 person lander can, a LV-N, and some other misc parts... I was able to haul that into orbit... but I had to use some of the payload's fuel to do it... the final payload weight was 38.4 tons. The orange tank was 91% full :/ I can't share the craft file because it is not 100% stock... I made the nose cones and nose cone adaptors fuel holding parts (with the same weight:capacity ratio as normal jet fuel tanks, it just looks better), and the intakes are modded to have a 2nd intake modulethat produces "intakeAtmosphere" for use with an electric fan motor (not even used on the craft, so.... I close that 2nd module before takeoff, and they thus behave as stock intakes)) More tweaks to the design are needed, I will break the 40 ton threshhold and launch my Duna mission from it!

It is a video game, but its one of the more "cereberal" and realistic ones. We don't want to make this like descent freespace/wingcommander/ etc. Putting in OP'd propulsion methods takes all the fun and challenge out of it. You don't want it to be: get to orbit, deploy solar sail, go visit every celestial body in one flight. The challenge of designing the rockets, the staging, the rendevous maneuvers, gravity assists aerobraking and launch windows is what makes it fun IMO. Which is why that KSP interstellar mod that adds the Alcubierre drive goes way to far IMO. You don't want it to be: point ship at target, fly there, drop out of warp. If that is what you want, there is eve-online. I agree that some of these parts shouldn't need research, like landing legs.... There should be more default parts, science should be used to get funding, which you can use to unlock specialized parts. *some* "acheivements" should give a boost to certain research though.

Well, I guess I'm having a similar problem. I also want to make an dual mode engine like the Rapier. In my case, its a LANTR engine using the LV-N model. In one mode, it only uses liquid fuel, and gives 60 kn of thrust at 800 ISP. In the 2nd mode, it uses liquid fuel and oxidizer to produce 180kn of thrust at an ISP of 600. This works functionally, but the engine exhausts don't display right, anyway, you should be able to paste this over your engine module, and then tweak the stats accordingly. You can make 1 mode use liquid fuel, another that uses kethane, and it should switch automatically (you could also tweak the fuel:oxidizer consumption ratio, so that you have enough oxidizer to burn all the liquid fuel and kethane) - although I'm not familiar with the kethane mod - do you still need oxidizer? Or you can simply make the engine run on kethane alone when the liquid+oxidizer is gone MODULE { name = MultiModeEngine primaryEngineID = 1 secondaryEngineID = 2 } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = 1 thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 60 heatProduction = 600 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.6 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 1.0 DrawGauge = True } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 800 key = 1 220 } } MODULE { name = ModuleEnginesFX engineID = 2 thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = True ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 180 heatProduction = 600 fxOffset = 0, 0, 1.6 PROPELLANT { name = LiquidFuel ratio = 0.9 DrawGauge = True } PROPELLANT { name = Oxidizer ratio = 1.1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 600 key = 1 280 } }

yes I figured that out, thanks for the replies directing me to the thrust transform problem, I didn't think that it would be linked to the model, but when I had time, I tried it that way, it worked... Mt Happy face, how familiar are you with KSPI? I now want to use their heat radiator models and animations, but I don't want to use the entire plugin.* I was thinking about starting a thread about how I can eploy the panels, but not retract them... but maybe PMs would be better? As mentioned earlier... I think a lot of the stuff in there is a bit too good. While I appreciate the complexity and the attention to physics, it is a bit overly complicated for a game, and I am content to work with generic resources like "liquid fuel" (I'm thinking of renaming Xenon gas to inert gas or reaction mass)

"dont transmit any science that has a percentage less than %100" "transmitting anything but crew/eva reports is almost always a bad idea" I disagree with the above, they need to add the caveat for non-repeatable science. 1 surface sample does not max out the possible science. You can take 3 or so samples and still get science (with large decreases each time). Likewise, seismic readings to not max out after 1 return. The bar will show if it is maxed out after 1 retreival (as in EVA reports, crew reports, temperature readings). I always (assuming I have spare power/power generation capabilities) take a surface sample, transmit it, and then take another sample. This gets you a bit more science than just returning it (I'm pretty sure the sum of the transmitted+ return is greater than the return alone). For every repeatable science experiment, I transmit it, then run it again and store the data. That gets you more science per flight, you don't need to worry about transmitting if your next landing hop is looking bad (ie you can focus on avoiding an impact, rather than minimizing your science losses from impacting) and your next ship that will use tech unlocked by the science can be launched sooner (a hohman transfer from minmus takes what... 2 days?). If its 100% transmit value, transmit it, and you're done If its repeatable, transmit it, then repeat and physically return the data. If its non repeatable, return it.

Not true, my first mun and minmus missiones were kerbal'd, but lacked proper science instruments. So I sent probes after those science parts were unlocked. There was no incentive to make them kerbal'd, as I returned the entire probe. Transmitting with no loss removes the incentive to have a return vehicle, but it is irrelevant to whether or not that return vehicle is manned. In fact, I think its a**-backwards... crew reports and EVA reports are transmitted for full science value. You'd get more science for less rocket, by sending kerbals to a location, and leaving them there, while a small probe takes the science back to kerbin.... IRL, you'd get much more science from a long term data collection station, than from bringing back a thermometer... It would be much more interesting to observe temperature variations from day/night, at perapsis vs apoapsis/as the orbital position varies, etc. Longer seizemic readings will map the internal composition with more resolution/accuraccy, etc. Seasonal pressure readings from duna would be much better than returning a barometer... Meanwhile, what good is a crew report or EVA report? what did Neil armstrong tell us that we couldn't have learned from a robot with a camera or robotic arm? A robot with a spectrophotometer, and a camera that can see in uv and IR, would be much more interesting. Goo experiments and surface samples are really the only experiments that seem to make sense to me that would require returning to Kerbin for full science data. Also, I want a robotic scoop so my probes can take surface samples! When an economy is implemented, you could earn prestige, or something like that from sending living kerbals, and that could increase your funding, and that would be your incentive.

or perhaps have it rotate your spacecraft to keep its orientation the same relative to prograde/ the surface of a celestial body

VASIMR engines have been constructed, and one is planned to be fitted as a station keeping engine on the ISS in 2015. NERVA engines were built and operated at full thrust (in test rigs on earth) back in 1966. Meanwhile, that solar sail barely produces any delta-V change. You can't test solar sails on earth the way you an test a much higher thrust engine. In theory, any reflective surface will function as a solar sail... I still don't see them producing any real delta-V any time soon, or being practical in KSP. If they could operate while at 10000x time warp, then, sure, why not (but if they could, then they should do the same with ion engines, and reduce ion engine thrust dramatically) I'm also not a fan of the duna/eve/jool ICE engines previously suggested. I'd rather do just a generic electric ducted fan/propellor, that would be useful for exploring the planet, but not signficantly contributing to attaining orbit.

Its placing a rocket directly underneath another rocket. To decouple the "lower stage" you light the rocket on the stage above it. It doesn't take too long to overheat the part of the lower stage that is attached to the rocket nozzle above it. Ie, since you can't decouple parts, you use your rocket engine exhaust to destroy the parts linking your stages.

I think you mean ideal missions to Europa... Titan has lakes of Methane and other hydrocarbons, not water (they hypothesize that there might be a subsurface liquid water/ammonia mixture... but I haven't heard of any ideas to go down and have a look, unlike Europa) Enceladus would also be interesting to look at

You can rescue them by sending an empty 2 man lander can, controlled by a probe core or another capsule, or a 3 man capsule controlled by only 1 man. There is also the "hitchhiking" module that has space for for, or the science lab that has space for 2. So yes it can be done, and if you are in career mode, then you simply need to unlock those parts. Get more science before your brave Kerbals run out of life support! (I'm kidding, they wont, at least not in this version of the game)

Maybe a more interesting question is what is the earliest in game time that you can max out the tech tree? The journey to the mun is much shorter, and given the lack of an economy at the moment, you can spam launch all the ships needed. A 20 minute orbit around LKO and some launchpad picnics would boost their science output considerably

Well, so far the only idea I'd object to, is the solar sail. #1) no complete designs for solar sails have been made, to be anywhere near practial, they'd have to be made of an extremely thing/lightweight material, yet not transparent. Aluminum foil is far to heavy for instance (not to mention it would lack the durability to be used in a sail), we simply don't have the materials technology to make one. Nuclear jet engines have been made VASIMR engines have been made, and actually used on spacecraft (along with a variety of electric propulsion methods) NERVA engines have been made (ie, the real life equivalent to the LV-N) and tested, although not actually flown in space - and liquid oxygen "afterburning" nuclear thermal engines have been designed, the technology was developed enough for them to have made them in the 70s if they wanted to (or rather, if the funding and regulatory agencies wanted to) Real designs, reactions, etc, have been developed with "in situ resource utilization" in mind. If you had an atmosphere that was 20% oxygen, it would be real simple to make liquid oxygen on site, likewise, it would be real simple to fill a rocket fuel tank (but not oxidizer tank) on Titan. Mars would be harder, but still feasible. Solar sails... still beyond our technical capabilities. 2) Solar sails would have ridiculously low acceleration.... even with 100x physics warp... you'd never get anywhere, unless they were made unrealistically powerful. They've already had to make ion engines unrealistically powerful - to produce 0.5 kN of thrust at 4200 ISP, you'd need about 10 megawatts - assuming 100% efficiency when such thrusters actually operate at 60-80%, a solar panel of the size of a gigantor would produce around 10 kilowatts (assuming the light intensity is similar to that on Earth, but even with much brighter light it wouldn't work out, as the output would not scale linearly) Ion drives in game are about 1000 times more powerful than they should be... you should need a nuclear reactor (not just a RTG) on the craft to supply enough power to operate a couple of them. A solar sail just wouldn't work unless it was unrealistic to even more orders of magnitude. I also wonder if the science "currency" isn't heading in the completely wrong direction. Its not like taking a surface sample of the Moon would help us design nuclear rockets. But the more scientific output a program has, the more funding its likely to get. Thus, if you do more science, you can afford more expensive rockets (since they will eventually have an economy where part cost matters). Or you spend the money to expand research facilities. Then you have various achievements or contract completions to speed certain research topics. "Necessity is the mother of Invention" maybe a flight that hints at the use for a part will boost your research toward that part ie you get pressure/atmospheric analysis from duna, +x to research of drogue chutes/airbags you get pressure/atmospheric analysis from EVE, +x to research of aerospike engines/ballons/nuclear/electric air breathing propulsion systems. Laythe data gets you +x to research of rapiers... Minmus/moon probe landings give you + research to various landing legs, etc etc....

So... with 0.23, I set myself on a goal of sending a mission to Moho at the first transfer window on day 6. I scienced as fast as I could in the Kerbin system... and was able to unlock the parts needed to make an effective ship to get there... I then pretty much finished up the tech tree on the mun and minmus, and my ship is still not even close to Moho. So then the next transfer windows... (jool, Duna, Eeloo)... theres a lot of science to gain, and nothing to "spend" it on. Keeping with realism, I don't think we should add any technology that has not actually been invented (even if it was never put to use, like NERVA rockets -yes, antimatter engines-no) So post your ideas for even higher tier'd parts please. Here are mine: * LANTR nuclear engines (LOX-Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket) - a dual mode nuclear thermal rocket - the primary mode would work just like the current LV-N rocket, high ISP, low thrust, drains only liquid fuel? (add liquid fuel only rocket fuel tanks?), the secondary mode increases thrust greatly, but offers less vacuum ISP and a bit higher atmospheric ISP (ie, an afterburner on a nuclear thermal rocket), a bit heavier, but may eliminate the need for additional booster engines in some applications * Robotics - let an unmanned probe take surface samples, maybe even fix wheels/landing legs, and plant flags too. * Large Aerospikes (would give better performance than a quad coupler + 4 aerospikes, or at least would give equal performance, but allow for reduced part count) * Airbags/"hard landing techniques" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags For when shock absorbing landings struts just don't give you enough lithobraking power. * Electric propellors/ducted fans? -Could work on Duna/Eve/Jool? * Nuclear thermal jet engines? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto Could work on Duna/Eve/Jool? * VASIMR rockets - two modes, a low ISP/high thrust and low thrust/High ISP mode * Fission reactors (basically, a radioisotope generator on steroids, hugh power production for VASIMR engines, Ions, etc * High def cameras - let a robotic probe give you data that counts as an EV report (but it can't max it out, like most data transmissions?) * Balloons? float to the top of an atmosphere before launching? * Resource extraction capabilities? send a refrigeration unit to Laythe, get liquid oxygen/oxidizer? Add a moon like titan with methane lakes, and have that be a source of liquid fuel, etc.... (or just incoporate the kethane mod?) I would be very very temped to add some sort of fusion power research, that would only be accessible after you've collected almost all the science possible from the Kerbin system.

Generally? Is there any case where you can't? The total delta V required is less, the TWR is less... the skill required to land is less (flatter landing sites, much less losses to "gravty drag" means you can take your time on the landing, instead trying to optimie with a full burn moments before it is too late). I initially ditched my non lander stages too... then I realized with the low gravity and flatness. I could verically land some pretty tall rockets on minmus, just sitting on the nozzle, and the gyros were enough to keep them upright... Sounds good... its generally better to have more fuel than you need, than to need more fuel than you have. My first duna missions... I took way too much fuel.. but I was still proud to have pulled it off, I've got quite a bit of ful orbiting Duna now...

"it becomes more efficient than any other engine at around 6000 meters." - Well, I don't realy agree. Its ISP is higher than anything else aside from ions and jet engines at around 2000 meter. It never exceeds that of ions. Jet engines still work much better at 6000 meters. I don't think you were comparing to those, but the ones you would be comparing it to (the other rockets) have lower ISP at 2000 meters. But efficiency is not neccessarily ISP. It depends on what you are trying to move. A nuke engine is not more efficient than any other engine at putting a small stayputnick probe into orbit, for example. Benno is right... I typed out a reply, and then realized he had already made the point mor succintly So I've deleted a large part of my response In the most extrema case... take a small probe core (Probodobodyne OKTO2), add an Oscar-B Fuel Tank, and then an LV-N or a Rockomax 48-7S... the 48-7S is going to get more delta V. Now make the stages equal weight, ie give the 48-7S stage an FL-400 tank instead of an Oscar-B fuel tank (it will actually still be a bit lighter). Even if you do this with a mk1 command pod and an FL-400 tank instead of an Oscar B for the LV-N, and a LV 909 instead of a 48-7S - the light engine gets to take another FL-400 tank to be "equal weight", and it will get more delta-V - sure, it uses more than 2x as much fuel to thrust a given amount, but in this case it will carry 2x the fuel, and its empty weight will be much less. Less mass to push offsets less ISP in many cases.

No... but that is the same thrust transform that the stock engines use... Or is thrust transform somehow linked to the model? The interstellar "stock" thrust transform was called "TT"

I'm trying to make a high performance engine within "reasonable" bounds. Basically, a 30 kN plasma thruster with an ISP of 7000 seconds, that consumes 1 gigajoule per second (the reactor part that supplies this is quiete heavy...) and also consumes massless "coolant" I made something similar back in 0.18, and I just duplicated stock parts: the 3d model of the engine was of an ion drive, and the radiators that regenerate coolant were simply the XL solar panels that didn't rotate. Now I've decided to spice it up a bit, and downloaded the interstellar mod, (not to actually use that mod, but to use the 3d models in parts that work as I specify. The engine (from the MPD folder for those familiar with the interstellar mod) lights up, consumes resources, and shows that thrust is being produced... but the ship doesn't move. (btw the engine performance is weaker than that found in the Interstellar mod, less thrust, less ISP, more weight) It seems to me this is a similar scenario to when one has a part attached directly under an engine, but I'm using the same stack attach points and such as in the mod. Here's the relevant code: PART { name = smallerMPD module = Part author = Fractal mesh = model.mu scale = 1 rescaleFactor = 1.0 node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.1615562, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0 node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.1832844, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0 fx_exhaustFlame_blue = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running fx_exhaustLight_blue = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, running fx_exhaustSparks_flameout = 0.0, -0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, flameout TechRequired = ionPropulsion entryCost = 14000 cost = 5700 category = Propulsion subcategory = 0 title = Plasma Thruster manufacturer = Ionic Protonic Electronics description = A larger and more efficient cousin of the ion engine, it is best not to attempt to power this engine with witchcraft and instead opt for a very large electric generator. attachRules = 1,0,1,1,0 // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 0.75 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 7 breakingForce = 200 breakingTorque = 200 maxTemp = 3600 stagingIcon = LIQUID_ENGINE MODULE { name = ModuleEngines thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform exhaustDamage = False ignitionThreshold = 0.1 minThrust = 0 maxThrust = 30 heatProduction = 300 PROPELLANT { name = MegaJoules ratio = 23 } PROPELLANT { name = Coolant ratio = 2.4 } PROPELLANT { name = XenonGas ratio = 0.1 } atmosphereCurve { key = 0 7000 } } MODULE { name = FXModuleAnimateThrottle animationName = e9 dependOnEngineState = True responseSpeed = 0.5 } RESOURCE { name = Coolant amount = 100 maxAmount = 100 } RESOURCE { name = MegaJoules amount = 20 maxAmount = 20 } }

I wonder if KSP is the game for this guy.... Maybe I'm going to be too harsh and some of this is due to language problems (asssuming English is not his first language) He complains "Im also at a loss as to how to get science in the career mode without taking months of real time", then when someone starts to explain, he says "I've played career mode plenty but it seems you misunderstood my question. In the new limited science model where u can reuse modules without the science pod." - uhhh, sentence fragment much? but mainly, this statements seem to jump out at me: "im totally looking for star trek ships" - star trek ships are incredibly unrealistic, and this mod you've installed is definitely going OPd with this warp drive KSP is a realistic spaceflight simulator. "I can't learn to use KSP components without knowing how they work." You're really saying you cant learn to use Interstellar mod components... they aren't KSP stock components. "I added interstellar mostly for the possibilities. Such as mining and such" Maybe you should consider the Kethane mod instead. "after my failed attempt to manually o to another planet. ( orbited the sun for ages waiting for a chance to transfer).I actually never thought of just going to minimus first." Maybe you should learn how to do an interplanetary mission in stock KSP before trying to get there with a ship made of parts that you don't know what they do. It should have been pretty obvious to go to minmus to collect science before going to say... duna or wherever you were going. It sounds like you don't think things through much, and then you're frustrated when they fail. KSP requires forethought.

Simple math would say that your weight is 70% more on eve, due to the higher gravity, and a 1.3:1 ratio on kerbin wouldn't be sufficient for liftoff on EVE. Your thrust would be the same, but your weight would be 1.7x and 1.3/1.7 <1, not enough for a vertical ascent, and since you're at the top of the atmosphere, you can't use wings to help.I suppose it would still be possible.... get going really fast in the upper atmosphere, but in this case you'd be thrusting nearly horizontally. Of course, the gravity will be a little bit less at the top of the atmosphere than at the surface... I'd say take your 1.3:1 TWR and multiply it by 1.6 to get 2.08 - although I haven't done any eve ascent yet, I'm just doing simple reasoning here.

So simple answer, your craft is way too heavy, with not enough chutes, and no drogue chute to slow you down so the main chutes don't rip the craft apart during landing. The spacecraft design is the main problem

No, I use reaction wheels, but IRL, a reaction wheel could only do so much.... although now that I think about it, you could time the RCS thrusting so that the delta-V from monoprop is not wasted