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Pecan

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Everything posted by Pecan

  1. ESSENTIAL formulae Somewhere to sit + box of boom = two parts OR somewhere to sit + box of boom + boom-controller engine = three parts Beyond that, it's all up to you. If you practice long enough then you'll get a feeling for what you can throw at the sky without it just ending in fireworks but you'll never have the faintest idea why unless you quantify it and once you do that you're into the maths whether you like it or not. In practice - I'd say the moons are ok for 'by eye' but interplanetary is just easier/quicker if you do the planning up-front. You can certainly do interplanetary without the maths but it'll mostly just be a frustrating waste of time that ends in failure, so why bother? Now, what the hell are 'SWAGs'?
  2. By the time you have tier-3 technology (counting the starter tech as tier-1) there is nothing stopping you from manned missions to Kerbins moons. Remember - Kerbal isn't Earth; they'd rather you chuck sentient beings at space-rocks than use computers. The biggest problem is working-out how to get in and out of spacecraft when ladders start at tech-5 ^^.
  3. No, it's the exact opposite. The manoeuvre-node indicator says "go this way" and the facing-indicator shows which way you're pointing (according to the orientation of your 'control from here' part). Nothing at all takes any account of which way your engines point at the current moment, especially as that's likely to change as your fuel burns, if the thrust axis is already off-centre.
  4. 1. Fewer mods, fewer parts, lower graphics and physics settings, better computer. 2. OBS 15fps is very slow though1. Just a tad more information about what you're running and what you're running it on would help. [1my 10 year-old PC manages 40+fps most of the time and only drops to around 20 on launches, except for hugely complex vehicles]
  5. Congratulations, achievement is always good :-)
  6. Well, you know, since you're including other versions of KSP and mods I'd say the longest-range I built with pure jets was a spaceplane that spent a lot of its time outside the atmosphere and managed 70-odd orbits before its Pe degraded too much, IIRC. Or is that cheating too? Are we just meant to agree that, yes, using only your favourite combination of version, mods and engines, you've made a big plane? How much payload can your 'transporter' transport over its range, by the way - you don't seem to have mentioned that?
  7. Time, time, time ... You can spend the time working out, for each combination of vehicle and payload, exactly when to launch and IF every flight goes exactly as planned (down to rounding-errors and other computer artefacts) through very unprefictable atmospheric launch you will have got your rendezvous. Even with a SSTO rocket I wouldn't like to trust the accuracy though. I assume you're using a spaceplane, since it takes so long to get to orbit, which means much more inherent flight-error. Or you can do a lazy launch any time you like, with any vehicle/payload you like to a phasing orbit and spend the time on waiting for a very-predictable and much more accurate transfer manoeuvre. Save yourself the launch worries, Calculations from orbit are much more repeatable.
  8. The force applied is torque - twisting, not pushing. Anyone who wants to think this through can put a broom handle on the ground to simulate a long, thin rocket and check the difference. If you want to rotate the stick clockwise, for instance, you can push, which works better at the ends, or twist which works better in the middle. If you push in the middle instead it tends to push the whole thing sideways, instead of rotating it around the centre. If you twist at the end instead you make that end the fulcrum and have to swing the whole length/mass of the stick. The whole issue of reaction wheels has been debated a few times and, like RIC, my understanding is that it doesn't matter where you put them in KSP. That said; floppy ends will naturally trail and then swing past the main body of the vessel with wheels in the centre, so causing endless wobbles. Wheels at the ends would tend to bend the vessel, which may or may not be more controllable but will definitely be more vessel-dependent. Please note that this is an exaggerated view of what causes the wobbles only - and at the moment the middle image is wrong anyway - as Snark pointed out there is no translation of the CoM.
  9. 2 months ago you weren't using 1.0.5. Lots changed. 1.0.5 Grand Discussion Thread
  10. There is never a job for a space shuttle in KSP ^^. SSTO rocket or spaceplane, yes. Shuttle, no.
  11. Ha! No wonder seeing that picture reminded me of the papercraft thread!
  12. SSTO rocket with radial docking-ports on an I-beam for the sats themselves. My sats all have docking-ports too, just because you never know when you might want to move or recover one. Stock fairings are single-shot so they're out and the rocket cargo-bays are simply too short and buggy to be any use at all so I'd recommend a mod for reusable holds.
  13. Apologies if this is off-topic, but I thought it would be of interest to anyone wanting a physical model of their ships: Print it on paper, cut-out and build ^^: Paper Space Program Beyond paper, I've always been intrigued by the possibilities of printing those to a sheet of polystyrene (which should fit through most inkjet printers) but haven't tried that yet.
  14. The KSP planets are Moho, Eve, Kerbin, Duna, Dres, Jool and Eeloo. Their natural satellites are moons. Last time I looked Pol was a moon of Jool, not a planet orbiting the sun. Perhaps Pol itself would like to move to Dres? After all it would then be THE planet's moon rather than merely the smallest, outermost, perhaps most-overlooked (as suggested by this thread), of a crowd.
  15. Just about all of them in my old Exploring The System tutorial. Not because they're particularly good vehicles (most of them aren't) but because they are almost exactly the right tutorial vehicles in that they work (or did in the target version), are easy to build and fly and demonstrate specific building techniques and game features. Oddly, my favourite is Long Tom, even though it's over-complicated and the lander has a high CoM. I've found quite a few people enjoy playing around with that one and all its staging. Long Tom Lander Stage Plus, you know, the birthday Easter Egg.
  16. FIFY. After your arduous trip there, why not stop-off at scenic Dres, to enjoy the holiday wonders of a real planet.
  17. On the other hand, nosecones have been found very effective when placed backwards on the engines (which they don't block) and other trailing nodes.
  18. Indeed, there are a few reasons for using SSTO rockets but the major ones are i) simplest way to orbit, ii) 98% refund for easy parachute-assisted landing 'near' KSC or - possibly - 100% on the runway (or landing-pad, but that's particularly difficult). I wouldn't bother to launch a SSTO rocket if I didn't expect to get it back.
  19. Design stages: Make it Launch it Fix it Verify it Certify for VFR See if MJ can launch it Fix it so MJ can launch it Verify it Certify for IFR The way I see it, if any design is too flaky for MJ to fly it's not robust enough for general use but is fine if I'm just using it as a one-off.
  20. If only I could stop the software double line-spacing all the time :-( "SRBs" is a plural, not a possessive, so has no apostrophe. Not sure about 'spaceplane' for my second Q but it's your list *grin*.
  21. I've been a moderator and helper on several forums for lots of different software and this format only works if the original question contains ALL the information needed to diagnose the problem and the 'favourite' answer contains ALL the information needed to cure it. In most cases that makes the Q/A too specific for anyone else having a similar problem so they start another thread just because the general-guidelines discussion that might be contained in the thread are so hard to follow. As soon as there are requests for more information or a screenshot, as soon as there are multiple answers dealing with different aspects of the issue, as soon as there is more than one approach the rating system is worse than useless. In this case that shouldn't be too much of a problem because the 'sort by date' option is easily available but people will have to get used to a few new habits if this format is to have any chance of being more useful that plain date-order: For thread-starters: DON'T reply to requests for more information with a new post, it'll get lost in the noise. Instead EDIT your original question For responders: ALWAYS quote the post(s) you're replying to, if it's not the OP, as rating will make nonsense of any implied sequence Everyone: as soon as it's more than a straight question -> answer, start a new thread in discussions (destroys most of the value of the format, but that's the price you pay for what's left).
  22. Q: Why is it so hard to make a shuttle? A: Because shuttles are really, really hard. One of the hardest things to build in KSP. There are all sorts of off-centre thrust issues to cope with, which change quite radically as the SRBs then main tank separate. There are also lots of drag/lift problems with wings on a rocket. Almost any other way to get to orbit can be designed, built and flown more easily and efficiently in KSP. Q: Can you make a rocket as efficient as a SSTO? A: Yes; build a rocket that uses a Single Stage to get To Orbit. It is exactly as efficient as a SSTO. It IS a SSTO. Spaceplanes aren't efficient because they are spaceplanes, they are efficient because they use air-breathing engines.
  23. [quote name='SpaceplaneAddict']...spaceplanes...[/QUOTE] You're right - that is a completely unimportant subject, even if it is on-topic. [quote name='SpaceplaneAddict']Un-related to this, you are under arrest for using the DresAwareness badge without doing the challenge! lol :) srsly tho[/QUOTE] 24 hours grace? I have Dres Towers ('D' block - shown behind tug) waiting for a transfer window along with 10 (I think) beech-cabins, all so I can recreate the resort. [url=http://imgur.com/EtC26Oo][img]http://i.imgur.com/EtC26Ool.png[/img][/url] That's accommodation for 232 [s]suckers[/s] guests as well as the fleet of ancilliary vehicles and things (bar, pool, etc) If the Ministry of Tourism had bothered to tell me (you know what I mean!) I could have provided the publicity material earlier. We shall leave for the less enlightened the problem of launching and transferring such blocks, so they can stand tall and proud, enjoying unrivalled views of the glorious Dres landscape. Pretty easy (and cheap) really, using a rocket SSTO. The less-aerodynamic majority of the fleet all went up on the same, reusable, launch vehicles - including the tugs of that class, now I think of it. Oh how we laughed at the people in the SPH as they laboured over the holiday weekend to design some crate for just one payload, then had to start all over again for the next, and the next. We just launched.
  24. Oh, I see. There is a 'How low can you go' sun-limbo thread around somewhere that gets added to every few months but I haven't looked to see if anyone's got to scanner range recently - or at all, come to think of it.
  25. Friday 27th will mark the second birthday of when I started KSP (I'll probably forget if I don't post this now). There is no particular point to this post apart from that so the TL;DR version is - thanks Squad. On that date I tripped-over an online article that mentioned it and downloaded the demo to see if it would work on my ancient machine. Several hours later, when I escaped the dream, I decided I had to get the full game. (Actually, to be honest, I did think about it for a couple of days because my lifestyle is largely self-sufficient and buyng [I]anything[/I] is a fairly major decision but this one was only ever going to go one way). It took me a while after that to find a method of payment I could use, mostly because I'd never heard of the online systems. I see from the save dates on my old backups that I finally got 0.22 on the 8th December. At the, early-access, time I thought it was better and more complete than most "Best Seller" games I'd ever bought (looking at you EA; learn what value for money means) Since then I've played thousands of hours on 0.23, 0.24. 0.25, 0.90, 1.0 and 1.0.5, along with their patches (and I'm not quibbling about version-numbering, I just think 1.0.5 is such a big release it deserves separate mention). If we're good Squad might bring us 1.1 for Christmas - remember children, you have to go to bed early or father christmas won't come. The last software artefact that held my interest so much was Second Life, which has the advantage of embedded programming and is essentially entirely about modding everything. In the end though the question was "what am I learning here?", what's the use of this? The Total War and Elder Scrolls games might, between them, occupy as much of my time but are, when all's said and done, pure escapism. KSP enabled me to recite Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation in the pub to the bemusement of my peers - what more could you ask? ^^ Probably like most of us I thought I was interested in space-exploration before KSP but had NO idea what it involved. To the extent that my aerospace appreciation has improved, within the limitations of a popular model, I've gained even more than the fun of landing on other planets. Anyway; the community is moving on, as the game itself is and as the game becomes more popular. It is in the nature of such things that the early-adopters (and, yes, I know 'only' 2 years makes me a relative newcomer amongst you) will want more of the same; it's what we signed-up for after all. In KSP's case I think I can get away with saying that most of us want(ed) it harder/more realistic with more engineering challenges. On the other hand the wider and more commercial market wants it simpler and more 'flat-pack' - here is your moon kit, etc. - more 'Earth' (shuttles) and more laser-sci-fi shooting. That is a great simplification on both sides, of course, and for all the complaints about every update there are several things I've taken particular note of with Squad: [list] [*]There have [B]been[/B] updates, not just bug-fixes [*]They haven't cost me another penny [*]New functionality has tended to be what the community shouted for, maybe after some delay, even at the cost of the things the developers would rather have done [*]At least twice development has continued when I would have closed it pending "Version 2", at extra cost ^^ [*]Even to the extent of not wanting to be given a copyright accreditation they don't want anything to cost you any more! [*]We still don't really know who owns KSP - the software says Squad and the website "Deported" - so probably one or the other will sue me for the manuals I'm publishing [/list] KSP has come a long way, not just from when I started, and continues to make progress. Be careful what you wish for - Squad (or whoever) seem to be pretty good at giving it to us. Thanks Squad
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