Champ

Hi all 2 things here : First, the "no mining in kerbin SOI" thing : I think you are talking about sandbox. In a Career game, it's way cheaper to mine from minmus/mun than it is to haul fuel in orbit from the surface of kerbin. (well, not for the first refuel, ok) Second, the "where to mine" thing : as i understand it, you guys all consider you would mine from the mun (or minmus) and leave that fuel in mun (or minmus) orbit (or landed). Personnally, i have a large ship that mines from minmus, converts the ore to fuel, and haul that fuel to my kerbin station (200km circular orbit). I don't know if it's optimal or not, i am just saying there is a third option. Note : yes, i know it would be far cheaper to just haul the ore and convert it in the station (no need to haul the converter), but i think it is safer like this (no 'oops, no fuel left' problem).

thank you. I will try this evening

* Added wheel weight stress and slip stress multipliers to game settings, allowing players that do not want these stresses to disable them globally. Where is this new setting ?

if you model the mass of the paint, you should model the thermo change between a black painted rocket and a white painted rocket. And if you model this, you could also model the changes in the atmo... Isn't it more simple to just ignore all of this and just assume that painting a rocket changes just nothing ? It's a game, after all.

I really think this ship is too big for its purpose. If all you want to do is a science reading above 22km, you can make it really lighter.

Some things you, as somebody who played previous versions and come back now should know : The Aero change has changed quite a few things : - Build a sleek rocket and put fins on the back - The gravity turn has changed : no more "10 degrees at 100 m/s then 45 degrees until apoapsis is good" : you will want to start your gravity turn early, and be progressive about it. Ideally, you just put a small pitch input, then let the gravity do the turning (it's called a gravity turn, after all). - we now have heat shields. If you want to reenter with something more than just a capsule, you will want to have one. You can lower the amount of abrasive shield to save weight (1/4 is more than enough)

Totally off-topic, but, i thought it was strange that the so-called "realistic design" on the site you linked has docking ports on the rotating parts... It also has one on the non-rotating part, but the 2 docking ports on rotating parts are just dead weight. This seams highly unrealistic to me, but i am no expert. Is there an explanation to this ?

No. Just no. The fact that there are no DRM measures makes it possible to distribute the game, but it does not make it legal. Encouraging illegal distribution is also illegal, of course.

I resolved this problem with the R&D mod : you will always need more science. Now you have a reason to go to Jool (other than the beauty of Laythe). I personnally forbid myself to use the R&D functionnality before i unlocked all the tech tree.

Yes. Yes, we are ! Don't worry, you have done nothing wrong, and your kid is not plain stupid. He's just... a teenager !

Yep, you are right, and i was wrong : i thought the attached asteroid needed to be in geostationary orbit or else the counterweight would move faster/slower than the surface, and that would destroy the elevator, but i was wrong.

Buzz Aldrin wrote his thesis for Doctorate of Science in Astronautics about docking in space. I think you are wrong : it was about orbital rendez-vous, not about docking. At least that is what wikipedia says.

I think you are wrong : a space elevator gets you to geostationnary orbit, not escape velocity.

This is considered radial, and will be affected by drag. By the way, i think objects in a stack are affected by drag. It's far less drag if it's occulted, but it still cause drag. Yes, you can, but it would change nothing : they would still be considered as radially attached. I think they work, if the cargo bay is opened. May be better to check it. If you are building a rocket, sincerely, forget the drag for RCS thrusters. If you are building a spaceplane, then you would better use the place-anywhere-linear-RCS

Seems to me you just need more control authority (more control surface). My most-used seaspaceplane ssto has pitch-control-surfaces that are totally disabled during the whole mission and are activated just for reentry. During the ascent, the canards are the only pitch-controlling surface, and i activate the elevons on the back on the craft just for reentry

Ref needed. No, your feeling is not a reference.

Sorry, but i think you are wrong : it is much simpler, cost-effective and easier to use chemical rocket engines when going to Duna or Eve (not talking about landing where TWR is an issue). Of course, you can go there with NERV, but it will cost more and be more painfull (long burn time) than it would be with a chemical engine. There are many (really, many) situations where a NERV can do the job, but a chemical engine can do it better. I think I read somewhere on this forum that this is wrong : NERV is less dangerous when firing than when not firing. BTW, I would love to see radiations included in the game, but not as you describe it. I don't care about radiation from the NERV engines : anything that goes beyond LKO (for example, to the Mün) will run throuh VanAllen's belts, so it needs heavy radiation shielding, NERV engines or not. I think we could have a checkbox on every crew-containing part (hitchhiker's module, pods, cans, cockpits, cupola) to specify if we want it to be radiation-shielded. If checked, it adds weight to the part. If not, then going through VanAllen's belt (or using NERV) should kill all crew. That way, you can have lightweight non-shielded crew parts (for when you don't want to go beyond LKO - usefull for SSTO spaceplanes, for example, or in early-carrier) or heavy shielded crew parts (for when you want to go farther : mun, minmus, or any other planet). We could even have a slider to configure the radiation shield : a ship that is going to explore the Jool system should have a heavier shield than a ship that is just going to the Mün

Sorry, i don't understand. Why would the paycheck be proportional to the in-game time it takes ? Why would you care about in-game time ? We can time warp, so we don't care about time. You missed that transfer-to-moho window ? Then just wait for the next one ! What is important (at least to me) is the real-life time you need to complete the contract. Back to the subject : Wouldn't it be cheaper to do a bi-elliptic transfer ? You can use Jool's gravity assist to lessen the dV needed to raise Ap. You could even use Eve's gravity assit to get you to jool, but this would be too bad in terms of 'real-life time'

This was very interesting... I am glad you necro'ed this thread for that.

I did not even know spaceX had a new concurrent. Good thing ! The powered landing of the rocket is very impressive

[quote name='KerbMav'] Something worth remembering: every difficulty setting can be personalized - switching it to the custom setting automatically -, but the upgrade costs of the facilities are determined by the difficulty setting you last selected before fine tuning it to your liking. So customizing an easy setting differs from customizing a hard setting - as long as this has not changed since the last time I paid attention to this.[/QUOTE] I think you are wrong : upgrade costs of the facilities are determined by the fund penalty setting.

Did somebody try to use the stock plane the 'Mallard' ? It's a big seaplane with MK3 cargo bay and MK3 ramp. It should be perfect for this role.

> Once Bob Kerman reports back from his excursion into Kerbol orbit, I guess he'll have reached level 2, so I'll probably be sending him off to Minmus Base to help. Beware, without a mod you will have to bring Bob back to kerbin for him to get the XP, then send him to space again.

I like it ! A good way to explain why we don't see humans in the space program : - Kerbals are much lighter, and don't seem to need life support, so it's far more economical to send kerbals rather than humans. - Kerbals are not affraid of being killed by a rocket explosion (seems to make them laugh). Humans are not affraid to sacrifice these psychotic little green beings.

The title of your thread ("Kerbal Orbital Mechanics 101 - By Professor Lynch [1.0.4]") suggest you want to teach orbital mechanics to new players. But the content of your thread suggest you want to learn from experienced players.