cantab Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 After five failed attempts, it's Mission Accomplished for my Carts program. To land a probe on Serranand return it safely to KerbinBetween the unknowns of a new world and the pressure of quickloading disabled, this has been one of the tensest and most exciting missions I've done in KSP in a long time. Whether it's opening the chutes a mere 2000 metres from the ground and still doing over 300 m/s, or taking off knowing that I only get one chance at the ascent or I'll be reflying the whole mission, or watching the temperatures climb on Kerbin re-entry with a perished heatshield, it was truly heart in mouth stuff. And capped off by Serran being breathtakingly beautiful.In the event this was probably rather overbuilt, despite an atrocious Serran ascent profile I had loads of surplus delta-V. But better too much than too little.Think I need a break now. Perhaps target Aptur and the Mun, and maybe send some interplanetary probes on their ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddiew Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Good choice landing in the white bit - my effort with the blue side did not go well. Still haven't gotten up the courage to try again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dom700 Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 At the moment I have a rescue mission for a kerbal that got stranded on the blue side, still trying to figure out how to do that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tynrael Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 (edited) At the moment I have a rescue mission for a kerbal that got stranded on the blue side, still trying to figure out how to do that If you have airbrakes they help a lot, it is a little more on the fuel expensive side but depending on what kind of engine you are sporting you can fire them off at an appropriate height to reduce your speed enough for drogue chutes. You can then throttle down on the engines to make the most use of the chutes and the airbrakes so they get maximized until it is safe to use the regular chutes but saving that extra fuel will be more risky and everything goes pretty quick. The added benefit is that if you land at 5-7k elevation it saves you a few thousand meters of flight on your ascent off Serran!Airbrakes by 61K, engine assist down to below 500m/s to deploy drogues, combination drogue+engine down below 200m/s for the blue chutes. In the VAB I changed the deployment settings for all my parachutes to be half the time of the defaults. Depending on when you start burning in the atmosphere to green light the drogues, your distance between greenlighting the first chutes and when you land could be 1500m or less... You will most likely want engines going all the way until you land, regardless of how your chutes get setup. If you use a mod like SafetyChuteIndicator you can more easily see when it is safe to deploy the chutes so you can more accurately judge what you should be throttling your engines to on your descent. With 3 airbrakes, 3 drogues and 9 side mounted blue chutes- I spent 1.4kdV to land the last time I went for the blue side of Serran (which means my lower throttle all the way down cost more fuel because I was scared, could probably have spent half the dV going for a suicide burn around 8-10K elevation).I have done some testing and there is a limit to how many chutes you can use and still gain any speed reduction at all so it will probably always cost a good amount of fuel to land on the blue side. Though it was mentioned that the height could get trimmed a little, a few thousand meters more of lower atmosphere would go a long way for passive speed reduction. Edited August 17, 2015 by Tynrael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whovian Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Because Texture Replacer, what bodies have breathable atmospheres? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evanstoned Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Anyone else ctd if having the custom cloud layers installed? (my installation is clean, kopernikus is installed, no other mods, 64bit-mode) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tynrael Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Because Texture Replacer, what bodies have breathable atmospheres?I believe it is just Kerbin, Serran, and Titanus with breathable atmospheres. I think Laythe used to have a breathable atmosphere but now the wiki indicates a salt content may be responsible for that no longer being the case. These can be added in Texture Replacer configs so that you can have your helmet off when doing IVA but you also have to set the pressure levels to make the switch, I'm not familiar enough with how the pressure changes so I have mine set to 0.01. This means if I IVA on Serran at 60,000 meters I probably wont have my helmet on, but I don't know what a smart value to set would be. The default pressure setting from Texture Replacer was too high for anything off Kerbin (though I didn't try Titanus, that pressure is so high it would probably have worked).The default configs also have Erin and Sanctum flagged but I'm not sure what packs those are from for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Augustus_ Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 I believe it is just Kerbin, Serran, and Titanus with breathable atmospheres. I think Laythe used to have a breathable atmosphere but now the wiki indicates a salt content may be responsible for that no longer being the case. These can be added in Texture Replacer configs so that you can have your helmet off when doing IVA but you also have to set the pressure levels to make the switch, I'm not familiar enough with how the pressure changes so I have mine set to 0.01. This means if I IVA on Serran at 60,000 meters I probably wont have my helmet on, but I don't know what a smart value to set would be. The default pressure setting from Texture Replacer was too high for anything off Kerbin (though I didn't try Titanus, that pressure is so high it would probably have worked).The default configs also have Erin and Sanctum flagged but I'm not sure what packs those are from for sure. Erin is from the PF stock planets (Which are available for Kopernicus as the Sentar Expansion), Sanctum is from an old PF planet pack called Kerbolis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sir_frost Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 I'm not sure if i didn't install it correctly or something. But when i run it. It doesn't show KSC. It just shows the system. I can see the planets and stuff like that. But not anything but planets and empty space.Do you have any idea of what I did wrong?i experience the same problem only have kopernikus and new horizons installed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Augustus_ Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 i experience the same problem only have kopernikus and new horizons installed You two are clearly installing it incorrectly.Come on guys you just merge the GameData folders for crying out loud! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cantab Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 I believe it is just Kerbin, Serran, and Titanus with breathable atmospheres. I think Laythe used to have a breathable atmosphere but now the wiki indicates a salt content may be responsible for that no longer being the case. These can be added in Texture Replacer configs so that you can have your helmet off when doing IVA but you also have to set the pressure levels to make the switch, I'm not familiar enough with how the pressure changes so I have mine set to 0.01. This means if I IVA on Serran at 60,000 meters I probably wont have my helmet on, but I don't know what a smart value to set would be. The default pressure setting from Texture Replacer was too high for anything off Kerbin (though I didn't try Titanus, that pressure is so high it would probably have worked).The default configs also have Erin and Sanctum flagged but I'm not sure what packs those are from for sure.Well Kerbin has a sea level pressure of around 100 kPa / 1 atm. If Kerbals are like humans then with appropriate training they should be fine in a pressure as low as 40-50 kPa, assuming a similar oxygen content in the air and lack of other toxic gases. Serran's "sea level" pressure is 45 kPa so it's reasonable for Kerbals to walk around helmetless there. What really counts is the "partial pressure" of oxygen, so if the atmosphere has a high oxygen percentage it can be breathable with a lower total pressure.A minor snag is knowing what units Texture Replacer needs, you may need to experiment.There's an upper limit to tolerable pressures too, that's why scuba divers sometimes use special gas mixes, they can be safely breathed at higher pressures than normal air.For Laythe my hypothesis is the air is too rich in carbon dioxide. It doesn't matter how much oxygen there is, if the CO2 levels are above a couple of percent your body can't exhale CO2 and you suffocate. Since the stock system puts Laythe so far from the Sun, it seems sensible for it to have a lot of a greenhouse gas. Of course New Horizons totally changes this; maybe a case for NH!Laythe having breathable air? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randazzo Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 KIS allows for the removal of Kerbal Helmets on the surface of Serran, but I'm not sure what the criteria are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tynrael Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 If Kerbals are like humans then with appropriate training they should be fine in a pressure as low as 40-50 kPa, assuming a similar oxygen content in the air and lack of other toxic gases. Serran's "sea level" pressure is 45 kPa so it's reasonable for Kerbals to walk around helmetless there.There's an upper limit to tolerable pressures too, that's why scuba divers sometimes use special gas mixes, they can be safely breathed at higher pressures than normal air.For Laythe my hypothesis is the air is too rich in carbon dioxide. It doesn't matter how much oxygen there is, if the CO2 levels are above a couple of percent your body can't exhale CO2 and you suffocate. Since the stock system puts Laythe so far from the Sun, it seems sensible for it to have a lot of a greenhouse gas. Of course New Horizons totally changes this; maybe a case for NH!Laythe having breathable air?Sold! I will add Laythe to my list of breathable atmospheres. I think the default value TR used for breathable pressure was 50, which tracks with your earlier statement. I will probably change mine to 35 to add some wiggle room beyond what is reasonable. If Serran is 45 at sea level than my desire for a photo opportunity minus the helmets at 7,200 elevation could have been... bad for their health. Thanks for the insight cantab! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinimumSky5 Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Tynrael, you had the Kerbals with their helmets off at about 5% atmospheric pressure, that would have been VERY bad for the kerbals! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tynrael Posted August 17, 2015 Share Posted August 17, 2015 Tynrael, you had the Kerbals with their helmets off at about 5% atmospheric pressure, that would have been VERY bad for the kerbals!They spent 2 years on Aptur with nothing to pass the time and they (conveniently) practiced holding their breath! With their mouths open in giant happy Kerbal smiles. You may think the helmets are for breathing, but the primary function is preventing them from eating things they find during IVA. Speaking of which... I look forward to plants and other misc things being around on the surfaces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddiew Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 You may think the helmets are for breathing, but the primary function is preventing them from eating things they find during IVA.Given that they clearly photosynthesise when on long missions, I could believe that. I don't think they need external oxygen, they just need to not explode due to vacuum... They should probably be fine on Duna too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tellion Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Given that they clearly photosynthesise when on long missions, I could believe that. I don't think they need external oxygen, they just need to not explode due to vacuum... They should probably be fine on Duna too But would that work out metabolically? Can photosynthesis support an organism that has a large brain to take care of? In any case, you would still need carbon, water and lots of sunlight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sigma88 Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 a large brainthat's the flaw in your assuptions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddiew Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 that's the flaw in your assuptions Not everybody keeps their brains in the same place. Kerbal heads are primarily shock absorption systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinimumSky5 Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 That's why, without re-entry heating, they can survive the impact of falling from orbit on Kerbin, provided they land headfirst! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tellion Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 that's the flaw in your assuptions Rockets don't build themselves. Admittedly, the choice of crew is questionable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddiew Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 I believe that most ship design is carried out by a single gigantic kerbal queen, whose distended abdomen dispenses delicious Klurm drinks even as her wise mind dispenses spacecraft knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tellion Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 I believe that most ship design is carried out by a single gigantic kerbal queen, whose distended abdomen dispenses delicious Klurm drinks even as her wise mind dispenses spacecraft knowledge.That... sounds legitimate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KillAshley Posted August 18, 2015 Author Share Posted August 18, 2015 lol eddiew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinimumSky5 Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 I believe that most ship design is carried out by a single gigantic kerbal queen, whose distended abdomen dispenses delicious Klurm drinks even as her wise mind dispenses spacecraft knowledge.After that mental image, I shall not be sleeping tonight! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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