DonLorenzo's Forum Campaign: To space, the moon and beyond

[Awaras]

A question about the space station construction missions:

What are the requirements for the delivery? Could we for example deliver a whole ship with a remote control unmanned capsule that contains the cargo or do we have to put the cargo on a decoupler and separate it from the ship in orbit to count as a delivery?

[DonLorenzo]

The rules for delivery are a little more lenient than they were in the contract. The cargo needs to be up there, since construction is implied there can be old bits of rocket still attached to it, an unmanned capsule can be left up there as well, eliminating the need for a re-entry vehicle

[fermun]

I have been working up a similar game to this myself for another forum, and as I was worrying over the balance I decided to check if anyone else was running something similar. I decided to enter, I hope that my space program is soon one of the richer ones.

[issarlk]

I\'ll be trying to do proper rockets from now on, it looks like it will be challenging (and thus fun) as it barelly brings money when you use decouplers.

Contract money will basically become very important.

[Awaras]

Guys, I have been working on phasing out explosive decoupling from my designs and noticed a major bug. Basically, for some reason LFE\'s burn fuel a whole lot slower after using explosive decoupling (like half as slow or more) and that is why my ships were so much more efficient than everyone else\'s.

Here is the link to the bug report I just filed:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=14752.0

Since this is definitely an exploit, i ask Don Lorenzo to reevaluate all my previous missions and come up with a way to rectify this by taking away part of my money or in any other way he sees fit.

[robsr3v3ng3]

wow that is quite a big bug. Hope it gets resolved and you don\'t have to start over.

Contracts aren\'t the only way to earn decent money. In the most recent one the entry fee is $2,000 which could be the difference between being able to do the next mission. Atm I have been doing the 25km altitude challenges and have found spending about $1,000 or so more has made my profit go up by about $3,000, not just because the mission is worth more but there is more salvage so you don\'t really \'spend\' as much.

When using properly staged rockets you really want to stick as much on each decoupler. To do this I have been radially mounting SRBs to a central one, and then firing them in sequence. E.g. the central one and two of the outer ones, and then going to the next two and then the last two of six. This gives a long duration of thrust and then you eject the entire stack which will be most of the weight one chute can take, for only one stack decoupler.

[DonLorenzo]

I had thought on a few occasions something along the lines of \'dang those small engines really are frugal with their fuel\', but never stopped to think and check whether it was at all correct. It really is a weird bug. I won\'t make Awaras start over, I will take away a chunk of his cash and will probably restore the first bonuses he claimed on a few missions. Exactly how much and what exactly I\'ll do I\'m still pondering, it will be included in the turn 8 update which will happen on friday.

[issarlk]

If you want to cheat in the other direction you can hook fuel tanks directly to engines with fuel lines and get poor efficiency. I noticed it sucks the fuel faster without offering more thrust.

I haven\'t really checked it with 2 test rockets, as I don\'t really see how they could be built to be simillar except for the way fuel is fed in the engine.

[Bellaby]

hey guys, quick update on my part, exam season has been strong these few weeks but its nearly over! (YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY)

The week long turn enabled me to do my turn when i had a lul but i\'m going to have to miss this turn because i don\'t have the time to play this evening.

If you would Don just consider my turn as \'Fund Raiser\' and thats it, or i\'ll do this turn over the weekend because last exam tomorrow FINALLY ah can\'t wait for it to be over.

- Oh and well spotted Awaras, i wondered why my decoupler light LFE designs just weren\'t working compared to the explosive ones.

[DonLorenzo]

Yeah I\'ll do that Bellaby. Also if you want to can repeat elements from previous turns. Good luck with your exams!!

[robsr3v3ng3]

I just did a quick test on the fuel feed bug to and engine. I set up a small rocket which had one engine directly attached to a tank turned upside down on the either side of the rocket and one rocket positioned over the cockpit, also upside down, which had a fuel feed to another external fuel tank.

I fired up all three at once and they all ran out at the same time. I tried it with several different engines as well.

[issarlk]

I\'ve just tested and it turns out my bug is actually a workaround to the bug Awaras found.

When feeding the engine directly with fuel lines it actually uses up fuel at the normal rate (and here I was marveling at the awesomeness of LFEs )

So if you want to explosively sepparate stages with LFEs, you can as long as you make sure they get their fuel from fuel lines only. I\'ll post my finding in the bug report too.

Attached: 2 ships that show the difference.

[Awaras]

Don, are you following Nova Silisko\'s development blog? It seems that most of the stock parts are going to be replaced when 0.16 comes out. They are changing the way engines work and the balance of parts is going to be changed. What will this mean for your campaign?

[DonLorenzo]

We\'ll have to wait and see what exactly will happen in 0.16. As I see it we can do a couple of things:

-Try and re-balance pricing so roughly similar designs and capabilities remain possible for the same amount of money

-Do nothing, keeping all prices as they are. Depending on what exactly gets changed this could make things far too easy or downright impossible

-Start over with new values for everything

-Keep playing in .15, completely ignoring 0.16

I\'m in favor of the first option, I\'m in the experimental test group so while I won\'t be able to keep you guys updated about it I will probably have a little lead in time to think about the balancing of it all.

We\'ll just keep going as is for the moment, I\'m sure we\'ll be able to come up with something that works when we need to.

Cheers

[DonLorenzo]

Turn 007 Progress update!

Before getting into the turn update proper I have an important announcement! From now on out, the explosive decoupling of solid rocket boosters attached to liquid fuel engines is strictly prohibited. Awaras discovered a bug with that that causes an approximately twofold increase in fuel efficiency of the liquid engine after such a separation. This is considered cheating from now on. Note that the explosive decoupling of SRBs attached to other SRBs is still perfectly fine and allowed. Awaras has discovered this bug due to the fact that his designs the past few turns have (unknowingly) relied on it, causing him to operate impossibly effective and earn huge amounts of money. We\'ve discussed what to do about this and decided on slashing his starting funds for turn 7 to $45000 (less than half of what he had), additionally I\'m reinstating the first bonuses on the kubble, probe and orbit missions. Also Awaras will be unable to claim any of these bonuses until after turn 10. These measures still leave him with a slight advantage due to the bug, mostly technology wise. I think this is fair, he didn\'t intentionally cheat and his having of the technologies have reduced the prices for the rest as well.

On to the turn 7 report!

Contract

The contract for this turn saw lackluster participation, perhaps because of the slightly higher entry fee. The two submissions I got for it were nigh identical, so I have decided to not award the bonus prize to anyone.

Technology announcements

-Decoupler Tech has been purchased enough times to have its price reduced by 10%. it now costs $2700

-Liquid Tech I has been purchased enough times to have its price reduced to the final low amount of $6000

Financial Overview

Player: Awaras Mission Completed: Establish kerbin orbit Tech purchased: Liquid Tech III Spent: $27400 Income: $18000 New Balance: $38740

Player: Fireblade Mission Completed: 80km Tech purchased: Decoupler Tech Spent: $12250 Income: $14000 New Balance: $28600

Player: Robs3v3ng3 Mission Completed: 80km Tech purchased: Decoupler Tech Spent: $14300 Income: $14000 New Balance: $19700

Player: Issarlk Mission Completed: 200km Tech purchased: Liquid Tech I Spent: $25350 Income: $17000 New Balance: $18580

Player: Bellaby Mission Completed: none Tech purchased: none Spent: $0 Income: $0 New Balance: $25050

Player: Db101 Mission Completed: 25km Tech purchased: Salvage Tech I Spent: $10800 Income: $14000 New Balance: $18750

Player: Fermun Mission Completed: 25km Tech purchased: none Spent: $8000 Income: $10000 New Balance: $12500

So far no space station parts have been delivered yet, as soon as they are I will put up a tally in the OP to keep track of construction progress.

Turn 8 highlights

-There will be no contract in turn 8 (main reason: busy weekend)

-First bonuses on \'launch Kubble\' \'launch Probe\' \'Establish kerbin orbit\' \'Complete a full kerbin orbit\' have been reinstated

-No new tech or other things, looks like turn 8 will be fairly straightforward

The deadline for turn 8 will be Sunday 24-06-2012 23:59 (GMT +2)

Good luck!

[robsr3v3ng3]

when doing the mission to establish a stable orbit is it necessary for the crew to return to planet kerbin or is it ok if they just float around in space for a bit?

[issarlk]

when doing the mission to establish a stable orbit is it necessary for the crew to return to planet kerbin or is it ok if they just float around in space for a bit?

My understanding is that you have to establish the orbit only then you can deorbit immediatelly and return.

There\'s another mission for actually doing one full orbit around the planet.

[Bellaby]

Don, how good are you at powered landings? I have an orbit capable craft which can land safely (all of the rocket surviving landing) in the ocean (not tested on land). It consists of a small LFE, 2 large LF containers and the pod & zoxy main. It can be tricky to get perfect in one attempt. If you aren\'t overly confident i can always add a parachute and still make a profit, and make landing much easier, but i just wanted to know before hand

Also i assume that activating the parachute at the same time as triggering the decoupler (when attempting to salvage a lower stage) is ok, even though the parachute doesn\'t visually deploy (yet it\'s icon turns yellow, meaning deployed).

This might even be a possible bug.

Nope i\'m just blind, the chute\'s do actually deploy :-[

[fermun]

Explosively decoupling SRBs is a lot of fun, I\'m glad that\'s not bugged. That\'s how I plan to do as many missions as I can.

[robsr3v3ng3]

I think using explosive decoupling is a bad idea because you get no salvage from the spent SRBs. I get $250 from each spent SRB and in the 80km altitude challenge and so I recover about $3,000 from the SRBs alone. Yes I know it means I have to spend some money for parachutes and decouplers but the savings are worth it.

[fireblade42]

Do you calculate salvage money on base price or our tech level price?

[Bellaby]

tech level price, otherwise you\'d salvage more than you spent!

[issarlk]

I think using explosive decoupling is a bad idea because you get no salvage from the spent SRBs. I get $250 from each spent SRB and in the 80km altitude challenge and so I recover about $3,000 from the SRBs alone. Yes I know it means I have to spend some money for parachutes and decouplers but the savings are worth it.

Strange, I never found it really worth it. One parachute can save 2 SRB. That\'s like, $250 saved but parachutes are quite heavy themselves and make the rocket need more SRBs as a result.

[fermun]

This is only my second turn, and I don\'t have salvage tech yet. Explosive decoupling does let me make some pretty small rockets though. When I get a bit further in and I am able to afford larger rockets, I\'ll have to look at switching to salvaged rockets instead of explosively decoupled rockets. I\'d agree with issarlk from my experience so far though.

[robsr3v3ng3]

what do you mean one parachute for two rockets?! You can get up to 8 spent SRBs and a stack decoupler on one single parachute. Once a solid rocket is burnt out it only weighs .36 units and a single chute can hold up to 4 units.

Some stages if I save them give me back $1,250 for each stack decoupler and parachute. And that can be increased by sticking more SRBs on a single decoupler fitted with two chutes.