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

[Excalibur]

I didn\'t do a mission on my first turn, 25k on my second, 80k on the third. Probably shouldn\'t have researched booster tech first so I could have had enough money to launch something in turn one, but I didn\'t for some reason. Definitely hit all the contracts you can for extra cash, and I see you\'re researching salvage -- that\'ll pay for itself in no time (I <3 my salvage money)

I\'m obviously missing something then - I could only manage 10k on my second mission. Did you receive any 1st/2nd bonuses?

Thanks for the tips - I quickly realised salvage would be very important. I may choose parachute tech. next to assist with that one!

[db101]

No bonuses on those. I don\'t know how many decouplers you use, but keep them to an absolute minimum -- the flight time isn\'t long enough to justify excessive decoupler weight (and parachutes for the dropped pieces if you want to recover them).

Hmm looking back over my old submissions now, the reason I must have had a better start is because I was successful on contracts my first two turns (which gave +2000 and +4000 I believe) -- that makes a huge difference for a fledgling space company. It\'s been a little dry the past few turns but I\'m sure the contracts will keep rolling in to grease your wheels. Hitting 25k a time or two will get you up to the 80k pretty soon, I think those are the two missions with the best bang for the buck for new players (at least I couldn\'t figure out how to profitably fly the 50k one). Soon after the 80k you\'ll be home free.

[Excalibur]

No bonuses on those. I don\'t know how many decouplers you use, but keep them to an absolute minimum -- the flight time isn\'t long enough to justify excessive decoupler weight (and parachutes for the dropped pieces if you want to recover them).

Hmm looking back over my old submissions now, the reason I must have had a better start is because I was successful on contracts my first two turns (which gave +2000 and +4000 I believe) -- that makes a huge difference for a fledgling space company. It\'s been a little dry the past few turns but I\'m sure the contracts will keep rolling in to grease your wheels. Hitting 25k a time or two will get you up to the 80k pretty soon, I think those are the two missions with the best bang for the buck for new players (at least I couldn\'t figure out how to profitably fly the 50k one). Soon after the 80k you\'ll be home free.

With my latest design I hit 25.5k with 5 solids. 4 of them connected directly to stack decouplers - had rather a eureka moment when I realised you could get away with attaching them there.

I\'ll wait and see what comes around next turn. By then 0.16 may have dropped and that will turn everything upon it\'s head. I imagine Don will have quite a task re-engineering the campaign. ???

[Bellaby]

0.16 will really shake things up, i cant WAIT for it (haha why no more updates in the development threads ;( ), and excellent Don haha.

A tip for the new players; explosive decoupling. Shedding that decoupler weight is EXCELLENT. But we do have a \'house rule\'. You cannot explosively decouple an SRB with a LF engine because there is a bug where that LFE will then burn fuel at half the rate. Explosively decoupling SRBs with other SRBs is fine.

[Excalibur]

0.16 will really shake things up, i cant WAIT for it (haha why no more updates in the development threads ;( ), and excellent Don haha.

A tip for the new players; explosive decoupling. Shedding that decoupler weight is EXCELLENT. But we do have a \'house rule\'. You cannot explosively decouple an SRB with a LF engine because there is a bug where that LFE will then burn fuel at half the rate. Explosively decoupling SRBs with other SRBs is fine.

I think they\'re rather busy getting rid of all the bugs - quite a few but I was surprised how most of them are/were relatively minor.

By explosive decoupling I assume you mean attaching SRBs together longitudinally and using ignition to separate? I did try that with my very first campaign rocket and the two boosters remained stuck together.

[DonLorenzo]

Yeah there will be some re-design of things in .16. I\'m breaking my head over how to do it properly, there will be some changes to how things are now, but they shouldn\'t be too sweeping. Mostly I want to have it feel like progression, not replacement. I\'ve got some fledging ideas on how to tackle it, but can\'t discuss too much without inadvertently spilling some proverbial beans.

One thing I thought would be fun though: release date and turn schedules permitting, we\'ll progress to .16 when the space station is completed. How does that sound?

[Awaras]

I think they\'re rather busy getting rid of all the bugs - quite a few but I was surprised how most of them are/were relatively minor.

By explosive decoupling I assume you mean attaching SRBs together longitudinally and using ignition to separate? I did try that with my very first campaign rocket and the two boosters remained stuck together.

You have to ignite the next booster some 3-5 seconds BEFORE the current one spends all it\'s fuel. When they burn together the lower one will overheat and explode.

[Excalibur]

Yeah there will be some re-design of things in .16. I\'m breaking my head over how to do it properly, there will be some changes to how things are now, but they shouldn\'t be too sweeping. Mostly I want to have it feel like progression, not replacement. I\'ve got some fledging ideas on how to tackle it, but can\'t discuss too much without inadvertently spilling some proverbial beans.

One thing I thought would be fun though: release date and turn schedules permitting, we\'ll progress to .16 when the space station is completed. How does that sound?

Personally I\'d like to see the transition made as soon as possible. Being realistic though I\'m happy to wait and your idea will buy plenty of time to get everything set up properly. Go for it.

On another note I just read your \'shower wake-up\' story. Didn\'t half make me chuckle as you sound quite a lot like me. I once woke up in a similar position. Except it was dark, pouring with rain and I was in the middle of the road face down. My wallet was a few metres away and my phone was nowhere to be seen. :-[

You have to ignite the next booster some 3-5 seconds BEFORE the current one spends all it\'s fuel. When they burn together the lower one will overheat and explode.

Thank you, I\'m rather good at missing the obvious at times!

[DonLorenzo]

Ugh that sounds like a pain. Probably a nice passerby took it out of the rain for you.. permanently. I definately don\'t appreciate being woken up by rain!

There\'s been a lull in new stories as I\'m working on something different, trying to sell a house I\'ve accidently bought! Some spam for that will appear in my signature soon enough ><

[Awaras]

Ugh that sounds like a pain. Probably a nice passerby took it out of the rain for you.. permanently. I definately don\'t appreciate being woken up by rain!

There\'s been a lull in new stories as I\'m working on something different, trying to sell a house I\'ve accidently bought! Some spam for that will appear in my signature soon enough ><

LOL, how do you accidentally buy a house?

That must be an interesting story.

[Excalibur]

Would you believe someone did find it and handed it in at the pub that I\'d used to drink myself into oblivion. Said he\'d found it on the road as well. How he didn\'t find me is rather worrying...

I\'m looking forward to reading about your accidental purchase.

[fireblade42]

The turn is definately extended untill the weekend. Let\'s say sunday night.

Can we resubmit for this turn?

[robsr3v3ng3]

My advice to the people who are pretty low down atm and short on funds is to focus on the really low end missions rather than spend more money trying to do missions that are too difficult. If you draw up a spreadsheet you can easily find how much profit each mission gives you after craft costs and salvaging.

Also make sure that you aim to get booster tech and salvage tech 1, maybe even decoupler and parachute tech. I made these my first research goals because it makes launching SRB rockets much much cheaper. If you stick 7 SRBs underneath a decoupler with a parachute you can get back the cost of two and a half SRBs because of the cool 50% recovery for spent SRB pods. It does make the craft heavier bear in mind so if you need to gain an extra km in altitude for more reward use explosive decoupling, but I never found it necessary.

[Excalibur]

My advice to the people who are pretty low down atm and short on funds is to focus on the really low end missions rather than spend more money trying to do missions that are too difficult. If you draw up a spreadsheet you can easily find how much profit each mission gives you after craft costs and salvaging.

Also make sure that you aim to get booster tech and salvage tech 1, maybe even decoupler and parachute tech. I made these my first research goals because it makes launching SRB rockets much much cheaper. If you stick 7 SRBs underneath a decoupler with a parachute you can get back the cost of two and a half SRBs because of the cool 50% recovery for spent SRB pods. It does make the craft heavier bear in mind so if you need to gain an extra km in altitude for more reward use explosive decoupling, but I never found it necessary.

I sat back for a while before I commenced turn one and the first thing I researched was booster tech, followed by salvage tech. I think it\'ll be parachute tech next to enable greater part recovery rates.

I have been looking at the higher tier missions but I think you\'re right - it\'s probably better to save up some cash/do some research before attempting them.

[DonLorenzo]

Can we resubmit for this turn?

yep, might as well put the extra time to good use

[issarlk]

Directed at the long time players of this campaign just out of curiosity; what mission(s) had you completed by your third turn? I\'ve just managed to do 25km, with the 10km on my last turn.

My third mission was 80k too. I started the campaign late on turn 3 so got these bonuses:

Turn 3: 10k, reward: 6500 + 250 bonus. no contact, no fund raiser.

Turn 4: 25k, reward: 10000 + 2000 contract reward, no bonus.

Turn 5: 80k, reward: 14000 + 1500 fund raison + 1000 + 3000 contract reward.

It was pretty tight so I\'d say it\'s normal you can hit 80k on your third turn.

[Excalibur]

My third mission was 80k too. I started the campaign late on turn 3 so got these bonuses:

Turn 3: 10k, reward: 6500 + 250 bonus. no contact, no fund raiser.

Turn 4: 25k, reward: 10000 + 2000 contract reward, no bonus.

Turn 5: 80k, reward: 14000 + 1500 fund raison + 1000 + 3000 contract reward.

It was pretty tight so I\'d say it\'s normal you can hit 80k on your third turn.

I think it\'s a little harder now that the bonuses aren\'t available. That said some research is cheaper now. I wonder how much I lost out on by not using explosive decoupling. Probably not a great deal at this stage.

Cheers

[issarlk]

I think it\'s a little harder now that the bonuses aren\'t available. That said some research is cheaper now. I wonder how much I lost out on by not using explosive decoupling. Probably not a great deal at this stage.

Explosive decoupling makes it very, very, very cheap at first, because decouplers and chutes are so expensive. I stopped using explosive decoupling after a few turns, if I didn\'t I\'d have sent a kubble the next turn, instead of having to wait 3 or 4 more to be able to.

[DonLorenzo]

Hey guys, some more bad news. The internet at my home has fucked up (more specifically, the cable bit going to my room). I\'ll have to badger the landlord to fix this or do a temporary solution. Additionally I\'m spending a few days in Amsterdam now, and also still taking care of that other home. So as you can probably see coming, I still haven\'t done the turn. As it\'s just me bottlenecking things now, and I don\'t really know when I\'ll be able to do it I\'m not going to put up a new extension deadline or whatnot, all I can do is do it \'as soon as I can\', which unfortunately probably won\'t be for at least a couple more days. So consider the campaign paused for the moment.

I will send all of you an e-mail when I\'m back in proper operating status, so you won\'t need to follow the thread/forum like a hawk. I hope to get things sorted soon!!

Cheers

[Excalibur]

Don\'t worry fella, it\'s all good. Just enjoy Amsterdam you lucky b*****d!

[Awaras]

Anyone still around?

Anyway, I am leaving for a 3 week vacation on Sunday. I am bringing my KSP-capable laptop with me but I have no idea if I will have internet access over there. If you don\'t hear from me, I am internetless.

[issarlk]

Still lurking.

0.16 is a good distraction while I wait for next turn.

[DonLorenzo]

Still here, not too much longer now I don\'t think

[DonLorenzo]

Guys I have to apologize. I can't run the campaign anymore. I've kept telling myself I'll have more time in a bit, but the truth is I just don't and won't for the foreseeable future. Sure I have a couple of hours here and there, but nowhere near enough to allow for anything resembling constant play with predictable/stable turn update intervals.

I have enjoyed your enthusiasm and submissions a lot, if anyone else wants to take over the management I'll gladly provide all the documents I have so someone else can take over the stick. If not, we'll just let this die a graceful death. Perhaps to revive it in a few weeks/months, but no promises.

Sorry!

[Awaras]

A pity. Things were just getting interesting.

If there is enough interest, I might be willing to continue where you left off, but not before I return home from Egypt. Also, you might want to send a mail to all the campaign participants. You said you would mail us when there was news, and since the forum migration reset all our notifications I basically stumbled on your message by accident... :/