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"Duna, Ore Bust!" -- a KSP Graphic Novel (COMPLETE)

Mister Dilsby

By Mister Dilsby
in KSP1 Mission Reports

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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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Loving the story, and the design of the Hummlebee especially; I never realized you could use a design like that for Duna exploration (I'm an idiot for not using Kerbal Engineer until now even though I've been playing for a year now). I even tried to replicate it to give it a spin, and I think I've got the essence right (70t, 360 thrust, dV of 2100), and it behaves pretty well flying around KSC if you keep the speed above 75 m/s. I just cannot get the Orange Knight working, I'll lose control and crash on the runway around 50 m/s, well before I reach takeoff speed, no matter what I try. In the end I just strapped a couple of big rockets to the wings and launched straight up, throttling to hug the sonic wall on my way up. Did you have to do anything special to overcome control issues on the runway?

Wow, that's quite a compliment, I'm not sure I've ever been 'replica'd :)

Orange Knight is darn tough to fly. Runway control problems are often due to landing gear placement, so be sure yours is in dead straight. I'd debug by trying to lift off without the Hummlebee attached. Once you're airborne unless you did a better job balancing than I did you will have to manually adjust engine output as you go to avoid flipping. Good luck!

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FyunchClick

FyunchClick

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Wow, that's quite a compliment, I'm not sure I've ever been 'replica'd :)

Heh, mind you flying it from KCS to the abandoned island runway, it did expose some of the challenges you could be facing landing back at KCS if that's what you had in mind, let's just say I'm looking forward to seeing the next few pages.

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Geschosskopf

Geschosskopf

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Heh, mind you flying it from KCS to the abandoned island runway, it did expose some of the challenges you could be facing landing back at KCS if that's what you had in mind, let's just say I'm looking forward to seeing the next few pages.

Welcome aboard, and also glad to meet another fan of The Mote in God's Eye :D

Anyway, due to differences in both gravity and atmospherics, the same plane will fly very differently on Kerbin than on Duna. For instance, right now I have a plane on Duna called the DORK. On Duna, it flies amazingly well, even being able to get suborbital with just a prop engine. On Kerbin, however, it's a total pig, totally underpowered and squirrelly, barely able to reach 100m/s. Because of this, I highly recommend that you create a separate sandbox game as your designing and testing location. And get HyperEdit so you can teleport your designs to Duna to see how they work there.

In general, the differences how a plane performs on Kerbin and Duna are as follows;

* Lift: Because Duna's air is much thinner than Kerbin's, you need lots more lift on Duna. Somewhere in the region of 1.4 lift per ton of ship works very well as it gives a stall speed below 50m/s even at relatively high terrain elevations. This is EXTREMELY important for getting the plane stopped on landing before some lump in the terrain kills it. You can go with less wing and rely on rockets or chutes for landing, but then you also need lots of horsepower to take off again before encountering a fatal bump in the terrain.

* Drag: Most of the drag of a plane comes from the lift of its wings, but this is very much a function of air density. The way things work at present, a plane with 1.4 lift/ton will have a very low top speed on Kerbin due to gobs of drag, but on Duna there's hardly any drag at all so the plane can reach hypersonicc speeds. Also, because there's hardly any drag on Duna, airbrakes aren't very effective at all. You need way more airbrakes than you do on Kerbin.

* Thrust: Because there's so little drag on Duna, and because the gravity is so much lower, you need way less thrust on Duna to achieve insane performance. A ratio of just 3Kn/ton is sufficient on Duna to climb steeply while still accelerating, reach any altitude desired, and exceed orbital velocity in atmospheric flight. But on Kerbin, the plane will hardly fly at all with this little thrust.

* Control Authority: This is largely a function of both control surface lift values and air density. Thus, for crisp, responsive controls, a Duna plane needs WAY more control surface area, with as much leverage as possible, than a Kerbin plane. But even so, the controls will lose a lot of their effect at speeds above about 200m/s, even at lower altitudes.

* Wheel Brakes: When you combine high amounts of lift, low stall speeds, and low gravity, you lose most of your braking power. Brakes only work when the wheel is on the ground and these factors make the plane float long distances between bumps with the wheels just above the ground. Thus, retro thrust is very desirable to keep stopping distances short. But OTOH, because brakes have little effect at all, they're not likely to flip you over, either, unless you get really sideways due to a bounce.

Hope that helps.

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Damn, Kuzzter, that's a great adaptation of the song :).

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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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Damn, Kuzzter, that's a great adaptation of the song :).

I got lucky--'hydrazine' rhymes with 'magazines' :)

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Heh, mind you flying it from KCS to the abandoned island runway, it did expose some of the challenges you could be facing landing back at KCS if that's what you had in mind, let's just say I'm looking forward to seeing the next few pages.

Not sure if you included these on your version, but never forget Hummlebee's secret weapon!

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FyunchClick

FyunchClick

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Welcome aboard, and also glad to meet another fan of The Mote in God's Eye

Thanks for the welcome and likewise.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for taking the time for the write up; now that I've finally started to see why Kerbal Engineer is such a big deal, those numbers will help out definitely. :) Last time I went to Duna was 0.25; I'd put together an ugly dinky gas breathing SSTO using Kethane which tended to cut out if you got too fast (and with not enough lift surfaces to go slow). I'm dying to get back all (well mostly) stock and see how the new aerodynamics model affects things this time.

Not sure if you included these on your version, but never forget Hummlebee's secret weapon!

How could I forget. :) it led me to discover another great mod (RCS build aid). The vernors've also been quite helpfull in keeping pointing straight up when launching my version of the ole gal straight up, I'm going to be putting them on the underside of all my non-radially symetrical designs from now just for that.

Yay! on getting this story rolling again! I'm getting out of the way now.

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Deddly

Deddly

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Kuzzter, I just read through the entire story from the beginning. I notice that you've taken time and effort to focus on even small details not essential to the storyline but that add depth. The story is entertaining, fast moving and endeari.g. I like it a lot, well done.

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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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No turntable anymore, though. :(

Been meaning to get one myself--they come with USB output now!

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How could I forget. :) it led me to discover another great mod (RCS build aid). The vernors've also been quite helpfull in keeping pointing straight up when launching my version of the ole gal straight up, I'm going to be putting them on the underside of all my non-radially symetrical designs from now just for that.

I actually did not use Build Aid, just spread the Vernor thrusters around and let it go at that. As you may have noticed in the comic, AG6 toggles them on/off (otherwise hilarity would ensue whenever I pressed 'K' during a normal RCS maneuver). They ended up close enough to centerline that the monopropellant thrusters and reaction wheels can generally hold attitude.

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Kuzzter, I just read through the entire story from the beginning. I notice that you've taken time and effort to focus on even small details not essential to the storyline but that add depth. The story is entertaining, fast moving and endeari.g. I like it a lot, well done.

Thank you, that's quite a compliment! I've been reading through the old pages myself to re-acquaint myself with the canon (see other thread, but if anyone starts making artillery homonym puns over here, so help me...) before I return to the Hummlebee Four characters in earnest.

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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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Ackbar? You must have edited the save to get that name. Great joke. :)

Thanks, I did indeed--unfortunately (since it gets assigned based on name) Ackbar Kerman is actually an engineer, so my dreams of someday putting him in command of KSS Home One aren't going to work out.

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Edax

Edax

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Thanks, I did indeed--unfortunately (since it gets assigned based on name) Ackbar Kerman is actually an engineer, so my dreams of someday putting him in command of KSS Home One aren't going to work out.

"It's a TRAP!" -Val

"No sh-t..." - Ackbar.

Val rolled a 19 and still lost to the anomaly? That's some OP nonsense right there!

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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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Val rolled a 19 and still lost to the anomaly? That's some OP nonsense right there!

She rolled a one, but it wouldn't have mattered, right?

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If you can't get rid of kerbal's helmets in space (I know you are at KSC), use these transparent helmets

Ah, there's an idea--actually I could probably even edit a helmet texture file to make it completely invisible. Will experiment when the time comes.

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waterlubber

waterlubber

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She rolled a one, but it wouldn't have mattered, right?

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Ah, there's an idea--actually I could probably even edit a helmet texture file to make it completely invisible. Will experiment when the time comes.

Put a warning on that link before someone gets hurts. That's TVTropes there! The one website that I close just as fast as shockers!

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Edax

Edax

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She rolled a one, but it wouldn't have mattered, right?

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Ah, there's an idea--actually I could probably even edit a helmet texture file to make it completely invisible. Will experiment when the time comes.

I'm enough of a nerd to know that if Val had rolled a 20 and defeated the anomaly, the Kerubahashi Maru scenario would have sent 3 more anomalies.

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Geschosskopf

Geschosskopf

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Ah, there's an idea--actually I could probably even edit a helmet texture file to make it completely invisible. Will experiment when the time comes.

If you have KIS, you can have EVA Kerbals remove their helmets (provided the air is OK).

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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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Finishing up Val's interlude: Lisa is up next.

zGdxlNd.png

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I'm enough of a nerd to know that if Val had rolled a 20 and defeated the anomaly, the Kerubahashi Maru scenario would have sent 3 more anomalies.
She failed her saving throw against being...anomalied. If she'd made it, she would have had to make another next round. And the next, at -5...

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If you have KIS, you can have EVA Kerbals remove their helmets (provided the air is OK).

Ah, but if I put that bridge on a real spacecraft, the air will not be OK--and I would like to pretend it is an actual pressurized bridge for purposes of your entertainment :)

Edited by Kuzzter
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Mister Dilsby

Mister Dilsby

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Give Bill the imaginary academy award for that performance.

I haven't decided if ham is canon for Kerbfleetverse, but if it is, Bill orders a large one every time someone goes through that sim.

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I could almost hear 'No, you fool!' as I read it.

Thank you! I wonder if these interludes are why Bob suddenly pulled away from Clauselle in the E:O0 poll. He does have the unfair advantage of appearing in both comics simultaneously.

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