Greetings

[RidiculousRichard]

Hello everyone,

I recently became aware that KSP has reached release so I though I'd check out the demo and look up a couple guides to get me started. My impressions are that KSP is a mixture of an open ended building game (which doesn't appeal to me too much) and a skill challenge game which is more interesting to me but has limited replay value. I've enjoyed the demo but I've found fairly few challenges (orbited Kerbin / Mun / Sun and returned safely with the last things I can see to do is to be able to land under power and doing so at a predetermined location both powered and unpowered) and wanted to make sure I'm not making unjust assumptions about the main game. Some youtube reviews make it look like there were plenty of variations on several times the possibilities in the demo but I'm currently umm'ing and arr'ing about it (space planes looked really fun).

To make sure I've got a fair understanding of the required game piloting skill could someone tell me if the following minimal orbiter performance is anything close to what a skilled player can achieve. This is the best I can reliably currently do and I am trying to use it to determine if there is a large amount of piloting skill development that I will be able to grapple with in the full game.

KSP demo (v0.18 I think)

Minimal Orbiter

Single stack:

Mk16 Parachute

Command Pod Mk1

TR-18A Stack Decoupler

FL-T400 Fuel Tank

FL-T800 Fuel Tank

FL-T800 Fuel Tank

LV-T45 Engine

Ascent Profile

Ascend at full throttle

Immediately ascend at 85 degrees

At 7km alt ascend at 70 degrees

Align thrust vector with velocity vector when <70 degrees during rest of ascent

Cut thrust when apoapsis reaches 70km altitude

Ride apoapsis initially at T-20s to enter >70km orbit

Remaining fuel in established circular orbit

15 +/- 4

Based on this (very limited) test how far am I from the launch piloting skill required for the challenge (career???) mode of the game?

My sincere thanks for you help,

Richard

[Tex]

Welcome aboard!

Well, it's certainly difficult to tell, even with your impressive list of accomplishments there. Honestly even I don't keep track of the procedure all that well, I just go with the plan of (since 1.0, anyway) "slowly tip the rocket over and end up almost horizontal by the time the atmosphere runs out," which is enough to get you into a nice suborbit for the boost into actual orbit. I'll just say that as long as you have enough delta-v you can do anything!

The best advice would be to just give the full game and career mode a whirl, it's all a learning experience!

[RidiculousRichard]

For those interested in this or similar question I found the following delta-v diagram at http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/7/73/KerbinDeltaVMap.png which is used in http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Cheat_sheet andwhich suggests it takes ~4550m/s delta-v to launch to a 80km circular orbit.

The rocket above has a full weight of 13.7 and a dry weight of 3.7.

If you assume an Isp of 345 over the full flight this gives the rocket above a maximum delta-v of 4426m/s which is just enough to get to a 70km altitude.

NB: the difference between a 70km and 80km orbit is only a 17m/s delta-v if I've plugged the numbers into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit#Calculation correctly (600km planet radius & u=3.53x10^12)

I suspect the Isp should be higher since the rocket climbs out of the densest part of the atmosphere quickly (max Isp of 370 gives delta-v capability of 4747m/s) which means there is room for improvement on my launch piloting.

Despite my Isp suspicions I am at least now happy that I've not got piloting totally wrong.

Edited May 23, 2015 by RidiculousRichard

[RidiculousRichard]

Arrrg, I may need to start a local Kerbal Anonymous; must stop playing now ..... noooo can't resist one more contract!

[Dman979]

Hahaha, same.

But srsly, it can be pretty addictive.

Welcome to your demise!