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The Planet Nine Probe challenge

Whirligig Girl
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richfiles

richfiles

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20 hours ago, Streetwind said:

And by the way, this felt quite... how should I put it... buggy. The initial trajectory said 68 Earth years, but I timewarped through at least twice that amount before arriving in End's SoI. On the screenshot that I took 30 Earth years in, it still claimed to take 68 Earth years, so that appears to be the upper limit it can show?...

That's due to a time display limitation in KSP. KSP stores time displayed as a 32 bit value. It's a well known and long standing issue with LOOOONG game saves that time goes screwy after you exceed this value and it loops back to the beginning. It's one reason I STRONGLY wish the developers would address this. In a casual game, where you just deal in local planets, and maybe occasionally start new careers, a person may never encounter it. People who play rather hardcore and do long term solar system covering total exploration type missions may end up hitting that limit. With OPM, and now End, you can far more quickly run into these time glitches, as travel takes that much longer.

It's one reason why I run multiple concurrent missions simultaneously in my game (and manage the logistics of timing them all out using Kerbal Alarm Clock). At the moment, I have 2 missions to Eve and 2 missions to Duna, and a pair of stations in the Kerbin system, but funnily enough, am still working on my Mun Landing, which will have been done before I have to worry about Duna or Eve! All this by the second year of my game :confused:

As for End itself... The indications seem to believe this would be a massive rocky world, not a gas planet. Any chance of using Eve as the model vs Jool, then? I'd LOVE the challenge of a brutally high gravity object, far from home, to land and possibly take off from. That would be a whole new scale of a challenge in itself! The limited value of "collect science at X" for gas giants basically means that Jool, while pretty, is entirely dependent on it's local neighborhood to provide real long term interest. If Jool had no moons, I think Dres would see more activity. People would fly by Jool and go "Oh, pretty!", and then move on. This mod has great potential, but I really want to see all the effort and time to make a trip out to End be worth more than a fly by or an orbit.

Do please consider making End rocky!

Edited by richfiles
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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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7 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Very well - allow me to repeat the challenge then, with a different approach! :) I redownloaded the mod too, now with the larger, 'proper' orbit. I hope this one is more along the lines of what you had imagined.

 

 

Based on the simpleness and cheapness of my craft, I would recommend that you set the maximum allowed time for Hard Mode to something like 5 Earth years instead of 50 - if not lower! I didn't even fly the shortest possible route. And to my great surprise, plotting a perihelion intercept was cheaper than I expected. Cheaper, actually, than the Hohmann transfer towards the aphelion side that I did in my first try! Must be due to the extreme eccentricity. Because of this, even the basic Enderman mark 1 that I used for the first attempt would have been able to do reach End (in the larger orbit!) in under 50 Earth years and enter orbit with dV left over. 50 Earth years is way, way too generous for this :P

Taking your suggestions. Intercept within only 15 Kerbin years. (This is a stock-scale KSP challenge, after all!) That works out to 4.4 Earth years.

Edited by GregroxMun
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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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1 hour ago, richfiles said:

That's due to a time display limitation in KSP. KSP stores time displayed as a 32 bit value. It's a well known and long standing issue with LOOOONG game saves that time goes screwy after you exceed this value and it loops back to the beginning. It's one reason I STRONGLY wish the developers would address this. In a casual game, where you just deal in local planets, and maybe occasionally start new careers, a person may never encounter it. People who play rather hardcore and do long term solar system covering total exploration type missions may end up hitting that limit. With OPM, and now End, you can far more quickly run into these time glitches, as travel takes that much longer.

It's one reason why I run multiple concurrent missions simultaneously in my game (and manage the logistics of timing them all out using Kerbal Alarm Clock). At the moment, I have 2 missions to Eve and 2 missions to Duna, and a pair of stations in the Kerbin system, but funnily enough, am still working on my Mun Landing, which will have been done before I have to worry about Duna or Eve! All this by the second year of my game :confused:

As for End itself... The indications seem to believe this would be a massive rocky world, not a gas planet. Any chance of using Eve as the model vs Jool, then? I'd LOVE the challenge of a brutally high gravity object, far from home, to land and possibly take off from. That would be a whole new scale of a challenge in itself! The limited value of "collect science at X" for gas giants basically means that Jool, while pretty, is entirely dependent on it's local neighborhood to provide real long term interest. If Jool had no moons, I think Dres would see more activity. People would fly by Jool and go "Oh, pretty!", and then move on. This mod has great potential, but I really want to see all the effort and time to make a trip out to End be worth more than a fly by or an orbit.

Do please consider making End rocky!

OK. I'll make End rocky. I'm brainstorming some ideas now.

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Jodo42

Jodo42

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1 hour ago, GregroxMun said:

OK. I'll make End rocky. I'm brainstorming some ideas now.

I'd hold off on the idea if you want to be accurate to the real thing. From the Scientific American Q&A Article:

 

Quote

From what we're learning about planet formation and the population of exoplanets, a world of this mass is very likely to be blanketed by a deep atmosphere dominated by primordial hydrogen and helium. Since Neptune is about 17 times the mass of the Earth this newly proposed world is more like an object on the low-end of ice-giant worlds rather than on the high-end of rocky planets.

If you want to ditch realism, though, I like massive rocky worlds much more than gas giants.

Edited by Jodo42
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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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53 minutes ago, Jodo42 said:

I'd hold off on the idea if you want to be accurate to the real thing. From the Scientific American Q&A Article:

 

If you want to ditch realism, though, I like massive rocky worlds much more than gas giants.

I know the odds of the planet being gassy are larger, but since this is a fake Kerbal version and it would be more interesting that way, I think I'll make it rocky and land-able after all. I have a few ideas. :)

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RuBisCO

RuBisCO

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6 years and 160 days (22 y 29 d Kerbin time) enter orbit around "End" MechJeb was useless aside for SASS as it could not calculate Hoffman transfer or close approach to this planet. 

* Only first image was in Earth time.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/mkvhykleopc8i5c/End+Probe+1_1.craft

 

As for the theoretical planet 9

Quote

So I ran the numbers my self, we would need a spacecraft averaging 47 km/s top reach this theorized planet in 20 years, if it was at perihelion, which it probably is not, if it is at its 1200 AU aphelion, we would need a spacecraft averaging 285 km/s! A Dual-Stage 4-Grid ion engine propelled spacecraft with a specific impulse of 19300 would need to be 23-79% propellant by mass to get there in 20 years.

 

 

Edited by RuBisCO
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michaelpooper

michaelpooper

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Okay so I'll admit I used loads of mods, especially near future (Kinda cheating really).  I started out by firs evaluating a range of different vehicles from nuclear powered engines and conventional engines.  Eventually I settled on a huge nuclear reactor with engines strapped on.  I then placed it on the single biggest rocket I've ever made and proceeded to launch (Three 5 m stages).  The vehicle I had had over 12000 m/s of Delta V.  It entered the SOI within 17 years and hit periapsis a year and a half later.  I then proceeded to place it in a lovely zero inclination 400km altitude orbit around End.

Also this was a top notch mission, really fun thanks!!! (Lots of waiting to warp and burn though!!)

Edited by michaelpooper
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Streetwind

Streetwind

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3 hours ago, TheJewelOfJool said:

By Earth years, does that mean an actual 365-day real world year?

It does. 24-hour days, 365 days in a year. You achieve this by going into the options menu on the KSP title screen and switching the timekeeping mode.

However, since the goal of the challenge changed, Kerbin time is now acceptable too.

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GarrisonChisholm

GarrisonChisholm

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On 1/22/2016 at 3:32 PM, GregroxMun said:

I know the odds of the planet being gassy are larger, but since this is a fake Kerbal version and it would be more interesting that way, I think I'll make it rocky and land-able after all. I have a few ideas. :)

You know, you could have it be a proper Ice Giant with a moon or two, one of them large and terrestrial.

A planet that far out would have a quite large in radius satellite system, however few their number.

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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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32 minutes ago, GarrisonChisholm said:

You know, you could have it be a proper Ice Giant with a moon or two, one of them large and terrestrial.

A planet that far out would have a quite large in radius satellite system, however few their number.

I think @NovaSilisko did a calculation that Planet Nine's hill sphere was something like 14 AU or something huge.

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NovaSilisko

NovaSilisko

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1 hour ago, GregroxMun said:

I think @NovaSilisko did a calculation that Planet Nine's hill sphere was something like 14 AU or something huge.

Only a very rough estimate, and it would vary significantly between perihelion and apohelion. Still, you could probably find stuff orbiting at least on a temporary basis out to a few AU.

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Whirligig Girl

Whirligig Girl

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2 minutes ago, HoloYolo said:

After it's updated. Wow, Greg.

Kopernicus will never be updated. It's too far gone. It's trapped in the hole between real and unreal. It has become one and the same with the fabric of the internet. Kopernicus is dead. It's never coming back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jk.

Edited by GregroxMun
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HoloYolo

HoloYolo

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31 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

Kopernicus will never be updated. It's too far gone. It's trapped in the hole between real and unreal. It has become one and the same with the fabric of the internet. Kopernicus is dead. It's never coming back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jk.

 

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ghpstage

ghpstage

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12 hours ago, Interplanet Janet said:

Is it possible to use at least a Joolean Gravity assist to get to End? Or potentially the gravity of other giant planets, especially Sarnus or Neidon?

Probably, but my uneducated gut instinct would focus on Eve due to the very low initial dV cost, short transfer time and low position in solar orbit.

Edited by ghpstage
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Interplanet Janet

Interplanet Janet

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On 4/20/2016 at 9:16 AM, ghpstage said:

Probably, but my uneducated gut instinct would focus on Eve due to the very low initial dV cost, short transfer time and low position in solar orbit.

Ah, I see. Thanks!

...except a mission would only need to get to Jool for a gravity assist, or use a behemoth of a rocket.

Edited by Interplanet Janet
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