Another milestone reached!

[drh1961]

So, I apologize for this pretty much beginner story but I reached another milestone today.

I bought KSP for the PlayStation on Monday.   As of tonight I am surviving high altitude flight of just over 250,000 meters on a fairly consistent basis! I'm probably doing it "wrong" but it is working.

I am using 4 medium solid rocket boosters as stage one. These surround a fairly large solid rocket booster that is used as stage 2. Winglets used for maneuvering. Stage 3 is a liquid fuel engine, I  burn this at half throttle and shut down when half the fuel is used up.  This carries up a capsule, beginners science pack and the storage unit for a few batteries. The science station and the storage unit are stacked on top of a heat shield.  With this setup I can drift up to 250,000 meters pretty consistently. Once I get back down to about 60-70,000 meters I throttle up the liquid fuel engine and let it run out. This seems to slow me down enough so the science pack survives. Drogue chute and then regular parachute get Jeb or Valentina home safely.

you experienced people are probably laughing and going "what a noob, there is a much easier way to do this!"

 

 

Edited August 3, 2016 by drh1961
Typo

[Violent Jeb]

[who cares]

Edited August 16, 2016 by Violent Jeb

[Aragosnat]

Nah. This community is not like that. We very much enjoy it when people are doing well in this game. Also gratz for living. As well as Welcome to the forums.

Edited August 3, 2016 by Aragosnat

[StahnAileron]

I had a convoluted Single Stage to Orbit Vertical Launch Rocket. (Granted, on PC with mods.) It was just a tourist launcher, so it was wholly recoverable. I could get it pretty high INTO space. But it was also engineered to stay in space (for the orbital tourist contracts.) If you can get to 250km altitude going straight up, you run a decent chance of getting into actual orbit. Though a good, coordinated gravity is kinda tough to do manually, especially with SRBs.

I wish you luck on your future endeavors into simulated space!

[Vanamonde]

I am an experienced player and I am not laughing. 

Congratulations on your milestone.

[Vermil]

3 hours ago, drh1961 said:

So, I apologize for this pretty much beginner story but I reached another milestone today.

I bought KSP for the PlayStation on Monday.   As of tonight I am surviving high altitude flight of just over 250,000 meters on a fairly consistent basis! I'm probably doing it "wrong" but it is working.

I am using 4 medium solid rocket boosters as stage one. These surround a fairly large solid rocket booster that is used as stage 2. Winglets used for maneuvering. Stage 3 is a liquid fuel engine, I  burn this at half throttle and shut down when half the fuel is used up.  This carries up a capsule, beginners science pack and the storage unit for a few batteries. The science station and the storage unit are stacked on top of a heat shield.  With this setup I can drift up to 250,000 meters pretty consistently. Once I get back down to about 60-70,000 meters I throttle up the liquid fuel engine and let it run out. This seems to slow me down enough so the science pack survives. Drogue chute and then regular parachute get Jeb or Valentina home safely.

you experienced people are probably laughing and going "what a noob, there is a much easier way to do this!"

 

 

 

No, as far as I'm concerned you're doing it exactly right. Progressive exploring and development from milestone to milestone, learning another bit. It was not until I started playing like that I was able to enjoy the game. I'll go farther and say that this is the essential gameplay content of KSP.

There's no 'right' way to do this. People have different ethics. Some like to do everything as small and efficiently as possible. I play science mode because my mind is stuck in the big visions, like Saturn-Apollo and the unlimited budget big projects. And manned expeditions.

 

[Hodari]

3 hours ago, drh1961 said:

you experienced people are probably laughing and going "what a noob, there is a much easier way to do this!"

It certainly doesn't sound like the most efficient way to do things, but especially early on, it's not always about doing things efficiently or the "right" way.  A lot of times, it's just a matter of doing whatever works with the parts you have available.  Or even just about having fun and trying things out. 

And no, we're not laughing because most of us were in that exact same place not so long ago.  Even the real life space programs had to learn a lot of things by trial and error.

Edited August 3, 2016 by Hodari

[adsii1970]

8 hours ago, drh1961 said:

So, I apologize for this pretty much beginner story but I reached another milestone today.

I bought KSP for the PlayStation on Monday.   As of tonight I am surviving high altitude flight of just over 250,000 meters on a fairly consistent basis! I'm probably doing it "wrong" but it is working.

you experienced people are probably laughing and going "what a noob, there is a much easier way to do this!"

[edited for content by adsii1970]

At first, I wasn't going to comment on your post. I decided to because I understand where you are coming from. I just want to share with you that there is no right or wrong way to achieve certain milestones in KSP. Never apologize on how you do it, nor do not worry about those who are overly critical. The main thing is to have fun.  

Don't be afraid to ask questions, to "borrow" ideas from other designs, or to experiment on your own. In the words of Bob Ross from the television show, The Joys of Painting, "it's your world, and in your world maybe there's a happy little tree..." or in our case, a rocket, a plane, a sled, or whatever.

Oh, and no laughing here! Next time, share some pictures!

[swjr-swis]

10 hours ago, drh1961 said:

you experienced people are probably laughing and going "what a noob, there is a much easier way to do this!"

Are you kidding me? I'm envious! Sometimes I wish that starting a new career, I could go back to not knowing anything at all, and relive all those discoveries and small triumphs all over again, and feel that same satisfaction of a first achievement, or even better, discovering that it wasn't random and  I could repeat that achievement with some predictability ("I.. I think I actually know how to orbit! Squeeee!*" <quick look around to check that no one saw me squee*>).

There is nothing quite like your 'first time of ...'. Cherish those moments, and know that KSP has the potential to keep giving you moments like that for thousands of hours to come. And post your successes; you are right to be proud of them, this is actual rocket science after all!

 

(*: Entirely hypothetical of course, just for illustrative purposes. I'm a grown man; grown men don't squee. Squee isn't even a real word. Mutter.)

[MaxxQ]

10 hours ago, drh1961 said:

So, I apologize for this pretty much beginner story but I reached another milestone today.

I bought KSP for the PlayStation on Monday.   As of tonight I am surviving high altitude flight of just over 250,000 meters on a fairly consistent basis! I'm probably doing it "wrong" but it is working.

I am using 4 medium solid rocket boosters as stage one. These surround a fairly large solid rocket booster that is used as stage 2. Winglets used for maneuvering. Stage 3 is a liquid fuel engine, I  burn this at half throttle and shut down when half the fuel is used up.  This carries up a capsule, beginners science pack and the storage unit for a few batteries. The science station and the storage unit are stacked on top of a heat shield.  With this setup I can drift up to 250,000 meters pretty consistently. Once I get back down to about 60-70,000 meters I throttle up the liquid fuel engine and let it run out. This seems to slow me down enough so the science pack survives. Drogue chute and then regular parachute get Jeb or Valentina home safely.

you experienced people are probably laughing and going "what a noob, there is a much easier way to do this!"

 

 

What was it Edison said...?  Something along the lines of (paraphrased - VERY loosely), "It took 3000 attempts to create a practical electric light - I discovered 2999 ways to NOT do it."

IOW, even failures are a learning experience, and you DIDN'T fail, so you're already ahead of the curve.

[Hodari]

4 hours ago, MaxxQ said:

IOW, even failures are a learning experience, and you DIDN'T fail, so you're already ahead of the curve.

In KSP, failure is NOT an option...

Spoiler

It comes bundled with the software.

 

[Pecan]

15 hours ago, drh1961 said:

So, I apologize for this pretty much beginner story but I reached another milestone today....

No need to apologise - See the quantity and tone of the responses you've got?
We addicts love it when another victim succumbs enthusiast feels the satisfaction.

[Corona688]

Retrobraking is a perfectly reasonable strategy.  I need it often enough for fast and shallow re-entries like those.

I'm guessing you're in early career-mode and don't have heat shields yet, so here's a few tips for making do without.

If you can force something to re-enter sideways, that generates tons of drag, slowing it down faster, hopefully giving it less time to overheat.  I had an entire space station survive re-entry (until it hit the ocean, anyway) because for some reason it preferred to lie flat like that all the way down.

Failing that, if you can force it to tumble end-over end, this will spread around the heat -- one part will be at the front and heat up until it turns away, then another one will heat up while the last one cools down, etc.

Edited August 3, 2016 by Corona688