Back once again, re-learning curve.

[AlexanderB]

Hey guys, I'm Alexander, 26, student Mechatronics Engineering, and sometimes I play KSP.  

Actually, I've played KSP ever since 0.13 came out (I was just about a day late after the full version became paid, haha), but I haven't played in a while (before 1.0), and a lot has changed since 1.0, so I guess I'll re-introduce myself, and ask some n00b questions.

So far, after playing for 2 days:

Lots of new parts, and a lot of renames too.

None of my previous designs work anymore.

Heat shields/actual heating are a thing now (RIP Jeb)

Drogue shutes are a thing (RIP Jeb, plowed straight into the ground at ~mach 2 because I wasn't allowed to open the shutes?)

No more soup-mosphere for that matter, nothing gets automatically slowed down to 100 m/s anymore.

Mk2 plane parts don't have built in (optional) heat shielding (like they used to?), RIP Jeb & Bill, exploded in level flight.

In fact, how do heat shields even work? Do they stack? I killed a bunch of kerbals trying to get back from the Mun (unsuccesful so far), they either burn up right away (too steep?) or burn up after the ablative material runs out from successive shallow aerobraking passes. Meh. 

I can't get anything to (near) orbital speeds (SSTO) anymore, did they nerf the engines, or am I just doing it wrong?

If I ever get anything to SSTO, how do I even get it back down without it catching fire?

 

[edit:] apparently the Mk2 cockpit is no good for SSTO's anymore. RIP elegant SR-71 looking spaceplane design.

Edited August 16, 2016 by AlexanderB

[Vanamonde]

One heat shield should be enough for most purposes. One may get overwhelmed if you enter too steeply and saturate its ability to withstand heat, or if you come in too shallowly and expose it to heat long enough to wear away all the ablative. What does the ship look like, and what kind of re-entry are you trying? 

SSTOs are harder now. I'm not very good with them myself, so I will leave it to someone else to advise on how to make the transition from airborne to rocket flight. 

To re-enter with SSTOs, turn them so they are coming in with the nose around 90 degrees to the direction of flight. This distributes the heat and maximizes drag deceleration. If you come in nose-first, it WILL be incinerated. 

Welcome back, and good luck re-learning.

[Red Iron Crown]

For airbreathing SSTOs heat management is now the critical factor, though if you haven't played since 1.0 the far less powerful airbreathers are a big adjustment, too. You're going to have to unlearn what you know about spaceplane ascent and learn some new tricks, but that's part of the fun, right?

Old style: Heavy on intakes per engine, turbojets are king. Get up to 25km or so and slow the climb, accelerate to near orbital speed, coast to Ap and circularize for a few dozen m/s of rocket dV.

New style: One intake per engine at most (you can get by with less, more is not useful), and Rapiers are king. Get past the supersonic hump in drag while still low and near level, then climb quickly to about 15km and start reducing climb rate while accelerating. Carefully balance heating with acceleration, hopefully exceeding 1300m/s at about 22km. Switch on the rockets and push Ap the rest of the way up, then coast and circularize. The rocket stage does more of the work now, figure on 1300-1500m/s of dV for a fairly normal ascent.

Reentry is a whole other game now, too steep and you won't shed enough speed before getting into thick atmo and burning up, too shallow and you'll gain too much heat while not shedding enough speed, also burning up. Finding that sweet spot takes some practice and experimentation, and attitude of the craft has a large effect on drag.

I'm sure others will give you more detailed advice, but that's the high-level summary. Have fun!  

[AlexanderB]

38 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

One heat shield should be enough for most purposes. One may get overwhelmed if you enter too steeply and saturate its ability to withstand heat, or if you come in too shallowly and expose it to heat long enough to wear away all the ablative. What does the ship look like, and what kind of re-entry are you trying? 

Currently trying to land with a MK1 Command Pod, 2x Mk1 Crew Cabin, 1.25m heat shield, mk16 parachute, 2x radial parachute and 4x drogue parachute, straight transfer from munar orbit. I already figured out to spin it axially to stop the radial parachutes on the side of the command pod from melting off, not sure what that does, but it helps.
I've so far landed it once by engine-braking a couple-hundred m/s off right before re-entry (slightly less eliptical than munar height), and then repeatedly aerobraking at ~40km. If I skip the engine braking step (let alone try to aerobrake from interplanetary speed), I burn up because I run out of ablative material.
I guess thats just how it is now? Unless stacking heat shields works to either divide the load, or dump the outter one once it runs out. (Have not yet tried that..)
 

38 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

To re-enter with SSTOs, turn them so they are coming in with the nose around 90 degrees to the direction of flight. This distributes the heat and maximizes drag deceleration. If you come in nose-first, it WILL be incinerated. 

Welcome back, and good luck re-learning.

 

Thanks.  
 

20 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

For airbreathing SSTOs heat management is now the critical factor, though if you haven't played since 1.0 the far less powerful airbreathers are a big adjustment, too. You're going to have to unlearn what you know about spaceplane ascent and learn some new tricks, but that's part of the fun, right?

Old style: Heavy on intakes per engine, turbojets are king. Get up to 25km or so and slow the climb, accelerate to near orbital speed, coast to Ap and circularize for a few dozen m/s of rocket dV.

New style: One intake per engine at most (you can get by with less, more is not useful), and Rapiers are king. Get past the supersonic hump in drag while still low and near level, then climb quickly to about 15km and start reducing climb rate while accelerating. Carefully balance heating with acceleration, hopefully exceeding 1300m/s at about 22km. Switch on the rockets and push Ap the rest of the way up, then coast and circularize. The rocket stage does more of the work now, figure on 1300-1500m/s of dV for a fairly normal ascent.

Reentry is a whole other game now, too steep and you won't shed enough speed before getting into thick atmo and burning up, too shallow and you'll gain too much heat while not shedding enough speed, also burning up. Finding that sweet spot takes some practice and experimentation, and attitude of the craft has a large effect on drag.

Since before 1.0, yeah. Old style sounds exactly like what I'd do, I guess I have some unlearning to do, both design-wise and flight-wise. Guess I'll focus on rockets for now, try to figure out the new drag, re-entry heating, etc.. before I start doing SSTO's again.

Hm, so there is a sweet spot? Guess I'll be save scumming a bunch to find it now, haha.  

Edited August 16, 2016 by AlexanderB

[Superfluous J]

57 minutes ago, AlexanderB said:

Guess I'll be save scumming a bunch to find it no

I call that iterative testing

Welcome back!

[foamyesque]

Spaceplane SSTOs work best if you've got RAPIERS running >0.65 TWR. Point your nose at 15 degrees off the runway, keep your drag low, and you'll get your speed and altitude marks no problem. Kick it over onto rockets at 1300m/s+ (you can get to 1400 or higher in some cases, but 1300's fine), pitch up to 30 degrees to pull yourself out of the denser atmosphere, then pitch down to prograde as your apoapsis goes past 65km. Pretty straightforward. One shock intake will feed six RAPIERs, more or less.

Edited August 16, 2016 by foamyesque

[Red Iron Crown]

6 minutes ago, foamyesque said:

Kick it over onto rockets at 2300m/s+

I know this is a typo but I can't help but be reminded of pre-1.0 jets.

[Kepler68]

1 hour ago, AlexanderB said:

 Hm, so there is a sweet spot? Guess I'll be save scumming a bunch to find it now, haha.  

The sweet spot is easier to get than it might sound, I have yet to run out of ablator or just plain burn off the heat shield and I am not a very good player. Good luck  

[AlexanderB]

I'm thinking my problem craft might just be plain too heavy and/or dense. Some more testing* reveals that reducing weight or adding drag (airbrakes) severely reduces the amount of energy absorbed by the heat shield. Guess I learned something new.

(*based on the tip of putting a descending SSTO at a right angle to the air stream)

 

[Pecan]

Mk1 Command pod, 2 x FL-T800s and an LV-T45 ("swivel", since they all got silly names) still SSTOs perfectly.  Might need 2 - 4 basic fins, depending on your flying but the engine gimbal does most of the work.
Add a decoupler under the pod and a parachute on top of it and you can even come back again - although that's beyond the requirements you stated.

[AlexanderB]

I was just typing up a reply when I noticed your signature.. *facepalm* Obviously I know how to get to LKO with 5 parts, its even easier now without the soupmosphere.

Let me rephrase that, a vehicle that has a good/great cargo fraction, generally uses air breathing engines to beat the hell out of the rocket equation and can safely be returned in 1 piece to the KSC for 100% refund, all for maximum exploitation of the game mechanics.

In other words, space planes and jet-assisted vertical boosters with landing legs.
It just seems they nerfed the turbojets from their pretty much game-breaking state since I last played (0.25 or so). Back to rapiers and just gotta re-learn the balance.

 

[How to: KSP]

Here are the answers to your questions (I will try to help u from my knowledge as much as possible):

Question Number 1:

17 hours ago, AlexanderB said:

Lots of new parts, and a lot of renames too.

None of my previous designs work anymore.

 

Eventually you will get used to the new parts. Parts can now be sorted by name, mass, and I forget what the rest was XD  or you can look at thw wiki: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/1.0

Your designs don't work anymore because the game developers have changed the aerodynamics and nerfed I think a jet engine or 2. The turbo jet have reduced the efficiency by half since then.

Question Number #2:
 

17 hours ago, AlexanderB said:

 

Heat shields/actual heating are a thing now (RIP Jeb)

 

Heating has been added in 1.0 So now you have to consider adding heatshields everytime you return to the home planet: Kerbin. And don't renter too steeply because it will get more heat in your spacecraft. Rentering verticaly was a huge mistake in my Jool suicide probe even with a heat shield it still disintegrated.

Question Number #3:
 

17 hours ago, AlexanderB said:

Drogue shutes are a thing (RIP Jeb, plowed straight into the ground at ~mach 2 because I wasn't allowed to open the shutes?)

No more soup-mosphere for that matter, nothing gets automatically slowed down to 100 m/s anymore.

 

Depends on what atmosphere you are in. In duna for example my heavy 30 ton lander used drouge chutes before deploying the main chutes because the atmosphere is thin and too heavy. In that case I had to use a small amount of fuel just to open these drouge chutes. 

Kerbin however has a thick atmosphere idk what you've been doing to Jeb but I think you went a little too fast or had a very rapid sink rate.

[AlexanderB]

Going straight up straight down might've done that, its easy to have too much inertia and fall straight 'through' the atmosphere, hit the top of a mountain before you get low enough for the air density <3~5 km to slow you down enough to even activate the non-drogue chute. But it all depends on entry angle and where you land it seems. Thats all things I can tweak by quicksaving before the deorbit burn though.

[Hodari]

On 8/16/2016 at 1:30 PM, AlexanderB said:

In fact, how do heat shields even work? Do they stack? I killed a bunch of kerbals trying to get back from the Mun (unsuccesful so far), they either burn up right away (too steep?) or burn up after the ablative material runs out from successive shallow aerobraking passes. Meh. 

No need to stack them.  You just need to make sure your reentry is done at the right angle.  For a normal rocket, somewhere around 30km periapsis is probably good. Don't try to bring back TOO much stuff, only the parts you actually need.  If you're trying to bring back parts that stick out to the sides(especially things like mystery goo containers or radial parachutes), placing them further up might help.  And finally, especially when coming back from the Mun or further away, if you have any fuel left over in your final stage, do a burn just before reentering the atmosphere somewhere in between retrograde and radial out so that you're lowering your apoapsis as much as possible while still keeping your periapsis at the desired altitude.  Burn off the last of your fuel before dumping that stage.

If you're still talking about a spaceplane instead, then you'll want to keep your Pe MUCH higher for reentry(probably starting somewhere around 50-60km instead) and keep your craft pointing at Radial Out for as long as possible so you're bleeding off as much speed as you can before dropping lower down into the atmosphere.  And yeah, the Mk2 is probably the worst one for that now.  I like either the inline Mk1 or Mk3 with a shielded docking port on the front since the port has a very high heat tolerance AND is useful for its intended purpose as well.

[AlexanderB]

Yeah, I just had too much stuff (3 pods, 3 chutes, 4 drogues) for the single heat shield. I ended up splitting the pods, with a single heat shield and chute each.
I timed the chute by setting the pressure to 0.34 (~5 km on kerbin) so they open after slowing down enough, and reducing the decoupler force keeps the pods close together. (for physics range.) That worked surprisingly well, completely unattended safe splashdown.

Still, I think I'll be installing hyperedit so I can do more testing, there is a lot more potential for fail.