USI LS calculator?

[nascarlaser1]

Hi guys!

before I start here is a list of all Life support related mods (I've got plenty more, but none of the of the others change LS.

Planetary base systems

USI LS

Deepfreeze continued:

 I was wondering there are any websites or other browser tools that would let me figure out the minimum amount of LS supplies that are needed to go on a 1 way trip to all the different stock planets. From there I can figure out (on my own, I need to use my brain sooner or late ) how much I need when I take into account deepfreeze time and any extra supplies needed for emergencies/return trips.

 

Thanks!

[Tyko]

according to Roverdude's Wiki Kerbals consume 1.8 units of Supplies / Hour = 10.8 units per day / Kerbal. I'd recommend using Transfer Window Planner to plan your interplanetary trips. It will tell you precisely how many days a given trip will take...multiply that by number of Kerbals X 10.8 and you should get a good target for your Supplies needs.

Also you can look at the Community Delta-V Map, which includes estimated travel times to each of the stock planets. I'd recommend the first approach though because it's going to be a lot more accurate.

One more thing read up on recyclers in USI-LS because they can cut your Supplies consumption by more than 50%.

Edited January 26, 2017 by Tyko

[nascarlaser1]

3 minutes ago, Tyko said:

according to Roverdude's Wiki Kerbals consume 1.8 units of Supplies / Hour = 10.8 units per day / Kerbal. I'd recommend using Transfer Window Planner to plan your interplanetary trips. It will tell you precisely how many days a given trip will take...multiply that by number of Kerbals X 10.8 and you should get a good target for your Supplies needs.

Also you can look at the Community Delta-V Map, which includes estimated travel times to each of the stock planets. I'd recommend the first approach though because it's going to be a lot more accurate.

One more thing read up on recyclers in USI-LS because they can cut your Supplies consumption by more than 50%.

thxs!

Umm.. on the TWP web application, i'm not sure what most of the words mean . I will just use the community Delta-v map.

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by nascarlaser1

[Tyko]

9 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

thxs!

Umm.. on the TWP web application, i'm not sure what most of the words mean . I will just use the community Delta-v map.

 

glad to help...the TWP Mod is pretty straightforward. That's what I use instead of the web app. you pick your planet of origin and you're destination planet. It recommends the most efficient upcoming transfer window. Happy flying

[nascarlaser1]

15 minutes ago, Tyko said:

glad to help...the TWP Mod is pretty straightforward. That's what I use instead of the web app. you pick your planet of origin and you're destination planet. It recommends the most efficient upcoming transfer window. Happy flying

I currently have my KSP game broken (I should never be allowed near any ksp patcher ever again lol) so I am restricted to only web applications till I have time to reinstall it (I have it from the main site, so no steam for me )

[Streetwind]

9 hours ago, nascarlaser1 said:

thxs!

Umm.. on the TWP web application, i'm not sure what most of the words mean . I will just use the community Delta-v map.

It's simpler than you think, really. The few not immediately apparent points can be explained quickly enough

The planner assumes a perfectly circular, zero inclination orbit around your body of origin. When launching from Kerbin, this should be relatively straghtforward to achieve. When you are forced to start in an eccentric and/or inclined orbit, you can still use TWP to get a rough estimate on the involved dV costs for your planned transfer, but it probably won't give you data precise enough to make an actual node unless you're really lucky. The planner also assumes a perfectly circular arrival orbit (inclination is irrelevant here). Usually it is cheaper to merely capture than the value the planner gives you, because it factors in spending dV on circularizing.

The transfer type is either ballistic (just one burn), mid-course correction (two burns), or optimal (whichever of the two costs less dV). Ballistic transfers are easier to make maneuver nodes for, since you only need to make one.

Earliest departure should be set to your current ingame date. Then, under "show adanced options", you might want to adjust the latest departure. If it's too far into the future, the planner will give you a plot that contains way too much data. If it's too close to your current ingame time, the planner might not find the optimal window you're looking to use. One Kerbin year ahead is usually a good start, but you can play with other values. Especially for Moho, which has a window like once a month or so.

Travel time, finally, is a tool you can use to plan high energy transfers (the throw-dV-at-the-problem-to-go-faster kind of thing). If you just want a normal Hohmann transfer, leave it as it is; it comes with a good default setting based on the planet you selected.

The "edit orbit" and "add planet" buttons are for advanced use, and not relevant to 99% of all players.

 

Then, as far as interpretating the output goes: you will receive a so-called 'porkchop plot', which is a graph that has travel time on the vertical axis, the departure date on the horizontal axis, and the total trip dV cost represented by colored areas. By default, the planner pre-selects the "minimum energy solution" - the point in the plot where the lowest dV cost is located. However, you can click on any point in the plot yourself, to select that as your desired transfer. That way, you can examine how much of a markup in dV you have to pay to depart slightly sooner or later, or to shorten or lengthen your travel time.

Based on which point you select, you get a whole slew of detail information on the bottom right. You can press "refine transfer" if you want, but in practical application I've never really noticed a difference. Much more important is pressing the little blue " i " next to the Ejection dV reading. Now, you are ready to launch a vessel into orbit and plan your node using this information.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Streetwind

[nascarlaser1]

12 hours ago, Streetwind said:

--snip--

I have 0 idea what a transfer window is, nor do I know how to use maneuver nodes (the farthest I've gone is minimus), so cant I just burn straight ahead till my orbit intersects my target planet (taking inclination into account of course) and then use deepfreeze to wait out the timewarp till I have an encounter? If so, how  would I use the TWP calculator, and would my LS numbers end up changing at all?

p.s. I'm using an interplanetary mothership, so I will take an extra 5 weeks supply onboard (regardless of how much I need for the actual mission), along with enough deepfreeze gear for all 36 people.

Edited January 27, 2017 by nascarlaser1

[Tyko]

16 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

I have 0 idea what a transfer window is, nor do I know how to use maneuver nodes (the farthest I've gone is minimus), so cant I just burn straight ahead till my orbit intersects my target planet (taking inclination into account of course) and then use deepfreeze to wait out the timewarp till I have an encounter? If so, how  would I use the TWP calculator, and would my LS numbers end up changing at all?

p.s. I'm using an interplanetary mothership, so I will take an extra 5 weeks supply onboard (regardless of how much I need for the actual mission), along with enough deepfreeze gear for all 36 people.

I suggest starting with the tutorials included in the game and also referencing tutorials on youtube. @Ohm is Futile just started a new series recently and it's really well done.

Knowing how to use maneuver nodes is really important.

[nascarlaser1]

11 minutes ago, Tyko said:

I suggest starting with the tutorials included in the game and also referencing tutorials on youtube. @Ohm is Futile just started a new series recently and it's really well done.

Knowing how to use maneuver nodes is really important.

oh ok thxs.

[Streetwind]

13 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

I have 0 idea what a transfer window is, nor do I know how to use maneuver nodes (the farthest I've gone is minimus), so cant I just burn straight ahead till my orbit intersects my target planet (taking inclination into account of course) and then use deepfreeze to wait out the timewarp till I have an encounter? If so, how  would I use the TWP calculator, and would my LS numbers end up changing at all?

You would be well advised to learn what transfer windows are. The reason? Well, when you go interplanetary, you have new problems that don't manifest when you just go to Minmus. And transfer windows are the solution that naturally emerges out of those problems. It's not just a minor curiosity you encounter on the side; they are among the ten most important basic concepts in the entire game.

See, when you go from Kerbin to Minmus, you start from what's for all practical purposes a stationary position (Kerbin) and need to hit a moving object (Minmus). And when you want to get back, you only have to escape Minmus and let yourself drop back to said stationary position. It almost flies itself. You can even aerobrake on the way down, so it costs nearly no fuel.

But going from one planet to another is different for two major reasons. The first: Kerbin can no longer be considered stationary. You still need to hit a moving target, but your start point is now also moving. The movement of the planets changes their relative position to each other... and the relative position changes the way the planets move. That quickly gets very complicated, and the results are pretty darn drastic. With Minmus, the burn you need to make from low Kerbin orbit doesn't really change, no matter where Minmus currently is. But going to Duna, it matters a lot where Duna currently is. And even worse, it also matters a lot where Kerbin currently is. Depending on those things, the burn you need to make might cost 1000 m/s... or it might cost 4000 m/s... or it might cost 27,000 m/s. Are you prepared to pay 27,000 m/s worth of dV just to go to the easiest other planet to reach? No? Then maybe you'll want to know what a transfer window is.

The second reason interplanetary trips differ: your target is no longer a subsection of Kerbin, but rather it's own and completely unrelated sphere of influence. This means that you cannot return to Kerbin by merely escaping Duna and letting yourself fall back home. Oh no, not at all. Instead, you need to, once again, start out from one moving planet and aim to hit another moving planet. You need to do the whole shebang of getting there again, except in reverse. And, again, it matters where both planets are. Maybe you were leery of spending 27,000 m/s of dV to get to Duna... what if I told you that you might need another 24,000 m/s to get back, just because you don't know what a transfer window is?

So, yeah. Trying to leave at the wrong time can turn an interplanetary trip from "quick jaunt across the neighborhood" to "straight-out impossible without infinite fuel cheats". Hence, you want to know the right time to leave. That's when the burn towards Duna costs only 1000 m/s. That's when the burn back from Duna towards Kerbin also only costs about 1000 m/s. And this right time to leave, this is the transfer window. It is a window in time, a narrow slot usually lasting a few Kerbin days, during which the planets align in just the right way to make the trip as easy for you as physically possible.

 

Now, to answer your question: yes, you can just raise your orbit to the target orbit and timewarp. However, you are not strictly speaking guaranteed to get an encounter. Sure, you might get one very quickly, but there's also a chance that you might literally never get one, due to something called "orbital resonance". Which is where your orbit just happens to be set up in such a way that it perfectly misses your target every single time, forever. Resonant orbits occur naturally (see Pluto and Neptune), and it's entirely possible for you to accidentally create one if you just burn arbitrarily somewhere. The chance is very low, sure, but it's not zero. And even in a non-resonant orbit, it can randomly take a very long time to get to an encounter. That makes this a pretty poor strategy, where you'll never know ahead of time if it'll work out for you this time.

If you are in a transfer window though, the nice thing is: the mere act of just raising your orbit pretty much guarantees you an instant encounter, perhaps barring some minor mid-course corrections. During a window, the planets are perfectly aligned for this sort of thing. Not only is it cheap, but it also reliably works every time.

This is why everyone always talks about transfer windows. It's all about knowing the right time to leave for going somewhere, because it makes a very complicated thing as easy as going to the Mun. The only part that remains complicated is finding the transfer window, figuring out when the planetary alignment is in your favor. And because that remains complicated, we have tools like Transfer Window Planner, or the integrated window calendar in Kerbal Alarm Clock. So we can just look it up instead of doing tricky math

[Ohm is Futile]

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

[snip]

Good advice and write-up. Just wanted to add that with a life support mod, just having your apo/periapsis intersect another planet's orbit and timewarping is going to result either in an expensive space funeral or an aborted mission.

Travel times, even when using a calculator and/or good transfer windows, are usually at least hundreds of days as soon as you want to leave Kerbin, and possibly thousands of Kerbin days for the outer planets.

So, even with an extra 5 weeks' worth of supplies, if you miss your target your Kerbals will be doomed suffer for science.

 

1 hour ago, Tyko said:

I suggest starting with the tutorials included in the game and also referencing tutorials on youtube. @Ohm is Futile just started a new series recently and it's really well done.

Knowing how to use maneuver nodes is really important.

Thanks for your support, @Tyko! 

Anyways, if you like to watch tutorials and such, I suppose something about getting (interplanetary) encounters and tweaking them would be something that interests you, @nascarlaser1? At any rate, it seems like a great tutorial topic to explain, I might try to record that and put it up for next week. 

Good luck fixing your KSP/Steam in the meantime!

[nascarlaser1]

14 hours ago, Ohm is Futile said:

Good advice and write-up. Just wanted to add that with a life support mod, just having your apo/periapsis intersect another planet's orbit and timewarping is going to result either in an expensive space funeral or an aborted mission.

Travel times, even when using a calculator and/or good transfer windows, are usually at least hundreds of days as soon as you want to leave Kerbin, and possibly thousands of Kerbin days for the outer planets.

So, even with an extra 5 weeks' worth of supplies, if you miss your target your Kerbals will be doomed suffer for science.

 

Thanks for your support, @Tyko! 

Anyways, if you like to watch tutorials and such, I suppose something about getting (interplanetary) encounters and tweaking them would be something that interests you, @nascarlaser1? At any rate, it seems like a great tutorial topic to explain, I might try to record that and put it up for next week. 

Good luck fixing your KSP/Steam in the meantime!

thxs!

I have the deepfreeze mod installed, which allows me to use cryogenics to freeze my Kerbals, which stops them from using LS supplies for how ever long they are frozen.

[Tyko]

On 1/28/2017 at 5:55 AM, nascarlaser1 said:

thxs!

I have the deepfreeze mod installed, which allows me to use cryogenics to freeze my Kerbals, which stops them from using LS supplies for how ever long they are frozen.

Sure, getting a good transfer window is also about fuel consumption. DV costs can easily double / triple, or even a lot more between a good Transfer Window and poor one.

[DStaal]

25 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Sure, getting a good transfer window is also about fuel consumption. DV costs can easily double / triple, or even a lot more between a good Transfer Window and poor one.

I'd argue it's even *more* about fuel consumption.  If you didn't have to worry about DV costs, you could speed up transfers by several orders of magnitude - accelerating halfway there, decelerating the other half.  Hohmann transfers are pretty close to the slowest direct way to get there - but they are efficient.

[nascarlaser1]

22 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I'd argue it's even *more* about fuel consumption.  If you didn't have to worry about DV costs, you could speed up transfers by several orders of magnitude - accelerating halfway there, decelerating the other half.  Hohmann transfers are pretty close to the slowest direct way to get there - but they are efficient.

 

50 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Sure, getting a good transfer window is also about fuel consumption. DV costs can easily double / triple, or even a lot more between a good Transfer Window and poor one.

I don't really care about efficiency, I care more about how long  I have to sit and wait since I do not have much play time .

[Tyko]

3 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

 

I don't really care about efficiency, I care more about how long  I have to sit and wait since I do not have much play time .

Not really efficiency as "how much fuel do you have to carry" which equals "how overbuilt does my ship have to be". With a bad transfer window you'll spend all your valuable playtime figuring out how to launch a behemoth of a ship into orbit because you need all that extra fuel.

[DStaal]

And because the DV requirements are lower, your burns are shorter - which means you can spend more of the flight time in timewarp.

[nascarlaser1]

39 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Not really efficiency as "how much fuel do you have to carry" which equals "how overbuilt does my ship have to be". With a bad transfer window you'll spend all your valuable playtime figuring out how to launch a behemoth of a ship into orbit because you need all that extra fuel.

 

29 minutes ago, DStaal said:

And because the DV requirements are lower, your burns are shorter - which means you can spend more of the flight time in timewarp.

I have the spacedock mod, which allows me to use both it and EPL to build the ship in orbit already, and I also only plan on going to eve or duna, then transferring from said planet to all the others, + using the EPL orbital Launchpad that I have strapped to the top of my mothership, I will set up a mining colony, which will allow me to refill the ship on site,+ add any needed fuel tanks and extra LS I may need if my calculations are off.

[Ohm is Futile]

At any rate, my video about getting efficient and precise transfers is up. Hopefully, it (and my other tutorials) can answer any questions you may still have regarding this project of yours. Good luck!